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Jun 23

Episode 375: Blood Glucose Control, Post Prandial Glucose Excursions, Eating Timing, CGMs, Fun Recipes For Electrolytes, Collagen, And More!

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Study: Enhanced muscle activity during interrupted sitting improves glycemic control in overweight and obese men

Welcome to Episode 375 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine and Vanessa Spina, author of Keto Essentials: 150 Ketogenic Recipes to Revitalize, Heal, and Shed Weight.

Today's episode of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast is brought to you by:

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Listener Q&A: What type(s) of intermittent fasting do you practice and why?

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Early Vs Late-Night Eating: Contradictions, Confusions, And Clarity

TRANSCRIPT

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

Melanie Avalon:
Welcome to Episode 375 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 375 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon, and I'm here with Vanessa Spina. Hello, everyone. How are you today, Vanessa?

Vanessa Spina:
I'm great, how are you?

Melanie Avalon:
I'm good. I'm looking at when this airs. So when this airs, hopefully my spirulina will be coming out soon next month, which is exciting. I've just been waiting, you know, a long time for that. Listeners can get on the email list at AvalonX .us slash email list. And then also my third podcast should have launched the Mindblown podcast. I'm really excited because I listened yesterday to the first episode because we got it back from the editors and it's just so fun. It's so exciting to have like a podcast. I love health stuff, but to like have a podcast about like completely different topics. I remember you said you were thinking sometime at some point you might have a podcast as well about other things. Yes. I think about it all the time. Well, I definitely, definitely support that. So listeners can check that out. It's the Mindblown podcast. One last, this is just like a random fun thing I did. I went and saw Legally Blonde, the musical. Do you like that musical? Do you know it? No, I don't. Did you like Legally Blonde, the movie? The musical is so, it's really good. I wore pink, which was crazy because I always wear black, but I had flashbacks because I don't know if you might've seen this on Instagram, but it reminded me because remember how in that movie Elle Woods has like her entrance essay or her like her entrance video for Harvard. She submits this video to get into Harvard and it's like, you know, it's all about like blonde and she's like a swarthy girl and it's like over the top and then she gets into Harvard. My entrance, when I submitted for the USC film school, which at the time they told us it had a lower acceptance rate than Harvard. I'm not sure if that's accurate or not. I'm only saying that to like clarify this story and how it relates to Legally Blonde. So in my admission essay, I literally made the first sentence. I said something about how like how important good hair days are to females and then I said I would give up all my good hair days for admission to the USC School of Cinematic Arts and it worked. I got in because I knew that they had a really low, they were heavily skewed towards males for that program. So I was like, I'm gonna play up my female -ness. I don't know if that would fly today, but.

Vanessa Spina:
You're like the Elle Woods of innocent fasting, I know.

Melanie Avalon:
I know. Oh, man. I do not miss the days of college admission essays. Do you remember those days? Mm -hmm. I do. Ooh, crazy. Do you still have dreams that you, like, are in college? Like, nightmares?

Vanessa Spina:
I did when I was going to university, I would have nightmares a lot because growing up, I went to so many different schools and it was always very stressful to have to leave all my established friend groups and then start over fresh and be the new kid. And sometimes that was a good thing, sometimes it wasn't. In my last year of high school, I kept having this repeated dream about going to university and being the new kid but I didn't realize everyone's a new kid so it's way easier when you're all new. And I made friends right away and I had an amazing time at university but yeah, I remember having so many nightmares about it.

Melanie Avalon:
Were you in a different like click or friend group at all the different times that you changed? I mean, I don't know it was new people, but like type of group of people.

Vanessa Spina:
sometimes. Yeah, it's just the culture was so different in each school too. But yeah, I mean, I, I had such a great time when I went to school. I am, especially university was amazing. Like high school was good and bad, but university was incredible. I had so much fun. Did you have a good experience?

Melanie Avalon:
I did I was actually reflecting on this yesterday with my family because we were watching do you remember that? I don't know if you remember this the Angela Johnson YouTube short it was like one of the first like YouTube videos that really went viral It's that manicure skit about getting a manicure at the nail salon. Okay, I'll just send it to you. It's like It's amazing. We were revisiting it and rewatching it but I remember I saw her live because at USC there's this like there's the quad which is The I don't know. It's where they it's a quad like a university quad Yeah, okay. Okay. I feel like all schools have like the quad. Okay. I just remember I was like a freshman my dorm actually like looked over the quad and I was like, do they think we're Like we must be constantly stimulated because every single day there was like something happening Like really big deal on that quad So like it'd be like things like that like bringing in famous people and having like shows one day I woke up and there was so this was in LA There was skiing on the quad. They brought in like a slope Yeah, like was and you could ski down it. I was like what is happening? So like I Remember like college was like this crazy experience of Like you said, it's all new people You get to just make all these decisions about you know Your classes and when your classes are and you're like And there's all this fun stuff to do and then like freshman year you like sign up for all the things You're like i'm gonna do all the things and then you don't end up doing all the things But yeah, like I signed up for fencing and ballroom dancing and none of that panned out but Oh, well So flashback years anything new in your world?

Vanessa Spina:
I've been feeling like a kid on Christmas morning every day because, as I told you, I started a new CGM, and that has been so much fun because I'm kind of doing it, I think, in a way that is maybe unique to how a lot of people use it, because I think a lot of people are using it to maybe cut certain carbs out of their life. And I'm doing the opposite. I'm using it to see which carbs I can tolerate well and add back in, and it's been really, really fun to use it. And when I did it before, I was carnivore, and I shared how my CGM was basically just a flat line. It was not interesting at all. I just kept checking it, and then I was like, it's got to be wrong, and then I would double check with a finger prick, and it was just boring to watch. But now that I'm in a whole different phase of my life, I'm doing optimal protein. I've been calling it lately hyperprotein. Hyperprotein, we were talking about different, needing a good name.

Melanie Avalon:
I was just saying that we were talking about how we needed a name for it, hyperprotein.

Vanessa Spina:
Yes, because that really is the focus is the lean protein. And in my opinion, adding, you know, your mix of fuel, because protein is the building block macro, your mix of fuel macros, carbs or fat, it's all up to you. You know, at the end of the day, it's your energy macros. But I do think it's better to choose lower glycemic ones with high fiber, if you're going carb route, you know, and to choose healthier fats, obviously, but it's so much fun at this stage in my life to be testing all kinds of different things. And it's kind of summertime. So we've been doing all this fun stuff. So I've been able to test fun things like glasses of Prosecco, seeing what that does to me. And then I told you, I tried half a banana, which I haven't had in years. And then I made some homemade hummus. Like I'm testing all these things. And so far, everything that I thought was going to happen is not happening. Like the things that I was assuming were spiking my blood sugar all the time have not been. Oh, wow. Yeah, at all, which is crazy. It's just been so incredibly insightful. So I'm really excited to, you know, sort of dedicate this episode to to cgms, especially because I know you know so much about using them. I'm kind of a newbie. So you know, we can kind of go through it for other people who are newer to it. And maybe it'll answer some questions that people have about using it. But it feels I feel like a kid on Christmas every day, this is I keep telling Luca, like mommy has a new toy. And he loves taking my phone and scanning the sensor, you know, because it makes the phone vibrate. She's like, I want to do it. I want to do it. But it's it really feels like, like a fun toy. But it is so incredibly insightful. So that's the most exciting thing going on. I have been working on launching tone collagen, which should be out and around now or around this time. And we are going to be doing an exclusive launch discount on it. So I do want to mention that is something I've been working on and really, really excited about too. That's pretty much every

Melanie Avalon:
everything that's new in my life. Oh my goodness. Okay. So many things. Okay. So I want to clarify. I want to super, super clarify for listeners, because I'm going to ask you some questions about your CGM experience. So everybody is so individual. And so if Vanessa says that she, you know, certain things spiked her blood sugar, it's like an example of how you just don't know, like people, like people can react so differently to different foods. And that's why I think the CGM is so important because it actually shows you how you are reacting and like, and what works for your body. So I'm dying to know. So what were some things that you thought were spiking your blood sugar that weren't and vice versa?

Vanessa Spina:
So I just assumed that every day my high protein meals were raising my blood glucose at least 20 or 30 points. And they're not. They're just not like it's barely like I've been between this range of like low 60s, upper 70s, the highest I was going for most I've been on it for a week now. So it's not that much data. We can circle back in like three more weeks. I'll have like two months worth of data to talk about. This is just sort of the initial things that have been happening. So my blood glucose is still pretty flat, even though I'm not doing carnivore anymore. And I just assumed that carnivore was keeping it so flat. But I really think it's because my insulin sensitivity is so high as we were talking about on the last episode. So working hard to bring your insulin down can really make a difference. And I think that's what I'm seeing is it's well, first of all, my meals are high protein. And so they are very slowly broken down. And that explains a little bit of that like flat line response. But I just assumed that when I was having a huge high protein meal that it was at least going up and doing a small spike. Because everybody tells you things like whey protein, spikes your blood glucose, caffeine, which is another one I'll talk about, but all these things we assume spike our blood glucose. And we just believe it because other people tell us that or people that we respect tell us that. And like you said, we assume because it spiked their blood glucose that it'll do that for us too. Or because it spiked the blood glucose of a group of people in a study that it'll do that for us too. But my blood glucose has been so stable. I mean, it barely goes up after my meals. A big thing that I noted is that most of the days I've been wearing the CGM, I am pretty active. So I'm moving my body around most of the day. I'm averaging like somewhere between 10 to 12 ,000 steps in the day, which is not crazy, but it's not sitting around all day. I'm just a busy, active person. And most of those days I'm also doing maybe like five out of seven of those days. I'm doing a around 45 minute to an hour workout of resistance training. Not a hardcore. I'm not one of those people who's at a gym doing like these crazy squats and you know, benching like super heavy weights. I'm not my workouts are not like that, but you know, I'm active and I'm doing a weights workout, resistance training workout. And on those days, which is most of the time, it's amazing. The response to the meal that I usually have after my workout, it's, it barely moves. So I was shocked. I really thought that, you know, having a huge protein meal, having dessert for me, which is like my tone protein with some plain yogurt, I assumed that was doing another blood glucose spike. And then I have a shake with tone protein with berries, just kind of like a second meal in my eating window. And then I have protein puddings, usually a couple of them. And I've also been testing lately, these chalk, zero marshmallows, and I assumed that those were doing things, nothing, nothing was moving on those days, especially like I said, because I'm really active. So that was a huge insight is that I track my activity, I'm a very active person. And that just that combined with having a low insulin, it gives you incredible recovery. So all my meals are like 100% score in terms of recovery and all the different measurements that they do, which is just really cool to see a couple other things that were really interesting. I had a couple days where I wasn't as active. And I noticed, for example, because we went away for this weekend, the days that we were in the car, doing mostly driving, there was a more moderate minimal amount of activity on those days. And that's when I had more of a response to the meals. but still nothing crazy, nothing like 30, 40 point spike. Like most of my meals, I'd say 20 point spike at the height. But because again, they're high protein, if you eat high protein meals, you probably notice, I'm sure it's not the same for everyone, but for a lot of people, the protein is digested over four to five hours. So it just gives you this very steady blood sugar. I also was assuming that throughout the night, I was having big spikes, nothing. It's like, I just stay in this like 20 point range, low sixties up to 79 every day. So then when we were away this weekend, I got to test some fun things. I did test coffee, assumed that was spiking me, nope. It goes up by like five to 10 points. And I have a huge coffee in the morning. I make a latte like with unsweetened almond milk. And I know that that's not clean fasting, but right now it's what I'm doing and it's working fine for me. But I thought that that was spiking me for sure. And it isn't at all. So on the weekend, I got to test some, a little bit more unusual things. And I'm really curious as to your response on one of them. So I did have one crazy spike that I was like, oh my gosh, that must be a mistake because I've never seen one before. On Sunday morning, we were having brunch with our friends and the place we were at didn't have any like almond milk. They only had coconut milk. And so I assumed it was just the coconut milk that we have here, which is just plain coconut milk, no sugar added. So I had two coconut milk lattes and with my regular breakfast, which was an eggs bunny. And I had like a 60 point spike. Like it went from. Wow. Yeah, my blood sugar was like 60 something. And it went up to like 120. And then it came crashing back down. Surprisingly, it didn't go below 60. So you would think that it would have like a bad rebound effect and go below my starting level, but it just went back to where I was at. So at least that was okay. And the Nutrisense, I'm using the new Nutrisense CGM, of course, cause it's the best and their app. And it still gave me an okay score for that, but it wasn't great. And I realized that they were using this special like barista coconut milk, which was full of sugar. So for someone who never eats sugar, if you do suddenly have it, your body is going to react poorly to it. Because if I had been eating sugar on a regular basis or even eating high carb for a few days before that, it wouldn't have had such a high spike, but because my body never sees sugar, like it hasn't had sugar for years and years and years. It was like, whoa. It was like I did the oral glucose tolerance test or something. Like it was just a huge response. So I went and checked what they were serving after. And it was one of those, you know, cartons, the barista with like a, you know, usual amount of sugar, but very unusual for me. So that was why it spiked. And then I kept thinking throughout the day, what if it was the eggs Benedict? What if it was like the high fat, you know, because you hear that also that other side of the coin where fat can spike you. So the next day we went back to the same place and I had the same breakfast.

Melanie Avalon:
Oh wow, without the coffee, without the coconut.

Vanessa Spina:
Without the coconut milk, I just had an element, chocolate with some regular milk. Actually, I had a whole milk that's really popular here. So they did have whole milk and I had that and no spike at all. So that was also a cool insight because I also assumed that regular milk would spike my blood glucose, but it didn't at all. And everything else was the same, in terms of activity levels and what I was doing. So it was definitely the coconut milk. And it wasn't a mistake, which is, because you can see in the app, you can see your blood glucose going measurements every 10 minutes, right? Even if you don't scan it, it's recording it. So you can go back and see, it wasn't just like an erroneous measurement. It was, that's what it was. So, because it tracks all the way up to that like 120, which I hit and then back down. So that was really interesting. And then the last one is the one I wanted to get some of your insight on. So a few times in the past two weeks, we've had events. So this weekend we had, we were away with friends. So a few opportunities where I was drinking Prosecco. And I always just assumed that Prosecco was spiking my blood glucose when I was having it. And it not only didn't, but all three of the times, a couple of the times I had two or three glasses, it made it go low, like way lower, like at one point on Sunday. So we had had breakfast early in the morning. We'd been walking around pretty actively all day. I had a glass of Prosecco and my blood sugar went down to like 50 something. And it was the same thing every time I had Prosecco. And I was like, I don't think it's actually that sugary, but definitely has alcohol in it. So I'm sure you know a lot about that, or at least you have your own experience in it. But yeah, that's been my experience so far. And it's been so insightful. I like you think everyone in the world should wear a CGM for at least a month. Cause like even a couple of weeks, I feel like I'm going to be wearing one for at least a couple months here to really get some good data. But also I'm very excited to see that all the work I've done to make my muscles and body so insulin sensitive means I can probably be eating way more carb than I do and be totally fine blood glucose wise because I'm so active and insulin sensitive. So that I think it's also something great for people to be able to assess on the other side of, okay, you've done great work now. Let's see what works well for your body by adding it back in and based on your lifestyle, what you can manage. And so it kind of gives you permission to go out and try a bunch of foods and test things and maybe incorporate some things that could be giving you some great phytonutrients, great fiber, but you were cutting out just cause you were assuming that they were spiking you like I was.

Melanie Avalon:
I love this so much. What did you find with the banana out of curiosity? It really didn't do my

Vanessa Spina:
at all. And same for the Chalk Zero marshmallows, except for yesterday. They did raise my blood glucose yesterday by about 15 points. And I think it's because we were in the car all day. And so I wasn't active. So there are definitely foods, even with my insulin sensitivity. And I'm not saying that that's bad, like 15 points is fine. What matters is that you recover from it, right? And that you don't go too high, you don't want too much variability. And you want to be able to recover from it. But it just goes to show how important activity is. Because if you are really sedentary, that's not a normal day for me being in a car for three hours driving, coming back from, you know, road trip. But I did do a bunch of body weight squats after did you see that new study about the body weight squats? No, what did it find? So I'm going to do it. I'm doing an episode on it this week on my podcast. But it's about how they did this study with a group of men where they were comparing blood glucose control after a meal with doing a 30 minute walk, or 10 body weight squats every 45 minutes. And the body weight squats fared better than the 30 minute walk, which for someone like me is like, heck yes, because I don't have time to go for a 30 minute walk after dinner. I have like, at this season in my life, but I definitely have time for 10 body weight squats. So I did that every 45 minutes. Like I think I did three sets before bed. And it definitely made me feel better about having, you know, more sedentary days.

Melanie Avalon:
That's a really great, like everybody should implement that. I'm going to start implementing that.

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, everyone. And I feel like if you really do them mindfully and you really like, you can feel, you're really using your quads, you're really using your glutes, like you're really getting into it. Like I would do each one very intentionally, not just like kind of flippantly, but I think that could be something that could help so many people around the world to improve their blood glucose sensitivity because not everyone has time to go for a 30 minute walk after all of their meals, right? So yeah, it's absolutely massive.

Melanie Avalon:
That is amazing. I'm going to have to get that study from you for the show notes. Okay, so yes, thoughts. And one thing about, so the Chalk Zero marshmallows, I think I'd actually been looking at those recently on Amazon. So do they have any carbs? They do? They do, okay.

Vanessa Spina:
or something I had never heard before which is resistant dextrin which is like a corn I think it's corn sourced and then it's in a lot of like confectionary type foods and I don't it's not something that's in my diet regularly but I when we were in the US I wanted Luca to try roasting marshmallows so I found them online and then I really liked them so I brought a big pack back with us and then I kind of forgot about them and then at night I was like adding because there are mini marshmallows just adding them to an element chocolate or element chocolate caramel I cook it up with I heat it up with some unsweetened almond milk and then put some marshmallows on top and it's it's amazing so I was really curious what they what they did and totally fine on an active day but yeah one serving definitely has carbs in it it has some carbs in it so anywhere from like 10 to 20 grams

Melanie Avalon:
I really want to try, I haven't had foods like this in a while, but there have been times when I would do low carb and I would have low carb alternatives. So low sugar, low carb cake mixes or things like that. And eating them would taste so sweet. They would usually be sweetened with things like Stevia and Elulose and things like that. I want to try that while wearing a CGM and see what happens. Just that experience of having something that tastes so sweet that I know actually doesn't have sugar. I want to see what that would do to my blood sugar levels.

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, it hasn't been and right now, so I had some about an hour ago and my blood glucose right now is 69, so it did nothing, but today I did do a weights workout this afternoon, but otherwise I didn't do like 10 ,000 steps or anything. So most of the days it has had no effect at all.

Melanie Avalon:
That's crazy that you're you're resting ones are, you know, in the 60s like that. I do want to also clarify for listeners because some listeners might not have any idea about what is, you know, ranges to look for. So like 60s is very low.

Vanessa Spina:
It's amazing. It's definitely because I'm a keto person, remember that, yeah. For the first time, I don't eat barely any carbs at all.

Melanie Avalon:
That's incredible. The alcohol piece, so I actually, I find that alcohol lowers my blood sugar and I think that's pretty consistent. So there's a lot of studies on wine and like blood sugar control and diabetes and stuff and it tends to correlate favorably, especially red wine to glycemic control. And one of the mechanisms might be that alcohol, so the main reason people's blood sugar is elevated is actually from the liver. Like that's the number one reason. It's not, I mean, it is the food you ate because it's the food going to the liver and then the liver releasing it. But the primary reason for high resting blood sugar levels is the liver creating glucose essentially and releasing it into the bloodstream, either releasing stored forms or creating its own. And so alcohol actually turns that off. Yeah, because the liver starts breaking down the alcohol instead. I thought it was related to the alcohol. Okay.

Vanessa Spina:
That's a great explanation.

Melanie Avalon:
Thank you. Of course, a lot of people might be having sugary alcoholic drinks and then you're kind of canceling each other out, but if you're having dry wine, just straight alcoholic vodka or liquors without sugar, you're probably going to see a drop in your blood sugar levels. And I'm pretty sure I can look for some studies, but I'm pretty sure there are studies on having wine with meals and things like that and how it has a beneficial effect. So, I'm so excited that you got to try this and have this experience and I agree, like you said, I just feel like if everybody in the world did this just once, you know, like at least two weeks, ideally a month, I just think it would be a game changer in our metabolic health because you would like finally realize what is actually happening in your body when you fast, when you eat, when you exercise, and it's so interesting. I remember I was scared to wear one because I eat such a high carb, comma, fruit, high carbs from fruit diet. And like we're talking, I eat like pounds of fruit every night. I was really worried that that was just doing crazy things to my blood sugar levels and it's not. I mean, it's not like your results. It definitely does spike a lot higher, but it's all things I feel comfortable with. So it's so eye opening. It's also really, really interesting to test my berberine using a CGM. Do you have my berberine? Although, you know what? I mean, yours are so low. It's like you wouldn't even want to take it. But that I see like a huge, huge beneficial effect on my blood sugar levels as well.

Vanessa Spina:
What's your experience with using it?

Melanie Avalon:
It's basically what I, now what I expect to know, and I don't really, I haven't really like tested a lot of things, but basically the two things I test is either my normal diet of like, high protein, high fruit, low fat, or like the low carb, slightly higher fat, but still, still relatively low fat, still high protein though approach. And when I do that, I have significantly lower blood sugar levels than if I'm having the carbs, like the carb version, but I don't, so my spikes are probably, I'm usually, during the day, like the 80s, 90s, depending on when it is. I think that's like, that's just considered good, like great. I know if I were to do low carb or carnivore, it would be lower. I prefer my, the version of the diet that I'm in right now, that's interesting. It's kind of like, I don't know if it's a trade off per se, but I have a better cholesterol panel when I do the, and I know cholesterol panels are very debated, but I have much lower cholesterol levels, like significantly when I do the high carb, low fat, high protein approach, compared to the low carb, higher fat approach. So mine will spike, like typically with, and we're talking, this is like a massive, I eat so much fruit at night. I don't think people probably really grasp how much fruit I eat, it's a lot. So it'll usually spike up to the 120s, sometimes in the 130s, but it always comes back down by the morning. I also find doing my cryotherapy session, after I do that, it really starts going down. So basically like when I wake up is when it's the highest for the day, and by the highest, I don't mean like after eating, but the highest in the fasted state, and then it progressively goes down during the day, especially after that cryo session, which is interesting. I will say though, if you wear a CGM in the cryotherapy machine, you might get a false flag reading because it can make it, the cold can make the sensor freak out a little bit and it spikes, but it's the sensor. So yeah, and I'll go ahead and put out the link up out there for listeners. So they can get a Nutrisense CGM, go to nutrisense.com/Ifpodcast, and use the coupon code Ifpodcast that will get you $50 off a Nutrisense. I think they're like subscriptions. So I'm out of CGMs right now, they're gonna send us some new ones and I really wanna wear one. It's been a while since I worn one.

Vanessa Spina:
That was the last time you did it.

Melanie Avalon:
A few months ago, I think. OK, so pretty recent. Yeah, I'm trying to remember when. It was a few months ago. I want to do it now that I've been doing more low -carb days every week just to see. Oh, you can see the only days thing. Yeah, I mean, I still have the cucumbers and stuff, but I'm really curious doing those a few days a week. I'd like to see if that has a carryover effect to the other days. That's what I'm most interested in, I think. So what happens on the actual day, but then in general, would my levels be better?

Vanessa Spina:
I want to test so many things, like a protein spraying like modified fasting day would be fun to test. There's just so many things. I was really curious about the hummus, like I made homemade hummus. I sometimes have, usually like when we go to friends homes for parties and things, there's always like a hummus tray with cut up vegetables and carrots, peppers. Like I just really didn't eat that stuff for years. And I decided, you know, to try it, test it. And then I tested it and then I made it a few times with myself at home and nothing, like just barely any reaction at all. And again, those are on average days which are active. So for me, the biggest takeaway has been how important the activity is. And it's, you know, sometimes people think of it as like eating after a meal, but it's also before. If you're just having an active day in general, doesn't have to be every day, you know, but you're moving your body around. You're doing things, you know, that's what really, you know, gives you great glucose control, I think throughout the day. And then those 10 body weight squats every 45 minutes.

Melanie Avalon:
I know I'm gonna start doing that. Yeah, after I saw you know that

Vanessa Spina:
that, you know, we weren't that active yesterday. I was doing them in the kitchen and Luca's like, why are you doing that? I was like, oh, it's good for my body. And so he started doing them with me. Oh, cute. That's so cute. I was like, how many can you do? And then we were counting and, you know, doing them together. And, you know, and then we had our algae together, we had our spirulina together, I think I told you he calls it the medicine.

Melanie Avalon:
Yes, I love it.

Vanessa Spina:
that. And yeah, I was like, you know, he's doing squats and takes your Alina with me. Like, I felt like those are a couple of wins. So it's really exciting. And I think for anyone out there who's interested in learning about their bodies and their health, you know, what's amazing with the Nutrisense app is you also get a nutritionist who do video calls with you. You not only can score all your meals and sort of get this score out of 100, but there's ongoing support with a nutritionist who will answer any questions that you have as well. So I think they really provide great value with that.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, that was one of the things I really loved because I tried a lot of different CGM platforms and their support was really amazing and I'm I did it with a friend as well and she said the same thing like she loves chatting with them and it's it's just really, really helpful. I'm curious did Luca like roasting marshmallows?

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, he really liked it. He liked it a little too much. No, I'm kidding. No, it's because I want the marshmallows. Like I only have a limited amount because I brought these back from the US. You know, I'm happy to share and give him some and he wants like all of them. So I'm like, Luca, this is a treat for mommy. You have lots of treats and snacks. This is mommy's and you know, I can only get it by flying to the US. Bring it back here. So unfortunately, I don't have anything like that over here. But yeah, when it's done, it'll be done. And, and that's fine. I'll have it next time I go back. But it's a nice little, it's a fun treat. But yeah, he loves marshmallows.

Melanie Avalon:
Have you ever made homemade mar-

Vanessa Spina:
I haven't like I know it's I've heard people make it all the time and it's not that hard Maybe I should make some you could do it with Luca. Yeah, he then then he could have as many as you want

Melanie Avalon:
Oh my goodness, that'd be so... Have I, you said? I have not. I think I've tried to make... I think I did try once. I feel like it didn't work out that well. I might revisit that. I'm pretty sure I tried to make it, yeah, with... That's when I was ordering that... What was it, Great Lakes or whatever? That ever? That gelatin?

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, I should make a recipe. My new college for marshmallows and, and I'll be making them. And, and that will be.

Melanie Avalon:
Make that your email grab on your website like, you know, sign up here to get my the college and marshmallow recipe. Yes, I'm gonna do that. Oh my goodness, I'm having so many flashbacks. I was the reason I was looking at the Chalk Zero marshmallows. I was randomly craving marshmallows the other day. Sorry, you were craving them? And I was like, I want to order some marshmallows. Did you try the Chalk Zero ones? No, I need to order some. I was looking at all the different brands because there's all these all these different brands on Amazon that are, you know, sugar free marshmallows.

Vanessa Spina:
These ones taste exactly like regular ones.

Melanie Avalon:
really there's no difference oh okay i want to i want to order some and they melt like normal marshmallows and everything exactly the same okay i remember um last time i had a colonoscopy lovely i know i've had way too many colonoscopies last time i had one i was looking at what you could you know have before and you actually can make jello because you could have clear jello or like certain colors of jello but not other colors and i remember i was like i'm gonna make i was like i'm gonna make this a whole thing i'm gonna make and i ordered i ordered everything like i ordered like the like little gummy bear molds molds yeah like gummy bear molds and like this watermelon flavor and like gelatin and then when it came time to do it i was like this is i'm not complicated

Vanessa Spina:
I make them with Luca, the bears. We have like, gummy bears and he's like, I want to make the bears. So make chocolate ones or Oh, chocolate jello? No, just like, like, I'll make a keto chocolate, but I'll use the teddy bear molds. Oh, okay. Yeah. But it's great to make, you know, collagen gummies to

Melanie Avalon:
And have you made gummies or no? Yeah.

Vanessa Spina:
I've made, I've made those a bunch of times because it's a fun, they're healthy, low sugar. I just put Stevia in them and then it's a great treat for him and for me, but it's a great, like it's a candy for him. It looks like a candy. And then the other thing we made the other day, which was really fun was I made popsicles of element. Oh, how are those? And they're really fun because they got these cool like ice pop molds. They have different shapes, like a penguin and a whale and all this stuff. So like on a hot day, we've been making those in the morning. And I did with the watermelon element, I put the recipe on my reels and Luca helped me make them. And it was really fun. And it was great. We actually put frozen raspberries like at the bottom of the popsicles and then filled it with the raspberry element and water. And so they were like these fruit, like fruity popsicles with raspberries inside them and the element. So I called them like the hydrating popsicles so you can get hydrated while you're having delicious element and Luca loves those. So we'll probably be having a bunch this weekend too. And it's great because they're not messy, you know, like with kids, just like everything is melting, but it's really just water that's melting. So it's fine.

Melanie Avalon:
That's amazing. For listeners, if they'd like to try element, they can go to drink L M N T dot com slash Ifpodcast. They make amazing electrolyte supplement, well packets. And then now they have sparkling. Have you, have you seen the sparkling drinks they have?

Vanessa Spina:
I haven't gotten to try them yet because I don't think they can ship them here, but I'm loving, I love the idea. I was really surprised actually when I saw it.

Melanie Avalon:
kind of like a soda, you know, because it's like a sparkling drink, but it's the element and they have a watermelon. I haven't tried it yet. I have it here. I haven't tried them. But yeah, so that's, that's super exciting. I have another thought about that. Oh, I'm curious, since you were like international growing up, did you have the experience of the ice cream truck man?

Vanessa Spina:
was that a thing oh yeah I mean not in China but when we were in Canada in the summer yes

Melanie Avalon:
Ice cream truck yeah like hearing this I just remember like the moment when you're like a kid you hear the sound and it's like oh no am I gonna make it in time and you're like running and then like if you miss you have to like run after them.

Vanessa Spina:
Eddie Murphy has a great fit on that ice cream ice cream that is coming and then he like you know all the kids run to get money and

Melanie Avalon:
Oh, that's why I was thinking my head I was in my head. I was like, wait a minute. Why did it take so long? Oh, right. You have to go get the money. Yes. There's a lot you have to accomplish

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, he does this like dance that the kids do once they get their ice creamed, like I got my ice cream and got my ice cream, it's a really good, it's a really good.

Melanie Avalon:
It's so funny. I like feel the cortisol spike though of like, it's like the ultimate moment of like, this must be accomplished really fast and like go. Did they steal noodles? Yeah. Yeah. I see them around and I get flashbacks. Oh, that's fun. So I remember I would always get the cartoon. My favorite was the Bugs Bunny with the gumball eyes.

Vanessa Spina:
I like the rocket one that's like red, white.

Melanie Avalon:
in blue. Oh, man, good times. There was something about those. Did they have the cartoon, the cartoon ice cream ones that you're in Canada? I think so. There was something about that texture that was just so unique. Mm hmm. Like what is it? I don't even know. It's amazing. It probably was an indexron. Probably. Oh, man.

Vanessa Spina:
When I was reading up about it last night, it said it's used in a lot of like confectionary types of foods.

Melanie Avalon:
Oh, yeah. It's kind of like the rumor that like there are some things that like don't melt like McDonald's ice cream or something. It takes a really long time to melt. Yes. So in any case, CGMs. I highly, highly recommend them for, you know, finding the foods that work for you and really seeing, you know, how your fast affects you. And I'm glad that you talked so much about the role that physical activity plays, because I really think that's really underappreciated for the effects that it has on our blood sugar levels. Like I just think it is so, so important and has a huge impact. And it's something that's really hard to understand unless you're seeing it in real time, you know, on a continuous glucose monitor.

Vanessa Spina:
Yes, I agree and I was not expecting that to be my main takeaway, you know what I mean?

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah. Oh, that's so interesting. Yeah. Do you experience the dawn effect at all?

Vanessa Spina:
No, I was going to ask you about that because I know you said that you did that you do and I was expecting it. I was expecting there to be some kind of rise, but most nights or mornings, like it's pretty steady throughout the night, like pretty much the same range as during the day, but a little lower because I'm not moving or being active. And then it's just a very gradual rise throughout the morning and then I have coffee and it goes up like five points, maybe 10 points, but no.

Melanie Avalon:
nothing big. Now I really want to test. I want to see if I either don't or if I get a blunted effect when I do my mostly meat days.

Vanessa Spina:
I think I need more data, so I want to touch back on that, like circle back on that, because I know there's a few days of calibration, you know, the CGM is kind of, I want more data before I say like, really what's been going on, but that's so far, I just haven't really seen much, much of one, but I know, yeah, there's so much interpersonal variability when it comes to that.

Melanie Avalon:
So the Dawn Effect, it's basically this quote, natural rise in blood sugar that people will often see in the early hours of the morning. And it's basically a circadian based dumping of the liver, of blood sugar into the system and people will see a spike even though they didn't eat anything. And I definitely do see that spike and also probably involves cortisol as well, I think. So again, to listeners, they can go to nutrisense.com/ifpodcast and use the coupon code ifpodcast to get $50 off. Okay, anything else about the CGM? I think we covered it. Awesome. Yeah, I thought we could leave because there was two more comments. Last week, I was reading people's experiences about the different types of intermittent fasting that they practice and we had two more that I hadn't read. So I was just going to read those really quickly. So I don't think we actually like give our thoughts on all the different answers. But if listeners would like to go back to last week, they can hear all these different approaches that people are trying with intermittent fasting. Two last ones we had. One was from Jen. She said, I'm in the process of adjusting mine now. My husband and I work different schedules and are not always hungry at the same time. But I struggle with not having my coffee upon waking, not because I need it, because I enjoy it. It's a pure want. Ideally, I can overcome this strong desire and hold out because I'd like to transition to an eating window of 1 to 7 p .m. How much coffee do you drink, Vanessa?

Vanessa Spina:
day. So I just have one in the morning usually a latte. I make two shots of espresso. It's like around 150 milligrams and I put a couple of cups of unsweetened almond milk in it. And that's it usually for the day unless it's like the weekend and I go for brunch with friends and then I usually have a couple in the morning.

Melanie Avalon:
And you said you did not see an effect, right, on your blood sugar from the coffee?

Vanessa Spina:
There is one, but it's about, I would say like five to 10 points. It's not, I wouldn't consider that a spike. I would just consider that like a normal response.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, that's so interesting.

Vanessa Spina:
and it's very stable after.

Melanie Avalon:
That's yeah, that's so I wonder if man I feel like if I were to have coffee Because I just have a I just have a little tiny sip every morning of my danger coffee, which is my favorite You can go to Melanie Avalon comm slash danger and use the coupon code Melanie Avalon to get a discount on that If I were to have like an actual cup of coffee, I bet my I'd be so curious, but I bet my blood sugar would probably Shoot way high I think

Vanessa Spina:
One way for you to test and for us to see because there are so many things that I thought I just assumed were spiking me that have not been and I love how we had that one episode we did just on coffee and we talked about all the research showing that it actually is great for you in the morning, great for cortisol. I love that episode but I love to hear what happens when you test it.

Melanie Avalon:
It's funny. I feel like I'll research whenever I research coffee. It's the opposite of most people So like a lot of people are like trying to wean off coffee. I Like I said, I just have a few steps every morning. But when I research coffee, I'm like, man, I maybe I should be more Maybe I should be drinking more coffee. It just seems like it does have so many health benefits Pretty consistently if you're not, you know going crazy with it The reason I love danger coffee is it it's Dave Asprey's new ish coffee after bulletproof And it's remineralized and it's mold free and it tastes just so delicious. I just love it I love giving it as gifts as well But yeah The reason I I would be really curious like you said to test the reason I feel like it would Jump really high is I just feel like it would give me such an adrenaline boost and probably a cortisol spike and I just Feel like my liver would dump all this, you know put out this glucose But who knows it would be a hard experiment to do because if I were to have a huge I don't know how I don't know how I would sleep that night if I had like a huge Amount it's so very interesting. Is that why you only have a sip? Yeah, I think it's because historically, you know, I struggled a lot with insomnia and sleep issues and always felt like I would be on the coffee caffeine roller coaster and When I cut it out completely it's like oh I actually don't I actually don't Need it, but I love having like it feels just like a little like Ritual and a hermetic stress in a way like just having this, you know a few sips in the morning I really like having it. It wasn't the case of where like with wine where I cut that out completely I was like, no, I I definitely feel better having like my nightly wine. But with coffee, I was like, oh I I don't I Don't see myself needing that much more but and then the nice thing is you have it in your back pocket so when you're not drinking coffee regularly if you ever do have a day where you have to We're completely sleep deprived and you need energy all you have to do is like have a cup of coffee and you're like you can like climb Mount Everest, so It's nice to like have it in your back pocket My only recent memory of doing that was when I got up early for the Taylor Swift tickets and then Had to be awake for six hours and the Ticketmaster queue coffee was helpful for that One more comment for the fasting. So Nina said I was doing intermittent fasting but then I read some info about skipping breakfast being bad for you, so now I just eat whenever and Fast for three days every month I've done seven days once and a seven -day juice fast prior to that not sure if it's doing anything But I definitely feel more energy and focus during a fast and my blood sugar and a1c are always good Trying to increase white blood cells and improve immunity without success so far Okay, so this comment So basically Nina's experience was she was doing intermittent fasting Then she read skipping breakfast was bad So she stopped fasting, but she does fast for three days I feel like this is an example where It's something there's this idea out there that you know skipping breakfast is bad and I I just feel like it's and we've talked about it a lot in previous shows, but I feel like it's based on a lot of misleading information and Maybe in an ideal world if you were completely controlled maybe eating Earlier in the day would be better than eating later in the day, but when you look at the overall Like lifestyle and like what is the fasting habit that you can stick to and if you enjoy skipping breakfast I feel like a lot of that data and again, we've talked about it in prior episodes So maybe we can put links to it, but I think it's very misleading. It is okay to skip breakfast I think I just get sad hearing people who like so it's not like she um, you know, it's not like she just changed her fasting window She just stopped fasting because she heard that Although she does fast for three days every month. Yeah. Do you have thoughts about that Vanessa?

Vanessa Spina:
So I definitely think that this is a belief that is circulating right now because there have been a lot of people talking about leptin and leptin resistance. So if someone is having issues with their leptin, leptin levels being too high, just like with insulin resistance, your insulin levels are too high, then having breakfast within an hour of waking a high protein breakfast can be really helpful for that. But if you don't have leptin resistance, then it's not an issue. So if you want to check, you can have your leptin tested. The optimal range for leptin is between five to 10. So if your leptin is really, really high, it could be an indicator if you're way out of range on that, that your brain is not receiving the leptin signal, which is giving you symptoms like you're always hungry. If you're not getting that signal that you've consumed food, leptin is released after you consume food to basically signal to stop eating. And some people develop a resistance to that signal. So this is only for people who have leptin resistance. For everyone else, it's not necessary for any other kind of benefit. I think there are some benefits to eating earlier, like you said, but there's also benefits to skipping breakfast. I think they kind of even out in the end, it just comes down to what you prefer and what suits you best. Like most days I skip breakfast, but like this weekend, we're away with friends. We were all having, you know, Mother's Day branch and stuff together. Like I definitely had breakfast, fully enjoyed it. Felt great all day, you know, but most of the time I don't have time to make breakfast in it for myself. It works better. So it really comes under personal preference. And if you don't have a leptin issue, I don't think you should be concerned with that. So I think it is going around a lot right now because it has to do with circadian health. It's known as a zeitgeiber, you know, you're helping your body's peripheral clocks and organ clocks, you know, sync up with the light. But you can also do that by getting natural light on your body, getting morning light on your body, going for a walk outside in the morning or doing some grounding, or even just stepping outside for a little bit, getting some morning light that initiates a lot of those hormonal cascades. And it's an even more powerful signaler or zeitgeiber than food is. So I don't think anyone should be concerned about skipping breakfast. And even Dr. Don Lehman, who I constantly invoke, he skips breakfast, he has like a mid -morning meal. So like around, I think he says he has his first meal around 10 or 11. He considers, you know, first meal of the day is your break fast. It doesn't matter.

Melanie Avalon:
if you have it earlier or later. I could not agree more. Yeah, and I think just so many studies, like looking at that word break fast, like you said, a lot of the studies don't take into account, especially studies that are looking at later eating versus earlier eating, they're not looking at it in a fasting pattern. So they're not taking into account that, yes, for most people, if you've been eating throughout the day, of course you're gonna have poor glycemic control later in the day because you've been eating all day. So you've been like taxing that system. But if you're break fast, if you don't start eating until later in the day, you're much more primed and insulin sensitive than if you had been eating earlier. So I think that's something really important to keep in mind with a lot of the data about eating earlier versus eating later. I get sad to think some people hear this idea and then they think that they just can't fast then. But I'm really glad that you talked about the leptin thing. That's a really good thing to point out. So thank you for that. Yeah, but it was really exciting to read all of the people's different approaches to the fasting. And I feel like the takeaway for me is that there's so many different approaches and clearly so many different things work for different people. So definitely work to find the fasting window that works for you and also know that you can change it. You can also not change it. I think there's sometimes pressure that people feel like they have to change things up. But if something's working for you, keep on keeping on, I think, in my opinion. Yeah, any other thoughts about that?

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, I think, I mean, the only other situation that just came to mind is, you know, someone who is very undermuscled or has lost a lot of muscle if they've been on bed rest or something. That could be a situation where you want to make sure to stop muscle protein breakdown as early in the day as possible. You know, someone who's like frail, elderly, really undermuscled, breakfast would be probably a good option. But again, it's really like very specialized circumstances, I think, where you're getting more benefit than not, especially if it's something that you like doing. A lot of people who skip breakfast do it because it aligns with how they feel in the morning. And I know you've talked about also and written about how hormonally we're kind of primed to eat later in the day than we are first thing in the day.

Melanie Avalon:
So I definitely think we are. So like the moment I did a blog post on this, I'll put a link to it in the show notes. It's called, I should probably retitle it to something more search friendly, but it's called early versus late night eating, contradictions, confusions, and clarity. I went through and looked at like the actual hormonal profiles of what happens for most people at different times of the day. And like right upon awakening, it's not really any of the hormones conducive to eating. Like it just from a hormonal standpoint does not, to me, seem to make sense to be eating. Like your cortisol is going up higher. So basically, the hormone is associated with eating. So like higher ghrelin, lower leptin, changes in adrenaline and cortisol and all these things are shifted a little bit later in the day. They're not right upon awakening, even adiponectin aligns accordingly. So I personally don't think that we're meant to wake up and eat right away. Because historically, as an evolutionary perspective, you'd wake up and it'd be like, time to go find the food. So your body is primed to give you endogenous energy, energy that you already have inside of you to go find the food. It's not like we would wake up to a buffet breakfast. That was not the situation happening, at least not on this planet. So any other thoughts? Yeah, I think that covers it pretty well. Awesome. Awesome. So a few things for listeners before we go. The show notes for today's show will be at ifpodcast.com/episode375. The show notes will have a full transcript, so definitely check that out. And there will be links to everything that we talked about, including element and Nutrisense. Again, if you would like your own continuous glucose monitor, which I don't think we actually said, I know we said it's like a sensor that you put on your arm, but I will say that they're very easy to apply. They can look intimidating. They're not you just like stick it on, you don't even feel it. I remember being so shocked the first time I put it on how much you don't feel it when you're putting it on. And it measures the interstitial fluid constantly to provide that look at your blood sugar levels. So the link for that is Nutrisense.com/ifpodcast with the coupon code ifpodcast to get $50 off. And then you can follow us on Instagram. We are ifpodcast. I am Melanie Avalon. Vanessa is Ketogenic Girl. I think that's all the things. Anything from you, Vanessa, before we go?

Vanessa Spina:
I had a wonderful time and just want to thank everyone for the great comments. I love hearing them and going through them with you and it was so much fun to chat all about CGM so I'm excited to circle back in the future when you do your next round and I do you know several more weeks as well we can chat more about some more insights.

Melanie Avalon:
I know that'll be really exciting. I'm really looking forward to it.

Vanessa Spina:
It would be fun to ask in the group you know what were people's biggest or takeaways from their CGM experience.

Melanie Avalon:
I'll post that today, that's perfect. Good idea. Awesome. Well, have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you next week. All right, sounds great. Bye. 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. Administration by Sharon Merriman, editing by Podcast Doctors, show notes and artwork by Brianna Joyner, and original theme composed by Leland Cox and recomposed by Steve Saunders.

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LINKS

More on Melanie: MelanieAvalon.com

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May 06

Episode 368: Collagen, Natural Skincare, Defining Your Diet, Red Light Facials, Fasting Mistakes, Hormetic Stresses, High Protein, And More!

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Welcome to Episode 368 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine and Vanessa Spina, author of Keto Essentials: 150 Ketogenic Recipes to Revitalize, Heal, and Shed Weight.

Today's episode of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast is brought to you by:

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SHOW NOTES

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Join Melanie's Facebook group Clean Beauty and Safe Skincare with Melanie Avalon to discuss and learn about all the things clean beauty, Beautycounter, and safe skincare!

LMNT: Go to drinklmnt.com/ifpodcast to get a free sample pack with any purchase! Learn all about electrolytes in Episode 237 - our interview with Robb Rolf!

BLISSY: Get blissy in tons of colors, and risk-free for 60 nights, at blissy.com/ifpodcast, with the code IFPODCAST for 30% off!

Listener Q&A: Julie - Red Light Therapy for Face

Listener Q&A: What was a mistake you made with intermittent fasting?

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TRANSCRIPT

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

Melanie Avalon:
Welcome to Episode 347 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 368 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon, and I'm here with Vanessa Spina. Hi, everyone. How are you today, Vanessa? I'm doing awesome. How are you? I am good. I feel like I'm still in the waiting period of so many things that are just coming, although by the time this comes out, maybe some of them will be out. I don't know, the spirulina, the third podcast, which I just need to bite the bullet and launch it. We have seven episodes recorded, so. Wow, good for you. Thank you. I'm excited about it. And then my super secret project. How about you? Are you doing any product development right now?

Vanessa Spina:
It's funny, I was actually I made a reel today on Instagram about my red light mask and I had so much fun doing it because it's like it's this thing it's like me trying to do me trying to fill all of my needs in the one hour after my kids go to bed and I've got like my red light mask on I'm lifting weights and I'm like having a protein shake and I'm watching a show at the same time and like are you watching

Melanie Avalon:
Watching love is blind. Yes. I feel like when you say that, is that part of some, is that part of that moment?

Vanessa Spina:
It's like, yeah, I'm like catching up on all the things in that one hour, you know, and it's what's cool is like, the point of it is that the red, the red light mask is hands free. And I genuinely, it genuinely frees me up to be able to do things like that. But I don't actually like work out wearing my red light mask. I'm usually staying on the couch or something like that. But I was just thinking today, just after dinner before we started recording those, like, I don't have actually any product, like, really any new products that I'm like, think that I'm going to make in terms of wellness devices. But we are working on Scott and I are working on the collagen, which I'm excited to be launching next, which is, oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, it's this really cool collagen that has a lot of scientific research behind it showing that it actually does help boost the collagen and elastin in the skin. And I'm really excited because I feel like I've been on this like skin health journey like in the last year. I kind of felt like I didn't do enough when I was like in my 20s when I was younger and like, it sort of was catching up with me. And I feel like I've been able to actually like really make huge progress. So, like, really getting my skincare routine down and like, learning about skincare and making sure like I'm using, you know, toner and serum like in the morning and night, which I wasn't for so many years, like I really thought you only needed moisturizer. And doing the red light therapy, like the panels and doing the mask and like the mask doing that every week and being really consistent with it, which I think is key to red light. And then finding collagen really actually has science behind it, like all these different things have been coming together. And I've been getting so many compliments lately on my skin. And it is putting me in the best, best mood, because like, I've always had like decent skin, but I, you know, no matter what, like, you can't hide the fact that like your, your skin is going to be affected by the things you do, like I spend a ton of time in the sun, like, I'm outside a lot, like I, you know, probably don't do all the things that, that I should have been doing all the time, you know, like wearing a big hat, like, hiding from the sun, all these years, etc. But I feel like I've made some like really big progress. And just, you know, when you're doing something, like, whether it's like you're on a fitness journey, or someone says, well, wow, like your arms look really fit, or like someone just notices whatever that you're doing, that's when it kind of becomes like real, you know, oh, yes, yeah, it's like someone says, like, yeah, just like my husband and some girlfriends recently just been like, you have amazing skin. And I'm like, wow, like, thank you. Because I didn't definitely didn't feel like that a year ago. And now I feel like it's, it's actually working. So I'm excited about that.

Melanie Avalon:
Oh my goodness. Okay. So many things. So many things. I completely, okay. Because you gave me your tone device, which I love. And you also sent me the mask and Vanessa, I feel so bad.

Vanessa Spina:
I can't save the rest!

Melanie Avalon:
You did. Yes. And I feel so bad because so I have this like section of my apartment where I put all the, all the products that come, they come in all the time. I'd put it under some things and I completely, I could just completely forgot. So like very recently, a few days ago, I was like, oh my goodness. Like, like jackpot. I've got to try it soon. Um, so it's so great that we're we're talking about this and we have a question about it. So I'll read that in a little bit to comment more on the skin stuff. I as well had that epiphany moment where, I mean, I went through a period of time where I was literally just using coconut oil, like to take off my makeup and then as a moisturizer, that was it. And then I was kind of doing like nothing. And then I like fell into the beauty counter world. It's funny. I was more excited about it for other people because I wasn't personally really using that many skincare products, but I was really passionate about the mission of finding endocrine disruptor free skincare makeup and like providing that need to people. And I liked their makeup, which I was using, but then the more I like learned about that and the more I heard people just like freaking out in a good way about the products, I was like, Oh, I got to like try some of these. And that's when I started realizing how much skincare products can like change your skin. So I think one of the biggest effects I see on my skin, have seen on my skin diet wise is and not to say that, okay, because you clearly are like experiencing the skin glow and it's amazing. So it's probably just the version of keto that I was doing. But when I switched from doing a keto diet to like a really high fruit diet, one of the reasons I stuck with that was it just made my skin glow like the fruit just like just does something magical. A lot of berries. So like, yeah. And I've gone through like pineapple, shwills, it's basically berries and used to be pineapple.

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, there's a lot of antioxidants in the berries, right?

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah. But I remember I had like this validating moment, like you were talking about. I'd gone from like fruit, then I went back to keto. And then I went back to fruit one night and I went to the grocery store the next day. And literally the next day, like a woman walked up to me at the self checkout and was like, your skin is glowing. What do you do? Like such a timing moment because I just switched to fruit the night before. And I was like, I eat lots of fruit. And that was it. But then again, like the context of if you're eating lots of fruit and the context of, you know, like a high fat diet, I do not think would be a good thing, you know.

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah. Yeah. I don't eat that much fat anymore these days. Like to me, keto is like more burning the fat on your body. Like in a way, like being fat fueled, being able to tap into it, but it doesn't necessarily mean you have to be eating tons of that.

Melanie Avalon:
Could not agree more there needs to be a name for that. Yeah, that's not some crazy tangent Like that's not PSMF and that's not you know, let's come up with it right now

Vanessa Spina:
You know, when I think about like, I've been thinking about this actually this week, and I've thought about it a lot in like prior months as well, that I'm like, when people think of like, say someone is new to me, and they're like, Oh, she does keto, like, whatever they think I'm doing is probably nothing like what I'm actually doing, which people who like listen to my podcast, like follow what I do for a long time, no, it's like a high protein diet, with, you know, some healthy fats that are in the food, like when I have salmon, there's like healthy fats in that, etc. But I'm like fat fueled, and I'm tapping into my body fat, my ability to be fat fueled because I don't eat 300 grams of carbon a. So but I'm also like not eating no carb, you know, and I feel like we do somewhat similar, like I know it's not, I think our diets are more similar than they're not. So like, and I've also thought about like, is it? It's not protein spraying modified fasting, I don't do that every day. It's like unlimited high protein with like nutrient dense, low carb, berries and low glycemic foods, like lots of berries, lots of like nutrient dense vegetables that are also low glycemic, like low glycemic, high protein, but it's not paleo. Because I don't eat all the dates and like the sugar. Wait, why is it not paleo though? Well, I do lots of dairy. And I think paleo is not so much dairy. And I don't do any of the like dates and the nap like the fruit sugars like my impression of paleo is that you can have, you know, quite a bit of like sugary fruits, you know, the date bars and things like that.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, you feel like you don't have to, but you can. And the dairy is like a maybe, you know, kind of depends. I've thought about this though, like this exact question, because a lot of the manifestation that I would do when I wasn't doing the fruit was just like tons of high lean protein and low carb, but I wasn't adding fat really. So the closest thing felt like PSMF, but I'm like, it's not PSMF because I'm not doing like the severely calorie restricted thing. We need a word for it.

Vanessa Spina:
Dr. Ted Naaman, I think like his like PE diet is probably the closest to what I do, but it's like I don't like calling it the PE diet, like it just doesn't, see he calls it like PE diet because it's protein to energy diet and I remember talking to him and I was like actually he kind of calls it the low energy diet because it's not a lot of energy calories but it's not an appealing name right because it makes it sound like you have low energy whereas the opposite, like I have a lot of energy but yeah he calls it P to E as in like the ratio of protein to energy but that's like too complicated although some people know of it like the PE diet like okay that's what Dr. Ted Naaman recommends although he is doing something a little bit different now with like the app and stuff that he's working with diet doctor.

Melanie Avalon:
Oh, he is? What is he doing now?

Vanessa Spina:
They just launched this new like sort of app or platform and it has to do with like nutrient optimization and something called, is it the satiety factor or something? I interviewed him about it last year, like at the end of last year and it's on the tip of my tongue, but like I seriously, I'm in such a like mom brain fog. Like if we had recorded before I had dinner, maybe it would have been sharper, but they've been talking a lot about it on Twitter satiety per calorie. That's what it is satiety per calorie. This is like his new thing satiety per calorie. So maybe that's what he's been playing around with the name himself, but his whole like principle is eating to satiety, which is like high protein and then like he goes a little bit more high fiber, but everything is just like low carb, lots of lean protein. And lots of low carb, low glycemic, like so you could almost call it Mediterranean diet. But then again, they do eat like that, but then they put a lot of like olive oil on everything and they have grains. Yeah, there's grains too. So it's like there's a name missing. Maybe we'll come up with the next next name because it's it doesn't fully fit in paleo. It doesn't fully fit in keto. It doesn't fit in like Mediterranean to me. Like I call it high protein keto because there's like no sugar and I don't eat grains. So yeah, it's hard. It's like but I just know that calling a keto definitely is not like really appropriate. Although high protein keto maybe is closer because when people think keto, they think like you're eating high fat and that high protein, I tend to call it high protein modified keto because that's like the closest thing I've been able to find to it. But a lot of people don't realize that you don't have to be eating all the fat to be fat fueled or to be in that, you know, state of ketosis.

Melanie Avalon:
Like I said, I thought about this so much as well. And I always just use a lot of modifiers. I'm like, I do high protein, low fat, paleo, or I do high protein, high carb, low fat, paleo. That's what I normally say. Cause normally I'm existing in that high fruit world, but sometimes I normally say that I do high protein, low fat, high carb, paleo with fruit.

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, see, it makes sense, but it's so complicated, right?

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, it's like so many it's complicated. It's like those magnets where there's all those words on the magnet thing you like

Vanessa Spina:
I thought you were doing like before, maybe it's a little bit different now, or maybe you just change it up, but before you were doing a lot of like high protein, like lots of scallops and lots of other lean protein at night and like lots of blueberries and cucumbers, like is that, are you doing something different or is it still similar?

Melanie Avalon:
Yep, I'm still doing that. I did actually, every now and then I have, I don't know what it is, but every now and then I just have this really intense meat craving because normally I'm eating lots of fish and scallops like you said. Oh, the scallops. But every now and then I'm like, I just have meat craving and I'll just have a carnivore night and I'll just, but it's all lean and I literally would just go crazy and just eat lean meat like pounds and pounds and it's so fun.

Vanessa Spina:
I know you have those nights and I feel like if you ever make it to Prague, we'll go have like beef tartare because like they have the best.

Melanie Avalon:
The best. I love it. I need to go to like a Brazilian steakhouse sometime.

Vanessa Spina:
We do that or we have in the past like four or five years, like once a year, we'll go. There's a really good one here. It's called Brasileiro. I took my parents and they had never been before and like they still talk about how much they loved it. Like, because it's such a fun concept, right? Like you, you know, you have your like red, like green art on the table. And the one that we go to here has like a really nice buffet of like sushi, like a lot of sashimi and salads. And then you can have that. And then they bring also like all the cuts of meat. And it's like, it's just such a fun night. It's really, it's such a funny dining experience.

Melanie Avalon:
I need to go. Mm. Yeah. Thinking about it now. I have for like a long time ago, back when I lived in Memphis. So it's been a really, really long time in Memphis. They had Texas state Brazil, and then here they have Fogo de Ciao. There's one literally right next to me. So I have no excuse. That's the one I always hear about in the US. Yeah, I need to go. Oh, now I want to go. I think I'm gonna, I think I'm just gonna go. Can I just like go by myself? Just like pick out one night? I could go with people as well. Yeah, we should come up with a word for it though, because I've been thinking about that for a long time that there's not, not really a word for it.

Vanessa Spina:
And I'm sure a lot of our listeners also feel like there's no representation.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, so listeners who have suggestions for what to call this, although it's interesting because like my version, because I sometimes do the version that's more like you and then I sometimes do the version with the fruit. So I feel like those are actually a little bit of two different things. What's the version with the fruit? Because I normally am doing like high carb fruit and not high carb fruit. It's low carb fruit, but it's high carb comma, high carb parentheses fruit.

Vanessa Spina:
Did you just have a moment when you're like listening to the podcast as one of our listeners? Mm -hmm. Yep.

Melanie Avalon:
Like we need some punctuation there to explain.

Vanessa Spina:
Oh my goodness.

Melanie Avalon:
So on that point, on that note, but for really, so for the high carb parenthesis fruit, like that's different than the high protein without the high carb parenthesis fruit. You do high protein, low carb fruit, some low carb fruit.

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah so like pretty much every day I have like a high protein dinner and then after dinner I make a protein shake which has a cup of frozen berries in it and then I also have some dried freeze dried strawberries with yogurt so it's like strawberries blueberries raspberries blackberries like the berries the berry family which are actually keto approved but I never really ate them when I was doing like traditional like strict keto I just like avoided most fruit because I could get carried away with like carbs so easily but doing high protein I don't really I don't really add much fat to my foods I just eat the fat that's in foods like I was saying the fat that's in the steak or in the ribeye or in that comes with the eggs or whatever so I add I do add some fruit and especially when I've worked out that day I feel like I want more fruit but fruit for me is a berries like I don't really eat like avocado is kind of a berry is a fruit too not a berry a fruit but I don't really eat any other fruit other than that

Melanie Avalon:
So, yeah, I eat the similar fruit, but I just eat massive quantities. I'm like a fruititarian, except not with protein. That sounds awesome. It's so great. Yeah, I just love the fruit. You have pineapples, too, and berries? I did. Well, I went through a pineapple phase, and I would love to get back to the pineapple phase. Like, whenever I try to bring it back, it feels too sweet now. I don't know if I like... I don't know. I want to ease myself back in, because it's so anti -inflammatory, the pineapple, like crazy with the bromelain. What is it about the pineapple? The bromelain enzyme in it, which you can actually take as a supplement, but kind of like my seropeptase supplement, where it's an enzyme that breaks down protein, so the bromelain does that. And when I was eating tons of pineapple, we're talking entire pineapples every night, the inflammation reduction was just crazy. Wow, that's super interesting. Yeah, so we should come up with a word. Going back to the skin, we actually... I have a question. Can I read it to you about your mask? Yes, I would love it. So this is from Julie. The subject was red light therapy for face, and she said, Hello, ladies. Vanessa, I have a question for you concerning a red light therapy mask for the face. Unfortunately, I do not have your brand mask. Tone Lux. She says, but she's on her second one at home. She says, The first brand I used said to clean the skin, then apply a hyaluronic acid before using the mask. The second brand of masks that I am currently using says to wash your face and have nothing on the skin while wearing the mask, and then apply the hyaluronic acid after the red light therapy treatment. What do you recommend? Thanks.

Vanessa Spina:
I'll tell you what I personally do. I don't put anything on my face because I don't want anything to interfere with the red light wavelengths hitting the surface of the skin and also penetrating more deeply into the dermis layers. But I have also seen this. I have also seen other companies recommending that you can add serums and then use the red light at the same time. It's not something that I have ever personally tried, but I have seen it recommended and I think there could be some potential to it. I tried to look up some research on this and I didn't find anything specifically with hyaluronic acid and doing red light therapy. All the research that I relied on is you want to make sure that your face is clean. Definitely no SPF, no moisturizer, nothing like that could provide a barrier. So I think it would depend on the kind that you're using because you wouldn't want something that has an ingredient in it that's going to in any way block the red light wavelengths, if that makes sense. So I think as a general rule, like I would personally recommend just having bare skin. But if you have a mask or they recommend like some masks will say like use our serum with it. That serum probably, if the company has done their research and I'm going to assume that they have, wouldn't have any compounds or any, you know, ingredients in it that would block the red light. But I think like as a safe bet, just don't have anything. Just have like your raw skin, no makeup, just like fresh face. And you know, what's great about doing the skin and the face is that when you are looking to improve the health of your skin, you want the appearance of your skin, which is the outer part of your skin. Of course, you also want the wavelengths to penetrate more deeply. But in general, like you don't have to be all that close to the light, you can be, you know, about like anywhere from four to six inches away. And you only need like four minutes, like with a red light therapy panel that has a good amount of strength to it. When I wear the mask, I usually do 15 to 25 minutes. And that's using my mask, which is the Tomux crystal mask. So what's great about it is it is hands free though. So it's not like you have to sit in front of a panel for 15 to 25 minutes, you can just strap it onto your face. And you know, you can do other things if you want to, you can watch a show, you can read a book, I like do sticker books with my son Luca, in the morning when I'm doing mine. And like, it was a game changer for me to get the mask seriously, because with the panels, it was great until I had kids. And then it's like, my morning I'm spending with Luca, or I'm spending with Damien or both of them. And, you know, it's not that often that I have like, you know, 20 extra minutes after doing whatever, you know, taking a shower, whatever to do red light. So I do get to get it in here and there on the body. But I with the mask, I'm able to maintain that routine. And like I was saying earlier, the key really is consistency. So doing it, you know, four to five times a week, and doing that for at least like eight to 12 weeks. And then after that, you can probably get away with doing one to, you know, one or two times a week for maintenance. You know, having the mask is really great for that.

Melanie Avalon:
No, that's super helpful. It's funny thinking about, I have like a visceral response to, I cannot handle, I'm going to come up with so strange. So like if I were to put on a lotion and then put a mask on, on top of that, that would feel very uncomfortable to me.

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, I don't like the feeling of it either, the thought of it either.

Melanie Avalon:
Okay, so that's even like with clothing like if I were to put on like a lot of lotion and put clothing on top like I do not like that.

Vanessa Spina:
I don't like it either. And I think that's like one of the reasons that at the beginning, I was talking about how like, I haven't always been on the top of my like, on top of my skin. You know, routine is because like, I only like to put lotions and creams on at certain times, like, you know, I don't I also don't like putting all kinds of stuff on and then getting putting clothes on top of that. So it's like, I have to be very specific, you know, for me, it's like before bed, I can do it. And yeah, so I feel the same way.

Melanie Avalon:
It has to be like naked skin. Like I can't, I can't put on something and then put something on top. It's like a, no. Do you remember the TV show, Arthur? Did you watch that growing up? With the? I think he was an aardvark. The guy with the glasses? Yeah, and Buster, the bunny. I read the books. I didn't know there was a show. Oh yeah, there was a TV show. There was just one episode that is scarred in my head. His sister's name was D .W. and she was annoying and there was this one scene where he was sick and she came in and like got some lotion and like rubbed it on his chest and then they closed his shirt and I had like that image to this day. I'm like, I can't, I can't have like the, I could not be rubbed down with lotion and have like a shirt on top of it. That's what I was thinking about as like a five year old child watching that show. Okay, awesome. Well, I'm really excited to try it out. Oh, how can people get your mask?

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, you can go to ketogenic girl and you should see it right there on the front page or just click on the menu go to the the tone luxe red light therapy collection so I have I have three different panels and then the crystal mask which is the the red light mask and it's it's a lot of fun to use it's got lots of different settings and there's also I'm looking at launching a new one that has a neck attachment also like for the neck that's nice yeah but it's it's great it's just like our lives are so busy these days you know it's it's so great if you can find something that can help you you know like

Melanie Avalon:
multitask and now I'm just thinking like when I can use it I was thinking I would use it in the sauna but then there's the idea of owned by the sauna I mean I have a sunlight and solo unit where your head is your head is outside of the unit but if my face sweats at all we could go back to that issue of the not liking the liquids on the skin with the device on top so when I'm like working on my prep docs I'm watching TV at night I can I could put it on then so I'm excited I'll have to try it and report back yeah so thank you so much for sending I'm so sorry that I like completely forgot I like didn't I didn't make like a mental

Vanessa Spina:
I also forgot.

Melanie Avalon:
You forgot to. Yeah. I didn't make like a mental registration note. Like I didn't like file it into my head as like product received. I think I just like put it, you know, down but now we know. So I will try it. Yeah, I can't wait to hear what you think. I'm very excited. I used to use one similar but it didn't have the eye cutouts and it was more like a dome type thing that you put over your face. It also had blue light for Yeah. Yeah.

Vanessa Spina:
Acne yeah, what's funny is like I used to find all these masks looked really creepy So I didn't like wearing them But this one the one that I created the the crystal mask doesn't look creepy. It actually like looks kind of cute So it's not like like some of the masks you know, they remind me of like Jason like the horror movie like and they are a very creepy looking but I wanted to find one that was like not that creepy and then I was wearing it one day and Pete came in the room and he he didn't know that I was like testing them out and he was like The mask is kind of cute. I was like, it's gonna cute, right? So it's nice to wear it and not feel like you look like Jason from the mask or whatever

Melanie Avalon:
It's like a little masquerade adventure. It's like Cinderella story. Awesome. Well, I will report back on that. Okay. So friends, I asked a fun question in my Facebook group. And so the Facebook group is, I have biohackers, intermittent fasting, plus real foods plus life. So please come join, hang out with us there. I'm gonna, I think I'm gonna start doing this more, ask like random questions and get everybody's answers. So I got a lot of really good comments. I asked friends, what was a mistake you made with intermittent fasting? We got a lot of comments. Would you like to hear them? And then maybe we can share mistakes we made.

Vanessa Spina:
Yes, this sounds so fun.

Melanie Avalon:
Okay. So, well, the first person who commented was kind of a wild card. Stewart said, the biggest intermittent fasting mistake I made was intermittent fasting. It's stress on the body, eat regular meals, but don't snack all day. And then there was a reply to it from Nicole, and she said she agrees. On that note, I do think some people, intermittent fasting might not be the best fit for their body, and they really are better eating regular meals throughout the day, and they can regulate that, and that's what works for them, and I'm all about it. At the same time, I believe most people can benefit from some sort of time -restricted eating in their life. And as far as his comment about its stress on the body, I would say it's stress on the body.

Vanessa Spina:
The opposite i think it's stressful for the body to be constantly in the fed state and not having that they just arrest and not be able to go into that like catabolic phase you know after meals.

Melanie Avalon:
That's such a good point that I think a lot of people don't talk about very much, which is, well, A, the digestive eating state as well is a stressful experience for the body, like digesting energy, you know, assimilating it, dealing with potential toxins and the activation of the immune system. Like the whole thing is not, even though it's associated with the parasympathetic rest and digestion mode, the actual experience is not necessarily easy, I guess, for the body. And what I think I'd like to elaborate on here is like this word stress, like he's just using the word stress as like an overarching, not quite clarified word, like a big category. But there's all these different types of stress and there's different degrees and I can have different implications based on context and how much of it and just so many things. So we know like hermetic stressors, I've heard this example made so many times by different podcasters, Peter Attia makes it a lot. And it's that if you were to look at the hormonal state and the metabolic state, just like the state of the body during exercise, especially like intense exercise, it would look on paper like the most horrible thing, how your blood sugars probably going up, stress hormones are being released, all these different things you would think, oh, that this is not a state we want to be in. And yet we know that exercise is one of the most beneficial things we can do if we're doing it in a natural way that's supporting the body. So this idea of like stress on the body, like you really, really need context and applying intermittent fasting in a way that is honoring the evolution of our bodies, where our bodies are accustomed to alternating between states of feeding and fasting. And when you're entering that fasted state, you're letting your body rest as far as like your digestion rest. You're finally tapping into fat stores so your body's not stressed with the blood sugar swings and like the glycemic control issue. So that's super beneficial. And we've also, certain quote, stress hormones are released, things like noradrenaline, maybe even cortisol, but those hormones in and of themselves aren't bad. They have a purpose and a place and they're serving a purpose in the fasted state of helping you have energy and tap into body fat stores and all these different things. So I really, really think context is key. So Stuart, I completely validate you that maybe intermittent fasting doesn't work for you. I would ask everybody to think more about this, is it stress on the body thing? So that was a long, do you have any other thoughts about that, Vanessa?

Vanessa Spina:
I mean, there's, you know, a lot of mental factors, I think, as well, like, if you believe it's going to be stressful, or you believe it is stressful, you know, to do intermittent fasting, I just think that, you know, like, I'm more on the side, as we were just talking about that, perpetually being in the fed state is very stressful for the body having to deal with, you know, high blood sugar, and, you know, having to manage all of that and insulin and, you know, having a lot of fuel, like, circulating in the bloodstream, like, that's extremely stressful for the body to have to deal with and manage. So our modern lifestyles, we are perpetually consuming things. And, you know, whether it's food or information, news, like media, whatever. And I think that a lot of that really does put a lot of stress in the body. So for me, like, and for I think a lot of listeners, it's probably not the case for everyone, but intermittent fasting is that stress relief, it's like, okay, I can go back to my natural state, I can go back into that facet state for a period of the day, which is probably how ancestrally like I was, you know, designed to thrive in that sense. So definitely had a lot of a lot of comments on that. But I appreciate that being shared anyway, because like, it probably isn't for everyone. And if, if it is something that is stressing you out, there's always an adaptation period. And I'm sure you've talked about this, like multiple times on the podcast and past episodes. But, you know, it's it's the same with going off carbs or like lowering your carbs. There is an adaptation phase where during that period of time when you're first doing it, you might not feel amazing. And that might feel very stressful. But in general, I think it can be a wonderful thing for the body. So yeah, it depends on your how you think about it as well. Thank you.

Melanie Avalon:
So that was a great comment to start with. Laura said doing the same time every day and eating too many carbs in her eating window. So that's a good example. We talked about this last episode about, should you do the same time window every day or should you shake it up? And I'm the person who does better with the same time window, but Vanessa does better with different windows. So it sounds like Laura, she realized that she needs to be more of like a Vanessa. And for her, she was eating too many carbs in her eating window. Oh, oh, they're like, oh, I should also mention if they're like reactions. So the Stewart's thing had nine people liked that comment and five people liked Laura's. Judy said eating whatever she wanted. And then in parentheses, junk food in her eating window and 15 people agreed with that. I will comment on that briefly, which is that I think you're going from, eating standard American diet and junk food to intermittent fasting with junk food. Like you'll probably definitely see benefits. That said, the benefits just escalate and compound when you do make the healthy choices. And I think a benefit of intermittent fasting is, it also, for at least for me, it made me start craving more healthy, simple plain foods. Because when you go through that fasted period and then it's like time to have your eating window, you want like nourishing food, which is like protein and like food. It's not like a snack bar. It really just changes, at least for me, your perspective of what you crave, which I love. Andrea said adding lemon to her water. Clean fasting is so much easier. Kristin said eating carbs in her window. She definitely needs a more ketogenic approach. Kimmy said ending her eating window for the day with carbs. She wakes up hungry every time. So a lot of carb things here. I have a comment about that, but I'll save it for a little bit. Laura said over fasting and not eating enough within her window. One meal a day was terrible for me, even though at one time there was such a push for it when you'd hit a plateau. And I think this, again, goes back to finding what works for you. So for Laura sounds like she was probably not able to eat enough when she was doing a one meal a day approach. And I think that does happen for a lot of people. I also think some people can get enough in their one meal a day approach. I know I do. Vanessa has, when she does it, again, the theme of the show so often is really just finding what works for you. Annette said fasting for too long, more than three days. So that did not work for her. Sophia said one meal a day, that big meal caused so much inflammation for me. So I have a comment about that, but then Kelly actually commented on that and said, how do you know you had inflammation? Was it stomach bloating? What did you do that was different that helped? Just curious. I'll just comment on that. So the big meal causing inflammation and a one meal a day situation, there are a lot of factors that could be involved there. It's hard to know how much of that would be just from the concept of eating a big meal versus the foods you're eating in that meal. There's also a lot of digestive support you can do to help with bigger meals. So, and I plan to make my own versions of this next, hopefully after spirulina, which is taking HCL, Betaine HCL, that's essentially stomach acid and it can really help you break down proteins. And then you can take digestive enzymes as well to really help with breaking down protein as well as other different other different food components. So there's all these different, they often end in ACE like amylase, protease, lipase, and they're all to digest different things. So you know, lipase helps digest fat and amylases help digest starch, proteases help digest protein, cellulase helps digest cellulose. There's so many. I'm actually, one reason I'm really excited about formulating my digestive enzyme blend is I am really getting into the formulation of it and which ACEs to include. But point being, so formula day, if you are experiencing inflammation, I would look at your digestive support and I would also look at the actual food choices. Are you eating foods that are inflammatory for you? So you know, that could be like a food reaction type thing. I love Victus88. They're my favorite food sensitivity test. So they test your IgG, your IgE, and then really importantly, they attest your IgG4, which actually gives you tolerance. So because a lot of conventional food sensitivity tests just look at IgG, which is your reaction to a food, but they don't look at your IgG4, which can actually help with tolerance to that food, nor do they look at their C3D, which is something they can amplify a reaction. So it's possible that you might have like a tiny reaction IgG, but a C3D complement, which actually makes it way worse. So they have a very nuanced test and they give you the strength of the response, which a lot of the tests are just like on off, like you had IgG, you didn't have IgG. Point is, I really recommend this test to help find the foods that work for you. So maybe you won't have that inflammatory response in a one meal a day situation. So for that, you can go to MelanieAvalon.com/Victis88, V -I -C -T -U -S -8 -8, and use the coupon code MelanieAvalon, it will give you a discount. I forget how much it's for, but there is a discount with that. Going back to the list. So Erin said snacking too much in her window. That's interesting. Vanessa, what do you feel about snacking within the eating window?

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, I mean that I guess it sounds like it might be like a really long eating window, you know, like if if the eating window is like 12 hours or 10 hours or something, then it's kind of like, maybe she's saying that she's having kind of like, a couple of big meals, but then still snacking too much in between them. That would be my interpretation of it. So I understand, like, I guess that would probably not give you the results that you're looking for.

Melanie Avalon:
for. My interpretation is that there's probably at least two meals with like a time in between where she could not be eating if she so chose.

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, sounds like that's what she maybe like she figured out we're guessing here.

Melanie Avalon:
We figured out what you're saying. Again, intermittent fasting, it's not really about restricting. The focus is on the time aspect restriction piece. That said, people, you can always optimize and make changes and you might find that you are eating too much in your eating window. So that could be a situation where she could just stop the snacking or she could shorten the eating window. So lots of different potential there. Zoe said, probably holding on to the idea of eating whatever, that's an all caps, whatever she wanted in her window, healthy food choices make a difference. I agree. Tracy said, oh, I was waiting for this one to come up, not eating enough protein to open my window and then going nuts on carbs to make up for it and the resulting hunger. Now I open with protein, I have a snack and then a few hours later I have a meal. And then Jane wanted to know what she opens her eating window with and she said she opens with cheese, nuts, any meat that she might have left over. And then typically she has fruit and maybe some peanut butter. Her large meal is at dinner time. Oh, wow. So she opens with a lot more than I was thinking reading her first question. I cannot agree more. Like when I was saying that earlier about how you crave food, more whole foods, I just really, there's such a magic, I think, to really making protein a foundational part of your meal. And especially if you open with it or start with it, it helps so much, I think, with satiety and getting full and not having to keep eating and eating and eating. Do you have other thoughts about the protein, Vanessa?

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, I mean, that's like the cornerstone of my entire approach to life now is like protein first, you know, making sure that first meal has protein in it is key to halt muscle protein breakdown. That's something I learned from Dr. Don Lehman. And so that's, that's key, but for me, it's also what helps me to feel so satiated. So like you and I have talked about this before. We both have a similar approach where it's just kind of like unlimited lean protein until I'm full. And then for me, I know that that approach just makes me feel so satisfied at my meal. And I don't have to think about food like the rest of the time. And I'm also doing so much good for my body in terms of body recomposition and, you know, shoring up that muscle development, muscle repair as well. So yeah, for the first meal of the day, and it's also great for leptin, you know, for your first meal of the day, if you are having an earlier meal, like if you're having a meal before dinner time to, to have protein 40 to 50 grams, at least that meal, but anytime you're having, you know, at least 30 grams, if it's animal protein, 35 grams, if it's plant protein, at least you're going to be initiating muscle protein synthesis, which is so good for you. But as I said, it's also going to help you really feel satisfied, which is like, for me, it's the key in like, in being able to be effortlessly lean is like, it's just managing hunger, like no one, no one wants to feel hungry. I think that's, that's like one of the biggest struggles when it comes to achieving like the body composition or level of fitness that you want. And, you know, being able to take care of that by prioritizing protein, and to me, like, I still think of it as like the magical macronutrient, because it's just so amazing at doing that.

Melanie Avalon:
I do too. And what's so interesting about it is to me, it just seems like so obvious that it does all of that and that it's so fulfilling and increases satiety and helps muscle. And like you said, it's this magical macronutrient. I forget that people don't, like so many people just don't know that, like they just literally don't know it. So it would never occur to them when they're like eating and eating and eating and hungry and hungry and hungry and can't get full that eating a certain type of food would actually make them feel full like with eating protein. Because I'll suggest this to sometimes I'll be, you know, talking to people and they're trying to troubleshoot while their diet's not working or what to do. And I'll just I'll start with that. I'll be like, you know, you could try really focusing on protein and that will be like a brand new idea to them. Like I need to remember that because to me, it's just like so obvious. But it's really exciting for people to experience that because it's something you really feel in your body, I think, like how much it helps everything. So okay, we have I love this one from Martin. He said, I started one mill a day at 68 years old rather than 20 years old. Like that's his biggest mistake is starting. Never too late to start. Maddie said, not eating enough. And turns out I do better with a morning window. So yes, finding the time it works for you. And then Mary answered that and said, interesting. I'm going to give that a try. Thank you. I love seeing the people like interacting and, you know, trying out different things. Nydia said overdoing it and not eating enough protein. Then she says she'll stop because I'll binge on bad food. So I think that's something good to comment on. If you find yourself in a pattern with intermittent fasting where you are going into these binge type, you know, cycles, I would really suggest looking at the approach that you're doing because something is not working, you know, for you. I really think, you know, it might be for you that you need like a longer eating window, or maybe you need to if you're a moderator type of person rather than extremist, maybe you need to include some of your, you know, treats in your eating windows, then you don't feel the need to like, binge on them. But the point is if anybody feels like their intermittent fasting pattern is having control over them rather than control over it, I would really encourage them to reevaluate and troubleshoot. Shannon said the biggest mistake I see people making is not eating enough protein. If you've only been doing two meals, you need to eat huge servings of protein. Kim says protein is hard to get in. Unfortunately, I use a protein drink as needed. And just a comment on that is, again, this is me coming from my perspective and the way I experience it. So when people find it hard to get enough protein, is it because they're filling up on other foods? I guess my question is, if you make protein the foundation of your meal, so like it's the main thing you're eating, the first thing you're eating, and then you fill out around that. I guess I wonder how people like I wonder what people's main issue is and struggling to get in enough protein. Do you have thoughts?

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, I think it's a combination. I notice that the most when people are first trying to go higher protein, because it's just something that, like, none of us have ever done before. So you have to learn it, right? Like, it's always a bit of a learning curve. Like, what's, how do I add more protein? What are the lean proteins? Like, how do I, you know, you figure out different ways, and then eventually it becomes easier. So I think it's a combination of, at first, just not knowing how, and then, like, and just like what which food foods, you know, to add in order to get more protein. And also just that, because you don't know enough different ways of adding it, that you'll kind of be limited. So you're like, maybe you're just adding another chicken breast, and you're like, not enjoying that, or like finding it hard to eat all of that. So like, then you start figuring out like, oh, I can add it by having a protein shaker, I can add more egg whites to my scrambled eggs or omelet, or I can make protein bread, or I can like have more yogurt, or I can add like all these different things. I think once people sort of figure that out, then it gets easier. So that's been my experience is that it's just sort of a beginner's adaptation to it. And then not knowing like all the foods that are high protein that you, you can add in. And so like, it's a combination of those different things. So thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, that totally makes sense. I'm also getting full if I didn't say that.

Vanessa Spina:
like getting full from it that you're like, what now I'm trying to hit like 40 or 50 grams and I'm full.

Melanie Avalon:
Which is such a good problem to have, I think, for a lot of, you know, like, let's not complain about this. This is what we thought. It's like the opposite problem of quote dieting normally. So, okay. Sunny said overeating during her window. Janice said fasting too long each day and not fasting according to her cycle. So that's another example of somebody who clearly does well with adjusting to her cycle, which again, we talked about this a little bit last episode. So check out that episode. Nikki doing it every day the same. So again, somebody who doesn't do well with the same. Kyoko said one meal a day. That was tough. I learned to listen to my body. I eat twice a day now, most days, and I feel and look better. Also previously, I did not pay attention to protein intake. That makes a huge difference. See friends for not making this up. Stephanie said, there seems to be a trend in this post of a lot of people saying similar things. So perhaps this isn't the best approach for many people as from what I can see for many people, it creates disordered eating. If you just find a balanced diet, eat when you're hungry and listen to what your body is asking for and choose whole foods, your mind and body will be far more balanced than restricting and obsessing over a certain window or type of eating following an intuitive eating approach. I feel is the most healthy way to find a healthy balance with food. Thank you so much for sharing Stephanie. And she has really wonderful emojis. She has the pink heart emoji with like the vibrations, which like the heart like vibrating, and then she has like the hands closed. I'm wondering Vanessa, because I have a lot of thoughts and we still have half of the responses and we're coming up on an hour. Should we put like a teaser there for next week and start with that next week?

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, I was gonna say that too.

Melanie Avalon:
Okay. I actually talked about it a lot with, I recently had Matt and Wade from Bioptimizers back on my show. I love them. I've had them on so many, I think I've had them on this show three times and that show three times maybe. We ended talking about basically what she just said. Oh, I can't wait to hear all those thoughts. Yeah. Wade got passionate. I was like, whoa. It was like, it was like listening to, it was amazing.

Vanessa Spina:
Last time I interviewed Rob Wolf, he got really passionate, like pretty much the whole episode was him like pushing back on intuitive eating. Just like that and also the critiques of like, oh, these approaches are so restrictive, etc. And he's like, well, no, actually, like these approaches are helping people from debilitating conditions. So, you know, it's, yeah, the whole episode was him being passionate on this topic, and how he was saying like he was, he was going to start pushing back more at it. And I'm not talking about this particular comment in the Facebook group, but just in general about critiques on like these different lifestyle approaches, which, like lifestyle medicine is a thing, there's a huge amount of research behind it. And it is helping a lot of people. And it is scientifically validated, like it is evidence based, a lot of what we're talking about. It's a new movement to me, it's a revolution. But yeah, we're gonna talk about it on the next episode. So I'll leave it there.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, I'll just really briefly comment. I think there's like a move where it almost takes away agency from people when they have these tools at their disposal where they could really improve their health and make changes. But there's these labels of it being too restrictive or it'll create too many issues. And so the interview I'm doing tomorrow with Lee Hood and Nathan Price all about the future of like healthcare and wellness. But they mentioned, for example, that there's pushback against genetic testing. So like getting your tests about APOE status or, you know, what do your genes say about your potential disease or your disease risk. And there's this idea that that creates too much anxiety. And, you know, people shouldn't know that, but they did a study and only 2% of people regretted getting back their genetic risk profiles. Not exactly the same thing, but it's just to wrap it up with a bow like this idea. I just love giving people agency when it comes to health and letting them make the choices they want to make that make them feel best in their body. So yeah, so that will be a teaser for next week. We can dive into it. And a few things for listeners before we go. Thank you so much for all of your comments and questions. We love you guys. You can submit your own questions by going to questions at iapodcast .com or you can go to iapodcast .com and you can submit questions there. The show notes for today's episode will be at iapodcast .com slash episode 368. You can get all the stuff that we like at iapodcast .com slash stuff we like. And you can follow us on Instagram. We are I have podcast. I am @MelanieAvalon and Vanessa is @ketogenicgirl. I think that's all the things. Anything from you, Vanessa, before we go? Oh,

Vanessa Spina:
I had the best time and really looking forward to the next episode where we pick things back up.

Melanie Avalon:
Me too. I will talk to you next week. Talk to you then. Bye. Bye

Melanie Avalon:
Thank you so much for listening to the Intimation Fasting Podcast. Please remember, everything we discussed on this show does not constitute medical advice and no patient-doctor relationship is formed. If you enjoyed the show, please consider writing a review on iTunes. We couldn't do this without our amazing team. Administration by Sharon Merriman, editing by Podcast Doctors, show notes and artwork by Brianna Joyner, and original theme composed by Leland Cox and recomposed by Steve Saunders.

STUFF WE LIKE

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

LINKS

More on Melanie: MelanieAvalon.com

More on Vanessa: ketogenicgirl.com

Theme Music Composed By Leland Cox: LelandCox.com

If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving us a review in Apple Podcasts - it helps more than you know!

Feb 18

Episode 357: Optimizing Your Fast, Peptides, Creatine, Protein Supplements, Collagen Misinformation, The Best Biohacks, Red Light Devices, And More!

GET THE EPISODE ON APPLE PODCASTS!

Welcome to Episode 357 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine and Vanessa Spina, author of Keto Essentials: 150 Ketogenic Recipes to Revitalize, Heal, and Shed Weight.

Today's episode of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast is brought to you by:

REEL PAPER: Reel paper makes soft, sustainable, eco-friendly, soft, perfume-free, dye-free, plastic-free toilet paper made of 100% bamboo, and they plant one tree for each role you buy! Reel paper is available in easy, hassle-free subscriptions or one-time purchases, conveniently delivered to your door with free shipping in 100% recyclable, plastic-free packaging. Get 30% OFF reelpaper.com with code IFPodcast, plus FREE shipping! (Works on subscriptions too!)

To submit your own questions, email questions@IFpodcast.com, or submit your questions here!!

SHOW NOTES

Join Melanie's Facebook group Clean Beauty and Safe Skincare with Melanie Avalon to discuss and learn about all the things clean beauty, Beautycounter, and safe skincare!

REEL PAPER: Get 30% OFF reelpaper.com with code IFPodcast, plus FREE shipping! (Works on subscriptions too!)

TONE PROTEIN: Get on the exclusive VIP list and receive the launch discount at toneprotein.com!

Listener Q&A: Nicole - How often should you vary your fasting window?

Listener Q&A: Candice - Peptides! What are they?

Listener Q&A: Niki - Red Light Devices

Listener Q&A: Lauri - If you could select your top 2-3 biohack items what would they be?

TRANSCRIPT

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

Melanie Avalon:
Welcome to Episode 357 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 Bannals. 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.

Vanessa Spina:
All right, well, hello everyone and welcome. I am your host today, Vanessa Spina, and I have a wonderful co -host joining us today, special guest, Scott Emmons. Many of you are probably familiar with him.

Vanessa Spina:
Scott is the COO of MDLogic Health. He is a biohacker and former bodybuilder, and he brings a wealth of knowledge and perspective. His previous experience as a biotech executive for over 20 years helped send him on his voyage to co -found MDLogic Health, a wellness company.

Vanessa Spina:
So welcome, Scott. It's great to have you back here on the Interim Ritten Fasting Podcast.

Scott Emmens:
My pleasure, Vanessa. It's always great to be at the IF podcast and I'm excited for our questions today. Thank you for having me.

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, I always appreciate when you can join and share a different perspective. And I think we have some wonderful, brilliant questions as always to get to. But how have you been doing?

Scott Emmens:
Life has been good. Right now, I am just wrapping up from Valentine's Day, which was fun with the wife. So that was good. I'm really thrilled. I think by the time folks are hearing this, we'll be well into our subscription model for Tone Protein.

Scott Emmens:
Got tremendous feedback initially during the pre -launch. And I would be remiss if I didn't just mention to folks, if you're listening to this now and you have not received either an automatic conversion to your 20% for life, if you bought during the pre -sale, if you did not sign up and receive an email or you're not automatically converted over, please reach out to MDLogic Customer Service.

Scott Emmens:
And Vanessa can put that email in the show notes. But at this point, the special is available. And you should be seeing that in your inbox. If you have not received that email from either MDLogic or Vanessa, again, please reach out to us at MDLogic and you will be rolled into that 20% for life program.

Scott Emmens:
So keep an eye out for that. Looking forward to that. I think the subscriptions run through the 1st of March, if I'm not mistaken, but more details will come via email. So just wanted to let that out there, but things are going great.

Scott Emmens:
We actually have two new Co -brands that are launching and MDLogic is working on a large new pipeline for plant proteins, some pre -workout drink, and specifically some skin, hair, and beauty products that we're pretty excited about.

Scott Emmens:
So lots of new developments happening in our world, and lots of things going on with my kids as always. So it's been an adventurous 2023 and we're off to a great start in 2024.

Vanessa Spina:
I'm so glad you brought up the launch of Tone Protein, which we launched together. It was so much fun and just so wonderful to see the support. I know a lot of members of this community and of the Optone Protein podcast community were really excited to finally have a super clean, super high quality whey protein isolate, the product that I wanted so badly to exist on the market, I had to go and create it myself.

Vanessa Spina:
And like you, I was making, you know, formulations in my kitchen. And now finally, I don't have to, I can just use, you know, Tone Protein and put a scoop in there. And now I'm actually doing two a day.

Vanessa Spina:
I was doing one protein shake for the longest time, but my fueling needs went up. My fueling needs were actually higher during pregnancy because they are higher, especially for protein, but they went up even more breastfeeding.

Vanessa Spina:
So I'm now up to two protein shakes a day. And I love using Tone Protein. I love that it is so high quality. It's so clean. It's one of the cleanest protein powders on the market. And the fact that it's also enhanced with leucine, I love that you can just initiate muscle protein synthesis in every serving.

Vanessa Spina:
So that enhancement with the leucine really makes a difference to get four grams of leucine in every serving. And I'm just so thrilled with how the launch has gone. I'm so excited to make new flavors.

Vanessa Spina:
As you know, I've been begging you to make cookies and cream from the beginning.

Scott Emmens:
Cookies and Cream is, I know, first on the list.

Vanessa Spina:
Yes, unflavored. I've been getting a lot of requests actually for unflavored and just for all the flavors. So I'm really excited to expand on that. And I'm also excited about the collagen you were just talking about was we're going to come out with.

Vanessa Spina:
We're going to be coming out with a collagen. And that's something that I've always been really interested in. But again, hit that same issue where I just wasn't happy with the products that were on the market.

Vanessa Spina:
So have to go and create my own. That's been the same thing with all the products. The tone device, the red light therapy, create the products that you want to see in the world that you selfishly want to use yourself but that you think other people may enjoy as well.

Vanessa Spina:
So I'm excited about the collagen too.

Scott Emmens:
you know, with the whey protein unflavored, that's the first I'm hearing that you were getting lots of requests for that. So that actually is pretty simple to make, right? Because flavor is complex and it's got to have the right blends and certain things to make the flavor pop.

Scott Emmens:
So in a completely unflavored way, we'd probably not be able to put the leucine in that, but we do, we are launching leucine capsules. So the reason for that is if you do an unflavored whey with leucine, it can be relatively bitter.

Scott Emmens:
Leucine is a very bitter amino acid, which is why it took so long for us to get your formula just right with that perfect blend of flavors. But the unflavored, I think we can get that out pretty quickly.

Scott Emmens:
So we can work on that as we're working on cookies and cream in the background. And we have done extensive research. I don't know how much I've told you about this, Vanessa, but we've been researching about seven different collagen testing them, looking at the clinical data.

Scott Emmens:
So we have three bovine collagen we've narrowed it down to. And I don't think you want to do marine, but we've also been doing a deep dive into marine collagen, particularly testing them for mercury and heavy metals, because I know that's a big issue for folks.

Scott Emmens:
The other thing we've looked into is the molecular weight and the different kinds of patented peptides. So low molecular weight collagen seems to be really good for absorption and for gut health, whereas the higher molecular weight is better on taste, texture, and better for your skin tone.

Scott Emmens:
So we've done a deep dive on what the differences are in these collagen, what the peptides are, why one might be better than the other. And again, as we've mentioned many times, we've also looked extensively at the five nutrients that are called cofactors, which we initially added to our embryologic collagen.

Scott Emmens:
The issue is copper is a highly reactive molecule, but it's also essential along with zinc and vitamin C. Those three are really key cofactors, out which you just can't make collagen in your body. So you kind of don't really, you digest the collagen, but you're not really getting and creating collagen from it without those cofactors.

Scott Emmens:
So we're going to take that out of that, just make pure collagen and then have the collagen cofactors as these separate nutrients that has all of the five cofactors you need and all of the right ratios to maximize your collagen creation from the collagen you're taking.

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, I'm excited because when we launch the college and we can do some educational content around college. And I've been learning so much from you about those cofactors. And I think a lot of people don't know that about college.

Vanessa Spina:
And there's just in general, I think with everything from protein to college in, there is a lot of maybe misinformation out there or, you know, as we, we discovered one website that we were looking at that had some really interesting facts.

Vanessa Spina:
Quote unquote fact that were all completely made up. There's just a lot to learn about these things. And I've really enjoyed doing those educational podcasts that we did about how to select a high -quality whey protein.

Vanessa Spina:
And I'm looking forward to doing one about how to select high -quality collagen, also how to supplement with it. Because there's even collagen being marketed as protein supplements, which is one of the worst offenders that I've seen.

Vanessa Spina:
Because people don't know and people are so trusting. I know I'm like that myself. I see something advertised in a certain way. I'm like, oh, so this must be a great protein. It looks like it's got a nice chocolate flavor or whatever.

Vanessa Spina:
And if you don't know, you will fall for that. And you realize that you're basically taking collagen and thinking that it's going to help you initiate muscle protein synthesis. One is the furthest thing from that because it's not even a complete protein.

Vanessa Spina:
So there's so much to learn about quality of protein, protein rankings in terms of their score, their bioavailability, and just to understand and help people wade through the marketing noise. Because there is so much noise and it's easy to be flashy and grab people's attention.

Vanessa Spina:
And then you really do have to put a little bit more work into it to understand some of these concepts. Because I used to be one of those people. I watched Netflix documentaries and I thought that being vegan was optimal.

Vanessa Spina:
I thought that there was enough protein in cucumbers when people would ask me about protein. I was like, cucumbers, there's in vegan propaganda and I saw it in marketing and believed it until I went back to school to study biochem.

Vanessa Spina:
And then I realized that I was being sold a lot of stuff that was really not accurate at all.

Scott Emmens:
Yeah, we'll do a real deep dive on proteins and collagen as a protein specifically, the cofactors. That'll be a great episode. And I think that's what I love most is helping people way through all of the marketing pieces and for lack of a better word, the propaganda or just the company trying to push a narrative.

Scott Emmens:
So I really enjoy pulling the veil back on that and letting people understand exactly what you're getting. And I'm looking forward to that one.

Vanessa Spina:
What did it say they were telling people that if they had whey protein, was it that it was acidic, that there was something

Scott Emmens:
Basically, we say that all of the additional things beyond the essential amino acids were wasted in calories in terms of fat, which is completely

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, that's what it was. And they had some charts that looked very scientific, but sometimes even when there's charts on there, it's not legit at all.

Scott Emmens:
Yeah, it looked very legit. But then when you went to the source, that actually didn't say anything like that. In fact, I don't think there even was a source. It was their own creation. Not to say that that product doesn't have some benefits, but the way that they couched it was like, oh yeah, if you take away your, it's bad.

Scott Emmens:
No, that was very, we'll call it inaccurate.

Vanessa Spina:
I get it because I hear from people constantly who have the same questions. And I'm like, where is this information coming from? And then you find out, wow, it's a company that's putting this out. And I'm not sure why they're doing that.

Vanessa Spina:
But yeah, it's great to be able to learn. I'm learning so much myself and have been learning so much myself over the years and also to be able to share. And I just love that you have so much experience, especially with supplementation.

Vanessa Spina:
Like I've been learning so much since we started working on tone protein. And it's been great. Well, speaking of learning, I'd love to jump into some questions. What do you think?

Scott Emmens:
Let's jump into some questions. I'm excited. All right.

Vanessa Spina:
So the first question comes to us from Nicole on Facebook if you'd like to start off with that one.

Scott Emmens:
Absolutely. So this question is from Nicole. Nicole, thank you for your question. And it is, how often should you vary your fasting window? Is it necessary to go longer than 18 hours to get the benefits?

Scott Emmens:
I'm super active and do two different forms of exercise in the morning and definitely need food after. I range from 14 to 18 hours typically. So Vanessa, what do you think?

Vanessa Spina:
So I love this question, Nicole. I think it definitely is a great idea to modify or vary your fasting window, but always go back to what are you optimizing for in the moment? What goals are you optimizing for?

Vanessa Spina:
Because I can switch up my goals three, four times a year, depending on what season it is or what it is that I'm currently optimizing for. And you may have a few goals when it comes to your health, but there's definitely one that's sort of the prime goal that that's the one you want to, you know, figure out how to optimize, you know, your fasting window, your protein intake, all these things.

Vanessa Spina:
So I would say that the main benefits that come from intermittent fasting are typically caloric restriction, which you, you know, you get sort of more effortlessly doing it in an intermittent fasting window.

Vanessa Spina:
You also get a lot of benefits on your metabolic health. You get digestive rest. So, you know, I think that you can still get a lot of those benefits. Even if you don't go longer than 18 hours, you know, I think then it's sort of a different category.

Vanessa Spina:
It's like, well, if you're trying to get a topology, I would put that in a different category where I would say, well, you want to do maybe a fast once a year, 36 to 72 hours, like a water fast or supervised fast, something like that, because that's going to really crank up the topology.

Vanessa Spina:
Or if your goal is topology, you want to make sure you're getting in that resistance training and exercise in and maybe doing fasted exercise. You get mitochondrial biogenesis. So it kind of just depends on what you're looking for.

Vanessa Spina:
I find most people come to intermittent fasting because they want to recompose their bodies, cut some fat, do it effortlessly. And also because they want to get some of the longevity and health spend benefits.

Vanessa Spina:
So I don't think you need to go to 18 hours or more. I think anywhere 14, you said you range between 14 and 18. Typically, you can definitely be able to do your fasted workout. It sounds like you do two different forms of exercise in the morning fasted.

Vanessa Spina:
And then you want to break your fast right after. And that's the best time to break your fast, especially if you're having, you know, a meal that has an optimal amount of protein in it. So you can help your body repair and restore itself.

Vanessa Spina:
And I definitely would not be pushing to try and get those, you know, higher numbers or to be pushing when you've just worked out fasted. And you feel that you need to refuel, to nourish your body and provide those building blocks to help your muscle repair and recover as well.

Vanessa Spina:
So I think that at the end of the day, you got to find the window that works the best for you, because that's going to be what's sustainable. A 68 is more than enough to get a lot of the benefits, the main benefits of intermittent fasting.

Vanessa Spina:
What do you think Scott?

Scott Emmens:
Yeah, I agree, especially I'd be curious to know the two different forms. I'm sort of thinking that it's an aerobic and maybe some weight training, but either way, if you're doing two different forms of exercise in the morning and you don't have a high protein meal and or a meal with either half a shake or full shake of protein, you're going to do a lot of, you know, catapultation of your muscle because your body is going to be starving.

Scott Emmens:
It's going to have just worked out in these two different forms, particularly if you're doing weight resistance training, your body is going to be, you know, really starving for those proteins and nutrients.

Scott Emmens:
And I think you said it really well. Like that's the perfect time to break your fast is immediately post some intense exercise, which I would say two different forms of exercise in the morning is. And I think going past 18 hours again, if your goal is to stay really physically fit, which obviously if you're working out every morning, two different forms, I would, I would assume that's the goal.

Scott Emmens:
I wouldn't go beyond the 18 hours. I think that's more than enough and sufficient. And I would definitely eat an hour or sooner after the exercise for sure. And of course, make sure it includes both a hydration and a good bit of high quality protein between 20 and 30 grams, whether that's, you know, eggs, which is a great source of protein, some sort of meat and, and or a high quality shake, I eat some, I think would be the way to go.

Vanessa Spina:
love the plug on tone. I can't find myself, I can't help but mentioning it all the time, because it's what I use every day. And I don't know a way protein that's, that's better. So I love to have a protein shake with tone protein right after working out other times, you know, if I'm not feeling that so much, then, you know, make a different kind of high protein meal.

Vanessa Spina:
I tend to recommend 30 to 35 grams of protein at each meal. And especially if you're doing intermittent fasting, you want to make sure that you're hitting your protein target in that shorter window. So I like to go a little bit more on, on the protein just to make sure that you get enough for muscle protein synthesis.

Vanessa Spina:
And especially if you are plant based, you know, you definitely more closer to 35 grams at a meal. But I know that wasn't specifically about your question. So let's move on to the next one. Thank you for the question, Nicole.

Vanessa Spina:
So Candice from Facebook says, peptides, what are they? Why are people using them? Do they work? And by work, I mean for improving health, weight loss, etc. I've seen them in powder form. And my dad is getting injections of several different formulas from a doctor's office that practices regenerative medicine.

Vanessa Spina:
Are injections better? Are there any studies? Also, thank you for the deep dive on semi -gluteid on the, I believe that was the December 4th podcast. That was absolutely fascinating. Thank you so much, Candice.

Vanessa Spina:
I love getting to do that deep dive. It was so much fun to talk about how semi -gluteid works in the body and the half -life and everything. So I'm really glad you enjoyed it. What do you think, Scott?

Scott Emmens:
So peptides are highly effective in both powder and injection forms, but they're kind of two different things and they're used for two different ways. I think peptides are going to continue to become more and more popular in both supplemental powdered forms, capsule forms, and injection forms.

Scott Emmens:
So you have pharmaceutical grade peptides like semi -gluteide, which is OZEPIC or bogovie. There's a number of those peptides in the market. There are other peptides for things like eczema and you'll see those advertised and those are either injectable or pharmaceutical grade peptides.

Scott Emmens:
Then there's this sort of gray area injectable peptides, which things like BP157, which you really should have a physician that understands what each of these new peptides are, that they have a really good source for those peptides.

Scott Emmens:
Because when you're injecting a peptide into your body, A, you want to make sure it's really pure and you really want to make sure it's a physician that's worked with peptides extensively, taking some training on them.

Scott Emmens:
There's a lot of evidence for a number of different peptides. The one that's probably most popular is the BP157, which is often used for generation of limbs or arthritic pain. They work really well. I've had a couple of those injections for some knee and shoulder issues.

Scott Emmens:
When I say a couple, I mean two, just because they're very expensive and they're very effective. They work really well. I'm a big fan of both the injectable and the oral. From an oral peptide, you'd be surprised at some of the things that are peptides that you hear every day.

Scott Emmens:
Creatine, for example, that's a peptide. A peptide is nothing more than a chain of amino acids that are linked together in a certain form. That form of amino acids tells your body to do something. It's like an instruction panel or the building block of something really important in your body.

Scott Emmens:
When it's already in that peptide form, it spares your body from having to take all of the amino acids and create it by itself, along with all the cofactors needed. It's almost a biohacking way to get these peptides that your body creates on their own in a powder form.

Scott Emmens:
Another peptide I love is carnicine. That peptide is an amino acid. I think it's two different amino acids. It works really well to help pull in electrolytes into your cells. It has some antioxidant properties for things like helping prevent issues with your eyes.

Scott Emmens:
It also is great for performance enhancement in terms of athletes. A lot of athletes will use carnicine as one of their peptides of choice. Then collagen, those collagen peptides, because what they've done is taken that native, fibular collagen, which is what creates your skin, your ligaments.

Scott Emmens:
They've broken that down into an amino acid, but not quite down to the amino acid level, but they've broken it down into peptides. That makes it much more digestible. That's why we talk about those cofactors, because those collagen peptides then have to be rebuilt into your body to create the collagen itself.

Scott Emmens:
That's what those cofactors come into. Creatine, carnicine, and collagen peptides are three peptides you hear about all the time. They're all very effective that I use all the time.

Vanessa Spina:
Thank you for covering those. I actually am fascinated by peptides and I recently had a doctor who actually works with a lot of celebrities. He's out of New York, Dr. Neil Palvin, on the Opsaline Protein Podcast.

Vanessa Spina:
That's all we talked about for an hour. Every single peptide, all the injectables, what they're for, and it's amazing the different applications that they have because that really does seem to be where we are going and trending is towards personalized medicine with people having the ability to analyze their genetics, find out if they have these single nucleotide polymorphisms or SNPs or different mutations.

Vanessa Spina:
There's all these different kinds of mutations that people can have that turn out to really affect how the body really functions overall. It's really amazing that you can correct some of those things with these peptides, these injectables.

Vanessa Spina:
Obviously, the Wacovi, Osempic ones are getting a lot of attention. I think that is bringing just more attention in general to peptides and the fact that they're all these injectables. If you want to hear the A to Z on all those injectable peptides and all the different ones, you covered a lot of the key ones there.

Vanessa Spina:
Look out for that episode with Dr. Neil Palvin that's going to be coming out early in 2024. It could be up as the airing of this, but it'll be around this time. Thank you for covering all of that.

Scott Emmens:
Absolutely. So we've got another question here from Nikki on red light devices. Hi, Melanie and Vanessa. Vanessa, I just preordered your red light device and face mask. I'm so excited to try it. I am too, actually.

Scott Emmens:
I am also trying to use red light to encourage hair growth. Oh, we just talked about that. But it is difficult to target my scalp with the regular devices because it can't face your scalp and at the same time, it faces the rest of your body.

Scott Emmens:
Are you planning on making a helmet device for hair growth anytime soon? If not, are there any you would recommend? I know iris stores are popular, but I wouldn't purchase it without your silver approval.

Scott Emmens:
Thanks for all that you both do. Nikki, let me include the exo, Nikki.

Vanessa Spina:
Hi, Nikki. It's so nice to hear from you. I really love this question. And first of all, thank you so much for supporting my work and what I'm doing in creating wellness products. So I'm so excited that you pre -ordered the new Tonelux Crystal Red Light Therapy Mask.

Vanessa Spina:
And I really can't wait to hear what you think of it. I absolutely love it because I was finding that I like to do my red light therapy on my face in the morning. And I'm with Luca in the morning and lately, especially the last six months.

Vanessa Spina:
He needs me to be focused on him. Like he will grab my face, turn it towards him. Like I cannot look any other direction than him. But he doesn't mind when I put the mask on because we can still read books and do stickers and, you know, we can, you know, do activities together.

Vanessa Spina:
And it's not that long. I usually do a 15 minute session. I can do anywhere from 10, 15, 20, 25 minutes. And I've been noticing some differences with my sunspots already on my face. So I'm really excited for that and to see the differences.

Vanessa Spina:
And the thing with red light therapy is you really have to be consistent at the beginning. I would say, especially the first eight to 12 weeks. And I know you're going to be able to speak to this a little bit from your personal experience, Scott.

Vanessa Spina:
But after you get the results, you can do maybe one session a week or something like that. So you just have to be really consistent at the beginning and you'll get some amazing benefits. And then after that, you just maintain your benefits and your results after that.

Vanessa Spina:
So I'm super excited for you. You to try it. Now, when it comes to encouraging hair growth, this is one of the coolest things about red light therapy because when Russian scientists were first studying red light, they were doing tests on mice to see if lasers would be safe for humans.

Vanessa Spina:
So a lot of the times you look up research on red light, it's photo biomodulation. A lot of the research comes from these laser studies. And one of the first things they saw is that it was regrowing hair on the mice.

Vanessa Spina:
And that's when they started to go, Oh, maybe there's actually some benefits to lasers and red light and photo biomodulation, as opposed to being concerned about the safety of them. So I think hair growth is a huge potential area with the face.

Vanessa Spina:
You know, it's a collagen, a lasso and production, youthfulness, sunspots, you know, can make you look younger. And it can do also systemic benefits from the self remitocondria. But when it comes to hair growth, I think that that can be really, really helpful.

Vanessa Spina:
So my personal recommendation would not be to use the face mask on your scalp. I would use a panel. And the reason for that is the panels are much more powerful in terms of their power density and irradiance.

Vanessa Spina:
It's much stronger. The amount of jewels that you get in terms of the, you know, square centimeters or scranges is much higher with the panels. So I would, if I was doing this for myself, I'd put the panel on the side of the screen.

Vanessa Spina:
And I would put a panel, a powerful panel and prop it up on the floor. And then I would lay down in front of it so that the top of my head would be facing the panel. If that makes sense. So I would definitely do that.

Vanessa Spina:
So when it comes to the face masks and the helmets, the power density and irradiance is much lower than the panels because it's right on your skin. So for safety and, you know, just because you're getting exposure right close to your skin in general, they're not as powerful as the panels can be.

Vanessa Spina:
So I would do that. I also think it would be probably pretty comfortable to just lay on the floor and do your red light therapy. What's been your experience, Scott, because I know, I mean, you were showing me before we started recording your progress.

Vanessa Spina:
It's amazing to see. So I know you've been really doing it consistently and you've been doing some different things. So what would you recommend?

Scott Emmens:
Yeah, so I have a whole protocol that I was following when I was like, so I'm 52, right? So when I was in my 40s, I was like, really, I got to keep this hair. And I was very diligent about it. This was just before red light.

Scott Emmens:
So it was more like Rogaine and a little bit of myconeedling biotin collagen. And that kind of kept the hair I had, but it really wasn't helping grow there. So then I discovered red light and I was using that for a long time.

Scott Emmens:
At first, I was doing about 15 minutes, probably five to six times a week. And I definitely saw a difference that was like around 45. Then I kind of said, eh, you know, the heck with it. And I let it go.

Scott Emmens:
And it just, my hair just wasn't like gone. I'm like, wait a second, I wasn't prepared for this. Over the last three months, I have really begun to use both a panel and a pad. And the pad is just because it's easier and simple.

Scott Emmens:
I don't always have the panel, but the way that I do my panel, I don't, not really much of a lay down kind of guy. So I put it on, I've got a big leg massage chair and I put your panel like on a really firm camera, a mounted, like a tripod mounted camera.

Scott Emmens:
And then I sit on the barcalauner. It's like a, not a barcalauner, but it's like a massage chair and it hovers just about an inch over my head. And then I'll just sit and watch a TV show or listen to a podcast or read a book.

Scott Emmens:
And the 15 minutes goes by super fast. But I also, I think for my age and for how kind of far my hair had gone, I needed to include some other things. So my routine consists of a micro needling in the morning, a light one, then an aggressive micro needling along with a blend of keratin and rogaine.

Scott Emmens:
So it's pure 100% keratin. I said keratin, keratin, which is what your hair is actually really made from. And then biotin, I take it because your hair stacks those little biotin amino acids on top of each other.

Scott Emmens:
So that's more for like the hair growth and length. The keratin is what the hair kind of is actually made out of. It's the primary ingredient in the hair. And then once the micro needling and the keratin are on, I will do the red light therapy for about 15 minutes while that's not a recommendation.

Scott Emmens:
This is my protocol. I also do take biotin and I take collagen along with cofactors. And the final thing I've added in recently, and again, I'm not recommending this, but it's just my protocol. Check with your doctor, make sure this is safe.

Scott Emmens:
But I put a couple of drops of 1% methylene blue on my head before the red light. There's a lot of data to suggest that methylene blue particularly ingested, which is not even, I don't need to think legal.

Scott Emmens:
So I'd never do that. But a topic I put it on along with those other things I do, then do the red light therapy, either the pad, which I'll use downstairs if I'm like watching TV downstairs or in my office where I have the panel set up.

Scott Emmens:
I'll do 15 minutes, probably three to five times a week, depending on how busy my week is. And I was literally just showing Vanessa, I'm like, Hey, I really think this protocol is working. What do you think?

Scott Emmens:
And I pulled my little headphones down and she's like, actually, I see a big difference from the first time we met. No, I don't have a lot of hair, but it is definitely gone from totally bald to like, you know, there's some actual hair there.

Scott Emmens:
So I'm feeling like another three months of this protocol is going to work great. And there is a plethora of evidence on red light, both for hair growth, eye support, skin tone, mitochondrial support.

Scott Emmens:
So look into that red light research. There's just, there's plenty of it. And I think, you know, if you're not doing some sort of red light, you're missing out on a tremendous easy opportunity that's relatively cost light because you can keep the device for months, if not years.

Vanessa Spina:
I definitely see a big difference and I'm a painfully honest person. So like if you were showing me and I didn't see anything, I'd be like, sorry, no. So yeah, I definitely see a big difference, which is really cool because like I remember when we were talking about this when I first told you that I was thinking about coming out with a mask.

Vanessa Spina:
Maybe eight months ago or something like that in the spring and you were yeah, you're showing me that you're wanting to, you know, have some red light therapy benefits there and it's so cool because it's just endless.

Vanessa Spina:
The amount of things that red light does is endless. Like we almost should have like a shower because I keep saying I think in 10 years everyone's going to have one like a hairdryer, like a panel in their bathroom.

Vanessa Spina:
But you almost have like a shower booth with red light and have it go all over your entire body for maybe like five minutes after you are done your shower and you can also warm up.

Scott Emmens:
I'm sorry, they used to have, not red light, but they used to have infrared lights in a lot of bathrooms with a timer. Do you remember those?

Vanessa Spina:
don't, but it sounds like similar. And I've seen in Prague, there's some solariums, the sunbeds that are like marketing themselves as like sun plus collagen. So you can go lay down in tanning bed, and you can get super damaging tanning rays.

Vanessa Spina:
And you can also get some red light while you're there, which I'm not. Yeah. But I would do it if they could just do like the red light, that would be kind of cool. Yeah, I'm sure there's some like, sort of a bond type of, you know, character out there who's got like a red light shower thing that I'm talking about already, or some athlete pro athletes, they're the ones who, you know, really got into this because they're always looking for that edge.

Vanessa Spina:
And, and they've all been doing the red light, you know, for years. And now it's just sort of becoming like, I wouldn't say it's mainstream, but it's in the biohacking community. It's like, if you don't have a red light, like, who are you?

Scott Emmens:
Yeah, you have you'd have a red light. You can't even call yourself a bio hacker. But you're right on a pro athlete. I was talking to someone who we were engaged in some discussions with. And they had mentioned there's a red light like spas and saunas where they either do a sauna of infrared plus red light or just, you know, red light and near infrared light.

Scott Emmens:
And I think that's important that I think yours is both red light and near infrared light, right? I think it's got both the 660 and then the 830 nanometers. I'm not sure what your nanometers are, but basically you want a red light combined with a near infrared light.

Scott Emmens:
So just so people are clear that we call it red light, but it's really both the red light and the near infrared light. And if half your bulb looks like they're not working, that's just because it's near infrared light and you can't see it.

Scott Emmens:
That one penetrates a little deeper. They both serve slightly different purposes, but combined, they work really well. But he was saying that there's like a two week wait to get into these red light, you know, saunas.

Scott Emmens:
I was like, holy moly. And that's at LA. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

Vanessa Spina:
That's a big business. Yeah, it's really interesting too because I have one wavelength in the sapphire, I put four wavelengths that I found to be the most associated with benefits in the research. And one of them is orange light.

Vanessa Spina:
And I did the same thing with the mask because it's actually so close to red that it's considered like photovol modulation with red light, but it's called orange. And if you look at the light, sometimes the sapphire, if you're using it in the dark, sometimes you'll see it's a bit orangey and it's same.

Vanessa Spina:
It's just one of the wavelengths, but it has a lot of benefits too. And actually all the wavelengths have different benefits, which is really interesting. But red, fascinatingly activates this chromavore on the electron transport chain in the mitochondria.

Vanessa Spina:
So even when you're doing a hair treatment or you're doing a treatment for muscle repair and growth, or you're doing a treatment for like stubborn body fat or whatever it is you're doing it for, you're getting systemic benefits because we have mitochondria floating around in the blood that self -humidicondria.

Vanessa Spina:
So it just amazes me. And it's like, it's not, whoa, right? Like there's an insane amount of research showing this stuff. Well, I first started finding out about it. I was getting so excited because I'm like, there's so many who products out there.

Vanessa Spina:
There's like these mats with frequencies and there's crystals and there's all this stuff. And I love a crystal. Like crystals are cool, but to have something that has like tens of thousands of scientific studies, clinical studies behind it showing, my favorite one is actually the one in Denmark, where they had women who were infertile to the point where they were like completely resistant to everything, like IVF, like assisted fertility, everything.

Vanessa Spina:
And they used this thing called the gigalaser. And it's like this crazy powerful machine that they put over women's abdomens. And over half of the participants went on to successfully become pregnant and deliver healthy babies.

Vanessa Spina:
And one of them was 50. And they were blasting their ovaries with, like it's the most mitochondrial dense area in a women's body. They're blasting their ovaries with these jewels. And it's so exciting to see research like that.

Vanessa Spina:
And Japan and Denmark have been putting a lot of funding towards red light therapy research because they have really low fertility rates. And it's like for someone to see research like that. And maybe they've been going on a fertility journey and having fertility struggles, one of the most painful things that couples deal with, to see that like someone at 50 is using red light to become pregnant and have a healthy baby is just amazing.

Vanessa Spina:
So that's one of my favorite studies on it, but there's so much research behind it.

Scott Emmens:
That's why I love red light. And now do you feel it like relatively quickly the research is there? Absolutely.

Vanessa Spina:
So our last question for today comes to us from Laurie on Facebook and she says, if you could select your top three biohack items, what would they be? It gets overwhelming when listening to podcasts and wanting to try everything.

Vanessa Spina:
I love this question and I completely agree. I feel the same Laurie. So thank you so much for sharing that. What are your top three biohack items,

Scott Emmens:
Okay, so from three to one, I'll use items and then I'm going to include one practice, even though it says items and I'm not sure if items being supplements, so I'm going to probably leave supplements out.

Scott Emmens:
Maybe I'll mention one, but from an item standpoint, number three would probably be some type of heart variability monitor. I really feel strongly that if you're getting ill or not an optimal performance for a workout, like if you see your heart variability drop precipitously in an evening, you probably might want to skip your workout for that day.

Scott Emmens:
You're likely heading for an injury or an illness, so your body is telling you it needs a rest. Heart rate variability has been demonstrated time and time again to kind of be a leading indicator before you're even physically aware of either an illness or an injury that's upcoming, and it's so easy to track.

Scott Emmens:
You could do it with an oar ring, an apple watch, you can do it if you want the most accurate form. They have chest ones that go across your chest that will measure that, so that would be my number three.

Scott Emmens:
My number two biohacking item would probably be my cups, my cupping methods. I just got into this recently and I have found it incredibly powerful in combination with Redlight too because I was having just kind of like old man problems, like cramping in my thighs and cramping in my traps, and I was hydrated and had plenty of potassium and I was working out and like, what's going on here?

Scott Emmens:
What I started to discover was you have this layer of skin between your muscle and your skin. It's called fascia, and it's this really, really thick material that helps keep your muscle structure in place, but what can happen over time if you're an athlete particularly and you're always working out, you can get the scar tissue or layers of tissue between the fascia and the muscle where the fascia is either gripping muscle or scarring up or vice versa.

Scott Emmens:
I don't know all of the science behind it because at little, I just started this a couple of months ago, but I have had like again, this on my left leg, a cramp in my left leg that no matter how much I used those little guns to vibrate it out, it would just hurt more the next day.

Scott Emmens:
I started using these cups on my lats, my lower back and my thigh, and it was like within three days, I felt an unbelievable difference. The cramps were gone, the muscle felt stronger. It just was just like kind of a miracle maker.

Scott Emmens:
I was really surprised. These were my initial cups were just like little rubber cups with a suction on them that you kind of pumped and I could not believe how powerful they were. So now I've upgraded to like the more sophisticated ones and I'm a big fan of those cups.

Scott Emmens:
I think if you've got any kind of muscle aches or pains, that's a must have. And then I could not say number one is because of its versatility, its effect and this, it's got to be red light for sure.

Scott Emmens:
And curious to learn more about this orange light because I hadn't done that. I have heard about purple light. So I'm dying to know more about this orange light when we get done. But red light would be my number one.

Scott Emmens:
And then my item that I would mention in terms of the simple thing you could do is either cold plunge or ice bath. Use your way into it. Make sure that you have someone there. Make sure you check with your position that your heart and your body are ready for.

Scott Emmens:
If you're in the northeast or in a cold country like Prague, for example, you can use the water coming out of your shower and start that way. That's going to be like about 50 degrees, 55 coming out of your shower.

Scott Emmens:
And trust me, that's going to feel cold enough for your first exposure. The first time I ever got an ice bath, it was about 48 degrees and I lasted about 30 seconds. That's okay. And you do want to submerge all the way into a tub.

Scott Emmens:
If you can put your head under, that's great. But again, you can pass out and you have to be careful. So you want someone with you when you're doing this and you definitely want to be checked out by a physician.

Scott Emmens:
But cold immersion or ice baths for just a few minutes every other day, three to five minutes every other day between 55 and 45 degrees, it's going to get the job done. I've never been more ache -free in my joints and body, in my body than I was when I was regularly doing that.

Scott Emmens:
I just started doing it again because I was preparing for the polar bear plunge in January, which you may see some pictures of me on Facebook or on the IndieLogic page, running into the ocean like a maniac in January.

Scott Emmens:
But I figured I'd better get prepared for that. But that has got me re -hooked on it, as Vanessa will tell you, it is a very addictive but super powerful process. So those are my three items and my one free easy to do.

Vanessa Spina:
I love all of those. So in terms of items, like I think more of bio hacks, but in terms of items, I have to say, the number one for me is the tone device. That's why I created it, because I love getting biofeedback and keto is one of the most powerful bio hacks in terms of things you can do to reverse aging.

Vanessa Spina:
I know reverse aging is a kind of a controversial term, but it's really amazing how you can actually reprogram your genetics through epigenetics. Ketone's signal to your body to either unravel or not unravel certain genes and express those genes.

Vanessa Spina:
It's really amazing how they act as histone deacetylase inhibitors. There's so many things that keto does for us. Ketone's actually signal to our mitochondria to uncouple. And that helps in so many different ways to help support our mitochondria because we are uncoupling heat production from energy production and we have more mitochondria.

Vanessa Spina:
And so the biogenesis of mitochondria, it does so many things for the body in terms of health span. So it's the number one bio hack. And so I like to check my ketones to see how I'm doing in terms of getting ketosis.

Vanessa Spina:
And that's why I created the tone because I so tired of pricking my finger using those expensive test strips. And it's just really inconvenient. Like if you want to check your ketones and you're like on the go or you're at someone's house, like you don't just pull out like this kid and like prick your finger and all that.

Vanessa Spina:
But with the tone, you don't have to buy those expensive test strips. You just invest in one device and you can test an unlimited amount of times. And the other drawback with the blood is that you're only seeing a picture of what's circulating in that moment.

Vanessa Spina:
You're not seeing what's been produced and what's been used. So that was always my issue with that as well. And I don't like urine strip testing. I find that to be the most unreliable because once you basically keto adapt, you're not excreting these additional ketones anymore.

Vanessa Spina:
But the breath is not like the urine. The breath is showing you a byproduct of utilization. So about 20% of the ketones that your body produces from your stored body fat goes out in the form of BHB and acetoacetate.

Vanessa Spina:
And during that conversion, 20% of that then spontaneously decarboxylates or degrades into acetone. And acetone is so tiny that it goes out through your lungs. So when you're testing your breath, using a breath ketone analyzer, you're actually reading how many carbons are, those carbons are coming from your fat, from your stored fat.

Vanessa Spina:
So you're getting biofeedback on the level of ketosis you're at and you can also look at some interesting data between your blood and your breath and the ratios and correlation there and it'll show you how much you're using.

Vanessa Spina:
And so I find it fascinating. It's like my number one product for sure you use it every single day, no matter what. Second would definitely be red light therapy panels. And that's why I created the tone luxe line of red light therapy panels because red light is just so amazing as we've been gushing and gushing about.

Vanessa Spina:
And I would say the third is probably tone protein. It's my three favorite things that I use every day. But what better biohack is there than, recomposing your body, getting effortless, sort of recomposition, burning more fat.

Vanessa Spina:
There's so many research studies showing that people eating more calories than a control group when those extra calories are coming from protein, especially weight protein, you're burning more fat. Like it's such an amazing biohack to me if you wanna recompose your body.

Vanessa Spina:
And one of the best things you can do for your body is basically to get rid of excess, unneeded body fat and improve your metabolic health. And then gain muscle and become stronger and have stronger bones.

Vanessa Spina:
So definitely those are my three in terms of items. And I concur with you on the free one, ice baths. I cannot wait to do ice baths in sauna again. Once, you know, I'm back in the groove of doing that stuff because in the winter, it's cold enough in Prague that I just put bathwater, cold bathwater.

Vanessa Spina:
And it gets to between 10 and 15 Celsius, which is the equivalent of what you need. I'm not sure what it is in Fahrenheit, but what you need to be basically in an ice bath. And my hack, my free hack is that when you immerse yourself, and like you said, take all the precautions, check with your doctor, make sure you don't have a heart condition, make sure you're supervised, all those things that if you do find it's appropriate for you and not contraindicated, and you're sort of easing yourself into it, I like to get in there all the way as quickly as possible to my chin because we have brown fat that's around our collarbone.

Vanessa Spina:
And this thing called the turnover effect happens where it switches on our brown fat. And so within 30 to 60 seconds, I'm warm in the water, as long as I don't move much. Then when you get out again, it's freezing.

Vanessa Spina:
It's freezing when you get in, it's freezing when you get up. But once you're in and you're into your chin, you actually feel warm, you feel fine. And it's easy to stay in there and actually overdo it.

Vanessa Spina:
Dr. Susan Soberg, who was on the Huberman podcast, she did some studies showing what is the minimum effective dose, and she found it was 11 minutes a week. So you don't even need to do that much. Like if you're doing three or four sessions a week, it's only a few minutes.

Vanessa Spina:
And I find that way easier than a cold shower. Like cold shower is not, I find that much harder to do than to just sort of like put my arms on both side of the tub and get in and then just stay until here.

Vanessa Spina:
But that is one of the most powerful things I think you can do for your body as well is become cold adapted. And you'll notice it's extremely addictive. You feel amazing after, but you need less and less clothes when you go outside in the cold, which is like, you know, I'm starting to become that weirdo in the shorts.

Vanessa Spina:
And all my friends talk about it now.

Scott Emmens:
It's 30 degrees and you're out there like we're in shorts.

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, because between the thermic effective protein and the cold adaptation, I'm a warm person now. I was always that cold person. But once you really rev up your metabolism with, you know, good focus on protein, and you're also becoming cold adapted, like you start to become like really, really comfortable all the time.

Vanessa Spina:
And when you're always a person that's cold, it sucks. Like I just love being the person that I way rather be warm all the time. So it's a great combination. And yeah, that's my number one, just like the free hack.

Vanessa Spina:
But again, as Scott said, you know, make sure it's it's safe for you, your supervisor doing it with a friend or, you know, you made sure that it's it's fine for your heart and all that because it is it is intense, like it's really intense hack.

Vanessa Spina:
And you want to not be doing all the things all the time over functioning, over biohacking, I think you can get into a situation just like with red light, you don't want too little, you don't want too much, you got to find that that sweet spot.

Vanessa Spina:
So it was so much fun to talk about favorite biohacks with these God, I love doing this episode. And we had so many great questions. I'm super excited to record the next one with you, which are also co hosting with me.

Vanessa Spina:
And we have some more phenomenal questions in there. So thank you all so much for sending in these questions. And can't wait to chat with you on the next one, Scott.

Scott Emmens:
That sounds wonderful. Can't wait to do it. And thank you so much for bringing up the brown fat. I forgot about that. Not only that, you know, you're going to lose weight because that you're burning so many calories to stay warm.

Scott Emmens:
Like I never had less love handles than I did when I'm, you know, doing the ice bath three to four times a week. And I think you're right. Don't overdo it three to four times a week, three minutes time is good.

Scott Emmens:
I one time went 12 minutes at an hypothermia for like two and a half hours. So you can't overdo it. But it's been so much fun. Thank you for having me on. I hope we answered all the questions to the audience satisfaction.

Scott Emmens:
And I'm looking forward to the next one.

Vanessa Spina:
Awesome. Thank you so much, Scott. And thank you everyone for your fantastic questions. Be sure to follow me on Instagram at Ketogenic Girl and Scott, what is the MD logic handle for Instagram and yours?

Scott Emmens:
So MDLogic is a MDLogic Health is the Instagram. My personal one is at longevity protocol. So you can reach me there. You can get me there if you'd like. If you're interested in partnering in any way or you just have some questions or just wanna follow me, you can do that.

Scott Emmens:
And you can always reach me or MDLogic through. I think it's, I wanna say contact at MDLogicHealth.com. That's our email. But if you just go to our site, www.mdlogichealth.com, all our information is there including tone protein.

Vanessa Spina:
Excellent. Well, thanks so much and catch you on the next one.

Scott Emmens:
Thanks Vanessa.

STUFF WE LIKE

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

LINKS

More on Melanie: MelanieAvalon.com

More on Vanessa: ketogenicgirl.com

Theme Music Composed By Leland Cox: LelandCox.com

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Mar 13

Episode 256: Dopamine, Addiction, Mindset, Appetite Correction, Wim Hof Breathing, Cold Showers, Iron, Collagen, And More!

GET THE EPISODE ON ITUNES!

The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #60 - Wim Hof

Welcome to Episode 256 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine and Gin Stephens, author of Delay, Don't Deny: Living An Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle.

Today's episode of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast is brought to you by:

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SHOW NOTES

BUTCHERBOX: For A Limited Time Go To butcherbox.com/ifpodcast And Get Free Ground Beef For LIFE!!

BEAUTYCOUNTER: Keep Your Fast Clean Inside And Out With Safe Skincare! Shop With Us At MelanieAvalon.com/beautycounter, And Something Magical Might Happen After Your First Order! Find Your Perfect Beautycounter Products With Melanie's Quiz: melanieavalon.com/beautycounterquiz
Join Melanie's Facebook Group Clean Beauty And Safe Skincare With Melanie Avalon To Discuss And Learn About All The Things Clean Beauty, Beautycounter And Safe Skincare!

Listener Q&A: Melissa - history of overeating and IF

FEALS: Go To feals.com/ifpodcast To Become A Member And Get 50% Off Your First Order, With Free Shipping!

Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life (Nir Eyal)

Listener Q&A: Nancy - Iron

BEAUTY AND THE BROTH: Go To melanieavalon.com/broth To Get 15% Off Any Order With The Code MelanieAvalon! Learn All About Bone Broth With My Episode with Melissa Boloña!

Listener Q&A: Kathy - Bone Broth, Collagen And Ketosis Complete

TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Welcome to Episode 256 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, author of What When Wine: Lose Weight and Feel Great with Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, and Wine. And I'm here with my cohost, Gin Stephens, author of Fast. Feast. Repeat.: The Comprehensive Guide to Delay, Don't Deny Intermittent Fasting. For more on us, check out ifpodcast.com, melanieavalon.com, and ginstephens.com. Please remember the thoughts and opinions on this podcast do not constitute medical advice or treatment. So, pour yourself a cup of black coffee, a mug of tea, or even a glass of wine if it's that time, and get ready for The Intermittent Fasting Podcast.

Friends, I'm about to tell you how you can get free grass-fed, grass-finished ground beef for life. Yes, for life. Gin and I are huge fans of a company called ButcherBox. As you guys know, it can be hard to get high-quality humanely raised meat that you can trust. ButcherBox is the solution. They deliver 100% grass-fed, grass-finished beef, free-range organic chicken, heritage-breed pork, nitrate-free, sugar-free bacon, heritage-breed hotdogs, and wild-caught seafood all directly to your door. When you become a member, you're joining a community that is focused on doing what's better for all parties. That means caring about the lives of animals, the livelihoods of farmers, treating our planet with respect, and enjoying better nourishing meals together. They go to great lengths to assure the highest quality, so you can find actual 100% grass-fed, grass-finished beef. If you've seen the Netflix documentary, Seaspiracy, you might be aware of fish fraud and problems in the seafood industry. ButcherBox maintains very, very high standards for that.

The whole process is so easy. They deliver all of this directly to your door. Once you sign up, you choose your box and your delivery frequency. They offer five boxes, four curated box options, as well as the popular custom box. With that one, you can get exactly what you and your family love. They ship your order frozen at the peak freshness, and packed in a 100% recyclable box, and the shipping is always free. Basically, ButcherBox makes it easy, so that you can focus on cooking amazing meals, not spending hours searching for meat that meets your standards, and save money in the process. What's super amazing is ButcherBox make sure their members are taken care of and today we have a special offer just for our listeners. ButcherBox is giving new members free ground beef for life. Yes, for life. You can sign up at butcherbox.com/ifpodcast and you will get two pounds of ground beef free in every order for the life of your membership. Just log on to butcherbox.com/ifpodcast to claim this deal. I'll put all this information in the show notes.

One more thing before we jump in. Are you fasting clean inside and out? Did that one of our largest exposures to toxic compounds, including endocrine disrupters, which mess with our hormones, obesogens, which literally cause our body to store and gain weight, as well as carcinogens linked to cancer is actually through our skincare? Europe has banned thousands of these compounds for being toxic, and the US has only banned around 10. It's honestly shocking. When you're putting on your conventional skincare makeup, you're likely putting toxic compounds directly into your body. These compounds can make you feel bad, can make it really hard to lose weight, can affect your hormones, your mood, your health. And ladies, if you're thinking of having kids, when you have a child, these compounds actually go directly through the placenta into the newborn. That means your skincare makeup that you're putting on today actually affects the health of future generations.

Did you know that conventional lipstick, for example often tests high for lead and the half-life of lead can be up to 30 years in your bones? That means when you put on your lipstick, 30 years later, half of that lead might still be in your body. Thankfully, there's an easy, easy solution to this. There's a company called Beautycounter and they were founded on a mission to change this. Every single ingredient and their products is extensively tested to be safe for your skin. You can actually feel good about what you put on. And on top of that, their products actually work. That's because they're not “all natural.” They actually combine the best of both worlds, both synthetic and natural ingredients to create products that actually support the health of your skin and make your skin look amazing. They have skincare lines for all your skin types, deodorant, shampoo and conditioner that I love, anti-aging and brightening peels, and vitamin C serums, and incredible makeup. If you see my makeup on Instagram, that's all Beautycounter. You can shop with us at melanieavalon.com/beautycounter.

And if you're thinking of making safe skincare a part of your future like we have, we definitely suggest becoming a Band of Beauty member. It's sort of like the Amazon Prime for clean beauty. You get 10% back in product credit, free shipping on qualifying orders, and a welcome gift that is worth way more than the price of the yearlong membership, totally, completely worth it. Also, definitely join my clean beauty email list at melanieavalon.com/cleanbeauty, I give away a lot of free things on that list and join me on my Facebook group, Clean Beauty and Safe Skincare with Melanie Avalon. I do a weekly giveaway every single week for Beautycounter, people share their experience and product reviews, and so much more. And again, the link to shop with us is melanieavalon.com/beautycounter. All right, now, enjoy the show.

Melanie Avalon: Hi, everybody and welcome. This is Episode number 256 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon and I'm here with Gin Stephens.

Gin Stephens: Hi, everybody.

Melanie Avalon: How are you today, Gin?

Gin Stephens: Well, I'm cold. Yesterday, the weather was perfect, and I went and sat in the Sun, and it was beautiful, and I wore flipflops and today I'm back in UGGs holding a mug of warm water.

Melanie Avalon: It's cold where you are?

Gin Stephens: I'm cold. Yeah, it's all. Yeah, it's rainy.

Melanie Avalon: Well, I was excited when it was cold here, but I feel it's been getting warm, which has been disheartening.

Gin Stephens: Have you been outside today?

Melanie Avalon: No.

Gin Stephens: It's 51 degrees and raining.

Melanie Avalon: Wonderful.

Gin Stephens: No, it's not wonderful. I'm freezing. Yesterday, it was 70.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, that was a problem.

Gin Stephens: It was beautiful. You don't like 70? Come on, now. I can't imagine you wouldn't like 70.

Melanie Avalon: No. I get sad when I look at the weather forecast when it says 70. I want it to be in the 40s.

Gin Stephens: Okay, well, then you probably should not live in Georgia.

Melanie Avalon: I know.

Gin Stephens: You need to go to, I don’t know, the Arctic, where we never get to the 70s. I don't know. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: Basically, I like the 70s in LA, because it gets cool in the evening still.

Gin Stephens: Okay.

Melanie Avalon: I have a random question.

Gin Stephens: Okay.

Melanie Avalon: Did you ever get night terrors?

Gin Stephens: Night terrors as a kid?

Melanie Avalon: Yes.

Gin Stephens: I don't know. I know, I always was like-- I don't think I had really what you would call night terrors. I remember being very anxious as a child. It had to do with us moving, and my parents got divorced, and then we moved to another state, and I remember being very anxious, and high strung at night when it would be time to go to bed, but I don't think I had night terrors.

Melanie Avalon: Have you ever had the experience where you wake up, but you're still asleep, so, you're interpreting your environment incorrectly?

Gin Stephens: Like a dream.

Melanie Avalon: But you're awake.

Gin Stephens: But you're awake, but you feel you're still in your dream.

Melanie Avalon: No.

Gin Stephens: Okay, then. No, I don't know what you're talking about.

Melanie Avalon: I used to get night terrors. I don't anymore, but I had something happen last night that reminds me of night terrors, but it wasn't the same thing. But it's the concept of waking up, and being awake, and knowing your environment. But for some reason, part of your brain is still asleep, so you're interpreting your environment incorrectly. So, with night terrors you see scary things in your environment that aren't there. That's what night terrors are.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I don't think so. I don't know. It wouldn't surprise me if I did or didn't. I was a high-strung little kid. I don't have memories of having night terrors, but that doesn't mean I didn't because [laughs] I would have to ask my mom.

Melanie Avalon: I definitely had them and I remember them.

Gin Stephens: Then, I probably didn't. I do remember being very emotional at bedtime and hysterical about not wanting to go to bed and be left alone. I didn't want to be left alone. But I don't know if I had nightmares or I don't have any memory of them.

Melanie Avalon: You didn't probably remember them?

Gin Stephens: Probably, so.

Melanie Avalon: I would always see spiders. I'd wake up and see spiders. Then I would have to look for the spider, because every single time I would wake up and see it, and it would take me a while to convince myself that it wasn't real this time. It would happen all the time. So, I'd like turn the lights on-- This happened in high school, too. I turn the lights on and look for the spider.

Gin Stephens: Oh no, I didn't have that.

Melanie Avalon: Okay. Last night what happened, this was so weird. I'm just fascinated by the brain states. Last night I woke up, and looked at the ceiling, and the lighting from the window was making a perfect arrow pointing to the window. It's hard to describe, but basically, there was an arrow made of light on the wall, on the ceiling pointing to the window. It was real. I wasn't making it up. But my brain, I spent five minutes staring at it, thinking it was-- I was terrified. I was like that's a sign that there's something outside. I could not convince myself that it was just a light. I thought it was a sign. And then every time I woke up, it was still there. It was weird, but literally, five minutes laying there awake staring at it, contemplating it, thinking that the world was ending,

Gin Stephens: Oh, gosh. No, I have woken up in an anxious state with weird thoughts in my head that suddenly feel really the world is ending, that kind of waking up. I don't know if it was a dream or just being anxious.

Melanie Avalon: Brain is just really interesting.

Gin Stephens: It is.

Melanie Avalon: So, that's my random thing. The other random thing is I interviewed Dr. Gundry again.

Gin Stephens: Oh, how'd that go?

Melanie Avalon: It went very well.

Gin Stephens: And what's his new book? I forgot.

Melanie Avalon: Unlocking the Keto Code.

Gin Stephens: Okay.

Melanie Avalon: It was perfect timing, because I had interviewed Dom D'Agostino a few days prior all about ketones, and then I interviewed Dr. Gundry all about ketones and they had different opinions.

Gin Stephens: That's the way so many people are, which is almost why I'm like, "Y'all, Fast. Feast. Repeat. That's it. It doesn't matter all those other little things. We don't have to tell you exactly what is happening behind the scenes, but your body knows, and it's doing it, and you don't have to know,

Melanie Avalon: That's why I'm the complete opposite. That's why I'm like, "I want to hear every perspective."

Gin Stephens: But when they disagree, that's where I am at this point in my life at the age of 52. I like to hear it. It's interesting, but when experts who are very, very smart have wildly different opinions, I'm like, " what? It doesn't even really matter. It doesn't matter." All I know is my body knows what to do. That's literally where I am. I like to understand what's happening and I feel I do, but maybe I don't. [giggles] Maybe we've got it all wrong. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: I want to know everything.

Gin Stephens: I'm at the point where I feel even the things we think we know we might not really know, so it really doesn't matter.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, I see.

Gin Stephens: That's what I'm saying. I'm like, "We might think this is all what's happening," and then in five years, we'll think it's something completely different. So, really it doesn't matter. I do like to know. Don't get me wrong. I like to know the science behind how things work, but only to a certain point, because then when we start getting deeper, and deeper, and deeper, we realize how many things are unknown. For example, going back to elementary science teaching, we teach even right this minute, if you go into an elementary classroom, teaching about the structure of an atom, they're teaching it wrong. That's not true what they're teaching. It's not even close to what an atom really is like. I just didn't like we're learning all this stuff. I don't know what is true and what [laughs] we just think, anyway.

Melanie Avalon: I literally think I know nothing. That's why I want to hear everything, because I have no idea and I don't know if anybody has any idea. But that's where we can all keep searching and try to get closer.

Gin Stephens: I do love science. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that I don't. I just am like, "I don't need to know all how that's doing it in the background." I know, autophagy is doing something great. I don't need to know the minute that it's doing whatever it's doing. I know ketosis has been official. [laughs] I know that I'm having it. [laughs] Anyway.

Melanie Avalon: Well, yes, yes.

Gin Stephens: I'm glad you had a good interview with him.

Melanie Avalon: It was good. Is anything else new with you?

Gin Stephens: Well, no. I do have some new interesting things that I'm not ready to share yet, but some really things that are interesting. We're not quite ready like I said to share. So, it's exciting. I can't wait to be able to share, because I like to [giggles] say what I'm doing. Just not quite there yet. I'm just going to tease it. It's personal life, not professional life.

Melanie Avalon: Awesome.

Gin Stephens: That's it.

Melanie Avalon: Shall we jump into everything for today?

Gin Stephens: Absolutely.

Melanie Avalon: All right, so, to start things off, we have a question from Melissa. The subject is: "history of overeating and IF." Melissa says, "I've been doing IF for eight months. I'm 5'5" and 138 pounds. When I started this, I lost a few pounds and it was great, but I'm back to where I started with those stubborn 10 pounds. Recently, I've been listening to the Brain Over Binge Podcast." Side note: I booked that author which is very exciting. She has a new book coming out. Wait, wait. Was it her? No, no, no, no. I get them confused. It's the Bright Line Eating woman?

Gin Stephens: Oh, okay. Her new book's already out.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, well, she's coming on for it. [giggles] Both of them have a similar perspective, I think.

Gin Stephens: No sugar, no flour. Bright Line Eating is no sugar, no flour.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, I thought Bright Line Eating is about like bright lines. No sugar no flour, but basically saying no. I think that's what Brain Over Binge is about too.

Gin Stephens: Maybe it's just saying no, but you can never have sugar and you can never have flour on Bright Line, never and also, I think she hates intermittent fasting.

Melanie Avalon: What is her new book?

Gin Stephens: I can't remember the name of it, but I keep my eye on the-- It popped up in the weight loss arena when it first came out. That's how I know what's coming out, because I do keep my eye, I like to see how Fast. Feast. Repeat. is doing and Clean(ish). Well, just FYI like I said, I don't think she likes intermittent fasting at all and she's like, "No sugar, no flour ever." I know some people really do feel that their brains can't tolerate sugar and flour. It might be something that works for them and they need to avoid those things. Someone, the same parts of the brain that light up with drugs, for example. I don't know. For me, that's not the case. I can have a little bit of sugar, I can have flour, I don't feel I'm just a drug addict for it at all. But I know that some people do describe it that way and I believe them that that's how they feel.

Melanie Avalon: That's the way I feel more so. Maybe not quite to that extent, but--

Gin Stephens: It feels that way to you when you consume it. Is that what I'm asking?

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm.

Gin Stephens: See, I don't.

Melanie Avalon: Her new book is Rezoom. It came out in December. Rezoom: The Powerful Reframe to End the Crash-and-Burn Cycle of Food Addiction.

Gin Stephens: Yep. She's very much, "Here's the things. Never, never have these things. Like I said, for the people who need that kind of approach, I know some people in my Delay, Don't Deny community, who follow her work and find that they can't do sugar and flour personally. Interestingly, one of them, she's an intermittent fasting coach. She's lovely. I actually met her. We had dinner together in Myrtle Beach. She happened to be there one time when I was there and we met, and she's been on my podcast. She does intermittent fasting, she also can't have the sugar and the flour, but she was a drug addict. Now, she tells her story on the podcast. I'm telling things about her I shouldn't tell, but she was a drug addict and gave up the drug. So, I think certain brains are more likely to light up from certain stimuli.

Melanie Avalon: That's interesting, because I'm prepping to interview Chris Masterjohn, which is exciting. I'm actually going to talk about him a little bit in our next question assuming we get to it. But I was listening to him on Peter Attia, and they were discussing the COMT gene, the worrier versus warrior.

Gin Stephens: Worrying versus fighting?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.

Gin Stephens: Do you worry or fight, right?

Melanie Avalon: How it related to addiction. They were talking about was, okay, see if I get this right. The worrier, so the person, who worries, their gene does not break down dopamine that fast. You have a lot of dopamine that sticks around, you get really fixated, you ruminate, but you can be really laser focused. Both traits have good and bad to them. The warrior, the fighter breaks down dopamine really fast. They're more flexible and don't get as fixated on things, but the addiction aspect was, I think that types are more likely to get addicted, because they go through dopamine so quick. You constantly need more.

Gin Stephens: Well, that's interesting.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, a dopamine releasing substance. You would need to keep pressing the lever, because the dopamine is going away, basically.

Gin Stephens: I guess, probably, most of us are somewhere along the continuum. We're not on one end or the other. We're somewhere in the middle. I really do believe that our brain chemistries are different. So, I can have sugar, flour, or whatever, take it or leave it. I like it, but I'm not looking for my next fix kind of a thing, and it doesn't make me binge. But I know that some people do.

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Melanie Avalon: Anyways, so, she's been listening to Brain Over Binge Podcast, which, again, is somebody different, but I think it's a similar concept with the Bright Lines. It's just saying no, I think. She said, "I've realized that I have an issue with overeating. I've tried a few different IF patterns. I shoot for 18 to 20 fast hours a day." This is pretty easy at this point. "I exercise five to six days a week, 30 to 60 minutes at varied intensities, ADF doesn't really interest me, here's my question. After eight months, I don't feel I really had appetite correction and I still have the tendency to overeat in my window. I don't always make the best food choices, but I do strive to make healthier choices. My food choices have been worse with this home isolation and stress is not helping. I feel I can't get the mental game under control to make IF a long-term success. What can I do to get my mind in the right spot for this to work long term?"

Gin Stephens: All right, that's a great question. It's easy to say just get your mind right. [giggles] But I can't tell you how to get your mind in the right spot. I don't think either of us can. You've got to get your mind in the right spot. You can reread the "Mindset" chapter of Fast. Feast. Repeat. where I talk about the importance of mindset. But I can't tell you how to get there. You've got to flip that switch yourself. For me, it helps me to know why I'm doing intermittent fasting. I want to go back to your weight and height. You're 5'5", 138 pounds. That is a very healthy weight for your height. You're not overweight, you're not even close to overweight. You're right in the middle of that healthy weight range. I do understand that you would like to lose 10 pounds and I get it. If I gained 10 pounds from where I am right now, I would want to lose them too. 10 pounds, you have the right to want to lose 10 pounds, but you are at a very healthy weight. I just wanted to put that out there.

But when I disconnect, why I'm doing intermittent fasting now, like if I got on the scale, I'm 5'5", if I got on the scale and I weighed 138 pounds right this minute, I would still keep doing intermittent fasting even if I never got below 138 again for the rest of my life. Because now, I do intermittent fasting long-term not so the scale will change. I do intermittent fasting now, because it's a healthy way to live. That mindset shift is really the one that was most powerful for me. I guess, even though, I can't tell you how to get your mind in the right spot, if you shift from, "I have to lose these 10 pounds to I am going to do intermittent fasting for the rest of my life, because it's a healthy way to live," that might be the thing that flips that switch and makes it a long-term success for you. That's certainly what did it for me. So, let's talk about those stubborn 10 pounds that you would like to lose and why you didn't have appetite correction.

I really feel it has to do with that one sentence that you said, "I don't always make the best food choices, but I do strive to make healthier choices." For me, food quality and appetite correction go hand in hand. I tell the story in Fast. Feast. Repeat. about the day that I had McDonas ld's. I had a Big Mac and fries and a Coke. That was plenty of calories, plenty of fuel. I fueled my body with lots of energy. It wasn't good quality, but it was plenty. I didn't need more fuel, but I was so unsatisfied and I was still "hungry." I absolutely did not have appetite correction from a McDonald's Big Mac and fries and a Coke. But when I eat really, highly nutritious foods that are nutrient dense, lots of vegetables, good protein, beans, eggs, avocado, things like that, I could eat the calorie equivalent, of course, I don't count calories, but I have to get that out there. I could eat the calorie equivalent of that Big Mac fries and Coke meal, and have amazing appetite correction, food quality makes all the difference in the world for me.

If you feel you're not making the best food choices, start with really highly nutritious foods. There's a term in the nutrition space called "crowding out." You crowd out the things that are not the best with things that are the best and you're not going to have as much room for them. If you start with highly nutritious foods, you tell yourself, "You know what, I've got some ice cream, I want to have that later." But really nourish your body well. Then later, if you want to add in a little bit of that, whatever it was, ice cream for me would be the one, then add it in. That's how I'm Cleanish. But if I start with nutritious foods, I don't really want that much ice cream. A little bit is fine. If I started with ice cream, hello, I could see all the ice cream in the world and still not probably be full and satisfied. I really think that might be what you're missing out on. Also, you are doing a good bit of exercising and that makes you hungry. For me, how they call it working up a good appetite? You said that you have the tendency to overeat. You might not be "overeating" to the point that you think you are. I think we've been trained, especially as women to think we're supposed to have dainty appetites. Especially, if you're in the paradigm of eating five, six small meals a day that sort of thing, then you might really need to eat tiny little amounts. But if you're having a 20-hour fast and a four-hour window and you've exercised for 60 minutes at high intensity, you need to have a lot of fuel and your body is going to tell you that. So, it might feel you're overeating when really, it's exactly the amount of food you're supposed to have. But you're thinking, you're supposed to be eating this little diet amount, but your body's like, "No, we worked out hard today, give us more food."

By combining high-quality food choices to open your window, our bodies don't count calories, they count nutrients like my Big Mac story illustrates, by having the high-quality foods understanding that you might need to eat more than you think you do, and also realizing you're at a really healthy weight for your height, and really just changing the quality of your food, it might really get that needle going down a little bit. Put all those things together and I definitely don't think you need to do ADF, unless you're really want to. But again, I want to reiterate from what I said before. If you shift that mental game from, "I am doing intermittent fasting to lose 10 pounds to I am doing intermittent fasting because it's the healthiest way I can live my life, and I can do some tweaks to see if I can lose those 10 pounds or not," I think that might flip that switch to make it feel a long-term lifestyle. I've just said a lot of things.

Melanie Avalon: Awesome. You said a lot of things that I was going to touch on. So, that is excellent. I actually just finished a book by Nir Eyal all called Indistractable, bringing him on the show as well. It wasn't about eating or anything like that. It was about not being distracted in our environment. But one of the things that he talks about that this made me think of was when there's something like a trigger or a habit that we're trying to break, there's basically internal and external triggers. He goes through four different things, but two of them, one is an internal trigger, and one is an external trigger that could be prompting that. The internal trigger would be probably stuff that she talks about in the Brain Over Binge Podcast. But I really like this process that he talks about. I've started to do it with my own self. Basically, when there's something you don't want to do or don't want to engage in, you notice the feeling that happened right before that. So, it's an internal feeling and it usually will always be there.

He talks more about how to actually deal with it, or replace it, or what you do with that. But I do think it's really fascinating, because it can make you realize with your overeating experience, for example, or your cravings, or your lack of appetite correction. Is that coming from a place of needing more nutrients like Gin was talking about or is it coming more from a place of unsatisfied craving for whatever reason? Noticing the feeling right before that might be pretty telling. There's so much you could do on the mindset side of things. We're talking about earlier, more of an addiction type thing rather than a nutrition type thing. Either way, really focusing like Gin said on your nutrition quality is going to be huge. I think a lot of people find that if they make their meals centered around a moderate to higher protein meal, that can really, really help with cravings. I also think it goes back to the sentence that Gin said, and that's what I'm going to bring in the external triggers. The sentence, "I don't always make the best food choices but I do strive to make healthier choices." First of all, I applaud you for striving to make healthier choices. That is amazing and it can be really hard to do with our processed food environment today, and things that we're exposed to. Gin, do you feel we get this sentience from a lot of people struggling with this issue?

Gin Stephens: They're trying to make healthier choices?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, we did that a lot. That's such an interesting phrase. I'm striving to make healthier choices, because if went out on the street and asked a hundred people, "What's a healthy way to eat?" We'd get a hundred different answers.

Melanie Avalon: The perspective I was taking from it is, it's often the focus on the--

Gin Stephens: Oh, the intermittent fasting?

Melanie Avalon: No, no. The focus is on like, "I'll try to do that rather than that's what I do." This actually goes into something else, which he talks about these-- and I'm going go back to the external triggers as well. I'm all over the place. But he talks about the different ways that people can make habit change and what is most effective. One of the most effective ways to make habit change is to have an identity change. Not become an entirely new person, but to have an identity change around the issue. They did a study that was on voting. I don't remember the exact numbers. I can look them up, but it was a striking difference between people, who actually voted based on the initial criteria was, there're people who said they were going to vote in the poll. They responded by saying, they were going to vote. Then they did a poll, where they asked people if they were voters. The people who said they were voters were way more likely to vote than people who literally said they were going to vote. It goes into this whole identity thing.

The analogy here is, we can say we're going to vote and try to vote and do all this and that's good, because it's an intention and something you want to do, so that's great. But we're actually much more likely to vote if we just say I'm a voter. The way this all ties into this is, maybe instead of striving to make healthier choices, you could try adopting or trying on an identity of just saying, you make healthy choices rather than trying to or striving to. And then, you can make it even easier for yourself so that the identity barrier is one thing that helps-- or boundaries, I think they're called boundaries. But having actual boundaries can help that, because it's hard to combat what's right in your face. If you're trying to make healthier choices, you could just make healthier choices and those foods that you know are problem foods for you just don't have them in the house. That would be getting rid of external triggers creating an actual boundary to engaging in whatever habit you're trying not to engage with.

Gin Stephens: Can I pop in something there that just came to my mind? It's Yoda. "Do or do not. There is no try." That's one of my favorite Yoda quotes.

Melanie Avalon: I thought about that so long and I put that in my What When Wine book, because I talk about in What When Wine how I never really understood that phrase until I did intermittent fasting, and then it made perfect sense, because you don't try to do intermittent fasting. You either do or you don't. There is no try. You do or you don't.

Gin Stephens: Well, exactly, right.

Melanie Avalon: Same thing here. Again, I don't want to discount or not be encouraging, because it is amazing to strive to make healthier choices. I'm not trying to downplay that. I'm just saying a slight shift, where you just make healthier choices, you get rid of all those things that are causing the problems. Just don't have them in the house.

Gin Stephens: Or, be cleanish. Don't start with them.

Melanie Avalon: Do you want elaborate on that, because I don't think people might not know what you're saying, exactly?

Gin Stephens: I've said it a minute ago. I said how I start with things that are nutritious, and then I crowd out, and then I might have the ice cream, and I'm cleanish.

Melanie Avalon: So, yes. I think there's a lot that can be done there. Especially, if you feel you can't get the mental game under control, stack the cards in your favor, do everything you can to stack the cards in your favor. It can sound scary to make things seemingly more intense in your approach, but can actually give you freedom because you're not fighting all of these temptations and things like that. Yes, that was all over the place. That book, Indistractable, it's actually really short. So, it might be something to listen to. Again, it's not really about food specifically, but it's got a lot of really fascinating information in it. Anything else?

Gin Stephens: Nope. I think we've said a lot of things. I hope that it helps Melissa.

Melanie Avalon: I like what you said, too, about focusing on the nutrient fulfilling foods would probably really help.

Gin Stephens: You know how you said she should tell herself, I eat healthy foods. She should also say, I am an intermittent faster.

Melanie Avalon: Yes, exactly.

Gin Stephens: Because then, that's who I am. I am an intermittent faster. So, that is my identity. I don't have to get up every day and decide if I'm going to do intermittent fasting. That's just what I do. It's who I am.

Melanie Avalon: And another one is saying, I don't instead of I can't. Instead of saying, "I can't have those foods, I don't have those foods," making it a choice.

Gin Stephens: Yeah. I don't use artificial sweeteners. If you offer me something that it has artificial sweeteners, I will not eat it. [laughs] Also, I could say, I can't, because that would not upset me, because I just really don't want to and I don't like them. But anyway, same, same kind of thing.

Melanie Avalon: So, shall we go on to our next question?

Gin Stephens: Yes. We have a question from Nancy and the subject is: "Iron." She says, "first, love the podcast, love the books, love you guys." Thank you, Nancy. She says, "I always learn a lot and my own journey is crazy. IF does not work for me for anything other than feeling I don't have to focus on food all day. But I love that in terms of weight loss or anything like that. This is not my jam. Never worked for me and I've been doing this almost since you guys started this podcast. Thanks to my daughter. However, that is not what this email is about." Now, I got to stop there, Melanie. When she says, "IF does not work for me for anything," I have to dig into that a little bit, just because it's not working for weight loss, Nancy, it doesn't mean it's not doing amazing other things. That's the thing. Okay, so, you haven't lost any weight, but I bet it's done a lot of amazing things inside your body that you can't identify. It's like when people ask me, "What has your vibration plate done for you? How has it helped you?" I say, "Well, I don't know because there's no path I've been on where I didn't use it." I have used it. So, I'm not sure how much muscle mass it's helped me maintain. Because I don't have a study where the Gin didn't do it. [laughs] Here's the Gin who did it, here's the Gin who didn't. I only know the one who did it.

For Nancy saying that intermittent fasting hasn't worked for her, well, who knows what have happened if she hadn't done intermittent fasting? Does that make sense? Am I making myself clear? I think that it might not have given you weight loss, Nancy, but I want you to tell yourself like what you just were talking about with Melissa. What you tell yourself, change what you're saying and say, intermittent fasting is my secret to living a healthy life. Because I really think that it's a healthy way to live even in the absence of weight loss, it is doing something for you. I had to throw that out there. Chad does it, didn't need to lose weight, didn't want to lose weight, doesn't want. He would be upset if he lost weight. Mark Mattson of Johns Hopkins, he's been doing intermittent fasting since I think the 80s. They don't do it for weight loss. They do it for the health benefits. So, never, never, never lose sight of that. So, do you have anything you want to add?

Melanie Avalon: Just that I agree completely.

Gin Stephens: Okay. So, anyway, I'm glad you're doing it, Nancy. I'm glad you're a listener. I'm glad that you're still enjoying doing it and that it gives you freedom from that focus on food, because even if that was all that it did really, that's huge. I mean that is huge. All right, so, she says, "Okay, so, I have something a little bit weird for you guys. I've been playing with Wim Hof breathing for around two years and cold showers for about six months. I've tried to give blood for a couple of years and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, because my iron numbers are not high enough, and they can't take your blood unless your iron is at a certain level. I went to give blood a couple of months ago and I wasn't sure if I'd be able to or not. But after they did my finger prick, the tech said, "Your blood numbers are great, perfect. You're doing great." My numbers were usually just over the line in the past when I could give blood. The only thing I did differently was cold showers and sometimes putting my feet in ice and water. Ever since then and it's only been twice. So, this isn't a study. But ever since then I've been able to go in and just give blood, no problem.

Before that, I tried different iron supplements, liquid iron, which only turned my teeth black, which I stopped immediately and brush crazy till the stains went away. But this cold-water stuff, I have a feeling that cold water really helps with iron. I looked it up just on Google not PubMed or anything and there was something about it. Not anything that was earth shattering, but I thought, "Well, this could be a thing." I know you are both into research to a level that I will never be and have resources that I don't have. So, I thought I would just throw this out after listening to the podcast, where you talked about the woman, who could be low iron. I thought I would share my crazy experience. Sincerely," Nancy.

Melanie Avalon: All right, Nancy. Thank you so much for your question. Really, quick thing. I don't really think I have that many more resources than other people as far as research goes. It's actually very easy in our world today to access research and information. There are books, that's where I get a lot of my information. Google Scholar is my favorite place to be. There're so many studies. You can't always read the full study, but you often can. If you sign up for a ResearchGate account, you can often get the full study through that platform.

Gin Stephens: Or, if you're married to a college professor. He can get you anything.

Melanie Avalon: Or, if you went to college anywhere, you often as an alumni can have access to their library system. I guess the one resource I have that most people don't is, I can often directly ask questions to some of the authors I've had on the show. But beyond that, it's really all just self-study. Just want to point that out. It's funny, Nancy, about this question. We've had it in the lineup for a long time, because I was waiting because I thought the information was going to organically come to me at some point. I feel it did this week. I was like once it comes to me, I'm going to wait till it comes to me and then I'm going to talk about it and it came to me this week. I've mentioned this earlier, but I am prepping to interview Chris Masterjohn. He doesn't have a book or anything, but he has been in the sphere for a long time and he writes very epic blog posts, and he does have eBook type things you can buy but he really researches nutrients and metabolic health, and what's the word for metabolic systems in the body?

Gin Stephens: Metabolic systems really just sums it up.

Melanie Avalon: It's funny, Gin, because prepping to interview him, because normally I'm focusing on a book. But there's just so much. He's covered everything.

Gin Stephens: Oh, he's written about everything. Yeah, he's brilliant. I've been reading his stuff for, well, before I wrote my first book.

Melanie Avalon: it's not he just writes about everything. He goes really deep in everything, in all the different topics and he gives a perspective that nobody else usually is talking about. We're talking earlier about not knowing what do we know, what do we not know. He always gives a new perspective and I'm like, "Why have I never heard that before?" That sounds right [laughs] if that makes sense. Prepping to interview him. I'm like, "What do I talk to him about?" I think I'm just going to talk to him about all the things presently I'm very fascinated with and would like to know his thoughts on. But in any case, he has been writing a lot actually, recently about iron status because he's been looking at a lot of the studies about how COVID affects iron status. He talks about the mechanisms of action and what is going on there. I think I got a lot of clarity reading it about what might be going on with you, Nancy. Before I answer that, the first resource I went to--

Gin Stephens: I have a question. Does he say that it's better, because I think I remember reading some stuff about this early, early on in the pandemic. For COVID, is it better to have high iron or low iron?

Melanie Avalon: I didn't read about better to, the stuff I was reading. I'm sure he's probably written on it. That's a good question and I should check it before I interview him. The stuff I was reading was, how does COVID affect iron status? So, that's a good question, though.

Gin Stephens: For some reason, I seem to-- I don't know. We've had so much over the past few years. For some reason in my head, I feel I read something early on, I mean, really early on 2020 early, early, early that was correlating low iron with better outcomes. I don't know. Because I usually have had low iron like Nancy. For some reason, that stuck in my head, because I'm like, "Oh, maybe having low iron is good." I don't know for COVID.

Melanie Avalon: Well, yeah. What he talks about is how people think that the inflammatory state of COVID would deplete iron being an inflammatory state. But actually, and this relates to Nancy's question. Inflammation raises a hormone called hepcidin, which is the insulin for blood sugar, but it's a regulator of iron status.

Gin Stephens: I did find a couple of things. The U-shaped association of serum iron level with disease severity and adult hospitalized patients with COVID-19. A U-shaped curve is interesting. Too high is not good, too low is no--

Melanie Avalon: Too low is not good.

Gin Stephens: Right. That's interesting. Again, so much stuff we still don't even know. So, I'm not giving medical advice about this.

Melanie Avalon: This answer is not to speak to COVID, specifically. It's to speak to the inflammatory state. In the inflammatory state, hepcidin goes up, hepcidin decreases. I don't know if it's a hormone as well. I guess so called ferroportin. Ferroportin is the transporter responsible for transporting iron both from our food into our bodies, and then also in and out of cells. What happens when we get inflamed, hepcidin goes up, ferroportin goes down, we no longer easily absorb iron from our food. In an inflamed state, it's likely that we'll have low iron. But what's interesting and this is what he talks about. This is the how it gets more nuanced. When you get a full iron panel, you measure basically, your free iron, your iron saturation, your hemoglobin, which is your iron-containing oxygen transport, metalloprotein in red blood cells, and then your ferritin, which is actually your storage form of iron.

What's interesting is that when your inflammation is up, your hepcidin is up and your ferroportin transporter is down. Not only do you not absorb iron from your food, but you stop moving iron around. It can get locked in your ferritin, which is your storage form, especially if you're in an inflammatory state, The macrophages in the inflammatory state might actually grab the iron and put it into ferritin, because iron is actually very inflammatory. It can create oxidative stress. You don't want a lot of iron.

Gin Stephens: You don't want to have too much.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. That's why it's such a complicated thing. Your body really has to regulate it and a lot of people for whatever reason things get wonky on either side.

Gin Stephens: Yep. There's that U-shaped curve. By the way, I did find something that sounds like the opposite of what I said before. It just said that severe COVID-19 appears to be characterized by high hepcidin. I don't know how to say that and marked functional iron deficiency. So, you don't want to have iron that's too low.

Melanie Avalon: Right. What you just said is what I was literally just saying.

Gin Stephens: The reason I'm saying it is because what I said seems to be the opposite of the truth. So, I wanted to correct it. I just remember reading something early. Lord knows what it was. It was two years ago. I remember reading something that made me think, "Oh, maybe low iron isn't bad. Maybe it's protective."

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. Again, I don't really want to speak to COVID, but I'm really glad you read that sentence, because that actually describes what I was just saying. Basically, an inflammatory state, COVID would be an inflammatory state. Hepcidin is going up, so you're going to stop absorbing iron. You're more likely to get deficient. But then what's interesting and what he talks about is, like I said, you stop absorbing, but you also trap iron where it is, so people can actually present with having low iron, but high ferritin, because the iron is all trapped in their storage form because their body was like, "Oh, we got to get rid of this. So, let's put it into ferritin."

Gin Stephens: It's there. It's just stuck.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. Then you have to deal with getting it out in a healthy way because too much iron is inflammatory. So, the point of all of that and I think when I talk to him-- Oh, this was really interesting. So, do the way how we get rid of the iron and ferritin?

Gin Stephens: I do not. [laughs] Leeches? Is it leeches? No, I'm kidding.

Melanie Avalon: I know. Well, probably that might do it. [laughs]

Gin Stephens: Wait, I feel I might, give me a minute. I feel I read something.

Melanie Avalon: It's something we talk about a lot sort of.

Gin Stephens: Go ahead.

Melanie Avalon: It's called ferritinophagy.

Gin Stephens: Is it autophagy? Is it part of autophagy? Is it linked to autophagy?

Melanie Avalon: When the cell runs low in iron, it sends ferritin that storage form of iron into the general autophagy system. So, then it breaks down the ferritin in the autophagy system and freeze the iron. Isn't that cool?

Gin Stephens: It is very cool. You know how at the beginning of the podcast, where we were like, "Yeah, that's more than I needed to know about stuff. That's where [laughs] iron." [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: It hits home to me because I have had severe anemia in the past, severe.

Gin Stephens: But you're good now there, right?

Melanie Avalon: I am. Actually, I'm posting about it today on my InsideTracker. But it's a struggle. For people who struggle with iron issues on either side, it's a struggle. If you have iron overload, really the only solution is donating blood.

Gin Stephens: That's what it was. Donating blood, I knew there was something when I said leeches. It's donating blood for real. That is what you do. I was like, "I feel I know it. What is it?" Yes, it's donating blood. Dah. I can't [laughs] believe I didn't think of that. That's practically the same thing as leeches.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, yeah. That's why when you said that I was like, "Basically." [giggles]

Gin Stephens: That's funny. Okay. I knew I knew it. I just couldn't remember that I knew it.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, yeah. Then on the flip side, the anemia side and this is something I really want to talk to him about, because there're just so many reasons and things that could happen. The thing I want to talk to him about for me is the way I tend to present now, because I've been supplementing with grass-fed spleen, which does keep my iron up. But my ferritin, my storage form tends to always be low, but my iron saturation will go up really high. I feel I'm not converting iron to ferritin. I'm going to ask him about that. Oh, to clarify, I do want to clarify, even though, I know Gin mentioned that we're over a lot of heads right now. But this is important to point out, because I did say that ferritinophagy, so, autophagy is what digest ferritin. That is not regulated by autophagy. What I mean by that is, it's not like you if you're in a high autophagy state. They are automatically going to do that process, it's regulated completely by cellular iron status. What that means is, it only does that process when you need to do that process. It's not like, "Oh, I'm in a high autophagy state. Let's break down all the ferritin." It would do that if you needed iron.

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Melanie Avalon: In any case, how this all relates to Nancy's question? It was interesting because I pulled up Wim Hof's book, because she was talking about doing Wim Hof breathing and the cold showers. I have had Wim Hof on the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast. I will put a link to that in the show notes. Honestly, listeners, if you want an inspiring episode, that was my most inspiring episode of all time.

Gin Stephens: Wim Hoff?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, followed by Farmer Lee Jones. I looked at his book to see if he talked about iron status and anemia. I know she didn't mention anemia, but she mentioned low iron. Interestingly, he didn't really talk about it. But the weird thing is there is one sentence about it, but I don't know why he didn't expand on it, because the only sentence in the book that mentions anemia is "the connection between tinnitus and the Wim Hof Method has various possible causes," because he talks about how the Wim Hof Method can help tinnitus. He says, "Medical research shows a direct link between pulsatile tinnitus and anemia, which the Wim Hof Method may ameliorate through the elevated oxygen intake." It's really interesting. Basically, he's hinting that the Wim Hof Method may help anemia. I don't know why he doesn't expand on it. But the reason I think that, Nancy, this is possibly what might be going on is all Chris Masterjohn's work. He talks about how to increase iron status when you are in an iron deficient state for whatever reason and the answer is cooling inflammation. He literally uses that phrase.

Combating inflammation is a key to helping iron status, helping your iron numbers. The Wim Hof Method, the breathing, the cold showers, one of the main things that is doing in your body is combating system wide inflammation. That's the reason I do cold therapy like cryotherapy. The anti-inflammatory benefits are incredible. It could have something to do with the oxygen content, which is in the Wim Hof what he says in his book. In addition to that, I would really think there could be something going on with it helping your inflammatory status and not helping your iron status. Again, I'm not a doctor, but those are my thoughts.

Gin Stephens: In summary, yes. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: Possibly, possibly.

Gin Stephens: Well, she said, "Could it be." She said, "Could it be." The answer is yes, it could be.

Melanie Avalon: Yes. Very cool.

Gin Stephens: But yes. We don't want to be too low, we don't want to be too high, we want to be just right like Goldilocks, when it comes to really almost everything.

Melanie Avalon: For supporting your body's, handling of iron and having a healthy iron profile. an anti-inflammatory lifestyle is really key for that. Cold exposure, Wim Hof breathing would be great tools for that. All right, shall we do one more question?

Gin Stephens: All righty.

Melanie Avalon: All right. We have one more question. This is from Kathy. The subject is: "Bone broth, collagen, and ketosis complete." Kathy says, "Hi. I've been doing the IF Fast. Feast. Repeat. for several weeks. Before then, I was doing a keto-type program avoiding sugar and other things. I was drinking a shake with collagen, bone broth, and the ketosis complete." I looked this up. I think I found it because I found a product called ketosis complete that did have-- She says, "It has BHB, beta hydroxybutyrate and a healthy fats blend." But what I was looking at just had BHB. It didn't have healthy fats blend. So, I'm not sure if that was the same thing.

Gin Stephens: Well, maybe just it's her collagen and her bone broth, and added some fats. Maybe, she was putting in healthy fats in addition.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, that's possible.

Gin Stephens: Adding fat, yeah.

Melanie Avalon: She says, "I have been fasting clean averaging 16 to 20 hours per day and I would like to know if I can have a shake made with these things after I break my fast or do I have to wait until I have done the full 28 days. Thank you," Kathy.

Gin Stephens: All right. Here's the thing about your eating window. You can have whatever you want in your eating window. There is no need to wait any time to have anything in your eating window. Here's what you can't have in your eating window during the first 28 days and here's what you can have after that. If you have something you would like to enjoy in your eating window, you can do it at any point along the way of your intermittent fasting journey. Now, let's talk about the shake and what you need out of that shake. Interesting about collagen, I'm not convinced that we need to ingest collagen. I was having a conversation with someone on the Delay, Don’t Deny community about this recently. She's a doctor. I am not a doctor, she is a doctor, talking about collagen and she's somebody, who I really respect, but she is not a big fan of most of these "products that are out there with all the health claims." She's not a health claims fan because so many of them are made without any good backing. Collagen is one of those things.

When we ingest collagen, our body breaks it down into the different building blocks. Like, it does with any protein. It's not ingesting collagen and then it's used as collagen. Your body loses the ability to create collagen as you get older. But ingesting collagen, it is not like take the collagen and then stick it places where collagen would be. Am I explaining that well, Melanie? It breaks it down.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. Actually, it has probably more to do with something else Chris Masterjohn talks about, the amino acid profile ratio found in collagen versus muscle meats.

Gin Stephens: Well, my point being that, I'm not convinced that we need to supplement with collagen. That's all I'm saying. I've looked at it all sorts of ways, because people are talking about collagen all the time, and they want to have collagen, and I am not convinced that there's a role for me. Let me just say, for me. I'm not convinced that supplementing with collagen is going to do anything for me. Really, if you're having trouble with a saggy skin, and you think that having collagen will help with that, really, if your body's not good at using collagen, or building collagen, or whatever the wording really would be, I think I just didn't say it very well but that's the issue. Something like red light therapy, it can help your body better than drinking collagen. There're other ways to get your body to be better at maintaining collagen levels versus intaking it. Does that make sense, Melanie?

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm.

Gin Stephens: Anyway, so, if you love the collagen, have the collagen. Bone broth has a lot of healing benefits. I think you would agree with that. Have the bone broth. Definitely, bone broth is a great thing. Ketosis complete, any kind of ketone product, I really can't think of any reason why you would have that in your eating window honestly. I remember reading something Mark Mattson-- I was listening to him on a podcast. It was Mark Mattson, the guy mentioned earlier, he was from Johns Hopkins. He was talking about taking in ketones, that was back when exogenous ketones were all the rage and your body was making all these claims about them. In the interview, he said, he could imagine-- I'm paraphrasing and it's been years since I heard this. I could be getting something wrong. But it was something along the lines of he could see a mechanism of action, where it would actually be detrimental to have ketones-- to take in ketones during in the presence of food. Because that's not how our bodies naturally are. I can't remember the mechanism of action he was talking about because shoot I'm not a scientist like he is, but our bodies never have lots of food coming in and ketosis going on. So, that's not really a natural state.

Ketosis is absence of food our bodies get into ketosis. I just can't think of any reason why you'd want to have that in your eating window. Collagen, up to you. If you feel it's giving you benefits, you certainly can. Bone broth, I could totally see that. A ketosis product, no. I just wouldn't. You can if you really want to. I can't think of a reason why I would, unless you have Alzheimer's or seizures, and you're having a therapeutic kind of ketone experience. But for the rest of us who are just, no. Anyway, that's how I feel. Let your body make ketones for free during the fast. That's it.

Melanie Avalon: First of all, just to discuss a little bit more the collagen versus the bone broth thing. The benefits people turn to collagen for, I think it can often be got from a more whole foods synergistic form of bone broth. Actually, today's episode is sponsored in part by Beauty & the Broth, which is one of my favorite bone broth companies. Check out the spot in today's show to get the details about that. We have a code for I think 15% off. But her bone broth is, it comes in concentrated form. It ships straight to your door and then you reconstitute it to whatever strength you like with water, it has no added salt, which is huge. It's organic, delicious. So, that might be something to try to if you want to open your window with something rather than this shake of collagen and exogenous ketones like Gin was talking about. I would just have some bone broth.

Gin Stephens: And some food.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, which bone broth in a way is a food.

Gin Stephens: And some food along with it, but not-- Yeah, bone broth is a food. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: I think what Kathy is touching on is, I don't know how common this confusion is out there, but what I'm getting from her question and possibly there are other people who think this. I think they think they're doing a keto diet and fasting is creating ketosis. That means, it goes together still. They think they still have to do a keto diet with fasting, which is not the case. So, intermittent fasting does not mandate a keto diet in your eating window. You can do one. You don't have to.

Gin Stephens: Yep, but you don't have to-- There was a period of time where people were really saying that like, "If you're not doing intermittent fasting with keto, you're wasting your time." I'm like, "Really? Okay. Well, I guess tell that to my 80 pounds that I lost."

Melanie Avalon: That's funny. [laughs]

Gin Stephens: Oh, and when this episode comes out, Melanie, it will be almost exactly my seven-year maintenance anniversary. Seven years of maintaining my weight. In that seven years was I keto for any of the days? No.

Melanie Avalon: Wow. Yeah. Point being Kathy is, you don't have to be keto in the eating window and for the BHB exogenous ketones, well like I said, I did interview Dom D'Agostino and we went into the deepest of deepest dives into ketones. Of course, he is more pro-exogenous ketones.

Gin Stephens: Is he?

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm.

Gin Stephens: He thinks you should.

Melanie Avalon: Well, no, no, sorry. That's a blanket statement. His work in part is clinically studying exogenous ketones, and the signaling effects they have, and their effects in different therapeutic states. You were saying differently for therapeutic diet addressing a specific issue.

Gin Stephens: There are definitely roles for exogenous ketones, but not for most of us, I think. That's what I really think.

Melanie Avalon: I think if you listen to the episode, which again, it's not out yet. We'll put a link to it in the show notes. I think listening to my conversation with him, he is very pro-exogenous ketones, but for specific situations, and I think listening to it, you don't walk away thinking I need exogenous ketones. That's not what you walk away thinking.

Gin Stephens: Good. I actually walked away from that Mark Mattson interview. He's a neurological guy that's his expertise. I walked away thinking, "Yeah, we really don't want to have that with food [laughs] for whatever reason." Again, whatever his mechanism was that he talked about. Nobody please ask me to find that, because I swear, it was 2017 or something, and people were just starting to talk about exogenous ketones, and I heard him talking about on our podcast, and I don't even remember who.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, So, I'm really excited to air that. That was a moment, because I've been following him for so long. So very long. We've talked for two hours.

Gin Stephens: That's when I interviewed Mark Mattson for Intermittent Fasting Stories. It was surreal. I was so excited. That one hasn't come out yet. By the time people are listening to this, it hasn't come out yet, but it was so exciting to talk to him because he knows his stuff.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. I already told you this, Gin, but he was like, "Yeah, I'm going in few days to stay with Rhonda Patrick." I was like, "Oh, my goodness." [laughs] So close. But in any case, Kathy, I hope that helped with your question.

Gin Stephens: But just to go back to it again, like I said, you can have whatever you want in your eating window, and if that shake is something you want, and you love it, and you want to keep having it, because you feel it's giving you benefits, have it. Go for it. We're not telling you not to. I just would hesitate on feeling like you needed exogenous ketones, especially in your eating window. That's all.

Melanie Avalon: Agreed. All right. Well, this has been absolutely wonderful. So, a few things for listeners before we go. If you would like to submit your own question for the show, you can directly email questions@ifpodcast.com or you can go to ifpodcast.com and you can submit questions there. The show notes for today's episode will be at ifpodcast.com/episode256. Those show notes will have a full transcript. So, definitely check that out. And then, you can follow us on Instagram. I am @melanieavalon, Gin is @ginstephens, and I think that is all things. All righty. I just want to say, I'm so happy we got to the iron question. It's been hanging over me for months. I was like, "It'll come to me."

Gin Stephens: Awesome. I'm glad we talked about it. I'm glad I was able to research and find more answers, because [laughs] it was so long ago that I read that article. I was like, "I got to look this up a little bit more."

Melanie Avalon: All right. Well, anything from you, Gin, before we go?

Gin Stephens: No. I think that's it. Talk to you soon.

Melanie Avalon: Talk to you next week. Bye.

Gin Stephens: 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. We're not doctors. If you enjoyed the show, please consider writing your review on iTunes. We couldn't do this without our amazing team, administration by Sharon Merriman, editing by Podcast Doctors, show notes and artwork by Brianna Joyner, transcripts by SpeechDocs, theme music by Leland Cox. See you next week.

STUFF WE LIKE

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

LINKS

BUY:
Melanie's What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine
Gin's Delay, Don't Deny: Living an Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle
Feast Without Fear: Food and the Delay, Don't Deny Lifestyle
Fast. Feast. Repeat.: The Clean Fast Protocol for Health, Longevity, and Weight Loss--Including the 21-Day FAST Start Guide
Clean(ish): Eat (Mostly) Clean, Live (Mainly) Clean, and Unlock Your Body's Natural Ability to Self-Clean

Intermittent Fasting Stories

Life Lessons

More on Melanie: MelanieAvalon.com

More on Gin: GinStephens.com

Theme Music Composed By Leland Cox: LelandCox.com

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Feb 27

Episode 254: EMF Blocking, New IF Study, Alternate Day Fasting (ADF), Protein Sparing Modified Fast (PSMF), Calorie Restriction, Supplement Timing, Collagen Peptides, And More!

GET THE EPISODE ON ITUNES!

Differential Effects of One Meal per Day in the Evening on Metabolic Health and Physical Performance in Lean Individuals

Welcome to Episode 254 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine and Gin Stephens, author of Delay, Don't Deny: Living An Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle.

Today's episode of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast is brought to you by:

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SHOW NOTES

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JOOVV: For A Limited Time Go To Joovv.com/ifpodcast And Use The Code IFPODCAST For An Exclusive Discount!

Listener Q&A: Shay - 2.5 yrs of IF

Get 10% off Maria Emmerich’s PSMF packages, supplement plans, ebooks, classes and strength training programs with the code melanieavalon at melanieavalon.com/ketoadapted

Listener Q&A: Jen - Bone broth/collagen peptide timing, serrapeptase timing

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AVALONX SERRAPEPTASE: Get Melanie’s Serrapeptase Supplement: A Proteolytic Enzyme Which May Help Clear Sinuses And Brain Fog, Reduce Allergies, Support A Healthy Inflammatory State, Enhance Wound Healing, Break Down Fatty Deposits And Amyloid Plaque, Supercharge Your Fast, And More!

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TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Welcome to Episode 254 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, author of What When Wine: Lose Weight and Feel Great with Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, and Wine. And I'm here with my cohost, Gin Stephens, author of Fast. Feast. Repeat.: The Comprehensive Guide to Delay, Don't Deny Intermittent Fasting. For more on us, check out ifpodcast.com, melanieavalon.com, and ginstephens.com. Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this podcast do not constitute medical advice or treatment. So, pour yourself a cup of black coffee, a mug of tea, or even a glass of wine, if it's that time, and get ready for The Intermittent Fasting Podcast.

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And one more thing before we jump in. Are you fasting clean inside and out? Did you know that one of our largest exposures to toxic compounds, including endocrine disrupters, which mess with our hormones, obesogens which literally cause our body to store and gain weight, as well as carcinogens linked to cancer is actually through our skincare? Europe has banned thousands of these compounds for being toxic, and the US has only banned around 10. It's honestly shocking. When you're putting on your conventional skincare makeup, you're likely putting toxic compounds directly into your body. These compounds can make you feel bad, can make it really hard to lose weight, can affect your hormones, your mood, your health. And ladies, if you're thinking of having kids, when you have a child, these compounds actually go directly through the placenta into the newborn. That means your skincare makeup that you're putting on today actually affects the health of future generations.

Did you know that conventional lipstick for example often tests high for lead, and the half-life of lead can be up to 30 years in your bones? That means when you put on your lipstick, 30 years later, half of that lead might still be in your body. Thankfully, there's an easy, easy solution to this. There's a company called Beautycounter and they were founded on a mission to change this. Every single ingredient and their products is extensively tested to be safe for your skin. You can actually feel good about what you put on. And on top of that, their products actually work. That's because they're not “all natural.” They actually combine the best of both worlds, both synthetic and natural ingredients to create products that actually support the health of your skin and make your skin look amazing. They have skincare lines for all your skin types, deodorant, shampoo and conditioner that I love, anti-aging and brightening peels, and vitamin C serums, and incredible makeup. If you see my makeup on Instagram, that's all Beautycounter. You can shop with us at melanieavalon.com/beautycounter.

And if you're thinking of making safe skincare a part of your future like we have, we definitely suggest becoming a Band of Beauty member. It's sort of like the Amazon Prime for clean beauty. You get 10% back in product credit, free shipping on qualifying orders and a welcome gift that is worth way more than the price of the yearlong membership, totally completely worth it. Also, definitely join my clean beauty email list at melanieavalon.com/cleanbeauty, I give away a lot of free things on that list and join me on my Facebook group, Clean Beauty and Safe Skincare with Melanie Avalon. I do a weekly giveaway every single week for Beautycounter, people share their experience and product reviews, and so much more. And again, the link to shop with us is melanieavalon.com/beautycounter. All right now enjoy the show.

Melanie Avalon: Hi, everybody and welcome. This is Episode number 254 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon and I'm here with Gin Stephens.

Gin Stephens: Hi, everybody.

Melanie Avalon: How are you today, Gin?

Gin Stephens: Doing great. Coming to you from the beach cottage looking at the ocean. So, that's always good.

Melanie Avalon: It's so funny to me that you made a last-minute trip there with the amount of time that it gets to get there. By this time, I wouldn't have been able to answer like a last-minute email and you made an entire trip to the beach.

Gin Stephens: Oh, by this time of the day?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.

Gin Stephens: Oh, no. [laughs] Yeah, we decided yesterday, we would come down Will and I. Will came with me and we decided, and I'm like, "All right, we have to leave at 9:30."

Melanie Avalon: Oh, wait, you decided last night. Okay. Never mind, this will be different. I thought you decided today.

Gin Stephens: Well, we decided last night that we would get up and come.

Melanie Avalon: That I could do, because I would have planned.

Gin Stephens: I didn't have to do anything. The thing about coming to the beach, it's so easy. All you have to do is throw clothes in a bag and go, because I have everything I need here, including my toothbrush. I don't need to bring any of that. All I need is clothes. We literally just threw our clothes and bags, hopped in the car, and came down. It takes about four hours to get here with stops, and they're always bathroom, and get more coffee stops for me, but Will is a frequent eater. So, we had to get him food.

Melanie Avalon: Can I ask you a question?

Gin Stephens: Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: Both at your house and at the beach house, what is on your nightstand?

Gin Stephens: Okay, well, at my regular house, I have a really good sized, a big nightstand that's like drawers. It's bigger than a normal nightstand. It's almost a small chest of drawers. We have one on each side of the bed. They're the same. I have a lamp, and I have a book, and I just chose it because it's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and I didn't choose that especially, but it's a southern book. But that's just the one I happen to have, because it's just a black, simple, and I like the name of it. On top of that, I have a vase. Well, it's a blue and white like urn kind of a thing with some dried roses in it. I had the blue and white vase, whatever it is, bowl, it's a bowl. But my neighbor, when we moved in gave me these flowers. They're roses that she dehydrates, and they're white, and they're sitting in. Anyway, that's what I have.

Melanie Avalon: That's all you have? There's nothing else?

Gin Stephens: Well, I have a coaster, in case I want to sit something on. But at the beach, it's a tiny, tiny little bedroom, because this whole house is just under thousand square feet. It's really a tiny little cottage, and it's three bedrooms, two baths, and just under a thousand square feet. That tells you how little it is. The bedside table is literally 12/12, it's tiny. So, nothing sits on that. I have a floor lamp that I turn off and on that's behind it. I have room for a floor lamp, and in that tiny little table and at night I do put my phone on it to charge. Is that what you're going to ask me?

Melanie Avalon: Yes.

Gin Stephens: Yes, I do sleep with my phone beside the bed.

Melanie Avalon: Yes, I've been brainstorming and gathering data. Have I mentioned on this show about how I went to develop the line of EMF-blocking products?

Gin Stephens: I think you did. Yeah, because we talked about how I have all that electrical stuff coming into my house.

Melanie Avalon: Yes, yes. I've been polling in my Facebook group what people have on their nightstand, because I really want to create something that goes on your phone, so that you can use your phone on your nightstand at night, and be protected from those EMFs. Most people are sleeping, phone is on their nightstand very near to their head. So, I really think that can affect a lot of people's sleep and health.

Gin Stephens: It would not surprise me. I actually started plugging it in the bathroom for a few weeks, and that just lasted a few weeks and I brought it back. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: The way that they finagled the studies, it is stuff that happens in the processed food industry and a lot of industries. The way they set up the studies to establish safety for EMFs, especially with things like phones, it's not any way you'd be using it in real life. It just is not. But when I did my poll about 80 people answered, what do you think was the number one thing and it was open ended. I just said, "What's in your nightstand?" and then I made an Excel doc.

Gin Stephens: A lamp or did they say their cell phone?

Melanie Avalon: Lamp was number two, phone was number three, what do you think number one was? Oh, no, books were number two. Water.

Gin Stephens: Oh, that's interesting. I do not sleep with water beside my bed.

Melanie Avalon: I do.

Gin Stephens: Do you?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.

Gin Stephens: You're waking up drinking water in the bed?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, just in case. I'm thirsty in the middle of the night.

Gin Stephens: Nope. I've never once been like, "Man, I'm thirsty in the middle of the night." I think I'll [laughs] some water. Unless I'm in the past days of when I was super hungover, I might would get up and go drink water but that's not something that's typical now at this stage of my life.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. So, water was number one, then lamp, then book, and then phone.

Gin Stephens: See, I didn't even say phone because it doesn't sit there all the time. That's not a part of my nightstand, it's just there while I'm sleeping. If you'd said, "What's on your nightstand while you're sleeping?" Phone would have made it. But if I just walked into the bedroom, the phone is not on my nightstand.

Melanie Avalon: Very, very true. Other things were like lotion, that had a lot. Phone charger, glasses.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I've got my phone charger. This is how I've made it pretty, so, you don't have to see it. I took one of those Command adhesive hooks and Command adhesived it to the back of the dresser, the bedside table, and then I have the phone charger tied in a knot around that hook. So, I just pull it up to charge, and I throw it back there, so you don't see it during the day.

Melanie Avalon: If I made something for you to put on your phone, when your phone is on your nightstand at night, how would you want it? Would you want it really minimal, would you want it to hold something? What features would you want? What do you want it to have a way that you put your charger?

Gin Stephens: That's super tricky. Could it be also integrated with the charger?

Melanie Avalon: Yes, yes, it could.

Gin Stephens: See, I'm very into aesthetics and minimal clutter. If it's not pretty and minimal clutter, I'm not going to use it.

Melanie Avalon: That's why my initial feeling was just a very minimalistic box that maybe was a tray on top, but very minimal, and then you put your phone underneath. The cool thing is the blocking. It does not have to go 360 cover completely. It just has to go vertically between you and the phone. Does that make sense? There just has to be like a vertical wall of protection between you and the phone. So, it could be one sided or it could be on a swivel, so, you can turn it around. This is way harder to brainstorm for than I thought. [laughs]

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I can imagine. That does sound hard. Plus, everyone has such a different aesthetic.

Melanie Avalon: I know. I was thinking very minimal for the beginning, and then if it goes well make options for different more elaborate things. So, you vote minimal?

Gin Stephens: Well, I do. Just because I'm not going to put something that's bulky or whatever. That's just not my aesthetic.

Melanie Avalon: Well, listeners, if you have ideas or if there are other EMF blocking products you would like, let me know.

Gin Stephens: I was imagining just you slipped it into this little sleeve or something.

Melanie Avalon: That was my initial thought. Now, I'm thinking, but people do really like the charging option. What I really wanted to do was a wireless charging option. So, you're putting it in and it is wireless charging. But that actually itself emits EMF.

Gin Stephens: Yeah. See, it would have to be have cords, extra cords. I try to minimize the number of cords that are stretching all around when I can.

Melanie Avalon: Same, same, same. Yeah, maybe it just has a slot for the cord. I wish all phones had a universal charger, because then it can be integrated.

Gin Stephens: You wouldn't want it to just have a USB port, because I think all of them plug into that.

Melanie Avalon: Well, the thing about the USB port, because it's due to the USB port that makes it more integrated and easier, then there's the clutter of the cord. Because then you put the phone in, and you plug the phone into your cord, and the cord to the USB.

Gin Stephens: Well, then, I think you just want something with a slot that they put their charger cord that they already have through.

Melanie Avalon: Exactly. The life of brainstorming. Did you see, I wanted to talk about intermittent fasting study that came out recently?

Gin Stephens: I might have seen it. I don't remember. I see a lot of things people share them with me obviously as you know. I think I did see something recently. What was it?

Melanie Avalon: It was January 11th.

Gin Stephens: Oh, yeah, I saw that.

Melanie Avalon: Differential effects of one meal per day in the evening-

Gin Stephens: Wait, then maybe I didn't.

Melanie Avalon: -on metabolic health and physical performance in lean individuals.

Gin Stephens: They didn't compare it to other meal timing there right.

Melanie Avalon: They compared a single meal and a 22:2 split, which is very cool, because normally I feel it's rare that these studies actually look at one meal a day in two hours versus three meals per day. It was only 13 participants.

Gin Stephens: I'm not sure if I saw that. Actually, I can't remember. January 11th is a million years ago. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: Yes, I know.

Gin Stephens: When I was also-- those were the days when I was hot and heavy recording all the time because Clean(ish) had just come out.

Melanie Avalon: Yes. They consumed the same amount of calories.

Gin Stephens: Okay, yeah, I have not seen this one.

Melanie Avalon: I'll put a link to it in the show notes, but the findings were very favorable. The conclusion was that a single meal per day in the evening lowers body weight and adapts metabolic flexibility during exercise via increased fat oxidation, whereas physical performance was not affected.

Gin Stephens: How long did they do it for?

Melanie Avalon: They did it for 11 days.

Gin Stephens: If I were designing an intermittent fasting study, it would certainly not be for 11 days. It needs to be longer, so that they really have time to develop their metabolic flexibility. It almost seems to me like that's just way too short. I'm happy they found positive things, but knowing what we know about how long it takes your body to adjust, 11 days is nothing.

Melanie Avalon: It was a randomized crossover. They did one of the options, then two weeks washout, and then the other option. What they were focusing on was athletic performance. Oh, and they were wearing a continuous glucose monitor, which is very cool and they did a lot of testing of different athletic performance tests. Like a cycle test, where they check their fat oxidation, and their maximum oxygen uptake, they did a strength test.

Gin Stephens: And again, I think that it would make so much sense to give them time to really adapt, because I bet and on a 11 day, I know that a lot of people, obviously, the group that they used was athletic lean males, so, they probably adapt more quickly than someone maybe a 45-year-old woman, who's been struggling with her weight for decades. It's a different group of people. But I could imagine for someone like that in the second group, someone who's metabolically not healthy. They could actually have reduced performance during the first 11 days. I would actually predict that instead of improved performance.

Melanie Avalon: These people were healthy, they were trainers-- Well, not trainers, they had training experience. Their BMI was between 20 and 30, their fat was between 12% and 30%. They were likely already a more metabolically healthy population. it was a small study, very small. It's only 13 people.

Gin Stephens: Anybody who's listening, we would love to have some studies where people have time to become really adapted before we see how their body change. Or, maybe you could check them all throughout as they adapt to. That would be fascinating. See how the body changes every day as you're going through the adaptation period and we certainly know anecdotally from people who go through it, it's very common to feel good, and then you feel terrible, and then you feel better, and there's a lot that our bodies have to go through as we're adapting. I would not judge intermittent fasting on what happens in the first month to your body is all I'm saying.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I think it's a little bit better just based on, this wasn't like menopausal women who are sedentary. This was like active, young, healthy people. Well, there was one really interesting finding. They actually found lower blood sugar levels during the second half of the day in the one meal per day group. Isn't that interesting?

Gin Stephens: Well, it echoes what I find in my experience. When I was wearing the CGM, my blood glucose went down and stayed down after my body flipped that metabolic switch every day. That's exactly what my body did. So, I'm not surprised at that at all.

Melanie Avalon: They ate between 5 PM and 7 PM for the one meal a day.

Gin Stephens: That's a cool study.

Melanie Avalon: So, we will put a link to that in the show notes.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I had not seen that one. I saw something. I can't remember what I saw. Something came out recently and I don't remember a thing about it, except that it was positive. But it definitely wasn't that. Unless someone shared, and all I did was read the abstract, and didn't dig in, it is possible, and it didn't register. I know there was something that came out, but my brain is full. [laughs] Stuffs falling out right now actively.

Melanie Avalon: It's interesting. It was funded by a diabetes foundation.

Gin Stephens: Well, I definitely think that this is a great protocol for fasting for anyone who has diabetes as we know from The Diabetes Code.

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Melanie Avalon: Shall we jump into some listener questions for today?

Gin Stephens: Yes.

Melanie Avalon: All right. To start things off, we have a question from Shay and the subject is: "2.5 years of IF." Shay says, "I started IF in August 2019 at 125 pounds after hearing about the health benefits. I am 39 years old, five feet 4.75 inches tall." 4.75 that is very specific. She says, "I started with 16:8 and worked my way up to 20:4 within a few weeks as that felt good. I do not restrict anything in my window but aim to eat mostly Whole Foods. I am moderately active. I do Pilates two times a week and walk a few miles each day. I also take a few HIIT classes or HIIT classes here and there. I manage to maintain my 125 pounds, but I started mixing in two full down days when the pandemic hit and I started working from home. I enjoyed the way I felt doing the full down days. How long should we spend on a new method of IF if we decide to switch it up?

Within the past few months, I have gained some weight and now I'm at 133 to 135 pounds depending on the day. My pants are definitely showing the tightness as well. I'm not happy with how I feel or how my clothes are fitting. I played around with a modified ADF with two 500 calorie days a week. I'm not sure if I like the full down days or the modified down days better. I've been able to do both with no issue. I have blood work down with my doctor and everything came back great. I'm feeling very discouraged with IF and the fact that I've gained around 10 pounds. I believe that I am just able to eat a lot more than I should be in my eating window. This is where it would be helpful to have a guideline of how many calories, etc., I should be consuming per day, but I know we want to avoid a diet mindset. Help, I have no idea what IF schedule I should be following, or what type of diet I should be eating, or does IF no longer work for me. But I do know is that I'm 10 pounds up and I do not want to give up the health benefits of IF." frowny emoji.

Gin Stephens: Well, there's a lot in there, Shay, and I know it's super frustrating to be gaining weight, and not understanding why. I can remember this is before I was doing intermittent fasting, I gained 50 pounds in 18 months. I was not doing intermittent fasting at the time, but I gained 50 pounds in 18 months, and I did not change what I was eating or doing during that period of time. Well, okay, I say that. I did stop taking diet pills. [laughs] That was that period of time in my life when I stopped taking the diet pills. Other than that, though, I didn't change what I was eating or doing. But I was no longer taking diet pills and I gained 50 pounds in 18 months. I remember talking to the doctor, I'm like, "I don't know what's happening. I'm not eating more," but I probably was. I was under a lot of stress, I'd probably messed up my body in many, many ways, I had some hormonal changes going on, I had used one form of birth control and switched to a different one. There were so many variables going on at the time.

But something changed in what I was doing or in my body and the weight just piled on. It certainly didn't seem I was eating so much food that I should be gaining 50 pounds. But I tell that story to say that the body is really, really complicated and there are so many factors. So, let's unpack what's happened. You are between 133 to 135 right now, and you're almost 5'5". You and I are about the same height. You are in a healthy weight range, because the last time I got on the scale-- I'm 5'5". The last time I got on the scale back in 2017, I saw a weight of I think it was 130. We're a very, very similar size. I know that is no comfort if you feel you're fluffier than you want to be. It doesn't matter. Well, I don't care that Gin and I are the same size. I want to be leaner and I get it. But I'm telling you that you are in a healthy weight for your body. Now, if you are slowly gaining and you're going to keep gaining, that's definitely not okay. Now, if your body is just come to a new point where it's settling, that's different. Maybe this is the way your body wants to be right now at this stage of your life. Our bodies do change over time for whatever reason.

But I would ask you to look back and think, you've been doing intermittent fasting for two and a half years, and it sounds like for two years of it, your weight was stable or even just over two years, because it was only recently that you started to gain weight. Something changed. Something in your body has changed. When I look back to me at that time, when I rapidly gained 50 pounds in 18 months, there were several things that changed. I stopped taking diet pills, I moved, I was under a great deal of stress, my birth control was changing. All those factors, I can't put my finger on-- Well, it was the quitting the diet pills, that probably was a huge factor. Oh, it was the birth control change. Actually, my weight started to go up before I stopped taking the diet pills when I changed my birth control that really felt it was a factor at the time. All that again to say, our bodies are really, really complicated. You asked, does IF no longer work for me? Well, of course, IF still "works for you," because intermittent fasting is a very healthy way to live. Of course, IF is working for you. It's a very healthy way to live. We're talking about the weight gain.

Intermittent fasting itself does not "cause" weight gain. You haven't been doing this approach for all these years, and maintaining your weight, and all of a sudden, intermittent fasting broke, right? That isn't what happens. But something in your body has changed and I would see if I could figure out what that might be. It could be the stress, it could be a new medication, it could be maybe you were sick. I know, I've talked before. I don't know if on this podcast if I have, I probably have. I have a friend that got food poisoning, and it changed her gut dramatically, and it took her over a year to get back to health from that. So, see if you can go back and see what might have changed at the time. Intermittent fasting doesn't "stop working," but there's something you're going to have to dig into more deeply. I don't know what you said. Your very last sentence was, I do not want to give up the health benefits of IF. I don't know why you would. To me, if you quit intermittent fasting and went to an all-day eating paradigm, I can't imagine that causing more weight loss or health benefits than sticking to intermittent fasting. Does that make sense, Melanie?

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm.

Gin Stephens: Like quitting intermittent fasting, I feel you might would see really rapid weight gain at that point if your body's already having some weight gain. I don't feel that would be the answer, but I would try to figure out, what could it have been? What could have changed in my body, what happened right before the weight gain started, have I been under a lot of stress? Maybe your body doesn't like the down days, because you talked about how you're very, very active. You do Pilates, you walk every day, you do high intensity interval training here and there, you were maintaining, then you started doing two full down days, and you were working from home. Maybe that feels too much for your body. Maybe you need to go back to a daily eating window approach and see. I don't think that more fasting is always the answer. It could feel too much to your body, but that also might not be it. It could be something else. It could be something that's changed with your gut or something that's changed with your health. Something that's changed hormonally. Maybe you're like, "Oh, that's when I started taking-."

Melanie Avalon: Or, a medication.

Gin Stephens: -such and such medication. Exactly. "Oh, that's when such and such happened, that's when I had this illness and I'm still inflamed from that." For example, I'm just going to say COVID. We don't talk a lot about COVID on here, because that's not our expertise, and the science is unfolding. But COVID causes a great deal of inflammation in the body. Anecdotally from people that are in the Delay, Don't Deny community, we're seeing a lot of people, who after going through COVID have a lot of inflammation that sticks around for a really, really long time. What comes along with inflammation, weight gain. That's just an anecdotal kind of a thing, but that's a factor. We're still learning, of course, what the long-term effects of COVID might be on the body, but how long does the inflammation go on, long COVID, I don't know.

You didn't mention whether you had COVID or not, but I'm just throwing that out there. Maybe somebody is listening and they're now they're having the ding, ding, ding going off in their head of, "Oh, my gosh, I did start having increased inflammation after COVID, and my weight went up, and I had been stable before that." Does that mean intermittent fasting has stopped working? I would say in that case, that means your body probably needs it more than ever, because we know intermittent fasting tends to decrease inflammation. Anything you could do to decrease inflammation would be a good thing. I know I talked all around in circles. [laughs] I hope that this is just a temporary little blip weight gain and you're not just going to keep going up and up like I said, because really 133 to 135 is a healthy weight. I know if we've been 125 for two years, we feel really good at that. It doesn't feel good to go up at all, and then stabilize at a new spot. I know that's frustrating. So, hopefully some of what I said will help somebody. Hopefully, you. Hopefully, it'll help you go, "Oh, it's got to be this, and then you can start thinking about what to do next." But as far as the part about us telling you how many calories to eat, that wouldn't make any sense at all just because our bodies are all so different.

Calories in, you can only adjust calories in so much, but then it's the calories out that makes all the difference what your body does. If your body slows your metabolic rate, you can have the same exact amount of calories you've always had, and now, you're gaining weight, because your body has allowed your metabolic rate for whatever reason. There isn't going to be a calories formula we could give you, because our bodies are too different. I know I went all around, and around, and around on that answer, but there's just a lot going on in there, and it's hard to know. So, what do you think, Melanie?

Melanie Avalon: I thought those were all fantastic thoughts as per usual. I actually had some follow up questions for you. It's such a perfect question she asked, because we were just talking about this with that other study. So, how would you answer her question about how long should we spend on a new method of IF if we decide to switch it up?

Gin Stephens: I think you need to give yourself time to see what happens. I can't give you a number of that as well. If you don't like it, then you can stop. You don't have to give it time. I say that, but with ADF, for example, some people might not like it the first day, but after they've done it for a week, they settle in. Maybe give yourself a week to see if you like it. Then two or three weeks, at least, minimum to see if anything changes or at least even a month. The longer you give it the more you'll know if it's suiting you. If you absolutely hate it, let's say you try a down day with full fast, no calories, zero calorie, clean fast down day for 36-hour fast, and then a 12-hour up day, for example. Let's say, you feel miserable and you hate it. You might be like, "Oh, I felt shaky, I felt terrible, I don't like that." You might want to try it one more time a couple weeks later just to see if that was just a one off or if really, "Okay, I feel the same way again, I don't like it." Then you have permission to never try that again if you hate it.

Melanie Avalon: And then second related question, because I find with ADF, I feel like most people are pretty aware of if they like it, don't like it, and then if they modified or just complete, like a full down day, she says that she doesn't know which one she likes better is one better, if they can do either one.

Gin Stephens: Here's some interesting stuff about the research. People actually lost more weight when they had the 500-calorie down day. There's this mistaken-- Oh, the full fast is "better," but they actually had better weight loss results or I think even fat loss results on the 500-calorie down day. Now, we don't recommend that you like to snack on the 500 calories all day long. Keep it in a really short eating window at whatever time of the day works better for you. For that, you're doing a clean fast, then you have the meal, then you have a second clean fast. Sometimes, people get really confused. They're like, "Doesn't food break a fast? So, why am I eating a meal?" Well, yes, it breaks the fast. It does break the fast. You're not fasting during the part of it where you're eating the 500-calorie meal. Because some people get really confused. They're like, "I did a 42-hour fast and I had the meal." I'm like, "Well, you didn't do it 42-hour fast with a 500-calorie meal in the middle of it. What you did was maybe a 21 hour fast and then the 500-calorie meal, and then you did a second fast that might have been 20 hours and a half or something. So, that's not a 42-hour fast.

Eating a 500-calorie meal does break the fast? Yes, but it is a well-researched ADF approach, and it was great at giving the participants the metabolic benefits because of the up day, they had great fat loss. So, there is no "better." It's all what feels good to you. You don't have to do it the same way every time. There are some people who just say, "You know what? I'm going to do a full fast if it feels right." If maybe around the time I normally eat dinner, I'm really, really struggling, I'll eat a 500-calorie meal, and then have the second fast, and that's perfectly fine. It doesn't have to be the same way every time, and it isn't always going to be one versus the other.

Melanie Avalon: You have good answers for both of those. Yes, so, going back to everything that Gin originally said about Shay's question, I agree 100% that there are so many factors that could have changed that would lead to this. It's not necessarily the fasting. There could be a big change that happened, so, revisiting all of that. Something I wanted to touch on was, she asked us a guideline of calories and Gin was saying that there's not one answer for people, which I agree with as well. But I wanted to touch on, you're saying that we don't give a guideline of calories because we want to avoid a diet mindset. I believe it is possible to live in a paradigm of what you're eating that does influence what you're eating without being a diet mindset. The calorie counting, that's where I feel it is becoming restrictive, because when you are calorie counting, you're putting an end point to, "I cannot have any more food after this point even if I'm still hungry." It's automatically being restrictive, because it's saying that you cannot have more food after a certain point in time when the eating period should be a time when you're eating to satiety till you're full, not to some imaginary finish line that you can't cross.

On the flipside, you can make conscious choices I believe about what you're eating and I don't consider that to be a diet mindset or even restrictive. It's just because you're choosing what foods you are choosing to eat. If you're making certain choices in that food realm, it can encourage in a way automatic calorie restriction potentially based on the foods that you're eating. I don't know what you're eating Shay, which actually--

Gin Stephens: Well, she said mostly wholefoods.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, wholefoods, okay. Shay is eating mostly wholefoods. But just to expand the question a little bit beyond Shay and then I will come back to Shay specifically, if a person is eating more on the processed food realm just switching to wholefoods, for example, it could make a massive, massive difference, and their satiety, and the level of calories they consume to reach that satiety. I don't consider that a diet mindset. It could become a diet mindset, but I don't think it has to be. For Shay, mostly wholefoods is still vague. You could keep playing around and trying different fasting things or you could look at what you're eating, and maybe play around, and make tweaks there. That might have a pretty measurable effect. I don't know, if you have tried low carb, that might be something to try. I don't know if you've tried lower fat from wholefoods. That could be something to try. But there's a lot that could possibly be done there in regards to what you're eating. Then the mostly part, maybe it is really mostly wholefoods or maybe it's mostly wholefoods, but then enough of non-mostly wholefoods that create a state where you're not losing weight, that's a possibility as well.

Gin Stephens: The part that really strikes me is just that she was weight stable with what she was doing for over two years and then all of a sudden, bam, up 10 pounds.

Melanie Avalon: How did it align with a pandemic? So, she started working from home?

Gin Stephens: Yep, and then she started switching up to the down days, and I'm not really sure when the weight gain began. Yeah, I just don't know. I don't know when the weight gain started. That's the question that I'm not really sure about. But she's been doing it for two and a half years overall and she said that she's gained the 10 pounds. It sounded pretty quickly and recently.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, in a few months, basically.

Gin Stephens: It sounds like the pandemics been going on for a long time. So, it seems it just all of a sudden has happened even as the pandemic has been going on.

Melanie Avalon: As far as guidelines of how to help this, something else we could try. I recently interviewed Maria Emmerich. I have not aired the show yet. She talks a lot about the protein-sparing modified fast approach. The interesting thing about her approach, so the protein-sparing modified fast approach is, while there are a lot of definitions to it, but I think the clinical definition, like, when they would use it in the studies is, its calorie restricted and its basically just protein. It is very calorie restricted. It actually could fall into a modified ADF approach.

Gin Stephens: Is it down day? It's a down day, a protein down day.

Melanie Avalon: Basically, only protein and then weighing chicken breasts, and egg whites, and stuff like that. Then you can maybe add lettuce and I think broccoli, like, some greens. I do actually think so just stepping aside if one is doing some severe calorie restriction, making it mostly protein in my opinion is the way to go to maximize muscle mass preservation and overall health and wellness. Maria Emmerich's approach, though, is not calorie restricted at all. She advocates for having a couple days a week of PSMF day, and basically on that day you just eat PSMF foods. So, it's not calorie restricted, but the effect of it, and she has all of these recipe books. She gave me a discount code. So, I'll put a link to that in the show notes. She has amazing recipe books. But basically, you can eat these really delicious meals. I'm in shock with all the recipes she's come up with, but they're basically just protein. That for a lot of people can be the thing that can really jumpstart this whole process. That's something you could try, basically, keep doing-- Is she doing one meal a day? 20:4, yes.

Gin Stephens: Well, it's hard to know what she's doing exactly right now, because she said she's doing some down days with ADF. I don't really know exactly what she's doing this minute. She was doing a couple down days. I don't know if she still is.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. Okay. That is something you could try where a few days a week you do a one-meal-a-day type approach in your 20:4 window and you eat these PSMF foods. I actually think that that might especially since ADF in the past has-

Gin Stephens: Been something that she enjoyed?

Melanie Avalon: -enjoyed. Yes. I think that might really, really work for you. Then I also just reread the sentence, because all I was saying that she eats mostly wholefoods. I didn't read the part before that. I do not restrict anything in my window, but aim to eat mostly wholefoods. There might be things slipping in there that because of whatever they are, are going to make it difficult to lose weight. Those are my two suggestions. Looking at what you're eating anyways, and then possibly trying this PSMF days approach.

Gin Stephens: All right, well, let us know, Shay, and really, really do that deep dive into what changed. What change, what was different? Were you sick, was it a medication, something like that? If you can think of something, then let us know.

Melanie Avalon: Yes. The medication for example, that could be something that you might not notice it until you notice it, and then it's made metabolic changes that have encouraged your body to be at this new setpoint. I don't want to make a sound hopeless, but it's medications can make your body, and your hypothalamus, and everything slowly come to a different weight, and really want to stay there.

Gin Stephens: That's really my whole journey to when I gained all that weight. It was really I had been taking the doctor prescribed diet pills off and one to maintain my weight for several years and maintaining no problem. I wasn't taking them every single day of my life. There were periods of time when I would take them and then not take them. But as I took them from the doctor, like I said, but then I changed my birth control and then all of a sudden, I gained the first 10 pounds, but I was still doing the diet pills, and not changing what I was eating. Then, shortly after that I was like, "Well, I got to stop taking these diet pills. These are awful for me." I feel terrible. But then the weight gain just escalated. The weight gain began just from when I changed my birth control. There're just so many factors in there, it was hard to know.

We also moved and so that was another reason why I stopped taking the diet pills, because I didn't have the same doctor anymore. I don't know. I've never really made that connection, but that was a big part of it. I'm sure I could have gotten them, and we had been living in Carrollton, and then I moved to Augusta. I'm sure I could have gotten them somewhere in Augusta, but I was like, "Well, we've moved, and I don't have any more, and I don't like the way I feel. So, I'm going to stop now."

Melanie Avalon: I went on birth control in high school for acne. Relatively, rapidly to my life gained a decent amount of weight pretty fast, but you don't really like, you're not expecting it. Because you're not doing anything different besides the medication.

Gin Stephens: Well, see, I had been on birth control. I had two children, I didn't want to have any more at that point I didn't think, but I was on birth control regularly, but then I just switched to a new one. That's when my weight started picking up.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. All righty, well, let us know, Shay.

Gin Stephens: We have a question from Gin and the subject is: "bone broth collagen peptide timing, serrapeptase timing." She says, "Hi, ladies. Love the podcast, and all the great information, and recommendations you both have shared over the years. A bit about me. I've always been normal BMI and have been doing one meal a day IF with clean fasting for about two years now, typically, around 20 to 22 hours of fasting with a three-hour eating window. I'll also usually do a 40 to 44-hour fasts about once a week with a longer eating window the next day." As you want to pop in there, Gin, we recommend make sure you have what we would call an up day. I know you said a longer eating window. The recommendation is at least six to eight hours with at least two meals. Three meals would also be fine. All right, so, she said, "I'm omnivorous and typically eat a more wholefood-based diet, but still enjoy some processed snacky type foods and desserts.

My first question is about opening my window with collagen peptides or bone broth with my one-meal-a-day lifestyle. How long after collagen peptides or bone broth should I wait before eating my actual meal? Melanie has mentioned multiple times how breaking the fast with collagen peptides or bone broth can be very nourishing, especially since the gut has been rested and is primed and ready to receive these rich nutrients. That makes sense to me especially since I've heard how collagen can possibly help heal leaky gut. Of note, I don't have any digestive issues that I'm aware of and can eat pretty much anything comfortably, though my gut microbiome was rated as bad when I took the ZOE test. I want to maximize the benefits of opening my window with collagen peptides or bone broth and don't want to rush the process, but I also don't want to extend my eating window longer than necessary. Not because I'm trying to restrict my window, but because if I wait too long, I find I'm too full to eat as much of the actual solid food I was looking forward to having and/or I finished eating too late in the day and end up uncomfortable sleeping poorly and feeling sluggish the next day. I find I just naturally want to stop eating for the day after about three hours."

Melanie Avalon: All right, so that is a great first question. I love, love, love having bone broth on an empty stomach as a way to open your fast because like Gin said, bone broth is really, really rich in collagen and amino acids that can directly really help heal your gut lining. Actually, today's episode, we have Beauty & the Broth as one of the sponsors. That company makes wonderful concentrated bone broth, so you reconstitute it with water. We do have a coupon code. If you go to melanieavalon.com/broth and use the coupon code MELANIEAVALON, you can get a discount, and you can listen to the ad about it to learn more about their practices. But it's organic, free of added salt, which is really, really hard to find and it's just delicious. I don't know if it's out yet, but she's launching a mushroom vegan version soon, which is exciting. Again, that one's not going to be as rich in the nutrients for healing the gut lining with bone broth.

That to say, I don't think there's a scientific answer to this question. I will just say anecdotally for me what I do is, I typically when I am opening it with a broth, you know how if you have a liquid meal, or a soup, or something, I think it's just intuitive how long you might need to wait before eating. You're not going to like chug a whole thing of liquid, and then want to eat right away with that dilution of your digestive juices, and HCl, and things like that. When I was doing it, I usually would just have some and then probably, because I tend to do it while I'm making the dinner, I'd be sipping on it. By the time I actually eat, it's probably about 15 minutes later, 20 minutes later. I like to think about it, like, if you were at a restaurant, you're having a soup course to start your meal.

Basically, I wouldn't stress about it too much. I would just have it probably minimum 10 minutes, again there's nothing scientific behind that, just intuitively what feels best. Then, that all said, I would not sacrifice because you talked about how if you eat too long or if your window doesn't end up being around three hours that it can interfere with your sleep and feeling sluggish. So, depending on your schedule and that night and what's happening, I would choose the overall eating window timing honoring your sleep rather than stressing about the amount of time after the bone broth. You're going to get the nutrients either way. It's not if you don't have it to open your window and you have it with your window that you're not going to get the benefits, you're still going to get the benefits. Basically, I would have it, maybe wait 10 minutes, maybe a little bit longer, but I would honor the overall eating window and how it aligns with your sleep most importantly.

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Gin Stephens: All right, so we have the second part of her question, and it says, "somewhat related, I started taking the Avalon X serrapeptase supplement about a month ago." Congrats, Melanie. "I don't have a specific goal in mind, though, I'm hoping it will help with some scar tissue I have. The directions say to take it on an empty stomach. Number one, how far in the fasted state do I need to wait until I can take it? And two, how long after taking it should I wait before opening my eating window? As with the collagen peptides or bone broth, I want to maximize the benefits of serrapeptase. Would it be reasonable to take it at bedtime about five to six hours into my fast, but wouldn't I still be in the fed state? Since serrapeptase somewhat mimics autophagy, I imagine I also want to wait a good while after taking it before I break my fast, so it can work. Its magic. Thank you, ladies. I appreciate the time you both take for your listeners," Gin.

Melanie Avalon: All right, Gin. Wonderful questions. I have answers for you. The serrapeptase for listeners, who are not familiar, it is a supplement created by the Japanese silkworm, but now we culture it in a lab. It is vegan. When you take it in the fasted state, which I will elaborate on for Gin's question, it goes into your bloodstream and it can break down problematic proteins that your body may be reacting to. It can really help with things like allergies, and inflammation, and brain fog. It's amazing for that. Then studies have shown that it can help enhance wound healing, actually reduce cholesterol, break down amyloid plaque, do so many things. As far as when to take it, she mentioned that it somewhat mimics autophagy. Autophagy is a process that happens in our body during the fasted state. It actually happens 24/7, but it's ramped up in the fasted state. When our body starts breaking down old and problematic proteins in our body to recycle, and reuse, and just clean up shop, the thing about autophagy is like a concept that our body is engaging in is it is influenced by--

If we're eating, that's going to ramp down autophagy, if we're fasting, it's going to ramp it up, if we exercise, it ramps it up, coffee can ramp it up. There are signals that turn it up and down. The way that's different from serrapeptase, once you get the serrapeptase enzyme into your system, it's not ramping up and down as activity based on other signals. It's just doing what it's doing because it's an actual enzyme doing stuff compared to your body deciding to do autophagy if that makes sense. Now, getting it into the bloodstream is why there are so many things you need to follow to take it to make sure that happens, because it is a proteolytic enzyme breaking down proteins. If you have it, it's absorbed in the small intestine, not the gut. It passes through your stomach into the small intestine, which by the way, this is a reason. The serrapeptase is on the market have to have some enteric coating or some sort of protection of the serrapeptase to make sure that it reaches the intestine. If the capsule opens in your stomach, it'll just get degraded. It's actually pretty sensitive enzyme. If it opens in your stomach, you won't get it in your body because it won't make it into your bloodstream. So, it's got to make it to your small intestine.

We've done some tests where we have ordered a lot of our competitor brands and put them in capsules of vinegar, because vinegar mimics the condition of your stomach. Many other brands, they open up really fast, which means they're not even getting to your small intestine. Ours does, which is amazing. All of that to say, if you have it when you have lots of food and in the small intestine, the serrapeptase enzyme can open up in the small intestine, and then instead of making it across your gut lining into your bloodstream, the enzymes will break down the food, the protein, and they won't be active to happen in your body. That's why they need to be taken in a very fasted state. The recommendation is to take it in the morning because then your fasted probably at least eight hours. The more fasted you are when you take it likely the better. But the good thing is, there's less of that window on the other side, because you just need it to be before the food, not after.

It's not like you take it and then you need to fast five more hours to get the effects. You just need to take it on empty stomach, so that it gets into your body. Then once it's in your bloodstream, it's not getting affected by what you're eating. All of that to say, I would recommend taking it in the morning. If you're only taking one and you want to up your dose, I would-- rather than taking it again later, I would try just upping your dose in the morning. But you could try taking it later as well, especially if it is at bedtime, you've been fasted five or six hours, that might be enough time, so that if you wanted to be having a higher dose, you could try that as well, but morning is probably what works best for most people.

Gin Stephens: All right, yep, [laughs] I don't know how to add anything to that. When I took serrapeptase in the past or when I've taken it, I would just take it first thing in the morning after brushing my teeth and then I don't have to think about it. Habit stacking, put things in together, then you won't forget. Brush my teeth, took my serrapeptase, moved on. That was how I did it. Then it was so far away from any eating that I knew it wasn't going to be a problem, perfect.

Melanie Avalon: Of course, to get my serrapeptase, it is at avalonx.us. You can also get on my email list for the whole Avalon X brand, because I will be releasing a magnesium soon. Super exciting. That email list is at melanieavalon.com/avalonx.

Gin Stephens: Well, I'd love to try your magnesium when it comes out.

Melanie Avalon: I know. I will send it to you.

Gin Stephens: I would love it. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: I want to try it.

Gin Stephens: Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: It's very exciting to be in the final steps of formulating and all of that.

Gin Stephens: Definitely. It seems like now it's going a lot quicker than the first one did, because now you know what you're doing.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, quick point to that and this relates to the serrapeptase question. I was so, so committed to finding a filler lubrication option for my supplements that's not toxic or even potentially toxic, because what I realized, I think people have an idea that magnesium stearates, they're cautious about them, but there's a lot of "fillers" that they make it look like it's something else. They make it look like it's vitamin C, but really, it's vitamin C like a palmitate. It's basically like a stearate, a fatty acid ester of these different things or calcium. They do with calcium. They try to make it look like, "Oh, it's calcium that's added, oh, it's vitamin C, when really it's basically a stearate or palmitate." Some supplements don't require any fillers, which is great, but some do.

That's why we came up with this MCT production process. It's a very, very, very small amount. There's a lot of studies on helping absorption of certain things, especially if they're in a liposomal format or-- actually some specifically say with MCTs. It's not liposomal, but it is more emulsified. I know I'm using a lot of supplement words. But the point of it is that we had to develop a whole production process to create this. That was a big hurdle for the first one, but now that we have that in place, we can use that for my other supplements if it requires it. It's definitely an easier step, and yeah, we have more of the parameters down, and working with the formulation, [unintelligible [01:02:54]. So, it's all been really, really wonderful.

Gin Stephens: I'm glad.

Melanie Avalon: I'm learning so much.

Gin Stephens: Yeah. It's fun to create things. It's all just a very exciting process to accomplish new things that you haven't done before. It's fun to watch you doing something that I have no desire to do. I told Chad, I was like, "I'm never going to have a supplement." He's like, "What?" Because he's a medicinal chemist, drug design is his-- [laughs] Honestly, if I said, "Chad, I'd like to start developing supplements," he would probably get super excited. But I don't have any desire to. So, I'm not going to, but you can be the supplement guru, [laughs] and I'll just take the ones of yours that I want, and that'll be good. I'll know that they're good, because you designed them, but I don't have to do my own.

Melanie Avalon: I'm so excited to just eventually make everything that I take currently, because then I will just feel so good about taking it. Because I know what's in it. I put it there. I wish there was a way to get rid of, I don't know, I feel there's such a stigma surrounding supplements, because the industry is so unregulated and often scammy, and I don't want to be associated with any of that. But I'm trying to change that in any case.

Gin Stephens: Well, I'm glad, because I think it is important to have good stuff going on.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, that's what people are putting into their bodies.

Gin Stephens: You'll never sell yours on Amazon or will you?

Melanie Avalon: I'm not sure that. It's funny because I have a lot of friends in the supplement world and I get advice different ways based on that. Some have told me, "Oh, it's the best thing ever." Some have told me, "No, don't do it." We haven't talked about it recently with my partner but I'm not sure.

Gin Stephens: Well, I just know here's a story of a well-known supplement brand that we have endorsed before [laughs] and I still do, and I take their magnesium. Let me just put it that way. A friend of mine uses their magnesium, and instead of ordering it directly from them, decided to order it from Amazon, but she got a copycat that was not them that was pretending to be them, but wasn't.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, wow. Really?

Gin Stephens: Yeah. You know how I feel about buying supplements on Amazon?

Melanie Avalon: I noticed they were on Amazon and then I'm like not, were they ever legitimately on?

Gin Stephens: I don't know. I don't know if they ever were, but she was like, "Oh, I found it on Amazon and it was less expensive, because it was the free shipping with Prime or something." But then, it was not really them. It was a copycat knockoff. She thought she was getting their brand of magnesium, but it wasn't.

Melanie Avalon: A benefit to not being on Amazon is you can say, I'm not on Amazon. So, if you're buying it on Amazon, it's not me.

Gin Stephens: Well, exactly. That is a good point.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. It's so nice to have one source.

Gin Stephens: You could actually say, "I don't sell it on Amazon, because I'm concerned that you might get a counterfeit, because you could." That's the thing because what I learned about the way the buy box works, and the way that whoever selling it for the cheapest price, if they were wanted to buy Delay, Don't Deny from Bob's booksellers, if Bob was selling it for $5, it would pop it in the buy box, and they would get Bob's booksellers counterfeit version, not the real one. For months-- we know back in what was it 2018, for months when I noticed my sales were way down, and it was crazy, and I couldn't understand why until I realized what was happening, but people were just clicking "Add to Cart," and they were getting the counterfeit, literally, a counterfeit version. With supplements, if that happened, you would be devastated that people are getting a counterfeit version. You'd have to look at it every single day, multiple times of the day, because see who's in the buy box.

Melanie Avalon: Wow, I hadn't really thought about it to that extent.

Gin Stephens: I like to put everything through the lens of, what if a counterfeiter stole the buy box?

Melanie Avalon: That would be really awful.

Gin Stephens: Exactly. And also, two or three times, one of those crazy Fast. Feast. Repeat. cookbook books that if you go look Fast. Feast. Repeat. on Amazon, there's a Fast. Feast. Repeat. cookbook or something. It's obviously not by me, it might be by Stephen Gin or [laughs] something crazy. You can't copyright a title. They have some crazy book that's just a blank book or something and you're charging $9.99 for it. But more than one time, that book has gotten linked to mine on Amazon. People are thinking they're buying Fast. Feast. Repeat. and it's that crazy one linked to mine. We've had to have it unlinked. It's not exactly the same thing, because it's not a counterfeit, but you know how when you go to a book, and it has the audible version, and the Kindle version, and the paperback version? You can click on the different versions, one of the versions was that crazy one that had gotten linked to mine, because it had the same title. There're just so many things you have to be careful of on Amazon.

Melanie Avalon: I don't know, but I wonder if my supplement being in a glass bottle with slightly deter counterfeit people, because it would be a little bit harder to counterfeit.

Gin Stephens: Maybe.

Melanie Avalon: That's another thing that really sets our line apart. It's hard to find supplements in glass bottles, but yes, all very good points. Things I will think about. Thank you.

Gin Stephens: You got to think about that. What if someone counterfeited it, and it got in your buy box, and people were thinking they were getting yours, but they got the other one, then they're going to try to return it to you, then what do you do? You're like, "Well, I don't have a record of selling it to you." But they're like, "Here it is." It would just be so many can of worms. I would like to be able to say that Amazon is a perfectly great place to buy things and you don't have to worry about all that. But I think Amazon could do a better job, frankly. And I love Amazon. I love Amazon. So, anyone from Amazon who's listening, I'm not criticizing you, I'm just saying you could do better and shoot. I'd be on a committee for free to help you do better. I'm a teacher, I could be on a committee. [laughs] I will give you advice on how to make it better. That's all I have to say about that. They could totally make it better.

Melanie Avalon: It's like one of my best friends from college and I, we wanted to have a little committee, it'll be both of us, and we want final approval or we want final checks on all of the Disney films that come out because we can tell you if this Disney film was going to do too well or not.

Gin Stephens: That's so funny. You're going to be on their advisory committee.

Melanie Avalon: Yes, like, I promise you, I can help you.

Gin Stephens: Right. Well, that's me. Amazon, I can help you. I can help you with how to clean up your book section. For example, Fast. Feast. Repeat. is a New York Times bestseller. So, to have a freaky version Fast. Feast. Repeat. blank cookbook published by Stephen Gin makes your site look trashy, Amazon. I'm sorry, but it does. Do you agree with that, Melanie? It's a self-published book. I could right this minute go to Amazon and put up some blank book that I run through their self-publishing arm and sell it in five minutes. You just have to have a cover design, you put it up, you call it a blank cookbook or whatever, bam, it's out there. I could make a book called What When Wine, blank journal, give myself a pseudonym, and sell it. But Amazon should have a quality control. They're like, "Oh, ooh, red flag. There's a real book called What When Wine. That's actually a real book. This is clearly trying to copycat on that." I think that would be a very easy thing to do to fix that problem.

Melanie Avalon: I agree.

Gin Stephens: I've actually had people email me and say, "I bought Fast. Feast. Repeat. on Amazon, and it came, and it was blank. Is it supposed to be blank?" I'm like, "No, it's not supposed to be blank. You bought the cookbook, didn't you? The cookbook or whatever." I would not put a book like that out there in the world. Anyway, Amazon could fix it.

Melanie Avalon: Well, Amazon, if you'd like to email questions@ifpodcast.com.

Gin Stephens: [laughs] You could just email me directly at gin@ifpodcast.com. I would just love to help them, because I have so much love for Amazon in the point that they-- I wouldn't have had a book if it wasn't for their self-publishing. I think their self-publishing is amazing and it changed my life. I love Amazon for that and being able to get Delay, Don't Deny out into the world, no publisher would have let me publish that. It was only because I could self-publish it, and I was able to get it out there, and Amazon allowed me to do that at no charge. But I hate to see Amazon tarnished by the fraud that's going on and I know they could they could spot, especially just if we only talk about within the self-publishing part. If they just had a little more quality control about what gets out there, it would make such a difference. There was one book one time it was some kind of Intermittent Fasting book and it was by Gin Fung.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.

Gin Stephens: Okay. Gin Fung is not a person. [laughs] That's all I had to say about that.

Melanie Avalon: In any case, the show notes for today's episode will be at ifpodcast.com/episode254. If you would like to submit your own questions for the show or deliver feedback, you can email questions@ifpodcast.com, where you can go to ifpodcast.com and you can submit questions there. You can follow us on Instagram. I am @melanieavalon, Gin is @ginstephens, and yes, I think that is everything. Anything from you, Gin, before we go?

Gin Stephens: No, I think that's it.

Melanie Avalon: All righty, well, this has been absolutely wonderful and I will talk to you next week.

Gin Stephens: All right, talk to you then. 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. We're not doctors. If you enjoyed the show, please consider writing your review on iTunes. We couldn't do this without our amazing team administration by Sharon Merriman, editing by Podcast Doctors, show notes and artwork by Brianna Joyner, transcripts by SpeechDocs, theme music by Leland Cox. See you next week.

STUFF WE LIKE

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

LINKS

Intermittent Fasting Stories

Life Lessons

More on Melanie: MelanieAvalon.com

More on Gin: GinStephens.com

Theme Music Composed By Leland Cox: LelandCox.com

If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving us a review in iTunes - it helps more than you know!

Apr 04

Episode 207: Gin’s New Social App, Whoosh Effect, Water-weight & Inflammation, T1 Diabetes, Energy Toxicity, Collagen, Vitamins, And More!

GET THE EPISODE ON ITUNES!

Delay Don't Deny Social Network

Welcome to Episode 207 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine and Gin Stephens, author of Delay, Don't Deny: Living An Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle.

Today's episode of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast is brought to you by:

ASPIRATION: Aspiration is a new kind of financial partner that puts our customers and their conscience first. Get A $50 Bonus When You Create An Account With Today's Sponsor Aspiration. Go To joinaspiration.com/ifpodcast!

To submit your own questions, email questions@IFpodcast.com, or submit your questions here!!

SHOW NOTES

BEAUTYCOUNTER: Keep Your Fast Clean Inside And Out With Safe Skincare! Shop With Us At MelanieAvalon.com/beautycounter, And Something Magical Might Happen After Your First Order!

The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #86 - Harpreet Rai (Oura)

ASPIRATION: Get a $50 bonus when you create an account with today's sponsor Aspiration. Go To joinaspiration.com/ifpodcast!!

Listener Q&A: Jamie - Whoosh

The Case for Keto: Rethinking Weight Control and the Science and Practice of Low-Carb/High-Fat Eating (Gary Taubes)

Big Fat Keto Lies Book (Marty Kendall)

The Case for Keto by Gary Taubes – honest review

Listener Q&A: Daniela - Collagen/Vitamins

Aspen Naturals Grass Fed Bovine Collagen Peptides Powder

Aspen Naturals Marine Collagen

JOOVV: For A Limited Time Go To joovv.com/ifpodcast And Use The Code IFPODCAST For An Exclusive Discount!

Listener Q&A: Elizabeth - Starting IF After HCG

Follow Melanie On Instagram To See The Latest Moments, Products, And #AllTheThings! @MelanieAvalon

TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Welcome to Episode 207 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, author of What When Wine: Lose Weight and Feel Great with Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, and Wine. And I’m here with my cohost, Gin Stephens, author of Delay, Don't Deny: Living an Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle. For more on us, check out ifpodcast.com, melanieavalon.com, and ginstephens.com. Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this podcast do not constitute medical advice or treatment. So, pour yourself a cup of black coffee, a mug of tea or even a glass of wine, if it's that time, and get ready for The Intermittent Fasting Podcast.

Hi friends, Gin and I talk about the importance of gut health all the time on this show. You guys know we are obsessed with the gut microbiome. There's also a lot of confusion out there surrounding probiotics. There are so many different probiotics. It can be so hard to know what to take. I personally have actually experimented with a lot of probiotics over the years. A lot. You guys know me. Did you know there's only one probiotic that I have consistently taken almost every single day, since I found it? It's a nonnegotiable. I see, such radical improvements in my gut health, when I take this probiotic, and it's not just me, you guys, and my audience tell me all the time about how you feel this way as well. That is P3-OM. What is P3-OM? It's a patented probiotic that actually eats up excess sugar, eliminates bad bacteria fast, and protects your gut from inflammation and viruses. What initially made me so intrigued by this probiotic is that it is proteolytic meaning it can actually digest protein. I even saw a video on the BiOptimizers website of the probiotic digesting a steak. Yes, a steak.

P3-OM has also been shown to improve digestion, speed up metabolism, and increase energy throughout the day. What also makes it unique is that it can survive the gastrointestinal tract, and it goes through your whole body to support both your gut and your entire immune response. It's a secret weapon for reducing or eliminating bad gas and upgrading your immunity and protection against bad bacteria. It's personally one of my go-to tools in my biohacking arsenal. I have some fantastic news for you guys. You can get 10% off P3-OM right now, when you go to p3om.com/ifpodcast and type in the coupon code, IFPODCAST10. By the way, if you order it and it's not everything you hoped for, the BiOptimizers support team will give you all your money back, no questions asked. To get that discount, just go to p3om.com/ifpodcast to get a 10% discount on one of my favorite probiotics P3-OM with the coupon code, IFPODCAST10. We'll put all this information in the show notes. One more thing before we jump in.

Are you concerned about aging? Well, thankfully, fasting is super incredible for its anti-aging benefits. It activates genes in your body called sirtuins, which repair your body and help extend lifespan. Also, during the fast, your body can clean up a lot of harmful chemicals which may be taxing your detoxification systems. In fact, the reason people go gray is because their detox systems start producing a lot of hydrogen peroxide when dealing with toxins. Do you know where a lot of those chemicals come from? Your skincare and makeup. As it turns out, there are thousands of compounds found in conventional skincare and makeup that Europe has banned due to their toxic nature and the US has banned less than 10. When you put these on your skin every single day through your skincare and makeup, you're adding to your body's burden and likely aging your skin faster.

Thankfully, you can easily clean up your skincare with a company called Beautycounter. They make incredible products that are extensively tested to be safe for your skin. You can feel good about every single ingredient that you put on. They also have an amazing anti-aging line called Countertime. Friends, this is a game-changer. It's full of active ingredients which nourish and support your skin, reduce fine lines and wrinkles, and support a beautiful glow. It also has a safe alternative to retinol, so you can get all of the anti-aging benefits of retinol without any of the toxic effects of retinol, because yes, that stuff is toxic. Guys, put it away now.

You can shop with us at melanieavalon.com/beautycounter. If you use that link, something really special and magical might happen after you place your first order. Also definitely get on my clean beauty email list that's at melanieavalon.com/cleanbeauty. I give away so many free things on that list. So definitely check it out.

Lastly, if you anticipate making safe skincare a part of your future, just like Gin and I do, definitely become a Band of Beauty member. It's sort of like the Amazon Prime for safe skincare. You get 10% back on all of your purchases, free shipping on qualifying orders, and a welcome gift, that costs way more than the price of the membership. It's completely worth it. Friends, are you fasting clean inside and out? You can with Beautycounter. Again, that link is melanieavalon.com/beautycounter. And we'll put all this information in the show notes. All right, now back to the show.

Hi, everybody and welcome. This is Episode number 207 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I’m Melanie Avalon, and I’m here with Gin Stephens.

Gin Stephens: Hi, everybody.

Melanie Avalon: How are you today, Gin?

Gin Stephens: I am worn out. I am riding high on a bunch of emotions, good emotions, scary emotions, all sorts of emotions.

Melanie Avalon: That's good.

Gin Stephens: [laughs] Do you want me to elaborate a little bit?

Melanie Avalon: Yes, would you like to elaborate?

Gin Stephens: Well, we're recording this in mid-March. Yesterday, I finally announced to the public in the advanced group on Facebook, the project that I’m working on since the beginning of the year, and that was, I have launched Delay, Don’t Deny social network off of Facebook. It's a membership-based platform. Yes, members do need to pay to join. It's $4.99 a month. If you, what's the word, amortize your membership, it's $59.95 a year, and you join and that works out to $4.99 a month, if you join for the year as a founding member. Yes, it's a membership site. Now, we're all together, I have all the spinoff groups going on. It's hard to explain. I was letting people start spinoff groups. We had one spinoff group over there, and another spin off group over there, and I felt like I was losing touch with the community. Does that make sense?

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm.

Gin Stephens: I didn't have time to manage-- Facebook takes a lot to manage groups. You have membership requests, you have posts to approve, you have people coming in, they don't know who you are, why they're there. It takes a lot of work to manage it. We've got over 100 groups on the new platform. The address is dddsocialnetwork.com. DDD for Delay, Don’t-Deny. dddsocialnetwork.com. Like I said, we have over 100 groups, and they're not all intermittent fasting. We've got groups for different fasting styles, one meal a day, alternate daily fasting, the hybrid approach, but we also have a paleo group, Melanie. We have a vegetarian group. No matter how anybody eats, we've got a group for it. We've got hobbies, we've got different exercise styles. We've got a group for people who are interested in starting podcasts and writers, because a lot of people in my community have started podcasts and written books, which is one of the things, I’m a teacher, nothing makes me prouder than seeing other people create content. Does that make sense? Like inspired, they're like, “Well, Gin did a podcast, I can do a podcast,” or, “Gin wrote a book and self-published it. Melanie wrote a book and self-published it, and I can do that too.”

I feel like in a way the Delay, Don’t Deny community has been an incubator for some of these amazing people that I've connected with in the groups. Graeme Currie, he's got a great podcast called The Fasting Highway, and he started off just in my group. He's written a book. He's from Australia. We'll have a group for people who want to do stuff like that, so they can connect and talk about platforms and the process. We even have a group about dogs and cats if you're a pet lover. [laughs] The tag line is we want to be your favorite social network, because we really do. We were on Facebook, we've been on it for so long, but it's gotten a little harder to navigate, and the artificial intelligence has gotten a little weird lately. Like over Christmas in the Life Lessons group, we had some weird, we got something that Facebook was like, “This post does not-- it goes against community standards. Please review it.” I’m like, “Oh, my God, that sounds so scary.” I went to review it, it was covered up with a mask and how Facebook will cover something. Have you ever seen that?

Melanie Avalon: No.

Gin Stephens: Well, if they think it might be questionable, they're like, “Click on it on your own risk.” I’m like, “What was someone trying to post?” I clicked on it to see what it was that was so questionable and objectionable. It was a Christmas bow tutorial.

Melanie Avalon: That’s strange.

Gin Stephens: The artificial intelligence called it drug paraphernalia, but it was bows made of raffia. The artificial intelligence is also picking up on certain words as hate speech and bullying, like one of the moderators got put in Facebook Jail for clicking on something incorrectly, and then she said, “Oops, I apologize. I must have fat thumbs.” They put on Facebook Jail and said it was hate speech. Clearly, it wasn't, fat thumbs is a saying.

Melanie Avalon: I didn't know there was a Facebook Jail.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I've been In Facebook Jail before. I liked too many things too quickly?

Melanie Avalon: Okay, yes.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, the artificial intelligence--

Melanie Avalon: I've commented too much before.

Gin Stephens: Yes, the artificial intelligence looks for people who are doing things too rapidly. You have to take things slowly on Facebook. So, ever since then if I'd make a post and 100 people comment, I just want to go like, like, like, like, like, no, you cannot do that. I lost the ability to post for 24 hours, when I was in Facebook Jail that time. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: It's weird when it happens in your own group, like it's your group, because it's done that to me, I’m like, “Wait, but this is my group. I should be able to post whenever I want.”

Gin Stephens: You can't though. It's just a million little things like that. You hear stories. My friend Sheri that does the Life Lessons podcast with me. She has a friend, who was running a cooking group. It had like 10,000 members, was a cooking group. She woke up one morning, and her cooking group had been removed from Facebook, and she had been blocked from Facebook, like her account was deactivated, based on something that had happened in the cooking group overnight. I realized that we're at the whim of a platform. Now, I’m not knocking Facebook, because we have enjoyed being there for years and it has helped us grow this wonderful community. I will always have love for that platform, and what it allowed us to build. But at the same time, that terrified me that, I have that one group, the 300,000 plus member group that if something went really terribly wrong-

Melanie Avalon: Right, it could just disappear.

Gin Stephens: -it could disappear and I wouldn't be able to contact those 300,000 people at all. I don't have their email addresses, I don't know, would they ever find me again? I don't know. I’m one of those worst-case scenario people, like what could go wrong, always think about that. I’m like. “I don't want to lose this community that I've built.” We started the new platform, launched it yesterday-- Yeah, there's been some positives and some growing pains with it, not everyone was thrilled that I was starting a membership site, because people say-- well, rightly so, intermittent fasting is free and intermittent fasting continues to be free. However, starting a paid platform is very, very expensive, and Facebook is free, but why is it free?

Melanie Avalon: Ads.

Gin Stephens: It's got ads, they're selling you data, you're the product honestly. If you're on Facebook, you're the product and I’ve been okay with that for myself personally for all these years knowing that Facebook was looking at my data, and whatever, showing me ads, I lived with that for the free platform. But for me to have a platform, it is most certainly not free, because I’m not going to be selling your data and showing you ads, and there's a lot of costs involved in it, so it has to be paid. Anyway, I’m sad about any pushback, because I just made this fabulous community and I want everyone to be like, “Oh my God, I love it.” [laughs] So far, positive people are in there. We've got almost 1000 members on day two. It's just so exciting watching people find their community. Also, some of people that I know that had left Facebook for whatever reason, one of my trusted moderators who I love so much, he's a comedian, people may remember him, John McDonald from the Intermittent Fasting Stories Podcast. He left Facebook completely for personal reasons with his family, but he's joined the new platform. It's so good to reconnect with people that I had lost touch with, it feels amazing.

Melanie Avalon: I made a profile. I’m going to come in.

Gin Stephens: Well, people are waiting for you, because we made a Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast group.

Melanie Avalon: Group.

Gin Stephens: Yes. There's a group that you're in.

Melanie Avalon: Are there people in it?

Gin Stephens: Yeah, you want to know how many members are in, I can tell you right now.

Melanie Avalon: How many?

Gin Stephens: How many people have joined it? Hold on, I got to pull up the-- We're also going to have an app. The app is not out yet. Right now, I'm on my iPhone looking at it. Let's see Melanie. but right now, it's pretty easy to use in mobile on the iPhone. Melanie Avalon, you've got 63 members.

Melanie Avalon: Oh. Okay, now I am very much alert. I mean I was already alert, but let me go see.

Gin Stephens: Let’s see how many are on the Intermittent-- we have an Intermittent Fasting podcast group. Let me search for that one. Anyway, what I’m saying is, I’m certain that we probably have listeners, who are not on Facebook for whatever reason. Not everybody's on Facebook. My sister for example never joined Facebook ever, like ever, in her whole entire life never joined Facebook. From day one, she's like, “For some reason, I don't like that,” so she didn't join. People, that just never joined or didn't want to, we have a place for you now. We have 77 members right now in the Intermittent Fasting Podcast group. We can all get together there, and we also have something called the Podcast Enthusiasts Lounge, where you can go and talk about any podcast you want. If you say, “Oops, fat thumbs, I didn't mean to click that,” we don't even care. If you like things really quickly, go for it, like them as fast as you want.

Melanie Avalon: It's very exciting. Congratulations.

Gin Stephens: It is very exciting. Thank you. I didn't sleep last night, I tossed and turned, I thought, “Have I ruined-- Did I mess up? Is this wrong?” Like I said, I’m very much a people pleaser. I want to do things that make people happy. I’m like, “Look what I created for you. Aren't y'all excited?” “No, no, we're not excited. We hate it. Don't create this thing.” Anyway, ah, now I can take a breath, and the people that are there are very happy to be there, and the people who don't want to join, don't have to join. That's the thing,

Melanie Avalon: Listeners, friends, you can all join, we can put links to it in the show notes. That's very exciting.

Gin Stephens: That'd be awesome. dddsocialnetwork.com. It is very exciting.

Melanie Avalon: I can't even imagine, the logistics and everything that you have to go through to do that, so it's very exciting.

Gin Stephens: Well, setting up those groups was a lot. We thought about what would someone want? What could people want? We actually had a little survey and like, “If you were wanting to join a group, what would you want it to be?” I didn't tell anybody what it was. We got the ideas from members, and then we thought of more just on our own. We've got about 55 moderators/facilitators in there, plus a whole lot of members growing by the minute. I’m just very excited, because I love community. That's really it. The whole reason I started this with my first Facebook group back in 2015, before I'd even written a book, I didn't have a master plan, I’m going to write books, I’m going to have podcasts. No. I started a community, and that was the whole point of it. That's what I’m doing here. Everybody, you're welcome to join my community, I'd love to have you or don't join the community. Intermittent Fasting is still free. If you want to be with us on the platform, join us. I’m not closing down the Facebook groups, though I am going to be very busy with the new platform. The Facebook groups are still going. If you're a member, I’m not going to lock you out. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I was going to ask you that if you're keeping--

Gin Stephens: I might not answer all as much, because I’m going to be on this new place, because these people have joined and I can just take a deep breath, I don't have to approve posts, I don't have to approve members. You just join, there you are, you can do what you want, you can come and go. You can join 100 groups if you want to.

Melanie Avalon: That's exciting.

Gin Stephens: It is very exciting. You don't have to see what you don't want to see. In the advanced group, we've been talking a lot about Zoe, the Zoe app with the personalized nutrition and the gut microbiome testing and the CGM. Some people don't want to see that. They're like, “I’m really frustrated seeing all this talk about Zoe, because I just want to keep it simple.” Well, now you don't have to see it. You don't go to the Zoe group, but we have a Zoe group for people who do.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, that makes sense.

Gin Stephens: It does. I think it's nice. I’m so excited. Scared, yes, and excited. All the feels. I have all the feels. I have cried, I have laughed, I have cheered. I didn't sleep at all last night.

Melanie Avalon: Another reason, you know what happened last night?

Gin Stephens: The time change?

Melanie Avalon: Yes. That's when you realize you really are a night person. When you don't know the time change is going to happen, and then you get really confused, because all of a sudden, I was like, “Wow, that hour went by so fast.”

Gin Stephens: Oh, because you were awake?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I looked at the clock and it was 3:00, I was like, “What happened?” [laughs] Yeah, not a fan.

Gin Stephens: I really tossed and turn, because I started having doubts. Do you ever do that? Do you have doubts? I’m like lying on the bed, we had 400 and something members join yesterday, and I was having these doubts. I was like, “What have I done? What if everyone hates it? What if no one is there?” Anyway, but I woke up today, got refreshed, and I started reading what people had been posting, and seeing how they were joining the groups, and everyone was excited, and then people were coming in that I hadn't seen in a long time. It felt like a big party, that I’m like, “Okay, now I can relax,” except I had this book deadline. Why did I do this at the same time that I have a book deadline? I don't know, I might be crazy.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I have no comment. That was some [laughs] interesting choice of timing.

Gin Stephens: Well, all of a sudden, I had that thought in my head that something could happen to my group. I was panicked. I was like, “I got to protect these groups,” so that move to the front burner. Honestly, I really was like, “I've got to do this now,” because it's too late. If I don't, and then something happened, something's probably not going to happen. I know that it probably won't, but it could. Did you know they shut down a bunch of essential oil groups?

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm.

Gin Stephens: Like all in one fell swoop. One of my members was telling me about it. When somebody like, “Nobody's shutting down groups, unless they're bad, dangerous groups.” This girl was like, “Well, I was on a bunch of essential oil groups, and they all got shut down because Facebook decided essential oils were dangerous,” and maybe they are, if you use them incorrectly, but isn't fasting, kind of like that, too? Couldn't fasting be dangerous if you use it incorrectly?

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm.

Gin Stephens: The answer is yes. Google restricts what it shows you now when you search, it has chosen which health people they're going to show you in, which health people they're not going to show you based on certain criteria. I felt like we might have a tenuous existence on a platform, that we couldn't 100% count on tomorrow, I’m going to wake up and my groups are going to be there. I’m 99.99% sure tomorrow I’m going to wake up and my groups will be there. But once I had in my mind that maybe they wouldn't be, I’m sure the essential oil people didn't know they were all going to be gone. It's almost like I wish they had told them, “Hey, we're going to remove your groups and one month, you have one month to figure something else out,” that would have been a good thing. I would have-- if only.

Melanie Avalon: Actually, that reminds me of a fun little fact I learned by listening to a podcast.

Gin Stephens: What is that?

Melanie Avalon: Do you know what the difference is between fear and anxiety?

Gin Stephens: Well, no.

Melanie Avalon: As it relates to this conversation?

Gin Stephens: I can't wait to hear though, because I think I have felt fear and anxiety.

Melanie Avalon: Fear is when you are aware of something bad happening, and you have the fear response. Anxiety is not knowing what is going to happen, and having the response, but then it's like, chronic, because--

Gin Stephens: I did have both.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.

Gin Stephens: I had fear because I saw people who were not happy with me. They were not happy that I would do this, and that really hurt my feelings, because I’m like, “Look, number one, it came from the place of, I don't want to lose our community, how am I going to keep that from happening, just in case,” but nobody's making anybody join it. I didn't click archive group on Facebook nearby, come over here. Didn't close the group. My wording may be when I announced it, gave people some things to worry about, because I said, “We're not sure the future of how these groups are going to work on Facebook,” because clearly, I’m one person. I can't be here and there and everywhere all over the place. [laughs] Sometimes, I have to eat, and sleep, and take a shower. We're not closing the groups down, but, yeah, I had fear from backlash, like I made a huge mistake. But then, I saw the love. There was so much love. This morning, I woke up to so much love and there's so much positivity surrounding the new community that I can just let the rest go. The fear is gone. I still have some anxiety, but no more fear.

Melanie Avalon: That is fabulous.

Gin Stephens: Yes. Anything new with you? I’m sorry. I just rambled for 18 minutes, but-- [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: The only thing is I never travel ever, and I travelled somewhere, and I lost my Oura ring.

Gin Stephens: Oh, no.

Melanie Avalon: I’m so sad. I'm so sad. I did something that I never do, because I don't-- We talked about this. You like jewelry, right?

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I wear earrings every day, and I have on my wedding ring every day.

Melanie Avalon: Yes, I don't ever really wear jewelry. They have an Oura ring that has diamonds in it. I was like, “If I’m going to get one piece of nice jewelry that I wear every day of my life,” so I upgraded, and I got that.

Gin Stephens: Oh, no, and you lost it.

Melanie Avalon: No, I didn't lose that one. I lost the one I had. I decided to buy a new one, because--

Gin Stephens: I thought you upgraded to the really expensive one and then lost it.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, I would be crushed.

Gin Stephens: That's what I thought you did.

Melanie Avalon: They're already pretty expensive normally, but yes. I think listeners think we get all the things for free all the time, but we don't. I have to purchase things. But that's how much I love it. I was like, it's not a question I’m buying a new one right now, and then I realized, I really want the one with the diamonds. I learned don't wear it on your ring finger, because then you look married or it looks like a wedding ring.

Gin Stephens: I probably would agree with that. I mean, unless who cares? Why do you care if people think you're married, right? That could be a plus.

Melanie Avalon: True.

Gin Stephens: Keep in mind. I've been wearing a ring on my wedding ring finger since I was 21. It's been a long time. 30 years I've had this ring on my finger.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, my goodness. It's ironic. I lost it, and I actually interviewed the CEO, again for Part Two episode a few days later. I’m airing it very soon, because I wanted it to be timely. If listeners are interested in Oura ring and learning more, I'll put a link in the show notes to that second interview that I just did with him.

Gin Stephens: Hi, everybody. Today, I want to tell you about Prep Dish’s New Super Fast Menus. These are in addition to their three existing meal plans, keto, paleo, and gluten free. Instead of scrambling and spending every single night prepping meals, do all of your prep at once, and under one hour. You'll get delicious healthy meals on the table, even when you have limited time. If you've been a longtime listener, you know we're huge fans of Prep Dish. No more scrambling at each meal. Instead go into mealtime with a plan, like Melanie would say, “You've got this.”

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Melanie Avalon: Shall we jump into everything fasting related?

Gin Stephens: Yes.

Melanie Avalon: To start things off, we have a question from Jamie. The subject is “Whoosh.” Jamie says, “When on average does someone, women get the whoosh effect, losing a bunch of weight at once, two weeks in and I've only lost one pound, where my husband has lost 17 pounds.”

Gin Stephens: All right. That's a great question. First of all, let's talk about what is the whoosh? We've talked about it before, but I want to talk about it again. The whoosh effect is when-- let's think about in our bodies biologically, we lose fat at a pretty slow rate, even if you're doing a complete fast, or you're eating nothing, your body probably is only going to lose about half a pound of fat a day max really for fat burning. Keep that in mind. That's like we're not usually losing about half a pound of fat a day with doing an intermittent fasting lifestyle. Let's say, you get on the scale and you don't see your weight change, you don't see your weight change, you don't see your weight change, you don't see your weight change, and then you get on one day and it's down five pounds. Did you just lose five pounds of fat overnight? No, you did not. You had a whoosh.

You had lost fat slowly, but something was hiding that fat loss. We were pretty sure that your body does something with water during the fat loss process, but not everybody has the same experience. Some people never whoosh. They just have a slow and steady down, down, down over time. They have this nice little graph, they're pretty linearly down. Most people don't, but some people do. Whereas someone who whooshes might look more like a stair step, where you have it's just the same, the same, the same, the same and then down. Then the same, the same, and same and then down, like that. I mean, you might zigzag up and down. I tended to have the pattern where I would go way down, and then I would go back up a little and stay there for a while, then I would go way down, then I would go up a little. Mine’s like the stock market's going down a little bit. Why does this happen?

As I said, we have the theory that it's something to do with water balance, because people will notice, maybe they have to get up in the middle the night to go to the bathroom a lot, and then the next morning they're lower. The water is coming from somewhere. There's one theory that I don't think is true, and that theory is that the body is actually putting water in your fat cells. I haven't been able to find any scientific basis for that, and I've heard scientists who are smarter about the body than me saying, “No, that's not what's happening.” Could they be wrong? Could that be what's happening? I don't know.

Melanie Avalon: One of the ones that sounded plausible to me was I think the glycerol. One thing I was reading online, his theory was that fat when we break it down, it breaks it down into glycerol. Is it fatty acids and glycerol? I think so. He says it takes a while for the body to process glycerol and glycerol attracts water.

Gin Stephens: Oh, that makes sense.

Melanie Avalon: It's like you burning the fat, you burn the fatty acid part of the fat-- and I might be wrong with a fatty acid is the other component, I think it is. Then the glycerol takes backlogs and as we process, in the meantime, it's stored with water or attracts water.

Gin Stephens: It's not happening in the fat cell, right?

Melanie Avalon: I’m not sure where the glycerol is?

Gin Stephens: Something's happening with water, we know that. [chuckles] It's somewhere. I also have talked about it before here, I have a hunch. It could be in your lymphatic system, which is the body's sewage system, because as you're clearing out a fat cell, fats not the only stuff that's in there, you've also got a lot of toxins and weird stuff that your body shoved in there. You shove junk under your bed, your body shoves junk into your fat cells when it doesn't know what else to do with it. Toxins do come out, and your body has all that going around in your lymphatic system, and then it can flush it out all at once. You may have puffy fingers, we've all experienced this, puffy ankles, your face might be puffy. That's water retention happening in your tissues, and then whoosh, you wake up and that's gone.

Jamie, not everyone gets a whoosh. Don't expect you're going to get one. But let's address the fact that you're two weeks in and you've only lost one pound. If you think back to the 28-Day FAST Start-- if you read Fast. Feast. Repeat, in the 28-Day FAST Start, I’m very, very emphatic about do not expect any weight loss for the first 28 days, because the first 28 days are the time for your body to adjust to the clean fast, and that's it, your body's not great at tapping into fat stores yet. It may lose a great deal of inflammation, like with your husband with 17 pounds in two weeks. He did not lose 17 pounds of fat in two weeks. I know that we would like to, we don't lose fat that quickly. But even if that's a lot of that's inflammation of water weight, 17 pounds is a lot of mass. Imagine how good it would feel to lose 17 pounds, whatever it is, water weight, inflammation, I know he feels better, but we don't lose fat that quickly.

Just understand that your body is doing what it's doing behind the scenes, and the scale doesn't always reflect that. The scale can go up because of water, it can go down because of water. It can go up if you're gaining fat, but it can go down if you're losing fat, but it can also stay the same while you're losing fat because you're also regaining water. The scale can really just confuse you.

Melanie Avalon: Yes, 100%. Did you read Gary Taubes, The Case for Keto?

Gin Stephens: No, I read Marty Kendall’s critique of it. I really like Marty Kendall. By the way, Marty, we talked about him on the podcast. I think that came out maybe last week, we're recording. It's several weeks ago in podcast world land, but in the real world, it was like last week. Marty listened and he was like, “Oh, thank y’all for talking about me.” Anyway.

Melanie Avalon: On our show?

Gin Stephens: Yeah, when we talked about Marty Kendall and his Optimising Nutrition site, but I read Marty Kendall’s blog post about The Case for Keto.

Melanie Avalon: I finished his book about it. So good. So good. I'm like three fourths of the way through, Gary Taubes.

Gin Stephens: He's coming on your podcast, right?

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm. I’m so excited. I want to air them back-to-back, like air Marty's and Gary's. I don't know what order I put them-- I guess it depends how that conversation goes.

Gin Stephens: I’m going to tell you Marty Kendall is brilliant, and you would think by reading-- he has a book called Keto Myths or something. You would think by reading the title of whatever, I can't remember the name of--

Melanie Avalon: Big Fat Keto Lies.

Gin Stephens: Yes, Big Fat Keto Lies, you would think by reading it, he was anti-keto, and he's not. He is busting some keto myths, like if you're having trouble losing fat, eat a lot more fat. He's saying some things that need to be heard in the keto community. I actually think some people are listening. One of the big guys, I can't remember which one of my moderators showed me one of the big keto people, might have been the Diet Doctor guy, the guy who runs Diet Doctor. He was somebody really big, well known. I just can't remember, my brain is full. Made some post, I don’t know if it was a tweet, I don't know where it was, but she showed me a screenshot of it, where he said that, he had lowered his fat intake or something and increased his protein. He was getting leaner than ever, he’d stopped eating so much fat. I’m like, “That's huge.”

Melanie Avalon: I think it's one of the biggest misconceptions. This is something I’m going to ask Gary, this is the question I want to ask him, because it's probably the biggest takeaway I took from Marty. It’s the biggest paradigm shift I had about insulin after reading Marty's book, and now reading Gary's book. He talks about this completely, but he doesn't draw the same conclusion and it's really haunting me, and it's the fact that this has made me completely rethink insulin, its main purpose is not to store fat. Marty talks about this, which I'd never realized before.

Gin Stephens: Well, it's antilipolytic, which means if you have high insulin, you're going to have a hard time burning fat.

Melanie Avalon: Its main purpose is not to store fat. Its main purpose is to stop fat from being released. It's putting on the brakes--

Gin Stephens: To fat release. It's putting the brakes rather than shoving it in. That's a very good point. We read so many times that people are saying insulin is shoving the fat in or shoving sugar in something.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, it could because its main purpose-- and this is something that Marty pointed out that I hadn't really thought of. Fat doesn't elicit at all or barely any of an insulin release, and so they reached the conclusion that because it doesn't release insulin that it's not easily stored as fat. What Marty argues is the reason it doesn't release insulin is, because it doesn't need insulin to be stored as fat. It was just the complete opposite idea of what people are drawing the conclusion from. They're saying, “Oh, unlimited fat because it doesn't require insulin.” Right, it doesn't require insulin because it just gets stored without it, which is huge. Basically, insulin’s purpose is to deal with the toxicity of sugar in the bloodstream. If insulin wasn't there, we would just be burning fat and then we'd have an overload of fuel in our bloodstream, and so when we eat carbs, the body needs to burn it immediately, because too much sugar glycates and is toxic. It needs to shut down all other potential sources of fuel going into the bloodstream, which is from our fat cells and from the storage of carbs. Insulin is just closing the doors.

Gin Stephens: The traffic cop saying no.

Melanie Avalon: I've been thinking about it. It's like if you live in an apartment, I've been thinking about this, and the hallway is your bloodstream and then the doors to all the apartments are your fat cells and normally the doors are open and stuff is going in and out of the rooms, but once carbohydrates enter the bloodstream, insulin is like, “Nope, shut all the doors so that nothing else can come out and we can just deal with this these carbs right now.” What I want to ask Gary, and it helps me articulate this, because I've been thinking about this, but I haven't said it out loud and I want to like--

Gin Stephens: Well, it's also very interesting.

Melanie Avalon: The thing that I want to ask him about is, I mean, he gives that length-- It's basically, if anybody's read any of his books--

Gin Stephens: They're long.

Melanie Avalon: [laughs] Like, I said, I went on a trip this week, it was a four-hour drive both ways, I listened to the audiobook as much as I could both ways, and I was like, “I filled my Gary Taubes quota for quite a while.”

Gin Stephens: Does he read it himself?

Melanie Avalon: No, he doesn't. He's an investigative journalist. He's not a scientist. He's rather telling the history of all of these things. He makes a very good point that actual scientists-- and now I’m going on tangents, but scientists and nutritionists and doctors don't normally ever study the history of everything in detail, because they don't have time, they don't think it's relevant, but he's saying that, “You can't really understand a subject until you know the history of how it got there,” so, that's what he's doing. In any case, with the insulin, he [unintelligible [00:38:32] idea that it stops fat cells from releasing their fuel, but he'll also say a lot throughout the book that the misconceptions we have and how we've oversimplified calories in, calories out, and we say it's just about calories and really it's about insulin, it's really complicated, it's really nuanced, but I feel the simplistic statement he still continues to make is that insulin leads to fat storage. I'm not articulating this well. The insulin is required for fat storage, like that idea still comes through.

Gin Stephens: Okay, yeah, insulin is antilipolytic. It's anti-fat burning. If you want to tap into your fat stores, you don't want to have high insulin, but that doesn't mean you're storing, you're just not burning.

Melanie Avalon: I need to relisten or reread one part, because there's one part where he specifically says this, but I don't know if he's saying it or he was quoting somebody else, but it was the theory that you can't store fat in the absence of insulin, which just seems to not be true. The takeaway that I’m having right now is-- I don't even know if this is worth pondering, but, because he's trying to deconstruct the calories in, calories out model, I don't know if you are at a genuine calorie deficit even with high insulin. Do you think you can gain weight? Maybe you can't ever burn weight.

Gin Stephens: If nothing is coming in, what are you storing the fat--? What's it being made of? We don't create fat out of thin air. Our bodies don't just create fat out of thin air, It's something comes in, our bodies do something with it and store that as fat. Maybe it was fat already, and we just shoved it away.

Melanie Avalon: What I’m thinking is it seems like insulin could make it impossible to burn fat, so you could not possibly lose weight at a calorie deficit, because of high insulin. But I don't know if you could gain weight at a calorie deficit and high insulin, because if you are literally taking in less energy than you're burning, I don't know how you can have a net gain, even if-- I don't know.

Gin Stephens: You were talking about based on what the metabolism is doing. You couldn't.

Melanie Avalon: I mean, your metabolism could slow down.

Gin Stephens: Right, but if you're still burning more than that slowed metabolic rate, I don't think it's possible. No, I don't think so, that wouldn't make sense. The one thing to keep in mind though, let’s think thing about type 1 diabetics. Their bodies are not making insulin, they were unable to gain weight at all. Low insulin, because they're not making it, unable to gain weight. See, that's one of the big examples Fung uses, I think I used it, you hear it so much. That's why we know that high insulin is related to storing. It's a storage hormone.

Melanie Avalon: To clarify, it definitely encourages the storage of carbs as glycogen.

Gin Stephens: People who had type 1 diabetes before anybody knew what type 1 diabetes was, they would just waste away and die because they didn't have enough insulin. Because they could not, no matter how much they ate, their bodies couldn't store anything away. So many questions, so many complicated things going on. Here's what we need to know. The takeaway is we want to keep our insulin low. That's good, but also fat is not free.

Melanie Avalon: So far what I've read, that’s his thesis.

Gin Stephens: His takeaway is fat is free?

Melanie Avalon: Well, I haven't gotten to that yet, if he does say that. His takeaway is that-- I really like this idea, that everybody has a personal insulin threshold, and that if you're at that insulin threshold or below it, you'll be able to burn fat, but if you're above it, you won't be able to.

Gin Stephens: Oh, yeah, I 100% can buy into that theory, because I don't even know if that's like a-- I think that's true. I don't think it's under question. I think that is a fact. It explains-- I’m sure that I had really high insulin for so many years when I was overweight and having trouble gaining weight, and then, Chad, my husband always been slim, I’m sure he's always had low insulin. We had our insulin tested last year. Mine is low now, thanks to fasting, but Chad's was slow. His was lower than mine. I’m like, “Well, no wonder he never gained weight.” His body just makes less insulin. He's not like diabetic, but his body makes less insulin than me. We all have a different threshold with what our body's going to do based on the amount of insulin we have in our fasted insulin level.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, he talks about while fasted, if you release insulin, and how one person, they can think about something really delicious and yummy, and they don't get ravenously hungry, it doesn't make them-- they can handle it, they don't feel they have to have it and they're not craving and shaky and another person does have that response. He was saying that it's from this cephalic insulin, basically in our brain, and depending on your basal insulin, that may or may not be enough insulin release to put you over your personal insulin threshold. If you're wavering around your personal insulin threshold or if you're already past it, and then you think of something really delicious, then your brain releases cephalic insulin, which is basically some insulin that's primed and ready just to be released, and that might be an--

Gin Stephens: It's anticipating food’s coming in.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, exactly. Then it releases that, and then that puts your personal insulin threshold high enough that, it just shuts off the fat cells’ ability to release fat, so then you're not giving any fatty acid fuel. It's really interesting. I’m really excited to interview him.

Gin Stephens: One thing that Marty really helped me understand-- also with Zoe, if I put together Marty and Zoe, it really helps me understand a lot about my body. Marty talks about energy toxicity and having too much energy in your blood, whether it's fat or ketones or glucose. You're having a lot of energy in your bloodstream from any source is not good. I never did feel well when I did keto, that summer of 2014. I felt awful the whole time. I also felt very inflamed and puffy, and I just didn't feel good. Zoe taught me, when I did the study with them, that my body doesn't clear fat quickly. They tell you that if your body doesn't clear fat quickly, then too much fat is inflammatory for your body. I’m like, “Well, that makes perfect sense.” It explains why I didn't feel well when I was doing keto, because I was taking in a whole lot of energy, my body didn't clear it very quickly, and so I’m sure I had a ton of fat circulating in my bloodstream that I was taking in, and I wasn't clearing it. Of course, I also didn't release any fat. I didn't lose any weight. All those butter coffees I was chugging, they were keeping my energy levels topped up in my bloodstream, my body had no need to release any fat.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, wait, speaking of, since we recorded last, I did release that episode with Dave Asprey speaking of butter coffee. Listeners, I’ll put a link to it in the show notes. You can check that out. I think my favorite chart-- because Marty has a lot of really great charts in his book, my favorite one is the one that shows “preferred order of burning different fuels.”

Gin Stephens: By the way, I like Marty so very much that even in the new platform, the DDD Social Network, I have a data-driven fasting group over there. For anybody who's following Marty, because a lot of my people have followed Marty, especially since I interviewed somebody on the podcast that talked about him, and then I interviewed Marty. It hasn't come out yet. A lot of people were like, “Hey, I want to learn about that.” Anyway, so data driven-fasting in the DDD Social Network.

Melanie Avalon: This is not the full chart. The full chart is on a different page. The full chart that I saw included alcohol and ketones, I think the order was-- when alcohol and ketones were included, I think it was alcohol and ketones, and then, which is the order of that the body preferentially burns the fuel substrates in our body. I think it was alcohol and ketones, and then glucose in your blood, and then liver and muscle glycogen. I have to ask him about that, because I don't think muscle glycogen would be right there. I think that's incorrect. Then, free fatty acids in your blood and then body fat. So, body fat is basically at the very, very, very last resort.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, our body doesn't want to dig in. I love Jason Fung’s analogy that it's in the freezer in the basement. I’m not going to go down to that basement freezer unless I have to. That's the body to not wanting to-- but it's there, we can get to it if we have to. We just have to give the right environment for the body to tap into your fat.

Melanie Avalon: 100%.

Gin Stephens: Not as easy as it sounds though. [laughs] Ready for the next one?

Melanie Avalon: Sorry for the tangents. Mm-hmm.

Gin Stephens: No, it was good. I think it's all been very interesting. We have a question from Daniella. The subject is “Collagen/Vitamins.” She says, “When breaking a 19- to 20-hour fast, can I start with my collagen supplement which is powder in water, and gummy vitamins? Please don't judge a grown woman taking gummy vitamins, laugh emoji.” [laughs] I will not. No judging.

Melanie Avalon: Great question, Daniella. The very short and simple answer is yes. The longer answer is, it's a good thing to clarify. I think collagen is something, especially people that are new to fasting, think that it might be something that they can take, while fasting especially, because it's often, “prescribed” to take it the way she's taking it like in water. Collagen is definitely something that’s not fast and friendly. It's a protein, and amino acid, it's going to definitely, definitely break your fast.

Gin Stephens: People like to start in coffee. I don't know why.

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm. I think Dave started that.

Gin Stephens: Oh, did he?

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm. I think way back in the day, because I remember reading him writing about it and he was saying for women in particular it was a good thing.

Gin Stephens: Well, I don't know. It's like, “Why’s everybody wanted to put this in their coffee?”

Melanie Avalon: The good thing about collagen though is, it's very nourishing to your gut. It's actually a really wonderful time to take it right when you're breaking your fast, like Daniella is, and then same, it's fine to take the gummy vitamin. I’m not a huge fan of multivitamins in general. I think, it's better to target specific nutrients. There's so much complexities to vitamins that-- it's hard to find a vitamin that you know is actually doing what you want it to be doing, but that aside, it's fine. Yes, Gin, thoughts?

Gin Stephens: Oh, no. I was just thinking, I’m really hungry and I was like, “Why am I so hungry?” Then, I realized it's 3 PM but my body-- Wait, we sprung forward. See, I get so confused with the time change.

Melanie Avalon: Me too.

Gin Stephens: It's only 2 PM to my body. Then why am I so hungry? Okay, sorry. I just got really hungry.

Melanie Avalon: All the emotions, or all of our talk?

Gin Stephens: Maybe, the stress. I also didn't eat a lot yesterday that must be why. My body might need two meals today. I’m just all of a sudden really starving. All that delicious collagen discussion.

Melanie Avalon: Might have been that cephalic insulin response.

Gin Stephens: I don't know, but all of a sudden, I was like, “I need to eat some food right now.” Anyway, I’m going to go eat some eggs on toast, that sounds delicious.

Melanie Avalon: All right. Next question or do you have thoughts about--

Gin Stephens: No, I really think that's it. I don't take collagen. I sometimes wondered if I’m missing out, because so many people take it, but I don't know.

Melanie Avalon: It can do really wonderful things, especially if you are trying to grow your nails and hair, and then heal your gut lining. It can be really great.

Gin Stephens: Well, I’m of the age where collagen production in our skin goes down, and we start to look saggy. I mean, that's just part of the hormonal changes of being in the postmenopausal years. We've all seen those amazing grandmas on the beach rocking their bikinis, but they're all saggy. I’m like, “Okay, I’m going to have to start to get some collagen maybe,” or I'll just embrace the sag, I don't care.

Melanie Avalon: Well, I think the probably the most important thing about collagen is, it's really important the amino acid balance of the meat that we eat. Today, we tend to eat basically muscle meat, so chicken breasts and lean steak, or even fattier steaks, if it's not shank or something like that. Historically, we probably would have been eating more of the whole animal and getting collagen, which is really important for an anti-inflammatory/amino acid ratio, and building your gut like I said.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, it may be time, but I will keep it in my window. I don't know why I just can't think of the idea of powder and water. Can you take it in like a pill? That's what I’m going to look for. I don't know. I don't want to dissolve anything in water.

Melanie Avalon: When I took it, of course, I just would eat it with my food, I thought it tasted really good. It’s really important in my opinion to get grass-fed collagen. We can put the link in the show notes to some brands that I like.

Gin Stephens: I don't know why, I have a mental thing against it, like I feel it's going to be gross. I don't know why.

Melanie Avalon: It's funny. I love the way it tastes, but I’m weird.

Gin Stephens: I did eat bone marrow, when I was in Charleston.

Melanie Avalon: Was it delicious?

Gin Stephens: Oh, my Lord. It was good. It was at this little restaurant on King Street in Charleston. Man, it was good.

Melanie Avalon: It's one of those things where if you haven't tried it, it might sound gross, or it might sound like, why would you want to eat that?

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I was scared of it, but everybody raved about it on all the reviews.

Melanie Avalon: It tastes like heaven.

Gin Stephens: It was so good.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, well, we agree on a food. [laughs] It's hard to describe the taste. It just tastes like-

Gin Stephens: This is some kind of bone marrow pudding. It was like a bread pudding made of bone marrow.

Melanie Avalon: If you go to Whole Foods or something you can get--

Gin Stephens: Can't.

Melanie Avalon: I was going to say, you can get bones or you can get cuts that have the bone in it, like a shank cut and it'll have that marrow and if you cook it like normal, then you could just eat them marrow plain. It just tastes, oh, my goodness, amazing.

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All right, now back to the show. Shall we go on to our next question?

Gin Stephens: Yes.

Melanie Avalon: This comes from Elizabeth, and the subject is “Starting IF After HCG.” Elizabeth says, “I've read both Delay, Don't Deny and Fast. Feast. Repeat. I discovered you while in the midst of a round of HCG. I am sure IF is for me. My HCG ends this week. My question is, do I need to do the follow-up protein diet and reintroduce carbs, before starting IF, or can I go right to IF after my three days after HCG?”

Gin Stephens: Yeah, that's a great question, and I do want to say, I’m really glad, Elizabeth, that you found us even in the middle of HCG, but I do not recommend HCG. I mean, honestly, you didn't know that because you were already doing it before you found us. I’m not saying, you shouldn't have done it, because you can't go back in time. Does that make sense? [laughs] For anyone who has not done HCG, I highly, highly would not recommend that you do it. I certainly tried it back in my diet days. I didn't do the drops, I did the “Go to the doctor, get the prescription, take the injections,” because the theory made so much sense. It was you're going to tap into your fat stores, because you're using this pregnancy hormone, your body thinks you're pregnant, so that it's going to help you tap into your fat stores better and it does something to your hypothalamus. That's the theory. Keep in mind, this was a long time ago that I was doing this. I was desperate to lose the weight. I was obese, so I get it.

Everyone who has tried these things like HCG, I tried them. I've done them. I lost a lot of weight doing it. Then, that was when I really started the diet yo-yo after that. The diet pills really got me, and I got those from my doctor too. The doctor prescribed diet pills, regained the weight, then I did HCG, got that from a doctor, lost a lot of weight, regained the weight, but then I was really like obese and struggling. It's not supposed to damage your metabolism, but I don't agree with that. I don't think that's true. I think that theory, just on my own personal response, I don't think that it's true. I think it tanked my metabolism, because suddenly, I gained way past any setpoint I'd ever had before, and I was over 200 pounds for the first time ever. Before all the crazy diets, I was hanging out around 160s as my upper limit. Then, I did all these crazy diets with the diet pills and the HCG, and then all of a sudden, my setpoint is now 200 or 180, in that range.

It definitely harmed my body long term. Thank goodness, I think intermittent fasting helped me reverse it. If it were me, Elizabeth, if I were finishing HCG right now today, and discovered intermittent fasting in the middle of it, I think I would go straight into the eating window approach, because you've already been eating practically nothing. Gosh, actually see, I don't know, because I’m thinking maybe the alternate-day fasting approach would be a good one for her, because her metabolism is probably slow. So you want to boost it again. I would probably, I don't know, you've already been eating a very tiny amount. Those are down days. I might would do alternate daily fasting. Down day, up day, down day, up day. As far as are you're going to reintroduce carbs, I don't know. The original doctor that created this protocol, Dr. Simeons, did have you restrict carbs, but I don't know that was like the magic. I think that just kept you from “regaining” that water weight because you lose a lot of water when you're doing a really restrictive diet like HCG. Then carbs, you eat carbs, and it causes your body to retain water. It's like rapid weight gain, but really, it's like a lot of water. Restricting the carbs as you ease back into eating would keep that from happening, which is what he wanted you to do.

Then, he wanted you to crash diet if your weight went up, like eat a tomato or something or have a tomato and steak day or some crazy nonsense like that. If your weight went up, you're supposed to have a steak day. Eat tomatoes all day and need a big steak or fast all day and then eat a steak, I can't even remember.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I think it's a one meal a day steak.

Gin Stephens: With just a steak.

Melanie Avalon: It's like carnivore one meal a day.

Gin Stephens: Maybe, that could be it. I think that actually is, but that's the super-duper crash diet. I am not judging anybody who does it, because I did it. I’m just going back and giving my back in the past self, giving her a hug.

Melanie Avalon: The interesting thing about HCGs, the macros of it are very similar to protein-sparing modified fast, which Gary actually talks about in his book about basically being the only “crash diet” that actually pretty much consistently always works because I think HCG is, isn't it like 500 calories of basically protein?

Gin Stephens: A day, yep.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. If it were me, I would probably just jump into IF, but maybe start with a longer eating window and making sure that you're eating a lot.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, maybe so, because I was thinking about that too. I almost went that direction. It's hard to know either way, coming from the perspective of your metabolism slowed after all that crash dieting.

Melanie Avalon: I just feel I need to be saying this more when we're getting questions especially from people who are hungry or trying to boost their metabolism, focusing on protein I think is so, so important. That's another one of the Big Fat Keto Lies that Marty talks about, is people think fat is satiating, protein is the macronutrient that is most satiating. I think focusing on protein can be really, really important for boosting metabolism and for weight loss, because it's the best of both worlds in that regard, and that it fills you up the most of any food, but it's not very likely to be stored as fat like we don't preferentially store protein as fat. Oh, actually, I don't know if it was in Marty's book. I think it was Marty's book. He mentioned a study about whey, and even in a study where they added in excess calories through processed whey protein, excess calories, the participants did not gain weight from it which I actually would have thought maybe they would when it's fat processed.

Gin Stephens: Because it was whey.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, and it's whey, which is very--

Gin Stephens: Dairy droved.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, it's growth promoting. Protein is a really good macronutrient to focus on if you're trying to lose weight, trying to be full. It's probably why I’ve been eating such a high-- I eat such a high protein diet for so long. But yeah, I will probably just jump into IF with a longer eating window. Especially if you're worried about gaining back a lot of weight after that, that's another reason I would really focus on protein. So, I would encourage you, Elizabeth, not to go crazy, and if you're eating tons of carbs and tons of fat, it's very likely that you might gain back a large part of-- not just water, you might gain back in fat a large part of what you lost. If you want to maintain whatever you did lose, I would really focus on protein and then looking at your macros.

Gin Stephens: I wouldn't just reintroduce all the things. That's a tricky one.

Melanie Avalon: I know.

Gin Stephens: I’m glad that you found us, Elizabeth, that makes me really-- or Beth. She goes by Beth. I’m glad you found us, Beth, and don't be scared if your weight goes back up a little bit, don't blame the intermittent fasting. Blame the HCG and know that it's going to go back up a little bit, and then it might take a little while longer for you to actually start burning fat well and start really losing more weight, just because your body's got to learn to trust you again. You definitely don't want to do intermittent fasting in a way that's also overly restrictive. That won't be helpful. Can I get something off my chest real quick?

Melanie Avalon: Sure.

Gin Stephens: I’m so frustrated by the whole women shouldn't do intermittent fasting at certain times of the month or we’re too fragile a flower to do intermittent fasting. That is really becoming more and more out there as just common knowledge, but I don't think it's true. I think women should not be overly restrictive with their diet. The fact that all of a sudden, we're like, “Well that means intermittent fasting is out,” intermittent fasting that is overly restrictive is the problem, but that doesn't mean no woman should ever do intermittent fasting during our cycles. I don't know. Maybe they haven't eaten with me. I eat a lot of food. [laughs] Nobody's telling those women not to do a 1200 calorie a day diet. That's overly restrictive, a traditional diet.

Melanie Avalon: I agree as well. I was also just thinking one of the other things people say. People say it's too hard for women especially to eat enough protein. I was just thinking about. It's probably really hard if you're not focusing on protein and so you're eating a lot of fat with it, or a lot of-- carbs might make it easier to a lot protein, but I think people focus so much on fat a lot of the times that that would make it harder to eat a lot of protein.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, just over-restriction is really hard on a woman's body. Over-restriction is hard on our body. But to then say, “Well, then women shouldn't fast certain times of the month,” I don't buy that argument. Even though some really well-known voices that I respect are starting to say that more it's common knowledge, I disagree. Anyway.

Melanie Avalon: I don't feel good when I’m not doing my fasting. This is me personally. I don't feel it helps my hormones. I feel much better hormonally during my fasting window, like hands down. But everybody's individual, that said, I do think there might be some women who do better with--

Gin Stephens: Yep. Particularly if they struggle with eating sufficiently, because they've trained themselves to be a dieter for example, and they're a restrained eater. If someone eats like a bird, tiny little amounts of it, maybe they just naturally can't eat a lot at one time. Okay, then they might need a longer window. It's not the fasting that's the problem, it's the fact that you can't eat enough food within your eating window, like that person shouldn't then try to do one meal a day in a one-hour window. I wouldn't recommend that. If you're eating this tiny little amount of food, that's not good for you, it's over-restriction. We don't want to over-restrict our bodies, women.

Melanie Avalon: Exactly.

Gin Stephens: But that doesn't mean that fasting is over-restriction. That's the part that I keep getting frustrated about. Assuming that fasting means over-restricting, and it does not to me.

Melanie Avalon: They're not synonyms.

Gin Stephens: Right.

Melanie Avalon: They are often posited as such.

Gin Stephens: Well, they are. There's this whole complicated graphic that people are now sharing that came from somewhere, and I know where it came from, not going to say, but it's like, “Here's how you fast every week of your cycle.” I’m like, “No, you might have a hungrier day. Listen to your body, do it.”

Melanie Avalon: That sounds really complicated.

Gin Stephens: It does. I don't know that there's solid science of why you would do that. Other than, yeah, your body might need more nutrients at a certain time of your cycle. My body was always good at telling me that, I can remember-- back earlier and before I got on this side of menopause, I remember, when I was doing intermittent fasting and losing weight, there'd be a day and I'd be like, “Oh my God, I’m so hungry today. What's wrong? I just ate and ate and ate and ate and ate and why am I so hungry and then?” Then, boom, the next day, I would have the reason why I would know. Every time it was a mystery. [laughs] Every month, I was surprised that I was so hungry. My body really communicated that well to me and I listened. I didn't try to diet through it. I didn't punish myself.

Melanie Avalon: You still ate what you wanted.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I ate more. My body pretty much commanded me to. I've always had a hard time-- Even though I did those crazy restrictive diets, they weren't easy for me. When I’m hungry, I want to eat. My body's like, “Eat.” I’m like, “Okay.”

Melanie Avalon: Me too. [laughs] That's why we're both here.

Gin Stephens: I think so.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.

Gin Stephens: Gin can eat, y'all.

Melanie Avalon: So can Melanie, so much. I've already said this. It's a dead horse, but the amount of protein I eat every day is, I mean, it's pounds.

Gin Stephens: That's so funny, not me. Nope, not pounds of protein.

Melanie Avalon: It's so good. [laughs] Well, this has been absolutely wonderful. A few things for listeners before we go. If you would like to submit your own questions to the show, you can directly email questions@ifpodcast.com, or you can go to ifpodcast.com, and you can submit questions there. The show notes for today's episode will be at ifpodcast.com/episode207. You can get all the stuff that we like at ifpodcast.com/stuffwelike. You can follow us on Instagram. My Instagram is-- Gin, it's going really well-

Gin Stephens: Oh, good.

Melanie Avalon: -recently. Follow us. How's your Instagram?

Gin Stephens: I've decided I’m just going to live my life on Instagram. I’m just going to be Gin Stephens’ person on Instagram. If you want to come to Instagram and see what Gin Stephens’ person is doing, I don't need to be Gin Stephens. Argh. [laughs] I've just feeling very much like I just want to get back to basics. Maybe that's why I’m doing this new web platform. Just because I’m like-- I don't want to be, “Here's my dinner. Woo.” Maybe, “Here I am, everybody, come sit by me.”

Melanie Avalon: I think I really like Instagram-- well, besides the fact that selfies really stress me out, I like it, because I really like creating-- my background is film and theater, so I love creating visual content. It's combines my love for visual content with words because you-- I never thought about this until right now. You write as well, so I think that's me probably why I really like it. It's like creating little artwork.

Gin Stephens: Not me. I’m like, “Here's my backyard remodel.” Did you see that picture?

Melanie Avalon: I did. No, okay, I saw it really briefly, and I just saw wreckage and I was like, “Oh my gosh, was there is--" no, I was like, “Was there a storm in Augusta, is her house gone?”

Gin Stephens: Can I just tell you how crazy I am right now? I’m going through so many things, the book, and the website launch, and also our backyard remodel that we tried to start in the fall, but we're demoing everything. Well, it's halfway done, but the wood was rotten on the decks that were on the back, plus there was an arbor, all rotten, all needed to go. We knew it needed to be replaced when we bought the house. We got a great deal on this house, it needed some work. The pool though, huge pool from the 80s, it's full of cracks, a tree fell in it in 2014. They had an ice storm. Well, we had ice storm, and it cracked the pool, and so we were going to have to put all this money into fixing it. They're going to dig it all up. All that concrete is cracked, it has to go. The whole surround. So, I have a bobcat, one of those digger things, is in my front yard right now and they have to get it into the backyard. They're going to take down a fence. I think they start doing that tomorrow. They're going to start digging up all that-- it’s a 10-foot-deep pool.

Melanie Avalon: That's intense.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, fixing it was going to cost more than just digging it up. That sounds crazy, but we're starting over, we're going to put in a screened porch, because I really missed having the screen porch. We're putting in a small pool, like a dunk pool.

Melanie Avalon: You have a real bobcat in the picture. Does Ellie not have a tail?

Gin Stephens: That's Ellie. You remember she got hit by the car, and then her tail had to be amputated. She's just my little cutie, but, yeah, in that picture, she's got a face on it, doesn’t she? She's got some attitude. I love that cat.

Melanie Avalon: It's really funny. I’m looking at it right now.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, anyway, that's what I’m going to put on Instagram. I’m not going to try to influence you at all. I am not an influencer. I’m an anti-influencer.

Melanie Avalon: I’m an anti-influencer, who became an influencer. I give away a lot of free stuff.

Gin Stephens: Oh, I’m not anti-influencers. Let me just say that. I am an anti-influencer, but I’m not anti-influencers.

Melanie Avalon: Yes, exactly.

Gin Stephens: I’m just the anti-influencer. I’m not giving you anything. I’m not giving anything away.

Melanie Avalon: I give away a lot of stuff, listeners, so follow me. I usually give away every week something.

Gin Stephens: Well, follow me to see a very interesting backyard remodel.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, my gosh.

Gin Stephens: I can't wait though, because I really want to be able to enjoy the yard, and I like to go outside and sit on a screened porch. The mosquitoes here are tragic.

Melanie Avalon: I feel remodeling for you is therapeutic or something. You're always remodeling something.

Gin Stephens: Well, we bought this house that was built in the 80s, and needed to be-- it’s built in 1979, I said that wrong. It was built in 1979. The people who bought it from moved in 1984. The pool was built in the 80s. It just needed some work. When you have a house, there's always something that has to be done.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.

Gin Stephens: This one needed some stuff. Bathroom, that's all finally done, thank you. The backyard. But it's very stressful.

Melanie Avalon: I can't wait to finally have a house, sometime.

Gin Stephens: I can't wait for it to be done. I told Chad, because I’m so busy. He likes to spend 100 years looking at stuff. “Look, you just pick two things and say which one, this one or that and I'll tell you.”

Melanie Avalon: Oh, so he picks. Okay. Yeah, that's good plan.

Gin Stephens: Well, in this case, I like to pick stuff. I don't have time right now to go to Lowe's, and then Home Depot, and then the other place, and then all the places, then back to Lowe's, because that's the way Chad shops. Sorry. [laughs] I’m like, “Hmm, that one.”

Melanie Avalon: He can do that, and pick two and then you pick one?

Gin Stephens: Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: That works well.

Gin Stephens: I’m very decisive.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.

Gin Stephens: The one I'd say that one too is always the one we end up going with. Even if we've been to 100 places, we always get back to the one that I liked immediately. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: Wait, can I share really quick one last thing that relates?

Gin Stephens: Yes.

Melanie Avalon: It goes with being decisive. Listeners, fun fact, if you're trying to throw away things, like clean out your apartment, throw away clothes, but you want to hold on to it for whatever reason, just do it when you're completely sleep deprived. It's like when I got back from the trip, and I was completely sleep deprived, I was like must throw away everything. I throw away so much stuff. That's the key.

Gin Stephens: It feels so good, doesn't it?

Melanie Avalon: That's the key. Next time, you're sleep deprived, which is not a good thing, turn it into a good thing. Use the decision fatigue and the exhaustion to throw away all these things that you were having trouble letting go of, like old clothes and stuff, shoes.

Gin Stephens: Very nice. I need to do that. I've got clothes that are no longer in style. Isn't that amazing? I've been the same weight for so long, that my clothes have gone out of style, that I bought.

Melanie Avalon: I think, I must not buy many clothes. I hold on to my outfits for a long time.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, because you always wear the same thing.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, pretty much during the day.

Gin Stephens: That's funny. Oh, by the way, I didn't tell you this. Today is the day, the day that we're recording this, today is the day that six years ago today I hit my initial goal weight.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, wow.

Gin Stephens: Today is the day. March 14th, 2015. I was 75 pounds down.

Melanie Avalon: Happy six-year anniversary.

Gin Stephens: Thank you. I've maintained for six years. Oh, also one more funny story. My Shapa was acting super wacky. I was like my age was going up, I was gray, gray, gray, gray, gray. I’m like, “That's not right.” It did that for three weeks. I changed the batteries. [laughs] It needed the batteries to be changed. People, if your Shapa is acting wacky, change the batteries. Got on it. I was 24 again instead of-- [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: Oh, wow. That's really interesting.

Gin Stephens: It was interesting. No scales, when they lose-- It was also taking it a long time to take a reading. I would stand on it, and it took forever.

Melanie Avalon: I still want to reach out to the founder. Gin, I am so overwhelmed with guests. I have interviews scheduled for episodes airing through November. They're all people I have to read like-- [laughs] people keep coming to me and being like, “Oh, you should have this person on your show.” I’m like, “Nope, [laughs] the door is closed.” Unless you’re a New York Times bestseller, that'll get you in the door.

Gin Stephens: That's nice to be able to have options that people want to come on your show. I know that you're proud of that.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, oh, sorry, yeah, that came off as ungrateful. I’m really grateful for it.

Gin Stephens: It did not come off as ungrateful.

Melanie Avalon: I’m just really overwhelmed when people come to, especially because sometimes, like some well-known people in the biohacking sphere will try to recommend their friends and stuff and, I'm like, “I could circle back in a few months.”

Gin Stephens: That does make it hard. Same with me, I've got so many people that want to come on Intermittent Fasting Stories that I keep pushing them back, and I feel bad because I know they have a good story. I would like to tell it, but there's one a week.

Melanie Avalon: It's hard to know too-- I don't want the content to be too old. It's something I’m trying to figure out right now. At what point is that way too far in advance? Typically, it's books, so the content is pretty relevant.

Gin Stephens: But people want to come on right when it's launched. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, it's hard to know.

Gin Stephens: All right, we’ll come to dddsocialnetwork.com and visit the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast group.

Melanie Avalon: Another social group.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, you're going to love it though.

Melanie Avalon: I know. I will.

Gin Stephens: Everybody there came there specifically because they like the community. That is what is so exciting. It's not like Facebook where people are just there already, and they're like, “Well, I'll come over here if I want to, but I might not like you, and I’m going to tell you.” [laughs] Everybody who's on the DDD Social Network came there on purpose. It is just so exciting to be there with them. I love them all so much. I love the people on Facebook too. Facebook people, do not feel unloved, but sometimes, somebody will wander in that might not be as good of a fit. Anyway, that's all I’m going to say.

Melanie Avalon: I’m really shocked-- this is the last thing, I know we've said that like a million times. I recently started my Clean Beauty and Safe Skincare Facebook group. I’m really shocked. My IF Biohackers Facebook group, which is my main hub, I don't ever get spammers in that group ever, like ever. I don't get people trying to join who are spammers. I don't get spam posts.

Gin Stephens: We get them in the Life Lessons. We do. They try to join.

Melanie Avalon: My Clean Beauty one, like half of the requests are spam requests. I don't know if it has something to do with the keywords like people are searching-- This group has around almost 900 members. Yeah, everyday, half of the requests are spam.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, and it's really hard. I feel like people coming to the DDD Social Network and paying a membership fee are not going to be spammers.

Melanie Avalon: Right, that's going to filter that out.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, so I’m not going to have to worry about that. People would join the regular group before we changed the way it posts now. People would join it, and then they would get a post approved, through post approval. Then they would edit their post to some crazy spam posts, even post approval didn't fix it. It'll be some crazy spam post. They had this order, they would do it and it'd be called it getting pancaked, but we couldn't talk about it because we didn't want to teach people you could edit your posts. Someone would come in and they'd post something. They started copying and pasting old posts. There was one of our Hashimoto’s that they would use. Then we started to recognize them, we’d just block them straight from there, but they would copy this Hashimoto’s post, and then they would change it to, “Today, I’m five years sober.” Which, do you know why they would do that?

Melanie Avalon: No.

Gin Stephens: Because that drives a lot of engagement quickly, because everybody's like, “Oh, my God, congratulations. Thank you for sharing that. I support you.” Then they would have a million. Then they would change it to, “The admins of this group are about to start dropping inactive members, please comment me if you want to stay.” Then people would go, “Me, me, me.” I mean, you could just see. Then they would change it to, “These are the best pancakes I've ever had.”

Melanie Avalon: Oh, that's why you called it pancake.

Gin Stephens: Pancaking. Yes. It was always this pancake, and I’m like, “I don't know what happens if you click that pancake link,” but something bad is going to happen if you click it, but we called it getting pancaked, and somebody would post on there, like, “I think we're about to get pancaked,” and we'd be like, “Yeah, that looks like one,” and then we would keep our eye on it, and then sure enough, then we would block them. Now, Facebook has changed it. If you have post approval turned on, it sends edits back through the approval process. So, hallelujah. But now, they're just putting the spam in the comments.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I’m really grateful. Hopefully it won't change. My main hub is much smaller than yours. I think it's almost 8000 or 9000, but I don't know, we don't really get spam.

Gin Stephens: We don't get a lot of spam in the advanced group.

Melanie Avalon: Maybe, spammers are not searching out Biohacking groups compared to-- I don't know, it's weird. Well, okay. This has been absolutely wonderful.

Gin Stephens: It's been a lot of fun. I needed it. Lord, I have so much to do. I have so much to do, Melanie. Anyway, send me positive productive thoughts.

Melanie Avalon: Sending you sane, productive, wonderful vibes. Take some Feals CBD.

Gin Stephens: Oh, that's a good idea.

Melanie Avalon: Well, this has been absolutely wonderful. I will talk to you next week.

Gin Stephens: All right, talk to you then. Bye.

Melanie Avalon: Bye.

Thank you so much for listening to The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Please remember that everything discussed on the show is not medical advice. We're not doctors. You can also check out our other podcasts, Intermittent Fasting Stories, and the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast. Theme music was composed by Leland Cox. See you next week.

STUFF WE LIKE

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

LINKS

BUY Melanie's What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine, Gin's Delay, Don't Deny: Living an Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle, Feast Without Fear: Food and the Delay, Don't Deny Lifestyle and/or Gin's Fast. Feast. Repeat.: The Clean Fast Protocol for Health, Longevity, and Weight Loss--Including the 21-Day FAST Start Guide

The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast

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More on Melanie: MelanieAvalon.com

More on Gin: GinStephens.com

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Nov 15

Episode 187: Blood Sugar Variation, Flexibility, Yen Yoga, Collagen, Elastin, Losing Weight A Second Time, Berberine, And More!

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The Melanie Avalon Podcast Episode #60 - Wim Hof

Welcome to Episode 187 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine and Gin Stephens, author of Delay, Don't Deny: Living An Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle.

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Listener Feedback: Miranda - Answer to Paige’s Flexibility Question Ep. 173

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TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Welcome to Episode 187 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, author of What When Wine: Lose Weight and Feel Great with Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, and Wine. And I'm here with my cohost, Gin Stephens, author of Delay, Don't Deny: Living an Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle. For more on us, check out ifpodcast.com, melanieavalon.com, and ginstephens.com. Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this podcast do not constitute medical advice or treatment. So, pour yourself a cup of black coffee, a mug of tea, or even a glass of wine, if it's that time, and get ready for The Intermittent Fasting Podcast.

Friends, Black Friday is coming up and I'm about to tell you how you can get early access to ButcherBox’s free steak sampler. We're talking two free grass-fed New York strips and four grass-fed top sirloins. Do not miss this. We are huge fans around here of ButcherBox. They make it easy to get high-quality humanely raised meat that you can trust shipped straight to your door. I hardcore research their practices, you guys know I do my research, and what they're doing is incredible. Their beef is 100% grass fed and grass finished. Their chicken is free range and organic. Their pork is heritage breed. And super importantly, they are all about caring for the lives of both their animals and the livelihoods of their farmers, treating our planet with respect and allowing us to enjoy better meals together.

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You can shop with us at melanieavalon.com/beautycounter. And if you use that link, something really special and magical might happen after you place your first order. If you're trying to figure out exactly which products to get, check out my beauty counter quiz, that's at melanieavalon.com/beautycounterquiz. And for the latest discounts and giveaways from me, definitely get on my clean beauty email list. That's at melanieavalon.com/cleanbeauty. All right, now back to the show.

Hi everybody, and welcome. This is episode number 187 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon and I'm here with Gin Stephens.

Gin Stephens: Hi, everybody.

Melanie Avalon: How are you today, Gin?

Gin Stephens: I am good. Can I tell you that my bathroom is almost done?

Melanie Avalon: Oh, like finally?

Gin Stephens: Yeah, we've had the plumbing, the lighting was done yesterday. And so, all we need now is the towel bars-- oh, and the medicine cabinet and the mirror have to be hung, then we will be finished. But you could actually go in there and do everything a bathroom is supposed to do. Just you can't look in the mirror or hang anything up.

Melanie Avalon: That is a plus.

Gin Stephens: I know, it is very exciting.

Melanie Avalon: And then, is it just the yard that you're working on?

Gin Stephens: Yeah, we're going to be working on a backyard remodel. That's going to be huge. Huh!

Melanie Avalon: To your tropical oasis with Paris?

Gin Stephens: Will see. Yeah, I'm excited. I can't wait. I miss my screened porch. I looked at my Facebook memories today, and one year ago today I was sitting on the floor in my old house with workmen. We were getting ready. It was under contract and we were getting ready to close at the end of the month. So, gosh, so many memories from that. But I haven't had a screened porch since we left that house.

Melanie Avalon: I didn't realize you had a screened porch.

Gin Stephens: At my other house? Oh yeah, I loved it. I sat out there all the time.

Melanie Avalon: I would not sit up there all the time. Actually, I would during the winter.

Gin Stephens: Mainly, I'm out there in the summer, in the spring, in the fall. When it's cold, no. But I like it the rest of the time.

Melanie Avalon: Speaking of the cold, guess what showed up at my door yesterday and made my life?

Gin Stephens: Well, I don't know, unless it was a chest freezer.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, that would really make my life. You know I had Wim Hof on the show recently? It was a celebratory Wim Hof giftbox with the official-- Oh, it's so exciting. I had a galley of the book. So, I had a pre-release, not finalized version. So, it was like the hardcover actual version, like a Wim Hof towel that says, “Breathe mother F,” because he always says that, that's his phrase. And then, an ice cube tray and a motivational magnet. Oh, my goodness.

Gin Stephens: That's so fun!

Melanie Avalon: My day was made. So, I have a CGM update.

Gin Stephens: Oh, okay, how's that going?

Melanie Avalon: It's going well. I don't know-- today might be the last day. I'm actually interviewing Levels tomorrow. And then, I'm interviewing Nutrisense in a month, but I had a huge epiphany. So, we were talking just a second ago, you and I. I recently did the-- so InsideTracker, which is a David Sinclair affiliated company. They do a lot of genetic testing and blood testing and things like that. And they have a new InnerAge thing. They test, I don't know, it's like 12 key biomarkers to determine your “biological” or your real age. The good thing was that said I was younger than I am. So, I was like, “Okay, that's a plus.” But what was really interesting was I measured my blood sugar on it, and I guess just because of the timing of it-- and it matched my CGM for the time that I got it, but the timing of it, my blood sugar was 79, or something, which is my good number. Historically, I always feel really good in the high 70s.

But looking at my CGM over the past few weeks-- we talked about this last show, it fluctuates so much, even during the fast. If I hadn't been doing the CGM and I just done that one blood test, I would have been like, “Oh, I'm sure my blood sugar is always in the 70s then.” It made me realize getting a blood test and checking your blood sugar, you have no idea. You've no idea what that even means.

Gin Stephens: You don't know where you are on the curve exactly. It could be on the way up, on the way down. That could be your peak, that could be your valley. It's so interesting.

Melanie Avalon: It is. I'm just looking back at all the blood tests I've done historically and how I would so judge myself almost based on what the blood sugar was. Now, I've realized literally, depending on which minute I went in, it could have been--

Gin Stephens: I mean, 10 points higher. Yeah, it's crazy. That was the most eye-opening thing for me.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. And then, the other thing was, how high would your blood sugar go after meals? After your curvy meals?

Gin Stephens: Gosh, I'm trying to remember. It's been over a month. I don't know, like 130 normally? That’s how it would go.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, because I've been in 120s.

Gin Stephens: 120s, 130. One time, it went up a little higher than that, but I don't think it ever went out of the 130s. I don't know. I don't know where that data. I had it somewhere downloaded, but--

Melanie Avalon: Was it just through the FreeStyle Libre app or was it--?

Gin Stephens: It was, but then I found a website that you could sync it with. Let me see, I might have some notes.

Melanie Avalon: While you're looking, the interesting thing that I realized was eating lower carb meals or even fruit meals, my blood sugar, it would spike, but it would go like 110, highest like 120 and then pretty quickly go down, and then it would go down too far. But last night, I ate way more carbs than normal and, oh my goodness, it went up to like 200 something.

Gin Stephens: Oh my gosh. Okay, see, I found some of my data. This is just some very early data that I-- I went up to 135 one time. But normally, like after dinner, I would go up like 112. After pasta, I went up to 121.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, because the highest I would really ever go when eating my normal foods was 120. But it would normally go to 110-ish, between 110 and 120.

Gin Stephens: Here's some data that I had. I had two pieces of toast and two eggs on top, and my blood glucose went up to 109 after two pieces of toast with eggs.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, so last night, I ate some-- it's like Rice Krispies but there's no additives or anything like that. And it shot up to 200.

Gin Stephens: Wow, yeah, I never saw anything above-- Really, maybe 140 at one time. I never saw anything above, and I was like, “Oh my God, what's happened?”

Melanie Avalon: 217!

Gin Stephens: Yeah. I wish I had all that data. Even after the muffins, it didn't go up all that much.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, it never really dropped hypoglycemic, did you, after meals?

Gin Stephens: No, not after meals. In the middle of the night, it got down in the tiny little red. I can't remember what the boundary was. Was it, like 69 was the boundary? It turns red. I can't remember. But I got down there just a couple times. But mostly it was not there.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, mine would always draw pretty well, although I was talking with Levels about it and they said a few things. And I'm excited because I'm interviewing them tomorrow, so I have so many questions for them. But they said that, A, if you sleep on the sensor, that can cut off circulation, like if it's on your arm, so that can lead to false like--

Gin Stephens: The middle of the night readings can be weird.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, it could be that. And then, he also said that they never really test like historically people's blood sugar levels all night. So, we don't have a lot of data in general about what's normal for--

Gin Stephens: That's a good point.

Melanie Avalon: --nighttime, so yeah. Oh, and for listeners. A CGM is a continuous glucose monitor. I've just assumed that everybody knows what you're talking about. But it's basically a little thing that you put on your skin and it measures your-- What is it, interstitial fluid? To give you a sense of your blood sugar levels throughout the day constantly.

Gin Stephens: And it really is fascinating data and I really hope that it becomes more mainstream for people to use as a preventative health measure. It's not a trinket, it's not a fun toy. It's not something like, “Oh, look at this!” It's something that is powerful data. Yes, it's fun to see, it's interesting to see, but it's powerful data about how your body responds to these foods. And so, it can really make a difference when you choose. You're probably not going to choose that Rice Krispy thing again, right?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, no.

Gin Stephens: For me, though, when my blood glucose went up to 135, that was after coconut water, which really surprised me. I mean, I love coconut water.

Melanie Avalon: It's really interesting. It did make me feel better though about the fruit because I was stressing about the fruit. But now it's like, “Oh, well, compared to that.” So, maybe it was a good thing to experience.

Gin Stephens: I made sure to eat the way I normally eat when I was using it. I didn't test things in isolation. When I had the toast with eggs, that's how I would normally have it because I wanted to get a picture of how it looked with my normal day. My normal day really made me happy. My normal day, my blood glucose is within a tight little range and it goes up, but then it goes down. And it's a nice little gentle-- It looked good. It made me feel really good about it.

Melanie Avalon: I'm still a little bit sad because it seems that if I do my keto-ish like approach, it's pretty good, and the Levels app gives me a good metabolic score and it stays within the target range, but I would still in general like it like a little bit lower and then I would also like to be eating more fruit, but goals. The good thing is because it comes in two weeks cycles, the sensors, and I have Levels send me too. So, I have another one I can use. I have to try out Nutrisense and then Levels said they're going to start trialing other brand. So, I think I'll probably trial that as well. So, I think I have like-- what is that? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, that's like 6 more weeks' worth of sensors that I can potentially play with. And then, I'm going to be like never again, not really.

Gin Stephens: It's just so interesting. I really think that people who are concerned about long-term health, before you start having prediabetes, that's when you would know, you could really dial in what works for you and then prevent. If health insurance companies were smart, they would let everybody have a trial of these to see what foods-- anyone who's interested. Maybe not everybody, not everybody cares. But for anyone who did, it shouldn't be so hard to get them. They should pay you to do them. It should be like, “We'll give you $250 if you wear this for two weeks and learn from your data.” I mean that would be a wellness strategy for these insurance companies and it would prevent them from paying out thousands of dollars later for sickness. Anyway, I'm not in charge of that. Nobody has to be!

Melanie Avalon: So, listeners, stay tuned, though, because I will be having two interviews with both companies, and I'll probably have discounts or some sort of offer. So, exciting! Shall we jump into everything for today?

Gin Stephens: Yes. We have some listener feedback, which is answer to "Paige’s Flexibility Question From 173," and it's from Miranda. She says, “Hello, Gin and Melanie. I've been listening to your podcast for two years now and I love all the great information you have to offer and your willingness to entertain so many questions from your listeners. I'm happy to be part of such a valued community. I'm just getting caught up on some older podcasts and have some answers for a question you had from Paige from Australia in episode 173 - does IF increase your flexibility? You weren't able to fully answer this, and I am happy to fill in some blanks for you.

I have been practicing yin yoga for over 10 years and teaching it for over six years. Yin yoga is a style of yoga that focuses on purposefully stressing our connective tissue to increase elasticity and ease of movement. It is thought to have been discovered by monks thousands of years ago to help them sit more comfortably during hours of meditation. Connective tissues are the plastic-like tissues in the body, the fascia, ligaments, tendons, etc., that wrap around and connect muscles and bones. And now, they're discovering it runs like a web through muscle and bone. With stress, injury, dehydration, and life, the connective tissue gets tangled, sticky, and begins to shrink wrap our bodies restricting movement. In order to "untangle" and rehydrate that connective tissue, it needs to be purposely stressed. This is what we do in yin yoga. Stressing muscle is done through resistance movement, with or without weight. We're all very familiar with this.

Stressing connective tissue requires consistent tension and/or compression. Usually, both are happening concurrently with minimal muscular effort for a period of time, usually four to six minutes. It takes an average of two to three minutes for the muscles in the area to let go so that the stress can be focused on the connective tissue. During this time, the area being stressed sends a message out, “here's where the work needs to be done.” And the fibroblasts know where to go to start untangling those bunched and knotted-up collagen and elastin fibers and start laying them out in nice, neat, stretchy layers.” And then she adds a little note, this is a very simplified explanation. “This works similarly to acupuncture, but on a wider scale and not literally a pinpoint. Think of a big knotted-up ball of yarn. You have both loose ends in hand, but when you pull, they don't go far. If you take the time, you can untangle the ball of yarn and then layer it back and forth into a nice, neat skein. Now, when you pull on the loose ends, you can pull for miles.

The answer to Paige’s question is twofold. First, Melanie, you are on the right track looking for studies about the effects on cartilage. And Gin, you were partway there when talking about being as flexible at 50 as you were when you were a teen dancer. I believe a lot of that can be attributed to IF and increased autophagy. When our bodies have the time, as they do with IF, they get to go around and clean up the broken-down proteins, i.e., collagen and elastin, which tends to get deprioritized as we age. So, you have less tangled messes that can get taken care of without a practice like yin yoga or acupuncture, although either or both would still be very beneficial.

The second part of the answer, and what I think Paige is experiencing as she was pretty recent in her IF journey, is looking at our flexibility and asking, ‘What's stopping us?’ That answer is either tension or compression or a combination. It's different for all of us in different positions or poses. An easy way to experience this is to stand up, bend over, and try to touch your toes. Can you do it? If not, what's stopping you? Is it the tight sensation you feel in your lower back or in your hamstrings or calves? That's tension. That can be worked through over time with consistent practice. Are you able to touch your toes? Yes. Can you fold completely in half with your head between your knees, your knees on your ears? Why not, what's stopping you? Now, you're likely experiencing compression.

Compression comes in three major forms. Soft, medium, and hard. Soft compression is how it sounds, soft tissue meeting soft tissues, big fat. Using the same example as above, envision an obese person doing the same exercise. Let's pretend they don't have too much tension stopping them from doing that forward fold. They will likely be stopped by the compression of their belly pressing against their thighs. They may still be able to touch their toes or the floor because that can somewhat displace and make space for that to happen. With IF, as we lose this thigh and belly fat, we can increase flexibility. This position in particular will feel a little more comfortable, at least from the compression side of things. And we may start to meet our tension threshold in our lower back and our hamstrings now that we have more flexibility/range of motion. This sensation will likely change as our bodies change.”

Melanie Avalon: Can I interject really quick? So, is she saying that literally losing the weight, it's like a physical barrier that's creating?

Gin Stephens: Yes. When I was obese, I couldn't reach down and paint my toenails. My belly got in the way. 100%.

Melanie Avalon: That is so interesting. I mean, it makes complete sense. I just never really thought about it that way.

Gin Stephens: Yep, I've been there. It's true. I had to sit differently. I couldn't sit cross-legged. And there are a lot of ways I couldn't move. I mean shaving your legs, things like that just were so different to do. It's hard to even remember.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.

Gin Stephens: Putting on shoes, all those things. But, yeah, and now I appreciate being able to just do whatever, use my body however I want to. All right, back to her comments. “Medium compression is interesting and what we often experience in our joints. This is a bone-flesh-bone sandwich. Try sitting on the floor cross-legged style. Do you feel a pinching in your leg creases? This is medium compression. It often feels pinchy. If that position feels completely comfortable to you, great.” It does, by the way, I can sit like that. Can you sit cross-legged comfortably, Melanie?

Melanie Avalon: Pretty sure.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I do all the time. “But I'm sure you've experienced the same sensation in other positions at some point in time. Medium compression often doesn't change in people unless they have “fat show” or “deposits” around the tissues of the joints, most likely in someone more obese. Again, as those fat stores are being used for energy and decreasing in size, there is more space for movement, which equals more flexibility. IF for the win again.

And finally, hard compression. This is bone-to-bone compression. Think of trying to do side splits. Many people can do front to back splits.” Yep, that's the only kind I could do. “But several of those still cannot do side splits.” Yep, I could not do those ever. “Why? Hard compression. They can spread their feet from side to side, have zero tension in their inner thighs, slide down and down, close to the ground and then stuck. What's stopping them? Their hip sockets. The head and neck of their femur fitting into the cup of their pelvis does not have the optimal sizes and angles to make this happen. In yin, we say this person doesn't have skeletal permission to go any further. There is no amount of yoga or stretching that will make this happen for them. Even IF will not change this. This is where we learn to accept our limitations. So, yes, IF can increase your flexibility and I hope this will help people have a little better understanding of their functional anatomy.

If you notice changes in flexibility and increases in the range of motion in your body, please be aware that it's critical to also strengthen the muscles in these areas to prevent injury. We need to have the strength to support the range of motion. Of course, I recommend yoga for this, more flow styles as they strengthen and lengthen muscles at the same time. If you do resistance training, it's very important that you have a great stretching routine on your rest days or at the end of your workouts. Try to hold your stretches with minimal muscular effort for three to four minutes instead of the likely 20 to 30 seconds you're used to. Thank you for listening to this long answer. But I know how much you both dig into research and I didn't want to sell you short.” That was great. Thank you, Miranda.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I learned so much. Who knew?

Gin Stephens: I did not know.

Melanie Avalon: I liked her part about this-- What did she say about the skeletal--?

Gin Stephens: Limitations. It's true. Yeah. I was never going to be able to do a side split no matter how hard I tries.

Melanie Avalon: It's good to know that that was not in the cards. Yeah, good to know that with IF and the weight loss and everything, that it can definitely affect our flexibility. All right, shall we move on to our questions?

Gin Stephens: Yes.

Melanie Avalon: All right. So, to start things off. We have a question from Katie. The subject is, “Second try has been brutal.” And Katie says, “I sometimes wonder if my metabolism is irreparably damaged. I'm so discouraged and ready to give up and regain, no pun intended, that unfortunate fat girl mindset that Gin has often described as accepting that you're just going to get fatter and fatter.”

Gin Stephens: I want to interject there. I felt that way for a time. So, for people who haven't heard me say that, there was a time in my life I gave up, and it was sometime around 2012 to 2014 when I just got bigger and bigger, no matter what I did, I couldn't stick to anything. And I just said, “You know what? This is just me. I'm going to be in this big body.” I gave up. But not forever. I didn't give up forever. Thank goodness. All right. Back to you, Melanie.

Melanie Avalon: That's so surreal to me. Till 2014, you were still--?

Gin Stephens: Yeah, 2014 is when I was 210 pounds.

Melanie Avalon: I know we talked about this a lot but the reason that's so mind blowing to me is that-- because I so associate us meeting the first time that I moved to Atlanta, and I moved to Atlanta first time in 2014.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, we didn't meet till 2017.

Melanie Avalon: Was it '17?

Gin Stephens: It was '17. It was early in 17 because the podcasts-- and my book had come out already by the time we met. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. So, I guess it was like the tail end of when I was in Atlanta the first time but it's just really surreal to me that time in Atlanta the first time around seems so short. So, the fact that all of that transformation happened all during when I was in Atlanta, and we still met when I was in Atlanta--like, that's a really quick turnaround all things considered.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, it really was because I really just was like, “This is it. This is going to happen.” And it did. Yeah, it was. I'm really, really, really proud of that. Looking back, it's hard to remember, I was just talking about how hard it was to paint my toenails and bend around and move. But you just feel hopeless because you've tried so hard. I tried so hard. I talk about this a lot for people who listen to intermittent fasting stories. This theme comes up again and again. And that's my other podcast, Intermittent Fasting Stories, for people who have not listened to that one. But people over and over share how they were successful in so many areas of their life, good at things, smart, well educated, but could not get a handle on the weight. It's really frustrating.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, inspiring, though. Very inspiring.

Gin Stephens: It is, but it's not you, it's biology, it's your body. I wrote this in Fast. Feast. Repeat. It's not that you have failed diets, diets failed you.

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Melanie Avalon: So, back to our question. She says, “I don't want to be back in that place, but I'm starting to feel like I don't have a choice. Not to say bad things about body positivity, but I don't feel positive or healthy in the current permutation of my body, no matter how much I try to regurgitate the mantras of health at all sizes, and it's the size of your heart that matters, not the size of your waist. Tell that to an obese person with an enlarged heart. Originally, I started IF 16:8 in 2017. It worked marvelously. I lost 30 pounds in less than two months without even really thinking about it. I took it very naturally. I figured I'd found the magic formula that would finally work for me after literal decades of failed diets. Naturally, I plateaued but stuck with the process. My doctor even told me how proud she was of me.

Then, my personal life kind of imploded. Last year, my father passed away less than two years after my mother did. Plus, the stress of an estate sale, the holidays, putting the house on the market, and trying to find a place to live. Needless to say, my discipline with food went straight down the toilet. I regained most of the weight I had lost.

Fast forward a year, I'm finally mostly settled. I'm in a new house, I have a decent nest egg. I'm generally in a good place emotionally. For once in my life, I feel fairly secure. I decided it was time to start fasting again. I thought I could slip right back in no problem since the first time it came naturally and worked marvelously. Boy, was I wrong. I've been at it about a month and the only way I can describe it is agonizing. Just as agonizing as all the other diets I did in the past and eventually failed it. It's 100% stagnation and frustration. Before, I ate whatever, and the weight dropped off. Now, no matter what I eat, it stays put. Before, it was easy for me to wait until 2 or 3 PM to eat and stop at 10 or 11. Now, I feel hungry all the time, regardless of how nutritious my meals are. I know, I know. I can already hear you both saying it's only been a month, but what a terrible month it has been, especially contrasted with how easily I fell into it before. What is happening?

I'm 39, so it's a little early for menopause, though it's not totally out of question. I don't have any other symptoms of early menopause though. Does my body need longer to recalibrate the second time or something? I thought once your body learned to be fat-adapted, it remembered. That seems to not be the case with me. Is this a common problem? Help. I love you guys so much. I'm a fan of this podcast and your individual podcast too. Thank you for all your help and advice.” And then, I sent her an email and I asked her what she was eating. She said, “It depends on the day. Sometimes, it's an Impossible Whopper with onion rings. Sometimes it's nutritious Poke Bowl filled with vegetables, beans, and tofu. Sometimes, it's Taco Bell. Sometimes, it's [unintelligible [00:32:42] stir fry with garlic, onions, peppers, snap peas, spinach, mushrooms, and baby corn. Sometimes, it's protein shakes and bars, which I don't necessarily think are the best. But I found that if I have them around, I will have fewer Burger King and Taco Bell days. I also started adding maca root to my protein shakes as suggested by Anna Cabeca on your show, since I also have hormone balance and energy issues. Katie.”

Gin Stephens: That’s a lot. And I see that the shift happened when you had the very stressful time of your life. You were having a lot of trouble in your personal life. Your father passed away, you recently had lost your mother, lot of stress, the holidays. And then, we've had a pandemic. So, I don't want to make light of that. But even people who did not have all the other stresses that you're going through, people have had trouble this year just because of the stress that the pandemic and all of that-- I mean, even if you had been safe at home and you haven't had any thing that is really gone wrong for you, still, the word 'pandemic,' the way that everything is set uncertain, watching the news, it has been a terribly, terribly stressful year. So, I want you to not discount all of that. The fact that it seems like you're wanting to eat, it's very likely to have something to do with the stress response, like you are just in-- you're craving food early in the day. You can't wait till 2 or 3 to eat. You’re also only a month in, which I know you said that we would say, but it is true. So, think about this. A lot of stress. You've been through a lot. You're hungry, hungry, hungry. You're fighting with it, and it's only a month in.

So, I want you to think back to when you first started in 2017. I bet you approached it with a different kind of mindset. I bet you were just trying it, you were excited, you were eased in, you let it unfold. You felt great. But right now, it feels like you're starting in a different mental place. I would encourage you if you don't have Fast. Feast. Repeat., get it. If you do have it or once you get it flip to the Mindset chapter. That is a really, really important chapter that I think could make a difference for you. Start working on changing yourself talk.

You may also want to kind of ease back a little bit. It sounds like you're really trying. Sometimes, when you try, try, try that makes it actually even harder. Maybe you're forgetting that it was a little challenging at the beginning when you first started, and you've forgotten what it was like in 2017. And you're expecting to just all of a sudden be able to wait till 2 or 3, when really, maybe it took you a while. I also want you to really examine your fast and make sure you're fasting completely clean. You didn't mention that at all. You also said you started intermittent fasting in 2017. That was a long time ago. That was before-- my guidelines for the clean fast have certainly evolved, the more I've learned and the more people I have worked with over the years since 2017. So, I really want you to examine what you're drinking. Are you putting lemon in your water? Are you putting a little splash of something in your coffee or sweeteners? That sort of thing. Is it having a little apple cider vinegar? Really, really think to anything that you're having. Stick to plain water, no flavors, nothing added. Sparkling water, no flavors, nothing added. Black coffee, plain tea, avoid all those fancy herbal teas with the fancy names. Just stick to tea, actual tea, and see if that helps.

Instead of forcing yourself to wait till 2 or 3, maybe say, “Alright, I'm going to open at noon. And I'm going to have a high-quality lunch. And then later, I'm going to have a high-quality dinner.” And you could probably fit in a six-hour window with a lunch and a dinner that are not giant lunch, giant dinner, but a satisfying lunch, satisfying dinner, within six hours. If you're white knuckling it, I want you to switch things up and try them, do different things, and see until it feels good again.

Also, work to de-stress. Anything that makes you feel good and helps you relax, add those things in, whether it's a hot bath, a sauna, working out, reading a book, anything. Listening to music, anything that helps you de-stress and feel better. What would you say, Melanie?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I think you said a lot of great things. I recently interviewed the Caltons, they wrote a book called Rebuild Your Bones. It's about osteoporosis and bone health. But it's really about the role of micronutrients in our health and how our modern diets, it's hard to supply enough nutrients and how things like stress, really, really deplete a lot of our nutrients and our bodies aren't getting all the nutrients they need. It's very likely that we won't ever feel satisfied or full. And you went through such, such an intense stressful period that I feel probably when you first started IF, it was working for you, there wasn't this whole stress aspect. And then, this is what Gin was talking about, going through that really, really stressful time, it can really, really deplete a lot of nutrients in our body can be really taxing on our body and have a lasting effect. And I think when a lot of us go through that, it can make everything harder, including fasting, including adhering to a diet and everything.

And I say that to encourage you because I think focusing on nutrition could be really, really huge. Originally, she didn't say what she was eating, and if we just had that question without knowing what she was eating-- because you were saying that when you first did IF, you ate whatever you wanted, and the weight just dropped off. And now, it doesn't seem to matter how nutritious your meals are. What I'm wondering is because just hearing your meals, it sounds like you do alternate between meals that are potentially more on the nutritious side, like whole foods based meals, and then a lot of fast food. While a lot of people can do IF and eat fast food and see weight loss and experience the benefits, I still think food choices are really, really huge. So, I think it can be hard to know if you're doing well regardless of what you're eating, if you're not eating a certain way for a long enough period of time. So, what I mean by that is, say one day you eat more on the nutritious side. But then, the next day, it's more fast food and then it's back and forth.

Unless you're eating really nutritious meals for a longer period of time, it might be hard to know if you really are feeling this way regardless of what you eat. If you're open to not eating the fast food and focusing more on like whole foods-- and when I say whole foods, I don't mean store, I mean whole foods, especially that the foods that really appeal to you and that are really high in nutrition. I would give that a try. I would almost say in the situation that it might even be better if you're open to it. If you're really struggling with hunger, I would almost say try a spiel of-- because what windows she's doing?

Gin Stephens: She didn't say. She said she's having a hard time getting to 2 or 3, which is why I suggest, don't force it, if you're not feeling good yet. Even though before you eat-- but right now is different.

Melanie Avalon: It was easy for me to wait until 2 or 3 and stop at 10 or 11. So, she was eating like an eight-hour window from 2 to 10. So, I would almost suggest-- I don't know why I say almost. I would actually suggest that you maybe consider trying a not a fasting approach right now and actually just a food approach and eat when you're hungry, but eat whole foods and see if you can get more in touch with your satiety signals and how you're reacting to food without the fast food and things like that that might be hacking your cravings and making you want more. And then, after cleaning that up for a little bit, then move into the eating window and you might find that it's a lot easier to have a fasting window. I just really think the food choices are really huge. I think a lot of people think that when they do IF that it means they can eat whatever they want during the window. And that doesn't always work, especially if it's meals that are not that nutritionally supportive.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I have a section in Fast. Feast. Repeat. about the phrase, “Eat whatever you want” and that people misunderstand it. When we say eat whatever you want, we mean eat whatever you want. We're not going to say this is the style you must eat to do intermittent fasting. But it doesn't mean eat whatever you want! Like, often use the analogy, you're a college freshman with your first meal plan and mom's not there. That happens for a lot of people. They've been careful eaters and then they start intermittent fasting, that is portrayed as eat whatever you want and then they throw all the other out the window. I was already eating like a college freshman before I started intermittent fasting. I did not have good nutritional habits. Over time, my tastes did change. I've talked about that a lot. But most of us are going to find, we feel better when we eat nutritious foods. That's just a fact and that's what our bodies need. So, really keep in mind that, yes, you can eat whatever you want, but that's not permission to eat whatever you want.

Melanie Avalon: Few other things, she says that she has protein shakes and bars, which she doesn't think are the best. But if she has them, she's less likely to eat Burger King or Taco Bell. What other foods could you keep on hand, whole foods that would also if you eat them, make you less likely to eat Burger King or Taco Bell? You're the one in control, you're the one in charge here, you're the one choosing what you want to buy what you keep in your house what you have access to. So, I'm sure there are foods you can find that you do think are the best and that you can keep on hand and that you could eat and have fewer of the fast-food days. Also, if you're drinking protein shakes, that's something actually, for example, that I would suggest switching that to whole foods protein. Instead of a protein shake, have chicken breast or steak or something because it's going to be much more satiating. I don't see really any reason to, especially if you're struggling to lose weight, to make all of these calories so easily assimilated.

Gin Stephens: Can I tell you what I found recently that has been just amazing for opening my window? I don't have an official affiliate relationship with them, although I'd love to. Hello, Daily Harvest, send me an email. Daily Harvest, I've been using them after I saw several people recommend them. And, yes, gin@intermittentfastingstories.com, Daily Harvest, I would love to hear from you. But I can't figure out how to contact them because I would love to have them sponsor my podcast.

Melanie Avalon: Wait, what did they do?

Gin Stephens: They have food, it is-- I mean, I know it's not all-- it's a lot of grain in there, some grain, not all grains, but it's some things you probably wouldn't eat, but it's whole foods and it comes frozen. And they have bowls, and they have flat-breads, and they have smoothies, but the ingredients list is so clean and good.

Melanie Avalon: Are they plant based?

Gin Stephens: Yes.

Melanie Avalon: I think they might have emailed us before.

Gin Stephens: Well, see if you could find that email because I just found them as a person. Gin Stephens, the person. And I have been opening my window every single day with one of their soups or one of their bowls. My husband and I will split one of their smoothies after dinner as a dessert. They don't work well for me on an empty stomach, but they work great as a dessert. We'll just share one. They are so good. If you go to ginstephens.com on the Favorite Things tab, I do have a link there that you can use to save money. It's not official, like sponsorship or anything. It's just like any person could share their link. That's what I'm doing. But it's on the Favorite Things tab at ginstephens.com. But it's also really, really tasty, and I'm not plant based. So, I might have one of their bowls and it might have lentils in there plus a ton of veggies, maybe kale. But it's so quick, you can just pop it in the microwave.

I'm going to cook a big dinner later and I cook it and prepare it, but I don't want to also fuss around with something to open my window. So, their lentil bowl with all the veggies that I can pop in the microwave, maybe I'll throw a little sour cream on there. Yes, that flavor profile that would do well with some sour cream. And I am just so satisfied. Instead of grabbing the cheese and crackers again, I'm having this really nutritious food. So, I'm just a fan. I'm really excited and recommend it. The food is so good. And my husband loves it, I love it. And it's quick. See, that's the thing. I'm busy, I'm working during the day and then I'm going to cook a full meal later for dinner, I don't also really have the time to-- and I was finding myself always grabbing broccoli and hummus or cheese and crackers. And I was in a rut just because I could grab that.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I think that's a great suggestion. I would really focus on the food choices if it was me.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I think that's good advice. All right. We have a question from Amanda. Amanda says, “I started listening to the podcast last week on episode 41 now. I remember you mentioned berberine and I want to know if I can still take it without a meal because I've tried to do one or two 40-hour fast a week. Bottle says once daily with meal or as directed by a healthcare professional. I typically have a window later in the day for regular days, just not sure about taking it on 40-hour fast days. I just bought it today. So, I want to know the best way to take it before I start. I've been intermittent fasting since February of 2020.”

Melanie Avalon: All right, berberine. So, this would actually be a really good situation to have a CGM to see how you react to berberine during the fast. So, for listeners berberine is-- Well, okay. So, there's a drug called metformin that a lot of listeners are probably familiar with. It's often prescribed for diabetes, but it can have really remarkable effects on lowering blood glucose levels, lowering HbA1c, discouraging the liver from producing glucose, things like that. Oh, and activating ANPK, which is one of the main genes that we activate during fasting that has a lot of the beneficial effects of fasting.

So, the reason I say all that is berberine is a natural plant compound that has been found in studies to have very comparable effects to metformin without a lot of the potential side effects of the pharmaceutical. Studies have found that by taking berberine, that it can decrease insulin resistance, just in general can make the insulin in your body be more effective. It can help your cells break down sugars, so use sugar more effectively.

Like I said, it does decrease sugar production in the liver, and I mentioned this before, but one of the most mind-blowing things to me is that in diabetes, the majority of the elevated blood sugar is actually not coming from the diet, it's coming from the liver producing sugar. Do, berberine can interfere with that process, and it might actually even support beneficial gut bacteria, which is really interesting. So, point being, I actually ordered some berberine after doing all this research. It's usually suggested that you take it right before meals, like three times a day. I assume you could take it during that long fast but my only concern would be, depending on how you're reacting to it-- Did she say she started taking it already?

Gin Stephens: No, she wanted to wait.

Melanie Avalon: And she's going to do a 40-hour fast. You might find-- if your blood sugar is already low, on that long fast, the only thing I would be worried about would be if it dropped you too low and then you got symptoms of hypoglycemia. So, that would be something that you'd have to experiment with.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I probably would just follow the directions of the bottle and not try to take it in a long fast. I just wouldn't. I would just take it once a day with the meal, like it says, or if you're not having a meal, don't take it.

Melanie Avalon: If you are measuring your blood sugar-- although we just talked to the beginning about how that might be all over the place. But that might be a situation where if you're long into your fast and you measure your blood sugar, and it's good, I probably wouldn't take berberine at that moment because probably just going to drop it lower. On the flip side, if you're long into your fast and your blood sugar's high, then you might want to take it and see what happens. I'm really excited now because I just ordered some and I want to see how it affects my CGM.

Gin Stephens: Well, definitely share that after you've tried it for a while and let us know what happens.

Melanie Avalon: I will. I do take oftentimes Keto Before 6, which is my Quicksilver Scientific, and it has a lot of ANPK activators. So, I just mentioned that ANPK is genetic pathways that are activated while we're fasting and is responsible for a lot of the benefits of fasting. And so Keto Before 6 contains-- it's different compounds that all activate ANPK. So, it contains berberine. It also has quercetin and I think resveratrol and milk thistle and a few other things. I've been taking a little bit of berberine via that, but I haven't taken like just berberine. So, I have to report back. But I'm a fan of the concept of berberine. I'm not a fan of most pharmaceuticals, but I don't really know how I feel about metformin. I'm very intrigued by metformin. I think if I ever were to experiment with a pharmaceutical, I would experiment with metformin out of curiosity.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, because a lot of people just take it for health benefits.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. I know David Sinclair talks about it a lot. Peter Attia, I think, talks about it. It's one pharmaceutical that often comes up in discussion on a lot of the podcasts that I listened to about the potential benefits. Some people will pretty much take it for life, kind of like aspirin. It doesn't do the same thing as aspirin but as far as “pharmaceuticals” that potentially might have more health benefits than not.

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That's also why he made BLUblox light blocking glasses in a lot of different versions. They have clear computer glasses you can wear all day while looking at the computer. They have their SummerGlo lens that block the draining form of blue light while still allowing in some of the energizing wavelengths. They're also tinted with a special yellow color, scientifically shown to boost mood. And, of course, they have their Sleep+ lens, you can put those on a bed and it's just like, bam, tired. At least that's the way it works for me because actually blue light can block melatonin production, which helps us naturally fall asleep. Also, get their Sleep REMedy Mask. Oh, my goodness, I use it every single night. It gives you complete blackout while still putting no pressure on your eyes. Like you wear it, and you can open your eyes completely, and it's completely black. It's mind blowing.

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We have a question from Heather. Subject is "Transition Period." And Heather says, “Hi, guys. I just started IF five days ago. I'm currently doing a six-hour eating window. My husband and I decided to start a healthier lifestyle and we each chose our own method. He is counting calories and I am attempting IF. I've absolutely loved IF so far. I'm the type of person that has in the past claimed to need food every 10 minutes. I truly didn't know that I would be able to maintain this lifestyle for more than one hour. I know, I'm crazy. Anyway, this week has been wonderful. I feel more energy throughout the day. I've not felt deprived at all, and I am enjoying my food so much more than I did when I was eating all day. I'm currently going through your podcast from the beginning and I'm on episode 11.” I hear you meant 11, that’s so long time ago.

Gin Stephens: I'm sorry if we gave bad advice on episode 11.

Melanie Avalon: Sometime, I'm going to have to go back and listen to just like a random episode from that time period. I might do that. She says, “I hear you mentioned the transition phase or period, and I'm curious how long that usually lasts. I've had moments in my fasting period where I'm tempted to reach for food out of sheer habit or quick moments where I feel hungry because my body is used to eating very often. Does this go away? I thought I would add that I've only lost about one pound so far. I would have been discouraged by this if it were not for your podcast. I'm trusting the method and I'm waiting for more results. Thanks so much.” All right.

Gin Stephens: All right, Heather is on day five. So, Heather, I hope that you fast forward to this new episode and hear it now. I really don't want you to expect any weight loss in the first 28 days. That's what I've got in my 28-Day FAST Start of Fast. Feast. Repeat. So, a pound and five days is actually really good. Remember, also, I don't want you to weigh every day and think of the fluctuations. I mean I do want you to weigh every day, but I don't want you to get caught up on the daily fluctuations. I want you to weigh daily and then once a week, calculate your weekly average. So, if you're on day five, you don't even have a week yet to have a weekly average. And, of course, I don't want you to do that till after your first 28 days.

So, on day 29, I'd like you to weigh again, and then weigh daily and once a week, calculate your weekly average because really, it's only the overall trend that matters. So, as far as the adjustment period, that really varies for everybody. Bert Herring talks in his book about three weeks. Three weeks to adjust. And I think that is actually overly optimistic. And maybe now with how everyone seems to have metabolic syndrome, prediabetes, people are just not in great shape starting out. I sure wasn't. When I started out, I wasn't in great shape, physically, I was obese. And so, three weeks is a little bit optimistic. So really, some people find it takes as long as 8 weeks, 12 weeks even, depending on you and your body, to really feel like you're starting to adjust to intermittent fasting.

And if someone's been obese or overweight for a long time, it can take even longer. A lot of that has to do with what your fasting insulin level is, and you're not going to know what that is unless you've had a test, and most people haven't. Melanie, someone was talking recently in the Facebook groups about trying to get a fasting insulin test, and her doctor's like, “That's not what you mean. You want to get a blood glucose test.” And she's like, “No, I want fasting insulin,” he's like, “No,” [gasps] And the doctor could not understand why someone would want a fasting insulin test, or couldn't figure out how to write it on the forum, didn't know what she was talking about. I'm not saying that to say bad things about doctors, because there's a lot of doctors who are using them and understand them and all of that. So, you probably don't have your fasting insulin levels. But if your fasting insulin levels are high, it's going to take time for that to come down and that's part of your body's adjustment before you'll see the benefits of fasting.

Long story short, we really could say three to eight weeks for the adjustment period, but it really can vary wildly. If you were someone who was eating keto prior to starting intermittent fasting, your body may already be fat adapted, and so your adjustment period might be very brief. I mentioned before on the podcast, in 2014, when I finally was able to start intermittent fasting and finally stick to it for the first time ever, I had been trying keto that whole summer, failing at keto. I mean I was doing it, I didn't lose any weight. I did it 100%, didn't lose a single pound. Now, I know that's not how my body feels best. But I probably became fat adapted, and I was definitely in ketosis. Wasn't losing body fat, probably because I was eating a lot. Eating a lot of fat, not having any need to tap into my body fat. But as soon as I switched to intermittent fasting and added that carbs, I felt immediately better, and I started losing weight right away. I didn't have to have an adjustment period. So, all that to be said, it really, really varies.

Melanie Avalon: I think that's great. I think you covered it.

Gin Stephens: Yeah. It's going to be months before Heather gets to this episode if she's listening from episode 11.

Melanie Avalon: Good times. Okie-dokie. Well, this has been absolutely wonderful. If you'd like to submit your own questions for the podcast, you can directly email questions@ifpodcast.com or you can go to ifpodcast.com and you can submit questions there. The show notes for today's episode will be at ifpodcast.com/episode187. Those show notes we'll have a full transcript, so definitely check that out. You can join our Facebook groups. I have IF Biohackers: Intermittent Fasting + Real Foods + Life. Are we plugging your new Facebook group, Gin?

Gin Stephens: Well, I do have a new Facebook group if anyone is interested in things outside of intermittent fasting because I talked about that I've started a third podcast. We've actually recorded episode 0, which is our trailer episode and also episode 1. The Facebook group is Life Lessons with Gin and Sheri. The podcast will come out-- we're hoping for Episode 1, December 2nd is our target release date. And our first episode is all about sleep.

Melanie Avalon: I just recorded two back-to-back part one and part two episodes again with Dr. Kirk Parsley, listener Q&A on sleep and both of them are almost three hours.

Gin Stephens: We talk about Dr. Kirk Parsley and his Sleep Remedy on the podcast, but we also talk about the sleep chronotypes. You and I've talked about that before, right? I'm a lion, you're a--

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. What was it, a wolf or something?

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I think you're a wolf. Sheri is also a wolf, my friend Sheri. Late at night, yeah, Sheri’s a wolf. My cohost on the other podcast is a wolf, just like you. That'll be coming out December 2nd. The reason we decided to start with sleep is because we asked people what they were interested and hearing and that came up over and over. People are struggling with sleep.

Melanie Avalon: I know. I emailed the first heart one episode to my assistant and it was three hours. She was like, “I didn't realize there was so much to know about sleep.” And I was like, “This is just part one. There's a part two coming.” There's so many questions. There's so much. That was one of the good takeaways. Because so many people will say that we all are naturally early birds, and I asked him about that, and he was like, it's not really debated in the scientific literature about there being different circadian rhythms for people.

Gin Stephens: It's known that it's true, right? Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. He was like, it's not really controversial. And I was like, "Oh, okay. Then, why is everybody saying that we're all early birds."

Gin Stephens: I know. The early birds started that. People who are one way, really, really assume that everyone else should be like that.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. Kind of like with food and diet and everything.

Gin Stephens: I mean, I really think they're like, “Well, I wake up really early, and I feel great and I get a lot done. So, you should do that, too. And if you can't, you must be super lazy.” And that's how these things get started. And, no, it's not that you're super lazy or even lazy at all. You just have a different rhythm. You're more productive later in the day, and you could feel like a loser and a failure because you're fighting against your body.

Melanie Avalon: Yep. 100%. All right. Well, this has been absolutely wonderful. And I will talk to you next week.

Gin Stephens: All right. I look forward to it.

Melanie Avalon: Bye.

Gin Stephens: Bye.

Melanie Avalon: Thank you so much for listening to The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Please remember that everything discussed on the show is not medical advice. We're not doctors. You can also check out our other podcasts, Intermittent Fasting Stories and the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast. Theme music was composed by Leland Cox. See you next week.

STUFF WE LIKE

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

LINKS

The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast

Intermittent Fasting Stories

More on Melanie: MelanieAvalon.com

More on Gin: GinStephens.com

Theme Music Composed By Leland Cox: LelandCox.com

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Aug 21

Episode 18: How Much Food?, Favorite Recipes, How Many Calories Break A Fast, IF Weekend Struggles, Collagen Peptides, Window Changes And Timing, And More!

Collagen Peptides , Intermittent Fasting , Mindsets , paleo , Struggles , Supplements , Vegetarianism , What To Eat , Windows

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