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Jan 28

Episode 354: Special Guest: Dave Asprey, Cold Plunges, Dopamine Fasting, Spermidine, Follistatin Gene Therapy, Sex, Fertility, And More!

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Welcome to Episode 354 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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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!

BUTCHERBOX: For a limited time go to butcherbox.com/ifpodcast and get 2 lbs of ground beef, 3 lbs of chicken breasts, or 2 lbs of salmon—for free in every order for a whole year! Plus, get $20 off your first order!

SOLSHINE: Get 10% off with the code melanieavalon at melanieavalon.com/solshine!

DANGER COFFEE: Get 10% off at melanieavalon.com/dangercoffee with the code MELANIEAVALON!

Get 40% OFF Dave’s 10th Annual Biohacking Conference in Dallas with the code BCMelanie at melanieavalon.com/biohackingconference! This special ends January 31st!

Listener Q&A: Nancy - Have him make you danger coffee and do some cold plunge Q&A question...

Listener Q&A: Vanessa - What is his favorite emoji and why? Think carefully.

Listener Q&A: Lizzie - How come we're allowed to drink black coffee and tea on a fast?

Listener Q&A: Tracy - Can you humor us and take the clean, fast challenge and not have anything but black coffee and water during your fast for 30 days and report back if you notice any difference?

Listener Q&A: Susie - He has said he will take spermedine for the rest of his life. Why didn't he recommend it in his book, Smarter Not Harder?

Listener Q&A: Jean - Has biohacking turned into a holistic movement for rich people?.

Listener Q&A: Tracy - Is an Upgrade Lab is coming to Raleigh?

Listener Q&A: Stephanie - He has a much different way of sharing information. I've recently been seeing posts about sex. He was discussing orgasms. What does he think about orgasms?

Listener Q&A: Scott - By restraining ejaculation, does that increase your vitality?

Listener Q&A: Renee - If you are on a date, what is the biggest turn on to you for a girl to order at the restaurant?

Listener Q&A: - Why does he keep referring to raw vegan as his gripe with veganism?

Listener Q&A: James - Will you be talking to Dave about the Follistatin gene therapy?

Listener Q&A: Leah - What have you changed your mind on based off of new information that you once believed strongly?

Listener Q&A: Teresa - Is there anything he's written about in his books that makes him cringe because he doesn't agree with it today?

TRANSCRIPT

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

Melanie Avalon:
Welcome to Episode 354 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.

Melanie Avalon:
You are in for such a special treat with today's episode. I actually recorded today's episode in person with Dave Asprey in Austin at his house. It was so incredibly surreal. It was my first live podcast ever.

Melanie Avalon:
So talk about a way to start with that. Of course, I will be posting video clips on my Instagram. So if you want to see what this actually looked like going down, check that out. And in this conversation, we got to do a spicy AMA.

Melanie Avalon:
You guys had such incredible questions and Dave's answers were, well, they were pretty much what I would expect from Dave. And by the way, we get a lot of coffee questions on this show. We talk about it in this episode.

Melanie Avalon:
I cannot recommend Danger Coffee enough. It will not break your fast. It is remineralized. It is tested to be free of mold and toxins. And it tastes delicious. I love Danger Coffee. So go to melanieavalon.com/danger.

Melanie Avalon:
You see coupon code MelanieAvalon that will get you 10% off Danger Coffee. If you want to have the best coffee for your fast, you want Danger Coffee. And of course, we will put links to everything as well as have a full transcript in the show notes.

Melanie Avalon:
Those will be at ifpodcast.com/episode354. All right, so on that note, please enjoy my fabulous conversation with Dave Asprey. Hi friends, welcome back to the show. So this is a moment for me.

Melanie Avalon:
This is actually my first in -person podcast. Ever? Ever. God, I'm so nervous. You're first? When are we gonna do? I'm nervous. I've done like 500 episodes and I've never done one in person. So I like don't even know what to do.

Melanie Avalon:
I have to like have my notes, all the things.

Dave Asprey:
I was trying not to judge you out loud.

Melanie Avalon:
But if you're going to do it.

Dave Asprey:
They're way more fun in person. I've been really working out more on my show in person. So it's like literally the same as going out to dinner, but now it's a conversation in person instead of a Zoom call and just millions of people get to listen in.

Melanie Avalon:
So the agenda for right now, I wanted to do an AMA with you. I asked the audience for questions. I'm going to tell them who I am. I got a lot of questions for Dave Asprey, who I am here with. Some of them came in, I was like, oh, some of these are kind of spicy.

Melanie Avalon:
So then I did a follow -up, and I was like, can I get spicy questions for Dave Asprey? Absolutely.

Dave Asprey:
is like butt hole signing and all that.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, it's all the things. I can't wait. So I hope you're ready. Can we jump in?

Dave Asprey:
Let's do it, ask me anything.

Melanie Avalon:
Okay, so to start things off, we have from Nancy. Oh, how exciting. That's all caps with like exclamation. Hey, Nancy. Nancy, she says, have him make you danger coffee.

Dave Asprey:
I already kind of did that for the photo shoot.

Melanie Avalon:
and do some cold plunge Q &A question style like Rachel Varga. Those inspired me right into the cold river by her house. So you got her into the cold river. Side note, I actually have never done a cold plunge even though I do cryotherapy every day.

Dave Asprey:
Oh my gosh, you know, the sun was still up when you came over for the copy photo shoot. We could have hopped in the cold plunge. I know, but we did not. But you just kind of didn't, and now it's dark so we couldn't do it.

Dave Asprey:
I say you got out of that. Guys, I think you should leave a comment and just encourage cold plunges with all sorts of reasons, like scientific reasons as well as, what motivates you best? Like motivational or like, Motivation.

Dave Asprey:
Like shameful, like what's kind of motivation? It's like, you're a bad person if you don't do it or like, you're a better person to do it.

Melanie Avalon:
to all of that. Okay, good.

Dave Asprey:
You know what she doesn't deal. So do this stuff she doesn't deal well with until she gets in the co -plunge and then you win. Possibly.

Melanie Avalon:
I do well with like- Don't do that, be nice. I do well with like, this'll make you an amazing person. You'll be a very good girl if you do this, that's what I do.

Dave Asprey:
You don't have a huge amount of body fat. So for you, a very cold plunge is going to be more effective than a long one. Like normally it's three to six minutes that you would do. In the water. In the water.

Dave Asprey:
And for you, it's probably just 90 seconds, right? And it's enough to get your body so you're doping levels of where you want them to be, but you don't need to turn on more calibrating, right? So it depends on how much lean mass you have and then the percentage of body fat.

Dave Asprey:
And if you're super lean, doing a long cold plunge is harder than someone who has padding. I'm down to about six and a half percent body fat right now. And I can do, you know, 10 minute cold plunge, but I probably shouldn't.

Dave Asprey:
And six minutes is really the upper limit where you see most of the benefits.

Melanie Avalon:
so I can go for like a minute. Yeah.

Dave Asprey:
Just get an oesanus, you're nice and warm, and then do one minute. That's easy. If I get hot first. Do that. And for you, that's fine. What you're doing is there's a dopamine response and then there's a cold shock protein and burning more calories and more brown fat.

Dave Asprey:
For you, it's the dopamine response that's going to be most important. So, brief and unpleasant equals good. Okay.

Melanie Avalon:
Okay, I'll do it. To -do list, I'll go back. Okay, very important question. This comes from Vanessa. Vanessa Spina, go host of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Hey, Vanessa. This might be the most important question you've ever been asked.

Melanie Avalon:
Are you ready? What is his favorite emoji and why? Think carefully.

Dave Asprey:
Hmm. I am a huge fan of emojis that can be misinterpreted. Okay. So you just don't exactly know what the person meant. So they cause more trouble than they actually solve. So what emoji is that? All the ones you would send in seventh grade.

Dave Asprey:
Such as certain types of nightshade vegetable fruits, vegetables. It's a nightshade. It's purple. Well, what's not what could that be? Eggplants. That's a good idea. Okay. Yeah, that one. Yeah, I didn't think of it, but okay.

Melanie Avalon:
This priest's favorite emoji is an eggplant.

Dave Asprey:
I always say it's one of mine, but anytime you can say something, you're like, wait a minute, and you just aren't quite sure. Yeah. Those are the fun ones. So it depends on context, but it has to be one that's unclear and probably could have a bad connotation.

Melanie Avalon:
Have you noticed that the little twin girl emojis, they're Playboy bunnies?

Dave Asprey:
No, there's a twin playboy buddy.

Melanie Avalon:
It's like two girls and it's supposed to be like kids or twins or girls, but they're wearing playboy bunny ears

Dave Asprey:
Is it screaming? This thing at my bit, this like Disney did that, didn't they?

Melanie Avalon:
No, yes. Like kind of how like Disney sneaks in all the stuff. Yeah.

Dave Asprey:
Yeah. Pretty sure. Fun facts. Like even going back to like Snow White and stuff like that. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon:
My favorite emoji is the sparkles.

Dave Asprey:
Of course. You know, I use those sparkles a lot actually. Oh, sparkles. And also there's another magical one. Oh, and then like the crown ones, I use those a lot. Crown? For friends. Like the regal crown, those are good.

Melanie Avalon:
I like the fog one. Oh, that's cool. It's like a smile.

Dave Asprey:
That was not a question I've ever answered before.

Melanie Avalon:
Really? Yep. Oh yeah, okay, I'm excited, okay. Okay, so we have to answer, this is the intermittent fasting podcast in case you were wondering. Okay. So we have fasting questions.

Dave Asprey:
for you. But just tell me sometimes, right? Because it's intermittent. You said that. When you're in a relationship, you're in a relationship.

Melanie Avalon:
when you're on the Melannie. No, Dave was on the Melannie Evelyn biohacking podcast and you...

Dave Asprey:
pointed that out. I did. You did. I repeated that joke but I'm knowing it. It's all good. I'm out of drugs.

Melanie Avalon:
Smart drugs. So this is something I've actually thought about a lot. This comes from Lizzie. She says, how come we're allowed to drink black coffee and tea on a fast? Surely only water. I always felt that it's a loophole for coffee drinkers or at least if we're able to drink coffee and tea, there must be other substances available.

Melanie Avalon:
I have thought about this so much. Thought about this?

Dave Asprey:
I have and one of the really important things that I've been asked myself is why are you allowed to drink water during a fast?

Melanie Avalon:
because it's nonchloric, it's just H2O, it's your body.

Dave Asprey:
So not having calories is a tea and coffee. Not having calories. I'm getting really confused already. I know. And why are you allowed to breathe out fast? That's a good question. Well, nutrients. Breathwork is pretty much intermittent fasting.

Dave Asprey:
Yes. For your lungs. True. Right, but strangely, we have all these weird rules about what we're allowed and not allowed to do while we're fasting that are based on nothing that's about science or thinking.

Dave Asprey:
They're just, I don't know, there was a lab test where the mice only had water because mice don't have espresso machines and they were locked in little mouse prisons. So because of scientists in the 1950s, probably, wearing a white lab coat and weird goggles was mean to mice, then you should only have water.

Dave Asprey:
Sounds good to me. Or you could say, what are the hallmarks of things that cause a fast and break a fast? And what will cause a fast is a rise in mTOR or a rise in insulin. Since coffee and tea don't do either one of those, and by the way, neither do butter or MCT oil, you can have them during a fast in moderate amounts, which makes fasting much easier, especially for women.

Dave Asprey:
And it doesn't change mTOR. It doesn't change insulin and you feel good. And this very much angers a few people who are what I'm going to call fasting. Fasting obsessives, fasting. Then it's not about being pure because they're not being scientific.

Dave Asprey:
Oh, they're fasting dogmatics is what they are.

Melanie Avalon:
to challenge you on that.

Dave Asprey:
You can challenge me on this.

Melanie Avalon:
So you could do something in your life, like just get excited and it would affect your insulin or your insulin, your cortisol.

Dave Asprey:
Because it turns out cortisol goes up when you intermittent fast anyway because that's what happens when you're hungry. It's how your body liberates glucose from muscle tissue. So I don't worry about cortisol going up.

Melanie Avalon:
Okay, back to, okay, I could be in the mall and smell something delicious, like those cinnamon roll fun things, and affect my insulin. That is cool.

Dave Asprey:
That's correct.

Melanie Avalon:
So does that break my fast?

Dave Asprey:
If you were doing something called a dopamine fast, technically it would. And there is a kind of fasting that my friend, Camsepa, coined a few years ago called dopamine fasting. And I wrote about it in Fast This Way, which is my big intermittent fasting book on the psychology and the science of fasting.

Dave Asprey:
And what Cam talked about, by the way, he runs Maximus Tribe, which is a new company I'm backing that has a testosterone enhancement tech firm and that's super cool. What Cam said is, well, anything that raises dopamine is going to basically make your dopamine receptors less sensitive, just like anything that raises insulin can make your insulin receptors less sensitive.

Dave Asprey:
Therefore, to do a dopamine fast, be really bored. Like no social media, no color, sit in a couch and basically lay there for a day or for a weekend with like no people, no stimulation, no music. And by doing that, you can increase your happiness levels.

Dave Asprey:
You can, I just think it's easier to do a cold plunge because that has a similar effect.

Melanie Avalon:
This is literally the book I'm reading right now is about this. So with the dopamine, because it comes in and waves. So is he saying that if you stop, then the spike you get will be bigger?

Dave Asprey:
Not that the spike will be bigger, but that when there is a spike, you'll feel it better. So it'll be the same size spike as before, but since your receptors are more open to it, it'll feel bigger. It's almost identical to what happens during a cold plunge.

Melanie Avalon:
It's the same amount of dopamine, but you feel it more. Yeah. Even though it's literally what you're feeling. So who's feeling it more? Like, who is the part of you that's feeling that dopamine more?

Melanie Avalon:
If it's your dopamine?

Dave Asprey:
receptors.

Melanie Avalon:
It's the same amount of dopamine. You're saying intuitively the person, the real you.

Dave Asprey:
Sometimes you need three pieces of pizza to feel satisfied and sometimes you need one Yeah, so your dopamine receptors will feel satisfied on one piece of dopamine pizza instead of three

Melanie Avalon:
Have you done a dopamine fast?

Dave Asprey:
I have, because I read a book about it. I do everything. How long? It's just for a weekend. It's just basically being bored. You don't eat, you get water. On a dopamine fast, you probably shouldn't have coffee or tea because they're flavors.

Dave Asprey:
And you shouldn't use the central. Oh, that was a question. You want to use bored. Like it kind of sucks. It's probably not worth it. Like I said, I do cold plunders because they have the similar dopamine sensitizing effect.

Melanie Avalon:
Tracy, she wants to know, can you humor us and take the clean, fast challenge and not have anything but black coffee and water during your fast for 30 days and report back if you notice any difference?

Dave Asprey:
You want me to do a 30 day fast?

Melanie Avalon:
No, 30 day clean fast. So like during your fasting time, only black coffee and water. No supplements, no nothing, no. No. you

Dave Asprey:
That would be dumb. I thought that was gonna be the answer. So I don't know, like clean fast challenge, how about less effective fast challenge? We could just rebrand it that way. Because if you're not taking fasting memetics while you're fasting, you're not getting the same benefits.

Dave Asprey:
Why would you not take spermedine during a fast? That's insane. Why would you not have electrolytes during a fast? That's insane. Why would you not amplify the benefits you get from your fast? Because, oh, I know.

Dave Asprey:
Because working hard and suffering bring you moral turpitude, is actually the word for it. But they bring you moral goodness. They make you a good person. I just wrote a whole book called Smarter Not Harder about why doing things the hard way and working hard and suffering actually don't get to results.

Dave Asprey:
In fact, the guy with the shovel digging a ditch who works really hard, doesn't get paid as much as the guy with the tractor who gets it done in five minutes. So if you wanna live in the past, you need to get rid of all your clothes so you didn't grow yourself and live in a cave and it's dumb.

Dave Asprey:
And working hard sucks. The ability to work hard with all the best tools will get you thousands of times the results in your life. So no, I'm not doing some dumb, sorry guys, clean fast challenge, because it doesn't work as well as doing it with tools.

Dave Asprey:
Right, I just don't get it. Like, why do we have Luddite fasting out here? I'm triggered right now. I identify as getting shit done.

Melanie Avalon:
and what does it mean if you're being triggered?

Dave Asprey:
That means I need more coffee, danger coffee obviously. Yeah, danger coffee. Who knows what I might do? Well, you- Sorry guys. I wanna be like real nice about that one, but seriously, why is that clean?

Dave Asprey:
Like where do your standards come from? And also tea, tea is full oxalic acid. You probably don't want that during your fast. Like why are you doing this to yourself? Do you know the components of what you're putting in and what you're not putting in?

Dave Asprey:
And I also wanna know, are you using an air filter? Cause if you're not, 30 pounds of air and your body fat and some protein you're gonna lose, I kinda think that might be dirty. So, could be better.

Melanie Avalon:
Dave Asprey is not going to take the clean fast challenge, is the takeaway for

Dave Asprey:
I love it that your challenge would be able to fast.

Melanie Avalon:
Susie, you mentioned this, and I thought about this. I read Smarter Not Harder, which I highly recommend. And Susie said, he has said he will take sperm redeem for the rest of his life. Why didn't he recommend it in his book, Smarter Not Harder?

Melanie Avalon:
I was thinking that too.

Dave Asprey:
I didn't recommend it in Smarter Not Harder because if you read Superhuman, my book on longevity, I talked about how spermidine was a very promising longevity compound, but you couldn't buy it. And so what I did is I illegally imported probiotics from Japan that would make spermidine for me.

Dave Asprey:
And then when it came on the market, the first company I bring into the US, I had to run my podcast to launch the company because I could finally buy it. And because of all that, and because I also wrote about it in my fasting book called Fast This Way, they came out after that, I didn't feel like repeating it for people in Smarter Not Harder was there because it's not a book on fasting.

Dave Asprey:
It's a book on tools that give you really these five states of longevity or fitness or putting on muscle or losing weight very, very quickly. Kind of like the opposite of the Clean Fast Challenge, where you do the stuff that works even faster instead of even slower.

Melanie Avalon:
solid answer, getting more controversial. So biohacking, Jean, who you might know him, he has two questions. Question one, has biohacking turned into a holtish movement for rich people?

Dave Asprey:
I was just talking with Molina, who wrote the first book on biohacking in Spanish for the entire Latin American market. And it's in its fifth edition. It's not for Latin American millionaires. In fact, my books are in 16 languages.

Dave Asprey:
All of the books have, here's what you can do for free using a principle of biohacking. Here's what you can do that's moderately expensive, like 50 bucks a month. And here's what you can do that the crazy billionaires do.

Dave Asprey:
And I do my best to take the crazy billionaire stuff and I put it at Upgrade Labs. We're opening 27 locations and counting. You can go to ownanupgradelabs.com and you can open a franchise in your neighborhood to bring biohacking at an affordable level.

Dave Asprey:
So yeah, there's crazy billionaire types who oftentimes are buying the same kind of equipment I've tested for years at home because they can afford it. And I bless that because they're the ones who are funding things that are changing the world for all of us.

Dave Asprey:
And if you don't believe that, look at the history of mobile phones. They used to cost $50 ,000 and $20 a minute. And now they're like free, even in Africa. They're a dollar a month in some places. So biohacking is a movement about control of our own biology where you control your own biology, not your government, not your doctor, not your mommy.

Dave Asprey:
You get to be in control. And that's not just for billionaires. That is for all humans. And as a side note, 60% of biohackers have always been women.

Melanie Avalon:
That's a good segue. But before that, because you mentioned Upgrade Labs, Tracy wants to know if an Upgrade Lab is coming to Raleigh.

Dave Asprey:
Ooh, I think we've talked with someone in Raleigh, but I don't think we've signed it yet. Wouldn't surprise me. If not, go to ownanupgradelabs .com. Could be you.

Melanie Avalon:
might be coming. Okay, segue to women. Got a lot of questions about women and sex. If you're good with that.

Dave Asprey:
Like I said, it's an ask me anything, right? Right.

Melanie Avalon:
Stephanie, she says, I'm very excited for this one. He intrigues me. He has a much different way of sharing information. I've recently been seeing posts about sex. He was discussing orgasms. What does he think about orgasms?

Melanie Avalon:
I read more orgasms are better for women, but less for men, kind of ironic. And I will comment on that, like me, I'll comment. I've had John Gray on my other show a few times and I believe he is a proponent of this idea that women, all the orgasms all the time and men, not so much.

Dave Asprey:
That's actually not Jones' perspective.

Melanie Avalon:
Is that John's perspective? No. Are you sure?

Dave Asprey:
I don't know the inference for years John Gray, the Mars and Venus guy. What he says is, and I'm gonna correct it, ejaculation for men is not good for them, but orgasms are good for them. And most men listening and most women actually believe that orgasm and ejaculation and men are the same thing.

Dave Asprey:
Men can orgasm and not ejaculate. So it turns out this isn't new sharing for me. If you read my book, Game Changers, going back to I think 2015 maybe, I took 400 episodes of the Human Upgrade podcast and I used the statistician because we didn't have AI that could do it at the time to figure out the common elements that all of these people had done to focus on in a structured interview about how do you, the question was, what are the three pieces of advice you have for someone who wants to perform better at every part of being a human being?

Dave Asprey:
And after 400 answers, I came up with a set of roughly 50 laws that came out of this. So don't follow me, I don't wanna be a guru. I curate gurus and I learn from them and then I structure it so you can learn it better.

Dave Asprey:
And what I did is I published my ejaculation and orgasm data for an entire year in the book. There's a graph and there's an equation. An equation looks like this. This is for men only, women do not do this, it would be bad for you.

Dave Asprey:
You take your age in years, minus seven, and then you divide that by four. So let's say you're like 40. So age in years, 40 minus seven is 33 divided by four. How many times is four going to 33? I was doing my own.

Dave Asprey:
Okay, it should be eight. So what's your age? Six. Six, okay, so if you're a guy, so people can do the math, you just disclosed. So if you're 40, that's just about eight, so you're under 40. So then your answer is about six.

Dave Asprey:
That's the number of days between ejaculations for guys. So don't ejaculate more often than that. Oh, for men. For me. And this is really important. If you're a woman, there's a different equation that's never been written in all of Taoism.

Dave Asprey:
I searched everywhere, but I did make up the equation for you. So what this means, guys, is that if you want, and this equation is to maintain your health. If you want to live a long time, this is written.

Dave Asprey:
And I've interviewed, no, I've written, I've interviewed John Gray, I've interviewed Montauk Chia, who's a very famous guy who teaches this stuff. This is Tantra, this is Qi Gong, and I've studied these esoteric practices.

Dave Asprey:
So what you end up with is you go, okay, if you want to live forever, and that's what all these sciences are about, was longevity. It's ejaculate once every 30 days, and keep your orgasm for men to less than an hour.

Dave Asprey:
So I'm like, this is bullshit. I'm going to test this. So for a year, I gathered my data. I did my happiness number every day. How much do I like my life, my career, my job, my company, family life, just how good is life?

Dave Asprey:
And I also tracked carefully on a graph, ejaculation versus orgasm, versus masturbation versus sex. And it pissed me off, but absolutely there is an ejaculation hangover, and over -exaculating does deplete what they used to call your Qi.

Dave Asprey:
So only for men. But then for women, because a lot of these practices, they didn't talk about women very much. So like, all right, let's look into the research. And I did talk to John Gray about this, and he wasn't public with his comments about this at the time, but we had private conversations.

Dave Asprey:
John and many others will say, okay, and now science supports this as well, that for women, orgasms are not depleting. They're actually enhancing. Your EQ goes up, your oxytocin goes up, and things like that.

Dave Asprey:
And there's actually seven to nine different kinds of orgasms women can have.

Melanie Avalon:
Seven to nine.

Dave Asprey:
It depends on who you listen to, but there's probably not. I always go with the bigger hand.

Melanie Avalon:
which are debated.

Dave Asprey:
I'm not going to go there on this. I don't think I have time because I have to finish telling you the equation for limit. Okay. Plus, you don't want to get this banned on whatever platform it'll be on.

Dave Asprey:
So, here's the equation for a minute. Are you ready? It's the number of orgasms until you feel like you're going to die. Plus two.

Melanie Avalon:
is how many orgasms.

Dave Asprey:
you live in the long run. Okay. Regularly.

Melanie Avalon:
I will make a note of that.

Dave Asprey:
And by the way guys, there's no way you're going to be able to do that for your partner unless you learn how to not ejaculate all the time. So right now for guys, if you're getting to the end of the act, it's going to feel like you're going to die.

Dave Asprey:
Because you're like, if I do not finish right now and then your body convinced you to finish and you go, okay, why did I do that? So what you do is you break that just like intermittent fasting. Oh, I'm not going to starve to death if I don't eat for a day.

Dave Asprey:
You're not going to die if you don't finish. And what happens is once you decouple that, then you are always ready to do it again and do it again. And what does that do? It raises your oxytocin and it raises your partner's oxytocin and you don't get the 24 to 48 hour well documented testosterone drop after you ejaculate.

Dave Asprey:
But online, you want to be a powerful man, you shouldn't be at the mercy of ejaculating and your partnership will probably improve as a result of that.

Melanie Avalon:
So were you at the mercy of ejaculating when you did not make your goal?

Dave Asprey:
You know, I guess technically I will tell you that when I was trying to do 30 days without a jackpot, and that was really hard when you were learning to do something like that. So I remember a few times like on day 23, I'm like, I'm publishing my data.

Dave Asprey:
It's like, okay, you know, none, none, none. And then oops, okay, start over again. So it was a practice to be able to get to 30 days while having your regular sex, right? And you know, it's a massive improvement in quality of life.

Dave Asprey:
And that's why John Gray is real public about it now as well.

Melanie Avalon:
Congratulations. You answered Scott's question. He went to know by restraining ejaculation, does that increase your vitality? So I'm guessing yes.

Dave Asprey:
It does. And you know, the eject that once every 30 days or less is the the Qigong master's perspective on that. There's probably like a once a month is probably a good number. And also if you're younger, that's probably about right.

Dave Asprey:
But at least the equation do that.

Melanie Avalon:
Okay, we'll put that in the show notes. Couldn't. Renee wants to know, if you are on a date, what is the biggest turn on to you for a girl to order at the restaurant? Is there a food that a woman could order on a date that would turn you on?

Dave Asprey:
I would just say a woman who orders a grass -fed rabbi is by definition an attractive woman.

Melanie Avalon:
what temperature.

Dave Asprey:
Hmm. Probably rare, maybe medium rare. But if it's above that, it's like, oh my God, like I try not to judge anything out loud. What about blue? Blue is good. Just if it's burned, you're like, oh, how sad.

Dave Asprey:
But honestly, I don't judge people based on what they eat. It's how you show up in the world. That's really kind of you. For real. I mean, I might tease them and people tease me too. But if whatever you're eating, you can't be teased by someone who cares about you and designs you, then you probably have a problem.

Dave Asprey:
Like I am dating someone who is, let's say, wannabe vegan. She's not a vegan. She eats, you know, dairy and chicken and fish, but I'm just like, I'm gonna get her to eat today. Is that pescatine? She doesn't eat that much chicken and fish.

Dave Asprey:
And she sort of says, I kind of wanna be vegan, but I don't think she really does. I think she's teasing me. But regardless, I don't care what you eat as long as it works for you. But when people say, I'm eating this and I'm in pain all the time and my brain doesn't work.

Dave Asprey:
And like maybe it's the MSG and like, no, it's not the MSG. Okay, fine, whatever.

Melanie Avalon:
So we have a question about that. I have a really quick question though. Have you found a way to make the restaurant actually give you a rare steak?

Dave Asprey:
Order it blue and you'll get it rare usually.

Melanie Avalon:
I found out a way. I asked to order a steak for dessert, and it was when the kitchen was closed, so they were not about it. I was like, listen, you can just get the raw steak, just put it on for a second, I'll be good in that work.

Dave Asprey:
I would work. Then the guys are gonna eat lay. You probably could just say you want one minute per side and you're good. Yeah, I'm still working on that one. Yeah, blue is good.

Melanie Avalon:
Speaking of Nancy, she wants to know why does he keep referring to raw vegan as his gripe with veganism? Whole foods plant-based has some impressive results in science, particularly without oils. And this is vastly different from a raw diet.

Melanie Avalon:
Is it a running joke? Is it residual trauma from too many sprouts? I can do without kale, but I'm very tired of my cozy meals being lumped into a small fringe, extreme lifestyle. By the way, I am a Dave fan.

Melanie Avalon:
I drink danger coffee every morning, no shade here, can't wait to hear the interview. So, I've thought of that.

Dave Asprey:
I love the honest questions there. I talk about how I've been vegan and a raw vegan because I've done both. And being a raw vegan shows a devout commitment to a cult -like belief system. It's like being in the inner circle of priests of the vegan cult.

Dave Asprey:
So I just use that as like a proof that I'm one of you and my sprouters and juicers and blenders and dehydrators and all that stuff that's probably in the garage somewhere. I don't know, I don't use it anymore.

Dave Asprey:
So I wasn't just a raw vegan. I wouldn't be really cloned that. The problem is that all of these staple, cozy vegan foods are full of oxalates. They're full of phytic acid. They're full of carbohydrates.

Dave Asprey:
They're full of lectins. You can't get oil -free. You just get plant oils. You can eat corn. It's got corn oil in it. You can eat soy, which is full of all those bad things, plus some estrogen mimics.

Dave Asprey:
It's also got soybean oil in it. You can eat nuts. It's got omega -6's in it. So it's not oil -free. And if you're talking about a really radical friend the zero -fat 1970s vegan movement might be even more extreme than the raw vegan movement.

Dave Asprey:
So that said, is there an argument for a zero -fat, relatively high -starch, low -toxin diet that contains plants that are not full of oxalates, phytates, or lectins that are bad for you? Nobody knows, because they've never tried it.

Dave Asprey:
But metabolically, there probably is a case for that. It'll be used for a brief period. As there's a case for being a vegan for a brief period. If you listen to the Human Upgrade, I did a podcast with James Clements about a book called The Switch from James.

Dave Asprey:
Cool. Do you want it? In a minute. James is a friend and a fellow longevity enthusiast I've known for 25 years. This is a guy who flew around and got all these really, really old centenarian people's DNA.

Dave Asprey:
So James actually says be a vegan and then be carnivore. Be vegan, then carnivore on a monthly basis to live forever. It's a good argument, good book, and cool guy.

Melanie Avalon:
I would posit the Kempner diet might be what you were saying.

Dave Asprey:
a Kempner diet remind you. How about this?

Melanie Avalon:
It's like rice and sugar and you reverse people's diabetes.

Dave Asprey:
I believe that's the same thing. It's the zero fat, high starch sugar diet. I do not believe anymore that sugar causes diabetes. I think excess sugar is bad for you from a dopamine perspective and a gut bacteria perspective.

Dave Asprey:
I think diabetes, and I'm for years now, is caused by omega -6 fats primarily. And toxins. That evolved dysfunction.

Melanie Avalon:
Well, we do have a question from A. James. This is supposed to be anonymous. So this is A. James. A. James, not a mutual friend, James. He says, will you be talking to Dave about the, is it Follistatin gene therapy?

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah. He got the gene therapy himself, maybe for promoting it, question mark, but says it only lasts a couple of months, and then you must do it again to maintain muscle mass. He's been, quote, getting ripped just since becoming single again, LOL.

Dave Asprey:
So two correct things. Gene therapy is good for up to two years, not a couple months. Go to daveasprey.com/genetherapy for info about that and a link to the episode in it. And no, I did this because I wrote about gene therapy in my longevity book in 2016, 2017.

Dave Asprey:
That's superhuman if you wanna read how to live to at least 180. Since then a couple of people have come out with books saying we might live for an extra 10 years, but it's all about health span. And if you just exercise enough and that's like Neanderthal longevity from the 80s and it's kind of gross.

Dave Asprey:
So the reason I did this is in my book, I said we will be able to do gene therapy soon and we'll have IPSC edited stem cells. The guy who created these who was on the podcast along with his partner Mac, read the book in medical school and said, oh, I made enough money selling Tesla shares.

Dave Asprey:
How about I build this tech for longevity instead of being a regular doctor? So I got it because I'm gonna live to at least 180 and I had got it even if I never talked about it but I talk about it because that's my job to talk about the stuff I do to live to 180 so you don't have to spend millions of dollars trying your life for yourself.

Dave Asprey:
That's why I did it.

Melanie Avalon:
I have a question. When you write your books, do you write your books?

Dave Asprey:
Yes, I write my books. Now, what is the definition of writing a book?

Melanie Avalon:
Do you, every sentence in the book, did that come from your creative inspiration that you then pinned?

Dave Asprey:
No book published today unless it's self -published is that way because you work with a team of editors at your publisher Literally before any of my books is out there. It has been handled by at least a dozen people to help me Get my words and my thoughts in order So to write a New York Times bestseller that's gonna be read by hundreds of thousands of people I would be irresponsible if I only wrote every word myself and the publisher would be irresponsible If they published it without going through every single word doing fact -checking Telling me that this sentence looks stupid and here's how it should be better.

Dave Asprey:
It's like a team of critics working on it and There's absolutely stages where it's collaborative or like oh we want to get these ideas in here. How do we do it? So I'll go back and forth with someone There's usually a primary editor or we'll call it writing partner where we'll have the conversations to structure it And then we go back and forth So I don't think you can legitimately say anyone wrote every word in their book unless they're a first -time author It's a team effort if it's going to be a worthy book

Melanie Avalon:
the legal department's fund.

Dave Asprey:
Believable for a win is great fun. How are you? Did I write my book? Yeah. Yeah. With every single word in the book, yours.

Melanie Avalon:
Yes, and then it got both self -published, yes. And then traditionally published, which I actually brought you a copy of my book because 10 years ago, I went to the opening of the bullet proof at the time, Coffee Shop in Santa Monica.

Melanie Avalon:
I've told you this before, but I'm telling you again. And I came with my self -published book at the time, and I was like, I'm gonna give Dave asked for my book. And I was dressed up in like a cocktail dress, sparkly, and then they were like, Dave's gone.

Melanie Avalon:
I was like, okay. And so I gave them self -published one. I was like, can you please give this to Dave? And then I walked away and I was like, someday I will give him my book in person. Well, here you go.

Melanie Avalon:
I have it down there. Thank you. So I'm giving it to you. Aw. But to answer your question, that's the real version, like the traditionally published. And I think I can say that I wrote every sentence, and then they would say like, oh, we need to put this in here because of all of us.

Melanie Avalon:
So then I would like write a new sentence. you

Dave Asprey:
Your editor didn't just say, here's my suggested edit, and you clicked accept.

Melanie Avalon:
And

Dave Asprey:
There's collaborative tools for getting it out there in a way that's good. And so I don't think there's any shade on doing or not doing that. It's just when you have a book that's really going to be seen by so many people, you need like beta readers to go through it.

Dave Asprey:
Like, no, this doesn't work. This doesn't work. And then do I care if it's me who says, you know, this sentence was in a passive voice and I missed it? Can you put an active voice? I don't know, I hope someone could do that.

Dave Asprey:
That's, it's like, I don't wash my own socks. I get help with that. And I'm, You don't wash your own socks. I'm grateful to have help for that. And I do that because it takes more time to wash my socks than the value that's provided.

Dave Asprey:
So I can focus on this podcast because I pay someone to help me with that. And I'm super grateful for it, right? But it's the same thing with the book. I do the strategic parts and the important parts.

Dave Asprey:
And if someone says, you want to reorganize these three sentences, I don't care. Can you copy and paste them instead of me? And I feel good about that.

Melanie Avalon:
I have an example. I recently interviewed last week Nina Tyshuls.

Dave Asprey:
I wasn't near that.

Melanie Avalon:
And she's good friends with Gary Tops. I had Gary on the show. And that reminded me that when I tried to traditionally publish my book, they were like not having it with Gary. They were like, you got to put in some sort of disclaimer.

Melanie Avalon:
So I went in and like made a disclaimer.

Dave Asprey:
You want to know something really funny? Sure. I interviewed Gary Tabs on my podcast, probably one of the first 20 out of more than a thousand episodes now. Oh, wow. And after the interview, I said, Gary, I'm writing my fertility book.

Dave Asprey:
And I need, like I don't know what to do, but I've been writing it for five years to self publish this about how I was able to have two kids, even though my mother, my kids was 39 and 42 at the time we had them, which was infertile when I met her.

Dave Asprey:
So like there's a lot of knowledge in here. And it was Gary who introduced me to my first agent. And so the next day was so nice. He sent to know, so Gary Tabs, if you're this, thank you brother for your support early in my writing career.

Dave Asprey:
I don't forget those things.

Melanie Avalon:
I love Gary. Okay. Two last questions related to all of this. Leah says, I love the quote, what have you changed your mind on based off of new information that you once believed strongly type question.

Melanie Avalon:
So it has been a long time. I'm sure his views have changed over the years. I would love to know what matters to him now. And then Teresa said, is there anything he's written about in his books that makes him cringe because he doesn't agree with it today?

Dave Asprey:
Okay, there's the cringiest part is when I came out with the Bulletproof Diet cookbook, I feel like I was bullied into having some recipes with Kale. Really? Yeah, because at the time, Kale had a $6 million marketing budget from the Kale Marketing Association.

Dave Asprey:
And so many people were just Kale. And I'm like, guys, Kale and spinach are not that good for you. But if you're going to have a little bit, you can have a little bit if you must. But what I did in the first chapter of the Bulletproof Diet, okay?

Dave Asprey:
Clamer? No, I just, just what it is. Okay, here's the things that are messing with you. Lectins, there's the whole genre of lectin books, right? Oxalates, they're having their day right now and it's only going to get better, right?

Dave Asprey:
And then there's Retic Acid, which is in my most recent book, which is a big problem. And I talked about histamine, which is also having its day right now because of long COVID and all this stuff. And it's like intermittent fasting and omega -6 fats.

Dave Asprey:
So these were the universe to play with in the Bulletproof Diet on all those different levels. But what I didn't do, probably because the data wasn't organized yet, is I wasn't aggressive enough on lowering oxalates, especially being a former vegan or a former whole foods plant -based diet.

Dave Asprey:
Because the more whole the food is, the more toxins from plants there are. That's why, like brown rice, every rice eating culture, if you can afford it, you eat the white rice because the toxins are more in the brown part than the same thing with wheat.

Dave Asprey:
Whole wheat is for peasants because you don't care if they die, but the wealthier people eat the white flour because it has less toxins and they get their nutrients from the side of beef. So, sad, that's how the world works.

Dave Asprey:
Now, the fact that some 70s guys like to eat brown rice because fiber, not knowing about lectins or arsenic or oxalates, I don't know, they're nonsense. So anyway, I was not aggressive enough on oxalates.

Dave Asprey:
I should have just said guys, beets are stupid. Almonds, especially almond milk, which wasn't much of a thing, is stupid. And I should have said raspberries are not worth it. Eat more blueberries. I'm a big blueberry fan.

Dave Asprey:
I love blueberries. But raspberries, the number of, especially women I've spoken with who had interstitial cystitis and serious pain in the reproductive system, they give up these foods. Oh, and kale and spinach are in there.

Dave Asprey:
And I've always been against those guys. Spinach is the very worst besides rhubarb. And I just feel like I wasn't aggressive enough. So my apologies if you ever had a recipe with almonds or kale on them that came from my book.

Dave Asprey:
I know better now.

Melanie Avalon:
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for my first in -person podcast.

Dave Asprey:
And I gotta say congratulations, you're doing a really good job of moving the biohacking movement forward. I love it that we have younger people, women who are doing it. And it's so important because this idea that we have control of our own biology, it's intrinsic to being human.

Dave Asprey:
But the reason that 60% of my followers have always been women, sometimes like 55%, but it's always been slightly more than half, it's because women generally are better biohackers than men. Because for a lot of guys, including me, when I was younger, it's like, well, there's no bone sticking out down here, I'm probably fine.

Dave Asprey:
Right, and we're maybe not that tuned in, but because women's bodies change on a regular basis, you notice, because it's different today. So the sense of interoception, which is the nervous system feeling of what's gone on the body.

Dave Asprey:
Like what's happening where? Well, that's proprioception. Interoception is just the broader word for everything, including like your gut. It's proprioception is where am I in space. Interoception is my gut tingly or is it gas?

Dave Asprey:
You don't know. So there's all these different feelings and a lot of your emotions. And the vibe of where things are. They say like the issues and the tissues and stuff like that. And it's how do you feel what's going on in your inner world, but not the cognitive inner world, but the somatic inner world.

Dave Asprey:
So women are better at that on average than men because you just deal with a changing landscape and we're kind of like, oh, I think I'm okay. So this is why I think there are so many women biohackers.

Dave Asprey:
There are also so many intuitive uphealers who are women. The last 15 or so years of moving the biohack movement forward, I've been very carefully bringing more breath work and meditation, more intuition and more will say esoteric practices and that are based on somatic sense of the self.

Dave Asprey:
I know they're real because I run a neuroscience institution 40 years is in, right? And that lets us measure whether it's happening or whether we're just deceiving ourselves. It is happening.

Melanie Avalon:
Well, thank you. And I will say to that point, listeners, friends, I would not be doing what I'm doing today. I would not have this podcast if not for Dave Asprey. Honestly, I was experiencing health conditions and I started listening to your show and I just found things that worked and I've been following you since then.

Melanie Avalon:
So literally, this would not be happening if not for you. And that's not just me. It's the entire world. So I cannot recommend enough getting Dave's books, all the things. You'll learn everything especially fastest way if you want to know all about fasting.

Melanie Avalon:
So thank you.

Dave Asprey:
You are so welcome and just keep inspiring people. You're part of building the movement of biohacking. It is a growing global movement and it's here to stay. So thanks for helping.

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!

Dec 18

Episode 348: OMAD, Over Fasting, Extended Fasting, Low Carb Diets, Fat Loss, Autophagy, Protein Sparing Modified Fasting, Thermic Effect of Feeding, And More!

GET THE EPISODE ON APPLE PODCASTS!

The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #214 - Ulrich Dempfle (CAROL AI Bike)

Welcome to Episode 348 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.

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

SHOW NOTES

BUTCHERBOX: For a limited time go to butcherbox.com/ifpodcast and get 3 lbs of free-range, organic chicken wings for free in every order for a year, plus $20 off your first box!

Listener Q&A: Alani - I’ve been intermittent fasting for 4 1/2 years now....

Listener Q&A: Debbie - What is your CAROL Bike experience so far?

Get $100 off with code MELANIEAVALON At carolbike.com!

The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #223 - Tony Horton

Listener Q&A: Marina - Pros & Cons of Extended Fasting & Protein Sparing Modified Fasting. Which is better for weight loss?

Listener Q&A: Tara - Fat fasting versus protein sparing modified fasting versus regular fasting. Which is better - especially out of the first two?

The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #220 - Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

PROTEIN SERIES: Optimize Yourself with Protein: Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

TRANSCRIPT

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

Melanie Avalon:
Welcome to Episode 348 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.

Melanie Avalon:
Hi, everybody, and welcome. This is episode number 348 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon and I'm here with Vanessa Spina.

Vanessa Spina:
Hello, everyone.

Melanie Avalon:
How are you today, Vanessa?

Vanessa Spina:
I am doing well. How are you?

Melanie Avalon:
I am good. I feel like I want to tell you updates, but they're going to be, we're recording so far in advance that by the time this comes out, they're going to be not relevant. But can I tell you about my Taylor Swift Eris tour concert experience?

Vanessa Spina:
I was just going to ask how it was.

Melanie Avalon:
My goodness, it was an experience. I've never been to a movie in a theater where people are not in their seats.

Vanessa Spina:
I've never been to a concert in a movie theater. I've heard that they've become like, actually people going to the opera and stuff in the theater, so. But seeing Taylor Swift concert in the theater would be crazy.

Melanie Avalon:
It was so magical. It was funny. Afterwards, my sister was like, I thought it was going to be a documentary. And I was like, no, it's just the concert again.

Vanessa Spina:
I thought it was a documentary, too.

Melanie Avalon:
No, it's just the concert. Like just round two.

Vanessa Spina:
Well, that's nice because, yeah, for people who didn't get to go, like me, you can see the concert, or who.

Melanie Avalon:
Went and want to go again, like.

Vanessa Spina:
Me, relive it now. You can watch it infinite amount of times.

Melanie Avalon:
It was so great. And the crowd that we went to, because she's doing it only on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday for three weeks to make it like a concert experience. Our crowd. We went to a little bit of an earlier showing, at least for me, a 06:00 and it was all teeny boppers. Like everybody was like age ten to probably 1415 maybe. They looked fabulous. They were all dressed up, they were all with their moms, who were all drunk on wine, which was also fabulous. And then it was like me and my sister, when it started, everybody was sitting down and I was talking to my sister. I was like, people better start dancing. And then four little teeny bopper girls went in the aisles and they were dancing a little bit nervous because nobody else was standing up. But then they got joined by more and eventually there was like ten of them. And then they moved to the front of the movie theater screen and then like ten other girls from our row went in the sides. And I kept telling my sister, so this is like in the first, probably 20 minutes or so, I was like, I'm going to join them. I'm going to join them. Yeah, you are. I kept being like, when I get enough wine in me, I'm going to join them. And my sister was like, when the music calls and I was like, will you come with me? She was like, no. I was like, okay. And then at one point, half of the girls came and sat down again because it was a slow song. And I turned to the little girl beside me and she was like, twelve. And I was like, are you guys going to go back? And she was like, probably. And I was like, okay, well, I'm going with you next time. And she was like, okay. So then the next time they went back, I was like, this is my chance. And I went with them and I was awkwardly in the aisles and then I heard somebody behind me and I turned and it was my sister and she joined me. We just stayed there the whole time. And it was so immersive and so magical, and I highly recommend it to everybody. She's like changing the movie theater experience.

Vanessa Spina:
Wow, another thing, she's changing and leveling up. I was in the shower today and I was like, I think it's because I had her songs on, obviously, but I was like, I still can't believe she made over a billion dollars on that tour. That's just epic, just unbelievable. And she brought so much joy to so many people while doing it and also brought so much prosperity to so many people who were involved, from the truckers to everyone, Soundtech, everyone who was involved in the whole thing. Just what an incredible manifestation that she put out into the world. Just amazing.

Melanie Avalon:
No, it's so true. It's a huge boom, actually, to the economy. Actually, my sister and I were actually talking about that during the show because we were watching it, and we were like, why do people hate her? And my sister was like, it's literally just because they're jealous because she hasn't done anything to anybody. There's, like, nothing you can say, like, that's awful that she's done. Everything has just been wonderful. So it was really lovely. And there was this beautiful moment of humanity, because when we were in the aisles, there was a little girl, like, hiding behind us. She was probably, like, a younger sister of one of the teeny boppers. And she was really shy and not dancing and looked really awkward. And we tried to get her to dance with us, and I think we just scared her even more. But then at one point, the girls from the front, they came and they got her. They were like, come with us. And they brought her to the front. And then by the end, she was dancing, too. We were like, this is so beautiful. It's like humanity looking out for each other.

Vanessa Spina:
That's so adorable. I'm so glad you had an amazing time.

Melanie Avalon:
I did. And I posted for friends on Instagram my epic outfit, which I'm going to reprise for Halloween because I need to wear it again.

Vanessa Spina:
I was going to say, have you picked out your HallOween costume?

Melanie Avalon:
Well, I was going to be Sleeping Beauty, but now I'm going to be this one again, the Taylor Swift, because this outfit must be worn again since it took, like, 15 hours to make.

Vanessa Spina:
Oh, the one that you did. All the sequins that you were. Yes. Okay. Building the oxytocin.

Melanie Avalon:
So many sequins were engaged with. With this outfit.

Vanessa Spina:
That's amazing.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah. I can't wait to see what it looks made. Do you have an Amazon storefront?

Vanessa Spina:
No. Oh, yes. It's not that active. I mean, it's got my cookbook, my main book in it. I think that's about all.

Melanie Avalon:
I did not. So I just created one. I should make one for what you just said, like, for my book, the first thing I made was I made a Taylor Swift costume era shopping list. So if people want to make the costume, they can get all the supplies. So I made that at Melanie. Avalon.com Slash Avalon. And by the time this comes out, I will have updated it, hopefully for other things. And by the time this comes out, Vanessa. Oh, my God. So much will have happened. Last episode will be the first episode with Dave on this show.

Vanessa Spina:
Nice.

Melanie Avalon:
Which means that will have already happened. Isn't that crazy?

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah. We're in the future.

Melanie Avalon:
We are in the future right now. Except not.

Vanessa Spina:
Oh, my gosh.

Melanie Avalon:
How are you? How are things with you?

Vanessa Spina:
Good. Yeah. I found our Halloween costumes.

Melanie Avalon:
Oh, what are you doing?

Vanessa Spina:
I was going through so many different things, and I was spending way too much time on it. That time that I just don't have right now, because as we talked about, I'm nesting. Nesting mode and just organizing everything, getting everything ready for baby. It's like eight weekends. It's really not that long. So then I was like, what would, like, what would Luca be the most excited to wear? And then I'll build it around that. And I was like, fireman. He would love that. He would love to be a fireman because he's obsessed with rescue vehicles, service vehicles. He waves at every ambulance, fire truck. He just gets so it's a typical boy thing, but he gets so excited about. So if he had, like, a little fireman's hat and A fireman's outfit and a fire extinguisher and that kind of thing, he would be so excited. And then if his dad was matching him and his mom, he calls us Dita and Mima. His dita and Mima are matching him. So I got Pete a firefighter outfit, which I think I'm going to like too. Also enjoy just looking at him in it. And then I got one for myself, which is like an outfit that doesn't exist in real life.

Melanie Avalon:
Right?

Vanessa Spina:
It's like a woman's fireman dress. It's basically like the fireman outfit but made into a dress. A cute dress. It's not like.

Melanie Avalon:
I get what you're saying.

Vanessa Spina:
I wouldn't say it's like Koi. It's not like that.

Melanie Avalon:
Wait, it's not like a sexy fireman?

Vanessa Spina:
No. Well, yeah, kind of, but I wouldn't say it's, like, modest. I'm pregnant, so I'm like, the pregnant firefighter. But I was also debating between this cute cheerleading dress with pompoms, and I was like, I could be, like, a pregnant cheerleader, but I was like, is that, like, is that controversial or funny? I don't know. So I'm going to try both on, and I'll let Pete decide.

Melanie Avalon:
I want to see pictures, all of.

Vanessa Spina:
Us being dressed up as firemen, fire people, firewomen. Whatever will be, will be cute. It'll just be so cute to see him in it. And I was just so happy when we decided, because I was like, I know he's going to be into this. I know he's going to want to actually wear it. Unlike the lion, he was know we had to kind of chase him around to put it on him.

Melanie Avalon:
He was not a lion fan.

Vanessa Spina:
It's just like, he was like, only one, and he was just like, I don't want to wear this hat. It's just constricting. Like, he doesn't understand costumes yet. So. Yeah, I just feel really good that I have them all picked out and I ordered them. They're coming this week, so we're going to try them on. And assuming all goes well, we have a Halloween party with a bunch of our friends and their kids. So it'll be really cute to see all the kids dressed up and everyone dressed up. So, yeah, I'm excited for it.

Melanie Avalon:
Do they trick or treat there? I think I asked you that before.

Vanessa Spina:
So they do, but, like, in the expat Neighborhoods. So some of my friends are going to this expat neighborhood.

Melanie Avalon:
Wait, what is expat?

Vanessa Spina:
Expat is, like, short for expatriates. So it's Americans, Canadians, like, Westerners who are here. And there are certain neighborhoods where there's lots of expats. Typically there's one here specifically where there's a lot of Americans. Like, if you walk around that neighborhood, all you hear is English. It's like in the city. Right? So they're doing, organizing a big trick or treating thing so you can go there and volunteer and hand candy out and. Yeah, we're not going to it because I don't want to celebrate all the candy and everything, but we'll do the Halloween party. It's a tough holiday for me, weirdly, because when I was a kid, I loved it so much, but all that sugar and candy really affected me in my life, so I also have a lot of mixed feelings about it. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Melanie Avalon:
It's funny because growing up, it was a little bit controversial because I was raised super Bible belt Christian south, and so it was seen as a little bit satanic. I mean, we still like pagan. I mean, we still trick or treated and all the things, but it wasn't. Yeah, it was not the crowd favorite holiday. Yeah. Now I'm really not about all that candy. So that said, I just love Halloween. I love everything about. I love the costumes, I love the decorations. Starting now through the end of the year is my favorite seasons. I'm so excited. We're, like, in the good times now.

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah. I've been having yesterday and today. I was thinking about you today because I was like, I bet Melanie doesn't have this, but I'm having almost like a summer. End of summer, like grief. Why is summer?

Melanie Avalon:
I thought you were going to say that. Yeah, I have no idea what that is.

Vanessa Spina:
I'm like, we were just at the beach, and then we got back and it was sunny for last week, and then now it's just cold. So it's a big shift. I had to pull our winter jackets out today. I'm not ready. I'm just not ready for it. And every year it gets harder. And Pete and I sat on the. We were sitting on the couch on Saturday and we, like, Pinky promised that this is like the last winter that we're doing. Because we were like, I don't know, the darkness. I just miss being outside. All I was tonight, I was like, I think I just have to dress warmer and just make an effort. And we can still be outside a lot of the day, but I miss being outside. I really do. But we kind of distract ourselves with all those holidays. But I guess for you, you don't have the end of summer grieving.

Melanie Avalon:
No. I literally have been dreaming about the upcoming time change. When it gets dark at like five, I'm like, please come now. I just love it. I love it.

Vanessa Spina:
Darkness and the cold.

Melanie Avalon:
It's so great. It's wonderful.

Vanessa Spina:
But do you ever feel like my problem with it is that I didn't.

Melanie Avalon:
Even know what you were going to say.

Vanessa Spina:
Well, I've grown to compensate with other things, like red light therapy and sauna when I'm not pregnant. I love that stuff. Cold therapy, even in the winter. I do it mostly in the winter. I've embraced all those things. I think that the seasons changing really has its charms. I think fall has its charms. Christmas has its. Winter has its charms. Especially if you go skiing, which I love. But there's Christmas markets. There's all the holidays you're talking about. So it's not that I don't like them. I do enjoy it, but I don't like being inside all the time. That's the hard part for me. That doesn't bother you?

Melanie Avalon:
It doesn't change? No, that does not bother me. It does not change at all. My amount of hours spent in the outdoors. There is no difference.

Vanessa Spina:
Does that mean you spend a lot of time outside?

Melanie Avalon:
No. Yeah.

Vanessa Spina:
Because in the summer, like, where you live, it's hot outside, right?

Melanie Avalon:
So I'm definitely not outside. So I'm probably outside more. Yeah, I'm probably outside more in the cold.

Vanessa Spina:
That's so funny and ironic. I like, the cold. I like it. I don't like when it's, like, dark and cold. It just feels sad and, like, gloomy.

Melanie Avalon:
Oh, it feels dark and romantic.

Vanessa Spina:
Okay, I have to reframe. Reframe it to romantic.

Melanie Avalon:
It's like the best lighting.

Vanessa Spina:
AnD good lighting it is.

Melanie Avalon:
It's such good lighting.

Vanessa Spina:
I think. I was thinking of reflecting on this a lot today. I think part of it is because now we have a two year old, I think it makes me long for the summer even more because you're outside with them all day doing stuff. So in the winter, it just becomes more challenging because you're like, I want to go to the playground, but it's freezing and we have to put on all these layers, and I don't want to do it. Whereas when it's warm out, at least it's easy to do. So. I think having a kid does change it.

Melanie Avalon:
Another reason for me not to have a child.

Vanessa Spina:
I don't think I mind it as much before.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, but the lighting, actually, one of the things, if I am ever going on dates and stuff, I'm like, I love that when the time change happens, because then I can go on slightly earlier dates because the lighting will be more favorable earlier.

Vanessa Spina:
Okay, what do you mean by this lighting? Like, are you talking about selfie lighting? Are you talking about just lighting in general?

Melanie Avalon:
Talking about? Yes. Like, the harsh overhead lighting of the day just is not as flattering to me as the evening lighting.

Vanessa Spina:
I get that. Like, in photos.

Melanie Avalon:
Especially. Or like, if you're inside in a restaurant or a bar with windows, you can get weird side angle lighting that's just not flattering. But when it's dark outside, then you've only got the lighting of the restaurant, which is generally, usually more flattering, especially if you're going to a nice place. But those windows, man, that side lighting, then you have to worry about where you're sitting. I just can't. It's too much.

Vanessa Spina:
I don't think I've ever thought. But I love that you have thought about it. Oh, have I? Now I'm going to be thinking about it more.

Melanie Avalon:
That's why you got to get there early, before your date, so that you can scope out the seat that will have the best lighting. And it's important that your first moment being seen is from far away.

Vanessa Spina:
Really?

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah. There's a lot that goes into this.

Vanessa Spina:
I would think that when Pete and met, it was from far away the first time, not super far. Like, we were at a reception and he walked in with his friend. And he made some comment about how he thought I was really attractive. Maybe we were like, 20ft away.

Melanie Avalon:
I don't know.

Vanessa Spina:
Does that qualify? Oh, yeah.

Melanie Avalon:
No, that's perfect. That's perfect. Yes. There's nothing better when you're first meeting a potential romantic person than having that far off first look. It's everything.

Vanessa Spina:
That's so funny. Yeah. I'm thinking about my other serious relationship before Pete. I saw him far away. We saw each other from far away at a club.

Melanie Avalon:
See? It's everything.

Vanessa Spina:
But I didn't see. Petey saw me. And then he came up close.

Melanie Avalon:
Wait, you didn't see. Wait, wait.

Vanessa Spina:
What?

Melanie Avalon:
You didn't see Pete?

Vanessa Spina:
And then he walked in and saw me. And then him and his friend came up and introduced themselves to me. So I only saw him the first time up close.

Melanie Avalon:
Well, that does put a wrench in my theory. But we need more data points. I love it. Well, on that note, now that listeners have learned so much about how to perfectly organize their first.

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah.

Melanie Avalon:
Good tips. I know these are important tips. We should write a book.

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah. About lighting.

Melanie Avalon:
Yes.

Vanessa Spina:
About tips for life.

Melanie Avalon:
Shall we go into some questions? Okay, so we have a kind of all over the place interesting question here from Elena, and this is from Facebook. And she says, I've been intermittent fasting for four and a half years now. I like it as a lifestyle, to lose a few pounds around the middle and to stay healthy. I am 48 years old, female, and on HRT estradiol patch and 200 milligrams progesterone pill. At night. I'm 55 and I weigh 135 pounds. I'm an omnivore, and I eat lots of protein and I'm low on the carbs. I eat everything organic and grass fed. I mix up my fasting and eating window. I can fast easily to 19 hours, but after that, I get major tension in my shoulder that goes up to my neck and up to my head. It gets unbearable. And then I need to eat. Once I eat, that, tension goes away. I've tried electrolytes in my water throughout the day as I'm fasting and eating more protein the night before. I take your awesome magnesium eight in the daytime for headaches usually, and that works, but not in this particular situation. I'm following everything you and Jen and Cynthia and Vanessa have said on your awesome podcasts. I've listened to all of your episodes. Is this stress on my body that's telling me to eat? I'm not hungry at all at this time. What is going on with my body. I also, at this time, feel very energetic but in a negative way, like jittery. I've tested my glucose and it's in the high seventy s and low 80s. I've heard about fasting energy, but I can't do anything with this energy because I can't focus. Do I just not like being in ketosis for an experiment? I've made myself wait till 23 or 24 hours and then I've eaten two hard boiled eggs and one cup of bone broth, then gone to sleep and made it to 41 hours. And she said, last week I tried eating just protein steak, two hard boiled eggs and chicken, went to bed and then made it to 48 hours. But I can't get rid of that weird tension that happens after 19 hours. What is going on with my body? Thank you ahead of time for your help.

Vanessa Spina:
I have some thoughts. I would say I'm a big fan of really paying attention to feedback from your body and being really in tune with how you feel when you're doing things. And the tension in the neck, which sounds very painful. It doesn't sound like good feedback or positive feedback from your body with this approach. The other thing that's really standing out for me is you sound like you are at a great, healthy weight. So I'm not sure what the goal is with doing Omad. Like, if you are 48, it sounds like you're doing, as you said, HRT. Then it's hard to say without knowing explicitly what your goals are. But I'm imagining that you want to have a great body composition because you're doing HRT, you're eating lots of protein, and you're really focusing on informing yourself on all the ways that this is beneficial for your body composition. So I'm not sure why you're fasting. I'm not sure why you're doing Omad. And it does sound potentially like too much stress. It sounds like you're at a great weight after the age of 40. Usually we really depend on other signals outside from the hormonal ones to make sure that we can have amazing body composition, build more muscle, maintain the muscle that we have, and also have strong bones. And because you're on HRT, that's going to give you a bit of a boost. But your body is really going to be dependent on the protein feedings and on resistance training. So I'm not sure if you are doing that or not. I didn't see that in your question, but I don't see what would be bad potentially about doing two meals a day, waking up in the morning, having a prioritized protein breakfast, seeing how you feel throughout the day, if you want to have a small protein meal or a light lunch in between that or not, and having dinner. I'm not sure what the motivation is for doing the Omad, especially when you're getting this kind of feedback. It sounds like pain, like considerable pain and tension in your neck, and also this jittery feeling. So to me, that's all feedback, saying that this pattern may not be optimal for you. And so I would definitely look into adjusting it. Trying to do a different approach with your meal timing and spacing, and sounds like you, like I said, are at a healthy weight. Maybe you're just wanting to optimize your body composition, stay as strong or get as strong as possible. And so what would be more optimal for that, in my opinion, would be to have at least two protein meals a day, whether that's breakfast and dinner or lunch and dinner. And that's just my initial thoughts on it. What about you, Melanie?

Melanie Avalon:
I thought those were really great thoughts. I was actually thinking that similarly, especially in the beginning when she was talking about, and again, of course, we don't know her actual body composition, but based on her weight and, you know, in a normal BMI, and I like what you said about focusing on the protein and the body composition and how she doesn't have to be doing the one meal a day thing. My thoughts on the feeling that she gets in her neck and shoulder. Okay, first of all, I will preface this by saying, I have no idea. These are just my random thoughts. I have two thoughts of what it might be. One, some people do report when they fast, that when they get farther into a fast, although I feel like this happens more with longer fasts, but that areas where they have damage or I don't know what the correct word would be. Areas, problematic areas, especially muscle related, that those will start flaring up when they get into a fast because of the body going into a sort of repair mode. I don't know if that's what that is. I've just heard that people have experienced that. What it feels like, maybe even more. It sounds like your body's going into, since you feel very energetic, not hungry, but it's like a negative jittery energy. It sounds like you're going into the sympathetic dominant state. So basically a high cortisol response to the fasting I was expecting. When you said that you tested your glucose, I actually thought it was going to be high because that would also be indicative of going into that state, and it's not. It's in the low eighty s. I would actually be really curious if you were a laney to wear a CGM, how those blood sugar levels compare to the rest of the day. I'd be really curious about that. But it does really sound like an increase in the sympathetic nervous system, and that definitely can lead to muscle tension and muscle spasms. And the fact that you eat and it goes away feels like it's shifting you back into the parasympathetic mode and mitigating that. So that would be my thought. It sounds like what you're doing, the fasting approach you're doing right now probably is not, like Vanessa was saying, might not be the best fasting approach suited to so. And like Vanessa also said, I don't think you need to feel this dire, need to have to do this longer fast. I really don't, especially even the terminology she uses. So she went 23 or 24 hours, had two hard boiled eggs and a cup of brown broth, went to sleep, and then made it to 41 hours.

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, I definitely get that as well from the terminology and just the tone that there's maybe a thought that you need to fast for as long as possible. And I do think that there's a place for extended fasting, but it would be without any food at all. That's like water fasting. Extended water fasting done for the purpose of deep autophagy, immune reset, cellular renewal, mitophagy, et cetera. But, yeah, I wouldn't push it. There's really nothing wrong with changing up your approach, especially if you're feeling uncomfortable. And I just think it's great that you're listening to the feedback from your body, you're observing it, but it sounds like it's not the most suited, the best suited for you. So I wish I knew more about what your goals were with it, because then I feel like I could give you better feedback on what to do. But I'm just going to assume that you want to have great body composition if you listen to the three of our podcasts and you've been upping your protein and all of that. So, yeah, let us know. I would love to know how it goes if you decide to change it up and see if you get even better results.

Melanie Avalon:
And also, one final thought, something you could also try. If, for whatever reason, you do want to do these one meal a day approaches, you could try having more carbs and protein and seeing what happens and see if that has an effect. It might be that the fasting plus the low carb is just too much stress and you need more carbs. So that would be something to experiment with as well.

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah.

Melanie Avalon:
Shall we go on to our next question?

Vanessa Spina:
Yes, the next question is from Debbie and comes to us on Facebook. What is your Carol bike experience so far?

Melanie Avalon:
Yes. So I haven't updated about this in a while, but I am still loving my Carol bike. I actually did have an interview with the founder on the Melanie Avalon Biohacking podcast, so I'll put a link to that in the show notes. But basically, it continues to be just the best way to easily integrate physical activity into my daily life and get the maximum benefit when it comes to cardiovascular benefits in particular, like cholesterol mitigating benefits, longevity benefits. And basically what Carol is, is it is a bike that uses AI to adjust the resistance in the actual bike. And then you do a track that is like a hit workout, a high intensity interval training, but it's called re hit, which is the most optimized form of that for minimal amount of time. So the track I've landed on, which is their main track, is just 220 2nd bursts. That's it. Which is crazy. And then there's like a warm up, an in between and a cool down. And you don't even have to do the warm up. I learned. I thought you did, but when I interviewed the founder, I realized you can just start all out sprinting and start with the sprint if you want. So it can actually literally be six minutes and you can do it. They recommend doing it three times a week, although you can do it more. And it's just seriously the easiest thing. And then I've talked about this before, but the track that you can use, it treats you like you're a hunter gatherer, and it talks you through when you're in the slow part of it. It treats you like you're walking in the woods and finding food for your family and all this stuff. And then you see, like a tiger, and then it screams at you and yells at you, and the screen goes bright red and it's like, run faster. It's like your family needs you. And then you're like, running. And it is just the best. When I did it, I actually saw a big change in my HBA one C, and it's hard to know if it was just the bike or other lifestyle factors, but I did see drops in my cholesterol panel and changes in my HBA One C, so I am loving it. You can get it@carolbike.com. And the coupon code, Melanie Avalon, will get you $100 off. Especially for people who are not gym type goers such as myself. This is just, like, my new favorite thing. Oh, which, speaking of, Vanessa, do you know who I'm interviewing tomorrow? Who? Did you ever do P 90 X growing up?

Vanessa Spina:
I definitely saw it, and it was big.

Melanie Avalon:
We definitely had those DVDs. So I'm interviewing Tony Horton, who's, like a legend in the workout world. And he looks. Man, he is doing something right. I looked him up. He's 65, and he looks. I mean, I was watching a podcast of him recently prepping. He literally looks like he's in his 40s. It's inspiring. Mark Sisson also looks amazing. Do you know he's 70?

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, I think I saw his post where he was like, I can't believe I'm 70.

Melanie Avalon:
Have you seen him? Have you met him in person?

Vanessa Spina:
No, I haven't. You are more, always more in the paleo side of things, whereas I kind of skipped paleo. I went right to Keto. But over the years, I've gotten to know more and more people from the Paleo side, usually because they come to Keto, but, yeah, I don't follow as many of the Paleo people I know that you.

Melanie Avalon:
They're. They look great.

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah. Exercise, Whole foods. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon:
I wish you were in the US and we could get you a Carol bike as well. I think you would like it.

Vanessa Spina:
Oh, I definitely want to get one from hearing all the updates and just how efficient it is, because I don't have time to do much exercise right now, and I'm going to have even less time coming up. So for me, I'm all about the micro workouts or the biohacks. I literally need all the hacks. I need the hacks because I just don't have the luxury of time right now. So it sounds like you can get a pretty efficient workout done.

Melanie Avalon:
Not only that, it's better than the majority of the workouts you would be doing for cardiovascular health, which cardiovascular disease is the number one leading cause of mortality. And, oh, you also wear a heart rate strap, so it's measuring your heart rate and making adjustments. Yes, it's definitely the optimal, efficient way to, quote, hack the exercise side of things. So highly recommend. Shall we go on to our next question?

Vanessa Spina:
Yes, I would love to.

Melanie Avalon:
All right, so this is also from Facebook, and it comes from Marina, and she wants to know the pros and cons of extended fasting and protein sparing, modified fasting between the two, which is better for weight loss. And then we actually also had another question from Tara, and it's similar. So I will read both of them. She says fat fasting versus protein sparing, modified fasting versus irregular fasting, which is better? But she wants to know, especially out of the first two. Okay, so all the options we have here, we have extended fasting, protein sparing, modified fasting, fat fasting, regular fasting. Okay.

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah. I want to answer them separately in a way, because the first one, I know what the goal is, the target is weight loss. But the second one, it just says which is better from the question from Tara. So I'm not sure for what, but I'll explain what I think each one is optimal for. So extended fasting, I only recommend for doing autophagy for deep autophagy because really that deep autophagy, although you can get autophagy from lots of different things like including exercise, and it's not just fasting, but extended fasting, is one of the evidence based ways that you can really deepen autophagy, especially when you get to the 36 hours plus mark, you get that immune reset, the cellular renewal. My skin always feels as soft as Lucas after, which is crazy. Like I can't stop touching my face because of all of the cellular cleansing and renewal that happens in the dermis and the skin. And there's so many benefits for longevity and antiaging. So I personally have practiced doing seasonal fasts for between three to five days. I usually get to four or five days on most of them annually, which ends up being three to four times a year. And that is just for the purpose of autophagy. There's a little bit of weight loss that usually comes with it, but it's for such a short period of time that it's not really tangible weight loss that you can maintain well. And that's one of the keys when it comes to quality weight loss or fat loss, where you're just losing mostly fat and you're preserving or maintaining your lean mass. I think that is one of the main priorities when it comes to it. And so I much prefer protein sparing modified fasting for that. If I have to choose between the two, neither of these is my top for fat loss. But choosing between the two, I would say protein spraying modified fasting is a dominant option to extended fasting. The main reason is the lean body mass loss can be higher during extended fasting, and a big part of having successful fat loss is the maintenance. So you want to do something that is going to help you to not only protect as much of your lean mass as possible, but also maintain the results. Whereas with fasting, what I see when people do that for fat loss is they usually gain back a lot of what they lose, and they also lose a lot of muscle doing it when they're doing extended fasting for weight loss. So I definitely prefer protein sharing, modified fasting. That's really the whole point of it. When I went back and went through all the obesity research to study the origins of protein sparing modified fast, and the two doctors who initially came up with it, one of them was George Blackburn. They came up with it as a way to help spare and protect lean body mass when people were in extended bedrest. And so they wanted to make sure that people would be able to not lose as much muscle as possible when they were basically in an extended catabolic state. So that's the whole point behind it, is to just lose pure fat, where most of what you're eating is protein, so your body has no choice but to go to your fat stores. And in terms of the protocols of people doing protein spraying modified fasting on a daily basis, I think that's always recommended in the obesity research for either obese or morbidly obese. So being over, I believe for women, it's over 34% body fat is obese and then morbidly obese. I'm not sure what exactly the percentage is for that, but typically doing that every day is recommended for those scenarios and with doctor supervision. But there are people more and more now who are using it to break through fat loss stalls. Weight loss stalls by adding in one to two days a week of a protein spraying modified fast day. And that would be. We've talked about it many times on other episodes, but it's usually around, averages around 800 calories. It's mostly lean protein and a little bit of carb, a minimal amount of fat. And it's just two days out of the week where you're eating at a regular caloric deficit on the other days during a fat loss phase. So that's the first question. Do you have anything to add on that before we go to the next one? Melanie?

Melanie Avalon:
I feel the exact same way. I do think, and I know we've talked about this on recent episodes, and we've talked about this a lot throughout the show, which, by the way, if you go to iFPodcast.com and you use the search bar, you can search through to find other episodes where we've talked about things. All of the episodes actually have transcripts. So that search will actually find, really, anywhere that we've talked about things before. I agree as well for fast, rapid quote, fat loss, protein sparing, modified fasting, I think is the smartest way to go to. And this is just saying what Vanessa said, but basically to preserve muscle while really giving your body nothing else to burn except fat, which is the reason that it can be so effective. And agreed as well about extended fasting. I would not use that for weight loss, especially for people who. Especially for people who are normal weight, and I probably wouldn't even for people who are overweight, because I think that they can get the benefits while not engaging in that. However, there are some people, especially with the supervision of a doctor, where that might be a way to launch everything. But in general, I would not really go that route. And I know Vanessa and I both did. You already air your episode with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. I mean, I know by the time this comes out, you will have.

Vanessa Spina:
It came out yesterday, actually. Okay.

Melanie Avalon:
That's what I thought. I thought I saw it. So I know talking with her especially, and reading her book Forever Strong, which I highly, highly recommend, it'll really make you become aware of the importance of preserving muscle. It is just so important. So, yeah, I would prioritize that in your weight loss approach, for sure, and especially you mentioned it, but the effects of just being sedentary or bed rest and how fast you lose muscle is crazy. And we know that people on extended fasting tend to move less, like, they tend to become more sedentary in their movement, their daily movement.

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, and then we didn't even really talk about the metabolic slowdown that can happen from being in that mode. So you have less non exercise activity, thermogenesis, which is a big part of your overall resting metabolic rate, than neat. But then you also are potentially losing that super valuable metabolically active tissue, which is the lean mass, which will give you a higher metabolic rate. And then lastly, with a protein sparing modified fast, you're eating protein, which also has that 20% to 30% thermic effect, where 20% to 30% of the calories consumed as protein are burned off just in consuming it. So it's like a triple whammy. And most people don't feel that hungry when they do those days. So definitely a much bigger fan of the latter than the former.

Melanie Avalon:
Oh, and just a comment really quickly on the thermic effect of food. One of the questions I got really excited about with Gabrielle, because it was something I've been wondering for so long and I was excited that she actually had thought about it prior to me asking her. I asked her because she talks in her book about how the thermic effect of protein, how protein can be used structurally. That's its main quote. Purpose is the amino acids are being used structurally in the body, but then it can also be used, turned into glucose. Yeah, I guess those are the two ways that it would go. Or it can be, I guess, just kind of wasted. But I asked her, is the thermic effect different in the beginning, like when it's being used structurally compared to at the end, compared to when you've already met your cap for structural needs and you're going more turning it into glucose or just wasting it? Was the thermic effect different? And she said she thinks it is. She thinks the thermic effect becomes more when you surpass your needs. Does that make sense?

Vanessa Spina:
I'm not sure. I thought it was mostly coming from the high ATP energy needs of muscle protein synthesis. So wouldn't that be the first part?

Melanie Avalon:
Yes, that would be the first part, although I guess. Do you know what the energetic conversion requirements of converting protein into glucose or just wasting it?

Vanessa Spina:
Well, I don't know compared with wasting it, but I know, like Dr. Don Layman has said, that in some of the rodent studies they did, that eating a high protein meal was equivalent energetically to going for an hour long run in the rodents. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon:
Was that hypochloric or like an isochloric or a hyperchloric?

Vanessa Spina:
I don't know. I didn't ask him about the details of it, but that's just something that we've talked about a few times. But we know it's between 20% to 30% of the protein that you consume.

Melanie Avalon:
So actually, I pulled up the transcript and so Gabrielle said, so basically what I asked her, I said, I'm curious because you talk in the book about how the amino acids from when we eat a meal, they're used structurally, but they can also be used as fuel. Oh, yeah, she does talk about that, how they can be used as fuel, and then they can also be converted into essentially glucose. Do you know if the thermic effect of protein differs based on how you're using those amino acids? And she says it does. She says that's why you see variations in the literature from 15 to potentially 20% of this thermic effect of food. So if you're eating 100 grams of just pure protein, your body might recognize 80 calories of protein. Or if you're eating 100 calories of protein if you're eating it all in a particular meal threshold. Again, this is my thoughts as well as Dawn's shout out to who Vanessa was just talking about that it's that muscle protein synthesis response that generates the variations in thermic effective feedinG. So if it's lower, maybe you're influencing the thermic effective feeding at 15%. But when you're hitting this threshold and challenging the machinery, that is what makes a difference. And then I clarified, I said, is that the thermic effect ramps up when you're going past the limit. And she said, yes.

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, so that's for sure. Like, if you hit 2.5 grams of leucine in your blood, then you will exceed that leucine threshold in the blood. And that's when muscle protein synthesis is triggered. And that's when you would have that high energetic demand for ATP to go then and synthesize the muscle. But if you don't hit 2.5, like if you are only eating 20 grams of protein at all your meals instead of 30, you're not hitting that threshold. So you still get a thermic effect, but it's just not as robust because you're not actually triggering muscle protein synthesis.

Melanie Avalon:
So is the takeaway still that the more you. Are you saying the more protein you eat, the higher the thermic effect regardless?

Vanessa Spina:
Yes. But you were saying about the time, whether it would be higher later versus higher. Did you mean it would be higher with more protein?

Melanie Avalon:
Right, the timeline, because you have to hit a threshold.

Vanessa Spina:
Okay, yeah. I was confused because I thought you were saying once you. It has more to do with the duration. But I guess the duration applies to the fact that you would have consumed more protein. Yes. And I could see why you would ask that question specifically.

Melanie Avalon:
Oh, yeah. The timeline was purely. It's like looking at a timeline that only is growing based on eating more.

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, that's why I understand in that context what you mean. But if someone is continuing to eat protein, but if they eat protein and then they stop, but they've only had 20 grams, then in that sense they would never hit the leucine threshold. So the thermic effect would always be the same. It wouldn't increase even though more time has passed.

Melanie Avalon:
Oh, yeah, mine had nothing to do with time at all, just eating more.

Vanessa Spina:
But you mean. Yeah, eating more in that time, like.

Melanie Avalon:
Later in the meal. I'm not sure what I said, but later in the meal because you're eating continually.

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, that totally makes sense.

Melanie Avalon:
More protein. Okay. I used to think about this when I went on a super high protein diet, and I was basically doing PSMF, but not calorie restricted. I would just eat protein and more and more and more. And I was so curious about the fate and the thermic effect of that protein after eating massive amounts.

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, I think that the confusion comes down to the different ways that we eat. Like, you eat over an extended period of time. I like with my protein meals, they're pretty brief. So for me, longer time is like, it doesn't change the amount, but for you, longer time does.

Melanie Avalon:
Oh, that's so interesting. Yeah. Although. Yeah, I literally, though, just meant it based on eating more. I didn't mean it about time.

Vanessa Spina:
No, that's super fascinated. I'm glad you asked her that.

Melanie Avalon:
So, all the rabbit holes. What about fat fasting?

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah. Okay. So, again, it's hard for me to answer this without the goal. If you're asking which is better for fat loss, clearly protein spraying, modified fasting, would be much more beneficial than either fat fasting or regular fasting. If you're asking which is better for deep ketosis, then fat fasting would be better than protein spraying modified fast, and even regular fasting would be even more so than that, because you're not triggering any insulin at all, although the insulin amount is minimal with fat. So if the goal is like, medical ketosis or getting into deep ketogenesis, then I would say, like, regular fasting, assuming that's water only fasting, then fat fasting, and then protein spraying, modified fast. So it really comes down to the goal, because I'm not really a fan of the way that most people do fat fasting. And I think it sometimes is recommended to people for fat loss because it lowers insulin. But the best way to really lower fasting insulin or basal insulin, which is like most of our insulin need, is by losing fat in the fat cells. And so that would be through fat loss, which would be optimized through protein spraying modified fast out of those three, because, again, with the fat fasting and the regular fasting, there is the risk of lean body mass loss. So it really comes down to the goal.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, because I don't think we defined what fat fasting is. It's basically, while people do it different ways, but it's basically eating just fat. People will do it with butter. Some people will do it with not completely fat food. Like, they'll do it sometimes with macadamia nuts, which are very high fat. They might do it with, I mean, really, anything that's some people will even do it with, like, avocados and stuff. So they don't necessarily do it completely fat.

Vanessa Spina:
I've only seen it with just pure fat, like fat and coffee fat and bone broth.

Melanie Avalon:
Maybe this was from my low carb Atkins days. I would be in the forums. Back in the forum days, there are a lot of manifestations of people doing fat fasting.

Vanessa Spina:
Wow, that's crazy.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, because I did it once and I did it with macadamia nuts, and that was miserable.

Vanessa Spina:
I bet it would be, because those.

Melanie Avalon:
Just make you hungry. I mean, for me, those just made me hungrier.

Vanessa Spina:
I think all nuts have an appetite stimulating effect because they have carb and fat. It's the same with avocados. It's like, high carb, high fat.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah. So some people would do it. People would give it really vague percentages, like, oh, if you're, like, 90% fat. But then some people do it more by the book, like just butter or things like that. Yeah, I did it with cream cheese. I did it with cream cheese. That's what I did it with as well. I tried that.

Vanessa Spina:
Is there any protein in that, or is it pure fat?

Melanie Avalon:
There might be, like, a gram. There is a tiny bit of carbs, but it's primarily fat. Oh, I can taste it now. It's coming back to me. I love cream cheese. And I would, like, mix it with. This was also in my pre paleo days. I would mix it with erythritol, and it would literally taste like icing.

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah. Or cheesecake. I've definitely had variations of that when I was doing, like, Atkins style, the Induction, or whatever, which is pretty similar to Keto. Yeah, it was very tasty. But the most recent time I did it was when I first started Keto, and I actually gained a ton of weight from doing it. Like, I put on 20 pounds, and that was, like, my first experience with Keto is I was like, I just have to get really high ketones. I was following the advice of some people who were not really putting out the best advice, which I've since learned. And I was getting these ketones of, like, 4.86.0. I was like, oh, my gosh, I'm killing it. My insulin must be so low. I must just be, like, torching the fat. And I was like, I think my dryer is shrinking my. Like, I seriously thought that. I seriously thought that. And Pete and I went to Vegas, to Las Vegas for holiday, the two of us. It was just like a weekend thing, and we asked someone to take a picture of us in the same place that we had had this cute picture of us taken a year ago. And I saw the photo and I was like, oh, my gosh, I've gained 20 pounds. And that was how I realized, because I was, like, in denial or something before that, I seriously thought my dryer was shrinking my clothes. I was like, why are my clothes suddenly all tighter? And then I was like, I better weigh myself. I was like, oh, no, I gained 20 pounds and it was all the cream cheese and just eating all the high fat dairy, because I was very misinformed and I thought, all I have to do, it was kind of like fat fasting. All I have to do is get my insulin down and get in deep ketosis, get those high ketones, and I'm going to lose all the fat. And that's really not how it works. I learned, but having done it, I understand people who make the same mistake, and it's really not the best for fat loss.

Melanie Avalon:
I just remember existing in that mindset where I was like, I'm in ketosis. All this fat that I eat, my body's not going to store it. I don't know what I thought it was going to do with it. It's just going to burn it, excrete it, which is just. I honestly think that's one of the biggest, because I love the Low carb keto movement. I do think that's one of the biggest misconceptions and disservices done to people in their fat loss journeys.

Vanessa Spina:
Did you interview Craig Emmerich yet?

Melanie Avalon:
I did.

Vanessa Spina:
So. I interviewed him when we were in Greece. Was like, two weeks ago, three weeks ago, and that's all we talked about, was, like, all the bad information that's being recommended to people on exactly this.

Melanie Avalon:
Yep, quite an issue.

Vanessa Spina:
And he really explains so well the differences between the basal insulin. That's what I found the most fascinating from our conversation, was that most of your insulin needs are coming from the basal insulin, just to keep energy stored away. And those post meal spikes are like 10% if you're doing low carb. But, yeah, it was really fascinating.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, Gary Tobbs talks about that as well. Like, basically, he thinks you have an insulin threshold. And that's exactly what I brought up.

Vanessa Spina:
With Craig, because I posted one of the charts he has in his book that shows that if you have a basal insulin of 25 and above that, typically you have a really hard time losing weight. And this was a study done in lean college students, and as soon as you go under 25 it's much easier to lose weight and have a high metabolic health. But yeah, I brought up exactly him and his book and that study when we were talking.

Melanie Avalon:
I forgot. Did you interview Gary?

Vanessa Spina:
Yes, I interviewed him when he put out the case for Keto.

Melanie Avalon:
Okay. Same.

Vanessa Spina:
And I love that study. It was really fascinating. And I think it does bring up the importance of getting that fasting insulin down, of getting that basal insulin down, because so much more of the insulin demand on the body is from that basal insulin and not from the post meal spikes or the exercise spikes, which people think their insulin is spiking when they exercise, but it's not. Insulin is actually going lower, but to let glucose out anyway. Probably digressing here.

Melanie Avalon:
No, I think it's fascinating. Well, lots of fasting fun on the intermittent Fasting podcast. 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. You can get these show notes at ifpodcast.com/episode348. They will have a full transcript and links to everything that we talked about, and you can follow us on Instagram. We are @ifpodcast. I am @melanieavalon, and Vanessa is @ketogenicgirl. All righty. Anything from you, Vanessa, before we go.

Vanessa Spina:
I loved all the questions. I feel like we got to more of them than usual, so I'm pretty happy.

Melanie Avalon:
I know, I was like, we're speeding along. We're just all the people loved it. Awesome. Well, this has been absolutely fabulous, and I will talk to you next week.

Vanessa Spina:
Talk to you next week. 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.

Melanie Avalon:
See you next week.

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LINKS

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Nov 26

Episode 345: Fasted Marathons, Stress Resilience, Finding Happiness, Decluttering, Nesting, Being Overwhelmed By Lifestyle Changes, And More!

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Listener Feedback: Lauren - Thank you!

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TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Welcome to Episode 345 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 cohost, 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@ifodcast.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.

Hi, everybody and welcome. This is Episode number 345 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon and I'm here with Vanessa Spina.

Vanessa Spina: Hello, everyone.

Melanie Avalon: I have a huge question for you, Vanessa.

Vanessa Spina: Oh.

Melanie Avalon: I don't think I've asked you this before.

Vanessa Spina: Okay.

Melanie Avalon: Let me know if I have.

Vanessa Spina: Okay. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: Are you still packed or are you still unpacked?

Vanessa Spina: Oh, I'm totally unpacked.

Melanie Avalon: Okay. I haven't asked you. Aren't those the same thing?

Vanessa Spina: You're talking about our luggage?

Melanie Avalon: Okay, so this is like a thing in my family. I know I've talked about this on the show before, probably with Cynthia or Gin. We had literally, like, an hour-long conversation one dinner, because somebody was like, “Are you still packed?” And then somebody was like, “No, are you still unpacked?” And they were like, mind blown moment. It's like the same thing, but only if you include the word still. If you say, “Are you packed? Are you unpacked?” Those are different. But if you say, “Are you still packed? Are you still unpacked?” It's the same thing.

Vanessa Spina: Oh, I see. Yeah, yeah. Yes, yes. So, I am officially unpacked.

Melanie Avalon: You're unpacked. So, you are not still unpacked. And you are not still packed.

Vanessa Spina: Right.

Melanie Avalon: This really bothers me. It really bothers. It bothers me that including the word still makes them the same thing.

Vanessa Spina: Right. Right, right.

Melanie Avalon: Okay, that's my word moment for the morning. Okay, so your items are not in your suitcase anymore.

Vanessa Spina: They're all washed, folded, put away, and yeah, I need to do it when I get home. It's like if we have a party or something, I can't go to bed until everything is clean. [chuckles] I just don't want to wake up to a mess or a packed suitcase. Just get it done. No matter what it takes, [laughs] you have to stay up late.

Melanie Avalon: I actually love that moment, like when you get back and you're taking all this stuff out and it takes so much longer than I think it will, as does packing.

Vanessa Spina: It takes so long. It really takes a long time because I figured out it's the micro decisions that you have to make. Because I was like, for years I was like, “Why do I hate packing so much?” And I'm like, “It's because I have to make like 1000 micro decisions of what to take.” And every single thing you put in your suitcase is a micro decision that you're making that you may wear that and then everything you're not taking is also like a micro decision. So, it's like you get decision fatigue. It's just more the mental aspect. But I did something amazing [chuckles] that changed my life after we got back from Denver. We got back and I was like, I've been wanting to do this for so long. And I finally did it and it just leveled up my life so much. So, we got back and I was like, Pete, everything we took to Denver is all the stuff that I like and I wear and everything for summer. Because the winter stuff is like away. Everything that I did not pack, that's in my drawers and in my closet is just there. I don't like--

Melanie Avalon: Did you throw it away?

Vanessa Spina: No, but I put it all in a suitcase. Some of it, I try to donate clothes on a regular basis to charitable causes and I love doing that. But I was like, sometimes you're not fully ready to let it go. But I was like, “Okay, so I'm just going to put it all in a suitcase.” And all the stuff that I wasn't quite ready to, I just put it in a suitcase and I cleared out my drawers. So now when I open my drawers, I just have the stuff that I love. Every time I look in the closet, I just have the stuff that I love and that I wear. And so, when we packed for this trip, it was like 100 times easier because I didn't have to make all those micro decisions. I just took everything in my drawer [laughs] and put it in the suitcase and then took everything out and put it back in there. Life changing. I swear, the last three months have been so much easier to just get dressed and do things because I'm not wading through the drawers, through all the other stuff to find what I want. When I open the drawer, it's just what I want. It's just like mind blowing. But it was amazing and I want to do it again for winter stuff.

Melanie Avalon: Okay, this is crazy. I have a follow-up question and I have a very similar system I've implemented. Question, so this suitcase now that's full of these clothes that you don't wear, are you going to take that suitcase to goodwill or do you have goodwill?

Vanessa Spina: Yeah. So, we basically give it to our church here that helps mostly migrants and victims of sex trafficking. So, it's great because it's like all women's clothes. And what I do is I know the stuff that I want to get rid of right away. But sometimes you're not ready to let go of something because it has, like, sentimental value. If you had it for a long time or you're just like, I might wear this sometimes. So that's the stuff that I put in the suitcase. And then if I don't think about it or use it, like, usually six months or a year later, I open it up again, and then I look through if there's a couple of things that I'm like, “Oh, my gosh, I haven't seen this in so long. I can't wait to wear it.” I'll wear it again. But mostly everything is like, no, it's in there for a reason. I purchased it and I kept it in my closet or my drawers out of guilt because I spent money on it.

So, I felt like I had to keep it. But I don't actually wear it. I don't want to wear it. It's been in the suitcase for a year, so now it's ready to go to the final stage, which is donation. So, I think it just helps with that stuff that you're just not fully ready to let go of. But I'm ruthless. Usually when it comes to clothes, I'm like, I haven't worn that in six months to a year. It's gone. I know that's not as easy for everyone. Like, Pete is with clothes he has a really hard time getting rid of stuff, so I kind of have to do it sometimes for him. But I find that that intermediate step can help if you're struggling to just let go of things, especially if they have some kind of emotional value or something.

Melanie Avalon: Okay. We have such a similar system. So, one I have contemplated doing the thing you mentioned where you get back and you had packed the stuff you really loved, but I can't do that. I'm not at that point. So, kudos to you. I do something very similar, which is, I have a big black trash bag. Actually, I have a hamper. Oh, I use a hamper. Okay, so I have a hamper in my closet and it's the throwaway hamper. And then I have a trash bag in it and I try to every day-- Did I tell you this? Do my throw something away mantra.

Vanessa Spina: Oh, that's a great way to do it.

Melanie Avalon: I say in my head, “Throw something away every day. Throw something away every day.” And then I walk around the apartment, and I try to take one piece of clothing and put it into the bag, and I try to actually just throw something else away into the trash, something from the apartment, unless it's donatable. And then I wait until that fills up that hamper, and then I take the bag to goodwill, and I do the same thing you did, where it's like, if I haven't thought about. If I think about it and I try to find it, I can go dig through and find it, but I haven't done that yet. And then also something you can tell yourself is like, “Okay, let's say that there's one outfit that you regret throwing away. It's so worth it to regret that one outfit and throw away all that other stuff.” It's just worth it because it feels so good. Like you said to, “Ooh, it feels nice.”

Vanessa Spina: I think I've had one moment where I was like, “Oh, I missed that thing that I donated or got rid of,” but it's like one out of so many other things. Like you said, “It's just not worth it.” And it feels amazing to declutter. I try to be as minimalist as possible. It's getting more challenging [chuckles] as we expand our family, but I still try to be as minimalist as possible. And it is such a game changing thing, like, for your mental performance, for your productivity, and just for how good it feels. I think one of the reasons we feel so good when we're at a hotel is because you have such few things. Like, you just have the essentials and it feels so good. And as women, we in particular can't relax unless our space is organized and clean, or else everything talks to us. Like, the pillow talks to us, the blanket, the throws. like, straighten me, pick me up. Everything talks to us. [laughs] So when you're in an empty room or a really minimalist or clean organized room, you can just fully focus and nothing talks to you and all the noise is gone I find.

Melanie Avalon: It's so true. I was reading a study about that, actually, because I've noticed that if I get really stressed or overwhelmed with work, I will have to like-- everything has to be organized all of a sudden. And it's not because I'm procrastinating. It's because I literally, all of a sudden, cannot handle things not being straightened up. And there's some, wait, is that nesting as well also? I feel like they gave some bird mother term to it, which the other day, Vanessa texted me. She was like, “I have to come back and nest.” And I was like, “What is that?” [laughter]

Vanessa Spina: Because there was a little nest emoji with, like, three blue eggs, like the Robin eggs.

Melanie Avalon: I’ve never seen that emoji before. [laughs] It's got, like, the little blue egg in it.

Vanessa Spina: [laughs] Yeah. I was like, the holidays, our baby moon has been incredible, beautiful, like, everything I wanted. But I'm feeling restless, like, I need to go home and nest, and that is basically, like, I need to get our space ready.

Melanie Avalon: Okay. So, I think that is maybe the same thing.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah. It happens usually in the, like, specially, in the third trimester, which I'm now in, where you're like a bird, like, mama bird fluttering its wings around. You're just like, “I need to make this place clean.” Suddenly, everything has to be clean, organized, and you have to get everything ready. Like, the nursery, everything becomes priority number one. It was actually taking away from my enjoyment being away, because I was like, “I need to be home and fixing stuff.” And I was talking to Pete about it because I need to nest. He was like, “Okay, [laughs] I'm really enjoying being here, but I need to be home now.” So, our biological instincts are really powerful and amazing, but, yeah, that's the nesting.

Melanie Avalon: Is it, like an ongoing thing, the nesting experience? Like, are you nesting for a month until the baby comes?

Vanessa Spina: It's pretty much going to be from now until baby comes. And it's been interesting having other girlfriends go through it too and being pregnant at the same time as other friends, because we'll be going for a walk and getting coffee and talking, and they're like, “My apartment is so dirty. [laughs] I need to clean everything.” And it's just like this primal urge that everything needs to be clean. Like you find yourself, I was cleaning when you open the freezer and on the freezer door, there's like, this plastic whatever, and then there's, like, these folds. I was cleaning inside the folds because [laughs] I was like, “They're not clean enough.” It's another level of clean freaking or whatever.

Melanie Avalon: I do think they use the word nest in that study. I read about when you're stressed and you have to clean--

Vanessa Spina: Like a stressed bird. Just like, I need to make my nest. Yeah. That's so funny. I love that you read a study on it.

Melanie Avalon: I did. I was also reading, I think, yesterday about cowbirds. Are you familiar with these?

Vanessa Spina: No.

Melanie Avalon: Apparently. Where was I reading this? I think it was actually talking something about narcissism. Apparently, these birds, they know that other birds assume that the eggs in their nest are their own, so they lay their eggs in other birds’ nests. They, like, outsource that [laughs] because they're like, they’ll deal. [laughs] They'll assume. I do think it was, like, something about narcissism and we literally-- Oh, yeah. I think it was in Peter Attia? Was it in Peter Attia’s book? I don't know. I'm all over the place. It was something about how we're so consumed and we can only see our own perspective of the world. And cowbirds know this. I don't know if they actually think about this when they're laying the eggs, but yeah.

Vanessa Spina: That's really funny. So, they outsource it that the other bird will raise it because it's so preoccupied with itself that it doesn't realize it.

Melanie Avalon: Wow. So much we can learn from the animal kingdom.

Vanessa Spina: That's fascinating. That's really fascinating.

Melanie Avalon: I know. One last little thing. Okay, so you've been, like, crazily cleaning for hours. Do you know what I've been doing for hours?

Vanessa Spina: What?

Melanie Avalon: This will be way-- by the time this comes out, this will be way in the past, but the Taylor Swift Eras movie is coming out.

Vanessa Spina: Oh, I can't wait too.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, you're seeing it.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah. I mean when I can, I'd love to. Yeah. I didn't go to the concert, so for me, it's going to be like.

Melanie Avalon: Is it going to come out in Prague?

Vanessa Spina: I think so.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, my goodness.

Vanessa Spina: Wait, is it going to theaters first? I just assumed it was going to be on Netflix.

Melanie Avalon: Oh. No, no, no, this is a theater experience.

Vanessa Spina: Oh, okay. I'll have to go to that.

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Spina: I'm sure it'll come out here like every movie comes out here, just like it does in North America.

Melanie Avalon: Well, it comes out this weekend.

Vanessa Spina: Oh, okay. I got to find out when it's coming out.

Melanie Avalon: So, I counted up how many hours I've spent. I think I've spent 10 hours talking about things that you think, like, the unpacking will not take that long. I was like, “Oh, it will not take that long to individually glue sequins to my Taylor Swift bodysuit, incorrect assumption.” I have spent about 10 hours gluing sequins to my outfit while listening to audiobooks prepping the show. It's epic, my costume.

Vanessa Spina: Oh, I can't wait to see a picture.

Melanie Avalon: I'm going to dress up. I'm going to be T Swift in the flesh. So, yes. I love projects like crafting. [chuckles]

Vanessa Spina: Me too.

Melanie Avalon: It's therapeutic.

Vanessa Spina: I love Michaels. I wish that's the one thing actually they don't have here. Makes me sad.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, man or Hobby Lobby.

Vanessa Spina: They don't have it here? No. I used to go there a lot. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: Although I went to Michaels, and I was like, “I need sequins.” And he was like, “What are sequins?” And I was like, “Am I at Hobby Lobby? Where am I?”

Vanessa Spina: Pretty sure they have, like, an aisle of sequins.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. So, I had to go rogue and find them myself. I wish you were here. We could go together.

Vanessa Spina: Oh, that would be amazing. That would seriously be amazing. I'm trying to figure out a Halloween costume, because we have a Halloween party coming up, and I have not thought about it at all.

Melanie Avalon: Could be Taylor Swift.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah, yeah. [laughs] I think I need to find something coordinated for Luca and maybe something that's good for pregnancy. You know fun like--

Melanie Avalon: What if you're, like, Humpty Dumpty?

Vanessa Spina: Yeah. Because I was saying pumpkin. A pumpkin is, like, the cutest baby costume ever. I was like, I think Lucas a little bit too big now, so maybe he could be a two-two. You know, he really likes Thomas, Thomas the Tank Engine and all that. Like, maybe he could be a Thomas. But, yeah, I'm thinking I got to find something that unifies-- a unifying theme and I don't have time for that right now. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: You can outsource that to me. I'll think about it for you and then I'll report back.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah. I think I was telling you we wanted to do last year like Prince Charming.

Melanie Avalon: What if you do Alice in Wonderland?

Vanessa Spina: Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: There're so many characters in that.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah. You know, it's so much easier for that kind of stuff in North America because you can just go to any costume store, and they'll have a family set or, like, a Target or something. But here it's more like Amazon. So, yeah, maybe this weekend I'll spend some time on it [laughs] if my nesting gives me a break from everything else.

Melanie Avalon: Maybe you could do something with the nesting. Maybe you could be a bird.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: Maybe you could all be birds. Different, different birds.

Vanessa Spina: He would love that. Oh, my gosh. He loves birds.

Melanie Avalon: You could be a flamingo, like, all pink.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah. I need to find something funny that has a big belly.

Melanie Avalon: A hummingbird. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait what's a real-- A peacock, a peacock.

Vanessa Spina: I love how excited you are.

Melanie Avalon: Then you could do, like, rainbow. Oh, wait, but they're male so.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah, Pete would have to be peacock. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: Pete can be the peacock. You could be the flamingo. Luca can be a penguin.

Vanessa Spina: We'll workshop it.

[laughter]

Melanie Avalon: Oh, okay. Shall we answer some listener questions?

Vanessa Spina: Yes, I would love to.

Melanie Avalon: Okay. To start things off, this is actually some feedback I got on Instagram. So, I asked her if I could include it because I thought it was just such a lovely little story. So, this was from Lauren. She messaged me and she said that she did her first half fasted marathon. She said, “Just wanted to say thank you for all the education because it gave me the confidence to trust my intuition and go for it. I used to have a terrible relationship with food and hate my body. Now I have a great relationship with food and love what it can do. I'm so happy with a sub two time. It was really interesting feeling my body switch into ketosis around Mile Nine as so many other runners started to flag. Fasting is such a superpower. We need everyone to know.” Then she put the little emoji with the heart eyes and she said, “You are a legend” with a little smiley face, XOX.

So, thank you so much for reporting back. Lauren. First of all, I'm thrilled that you have had that mindset shift surrounding your relationship with food. And it's really exciting because you know, I'm not a marathon runner. I really like hearing from listeners who are implementing fasting with athletic endeavors like that and how it goes and it's so cool about. that really must feel like a superpower to switch into ketosis when people are starting to hit the wall. Any thoughts, Vanessa?

Vanessa Spina: I love it. I'm always telling people that if you're doing, usually long-distance running, that is the perfect exercise for being fat fueled because it is 60% to 70% of your VO2 max. You can just be fueled from fat. And I have so many athletes who are out there just killing it, reporting back to me that they're doing keto and people just don't believe them and they're setting new records. They're using it as such a competitive edge and people call it bonking when you hit the wall and it's because you run out of glycogen. But if you're running off of fat, then you're never going to hit that wall. It's just the perfect exercise for that, as long as you stay well hydrated using electrolytes like LMNT or something, because you definitely want to maintain your hydration and all that.

But yeah, that's so cool that you actually felt your body switching into ketosis and other people were starting to flag. It happened to me once with Pete and my father-in-law, we were on this crazy hike that he said was only going to be an hour or two and it was like four hours and it was in Utah and it was so hot. No one else was around because were like insane to be doing this. And at the end they started slowing down. But I had LMNT with me and I just ate protein when we had our snack and I had LMNT and I was like busting it out of there. I was like, [chuckles] I couldn't even see them anymore. I was going so fast and they both were like just dying in the heat. And my father-in-law still talks about that hike. He's like, “I don't understand what was going on, but you were gone, you were like turbo mode and were about to pass out.” [laughs] So, yeah, it's being fat fueled. It's amazing. It is a superpower.

Melanie Avalon: It is a superpower. And that sounds so miserable. Oh, my goodness. Which actually is going to relate to my answer for the next question. Have you done a marathon or a half marathon?

Vanessa Spina: It's not my thing. No.

Melanie Avalon: Not my thing either.

Vanessa Spina: I'm like, “I'll cheer you on and everything from the sidelines.”

Melanie Avalon: I won't even cheer you on. [laughs] Does that require sitting outside [laughs]

Vanessa Spina: Standing for a long time? Yeah. I have a really good friend whose husband does them a lot. So, I'm like, “Go, Cody, you're killing it.” But I just have no interest at all, at all, negative interest. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: I'll throw the like welcome, the celebration party.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah. Nice.

Melanie Avalon: Indoors at the end.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah. It's just not appealing for me, but I know it is appealing to lots of people.

Melanie Avalon: And like I said, it relates to my answer for the next question, which I'll let you read it, but I'll set it up so that the context is I had asked for questions in the Facebook group IF Biohackers for Terry Wahls. Dr. Terry Wahls, who I interviewed this past week, actually, I think, or the week before. She is so great. I love her. She's just so inspiring, because you've interviewed her, right?

Vanessa Spina: Yes. So inspiring.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. So definitely listeners check that out. I think it's-- yeah, it should have already aired by now. She almost started crying on the show. It was very, very touching when she was telling her story. So, yes, we talked all about her studies on diet, including fasting for multiple sclerosis specifically, but it applies to autoimmune conditions as well. So, this question we did not get to and I thought it was a good question for our show, actually. So, would you like to read it?

Vanessa Spina: I would love to. So, Annie from Facebook asks, “How can we live a “normal life” when we are always inside an expensive bubble full of products and denials that most take for granted? Don't eat this or that. Not that water. Oh, wait. Yes, that water, but not too much. No Wi-Fi, no gluten, no fortified anything? No, no, no and take tons of supplements and expensive. Doctors and treatments yet we are expected to live a stress-free life this way. So, we just accept and try. But does anybody really get better and happy in this bubble?”

Melanie Avalon: Okay. I loved this question also, I just want to say, Vanessa, I like how you read question.

Vanessa Spina: Aw. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: Because you read that with character. I felt like Annie was here with us. [laughs]

Vanessa Spina: Oh, that's awesome. I try add some dramatic flair.

Melanie Avalon: It was good. I liked it. I feel like it's your theater background coming out.

Vanessa Spina: I know. I feel like, I'm auditioning or something--

[laughter]

Melanie Avalon: We are like reading sides here constantly. [laughter ]It's interesting because it's, like, the blend because you don't want to go full out character mode you know but you tend-- [laughter] I literally think about this when I'm reading questions. I'm like, “You got to be objective and narrator, but also have some character. You've nailed it.” You've got the talent.

Vanessa Spina: Did I get the part? [chuckles]

Melanie Avalon: You got the part. [laughter]

Vanessa Spina: Can't wait to tell my mom.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, so good. Okay. I can't, I'm going to start crying again from laughing. Thank you for the question, Annie. I have so many thoughts about this. I know this is something I know I've experienced this. I know so many people experience this. And Annie was talking about it in relation to autoimmune conditions, but it's also something I just feel a lot of people in the health sphere, people on diets, even people doing fasting, like, people who are making choices about what they like, she said, about what they do or don't eat, supplements, foods, doctors, treatments, a lot of people are constantly making these decisions for their life and it can feel restrictive. And then, in addition, some people come from a baseline of feeling great without doing or feeling okay at least without doing this, and then they do this and they just feel better, whereas some people feel really awful if they don't do these things. And then doing this helps them feel better.

So, there're layers of, I think, a feeling of necessity surrounding it. I'll start with what she said at the end, which is, “But does anybody really get better and happy in this bubble?" So, I would encourage you, Annie, to think about what you mean by happiness. First of all, what you mean by happiness and where that happiness comes from and what that means. Because if happiness, this is all just my thoughts, my esoteric thoughts, but to me happiness is a transitory temporal state of feelings that can come and go and that's okay. And if that's the end goal, if happiness is the end goal, you're probably not going to find it, because it's not something-- it really, really does matter on how you define it though. It's a lot of semantics, actually yesterday I interviewed the creators of the Forks Over Knives series, like documentary, and then all the books that go with it, they have a new book called Wellness to Wonderful, which is really good. It's about a full lifestyle approach to health and wellness. We actually talked about this because their barometer is, is life wonderful? And we talked about the difference between wonderful versus happiness and how feeling like your life is wonderful and you are content and satisfied is different than like a transitory state of happiness.

First of all, I contemplate what you mean by happy and where is that found and how it relates to what we were talking about a second ago with Vanessa, is stress and happiness and suffering and pain, and what you enjoy and what you don't enjoy is so relative. So, like, racing literally sounds like the most awful experience to me. Like, you could not pay me. And like I said, even just being outside watching people race is not pleasant to me. Some people love it. They love it. What that says to me or something like traffic. There are some people, like my mom, she cannot stand traffic. Like when we are in traffic, she just is so upset. Whereas when I'm in traffic, I'm like, “Oh, this is great. I can listen to more podcasts.” I really don't mind it. I think it's like a fun time. So, I think the point of that is that literally, any situation that you're in, somebody could enjoy it and somebody could not. So, any experience you're in is relative. You decide how it affects you on a deeper emotional level, and it's completely okay to have. And we talked about this yesterday in the interview, which I'll put a link to in the show notes. I think the show notes for it are going to be melanieavalon.com/wellnesstowonderful probably.

So, we talked about how even feelings, we'll say, like, negative feelings and positive feelings, but really, they're just pleasant and unpleasant. Like, there's no good or bad or right or wrong. They just are. Or it's like one of my favorite authors or I actually really recommend reading Amy Johnson's book Just a thought. It's so cute. It's like this really small little book. It's super short. It has an endorsement from me in it, which is very exciting, right alongside, like, Deepak Chopra. But in that book, she talks about the weather and how there's the sky and how you are the sky and the weather is your experiences and what you're going through. And the weather can be so many different things and it can be crazy and it can be, “bad, like a thunderstorm or it can be a clear sky, but either way, there's actually a clear sky behind that.” Like, you don't change. So, defining yourself and your happiness by your experiences is not sustainable for lifetime satisfaction. And I know that's a lot of words. So, it's like, “How do you do this?” I mean that’s were like, I find so much value in seeing a therapist every week, reading books about this. A lot of people benefit from meditation, prayer.

So, I would try to have a sort of mindset shift surrounding all of that. And then as far as the actual things you're doing, like feeling like you have to-- like Vanessa was so eloquently reading with a slight inflection of character, you know, don't drink this water, drink a little bit of this water, except maybe not, like all of that stuff. Remember that, that is your choice, I think having agency in your own life is one of the most empowering things ever. I'm all about-- And I'm not saying that she's doing this, but I think we live in an epidemic of victimhood today where we think we're a victim of everything, of our own circumstances, of the world, when really, it's really empowering to have agency. So, all these choices that you're making, if you can reframe them as they are, I mean, presumably that's why you're making them. Hopefully, you are making the choices that help make you feel better and that is your choice.

And you actually don't have to do any of them. I think that's freeing to know, like, you are the person in control here. You're choosing-- you don't have to do anything. You are choosing to do things because they make you feel better. And even for me, because if you look at the way I eat and the things I do, it looks really restrictive. I am so happy doing it. It makes me so happy to use that word, which has problematic semantics surrounding it. But I feel really good in the dietary choices that I make because I have found the foods that I love. I think that's important. Making sure that within this paradigm of these gluten, not gluten foods you can and can't eat, finding the foods that you really do love, I think that's really important because you can definitely do that. There are delicious foods and your tastebuds will change. So, I think paying attention to that, defining a diet that you do love and telling yourself that you have agency, making those decisions and that it's okay to not feel okay. Like, that's okay.

And it's also okay if you do want to have a day where you're just like, want to lament. And I mean, I don't want to say like a pity party, but that's okay too, if you want to have those moments as well have those moments. But hopefully the ongoing theme can be one of agency and empowerment. And for the question of, does anybody ever really get better? Again, I think it's a matter of what do we mean by better? Because everybody's always on a spectrum of health. So, you can monitor that with how you’re reacting to things and your health markers and all of that. But that's always going to be the spectrum. So, I wouldn't even make that the end goal. I would really work on the mental and the emotional wellness behind it. That was very long. What are your thoughts, Vanessa?

Vanessa Spina: I have so many thoughts on this. [chuckles] The first one, I mean, just as a blanket overview is like, if doing this stuff doesn't make you happy and doesn't lower your stress, makes you more stressed, then I think that's a big indicator. Whereas you and I, I talk to you most days, like every day, you're always happy. I feel like I'm always happy too because it does make us happy. It's not like you're happy one day and another day you're like, really--you're always happy when I talk to you. I feel like I am too. This lifestyle that we've chosen and following the science and biohacking and everything, for me it has tremendously improved my overall state. And it's given me access to be able to work on the other stuff, the other deeper stuff, like doing the deeper work. One of my favorite quotes is, I don't know if I'm going to say it properly, but it's sort of like, “If you do the hard stuff, then life gets really easy whereas if you take the easy way out, then life is always hard.”

Melanie Avalon: Oh, that's a good one.

Vanessa Spina: [laughs] It's one of my favorites and I live by it because sometimes the stuff that we do, just like you said in your question, Annie, sometimes the stuff that we, does feel hard. But at the end of the day, if it does make life easier for you, then I think it's worth it. Whereas taking the easy way out sometimes feels easy in the moment, but not doing the hard work it can lead to making life harder. And it applies to so many different aspects of life, whether it's like health or business or work or relationships. It applies to everything. So sometimes I find you have to work and put that work in and then life gets really easy and really amazing. One example I could say is learning all of this stuff, doing all of this stuff has made me go from being obsessed and addicted to food and feeling really unempowered and unhappy and trapped in my body to feeling effortlessly lean. I don't have to think about, really food much at all anymore. I just eat to live. And I enjoy my meals when I eat them. But I have all this energy freed up now to go and live all my dreams and take that energy to feeling good, being in a good state, and then being able to work on the other stuff. Like you brought up about that analogy of the sky. You know, one of my favorite, favorite authors, aside from Deepak. I love him, Deepak Chopra-

Melanie Avalon: Who? I don't know his name.

Vanessa Spina: -he's amazing, is Michael Singer.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, yes. Oh, we talked about-- I forgot, we both-- We love this book. Yes.

Vanessa Spina: Oh. The Untethered Soul, I feel like it was a culmination of every book I've read on meditation and mindset and work and everything. And I just listened to his new podcast while we’re in Greece and it was just so amazing. One of the things he talked about is how a lot of us are just stuck in this worry stack where it's like a stack of books and you're just worried about, say, the top item on your list. And then once you figure that out, then you just go to the next one on your worry stack and you worry about that. And it's just like no matter what you do, whenever you solve whatever problem, you're just going from one worry to another. Whereas if you just let go of all of that, and he gave this analogy of, like, a kid who knows that he's got a shot coming up, that he has to have a school mandatory vaccine or something. And he spends two weeks dreading the shot and worrying about it. Whereas the actual shot is like 2 seconds. I had one yesterday, [chuckles] intramuscular injection for pregnancy. The actual shot was like not even 5 seconds, like when the needle goes in everything.

But why spend all of that time worrying and anticipating the things that could go wrong in life when you could just let go of all of that and just fully experience life? And you're going to have fear in your heart. You're going to face your own heart and the fears that you have in it and everything. [chuckles] I know I'm growing really deep here, but that's all that self-work that is about mindset. And it comes through doing meditation, reading books about that inner monologue and the inner voice and the inner narrative, how you talk to yourself and what you're focusing on. Like, what state are you in right now? Are you concerned right now? Are you worrying right now? Or are you taking a moment to be mindful and set a positive intention for the day? Spend some time focusing on gratitude, shifting out of a fearful or worried state, stress state. Stress is just another word for fear. So, a lot of us are in a fearful state a lot of the time and there are things that we can do to feel good. So, it really comes down to, “Does this stuff make you feel happier?”

Like you have to do a self-assessment, like you said, Melanie, and be like, “Does this stuff make me feel better or does it just stress me out?” And if it just stresses you out, then it's not worth it. It's not worth doing. If, on the other hand, it does make you feel empowered and it is giving you tangible results, you're seeing benefits in your health and your physique and your energy levels, if you are feeling and seeing those benefits, then it's worth it for you. But you really have to take that assessment and see if this stuff is helping you. And I'm going to say, from your question, sounds like it's not making you very happy to do this stuff. Maybe you're just having a bad day. Maybe you're just feeling overwhelmed, because I know it can be overwhelming. Every day it seems like there's a new thing, there's a new supplement or there's deuterium depleted water, and there's all this stuff. And you have to kind of say, like, “I can't do all of this stuff, but I can do one thing and I can focus on one thing.” And that's a really important concept, I think, when it comes to all of this and biohacking is, you really want to do one thing at a time and really integrate that thing.

Like, if you want to get into cold exposure, focus on cold exposure and just adding in that one thing. But if you try to add in cold exposure, red light therapy and AI Bike and this new kind of fasting and blue light blocking glasses and you're adding in everything at the same time and trying to drink the deuterium depleted water, it's going to feel overwhelming. So, I really suggest just slow things down. You don't have to do everything. You can just do one thing at a time, focus on that thing, and that's how you're going to be able to assess each thing that you try. Like, does this one hack actually improve my life? Whereas if you're doing all of them at once, it's going to be hard to assess individually each thing. So, I think that's what I would say.

Melanie Avalon: I loved that so much. I love talking about this with you. Follow up thoughts. One, I forgot that we both loved Michael Singer so much. I think we talked about that like a while ago.

Vanessa Spina: A long time ago. Yeah. He's just so, so incredible. And he just released the new season of his podcast, which is like every episode is 45 minutes to an hour and it's just the best thing ever, I think. It's called The Untethered Soul, Michael Singer Podcast.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, the podcast is called that?

Vanessa Spina: Yeah. Each season is only like four or five episodes, but it's incredible. You want to listen to each one over and over again. But the book, yeah, The Untethered Soul, itself is incredible. And then the second book, also amazing. \

Melanie Avalon: When did he release that podcast you said?

Vanessa Spina: So this one just came out a few weeks ago.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, like brand new. He didn't have a prior season.

Vanessa Spina: And then there was a season 1, which I think came out like a year or two ago. And then he also has this course, which is like The Untethered Soul, which I did and Pete did a little bit with me. And it's a video course, but it's very similar to the podcast episodes, except it also has the video component to it. But the podcast this season is just mind blowing. It's amazing. So, I guess it's kind of like you want to be dedicating some percentage of your time or life to spending it on the mindset and mindfulness, consciousness, meditation, all of that really helps. I think it's something that you don't just do it once. It's something that you have to actively maintain.

You have to be reading books on a regular basis about it, doing meditation on a regular basis, putting in that work that makes life easy. You have to put in the time to do it. But I do find that the stuff that we do on the health and nutrition side, it helps to provide clarity, because for me, with food and everything, it generated so much noise in my life, and especially fixating on my physique and just food in general and being obsessed with food, once I figured out some of these concepts that we talk about a lot, like protein makes you really satisfied, so you don't have to think about food anymore. The noise just fell away. And then I was able to focus more on these other things, these other aspects as well. So, they kind of go hand in hand, I think.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, to that point. So, two thoughts. One, I really like what you said about evaluating what is and isn't working, and I'll put a link to it in the show notes. But in the Newsweek piece that I got to write, which was about my personal diet history and a little bit of my biohacking journey, the way I ended that, which is what I feel very strongly about, is that one of the most freeing things in my personal, “biohacking journey” was when I did have the realization that I don't have to do all these things. I was in this world where I was like, “I have to do all of this stuff.” I was like, the picture I can see in my head is me religiously clinging to these diet tips and techniques and biohacking things because I thought they were saving me. And that was really stressful honestly. And when I had the epiphany that, “Oh, I actually don't have to do any of this, and I can just do what makes me feel better and it can be additive, that was really freeing.” So, I think getting out of this overwhelming mindset of having to do all the things, you can still do all the things, but just that mindset of having to do them and feeling trapped by them is so different than choosing to do them. So, I like what Vanessa was saying about kind of taking stock of what you are doing and what is benefiting you and what's not and letting go of what is not benefiting you.

The second thing I was going to say was, no I forgot. I will say though, for her part about how can we live a normal life? So that's another thing where it's semantics, like, “What is normal?” Oh, I remembered, first of all, you get to decide what is normal and what you want your life to be. I don't see any reason to have to adapt to what society calls normal. The mosaic of all the people in the world is what makes society so interesting in my opinion. And then last comment. So, Vanessa was commenting on how she and I are often very happy, which is very true. I just want to clarify that I still have. Okay, well, first of all, when I was reading that Michael Singer book for the first time, The Untethered Soul, that was in my, like, what I call my dark time, I probably still seemed happy to other people. But even during that-- that's when I was really having a lot of health struggles and challenges. I still saw it as separate from who I was.

So, it never really colored my thoughts about the world and myself and my happiness. And even today, I'm so grateful and I really enjoy life, and I really do feel happy the majority of the time. And I can still feel incandescently happy while having very stressful things happening that I'm not enjoying, that are not fun. And those can exist simultaneously pretty easily for me. Like, even when really bad things happen, either in relationships or with business or work or stress, it's all separate to me. It's just what I'm experiencing at that moment. So, I'm still happy.

Vanessa Spina: I love everything that you said there. I have to say on the first point, I'm so glad that you said that, because I think a lot of people looking at you or being fans of you from listening to the show for a long time, would just assume that you are doing all the biohacks, that you have all the biohacking devices and you do all the biohacks. So, I think if there's anyone listening to the show who's been inspired by you over the years, it's probably really great for them to hear you say that you don't feel, like, the pressure to do all of them because you are known as, like, top six biohacker in the world. It's great that you don't feel some kind of pressure to do all the things and that you give yourself the grace and the time to just do what feels approachable and accessible and whatever in the time, you don't overwhelm yourself with stuff. So, I love that you said that. And then I also love that you mentioned that you're not necessarily happy all the time. I don't want to project a fake reality either, of course, life is still hard. [laughs]

There're still difficult moments. I sort of was referring to in general, your disposition, and I feel similar, like an overall state or disposition, whereas we both interact with a lot of people. And I always know, like, you're in a high vibe. I feel like I'm often in a high vibe, but we get there intentionally. I every day, set my intentions. I put myself in a state of thankfulness. It doesn't mean that I don't encounter hard or challenging things. I typically like to frame them as challenging because challenges bring out the best in you, but it's more of a disposition, and I feel like we both work at that. And I think, like I was saying it goes hand in hand with the fact that all the stuff that we do on the health and lifestyle also supports that. But the things that you and I find joy in and that support our health and happy mindset or happy disposition may not generate that for other people. It may generate more stress or a feeling that you're not keeping up with everyone else or you're not doing as well. It could generate all kinds of other feelings that I can't speak to. So, it's all about assessing yourself with anything that you do in life, with any job or any activity or anything that you pursue. Does this actually make my life happier? And if it doesn't, then you have to reevaluate.

Melanie Avalon: It's interesting because with the biohacks, I really came to a similar place. Like, I still do most of the things. My mindset is just completely different surrounding them. And then yeah, commenting just quickly on the perpetual happiness or high vibe thing. Something else from Amy Johnson's book that I really like. She points out that unpleasant experiences that may happen that you don't want to be in, that are happening. Like, when those happen, we think it's all consuming and it's the way it's going to be. And that's all we see when really it literally is going to pass. You don't even have to do anything, and it'll pass. And what I mean by that is bad things can happen, and we think that we have to fix it. It will pass. And the fact that you don't have to even do anything is kind of mind blowing. When things happen to me that I don't like being in that experience of, I literally see myself in it, and I see it as this is like a temporary, transitory thing that I am not enjoying. I'm very open about that. You can accept that I am not enjoying this happening right now, but it's not me. I'm still happy. I'm still great behind it and it'll pass.

Like, the thing that happened two nights ago was when I was working on my Taylor Swift sequin bodysuit and I was trying to get, like, glitter acrylic sparkle stuff to spray on it. So, I bought, like, three different ones. That stuff is so toxic smelling. And one of them, I didn't realize it, but it was broken, so it leaked, and it was everywhere in my apartment. So, my entire apartment was like fumes. I do not do well with fumes. When I was experiencing that, I was like, this is not fun. I am not enjoying this. This is not, um-mm, but I saw it as just something happening to me that would pass. Like, it's not me because I'm good behind it all. So, I hope that helps, Annie. [chuckles]

Vanessa Spina: Thank you for your question, Annie. And I hope that this gave you something to think about.

Melanie Avalon: Yes, yes, let us know. And also, because I'm assuming she has an autoimmune condition, so sending love with all of that, I was thinking we could answer because it relates Laura's question, hers was, “If we had a limited budget, what supplements would you prioritize?” kind of ties in. And then she says, “What makes you happy and grateful.”

Vanessa Spina: Yeah, that's perfect. That's perfect. Why don't you go first?

Melanie Avalon: Okay. So, Laura, she's asking, “If we had a limited budget, what supplements would you prioritize?” And this kind of relates to what we’re both saying before. I definitely had a great epiphany relief moment when I realized I didn't have to be taking all the supplements all the time. That was definitely a potential point of stress for me. And realizing that I'm taking these to help me. If I don't take them, that's okay. And also, yes, like Laura's asking, evaluate what would you prioritize? So, I think, as a baseline, making sure you're getting all of your nutrition is really important. So, looking at your diet, what are you getting all your nutrition and trying to get that from diet, especially, like, limited budget, you can get a lot of nutrition in whole foods and meat and egg yolks. There's a lot of really affordable ways to get nutrition from food. I think it can be hard, even with food, to get enough magnesium from your food. So, I would prioritize a magnesium supplement. It can be hard to get enough vitamin D depending on how much you're outside. So, I would prioritize a vitamin D supplement.

And then again, I think on the supplemental nutrition side of things, those are ones that most people are probably deficient in, and then beyond that, from there, seeing where else you might be deficient. And then beyond that, it’s for me personally, I benefit so much from digestive enzymes and HCL. So that's something for me. So, if you struggle with digestion and those really help, that might be something to prioritize, but that would be a case-by-case basis. When I just step back and think about what I want to say, like fun supplements, like supplement that's not dire because it's not nutrition related or digestion related. There is a reason I made serrapeptase as my first supplement for AvalonX. And it's just because it has such a profound effect on me, on my inflammation, on my sinuses, on so many things. So, I would personally prioritize my serrapeptase. I'll put a link avalonx.us and the coupon code MELANIEAVALON will get you 10% off sitewide. MD Logic did recently release a vitamin D supplement. It's a capsule supplement. I take a liquid form, but they released a capsule for people who like that, so that's a good option. And then I have a magnesium as well. I have two magnesiums on avalonx.us, digestive supplements I do want to make a line in the future. Right now, I take Pure Encapsulations brand. Yeah. What are your thoughts on supplements, Vanessa?

Vanessa Spina: So I really don't take that many to begin with. So, I feel like I really prioritize because I find that if you take too many, it gets overwhelming and then you just stop taking them. Like, I've been there so many times. I take magnesium. It's the number one supplement that I travel with. I don't leave home without it. I now take Magnesium 8 by AvalonX every single day. I take it every single night, I give it to friends, I had it with me when we were in Greece. I've been wanting to share this with you, actually, for a while, but being pregnant, you have to be even more careful about the supplements that you take. And I trust your magnesium more than any other out there. So, thank you for making such an incredible supplement. But if I had to choose one, it would be that, honestly. And then magnesium citrate I always take with me when I'm traveling as well, because I feel like sometimes it complements it just to have the extra, but also sometimes when I'm traveling and I'm eating different things, if I don't feel like I'm as regular as I am when I'm at home, it really--

Melanie Avalon: Natural CALM.

Vanessa Spina: --yeah, it's the best. What's it called? Natural Vitality CALM.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.

Vanessa Spina: And they have a smaller version of it, which is usually I have the big ones at home, but they have the smaller one that's great for travel. I always take with me because it's same with Pete. If he has any issues, just he's like, “Do you have the magnesium citrate?” I'm like, “Yep.” So, it's super helpful. That's, like, my number one. Right now, I'm taking a prenatal and I take prenatal or a multivitamin by Thorne. It's probably the other brand that I trust as much as AvalonX. And I mostly take it because of vitamin C, because I eat so, like, keto carnivore and carnivore-ish. Vitamin C, I think, is something that I would take on its own, but because I'm also pregnant, I just take a prenatal, and it's got everything. But on the days that I eat liver, as you were mentioning, trying to get the nutrients from your diet, then I don't take it because I don't need the folate. It's in the liver.

The other supplement that I love is L-carnitine. I'm fascinated by it. You actually do mostly get it from meat, which is where the word carne comes from. But I found some really interesting research on how it also, it's one of the transporters that helps you be fat fueled. So, it helps shuttle fatty acids into your tissues to be oxidized for fuel into your mitochondria. And so, I always take L-carnitine. For vitamin D I actually take cod liver. Like, I have cod liver in cans. And whenever I make, like, tuna salad for myself or Luca or Pete, I just put some cod livers in there, and it makes it taste extra good, extra rich because it's so fatty. But the cans I get come with cod liver oil. So, I take the oil out and I put that into a jar and I keep that and just use a dropper and put droplets on that. It's basically very similar to what you get with vitamin D drops, but it's actually the pure form. So that's kind of like a hybrid getting it from your food versus supplement. But if I don't have cod liver, then I will take a vitamin D supplement and I try to get in the sun as much as possible.

And my other one, last one is red light, because I really do consider light to be a nutrient. And so many of us are deficient in especially red light. And our mitochondria actually need red light to activate the chromophores or cytochrome c oxidase on the electron transport chain. So, I think that because of our modern lifestyles, we are actually deficient in this nutrient. So, I use red light every day so. I know you do too, although, I just thought it would be fun to include it in there.

Melanie Avalon: Just really quick, one, do you have my NightCap?

Vanessa Spina: I think so, yes, I do. But I've been meaning to ask you about it.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, to ask what it does?

Vanessa Spina: Yeah. Because I knew the Magnesium 8 would be fine for pregnancy, but I haven't taken the Serrapeptase yet or the NightCap one because I hadn't asked you about those yet. For some reason, the Serrapeptase scares me to take while pregnant. I'll probably wait until after. I'm sure it's safe, but I'll probably wait until after. But, yeah, tell me about the NightCap.

Melanie Avalon: First of all, I totally understand the pregnancy concerns. So, the NightCap, it's magnesium threonate, which is a special type of magnesium that crosses the blood brain barrier. So, it's basically the only, I mean, there might be some other types in small amounts, but this magnesium, if you take it will go into your brain and there're a lot of studies on it for memory and mood and rest and relaxation. So, it's a great complement to Magnesium 8 and we made it as a standalone because there was no way we could get the therapeutic amount of magnesium threonate into the Magnesium 8 blend. So yes, we wanted people to have the option to take it as like a brain boost or like relaxation. So, it's great. It should be completely fine for pregnancy. It's just another magnesium essentially.

Vanessa Spina: Oh, I'll try it. Yeah. So, you take it both with the eight?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. So, you can take either whenever. I like taking a Magnesium NightCap at night, appropriately enough. But the studies actually usually do a biphasic dosing, like in the morning and evening. So, it won't make you tired per se, but it will help you sleep at night.

Vanessa Spina: Ooh, I'm going to try it tonight.

Melanie Avalon: It's great. I've had so much amazing feedback of people.

Vanessa Spina: That's what I was going to say is I've been wanting to take it because I constantly see people saying what a game changer it is.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, yeah. I'm so happy we're talking. Yeah. So that's at avalonx.us. And I was just going to say really quick, vitamin D. Did you know, do you like mushrooms?

Vanessa Spina: I love them. I have chanterelles in my fridge right now that I just got, I'm obsessed with mushrooms.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, wait, “What is your favorite mushroom?” I know this is not--

Vanessa Spina: Probably, chanterelle. [laughter]

Melanie Avalon: This is not important. Stop this train. Stop this train. [laughter] Bring it back. Okay.

Vanessa Spina: I just love because they're not part of the vegetable or fruit. Like, they're their own kingdom. It's so interesting.

Melanie Avalon: They're crazy. And what's it called? The whole network of mushroom land. It expands underneath the ground, and they talk and it's a whole thing. Did you know you can put your mushrooms outside and charge them to fill them up with vitamin D? I just learned this because they produce vitamin D, so if you put them outside. The article I was reading, I have to fact check this, but it said you could get your daily requirements of vitamin D by putting your mushrooms outside for, like, 15 minutes.

Vanessa Spina: That's amazing. That's so cute.

Melanie Avalon: I know. Charge up your little mushrooms. Oh, it's like Mario Kart.

Vanessa Spina: My mushies.

Melanie Avalon: I love mushrooms. They're so good. They're like umami. They're just ahh, they're so good. I went through, like, a mushroom phase where I was like, “Oh, try all the mushrooms.”

Vanessa Spina: Okay, so what's your favorite? We have to end on that.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. So, I did go through that phase, like I said. I did really like oyster mushrooms, but I didn't really digest them as well. I just eat every night. Okay, wait, portobello and baby bella, wait, there's ones that are the same. It just has to do with the timeline of their life. That blew my mind. It kind of blew my mind because button mushrooms are white, cremini are brown, okay. These are all the same mushroom. I didn't realize this. So, button mushrooms are white. They're like the toddlers or the babies. Then there's cremini, which are brown. Those are like the teenagers. And then there are portobellos, which are brown and larger and those are the adults. They're all the same mushroom, which is-- so when you go to the store and it's like, they're the same mushroom kind of upsetting. Kind of like the fact that tea leaves are all the same plant that blew my mind. That was really upsetting to me to learn that green tea and black tea are the same thing. I like those that I just mentioned because they're really easy for me to digest in my scallops. It's not very adventurous though.

Vanessa Spina: I love it. I love that we both love mushrooms. All the fungi fans out there will be loving this little bonus segment as well.

Melanie Avalon: I know. Should we answer her question about what makes you happy or grateful.

Vanessa Spina: Oh, yeah. I mean, you, this podcast, my family, just being alive, the power of the mind and mindset, even just, I'm thankful for thankfulness and how powerful it is to just sit down and write down what you're thankful for in any moment. Because there's always something, no matter what you're going through, there's always something that you can be grateful for. And it gives you just such good vibes. It shifts your state, it's empowering. And it also just moves you up the emotional scale so you feel happier. I love the power of appreciation. I like to go on rampages of appreciation. It's such a powerful, underrated tool, and you can access it any moment and it's so amazing. So, I'm just thankful for everything, for podcasting, for the Internet we can talk right now, technology, for mushroom. [laughs] What about you? I could go on for another hour, so I'm going to stop.

Melanie Avalon: Same. There're so many things. Don't get me started. Well, yes. I'm so grateful for you and this podcast. It's just so wonderful. Every time I text Vanessa, I'm just like, so happy, so grateful.

Vanessa Spina: Oh, for listeners. Sorry.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, listeners. Oh, yes. Oh, we're so grateful for the listeners. Something that I think about a lot. I am so grateful that my job and what I do in life is what I love. I am so grateful that what I get to do essentially every second of my life is my work. Not that I'm working my whole life, but my work is my love and my joy. I'm not having to clock in somewhere I don't want to be. I get to do what I love and I get to interact with so many people and share it with other people. I'm just so, so, so grateful for that. I can't even express enough. And then just all the things, like you said, “I could just go on and on and on.” And my relationships, my family, all the people in my life, I just really, really treasure. So red light. I'm holding a red-light thing in my hand right now. So many things. Okay. On that note, [laughter] this was like the mindset episode for listeners.

These show notes for today's episode will be at ifpodcast.com/episode 345. It will have a transcript as well as links to everything that we talked about. So definitely check that out. You can submit your own questions by emailing questions@ifodcast.com or you can go to ifpodcast.com and you can submit questions there. And you can follow us on Instagram. We are @ifpodcast. I am @melanieavalon, and Vanessa is @ketogenicgirl. I think that's all the things. Anything from you, Vanessa, before we go?

Vanessa Spina: Just feeling so much thankfulness. [laughter]

Melanie Avalon: I know. All gratitude.

Vanessa Spina: Thank you for that wonderful question.

Melanie Avalon: I know, I know. Thank you, Laura. All right, well, this has been wonderful, and I will talk to you next week.

Vanessa Spina: Sounds great. Talk to you.

Melanie Avalon: Bye.

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

[Transcript provided by SpeechDocs Podcast Transcription]

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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Nov 05

Episode 342: Longevity, Depression, Monk Fruit, Natural Vanilla, Ketone False Positives, Fatty Liver, Getting Family To Fast, Liver, Heart & Brain Health With Fasting, And More!

GET THE EPISODE ON APPLE PODCASTS!

10 tips to live to be 100: ‘Far more than wishful thinking,' say longevity experts

Welcome to Episode 342 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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NUTRISENSE: Get Your Own Personal Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) To See How Your Blood Sugar Responds 24/7 To Your Food, Fasting, And Exercise! The Nutrisense CGM Program Helps You Interpret The Data And Take Charge Of Your Metabolic Health! Visit nutrisense.com/ifpodcast and use code IFPODCAST to save $30 and get 1 month of free nutritionist support.

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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!

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NUTRISENSE: Visit nutrisense.com/ifpodcast And Use Code IFPODCAST To Save $30 And Get 1 Month Of Free Nutritionist Support.

7 healthy lifestyle changes that could help reduce risk of depression, says study: ‘Enormous benefits’

10 simple tips to help you reach 100, according to experts

Listener Q&A: Rob - Thank You

Intermittent fasting may protect the heart by controlling inflammation

Improvement in coronary heart disease risk factors during an intermittent fasting/calorie restriction regimen: Relationship to adipokine modulations

Intermittent Fasting as Possible Treatment for Heart Failure

Effects of Intermittent Fasting on Brain Metabolism

Intermittent fasting contributes to aligned circadian rhythms through interactions with the gut microbiome

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TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Welcome to Episode 342 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 cohost, 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.

Hi, everybody, and welcome. This is episode number 342 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon and I'm here with Vanessa Spina.

Vanessa Spina: Hello, everyone.

Melanie Avalon: How are you today, Vanessa?

Vanessa Spina: I'm doing amazing. How are you?

Melanie Avalon: I'm good. I have sparkly things to share. It's been a sparkly whirlwind of a week last week.

Vanessa Spina: I feel you. Yeah, I'm feeling sparkly too. Could you tell us what all the sparkles are about?

Melanie Avalon: All the sparkles-- well, first of all, not that the first thing I check when I wake up is Instagram, but it sort of is Peter Attia, did you see his post today?

Vanessa Spina: No.

Melanie Avalon: He posted about how seeing the Taylor Swift concert has ruined all other concerts for him.

Vanessa Spina: Oh, that's amazing. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: I was like, my life is complete. My life is complete, but even more sparkly. So, I know you've seen this, but I don't know why the Fox Health Editor, like the official Fox Health Editor has decided that she thinks I'm an expert in longevity related topics, but she has, and she's so amazing, and so back-to-back last week and it was a really fast turnaround, but basically she asked for a lot of questions about my tips on longevity, and it was crazy because I had so much going on anyways, and then I got that, I had to work on that all day because she wanted it that night. So, we submitted it that night, and then the next day-- that morning at like 04:00 A.M., so essentially the next day, she published this huge article on Fox Health about longevity and heavily featured me. So, the title, if people would like to look it up, is 10 tips to live to be 100 "Far more than wishful thinking," say longevity experts. The far more than wishful thinking is from my quote, which is crazy. And then that quote actually opens up the story. And then she lists these ten different tips, and I think I talk about three of them. I think I'm the source for three of them. I talk about intermittent fasting, which is very exciting for longevity, and then I talk about preventing cardiovascular disease, which I learned mostly from Peter Attia. So, I talked about sort of nonconventional testing, so testing ApoB, which is something that InsideTracker tests, by the way, as well as Lp(a), which I learned about with Dr. Kahn. What's the third thing--? Oh, no, I gave her three things and I think she featured those two.

But then what's even crazier is so that published and then she was like, "Oh, I'm writing another article tonight if you want to submit for that as well." So right after that, she had these questions about lifestyle health tips for depression. So, I gave her a lot of information, and then that published the next day, and it was called “7 healthy lifestyle changes that could help reduce risk of depression,” says study enormous benefits. And what's really crazy about that is, honestly, half of the article is my quotes which is crazy. And then what was kind of exciting to see was she like-- in one of the sections I talked about-- answers I gave her, I included more about wine and polyphenols and studies on that and depression, but she mostly just included the part about the alcohol and depression. But what's interesting, she sort of pitted me against another expert in the study, which felt like-- it felt exciting.

And then what also happened which was kind of cool in the in between was the first study, the “10 tips to live to be 100,” the one where, like I said talked about intermittent fasting. So, the intermittent fasting part that I talked about. So, her tip number five was consider intermittent fasting. And she says caloric restriction is the only dietary approach shown in animal studies to extend lifespan, Avalon noted, Ahh that's me. And then she quotes me saying that time-restricted eating, also known as intermittent fasting, may be a formidable alternative especially in humans. The article talks about how there are different types of intermittent fasting. And then she quotes me again and I have a story about this quote, but she quotes me saying these include improved metabolic function, increased insulin sensitivity, reduced levels of inflammation, activation of the AMPK pathway, a chain of cellular proteins that regulates many biological processes, and the stimulation of autophagy, a sort of cellular cleanup process, Avalon said.

Okay, two things about this quote, and I need your opinion, Vanessa. So, one, when she originally published this quote, she actually misquoted me and put in MAPK, which is like a different thing. My publicist reached out to her and had her fix it, but not before the New York Post took the article and turned it into their own article. And in that article, they quoted me quoting to Fox, which was kind of exciting to see, but then they misquoted me. So, then the MAPK was in two major online news publication sources. So, I was having this freak out moment where I was like, people are going to think I'm not intelligent, but thankfully my publicist was able to get in touch with both editors and get it fixed. But what I don't know, because she actually inserted the definition for AMPK, and I think she was defining MAPK, not AMPK, but the weird thing is the definition could still sort of fit AMPK, but I'm not sure. So, hearing that definition activation of the AMPK pathway, a chain of cellular proteins that regulates many biological processes, do you think she was defining AMPK or MAPK with that?

Vanessa Spina: Can you say it again?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, a chain of cellular proteins that regulates many biological processes.

Vanessa Spina: Well, they both kind of are that. I mean, I'm more familiar with AMPK, which is like an enzymatic pathway, so I guess it could be classified as that. But I've heard people talk about MAPK, I just don’t-- and that pathway. I'm looking it up right now, mitogen activated protein kinase. It's also a family of enzymes, so it sounds like you could really define both of them that way.

Melanie Avalon: Okay, that's what I was thinking. I just think it's funny because I think she was talking about MAPK, because I would put the biological processes with that. If it had been AMPK, I think it would have been more about energy sensing, like you said. So, it's funny. I was talking to my publicist, I was like, can we get her to change the definition? And he was like, do we really need to? And I was like, I guess it's technically true. So that was just like a whirlwind. And it was all back-to-back, and then with the New York Post jumping in there and quoting me, so not only was it really exciting. Three things were really exciting, B I'm just so grateful that this health editor at Fox is just so kind and so nice and writing all of these stories about longevity and biohacking. She's actually the one who wrote the first article that I had in Fox about biohacking specifically. So, in any case, it's really exciting for a few different reasons. One, I'm just so grateful that the editor at Fox Health is writing all these stories about longevity and biohacking, and it's just really really exciting. And she said she wants to continue, including my insights, so I'm just so grateful for that. That's my week. So, how was your week, Vanessa?

Vanessa Spina: It's been really good. I'm so excited for you. I think that's just super amazing and it's so great when you form a relationship with a journalist because it's such a symbiotic relationship like they help us out, we help them out, and it's just like they're always looking for great content and authors, and sometimes you develop a really good relationship, and you could have a relationship with this journalist for decades. So, it's really amazing to cultivate those and amazing that she put you in so many huge articles back-to-back, and you're now a bona fide longevity expert, so that's amazing.

[laughs]

Melanie Avalon: I was like, oh--, well, it was kind of funny because talking about impostor syndrome and stuff because she defines me in the articles as certain words, like as a biohacker or an influencer or like all these different words that I'm. She never calls me a podcaster, interestingly enough. But words I was struggling to fully embrace, I think. Well, maybe biohacker works for me. Yeah, it's very exciting. And like you said, yeah, I think the long-term relationship is nice. So, we shall see how it continues.

Vanessa Spina: That's amazing.

Melanie Avalon: Thank you. And thank you for the support. It actually what it feels like. I was talking with my acting friend. I was like, this feels like casting directors with acting and then getting the auditions the night before, and then they need it right then, and forming relationships and realizing that you are kind of helping them because they're really trying to fill a role. Oftentimes, casting directors on TV shows that are turning over fast and things like that, they need the people. And so, it's really helpful for them to find actors they know can do the parts really quick. And so, I feel like I'm becoming one of her resources for that, which is very exciting. So, I told her, I was like, I will talk, I will comment on anything and everything, you just said and she-- and I go, like, way overboard. So, she asked for a very simple answer, and I send her pages and pages with cited resources so it's probably helpful.

Vanessa Spina: Very helpful. Yeah, that's amazing.

Melanie Avalon: So how is your week going?

Vanessa Spina: It's been really good. I have a funny story to tell you.

Melanie Avalon: I forgot about this. I'm so excited. Okay, I'm ready.

Vanessa Spina: So, Scott from MD Logic, both of our supplement partner, he had been sending me the latest samples of Tone Protein and I was testing them out this week. I tested them out on two different, two or three—three days in total. Like, I had just done them on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. And this is the final, final, final version. So, I was super excited to try them. And they have a sweetener in it called monk fruit, which a lot of people are probably familiar with, which I like. We had been trying different sweeteners, like with Stevia and Erythritol and like some, we're trying to find sweeteners that are not banned anywhere, like Europe. Monk fruit looks like it's not fully approved here yet, but it's going to be just like allulose. So, Stevia and Erythritol might be in the European version. But anyway, we kind of settled on monk fruit, which is something that I have never had any issues with, always liked it as a sweetener.

So, I tested out the versions and I kind of compartmentalized that as something separate. And I started having what I thought were some really big issues with the Tone Device, which is my breath ketone analyzer, which is getting ready, we're in the final days of preparing the last units and getting ready to do the final inspection, ship everything out, like really in the final days. And I've been so excited about how incredibly sensitive and accurate this new second generation is. As you know, Melanie Avalon, and as probably some listeners by now know. And it started really acting up on me and I started to get very concerned that there was like a huge issue, because it wasn't just one of them, it was both of them. They were giving me these really high numbers in the morning when I knew that I wasn't in ketosis and I could tell from the blood, and you know we talked about the ratios, and so I was like, maybe it's like something weird happening with a pregnancy where my ratios of beta hydroxybutyrate and breath acetone ketones are decoupling because of the pregnancy. I was like, I don't know what it is, but it was really really worrying me. So, then--

Melanie Avalon: Were you like just not testing any ketones?

Vanessa Spina: So, in the morning, I usually have 0.2, 0.3 blood ketones and the Tone Device is the same. It's like 2 or 3. So, I'm used to seeing the same thing every day, and suddenly it was showing me 26, 27, 29. And I'm like, these are really high numbers, like, equivalent to 2.7, 2.9, or 3 millimolar ketone, right? Like, ten times more, like, deep, deep in ketosis. But the blood was still showing me 0.2, so I was really concerned. So, second morning, it happened again. I asked Luca if he could test Tone Devices, which he loves playing with, you know, it's like a fun toy, like it counts down, you blow into it makes a beep and everything.

Melanie Avalon: So cute. Oh, my gosh. You're using your child. Oh, my gosh.

Vanessa Spina: So, Luca tested for me in the morning and he gets a 4 and a 6. And I'm like--

Melanie Avalon: To get paid.

Vanessa Spina: [laughs] No, he's my unpaid intern. So, he gets a 4 and a 6. And I'm like, that lines up because babies and toddlers are going in and out of ketosis all the time and it was the morning time. And he doesn't eat like a high-carb, high-processed diet. So, I was like, okay, that tracks. So, then I asked Pete to test and he gets a 0 and a 1 every time because he doesn't eat low carb. He does intermittent fasting, but he eats donuts at night. He's having mochas with sugar, he's just not eating low carb. There's a whole other story with that and why he can eat high carb and he can do great with it. But anyway--

Melanie Avalon: Oh, teaser.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah, 0 and 1, okay, perfect. So, mine are still like through the roof, and I'm just like what is going on? It must be me, because I have two units. They're both testing the same numbers, showing 27, 28, 29, and they're showing consistently accurate results for Luca and for Pete. So, I keep going this way for like three days, and I'm just like, messaging my rep at the factory, and I'm just like, I'm really worried like something bad is happening with the Tones, there's just something is going on at the sensor, I don't know what it is. I'm trying to get to the bottom of it.

So, anyway, I'm like, what have I done differently this week? The only thing was Tone Protein. So, I'm like, "Okay, it must be the monk fruit." So, I start going down these rabbit holes of like monk fruit. I'm like, "Okay, so it's this luo han guo, it's like a Chinese fruit," maybe it's having one of those weird reactions, right? Like We talked about with sometimes like cabbage, it'll have some sugars in it, like raffinose that'll give these crazy high false positives. So, I'm like, it must be the monk fruit. I am writing to Scott, I'm like, "This version is not going to work. We have to go back to the drawing board. No monk fruit, it's totally messing with my Tone Device. And whenever that happens, I get worried because I don't want the sensor to get damaged." So he's like, man, that sucks.

Melanie Avalon: Wait, the sensor to get damaged, can it be damaged by?

Vanessa Spina: So, there's certain things that like-- that's why I'm always saying test in the fasted state, is if you are like, you say someone is testing after they brush their teeth, the mint or after they use mouthwash, the mint or the alcohol on there can mess with the sensor if it's done repeatedly. So, this was like a few days that I was using it and I'm like, I don't want the sensor to get damaged here, so I was really upset.

We have to go back to the drawing board on Tone Protein. It's going to be like huge delay. We have to figure out a different sweetener. We can't use monk fruit. And Scott's just like, "Oh man, that's brutal, I can't believe the monk fruit is doing that." And then he goes, "Wait, it's not the monk fruit." And I'm like on the edge of my seat just watching the bubbles of the three dots like what does he think it is? What does he think it is?

Melanie Avalon: It's such a vibe.

Vanessa Spina: And I'm like, what is it? what is it? And it's like 11 at night for me, which is really late for me, I'm just like,--

Melanie Avalon: Wait, I'm okay, I'm--

Vanessa Spina: So, he's like, the vanilla, because it's whey protein isolate, like super pure vanilla and monk fruit. The vanilla had alcohol in it. And that's a very common thing, is like when vanilla is processed and sold as like an extract or as an additive, it has alcohol in it. And I remembered like--

Melanie Avalon: The dried vanilla, doesn't it?

Vanessa Spina: Yeah, the one that they're using had-- it's a natural vanilla. They were trying to get the most natural vanilla. So, this natural vanilla had alcohol in it to bind it or something. And I remember so many times being at the store buying vanilla and having to try really hard to find one without alcohol in it because most of them just say vanilla extract. But then when you look at the ingredients, there's alcohol. Sometimes, like, soya sauce has that too, it's very common. It's not a lot, but apparently Scott said there was enough in the one sample that I had to be like a tenth of a glass of wine. And nothing messes with the Tone Device more than alcohol in terms of getting false positives. Because as were talking about, if you are in ketosis and you get pulled over, you can blow like a false positive on a breathalyzer. So, alcohol looks very similar to the ketone to acetone in the breath, which is why you can't use mouthwash because it has alcohol in it. And then anything like really really strong, like mint and toothpaste will also have a similar effect. So, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, you figured it out." Because that's exactly what the readings would be if I had had a tenth of a glass of wine. It would be like showing around 27, 28, 29. So I had mentioned to him that alcohol messes with the device, but he figured out what it was and we’re like, "Oh, my gosh, here we go, it's not the monk fruit, we don't have to start over." And I could-- I was so relieved that the Tone Device is totally fine.

It takes about 36 hours for your body to metabolize alcohol fully. I'm not an expert on alcohol like you are, but I knew that it would take a day and a half, maybe more, and by Saturday afternoon, it was back to totally accurate readings, giving me the exact numbers that I was expecting to get and no more of the 27, 28, 29. So, I was like messaging factory. I was like, "Don't worry, everything's fine." It was just so many things happening that I was like, "Oh, my gosh, we're going to have to go back to the drawing board of the protein, we're going to have to do some major fixes with the Tone Device." And thankfully, it was neither, so I was super relieved and just really happy that Scott figured out it was the alcohol because I never would have thought that there was alcohol in there.

And then I was like, well, I don't want to be testing these [laughs] samples anymore, they have alcohol. And I also don't want alcohol in Tone Protein. So, it was kind of a great thing that we caught it because I would have been not very happy if we'd gone to the final steps and I had seen alcohol in there. So now Scott's been doing research all week on finding a vanilla that is not artificial, is pure, and I sent him some information on this powdered vanilla bourbon. He's like, it doesn't alcohol? and I'm like no, no, it's just called bourbon vanilla or vanilla bourbon, and it's just pure vanilla from Madagascar. So, I'm trying to get that in it instead. But I'm really glad that there's not going to be any alcohol in it. I'm so relieved. It was not the Tone Devices, it was just the alcohol. And yeah, it was a crazy few days of being super panicked and then very, very, very relieved.

Melanie Avalon: Wow, that's crazy. I did not know-- I always thought alcohol burned out when it was-- you know it cooks out or when it's dry, I didn't realize it could still be there.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah, yeah, I mean I don't know how much they cook it or I don't really know much about the vanilla that we were using in the sample other than the fact that it was natural, but [laughs] yeah, I never would have thought that it had alcohol in it and even though I've seen so many commercial preparations of vanilla that have alcohol. And you know Scott didn't realize that that was important to me either. I'm just trying to make sure that Tone Protein has few ingredients as possible. I'm like, I just want whey protein isolate-- pure whey protein isolate, and basically vanilla and leucine that we're adding the leucine, vanilla and a healthy sweetener, So, yeah, it was a crazy roller coaster moment. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: Wow, wow. I'm excited though for you that they figured it out. And that'll be a really big I don't like using the word "selling point." That's a really nice thing to share with listeners about, just the purity of the ingredients and the quality and vanilla is-- There's like a whole vanilla world, like vanilla-- you know people look for really high-quality vanilla. So, when you find the vanilla that you'll be using, that'll be something really important or something great to share about the protein.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah, I was like, Scott, this may have been like a stressful few days, but I have a great story to share on The Intermittent Fasting Podcast and on my podcast. It was so funny that happened to really be connected to both of them, but yeah, that's my story, I was really excited to tell you about it.

[laughs]

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I can imagine that moment of thinking that you have to start over.

Vanessa Spina: With both my products that I'm so excited on.

[laughs]

Melanie Avalon: Oh, my God. Oh, you're right. Ahh wow, wow.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah, but thankfully it's all good, so yeah that's how my week's been going with this. That was last week, so this week is amazing and Luca said I love you to me for the first time about an hour ago.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, whoa.

Vanessa Spina: We were having dinner.

Melanie Avalon: Wait, it is like moment, hold on.

Vanessa Spina: I know, I know. We were just sitting there having dinner and he said, mima. And he calls me mima. He calls me mommy sometimes. He said mima and he just gave me this big smile, and I looked at him and I said, I love you, and he said, I love you. Peter and I were both like oh, my gosh, he said I love you. There're just so many firsts like that right now. But he's just the sweetest kid. He's also been doing this thing at night when we put him to bed, he has to give us both forehead kisses, and it feels like a small little bird is like going over and kissing your forehead. He's got like this tiny little mouth you know so he's just like [smacks tongue] he goes back and forth.

Melanie Avalon: It's like butterfly kisses?

Vanessa Spina: Yes, butterfly kisses. He goes back and forth between the two of us and we both just look at each other and we're both just, like, melting. Yeah, yeah, it's been-- I'm like, you made my entire day. I was already excited because it was our recording day, which always makes me happy all day, but yeah that put things over the top.

Melanie Avalon: It's a magical night, you got to write this down. Wait, September. Yes, the same day for us, September 19th, 2023. I got to ask my parents if they remember the first time I said I love you. That's funny because I never-- because I think-- when you think about that romantically like the first time a person says I love you, but I've never thought about it in that context, that's so cute.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah. I mean, he's just starting to talk so much, and he's just saying the cutest things and repeating everything. But I've said I love you to him many times and I think he knows what it means. Like, just the way he smiled and looked at me and said it was just like I melted into a puddle. But yeah, feeling really great about life and everything. And I'm so thankful to be here and excited to be here. Excited to answer listener questions too.

Melanie Avalon: Life is so magical. It really is. Even when it's not, it is.

Vanessa Spina: I was so excited earlier this week about our podcast together. My interview on your podcast hitting really high on the charts. I think it was above 20 on the US charts on nutrition. But it was just fun to see it getting such a great response, and I was really excited about that too, and sharing it with you. Just love doing this podcast with you, doing other episodes with you, and it's all just so awesome and wonderful.

Melanie Avalon: No, I feel the exact same way. I was so excited to air that and then the responses from people have just been so wonderful. It's been really great. And I've been personally-- you actually-- I didn't realize that my social media manager was-- I did realize, but I didn't really realize that he was adding Taylor Swift music to my post. And so, Vanessa I was like, "The Taylor Swift song," and I was like, "the Taylor Swift Song."

[laughter]

Wait, Vanessa Spina, so now guess what I am doing. I just had an email conversation with like I was like, "Okay, so going forward, I'm going to send over for every post the exact Taylor Swift song I want and the exact lyric, and the exact section because I want it to match up the content." So, now my Instagram will be optimized for-- so when I post this week, the posts about you, I picked out that specific Taylor Swift part, although he kind of didn't do the right part yesterday, so that's okay, though, it kind of came off a little bit how do I say this G-rated.

[laughter]

See because I wanted to do, it was a post about breath ketones and so I wanted to do something from Taylor Swift's song Dress because she makes a lot of breathy sounds in it. So, I had a section picked out that has a lot of breathy sounds and I told him which part to use, but he used the wrong breathy sound part of the song. I think the lyric is like, "I only bought this dress so you could take it off." So that was not like not like what I was going for.

[laughter]

Vanessa Spina: That's amazing. That's so funny.

Melanie Avalon: But then I brought it back because I was like, well, actually, this post is about burning fat and so maybe that's the vibe. But I'm not saying, “Vanessa, I only bought this dress so you could take it off. “

[laughter]

Vanessa Spina: Oye my stomach hurts. And I laughed too much right now. Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh, it's so funny, so funny. I feel like at the end of the day, I'd be like, "Let me just do it, because I just can't, that's just too much."

Melanie Avalon: I know, I know.

Vanessa Spina: it would just annoy me, but eventually I'm sure he'll get the hang of it.

Melanie Avalon: Well, because the problem is. So, with Instagram stories, when you pick the song, you flip through the lyrics and you pick the lyrics, so it's easy. But with the post, there're no lyrics that pop up, you just drag the slider, so you have to find the section of the song without seeing any lyrics. So, last night I spent literally probably 20 minutes deciding all of the songs for Farmer Lee Jones and sent him the timestamp and the lyrics, so we'll see how that goes, but I don't know. And I'm sitting there, I'm like, "Melanie Avalon, is this a good use of your time? I'm like, yeah, but then I'm like, yes, it is." So, aww, we'll see how that goes. On that note, shall we answer some listener questions?

Vanessa Spina: Excited to get into these.

Melanie Avalon: Would you like to read the first one from Rob?

Vanessa Spina: So, the first question is from Rob and the subject is, “Thank you. Hello ladies, I love the podcast, I want to thank the both of you for spreading the word about intermittent fasting. I have been IF-ing since January and I have lost 25 pounds with a 16 to 20-hour fasting window. I got my father to fast as well. He lost more weight than I have and his health has gotten better of course. I was thinking the other day while listening to your podcast. Your podcast has not only helped many listeners lose weight, but you are literally saving lives. I cannot thank you enough. I will enjoy many more healthy years with my father,” aww, I'm going to cry “with my father because I started listening to you two wonderful ladies, thank you.”

“Thank you. I do not have a question, but a suggestion for the podcast. I recently found out that I have fatty liver. I think that it would be a great idea if you could go over the impact that intermittent fasting has on organs. Ladies, keep doing what you're doing.” Aww, wow, that was so beautiful. Thank you so much, Rob. Really really such kind and sincere words and I just appreciate that so much. And I feel what you're feeling of getting those years back with your dad like it’s seriously going to make me cry, so thanks for sharing all that.

Melanie Avalon: I know I was sitting there just like taking that in. I mean, we read all of these wonderful messages and I have social media interactions, but I think we forget that these are like real people, maybe I do. I don't want to speak for you. I'm just visualizing that this is real people listening, making these lifestyle changes and experiencing the benefits and it's just so incredible and wonderful.

Vanessa Spina: I think it's hard sometimes because our audience are kind of like faceless, like except, for like you said, when we interact on Instagram, and it's why I love interacting on Instagram and Facebook because people have photos, you can actually put a face to the listeners, to the community because it's hard to visualize sometimes who's out there listening, like you know-- you see the numbers, but you don't necessarily have a visual idea of what that is so, yeah. I totally get it and when people personalize it, I always say, if you just tell me what you're doing when you're listening, when you tag me in a post you're like take a story of you, out for a walk or a hike or wherever you are, It just fills my heart so much to see where people are, what they're doing, they're driving in the car, or I'll just get a photo of the dashboard with the podcast playing, and I'm like, that's amazing like you're listening while you're driving to work or whatever. Yeah, it's amazing, but to hear your personal story and I applaud you, Rob, for getting your dad into intermittent fasting, and you're the one who's really helping him, so that's amazing.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, no, it's so exciting when the family jumps on board as well. Yeah, none of my family has jumped on board, I don't think. Nope, just me, just me.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah. I've had some people definitely interested and have tried things here and there, but I have part of our extended family on Pete's side that was already into paleo and all the stuff, so that was kind of cool. But I feel like you can't really get people into it, and it's hard to when they're your family, because they're just like-- they're always going to be like little Melanie or little Vanessa or whatever. You're never going to come across as like an authority to them. But I think it's when you do what Rob's doing, you go out and do it, you lose 25 pounds, feeling great, getting these great results, and then your family or your friends come and go like, "Hey, what are you doing? I'd love to do that too." That's the best scenario as opposed to being like, "I did this, I love it, now I'm going to make everyone in my family and friends do it because they won't, they will not."

Melanie Avalon: No. Yeah, actually to comment on that. And that's how I ended my Newsweek piece that came out where I shared my story about my diet history and coming to fasting and biohacking and all the things. The way I ended that story and this is why I genuinely, truly believe, I don't have any goal to change anybody, I just want to experience things for myself and then share. And because it has such a profound effect on me, like with intermittent fasting, share it with others, I don't want to force it upon anybody. So, I actually have that-- I think that's a really good, so like with my family, I never try to convert them or anything because I think especially a lot of people can fall into profound dietary changes. It will have such an effect on their life and so they just want to tell everybody and they want everybody to do it, but I think people only listen if they're ready, so I just wait until people come to me asking questions, and then I provide my answer, but that I'm aware of-- I really don't I don't really ever walk up and try to tell somebody to change what they're doing.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah. It's not effective. I really believe you have to inspire people and they have to feel like it's their idea. And anytime you deliberately try to influence someone as opposed to inspiring them, it just doesn't work like people just-- My favorite thing is nobody likes unsolicited advice, nobody. No, you know It's just a losing game to play, whereas if you just do what you're doing and people are inspired by you then it's so much more effective.

Melanie Avalon: It's so true. And actually, that happened with my, I'm thinking, my mom has probably before-- my mom will come and ask me health-related questions, she will for sure. My sister will occasionally; brother, nope, dad, nope, and then sister-in-law, she actually reached out for preparing for her wedding and was curious my thoughts on different diets and things. So, Rob.

Vanessa Spina: Way to go, Rob.

Melanie Avalon: I know. Thank you for that and very happy for you and your dad. Yeah, that's absolutely incredible. And this was a great suggestion and I went down the rabbit hole-- Okay, well, first of all when he says he would love to hear about the impact that IF has on organs. I had never really contemplated the definition of organs. Almost everything in your body is an organ besides the water. But even your eye-- like within your eye there're different organs, so I was like, "Oh, this is basically your whole body." Because especially people will even make the argument that your skin is an organ. So, I decided to focus on, I think the main things people think of. And since Rob was talking about fatty liver, so I focused on the liver and the heart and the brain with a bonus of the pancreas.

So, what's interesting about all of this is-- So I individually researched each of these three organs, there was so much overlap in that intermittent fasting would create these conditions that would benefit each of these things. For example, like the anti-inflammatory effect was huge for a lot of them, actually all of them. And it is sort of like, I would say third party, but it's three things, so fourth party factor that really seemed to influence a lot of this was actually the gut, like the effect that intermittent fasting would have on the gut microbiome and then how that would affect the liver or how that would affect the brain. But to go through them one by one.

So, the heart, and I thought this was really important, especially like I was talking about with that Fox article about longevity, which by the way, we will put links to those articles in the show notes. When she asked me for my tips for longevity, it was so hard because I was like there're so many things, what should I talk about? And the first thing that really obviously came to mind was intermittent fasting, which is why I talked to her about that. And then the second thing, like I mentioned earlier, was cardiovascular health, because ischemic heart disease is the number one cause of mortality. The more I read specifically Peter Attia's book Outlive, the more and more I learned about just the importance of trying to prevent cardiovascular disease risk and-- By the way, Vanessa, do you have thoughts? He is so pro statin use. Even last night, the podcast I was listening to, he was saying that to paraphrase something about how if you want to avoid cardiovascular disease, you're really going to have to be on pharmaceuticals like a statin. Even if you-- even if you like, that's like almost a direct quote from him.

Vanessa Spina: I couldn't agree less. I mean, after studying physiology and biochemistry and seeing how many drugs like statins and proton-pump inhibitors are interfering with the body's physiology, it's similar to me, the reasoning behind cutting out your gallbladder or cutting out your appendix unless it's exploded or exploding. Cutting out vital organs that are there for good reason, I just don't understand, and statins really mess with hormones. Proton-pump inhibitors have so many downstream negative side effects because you're messing with basic physiology. And I say that with no qualifications whatsoever as a medical professional, I am nothing of the sort, but it's just my personal opinion. I know there're probably some situations where pharmaceutical drugs can be helpful and needed, but I'm really surprised that he has that opinion.

Melanie Avalon: I don't know. I am really interested in PCSK9 inhibitors, which are the newer therapeutic pharmaceutical target for cardiovascular disease. I think his argument is, I don't want to get this wrong, but basically it's that if genetically your liver is in a situation where it just creates more cholesterol or-- I was listening to another episode and there's like three different things that can happen with LDL receptors in the liver that can create problematic lipid levels, leading to potentially cardiovascular disease, and a lot of it is genetic, and so there's not much diet modification that you can do to affect it. Like, you can affect it a little bit, but it's hard to go all the way, I guess. And so, I guess his argument is that that's just something that you would have to do if you want to completely abolish cardiovascular disease risk.

What's interesting then, though, as well, especially after interviewing Dr. Kahn and learning all about Lp(a), which I also talk about in that Fox article, if you have, from what I read in that book, the latest on Lp(a) is if you have that genetic tendency, diet and lifestyle don't really-- Oh, wait, so diet and lifestyle barely affect it and statins may not affect it either. So, yeah, I don't know, that's a whole rabbit hole.

Back to intermittent fasting's effects on the heart. So, there are quite a few studies on the potential beneficial effects of intermittent fasting on cardiovascular disease risk. And oh, so I mentioned earlier that there's a common factor affecting all of these things, obesity. So, the metabolic state of obesity is highly correlated to different other diseases in the body. So visceral adipose tissue, which is the really detrimental type of body fat. So, we have different types of body fat; subcutaneous fat is the type of fat that you can see and pinch under your skin, and it's relatively benign compared to visceral adipose tissue, which is around your organs, and it's actually inflammatory.

And so, it releases inflammatory adipokines, basically inflammatory signals that can have a negative effect. And it's probably that inflammatory state created by that fat tissue, which is encouraging these other disease processes. So, anything that is going to reduce visceral adipose tissue specifically will likely beneficial for not only disease states, but our organs in general. And intermittent fasting has been shown to specifically benefit visceral adipose tissue. And then by benefit it, I mean reduce it. And then on top of that, super interesting, there are studies on how intermittent fasting can promote the browning of white adipose tissue. So basically, turning white adipose tissue, which is the storage inflammatory form, into brown adipose tissue, which is metabolically active and actually burns calories, and that can potentially have a beneficial effect on the heart as well as the liver, which is super cool.

And then studies have shown that intermittent fasting can have favorable effects on lipid panels, so those cholesterol panels, although I will add the caveat that they can be complicated to interpret, which I also talk about in the Fox article. And then I also found some more specific things related to the heart-- Oh, actually, before that, the heart actually can be fueled pretty well on ketones as well, so that is a benefit there. And so, I found one study, and it talked about intermittent fasting protecting the heart by controlling inflammation and they actually found that intermittent fasting raised levels in a trial of 67 people called Galectin-3. So, it actually can help reduce inflammation. It's been linked to-- levels of it have been linked to heart failure, high levels are protective basically against heart failure, so that is very cool. And then another study by the same author. So that author was Dr. Benjamin Horne. They had a paper published in 2020 as well as a paper in 2017, and they found that intermittent fasting could beneficial for the heart and lower the risk of developing heart failure.

So, long story short, lots of potentially beneficial effects on the heart including specifically the heart organ itself with the ketones and the anti-inflammatory markers, as well as the cholesterol lipid situation of the body, which would be affecting the potential for cardiovascular disease, so that's the heart.

So, the liver, which is what Rob asked about. I find it so interesting, the history of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Vanessa are you familiar with it? How basically it like wasn't a thing and so doctors would think that-- well, it was a thing, but it wasn't a realized thing, so doctors for a while, a lot of doctors would think that patients were just lying about not drinking.

Vanessa Spina: No, I didn't know that was a thing. That's absolutely hilarious.

Melanie Avalon: Oh okay, so I'm glad-- not that I'm glad that you didn't know that.

Vanessa Spina: Story time.

[laughs]

Melanie Avalon: I know. Not that I'm glad you didn't know that. But when I was saying it, I was like, I feel like everybody knows this. Not to say that it's bad that you didn't know. It just I'm glad you didn't know it. Okay, so because basically, the primary cause of liver failure and psoriasis historically was always alcoholic liver disease. And patients started coming in with markers of psoriasis, but they would say they weren't drinking. And so, I know this is a thing because I've just read this so many different places and Peter talks about it in his book seeing it, that the doctors would just think the patients were lying like, clearly they are drinking because they have psoriasis. But what it ended up being was nonalcoholic fatty liver disease which is why that word is defined in the negative, because they're saying, "Oh, it's not alcoholic fatty liver disease. It's just fatty liver disease, not from alcohol." And it's from fatty liver from our diet today honestly.

And nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is actually the primary cause leading to liver failure and the need for a liver transplant. So, it's a huge issue. And a sad thing about it is that it's relatively silent. You wouldn't know-- You know compared to things like brain issues like we'll talk about with memory loss and dementia and cognition or even like blood sugar issues with cravings and things like that, like fatty liver you're not going to know if you have a fatty liver unless you really check for it. So, the best way really to address nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is to lose weight and clear that liver of fat. And so intermittent fasting can be a great path to that to help reduce the fat levels in the liver.

And so, there're a lot of different ways. I found an article called The Role of Intermittent Fasting in the Management of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease, a Narrative Review. They listed quite a few ways, potential mechanisms for how intermittent fasting can benefit those with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. So, some things I already mentioned was the visceral adipose tissue. So that's associated with developing nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and intermittent fasting can help reduce that. They found that specifically having a hormonal profile with low leptin and high adiponectin is protective against nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. And so, there are some studies in intermittent fasting showing that exact profile of low leptin and high adiponectin. That said, some of the studies show just low leptin without the adiponectin effect. So, it might be a little bit nuanced, but there could be something hormonal going on there.

So going back to the gut, like I mentioned earlier, so gut dysbiosis can actually affect how we process choline as well as how we release bile and those effects can have a potentially negative effect leading to or encouraging nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and intermittent fasting can help address that. And in one study, true story, they had mice with gut dysbiosis, it was studying nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and they found that the mice that could not-- this is so fascinating. So, in addition to the visceral adipose tissue affecting nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, the aforementioned white adipose tissue turning to brown fat, so white fat turning to brown fat can potentially be protective against nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

They found in a study that they had mice with gut dysbiosis. They had some mice that were resistant to intermittent fasting. So, the ones that could not do intermittent fasting, their white adipose tissue would not turn into brown fat. This is still fascinating, this is multilayered. So, their white adipose tissue would not turn into brown fat when they could not do intermittent fasting until they did a fecal transplant and then they could. So, that's kind of crazy. So, there's probably a lot going on with both fasting, the gut microbiome, white adipose tissue, brown adipose tissue, and fatty liver. And then just as a little bow on everything. Some studies have found that alternate-day fasting reduces liver enzymes, which are associated with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. So, lot of potential benefits for the liver.

And then the brain. Oh, my goodness, how am I just at the brain? Okay, so fascinating, fun fact about the brain, it represents 2% of our body weight, but accounts for 25% of our resting metabolic rate, which is kind of crazy to think about because we think about all the time, like, "I want to burn more calories," and we really just think about that as, like physical activity, but a quarter of your resting metabolic rate is likely your brain. So, I find that really interesting. So, our brain neurons, they actually have all of the enzymes that aren't required to use ketones to produce energy. So, our brain does require glucose. Our brain cannot only work on ketones. It cannot only work on fatty acids, but it can when glucose is down, it can use ketones as an alternative substrate.

And also, something that's really interesting is, even though the brain accounts for 25%, like I said of our resting metabolic rate, it's really interesting in that it doesn't store any of its own energy. So, like our muscles for example, they store with inside of them energy for that movement. So when you're doing a bicep curl or a tricep curl, your muscle, it's got its energy within the muscle to fuel that movement, which is actually why people think that you have to completely deplete glycogen levels throughout your whole body to enter ketosis, no that's not accurate. You just have to deplete your liver glycogen. Your muscles still have glycogen within them.

The brain does not store any energy, so it's got to rely on what it gets from the blood stream which is partly being determined by your liver, which is why it is important to keep your liver in tip-top shape, so when glucose is down, it can switch to ketones and fuel pretty well on them. So, ketones and BHB specifically, in addition to being a great fuel for the brain, they also have a signaling effect on the brain and they can produce something known as BDNF, brain-derived neurotrophic factor, and that is a super important nerve growth factor family in the brain, and so its involved in helping the neurons survive and synopsis functioning and hippocampus neurogenesis, so creating new brain cells there. It's involved in learning, it's involved in memory, it's really really important basically. So, fasting has been shown to up regulate BDNF levels which is great for the brain, we definitely want to encourage that.

Fasting has been shown to reduce inflammation which has beneficial effect on the brain. It has been shown to increase something called PGC-1 alpha which regulates mitochondrial biogenesis, so what that means is that it is in charge creating new mitochondria or I don’t know if it creates it, but it’s in charge of regulating the process of new mitochondria in our brain cells which are basically the energy creating part of the cells, so intermittent fasting encourages that. It encourages something called SIRT3. You guys might have heard me talk about sirtuins and how they relate to longevity, especially if you have listened to any of my episodes with David Sinclair. SIRT3 specifically is neuroprotective. Fasting has been shown to upregulate that. Fasting has been shown as we talk a lot about autophagy on this show, which is the breakdown of problematic proteins in the body and it really helps counteract these damaged and misfolded proteins and that's something that's highly associated with neurodegenerative disease. Although again, huge caveat that there're a lot of debates in that world about cause and-effect, causation, correlation.

Regardless, fasting-- the autophagy process in fasting, quoting from a study, "Can potentially exert a protective role in neurodegenerative diseases." I will note though that study then went on to talk about how fasted mice-- basically they had an increase of autophagy in their neurons, in their brain cells, but it was not enough to degrade the beta amyloid, which actually increased from fasting due to the enhanced uptake from the, "extracellular space." I read that, literally-- I read that over and over and I was like, I think that's a big deal because it didn't really comment on it beyond that. So, then I went and asked ChatGPT to break it down for me. Not that I really trust ChatGPT very much anymore, but I wouldn't be scared though by that idea, because in general, that study and everything I've read has talked about how the autophagy process tends to beneficial and something that we want.

Okay, intermittent fasting has been shown to increase GABA, which is the main excitatory neurotransmitter in our brains. So, it's involved in processing information and our excitability factor and also neuroplasticity. So, the ability for our brain to change beneficially and grow and learn, and create new things, it's also involved in learning and memory. And so fasting has been shown to upregulate that. And then to bring it all full circle about at the beginning how I was saying that there are these common effects and everything. So, the effects on the gut microbiome can actually potentially, probably affect the brain, so intermittent fasting has an effect there, as well as-- this is interesting, so more than 80% of patients with Alzheimer's actually have type 2 diabetes or altered fasting blood glucose levels. So, there's probably a huge connection between metabolic health and neurodegenerative disease. Fasting, as we've talked about so much, can have a really really beneficial effect on blood glucose levels.

And then there've been myriad of studies looking at IF and cognition and a lot of them find increases in cognition, benefits on memory. I have quite a few here, so I'll put a link to them in the show notes. And then just to wrap it all up with a bow-- So, when we think of circadian rhythms, we think of sleep, like, that's what most people think of. But actually, we have peripheral circadian rhythms, so every single organ-- I don't know if every single organ, I should probably fact check that they might. A lot of organs in our body have inherent circadian rhythms within themselves and when those get messed up and not in line with our environment, they can encourage disease processes. That was actually one of the very first things I read when I sat down to research this was how circadian dis-alignment related to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and how intermittent fasting might benefit that circadian rhythm and benefit nonalcoholic fatty liver disease that way.

But in any case, to tie it all together, intermittent fasting can help with the rhythms-- the circadian rhythms within our organs and help align them so that they will be lined up, essentially, which is really important to ward off disease processes. Ahh, that is all I have to say about that and that's just three organs. Oh, then I was going to say the pancreas. My bonus point for the pancreas was that we know that people hit type 2 diabetes. They get basically-- the pancreas gets worn out from overproducing insulin and so the effects of intermittent fasting to reduce blood sugar levels, reduce insulin levels, I think understandably, can have a profound effect on the pancreas, the health of the pancreas. Now I'm done. Thoughts?

Vanessa Spina: Wow. I'm like absolutely speechless. That was the most comprehensive overview. I think that was a lot more than Rob was bargaining for. What is his question? Because he was just noting that maybe you should look into it or maybe we should look into it. But boy, did you look into it, because that was absolutely incredible. Thank you for sharing all of that. I learned so much. It was so amazing. I think for me, you went through almost every organ, especially the most important ones. With fatty liver, I first got really interested in fasting and fatty liver by Dr. Jason Fung. He had these amazing blogs, I'm sure they're still up there, and articles where he would talk about how you can reverse fatty liver and basically metabolic disease, metabolic syndrome with fasting. And he just explains it so well, but it completely makes sense. I think it's helpful sometimes to hear it from a physician's perspective, especially like a nephrologist or kidney specialist who has so much knowledge and expertise on those organs, so I would definitely point you there if you want to read up more about fasting and fatty liver because he just covers it so so well. But I don't think you're going to need anything else after the way that Melanie just answered that question. So, yeah, that was absolutely amazing.

Melanie Avalon: No, thank you. And thank you for pointing that out. We should do a deep dive on the kidneys. I feel like they're so underappreciated. And I find it really interesting that a lot of the doctors that I really really respect are nephrologists like Dr. Fung, Rick Johnson. And I just feel like people don't talk about the kidneys that much. But those doctors, they learn so much about-- I feel like they realize things, like Dr. Fung and Rick.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah. And it's just always so refreshing to hear traditionally or conventionally trained MD's talk about these alternatives that we're super into, like time restricted eating, intermittent fasting. Of course, there's so much research supporting it as well now, but not every single doctor is open to it, to these kinds of things, so it's always refreshing when someone as brilliant as Dr. Rick Johnson or Dr. Jason Fung. They explain it so well and they're both so good at explaining things and making them easy to grasp. So, yeah, some more great resources there. Because sometimes, especially family members, need to see things written by a doctor to fully-- Also, because they explain things so well, but that's just another resource there.

But I agree with you. I mean, the whole body-- it really comes down to the whole body because I think of our body as trillions of cells and then those cells making up different tissues, and those tissues are organs, and that's what we're made of. So, it's interesting how it can affect organs individually, especially organs that are not at homeostasis. But the body has this incredible program which is homeostasis and oftentimes not in every situation of course, there's definitely genetic conditions, as you mentioned earlier, and disease conditions, pathologies. There're definitely situations where you need pharmaceuticals, medical intervention, conventional medical care, especially with acute injuries and pain. I'm so thankful that we have the medical care that we do.

But there're also situations where if the disease is or the pathological state like nonalcoholic fatty liver is caused by lifestyle, that a lifestyle approach can help reverse it and can help just restore homeostasis just by us getting out of the body's way and fasting. To me, there's no better way of doing that than with fasting. You're literally just getting out of your body's way and letting it heal and go back to homeostasis, which is its prime directive and we often take it off course with different approaches, so I think fasting is such a powerful restorative tool and intermittent fasting especially. So, thank you for that comprehensive overview.

Melanie Avalon: No, thank you. Thank you for listening. It was very long and that's just like the--

Vanessa Spina: Tip of the iceberg.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, there's so much that's just like what I found briefly. So, yeah, thank you for the question, Rob, and this has been absolutely wonderful. So, a few things for listeners before we go. If you would like to submit your own questions for the show, you can directly email question@ifpodcast.com or you can go to ifpodcast.com and you can submit questions there. And the show notes will be at ifpodcast.com/episode342. They will have a full transcript as well as links to everything that we talked about, so definitely check that out. And then you can follow us on Instagram, we are @ifpodcast. I am @melanieavalon, Vanessa is @ketogenicgirl.

And oh, I did launch an Instagram account for my AvalonX supplement line and I'm going to do fun giveaways and things like that on there. I actually like-- by the time this airs, it'll be way long gone, but I actually right now have a giveaway on it. MD Logic is releasing a vitamin D capsule supplement and so I'm doing a promotion, giving away 10 bottles of that before it launches. So that was on the Instagram, so hopefully you're following that. And so that handle is @avalonxsupplements because AvalonX was taken. So, yes, I think that's all the things. Anything from you, Vanessa before we go?

Vanessa Spina: I think that's everything. I'm excited for the next episode and more wonderful questions from listeners.

Melanie Avalon: Same. Although one last question. We talked all about your protein. How can people get on the email list or get the protein depending on when this airs?

Vanessa Spina: Yes. Thank you. So, for Tone Protein, you just go toneprotein.com. And for the Tone Device, you can go to tonedevice.com. So, both of those are pretty easy, self-explanatory, but you can sign up to get the exclusive launch discounts on both Tone Protein and the Tone Device.

Melanie Avalon: Awesome. Well, we will put all of that in the show notes. And this has been absolutely magical and I will talk to you next week.

Vanessa Spina: Sounds great. Talk to you next week.

Melanie Avalon: Bye

Vanessa Spina: bBye.

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, transcripts by SpeechDocs and original theme composed by Leland Cox and recomposed by Steve Saunders. See you next week.

[Transcript provided by SpeechDocs Podcast Transcription]

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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Oct 01

Episode 337: Special Guest Rebecca Rudisch, Balanced Dietary Choices For Animals, Pet Nutrition, Whole Food Diets, Preventable Illnesses, Entrepreneurship, Women In Business, Health Journeys, And More!

GET THE EPISODE ON APPLE PODCASTS!

The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #165 - Dr. Karen Becker

Welcome to Episode 337 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.

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SHOW NOTES

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rebecca's back story

health challenges

getting into IF

snacking all day

getting the protein in and muscle building

Creating yummers

pet food nutrition

using real food

the yummers toppers

sourcing and quality

distribution

being a woman in business

work-life balance

working culture

TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Welcome to Episode 337 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. I'm here with my cohost, 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.

Hi everybody and welcome. This is episode number 337 of the Intermittent Fasting podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon, and I am here with a very special guest today. I have been looking forward to this for so, so long. Listeners, okay, so the backstory on today's episode probably it was a while ago, over maybe a year and a half ago, I'm not even sure at this point. A fabulous listener of the show, Rebecca Rudisch, reached out to me via email. Now, I'm just trying to remember the origin story of all of this. I think she reached out about the topic of today's conversation, which is her incredible company, Yummers, which they make gourmet, pet food toppers as well as a new line of dog food. She reached out about just how she was a listener of the show and how she had this company and how she was all into the health of our pets.

I know we talk a lot about health of humans on this show, but very rarely do we dive into what we're actually feeding our pets. Rebecca and I just hit it off right away. She felt like an instant friend that I had known for years. I really do feel like that. And on top of that, she's pretty much one of the most inspiring people I think I've ever met. She is a role model for being a strong, entrepreneur woman who has done so many things. Her resume is just absolutely astounding. So, I knew we had to have her on the show for so many things to talk about. A, talk about how she integrates fasting into her life, how she does biohacking, health, diet, and fitness while being this awesome career-oriented woman, doing her companies, being a female COO.

Also, to talk about Yummers and the tragic situation of feeding our pets conventional pet food today and how Yummers is working to change that. Oh, and by the way, if listeners are fans of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Rebecca actually co-founded that company with Antoni Porowski and JVN from that show, so you guys may be familiar with them. I'm just so excited about this. I have so many things to talk about. Rebecca, thank you so much for being here.

Rebecca Rudisch: Oh, my gosh, I'm so honored. You were way too kind in that introduction. I have been waiting for this for a long time too and it's really fun to be here. You're right, when you come to the origin story, you're totally right. You happen to be talking about your mom's cats on one of the IF podcast episodes. I immediately, just for whatever reason, knew I had to reach out to you. I will tell you I've never done that with anybody before. So, I think we were destined to be friends, and I'm really really thrilled to be here today.

Melanie Avalon: I still remember reading your first email and I was so intrigued. I was like, “Who is this woman?” [chuckles] We just immediately became friends. You just understand all the things. I'm not kidding, Rebecca, I literally, when I am talking about you to anybody, I use you as the example. I'm like, “She is the most inspiring woman, I think, that I know personally,” and I am not-- I am not making that up. That is how I introduce you to people. [laughs] So, speaking of, there are so many things I want to talk to you about, but to introduce you to our audience, your personal story, because I know you went through your own health issues and your own things, and there're so many different ways I could phrase this. Have you always wanted to be an entrepreneur, work with different companies that you've worked with? How did your health journey play into that and ultimately what led you to founding Yummers?

Rebecca Rudisch: Yeah, I mean, it's a wild story and I had no idea what I wanted to do when I was younger. And just in terms of my background, I grew up in the Midwest to a very blue-collar family of very hardworking people, and I had no idea what it meant to be an entrepreneur. I worked a lot during high school and college, and I put myself through college and worked in a retail store, and I never dreamed that I would have the kind of life that I have now, and I didn't even know what that meant. But you're right, I did find my way through a lot of different challenges. So, like I said, I grew up in the Midwest, I went to college, I was really lucky and out of undergrad, I got a fabulous job in management consulting, and I happened to work in a retail store when I was putting myself through school, as I said.

I got scooped up into the retail practice with what was then Andersen Consulting, now Accenture, and it really set my career up. I loved it. I loved what I did and had a chance to work on a lot of really interesting things and all of that made me realize that I wanted to run a business. In the retail industry what that means is you go into a merchandising career. I started my career in merchandising with Target, was recruited to go work for Target and my health and wellness and really my CPG and food background really started there. At Target, I ran a bunch of businesses including the snacks and beverages business. I ran electronics and entertainment and my last job there I ran everything that Target calls healthcare which includes over-the-counter products and vitamins and supplements but also pharmacy, optical and clinics. I definitely had a strong interest in health and wellness much before that. But that really set me up to be the person at Target who was a spokesperson for everything health and wellness which was really an honor.

At the same time during my time at Target I was also going through a little bit of a health journey. I don't think I'll ever really know exactly what happened but I just call it my meltdown where I really started to have a lot of struggles with fatigue and a lot of actually numbness and tingling and my limbs and just very strange symptoms. At the end of it all, I was in intense pain. I had horrible back pain to the point of really not even being able to walk around the block and I was like 29 years old. It was awful. I was really fortunate that I started seeking out alternative care and it wasn't for lack of trying the traditional western medicine route, but I think a lot of people on this podcast can probably empathize that sometimes you don't get the answers that you really need through that process.

So, I found a chiropractor and an acupuncturist and I changed my diet and I eliminated gluten and dairy and a whole bunch of other things and I was really lucky that all of that really helped and made a dent. At some point, I got a diagnosis for Lyme disease. I'm not sure if I had it or not, it's really hard to tell, probably at some point I did. But I think all of that to say for the past almost 20 years I've really been able to manage a lot of things with just living better. I'm sure that's why at some point I found the IF Podcast because I'm always looking for ways to make myself healthier and to really boost all of the things in my life that are wellness related. But anyway, it was really interesting that when I was going through all of that I was also the health and wellness person at Target, which it felt in some ways very odd.

The other thing that I really learned in my time in merchandising because I went on from Target and believe it or not, from there the health and wellness person went and ran all of merchandising for 7-Eleven, which was also enlightening. Eventually, I would make my way to Petco, which is why I'm now in the pet industry. But one thing I really learned in my time merchandising at Target and 7-Eleven, because I had responsibility for a lot of food and beverage and healthcare products, is that the standards for processed food manufacturing and for all of the food development really are, I think, somewhat troubling. I know you talk about this a lot on both of your podcasts, but the industry that is creating packaged food today and it's creating packaged products, there's a lot there that is really troubling when you're thinking about the health and wellness of people and particularly people like me, who really need to have clean, real food in order to be healthy.

So, I could go on for hours. But a lot of that has really led me to where I am today. And in terms of getting to the point of today, all of that led me to be the Chief Merchandising Officer at one point at Petco, which I have always been in love with pets, but it was the best job ever because I got to live and breathe and eat and sleep nothing but pets all day long and it was awesome. I think has really solidified the fact that pets are one of the things I'm most passionate about personally and in business.

Melanie Avalon: I love all of this so much. See listeners, now you can see why she's so inspiring. Okay, so many things. I'm curious, when you were having your health challenges and hearing how old you were when you were at Target, that is really putting things in perspective for me, which has done so much. So, when you were having your health challenges, did you start feeling better overnight? Was it a slow journey? Was there a paradigm shift in your head that helped you feel better? Because now you and I always talk offline about how I'm so in awe of your travel skills and you're always killing it and traveling all over the world and doing all these things, which sounds very energetically draining to me. So, did you just wake up one day and feel better or was it a really slow process or what did that look like?

Rebecca Rudisch: It was so scary. It was truly, truly frightening. When you're 29 years old and you can't walk around the block, even grocery shopping was so challenging, except at least I could push a cart. And to me, at this point, it just seems surreal that that was my life. But I was terrified. At one point, I think the last doctor I went and I had an MRI on my back, and they couldn't really find anything. A doctor who was doing the best that he could, diagnosed me with something called stiff-person syndrome. I have no idea what this is to this day, but he said that the treatment for it would be to be put on massive amounts of muscle relaxers for the rest of my life, which essentially would have-- I wouldn't have even been able to go to work. It would have been awful and I think, Melanie, you know me at this point, and anybody who knows me, the idea of me not being able to work is terrifying because it's what I get so much passion out of and what I really love to do.

I was absolutely terrified. To this day, I don't even remember exactly how I found this person, but I found a chiropractic neurologist, and I was like, in the darkest of the darkest days. I found a chiropractic neurologist who did a full intake and he said, “I do things really differently.” He used some very different techniques that not only adjusted me physically, but also started to rewire my nervous system. By no means was it overnight, but within a couple of weeks, I was not in complete pain, and within a couple of months, I was walking a little bit better and really starting to see some improvement. It has been a journey though. I could never say that it was overnight. I could never say that I don't have any of the same symptoms that last today. But like I said, 20 years later, literally 20 years later, I get better every day.

Thank you for your callout on my travel skills. I don't know that I'm perfect by any means, but I think I feel incredibly lucky every day that I have never had to completely alter my life or hold myself back from anything because of it. I feel incredibly grateful for that and it's because of a lot of work. I would say that I was biohacking before biohacking was a thing or before I knew it was a thing, because it really is about constant adjustments and knowing my body and knowing what I need at any given time. Sometimes, I will just, I won't be able to go out when I'm out traveling or I will just stay home and take a rest because that's what I know my body needs. But for the most part, I'm all in on life and I do everything. So, I feel incredibly incredibly lucky.

Melanie Avalon: We have so many conversations about the travel, about the rest, the boundaries, and also, you're also a big foodie, so I'm always having you send me pictures of your meals and these crazy places that you go. It's so haunting to hear you say that about the grocery store thing. I had immediate flashbacks. I obviously did not have stiff-person syndrome, that's crazy. I've never heard of that before.

Rebecca Rudisch: I don't even know if it's a thing, to be honest with you, [laughs] but it was terrifying.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, it sounds like something they just give a label when they can't explain something too. I remember when I was severely anemic and wasn't aware, and that's when I was at my most fatigued, and I would drive to the grocery store and just sit in the car for 15 to 20 minutes trying to get the energy to walk inside the grocery store. It was so scary. I was like, “Am I dying?” So, it's really nice to know that-- not that we all go through really dark things, but it's really nice to be on the flipside. It just provides so much hope, I think, to me and to other people. So, thank you for sharing that. One last question about all of that. I'm curious, when you were in that state, was your work draining to you? Because you just mentioned how, it would be awful if your work was taken away from you, which is how I feel about everything that I do. So, was it draining for you or was it actually energizing for you or were you hiding behind it? What was that relationship like?

Rebecca Rudisch: It's such a good question. I would say it was what kept me going. It was the one place where I felt like I was still thriving. Honestly, I was thriving probably during this timeframe that I was going through everything. I probably got promoted like six or seven times. I kept having more opportunities to grow and advance in my career and do new things. And like I said, it was the one place where I felt whole and I felt like I was me. I felt what I put in was coming back out with a lot of reward and gosh, Melanie, I don't know what I would have done without it. I think we all read about or know people or just have people in our lives who have debilitating illnesses of some sort which keeps them from working or makes them have to go on disability or something like that. To me, that would have been the most devastating thing. I don't even know how I would have handled it, because I think the outlet that work became was just so important for me and it gave me a why, to continue to kind of push on.

Melanie Avalon: That's the exact same way I felt during everything, [chuckles] because you mentioned how you were trying to find answers and started looking into all these health modalities and diet and fitness. When did you start experimenting with intermittent fasting?

Rebecca Rudisch: Like so many things, I was probably experimenting with intermittent fasting without knowing it was intermittent fasting. I really just realized that and this is a little bit of a shift when I finally left the big corporate retail world that I had been in and started more of an entrepreneurial path. I really found that when I was working in an office all day, it's just like the food is always there. People are always like there's always breakfast, and then there's a lunch, and then there're snacks, and then there's dinner. And particularly when you're the snack and beverage buyer, you are constantly being barraged with samples of everything. Even when I ran healthcare, there were always power bars or not power bars, but like protein bars and everything everywhere. So, I was always in that mode of like, snack, snack, snack, with meals and dinners out and whatever.

I'll be honest, I just never felt that good. When I stopped working in an office all the time, I found that I was just really happy eating twice a day. I usually work out in the morning and it's kind of my thing. So, I like to work out on an empty stomach. So, I would just find that I wouldn't really need to have anything to eat until like 11 or 12 in the afternoon or whatever. Then, I actually had a friend visit me who talked about how she was doing intermittent fasting. I said, “Oh, what is that? And she goes, “Oh, I just don't eat breakfast anymore.” [laughs] I said, “Oh, well, I think I do that too,” but I didn't really know that that's what it was. She started talking about all of the health benefits of it, which really got me intrigued. I think that's when I officially would have called myself an intermittent faster.

Since then, I changed it up a little bit. I think my body's changed a little bit. I have a really intense goal right now of putting on muscle. I just turned 49, I'm on the verge of 50, and the whole muscle loss as you get a little bit older, it's a real real thing. So, now it's all about muscle for me. I find that what I used to do with intermittent fasting of skipping breakfast and doing probably like 16 hours without eating. I probably more often I'm doing like 12 or 13 instead, just because I like to eat like two really big protein meals, but I'm still doing two meals a day and I feel so much better. It's better for my body. I think after all the years of snacking constantly, my body's just relieved to not have to be doing that anymore. So, it's been very natural and I'm glad I have a name for it now. I just thought I was skipping breakfast. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: Oh, my goodness. Okay, I just had an epiphany I don't think I've ever had about intermittent fasting. This is a new thought for me. It just occurred to me because people ask all the time about being in social situations or work situations and if people comment on why they're not eating because they're fasting or people feeling like they're fasting and they feel awkward about it or they don't want to decline the food because of the social implications. It just occurred to me that if you're doing it, “by accident” like you were because you just weren't eating because you weren't hungry. Basically, you could be in the exact same situation, but because you haven't put a label on it in your head as I'm fasting, I think you can easily decline things because it's just you're declining because you're not hungry. Compared to if you have the label in your head that you're doing it because you're fasting, even though you could be in the exact same situation or exact same state. Either way, it's like when people add this label in their head, then all of a sudden, they bring in all of this baggage of, “Oh, I have to explain it or I'm not being normal.” Or compared to, if you're just not hungry, you just say you're not hungry. I just never thought about that before.

Rebecca Rudisch: I agree. And it's so funny that you say that, because my mom, when I was growing up, I don't think I've ever seen, well, now I have, but I don't think when I was a kid, I ever saw my mom eat breakfast. She had coffee every day and she was like, “Coffee is my breakfast. That's all I want.” She had the metabolism of a hummingbird, and she just always had energy, and nobody ever bugged her about it. It was never a thing. But she was an intermittent faster too. She had black coffee every day for breakfast and now there's this whole thing around it. But it was just normal for her.

Melanie Avalon: It's so interesting. Yeah. I never put that together in my head. Also, really random, do you know the mind-blowing fact about the hummingbird?

Rebecca Rudisch: I don't think I do.

Melanie Avalon: Did you know-- I learned this when I interviewed Dr. Rick Johnson, who I just simply adore? He talks about the hummingbird in his book Nature Wants Us to Be Fat. So, the hummingbird, it becomes diabetic every night. At some point in its circadian rhythm, it drinks all this nectar and it literally becomes diabetic. Like, if you looked at its blood profile, does so much activity with its metabolism that it undoes all that damage, and then it rinses and repeats. Isn't that crazy? Because you mentioned, the metabolism of a hummingbird. [laughs] But in any case, okay, so when you did put a label on intermittent fasting in your head, when you realized that's what you're doing, did you experience issues with work and social situations of feeling like you wanted to decline the eating situations but feeling awkward about it socially?

Rebecca Rudisch: I don't think so. It’s always been my own person as it relates to that, and I don't really think about it that way. I guess now, as an entrepreneur, for the most part we all work remotely. So, I'm not in an office every day, which definitely makes a big difference because you're not constantly in that kind of situation. My team knows sometimes I have breakfast, sometimes I have lunch, I always have dinner. I think we're all pretty accepting of where we're at from a health standpoint and that's a great place to be, but I do know it can be really challenging. I think back to all of my years in an office setting where I was eating three meals plus snacks a day. I think there probably can be a little bit more of a stigma of always needing to be in some kind of feeding situation.

But I do think there's starting to be a little bit more awareness around the fact that that isn't as healthy as what people thought it was for a long time again. Like I'll come back to I ran the snack department. We were all about people thinking they needed to eat all the time. We were probably responsible [laughs] for a lot of it. Certainly, all the research from the big CPG companies is there to propagate people's belief that they're going to better off if they just continue to graze all day long. To me, even though I was in that business and in that mode, it never felt good. I certainly did it, but I never felt great as I did it, if that makes sense.

Melanie Avalon: Yes, it does, completely. And on the protein front, it's awesome to hear about your focus on muscle and protein. We talk about that so much on this show. A question, we get from listeners all the time is they can't grasp how to fit in extra protein into a shortened eating window. I know you said that you elongated your eating window a bit to accommodate the protein. So, how do you fit in all the protein?

Rebecca Rudisch: So, what I found that is working really really well is I eat two big meals a day. And that's why I stretch them out so much, because I'm just not hungry in the middle. But two big meals a day and a really good chunk of protein in both. I've found that my body just responds better to animal protein than it does to plant protein. But I used to do a lot of plant protein too, but I'll just really eat like 40, 50 g a meal and it's working for me. I'm on all the bio-hacks as well and really intense exercise routine that's really helping as well. But I just think for me it's just really been about two really good solid meals instead of multiple times a day. Some people do well with three or more, but for me it's just great to have two really good sizable meals.

Melanie Avalon: I love it. I love it. And for listeners, I think, okay, when you and I first started talking about EMSculpt, you had already done it or did you start doing it after I was doing it?

Rebecca Rudisch: I think we started doing it right around the same time I do EMSculpt and I think that's really helped in some cases. Also, I'm a huge huge believer of the CAROL Bike, so just like small bursts of cardio training. So, you and I also share that. The other thing that it's been a game changer for me is the ARX, which is robotic resistance training. So, basically, you're stronger on your eccentric motion than on your concentric motion, so it pushes back on you on the eccentric so that you get twice as much muscle building. So, I am all into anything that can make all of this not easier, [chuckles] but at least more effective.

Melanie Avalon: No, I'm all about it. Maximum gain, minimum pain, minimum time invested. Sounds like the ARX is like the resistant muscle building equivalent of CAROL and that CAROL is using AI resistance to give you the perfect REHIT workout.

Rebecca Rudisch: Exactly, right? Yes, exactly.

Melanie Avalon: Awesome. Okay, so historically, you were working in these retail companies. What made you make the decision to leave that career path and go true entrepreneur spirit, which I think can be really scary for a lot of people and founding an entire company, what was that experience like?

Rebecca Rudisch: So, I can't say that I jumped all in and just was able to do it overnight by any stretch. After I left Petco, like I said, I had been in charge of all of merchandising there. I thought about doing something entrepreneurial and I think I've always wanted to really do something that has an opportunity to change people's lives and make them better. When I was in snacks and beverages or health and wellness at Target, just so often, I had this amazing opportunity to sit across the table from some of the coolest brands and the brands that have made the biggest difference on people's lives in the past couple of decades. Whether it was method cleaning or OLLY Vitamins or Cliff Bar or other brands that were just there to make people's lives just a little bit better, to use ingredients that were cleaner, to use less sugar, less chemicals for your home or any of those things.

It was so inspirational to me to sit across from those founders when they were coming into Target and hear them tell their story, hear them talk about their why and their purpose. The thing that I loved more than anything else about the jobs that I had was being able to help those small companies who were making the world better succeed. So many times, I thought to myself, maybe someday I'll be able to be in that same position, and maybe someday the idea will come to me and I'll be able to make that leap. Then I would chicken out and I would just keep going on my path as a retail executive. I'm so fortunate that I did because finally I had a moment where because of everything that I had done, I had somebody knock on my door and this was a person who really helped me make the connection for Yummers.

While it was an opportunity to be a founder and to start a new company, it was really because somebody tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Your experience is exactly what we need to do something in pet, will you come and join us?” So, I would say, I admire people who can just do it on their own. I am the person who needs to have other people around me. I am inspired by ideation and brainstorming with other people. I like to collaborate. I think best where I have an opportunity to have a sounding board or a partner. And the way that this all worked was perfect. But I've always had a fire in my belly to do something more entrepreneurial, and I feel incredibly grateful that I'm finally here.

Melanie Avalon: So, somebody came to you with the idea for Yummers specifically or was just like the idea of something like that?

Rebecca Rudisch: Yeah. So, Yummers actually came out of an incubator called Caravan, which is basically, we are a part of/venture of Creative Artists Talent Agency, which is why I had a chance to meet Jonathan and Antoni. So, Caravan had identified pet as an area that they wanted to go into. They didn't know exactly what they wanted to do in pet. They didn't really know much about pet, but the pet industry is amazing for so many reasons and they thought so too. So, when they said, “We really want to do something in the pet business do you have any ideas?” I said, “Well, yes, I do.” [chuckles] So, that's exactly where Yummers was born, was through some of those ideas and the opportunity to join forces with JVN and Antoni as well.

Melanie Avalon: Awesome. Okay. So many questions about this. And for listeners, they probably caught this, but Creative Artists Agency is CAA, which we hear that terminology more often, which is the biggest, it's at the top three for the biggest agencies in the entertainment sphere. So, very cool. Okay, so when you sat down, not really, but sat down to brainstorm and create what would ultimately become Yummers, what were your thoughts and what are your thoughts on the conventional pet food industry the way it is now, and what were you looking to achieve with Yummers?

Rebecca Rudisch: What happened with Yummers or where Yummers came from was really that desire to bring better to pets. There were a couple of areas that I was really fascinated by as I really started digging in and determining what exactly our product offering would be. There're really two things, first, the conventional pet food industry in terms of the quality of the product, basically it's a corollary to the human snack food business in so many different ways. Even, when I've toured some of the facilities and seen the production, you basically take ingredients which are certain ingredients, some of them are great, some of them aren't so great, and put them into an extruder. And out comes basically pellets of food that have been stripped of a lot of nutrition and almost all of the flavor and then their [unintelligible [00:33:34] are put back on top of it. Vitamins and minerals are kind of readded to the food so that it has complete and balanced nutrition and reminds me a lot of cereal.

Back in the food days, extruders are how you make Cheerios. So, it's the exact same thing. You take ingredients, you put them through a huge heat process and out comes something that really is not as nutritious. And with pet food, the vast majority of people feed kibble as a pet food. And the nutrition as we just talked about is not all that great. I can say that with my own opinion. But also, it doesn't make the pet that happy, it doesn't make the human that happy. And so much of life and a relationship with your friends is really around food and creating great moments over a great meal. And yet so many people see their pet, their dog or their cat as their best friend and they're just pouring this brown kibble into a bowl every day and putting it on the ground and saying "chow down buddy."

We really started to see that people weren't satisfied feeding that way anymore. So, the initial line of products that we launched with Yummers was this incredibly nutritious and we can talk about the way that they were prepared in a minute, but this incredibly nutritious and absolutely delicious range of products that were meant to be mix ins and toppers for either dog food or cat food. And some of them are just tasty, gourmet proteins and mixtures that just make the food taste better and give the human being the opportunity to make the meal a little bit more interesting. And then the other part of our assortment is really products that are, we call them supplements or functional. So, they are oriented around conditions that might be common for pets like hip and joint issues, or skin and coat issues, or digestive issues. We have supplements that you just put a little bit on top of the food and you can provide therapeutic doses of ingredients that help with those conditions every day during mealtime.

So, that's really where we started. And the core of our belief was around the way that the product was prepared. We call our products perfectly prepared because we prepare every one of our ingredients for the optimal bioavailability or nutrient availability for the body as well as they have to be incredibly tasty. Our name is Yummers, so they better be good. So, all of our products test off the charts for both nutrition as well as just being really tasty for the pet.

Melanie Avalon: This is so amazing. For listeners, I highly recommend checking out. I did an interview with Dr. Karen Becker for her book The Forever Dog. Honestly, reading that book was one of the most eye-opening things I've ever read. I've read a lot of books. I don't even have a dog. I learned so much in that book. Point being though, so much of what you said right now, I was just again getting flashbacks because she talks about how house pets, our cats and our dogs are really the only animal species on the planet that is eating processed food, a lot of them eating processed food every single meal for their entire lives. I mean, I guess some humans might as well. It's just shocking. It's not surprising to me at all that so many health conditions, mental health conditions, different diseases that we see in humans, we now see in our pets and I really believe it's really going back to the food situation.

Rebecca Rudisch: I think the food makes such a huge difference. I'll talk about Yummers food and what we've done, but I love the human grade fresh and frozen food that's available now and some of the companies out there that have done such a good job of bringing that product and making it available to pet parents. But what I also know is that today over 50% of pet parents, actually closer to 80% of pet parents are feeding processed kibble two or three times a day as the sole source of nutrition. And Melanie, just as you said, and part of that is because it's convenient, part of it is because it's more affordable. It's what they're used to. They don't want know take the fresh stuff out of the freezer and thaw it and have it in the refrigerator. I think that's the reality. So, with Yummers, we've really of struck the middle ground of having a product that is incredibly nutritious and prepared in the way that the ingredients can best absorbed for the pet.

At the same time, it is dry and it can be stored in the cupboard and it does have a little bit longer shelf life because of the fact that it's just freeze dried, it's just air dried and just like any other freeze-dried food that you eat as a human, it does last longer. So, it provides the same convenience, but it is so much better for the pet than feeding the standard processed kibble.

Melanie Avalon: Because I remember at one point, I was thinking of possibly working on a pet food line and I was diving deep into the rabbit hole because there are so many potential options that you can go as far as what type of pet food to make. It was so much of what you just said that it can be really intimidating for people, not cost-effective time wise, difficult to go on a completely Whole Foods raw diet or something like that with their pet. There needs to be something that's really accessible to people. I think what you're doing is so incredible for that. I can speak to the pets loving it. My sister has a cat, Jackie. My mom has her dog, Mia. And Rebecca was so kind and sent us over so many things and I gave it to them. I kept getting texts over and over about how obsessed they were with the food. And my sister kept asking for more saying how much Jackie was obsessed with it. And then yesterday, I sent Rebecca this. I texted this to her. But our assistant Sharon on the show sent me a video of her dog Tilly, of her putting Yummers into her dog Tilly's food and Tilly is, she's a bulldog and she's freaking out and just so excited about it leading up to eating it. I asked Sharon, I was like, “Does she always act that way around food?” She's like, “No, she's never done this before until Yummers.” So, they love it. They love it.

Rebecca Rudisch: You made my day when you sent that video. It always makes my day. But Melanie, I will tell you, she is not alone. My dog loves his food. He's really never turned down a good bowl of food, but he loves his Yummers. It seems to be the case for everybody. I just find it absolutely fascinating because I know how this stuff is made. I have seen every aspect of the production and it's just chicken that's freeze dried or beef that's freeze dried. It's just sweet potatoes that are air dried. It's just an ancient grain that is cooked for bioavailability. It's just real food. And to see my dog, to see Tilly, to see every other dog that I see go so crazy over it, actually tells me something about what I have been feeding him his whole life so far. Because this is just real food, it's just awesome real food and for him to get this excited about it, I think it's because instinctively, they know it's good for them, and they know that it's what their body needs. So, I love seeing it. I feel good every day. We get testimonials every once in a while, that just bring tears to my eyes about pets who might have cancer or who really struggle with their appetite. You give them some Yummers and they polish off the bowl, and that makes me really happy because I really do believe that we're solving for something that's really really powerful.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, it's so true. I hadn't thought about it in that aspect, but just it's such simple ingredients and they're just loving it so much, which does tell a lot about probably the current nutritional state of the conventional processed food. How did you decide which ingredients to include?

Rebecca Rudisch: A lot of testing. Again, I come back to the fact that our goal is to be the most nutritious and also the most tasty. So, we compromised on nothing. We knew that we wanted a variety of proteins because I think probably some of the listeners will empathize different pets have different allergies or sensitivities to different proteins. So, we wanted to have a good variety of proteins for customers to choose from. We also wanted to make sure that the ingredients that we chose were the best ingredients and the most nutritious. So, for example, I said, we have real chunks of chicken breast in our food because the protein is very bioavailable for pets or with other formulas, we have real salmon or real beef liver. Again, because of the nutrient bioavailability for the pet.

We chose ancient grains because there's more fiber than traditional, like brown rice or rice that would be used in a pet food or grain-free pet foods, which were, I think, trendy for a while. But people have started to realize that having some grains that are made bioavailable is a really good thing for a lot of pets. We chose sweet potatoes and a few other things just because pets really love them and they're incredibly nutritious. I'll tell a funny story. At one point, we did some experimentation of a formula with green beans, which would have been a good addition and certainly provided a little bit of variety. But we learned that a lot of pets don't like green beans very much because they would eat every nugget of the food and they would leave the green beans behind.

So, basically my mantra became only empty bowls were acceptable. So, nothing that is in the food has any reject factor with the pets. And that has been a little bit of our mantra. So, the food is amazing. If your listeners would indulge me and go take a look at yummerspets.com. You can see it looks different. It does not look like the kibble that they're used to feeding. It looks different because it is. You can really see each of the ingredients and how they all come together in the bowl. So, it's really great product. I really hope all of your listeners who have pets will try it. We're offering them the opportunity to do that for free, so we're really excited for that as well.

Melanie Avalon: So, if listeners go to yummerspets.com/ifpodcast you can actually try the new dog food line, a trial version of it, completely for free. Is it three flavors that you have?

Rebecca Rudisch: Three flavors, yes.

Melanie Avalon: So, you get to pick your favorite, get that completely free. You'll only pay shipping, which is so so awesome. Then also sitewide you can get 20% off with the coupon code IFPODCAST20, so IFPODCAST20, so thank you so much, Rebecca, for that, really really appreciate that.

Rebecca Rudisch: Thank you. I really hope we would love if every pet in America were to be able to have Yummers in their bowl. So, we want to do anything we can to make that happen.

Melanie Avalon: I love it. And listeners, feel free to send us videos or feedback about how much your pets love it because it's so wonderful to see. Comment on the grains, because I looked up the grains that you use and is it sorghum, millet, and brown rice?

Rebecca Rudisch: Exactly right.

Melanie Avalon: Those are all gluten-free grains.

Rebecca Rudisch: All gluten free, they are gluten free. They're all source of the highest quality and they're all very intentional in terms of the nutrient profile. So, yes.

Melanie Avalon: Do you find-- Was it difference formulating the dog food versus the pet food and the toppers or was it a pretty similar process?

Rebecca Rudisch: No, it's totally different. I always say and this probably is analogy that only works for a nerd like me. But developing the toppers was like developing snacks where there weren't a lot of rules and you could experiment with a lot of different things with the exception of the supplement toppers, because those we wanted to make sure to have a real efficacious dose. But like one of our toppers, for example, is just shredded cheese and it's one of our top sellers because people really love how human it is and you can just sprinkle a little bit on the food and that was just a creative idea that we had. We have some really great stuff coming. So, I really encourage people to take a look at what we have coming. At the end of the year, we have another really great supplement topper coming and we're going to keep developing more.

But a lot of that is just fun stuff that we can do and there doesn't need to be as much rigor around the complete and balanced nutrition. When you develop a dog or a cat food, the standards in terms of being complete and balanced are very rigorous. I've always said, I think in many ways developing pet food is harder than developing a lot of human food because there is a very clear standard in terms of the nutrition and the balance of macros as well as the balance of vitamins and minerals and other things. The pet industry in some ways is way behind people and in some ways there's even more standards. So, we were very careful in the development of the food to make sure that it is complete and balanced, that it is incredibly healthy for pets. It fits all breeds and life stages and doing that, it's a lot of work to get the formulations right.

Melanie Avalon: I'm just thinking about how speaking of the simple ingredients, I remember when you first sent me the toppers because it was right before I was going to Austin for an event. I was looking at the ingredients and I was like, “Oh. I was like, I could eat this. I was like, “Maybe I should pack [laughs] this in my suitcase and then I'll have something to eat” because it was literally just like chicken. I remember I texted you about that. You're like, “I can't officially recommend that.” [laughs]

Rebecca Rudisch: There's nothing that would tell you that you couldn't, but I'm not going to recommend it and I wouldn't recommend it to any of your listeners. I'm sure he wouldn't mind that I share, but I have to constantly tell Antoni that he really shouldn't be putting the cheese on a salad, even though he's talked often about how he loves to put the cheese on the salad. I cannot endorse that behavior. I'm sure he wouldn't mind that I shared that because that is his favorite item.

Melanie Avalon: That’s so funny that's. Especially in the beginning when they were posting on Instagram and a lot, did you have to have some talks about what you could and could not post with that.

Rebecca Rudisch: Particularly, as it relates to them eating the food? Yes. Not that it wouldn't be a good thing, but no, we cannot endorse that. That is not. Again, in fact, what I can also say is that our supplier for one of the products actually ate only his food for a month and actually has some video recordings of it. And again, we can't endorse that. But it's really good food. The quality is impeccable. But no, I wouldn't suggest that any of your listeners start eating it for lunch.

Melanie Avalon: It's so funny. What are some of the practices like with the proteins as far as the sourcing and the raising practices of those animals?

Rebecca Rudisch: So, we just have really high standards and it's just real human food. So, the chicken is just chicken breast, beef liver is just beef liver. We source from very high-quality sources and all in the USA, with the exception of we have lamb that's from New Zealand. So, we go for the best of the best in terms of sourcing location. We believe that it's just important that the ingredients are the best ingredients that you can put into the food because I think that's why it's so delicious and certainly why the nutritional value is much higher than what you would find in conventional food.

Melanie Avalon: I love it, love it. I'm curious what has been the response because you do have the line in Petco. What has it been like selling it in Petco versus direct to consumer online?

Rebecca Rudisch: It's really interesting. We sell it at Petco. We also sell for your California listeners. We sell at an awesome retailer called Pet Food Express. And then we do sell on direct to consumer. I think we just attract different customers in every location and we see it with the products that we sell. So, at Petco, we have a much higher percentage of our sales coming from cat customers than we do in our direct to consumer, I think, we just have a lot more dog customers coming direct to consumer. Our direct-to-consumer customers tend to like to buy more of the supplements and similarly with Pet Food Express, we just see a lot more of trading into the supplement SKUs. We also see that a lot of people on our own website like to buy multiples. So, they'll like maybe a beef liver and a digestive and a skin and coat or something like that. We've created some bundles around some of those more common combinations as well. But I just think we're attracting different customers with all of the different points of distribution, which is great, because it just means that we're able to reach more customers and they can use Yummers for either along with food that they've already been feeding or now they can try our food.

Melanie Avalon: You said there are a lot of great things coming in the pipeline, so how do you feel-- Because I know for me, once I created my first supplement line with AvalonX and I created the Serrapeptase, it was just like it lit this fire in me. I was like, “Now I just want to create all the things.” So, what has been your experience now with having this power and agency to create products? Do you want to make a million more different things with Yummers or how do you feel about all of it?

Rebecca Rudisch: Absolutely, yes, I know exactly what you mean that fire in your belly that just lights you up and you just get so many ideas and you're inspired from so many different things. I've always been that way. I have been a product junkie for my entire life. I'm always looking for white space in different categories. I think part of it because I've run so many businesses in my career. My mind is always going on like, what's next? What's better? What doesn't exist yet? What are trends in the marketplace whether it's ingredients or whatever? So, yes, I'm completely inspired to create a lot more Yummers products. My team's mission is truly, as I said earlier, but our mission is to have Yummers in every bowl.

That doesn't mean that every single person who tries Yummers has to change to our food. We have a great food. I'm thrilled with it. I hope everybody in the US wants to feed it, but if they don't, if they like what they're feeding now or their vet recommends something, we get it. That means that people have something that they like, they might not want to switch, but they can always add a topper or a mix in, and they can always make their meal just a little bit better. So, I start to think about what people might want to do to make the usual meal an extra special dinner. My mind goes crazy. So yes, there're lots of really fun stuff coming. I've always been inspired by things that are really relevant for humans. So, things like superfoods and some of the superfood ingredients I'm totally into right now. I'll just give a little peek under the tent.

I'm totally into the benefit of mushrooms for human health and so many of the things that humans find value in terms of turkey tail mushrooms or lion's mane or chaga, all of those benefits that humans are getting out of those products translate to pet or antioxidants or probiotics, things like that. So, we're developing some really cool stuff that will come out at the end of the year and we're going to keep going from there, new and innovative things to add to the bowl.

Melanie Avalon: It reminds me as well you're talking about how these compounds and these foods that apply to humans apply to pets. I keep mentioning that The Forever Dog book, but really, listeners, I recommend reading it. That was the big takeaway I took from that book, was just how similar all of these practices that we do for ourselves as humans apply to our pets equally. It’s really, honestly pretty mind blowing. Also, something I thought of with you talking about animals with sensitivities and things like that. I learned a lot about prescription pet food, and I won't even go into it in granular detail. But that's something else she talks about in that book. That really blew my mind because I always thought prescription pet food was from a doctor. I thought it was actually really medical, but I don't want to get controversial. But it's not really, it's still a product of the pet food industry, which is shocking. Oh, you mentioned earlier how you reached out because you heard me share my story on the podcast. Was it me talking about how my cat Misty had died from diabetes? Was that what it was about?

Rebecca Rudisch: It might have. I vividly remember you talking about-- I think you had just started to dive deep into The Forever Dog when we met. I think you were just starting to recognize how challenging the pet food industry is. I think, yes, I think it was your cat and diabetes but I don't remember exactly.

Melanie Avalon: Because my cat Misty, who I adored, I actually have a story about that, but I'll circle back to it. Yeah so, she died of diabetes. I remember my mom made this comment. She was like, “Oh, well, all cats die from diabetes if they live long enough.” My mom has a tendency to make very exaggerated claims. So, I was like, “That's not true.” And then I went and googled it and yeah, basically I was looking up on PubMed, like cat mortality studies and basically if the modern house cat lives long enough, it usually dies from diabetes. And that blew my mind and that's when I was like, “Okay, there is something very wrong here in the conventional pet food system, very, very wrong."

Rebecca Rudisch: It's so true because we all know how preventable diabetes is for humans.

Melanie Avalon: Diabetes or kidney disease? I think it's kidney disease. I might need to resay that.

Rebecca Rudisch: Probably a combination of both and actually a little bit of a tangent, but we have a phenomenal vet on our team. She's absolutely incredible. I learn from her every day. And we happened to be at dinner just a couple of weeks ago and she was talking about one of the causes of kidney issues and bladder issues for cats is actually that they get really nervous and so their bladders or whatever, I don't know, if I can describe it the right way, and I don't want to paraphrase her because she's so brilliant, but it's their bladder spasm. If they were calmer and potentially had more even some calming supplements, that a lot of the bladder issues that cats had would not be prevalent. I was fascinated by that. So, I'm absolutely fortunate to have her on our team because she has really true insight into the why physically certain conditions happen with pets. I'm really optimistic that we're going to be able to do some great things and bring some really great solutions to the market too.

Melanie Avalon: I'm glad you said that because I think it was chronic kidney disease, but Misty did have diabetes, and like you said, I think it all goes together, and it's not something that like that doesn't happen in cats in the wild. So, there's something going on here. Well, okay. I have so many more things I could talk to you about, maybe to bring everything full circle because we opened this up in the beginning, talking more about you and your personal story. This is a tangent question, but what has been your experience as specifically a female in business? Again, I mentioned at the beginning how I'm just so inspired by you and everything that you've done. Have you had any experience of that being a hurdle in your journey or even in your favor? What is it like being a woman in business?

Rebecca Rudisch: I feel like I've been really lucky, but I also do look back and I think the world has evolved a lot since I started my career, and I definitely feel like there have been a lot of challenges and some opportunities too. I would say probably a mix of both. I definitely think that and I coach a lot of women as leaders and one of the things that I get the most energy out of in the world is building teams and specifically building up and helping women leaders along the way. I think the idea of the impostor syndrome is real. It's a real thing. I absolutely would say that I, at various points in time in my career, have had it. So, I think there's some aspect of being a woman and business that we might even get in our own way a little bit.

I take full ownership of the fact that there have been some situations where I have felt intimidated or I have felt like there have been challenges that I've been up against. I won't tell the full story, but some of the behavior of people on my team when I was really early in my career, it wouldn't be condoned today, let's just put it that way. But that was real. The guys had one set of rules and a social situation, and the women didn't or had a different set of rules, so to speak. I felt like in my career I've been able to overcome a lot and I've had a lot of really great opportunities. I moved fast. I had great opportunities for promotion and leadership. There were a couple of times when I did feel like there was more of boy’s club going on and I think a lot of that was pretty real.

I worked in companies that were pretty male dominated in many cases and I definitely felt that. I think probably the time that I felt the most like it was difficult to be a woman was really when I was fundraising for Yummers. It wasn't easy. I think, in the industry, there's just a lot of understanding that it is harder as a woman trying to raise money for a company. I don't really know what it is, but there still seems to be a little bit of a ceiling there. I was incredibly successful and I'm eternally grateful for it, but it was hard, and I definitely felt a little bit of that. At the same time, I do think that the world is changing quickly. I'm on a board that I know I was recruited onto because they wanted a woman and because it was founded by a very inspiring young woman.

One of her stipulations is that there would be a certain representation of women on the board. I feel pretty lucky about that because I was recruited and my gender certainly was a piece of the reason that I got the role. So, I think there's a lot happening that is really, I think, good. I would just give a lot of advice to anybody who is in the business world today. Taking advantage of every opportunity you have. I think probably the biggest piece of advice I would have is, if you have any of the impostor syndrome happening, get over it and find a way to get over it. One of the things that I like doing more than anything is helping others get past it because it's real. I would say it's not only women, but definitely I think women tend to have a lot of it just inherently.

Melanie Avalon: Well, I can speak to that to listeners that Rebecca is being completely authentic in everything that she said, because there've been so many times, I've connected you to fellow women that I know that you've wanted to connect with. I remember I didn't tell you this, but one of the women that I connected you to, I think you did a call with her or something, and then I talked to my friend afterwards, and she's like, “Rebecca is so nice. She's so incredible. She's so amazing.” She was like, “But I don't know what she wants from me, because she just says she wants to just help.” I was like, “She does,” [laughs] that's who she is. So, yeah. It's really wonderful to see you supporting fellow women and inspiring others and I know I personally appreciate it so, so much. One last question, how do you work on your work-life balance with your health now?

Rebecca Rudisch: I call it work-life integration. I don't know that I've ever had work-life balance. I'm just going to call it integration because if I'm being honest about it, I think that's probably more what it is. I would say in the last 10 years or so in my career, I feel very lucky that I have been able to really integrate my work and my life and I had the wonderful opportunity to remarry. I am with the love of my life now, who is so incredibly supportive of me and also really wants to participate and wants to be a part of what I'm doing at work and so I think one great blessing I have is I'm going to New York next week and my husband's like, “Oh, yeah, I'll come with you.” So, he's going to come. I'll be working most of the time that I'm there, but we'll hang out a little bit when I'm not working and probably go have a good foodie dinner and I'll send you pictures Melanie.

Melanie Avalon: Yes.

Rebecca Rudisch: You know, but I think that's a big piece and I've really started to be good about setting boundaries, and I don't think I was always good about this before, but talk about self-care or bio-hacks or whatever else I do, they are mandatory, and that is how I keep my energy up, that's how I eliminate stress. They're absolutely set in stone and I will not compromise them. It doesn't mean that I get to do red light every day. It doesn't mean that I get to go do the CAROL Bike every day. But I definitely schedule time for those things. Not as much as you, Melanie. You are my inspiration as it relates to blocking off your calendar for self-care. I will someday be that good. But I do know how important it is for me as a leader to have the energy that I need to be a leader.

Those are things that are just they're nonnegotiable. So, I think to summarize, I would say set boundaries. I schedule in the time that I need for myself whether it's exercise or self-care or whatever. I bring my husband and my friends into the work that I do and I'm really lucky to do that. I've recognized that it's always a journey and I have to stay flexible and I also have to make sure that others are flexible. The other thing I would say is that I'm really proud of this. I'm so proud of this. Yummers is the first time that I've had the ability to create a company culture from the ground up. I've worked for big companies before, the culture is what it is and you can have a tiny impact, but you can't really change Target. I loved it, I loved it there, but it was Target and I get to create the culture for Yummers. It's really important to me that wellness is at the core of our culture.

So, you talk about work-life balance and you talk about wellness. One of the things that we do as a team is, if we have a meeting that's over like 2 hours long, like if we have a monthly meeting or something, we do a walking break. So, we all go off video and we take our phones and we go for a walk and we walk and talk about something that doesn't require a presentation. Or when we have our team off sites, we have them at my house because we're a tiny little team. But when we have our team off sites, we build in time for a walk every day after lunch, we build in wellness time. I instituted a wellness benefit with the team and they love it. We all have our wellness goals and we talk about them as a team and we help each other out and support each other. So, I try to bring that work-life balance in a lot of different ways. I don't think there is any one way, but it's something that's incredibly important to me and always top of mind.

Melanie Avalon: I love that reframe of work-life integration. It just occurred to me, I think we need to rebrand the word self-care because I think we don't call like-- when we take our car to the gas station, we don't call it self-care for the car. We call it just filling up the car with gas. I just think it's so important. You have to schedule time into your life to fill yourself up with energy and rest and you have to take care of your body that you're in. We call it self-care. Then I think people think that's selfish because of the word. So, I'm voting for like a new word for self-care.

Rebecca Rudisch: I will vote with you. That's a good point.

Melanie Avalon: Well, thank you. This has been so incredibly amazing. Again, you're so kind. So, for listeners, if you like to get your own Yummers, so you can get 20% off sitewide @yummerspets.com/ifpodcast and then you can also get that free dog food and one of their three flavors for free, just go to yummerspets.com/ifpodcast and that offer will be there as well. Well, this was amazing. Anything else that you would like to share with our listeners, Rebecca, about Yummers or where you're at or anything that you would like to put out there.

Rebecca Rudisch: I mean, please take us up on the opportunity to try out some Yummers like it would mean the world to us. And please provide any feedback. We're trying to be the most amazing company for your pets, so please do that. I just want to say thank you, Melanie. Your community is so inspiring and I know that it is because of all the hard work that you do. And you've been so kind to me in this conversation. I just want to say you were a true inspiration to me and I know to so many of the people who are listening today. So, thank you for having me. This has been really really special.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, my goodness, you're so sweet. I so enjoyed this and I'm so grateful that you sent that email and reached out those many many months ago, because for listeners, Rebecca and I have many potential adventures we want to go on in the future. But I just so appreciate your friendship and this relationship and I'm super excited to see everything that you do with Yummers and I'm super excited for listeners to try it and report back. So, yes, this has been wonderful and I guess I will talk to you very soon.

Rebecca Rudisch: Talk to you soon. Thank you so much, Melanie.

Melanie Avalon: You too, Rebecca. Bye.

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

[Transcript provided by SpeechDocs Podcast Transcription]

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

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Aug 20

Episode 331: Night Shift Work, Quality Sleep During Daylight, Melatonin, Red Light Exposure, Sugar Free Kids, Greenwashing, And More!

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Controlled light exposure and intermittent fasting as treatment strategies for metabolic syndrome and gut microbiome dysregulation in night shift workers

Welcome to Episode 325 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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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!

BUTCHERBOX: For A Limited Time Go To butcherbox.com/ifpodcast And Get Free Salmon For 3 Months Plus $20 Off Your First Box!

AVALONX MAGNESIUM NIGHTCAP: Get 25% Off For Life By Signing Up For Subscription Service By August 21st, Or Get 10% Off avalonx.us And mdlogichealth.com With The Code MELANIEAVALON!

TONE DEVICE: Get On The Exclusive VIP List To Be Notified When The 2nd Generation Is Available To Order And Receive The Launch Discount At Tonedevice.Com!

MELANIE AVALON’S CLOSET: More Clothes For You, Less Waste For The Planet Get A FREE MONTH At melanieavalonscloset.com!

Listener Q&A: Kaila - My questions are regarding night shift work

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Sleep quality among shift-work nurses: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Effects of 2-hour nighttime nap on melatonin concentration and alertness during 12-hour simulated night work

Effects of melatonin administration on daytime sleep after simulated night shift work

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CHILIPAD: Go To chilitechnology.com And Use The Code MA25 For 25% Off The Chilipad, Or The Code MA15 For 15% Off Their Ooler!

SLEEP REMEDY: Go To Melanieavalon.Com/Sleepremedy And Use The Code MELANIEAVALON For 10% Off!!

TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Welcome to Episode 331 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 cohost, 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.

Hi, everybody, and welcome. This is Episode number 331 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon and I'm here with Vanessa Spina.

Vanessa Spina: Hi, everybody.

Melanie Avalon: How are you today, Vanessa?

Vanessa Spina: I am doing awesome. How are you?

Melanie Avalon: I'm good. I have an exciting announcement about something I'm very excited about.

Vanessa Spina: You tell.

Melanie Avalon: Well, two things. So, two things. One is this is actually and people can listen to the ad in the episode to get the full details today. If you're listening today, is the last time that you can get a for life subscription, grandfathered in for 25% off for life for my Magnesium Nightcap, which is magnesium threonate, a special type of magnesium that crosses the blood brain barrier, helps with memory, mood, sleep, relaxation. I take it every single night. And basically, when we launch-- I'm so excited for you to launch your products, Vanessa, and experience this whole subscription thing. I don't want to assume that you're going to do it the way I do it. When we launch the subscriptions, we do this fun thing where if you opt-in during the launch period, you get grandfathered into this massive discount for life, and as long as you keep the subscription, you keep that discount. So, it's super fun.

And by the way, you can always pause your subscription at any time, so it's not like you're hardcore committing for all of the commitment-phobic people. So, yeah. So, for that, just go to avalonx.us to sign up. And if you're listening after the 21st sad day, [chuckles] you can still get a discount with a subscription, but that 25% off will have passed. So hopefully you were on my email list and got the updates or the text updates. So that's avalonx.us/emaillist and texting AvalonX to 877-8618-318, which also gets you a 20% off coupon code. Vanessa, do you text updates for people?

Vanessa Spina: Ahh, I'm working on some, but I mostly do email.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. That's like a newer thing for me. I really-- I like it.

Vanessa Spina: I got really excited about it a while back, but I think because I'm in Europe, I just haven't been taking full advantage of it. And also, I don't like asking people for too much personal info. [chuckles] I'm just like, "Let's stick to email." But I know it's great.

Melanie Avalon: The way I see it is I figure it's completely opt-in. I'm not forcing people, but it's really nice because you can do it all. And I'm sure you saw this. You do it all online through websites. But here's the second announcement that I'm so, so excited about. So excited about this. Okay, so, friends, as you know, I love clothing. I love wearing black dresses. I love wearing new black dresses all the time. I've been haunted by this for so long because I know it's not sustainable and not great for the planet that I buy so many new clothes all the time. Like it's just bad. It's one of the habits that I really do feel bad about. So now, I have a little bit of a solution that I'm very excited. Are you familiar with companies, Vanessa, like, Rent the Runway?

Vanessa Spina: I've definitely heard of it, and I think it's great to be eco-conscious, and there's so much waste in fast fashion. So, I definitely think they're great services.

Melanie Avalon: So, I agree. [chuckles] So it's not Rent the Runway. It's something I like even better. It's called melanieavalonscloset.com. I'm just so excited about this. So, the way it works, by the way, friends, if you sign up, you get the first month free, unlimited clothes. Unlimited clothes. So, the way it works, you sign up, you get an account, and they have different plans. So, like, two pieces of clothing at a time, four, six, eight, I think. Although, I have a little secret that I'll share about how you can get more than that. So, say you sign up for the two pieces at a time, then they have hundreds of brands, maybe not hundreds. There's probably, like, 100 brands on the website, including my favorite BCBG. And it's just this revolving amazing collection of the newest clothes, all the colors, all the styles, and it's unlimited. So, for one monthly cost, which, honestly, I am not making this up, is less than what a lot of people would pay on, like, one dress. You get unlimited clothes.

So, you look through everything that you like, you pick what you want, they send the clothes to you, wear them, wear them as long as you want. And then when you want new ones, you send them back, they send you more. And it's just a revolving basis. It's so easy to send back. So, when they send you the clothing, it comes already with a return, pre-stamped, prepaid envelope. So, when you're done, you just stick the clothes in the bag, drop it off at the post office. You don't even have to go to this talk to somebody at the counter. You can just drop it in the box, and then they'll send you the new one. And then that's the little hack. So, if you do the two-piece option, the way it works is you have an account and so you have your virtual closet online of all the things you're thinking of ordering and the things that are coming. So, the second they send it, you click return already, even though you don't have it yet. And they'll go ahead and send you two more. It's a little hack. So don't tell anybody that I told you guys that. So, if you get the two plan, you actually can have four pieces of clothing at one time. But just as a-- well, something really important about it.

My one reservation was, I was looking at the site and it was going on and on about how clean it is and like, dry cleaning. And I was like, "Dry cleaning, huh? That's a problem," [chuckles] because of toxins we don't want to have all of that. So, I emailed them because there wasn't really any information about what they use. So, I emailed them and so, they are professionally dry cleaned, but they only use detergents that are free from dyes and scents. They don't use any harsh compounds or chemicals, and they use low temperature cycles. So, I was so thrilled to read that that it's not like this super toxic mesh of washing that they're doing. So, you can feel good about that. Friends, I'm just so obsessed. It's been really helpful for me recently because as you guys know, my whole wardrobe is basically black. Like, it's all black dresses. And I really want to go see the Barbie movie. Have you seen Barbie, Vanessa?

Vanessa Spina: No, but I'm really, really excited to go see it.

Melanie Avalon: Me too. And I was like, "What am I going to wear?" Because I don't have any-- I used to have, like, all pink clothing, but I left that phase of my life. So, [chuckles] I was like, "What am I going to wear? Oh, wait, let me go to melanieavalonscloset.com and check." And they had so many cute, incredible pink dresses and outfits. And I'm kind of convinced that maybe that's Barbie infiltrating into like the culture.

Vanessa Spina: Barbiecore.

Melanie Avalon: Yes, yes. So, I ordered quite a few options. And so now I'm going to have my outfit for when I go see Barbie. And I didn't have to buy anything new. I know I'm just going to wear it once, but it's super sustainable. I can wear it then I send it back. And then I can go back to my black dresses ordering from them. I'm so excited. Again, you can get a free full month, so you have literally nothing to lose, like free clothes for a month, friends, melanieavalonscloset.com. And then after that, it's super, super affordable. I'm very excited. If this is something that you're interested in, Vanessa, I can connect you to them because I just think it's so cool.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah. That's super exciting. It probably won't work for me because I'm in Europe. But anyway, right now [laughs] I'm just wearing a lot of Lululemon Align leggings because those are the good ones for pregnancy. [laughs] They stretch, I wore them the entire time up until like 42 weeks last time, and they are so buttery soft. I pretty much just live in these and like, big dresses. Although I'm not at that point yet, we're only around 20 weeks. But yeah, I don't think I'm going to be wearing a [laughs] lot of exciting clothing until postpartum maybe next summer, it'll be something for me to look into.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, my goodness. I can't do leggings.

Vanessa Spina: No.

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Spina: I'm wearing them today, actually, because we've had a little bit of cooler weather. And normally I'm wearing shorts right now, but, yeah, shorts and dresses or like shorts with dresses sometimes. But I'm wearing them today because we've had some cooler days and I'm like, "This is what fall and winter are going to be like for me, because I'm just going to be in leggings all the time." But, yeah, I find them super comfortable. I'm also, like a big yoga person, and so it's kind of infiltrated all my clothing is like the athleisure.

Melanie Avalon: Okay, wait, I have comments. One, yeah, I can't do pants or leggings. It's so [laughs] constricting.

Vanessa Spina: Oh, I like that feeling.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, I shudder.

Vanessa Spina: I like really tight clothing.

Melanie Avalon: I can do tight. I like tight dresses.

Vanessa Spina: Hmm-hm. Similar. But, yeah.

Melanie Avalon: But I don't even like it. I tolerate it because I like the way it looks aesthetically. Like I said, I went and saw Wicked recently. I got the most incredible gorgeous gown, and it was like a corset, and I was corseted up. My date was like-- Okay, [laughs] so it's like 100 degrees here in Atlanta. No, it's not 100 degrees. It's like in the 90s and so I'm going to theater at 06:00 and he texted and was like, "Do you want to meet outside theater? We can go in together." And I was like, "No, [laughs] I will not be doing that. I'll meet you inside." [laughs] It was a hard no. You got to have your boundaries. Do you remember the phase, it was very brief, it was like a passing moment in time of wearing dresses over jeans.

Vanessa Spina: Oh, yeah, for sure. And dresses over pants. And dresses over pants that were like boot cut, which are back in now, like flared.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, flared jeans.

Vanessa Spina: I loved flared pants. And I had a pair of black guest pants that were flared. I just love them so much. And, yeah, I would wear dresses on top. And I thought it was so cute, and I still think it's really cute. Actually, a lot of people in Czech for some reason in Prague wear skirts or dresses over their pants. So, either they're still in that time or they're like in the future, because sometimes Europe is a little bit ahead of the game usually with fashion, so it may be making a comeback [laughs] that’s what I mean.

Melanie Avalon: I love that. I feel like it was like a brief at least I'm remembering it. I feel like it was like a briefer period of time, but I was like all about it. This is really not important, but the pant loathing, I literally-- I tolerate it now. There was a period of time where I would not, like as a child, would not, I hated jeans. Hated pants, hated them. They were the worst thing in all of existence. And then I had a paradigm shift moment where I was like, "I can wear these. I can do this." And then I got really excited because I'd been longingly looking at my peers wearing jeans and was like, "What is it like to wear jeans?" And so, then I had this moment where I tolerated it and started wearing them again. And that's when I would try those styles. I wanted to explain how I know about wearing things over pants when I said I don't wear pants. But now we're back to no pants.

Vanessa Spina: We are so similar. I've totally gone through, like I remember for years, going through years where I just didn't wear jeans at all. And people were like, "Why don't you wear jeans?" "I don't know. I just don't really wear pants."

Melanie Avalon: Did you not like how they felt? Or did you just not like--

Vanessa Spina: I don't know what it was. But I remember distinctly that when I was a little girl, I would go through phases where I would tell my mom, like, "I'm only wearing dresses." And then I'd be like, "I'm only wearing pants." [laughs] So it's something that started at a really young age. Now I kind of incorporate all of it. And for a while, just like you, I also wore a black dress every day, I had like 12 of them. And it was my uniform. I posted about it. I have a uniform because Albert Einstein.

Melanie Avalon: Decision fatigue.

Vanessa Spina: Oh, yeah. All these different people saved their decision-making ability by not having to choose what to wear. And so, I was like, "I'm just going to wear a uniform." But now I like color, something shifted in me. We talked about this before, maybe since Luca. I don't know what is, but I am embracing color more [laughs] and all kinds of different styles and things that there was a couple years maybe right before I had Luca, where I was just wearing the black dress every day. And I like switching it up now. And I don't know what causes these shifts or what, but I do know that it started really young for me that I would have those phases.

Melanie Avalon: I love that so much. And appropriately enough, every time I post, like, a non-black dress, everybody gets so excited on Instagram. And I'm like, "Oh, man." So that's what happened with Wicked is like, I wore a green dress because I saw it twice. I wore it the first time, and I was going to wear a black dress the second time, but the response to the green was so supportive and overwhelming. I was like, "Okay, I got to do another green dress."

Vanessa Spina: I love green. Like, emerald green, forest green. It's one of my favorite colors to wear. Like, I've got a bunch of yoga pants in that color and tops, and it's really flattering. I think maybe with blonde; it's really flattering.

Melanie Avalon: So that's the thing. And that's where I was going with this. The reason I have to wear black, the main reason is because of the hair, because it contrasts a blonde, and so it makes your blonde look like fuller. And I'm convinced I only have good hair days with black dresses. And so last night, my pre bed contemplation what I was contemplating-- do they do Halloween? We talked about this. Do they do Halloween in Prague?

Vanessa Spina: It's a mix. Yeah, they're doing it more and more now.

Melanie Avalon: Like, dress up and everything.

Vanessa Spina: Mm-hmm.

Melanie Avalon: Okay, good. So, last night, I was like, "What am I going to be for Halloween this year?" And I was, like, thinking of all the different blondes and what outfits they wear, because I really want to be Princess Odette from this one princess, but she wears a white dress. I can't wear a white dress.

Vanessa Spina: White is really flattering too on blonde, I find.

Melanie Avalon: It's like the same color as the hair, so you don't get the contrast. So, it makes your hair look like less.

Vanessa Spina: No, I think white is, like, one of the most flattering colors on me, anyway. I don't know. It might be the same for you. You got to try it out. White is very flattering on people. Think about wedding dresses. Women look their best.

Melanie Avalon: Well, that's a problem. It's another reason I can't get married.

Vanessa Spina: You can do a different color. You could do a black one or a green one.

Melanie Avalon: I probably would. I might go the Sleeping Beauty route or, like, get a wig and do something crazy.

Vanessa Spina: That's fun.

Melanie Avalon: Do you know what you would want to be?

Vanessa Spina: Oh, I'm trying to think what I did last year. A lot of times I just go for Cats [laughs] because it's so easy.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, my God. It's like Mean Girls. Have you seen Mean Girls?

Vanessa Spina: Yes. I don't remember that reference, but I just make the nose and the whiskers, and I put cat ears on, and I'm good, and I'm in a black dress, and I'm like, "I'm good to go." Last year we did--

Melanie Avalon: Wait, wait, you could be Catwoman. You could wear the tight bodysuit.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah. Well, last year we did a cat theme. We went to a Halloween party here with some friends, and so I got Pete a full lion costume, which I was so proud of him because he fully owned it, fully wore it. Luca was a little lion, and I did a cheetah thing, so I had like cheetah ears and a cheetah dress. And it was so fun and cute and, yeah, it was great for the party, but their place is not that far from us. It's only like a couple of tram stops away. So, we just take the stroller, get on the tram, then you don't have to do the whole car parking, everything. And so many people were staring at us because it's like people are doing it more and more here now, but it's not fully, it's they're being influenced more and more, but still everyone was staring at us, seriously. And Pete was just like owning it. He was in the full lion. And I think he had a beer in his hand as we went down there too. So, it was kind of funny picture, but, yeah, we were cat family, a little pride.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, my gosh, that's amazing. I think the way to my heart is like, a man who would dress up like that and own it.

Vanessa Spina: Oh, yeah. I was so impressed. He's pretty good with stuff like that. And I think it helps that it was for Luca, you know what I mean? Like we rely in like family, cat family. So, I think that made it like it made him want to do it because I don't know if he would have done it, but we did Cleopatra one year. I was Cleopatra, and he did like a-- it was like not Caesar, but he was like a Egyptian God or something like that. And we went out downtown Colorado. That one was fun. We've done a few fun couple costumes. Yeah. I revert to the cat family a lot because it's like the easiest thing to throw together. If you have cat ears in your closet and you have a black eyeliner, it's like you're done.

Melanie Avalon: You're good. It's amazing.

Vanessa Spina: And always looks cute.

Melanie Avalon: I'm feeling Catwoman for you.

Vanessa Spina: Oh, okay.

Melanie Avalon: Because she wears that bodysuit which you're like all about.

Vanessa Spina: [laughs] Latex. I need to get latex.

Melanie Avalon: Yes. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. I would like to be Cinderella before the dress. The issue is she wears her hair up, and I don't have the confidence to do that.

Vanessa Spina: I almost did Cinderella instead of the cat thing, I was like, "Okay, Pete, you be Prince Charming, I'll be Cinderella." And, yeah, I didn't like how the hair was up either. Pete was just not into the Prince Charming costume, he was no. [laughs] So we went with the lions.

Melanie Avalon: It's so funny. Oh, my goodness.

Vanessa Spina: It's blue. I love that color. Blue too.

Melanie Avalon: Me too. So, like, literally last night I was laying there, I was like, "Can I be Cinderella with my hair down?"

Vanessa Spina: You should be a princess, like at Disney. A lot of people do that or you should have been maybe when you were in California. I feel that would have suited you well.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, at Disney.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, oh. Okay, sorry. [chuckles] I was like in life?

[laughter]

Vanessa Spina: At the grocery store.

Melanie Avalon: I'm not tall enough. I'm only tall enough for-- trust me I have gone down-- I went down that rabbit hole.

Vanessa Spina: Oh, do you have to be a certain height? They have a height requirement?

Melanie Avalon: I could have only been Alice or Tinker Bell.

Vanessa Spina: Aww, Tink. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: Who wears her hair up.

Vanessa Spina: Alice. Okay, I could see that too, yeah.

Melanie Avalon: I think they have to be-- All the Disney people are going to fact check me on this. It's either five-- I think you're tall enough.

Vanessa Spina: I love that you went down this route. I'm like, "This would be the perfect thing for you." Of course, you must have thought of it.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, yes. No, I definitely did. Oh, okay. So, oh-- I could be Mulan. Wait-- I do not know if this is accurate. This says you can be 5'3" to 5'7" for Cinderella. Well, I'm not sure, I just know when I looked up-- [laughs] I just know back in the day, I felt like I was not the correct height for the main princesses.

Vanessa Spina: You got Halloween. So, you know--

Melanie Avalon: And last night I was, like, reflecting with gratitude. I was, like, contemplating Halloween. I was like, "How wonderful is it that in our world we have this day where we come together as adults and we all agree to dress up and pretend to be something." Like, "How cool is that?" It's really cool.

Vanessa Spina: When I was little, it was my favorite holiday because of all the candy. [laughs] Yeah, I loved Halloween. So, I still have to figure out what we're going to do with Luca because he doesn't eat sugar. I make him-- we avoid sugar as much as possible, especially the first two years. So, yeah. I don't know, it's tricky. [laughs] Trick or treat. It's very tricky.

Melanie Avalon: It is tricky. Has he had a moment where he had a conventional candy?

Vanessa Spina: No. And actually last night, Pete randomly pulled out some of my dark chocolate with stevia. I don't know why, but he was eating some on the couch and I was like, "You know Luca was asking to have some." And I've given him that before at birthday parties when other kids are having the cake like, I'll give him some Lily's Chocolates and he loves it because he's having a treat with everyone else, he's like bonding. If I haven't made something like I did for his birthday, I'll make things that are naturally sweetened or whatever. But he has never had a standard candy with sugar or anything. And I really felt strongly about that, especially the first few years of protecting them from sugar because there's a nurse in Sweden, I don't know if you've ever heard of her, called Bitten Jonsson, and she is an educator on addiction. And she gave some really amazing seminars. We were both speaking at this conference, Low Carb Universe Conference in Spain together, and she talked about how the sugar when you're little, if you're consuming a lot of sugar, which tons of kids do, it creates this pathway in the brain that later on can make people more susceptible to other addictions.

She's a nurse as well and an educator, and she really does amazing work. But she said if you at least try to stay away from it for the first couple of years, then it won't have the same effect. So, she showed all this amazing research how that pathway would get lit up by sugar, it would then sort of lay the groundwork for alcohol addictions or every kind of addiction because that pathway would be sort of like set up from a really young age.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, I definitely believe that. And, see, that's something I wish more parents knew, because maybe they're-- and again, not that we ever really want to have our kids exposed in large amounts of these foods, but I can see how it would be really overwhelming for new parents, like, "Oh, I'm not going to be able to enforce this on my child for a long time." But knowing that, well, at least those first few years where you really are making all of the decisions and they're like, "You are making the decisions," and you can do that.

Vanessa Spina: I've been really impressed since having Luca and being in a lot of mom communities and groups here how many people also don't give their kids sugar and they're not doing any kind of similar lifestyle to me, not even close. But it's like they know. I'll just meet people randomly and they'll be like, "Oh, I made banana bread, but don't worry, it has no sugar." Like, "No sugar for the kids." So, I'm like, "Okay." This is permeated to larger society. It's not just in the low-carb or paleo or keto or whatever health space. It seems to be a thing that a lot of people know. I can't say that's the case for everyone, but, yeah, I think it's really important information. So, it's the same with screen time. There's a certain period of time, the first couple of years where they're really the most susceptible to those kinds of things.

Melanie Avalon: And to that point, just a little quick PSA about greenwashing. The other night, I wanted to talk about this on the podcast, so this is a perfect segue to it. I was looking at, I think I've talked about this before on this show. I don't eat any of these foods. I like reading about them. It's kind of like how people watching cooking shows and stuff. It makes me sound-- I say it so hesitantly because it makes me sound crazy. Like, "Oh, she reads about the food that she doesn't eat." That's very disordered sounding, but it's because I have so much nostalgia and memory around all these things. So, I like looking at pictures of different cakes and stuff, but I don't actually eat any of them. And sometimes I'll look at like, "Oh, how would I make this?" I'll look up recipes for-- you were talking about making it with stevia, like how would I make it with more healthy ingredients? So, in any case, I came across this brand. I love looking at unicorn themed foods and magical looking foods.

So, I found this brand, and they had a unicorn themed snack thing. And the name of the brand is very encouraging and motivating, and it's about good things and the name of the brand, it's a celebrity brand. And then I was looking at this unicorn bar and all of the things it said, and it said, like, "Full serving of fruits and vegetables, 8 grams of sugar or less, only 80 calories, allergy tested, so it's great for your kids as a lunch item." I'm like, "Oh, this is so great." Like, fruits and vegetables, unicorns' sprinkles. And then I looked at the ingredients. [chuckles] Literally, these are the ingredients. One, rice and then in parentheses, which is rice, brown sugar, salt. Okay, so we already have sugar as the second ingredient. Second ingredient-- because that was in parentheses. Second actual ingredient, glucose syrup. Okay, so another sugar, third ingredient, sugar. Fourth ingredient, shortening, which is palm oil and canola oil. Fifth ingredient, sprinkle, which includes sugar. [laughs] I was like, "Oh, my gosh. It is literally rice, sugar, salt, sugar, sugar, fat, fat, sugar, fat, fat, cornstarch colors." That is the ingredient list.

Vanessa Spina: It makes me so enraged. Like, Scott and I were just talking about that on the last episode, about how many products will say certain things on the front. But then when you check the ingredients, it's like a complete opposite of what they're saying on the front of the package, but that people trust companies to not lie to them. So, they're like, "Oh, if you say it's this, I'll believe you," but you really have to look at the ingredients, because I would say, like, 7 or 8 times out of 10, it's nothing like what they say on the front. And it's so crazy to me, and it makes me so infuriated and the number of people who are eating things that they don't realize because they trust what the front packaging says. And, yeah, we were just talking about this on the last episode, the episode of the podcast that he was on, because it's wild. Like, what people get away with.

Melanie Avalon: It's crazy because literally, the front says fruit and veggies in every bite. Full serving of vegetables. And I'm looking at the ingredients, I'm like, "Where are the vegetables?"

Vanessa Spina: Yeah, where are they hiding?

Melanie Avalon: Where? Is it the rice?

Vanessa Spina: Make it make sense. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: So, like, way down in the list, after natural flavor, listeners are probably familiar, but it goes in order of concentration. So, when you're, like, at the end, you're like, barely anything there. So, way at the end, it has fruit and vegetable blend as almost the last ingredient. And then it lists, like, apple extract, onion extract. Is that the fruit and veggies?

Vanessa Spina: Yeah, it's like a sprinkling. [laughs] It's really upsetting.

Melanie Avalon: It's mind blowing.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah. We were just talking about that and how it'll say avocado oil mayo and then you read the ingredients and the first three are like canola oil, this oil, that oil. Or like we were talking about with protein powder, it'll say whey protein isolate. And you turn it around, the main and first ingredient is whey protein concentrate and then a bunch of other fillers. And then, oh, yeah, we sprinkled it a little Whey Protein Isolate, but we're calling it Whey Protein Isolate on the front. And it's crazy, you just have to advocate for yourself. You have to read the ingredients if you're buying anything that has packaging, you really have to because for some reason, you can say a whole bunch of stuff on the front and then actually have completely different ingredients.

Melanie Avalon: It's such a problem. Was it Gabrielle's book? Gabrielle Lyon's book? Have you finished reading her book?

Vanessa Spina: I haven't yet. No.

Melanie Avalon: I think it was her-- yeah, it is her book. I learned something in her book that I did not know, which was about the regulation differences between foods like meat, dairy, eggs, like whole foods basically compared to packaged foods. And so, it's like two different industries. And so basically the packaged food people can make all of these health claims and they can make anti claims against the meat and dairy industry and even like produce, the whole food side of things, they can't make claims, at least not to that extent.

Vanessa Spina: It's such a crazy double standard.

Melanie Avalon: It's like so crazy. It's like the actual [laughs] healthy foods, they can't really say they're healthy-- Oh, the reason behind it, now it's coming back to me. The reason behind it is because it's set up differently for the competition. This is so fascinating because the meat and dairy industry is not brand driven and I'm probably not telling this exactly the way it is, but this is the general vibe because they're not like-- I mean, there are brands, but there's not like one brand that's trying to be the thing. They work as a collective. So, the meat industry will promote the meat industry rather than promote one brand and the dairy industry promotes-- that's why you have the vague Got Milk campaign rather than for one milk brand. So that's why they have these laws. It's so that one "producer" can't compete with another producer. It's well intentioned, it's so that they all support each other. But the way it manifests is they can't make claims, like health claims. Isn't that so interesting?

Vanessa Spina: Yeah. It's so crazy. And it kind of reminds me of the double standard with research. Like if you are doing non sponsored, non-corporate sponsored research, you have to report everything. But then if you're doing corporately sponsored research, like if a fast-food company or a big brand that makes sugar drinks is sponsoring a study, they can choose whether to publish or not publish the findings if the findings don't line up with what they want to sell. Whereas if it's non-sponsored, non-corporate, then you have to publish everything. [chuckles] They can hide things. They can suppress things. The double standards make me so angry. [laughs] That's why different forms like long form media, like podcasts, make me so excited. And I know it's the same for you because we can actually get into these topics more deeply.

We can talk about what does the research actually say beyond the clickbait headline, what's actually happening here. And the long form media is the only way to really get into these topics in a deep way, because so much content is just like for clicks, and clickbait and everything and it just drives these messages that certain companies and brands want to get across. Podcasting is like, to me, one of the antidotes to all the misinformation out there, especially when you can really dive deep and you can talk to experts who can help illuminate things and people like Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, she's been become such an amazing advocate for protein and also just like shedding light on topics that are difficult to talk about sometimes.

Melanie Avalon: I agree so much and I think it's really inspiring because I do get concerned and you referenced it just now, but the attention span of us modern humans, we have such a small attention span and can only look at really quick things. I think it's in favor of humanity that people still listen to podcasts and will listen to a long episode. It gives me faith in humanity.

Vanessa Spina: Absolutely.

Melanie Avalon: On that note, 40 minutes into our show. [laughs] Shall we answer some listener questions?

Vanessa Spina: Yes, I would love to. And it's been good just like catching up with you a little bit. I feel like we needed to do that as well. But, yeah, I'm excited to dig into some questions.

Melanie Avalon: So, would you like to read our question from Kayla?

Vanessa Spina: So, our first question is from Kayla Party and she says, "Hi, Melanie and Vanessa. Thank you both for all of the research and time you both give to the health and wellness space. I have learned so much from you both. My questions are regarding night shift work. I have been working night shift as a nurse for the last six years. I also had my three babies." Wow. Congratulations. "Ages five years to four months during this time. I'm getting ready to go back to work after my most recent baby and would love any tips you might have for getting sleep during the day. My room is very dark. I use white noise and earplugs and take magnesium and melatonin prior. I know this is not ideal in general and hope to get a day shift position soon, but any tips in the meantime would be great. Also, since I am sleeping during the days, would using a red light be beneficial? Oh, and I know everyone is talking about morning light right now, but is this helpful before I go to sleep or should I avoid light before sleep? Should I wait to get a lot of daylight in the afternoon when I wake would that have the same effect? Thank you so much. Kayla."

Melanie Avalon: All right, Kayla. Thank you so much for your question. And like Vanessa said, congratulations on your babies. And also thank you for what you do with your night shift work just as a gratitude moment for all of the night shift workers out there because it's necessary for our world and think about how much happens with night shift workers. And I don't even like saying it because I don't like putting negative spin in people's heads about things. But there's so many studies on the negative health effects of night shift work, it's pretty shocking all the conditions it's linked to, especially metabolic dysfunction. So, thank you to the night shift workers who do those jobs for us and experience the potential physical negative health effects from that. So, to answer your question, Kayla, I did a lot of research on this. Okay, to start things off, I want to say there's a lot of studies on night shift work and how bad it is for your sleep.

That said, I encourage you above all else to not let that saturate your mindset because that's pretty much the worst thing you can do to not sleep is to be stressed about not sleeping. That is just going to make it worse. So, I encourage you and all night shift workers to have an empowered mindset about what can you do to take charge of your sleep. And maybe even on the flip side, think about all the people who don't sleep well anyways and they're not night shift working. You as a night shift worker can be so in tune with your sleep and really get a pattern that works for you that A, I think you can combat it and get decent sleep. I'm going to talk about different ways. And then B, you can maintain these sleep skills for life. So, empowerment moment for you. So, we have circadian rhythms in our body. We have clocks all throughout our body that determine our rhythms, and in general, they are informed by the rotation of the Earth. So, we are in line with this 24 hours-ish rotation of the Earth. And for the normal person, that's going to be determined by typical light and dark cycles as it is outside. And then we live in accordance with that and that also relates to our eating, which can affect it.

There are these things called zeitgebers, which I think is such a fun word and it's basically all of the different cues that inform the circadian rhythm. So again, light is a very prominent one, but also things like temperature affects it, eating affects it. So, I'm going to talk about how you can maybe use food and fasting to help with all of this. When that gets disrupted, it's called chronodisruption and it's just not good for you [chuckles] health wise. And that's what can happen with shift work. So there have been a lot of different ways that they've looked at for people to combat the issues with shift work, which is there are a few different issues. One, it messes up your sleep when you do get it during the daylight hours. And then B, people while they're working there are issues with having fatigue or lack of alertness because it's during a time when they should be sleeping. So, one strategy, and this is to enhance alertness while you're in the shift. And this is something that I realize is probably not practical for most people, but maybe some people. The research does suggest that if you can have a nap break, again, I don't even know how this would be possible for people in a shift work situation. But if you can have a single nap break for two hours in the middle of your shift, that actually helps with alertness in the second part of the shift. So that is an option that I realize is not very accessible.

So, beyond that, the sleeping around, it basically what you need to do is you need to find the pattern that works for you and it's going to be different for different people. What's probably important, like finding the pattern that works and then sticking to it consistently while you're doing the night shift. So, for some people, what that is, there's three basic options.

One option is you get done from your shift, you immediately go to bed, you get your eight hours, you wake up and then you're awake for a bit and then you go into work. That's one option. Second option is you get back, you stay up, so you keep going with your "day." And then you go to bed like eight hours before your shift is going to start again. And then you wake up and then go to your shift, so that's the second option. Third option, some people come back, sleep, wake up, do stuff during the day, go back to sleep and then go to their shift. And so again, different strategies but experiment and try to find the one that works for you and then stick to it because what you want to do, you want to give your new circadian rhythm, a rhythm that works so you're not constantly changing all the time because that's what's even worse for your health, your metabolic health, your sleep, all the things, find the one that works for you in the shift. You want to actually-- I know it's during the night, but you actually want to stimulate daytime because you want to tell your body that this is like daytime, this is when I'm awake. So, this is actually when you would want to be exposed to blue light and things like that. But then when you're getting to the end of your shift and you're going to go into your wind down mode, that's when you want to start being very intense with having a pattern that will tell your body that it's going to be, "sleeping time," "night," even though it's not.

So, Kayla, you say you're going back to work, so I'm assuming you're going in somewhere for this shift. I would start the-- depending on what you're doing, if you decide that you want to sleep immediately after the shift, I would start that wind-down routine, like on the way back. So, get a pair of blue light blocking glasses. Definitely get a pair of blue light blocking glasses. And when you are going back, put them on-- especially because you're going to be combating the daylight and you need to actually be telling your body to be winding down. So blue light blocking glasses, we love Bon Charge. I love bond charge. You can go to boncharge.com and the coupon code IFPODCAST will get you a discount. So definitely get some of those. Have a very intense wind-down routine that is telling your body that it's time to go to sleep. And I was reading about this, this is interesting. I've experienced this. I have a very intense wind-down routine. I do it every single night. It's multifactored. I use all Joovv red light therapy devices to create red light in my apartment. I have blue light blocking glasses on, I have the screens that block the red light from my devices. I go to YouTube and they have these different frequency wind down tracks. I use one called Love Frequency and it's so calming. I put that on and that's like my wind-down routine. And then I actually have my evening meal, which helps me further wind down. And I can initiate this wind down pattern pretty much at any time and will fall asleep.

So even if I'm going to bed later that night or going to bed earlier, I can start the routine and then I will pretty much be good to go at a certain time later. And the thing that I learned that lined up with that is that it's not so much the amount of time spent in each phase of your wind down, it's the order. It's the order and doing that order. So, if you can create a wind-down routine that includes a shower, maybe like journaling, having your blue light blocking glasses, maybe eating, I'll talk about that. And even if it's like crunched because you get back later than normal, as long as you're implementing that order, you can teach your brain to wind down. And so that's what I meant earlier about you can get some pretty cool sleep skills that you're going to be able to maintain for life.

As far as melatonin supplementation so the cool thing about melatonin, and I know this is debated and some people will disagree with me on this. I think it's a really cool tool in your arsenal for something like this because melatonin basically tells your brain that it is time to go to sleep. It doesn't help you stay asleep. So, it's not super hardcore going to benefit you with the sleep at length and quality, but it's going to help with that initiation of like we are now shutting down, which is hard to do when it's daylight outside. So that's why I think melatonin can be a great supplement for this and it's cleared pretty rapidly after release, so you don't have to worry so much about it having long term lasting negative effects. You can really use it as like a tool is my point. And I did find studies on this so I will put links to them in the show notes. I found studies on melatonin supplementation in night workers.

And this is weird, I'm not really sure what's going on here, but in one study, they found that melatonin for night shift workers, that it helped them with their daytime sleep, but only on the first day that they used it, which that doesn't sound very helpful. I just have questions, because that's very odd to me. But they did find that it helped more people who demonstrated difficulty sleeping, they found melatonin more helpful, and of importance, they didn't have any hangover effects from melatonin administration. And then the conclusion was they said that although melatonin can help night workers obtain more sleep during the day, they're still likely to face difficulties working at night because of circadian rhythm misalignment. So, melatonin might help you sleep during the day but that doesn't get rid of the issues of the night shift work in general. There was another study I found, and this was also in night shift workers, they found a 20% reduction in circadian misalignment when people used exogenous melatonin. And this was all chronotypes. So, this was cool because they looked at the different chronotypes. So basically, people who are like night people versus morning people, they found melatonin for all of them helped 20% with the circadian issues. So, I would use melatonin, I would use it before you have your sleep period.

And then on the food side of things, I actually think if you can find a pattern that works for you that using fasting and your meal is a great way to help create the rhythm that you want to have. And what I mean by that is we see there's a lot of studies with jetlag and fasting and using fasting with travel. And then you go and you eat, like, basically, you travel while fasted. And then when you get to your new location, you eat your meal in timing with the meal of that new location. And that helps sort of like reset your rhythm. I think that you could use this for night shift work. So basically, creating a pattern where, and again, it's going to depend what type of fasting you do and what meal works for you. But for me, I sleep really well after eating, that's what tells me it's time to sleep. So, if I was doing night shift work, what I would do, is I would do the shift, I would come back, I would eat, and I would use that meal as a way to tell my body that we're going to bed.

I have not been a night shift worker, but I did spend six months doing background on a lot of movies and television shows. And we would have night shoots, which is basically like night shift work. And when we would do that, I would use my fasting and my eating window to deal with it. So basically, I would get back during the day from a night shift and I would eat my dinner [chuckles] because I've been doing intermittent fasting one meal a day. So, I would still eat my big dinner and then I would just crash and it kind of convinced my body that was like my normal night. And then I would wake up and then go to the night shoot. So, if you can find a fasting and eating pattern that kind of helps and train the rhythm that you want, I think that could be a very powerful tool. And then also just any other modalities that you can implement to help with your sleep. So, there was a 2020 review on night shift work and using aromatherapy, and they did conclude that aromatherapy likely has benefits for sleep with night shift work. So that's something to consider if there's like an essential oil that works for you. I know for me lavender has a very calming effect. I like using that. I would definitely get my Magnesium Nightcap. Shout out, today's the last day that you can get a subscription.

Again, that's a magnesium threonate that crosses the blood brain barrier and helps with relaxation, rest, sleep and mood. So that's at avalonx.us, you can get a 25% off for life subscription right now. If it's after that, you can use the coupon code MELANIEAVALON for 10% off. And then your actual sleep environment, it sounds like Kayla, you're doing all the things. Very dark room is very important, white noise, earplugs. You take magnesium. If you're not taking the Magnesium Nightcap, definitely get that one. You're taking the melatonin, temperature is important you want a cool room. So, if you can turn down the AC, if you can get a chilling mattress, I love chilly sleep, their OOLER. It's a game changer for me for sleeping. That's something to consider. I do have a code for them. I think this is the code, but I might have to double check and put in the show notes. I think it's MA25 for 25% off the Cube and MA15 for 15% off the OOLER. But again, I will confirm and put the correct codes in the show notes. So that's something to consider.

Oh, and then one last thing. I was reading as part of your wind-down routine. So, people often will talk about journaling and things like that. It's been shown that it's more helpful instead of journaling about what you did that day to make a worry list or a to-do list. So have a list. I know I've had Dr. Kirk Parsley on my show multiple times. He talks about having this worry list, which is where right before bed, he swears that it's a game changer for all of his patients. You write down everything that you want to worry about. So then when you wake up, if you can't sleep because you have worries or you wake up with worries, you just think, "Well, they're on the worry list, so I don't have to worry about them right now. I can worry about them tomorrow." And also writing a to-do list. So, studies have shown writing a to-do list actually can help with falling asleep, because then you know that everything for tomorrow you have on your list. I do also really like Dr. Parsley's Sleep Remedy. The audience loves that one. That's amazing for helping fall asleep. It has all of the ingredients your brain naturally needs to fall asleep without pharmaceuticals. So that's at melanieavalon.com/sleepremedy.com with the coupon code MELANIEAVALONE. And then I know she has questions about red light. Did you want to comment on any [laughs] of that, Vanessa? That was a lot.

Vanessa Spina: So amazing. That was one of the most thorough answers I've ever heard [laughs] on any podcast for any question. It was absolutely brilliant. I mean you-- like, that is a guide. I can't tell you how many times I get questions about night shift, and I'm just like, again, I feel the same way. So appreciative of our night shift workers. They do so much for us, not at risk of their health, but they do so much for us while potentially compromising their future health. And the fact that you just provided this game, I think you should have an eBook or something on this. [laughs] It's so helpful. I'm sure that anyone listening who does night shift that'll be so helpful for them. You researched it so much, you provided so many tips. I think you hit just about everything. I think there was a little question about getting morning light. And, yes, it is very popular right now to get morning light. I'm a huge fan of morning light because of the hormonal cascades when certain wavelengths, especially UVA light in the morning are detected. But I think, just like you were thinking, it's probably going to work against you to have morning light signaling that it is morning and time to start your day when you're about to go to sleep. So, I would just do what you said, which is like sleep, and then get up and get as much daylight as you can and consider that your morning light, because you're not going to be getting those frequencies of midday, you'll be getting the later afternoon sun, and I think that's fine.

Now, red light tends to be really beneficial for people at sunrise and sunset. So, if I were you, I would create your own sunrise when you wake up and do red light therapy, either in ambient mode or do an actual red light therapy session on your body, maybe, but on your face. Have all that melanopsin in your skin and your eyes detect that red light and you'll set it up as though it is sunrise for you. Some people recommend doing it at sunset as well. I would just do it at sunrise for you, which your sunrise would be when you wake up in the afternoon. So just like, go into your bathroom or whichever room or your bedroom and just do some red light therapy like first thing.

I in the morning, especially in the winter time when it's still dark out. I get up, and I usually take Luca to the bath, and I put the red light, I put my Tone LUX Sapphire on, and it just illuminates the room, and it's kind of shining in our direction, and it gives our bodies that signal that it is sunrise, even though we're not getting that outside. And a lot of times I'm up so early that we do get some natural sunrise just by going outside because I like to go outside with him in the morning. If we don't, I just turn on the red light panel in the bathroom while I'm either showering or Luca's having his bath and I'm kind of doing my morning routine. So, I think it would be an amazing way to set up your own circadian clock with that. I guess you could call it artificial [laughs] sunrise. But it is the same wavelengths that you'd be getting at sunrise when that red light is so predominant.

So, I love that you thought of that as a potential tool, as a potential therapeutic intervention to use. So, I hope that you let us know how all this goes. Melanie gave so many incredible tips and suggestions there and let us know if you implement any of them and how it's going for you, because I think it's just a question that so many people have and there are so many night shift workers I know that listen to both of our podcasts and this podcast as well. So this is really, really helpful information. I want to give you, like, a standing ovation on your answer. It was so great. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: No, you're so kind. I learned so much. I didn't realize there was all these different approaches and studies on these different approaches to night shift work. Everything that you just said, yeah, I agree so much, like, hack the light. [chuckles] It's like biohacking. I would definitely get those light blocking glasses, and like Vanessa said and I said, when you're coming back from the like, avoid the morning light, like you wear the glasses and then once you get in, get your red light device and turn it on to create that evening feel in your apartment or your house. And then I love the idea of Vanessa to-- again when you wake up using the red light for the morning, like the morning vibe, I love it.

I did find one study, one last study, and I hadn't experienced this before. They gave snippets of the study and then make you buy it. So, it was such a tease. It has all these little paragraphs, and then it's just like, dot, dot, dot. And I'm like, [chuckles] "I can't read the rest of it." But it was called "Controlled light exposure and intermittent fasting as treatment strategies for metabolic syndrome and gut microbiome dysregulation in night shift workers."

So, I really want to read the whole thing, but the snippets that I got from it was basically that they do think that using intermittent fasting can be a way to combat the metabolic syndrome issues of night shift work. And it might be how it affects the gut microbiome, which is super cool. Yeah, so like Vanessa said, Kayla, definitely let us know how it goes and what you learn. And just to end on a good note about it, I really hope you can feel empowered about taking charge of your sleep and gaining all these awesome sleep skills rather than being super stressed about it, because that's not going to help.

Vanessa Spina: I love that point. It's the mindset is so powerful.

Melanie Avalon: And it feels super cool. I really do mean that about my wind-down routine with my meal, and everything is so intense that I really feel confident that I could go most places and implement my routine and probably fall asleep.

Vanessa Spina: It's so funny because as you were saying that, I was like, "I've always wondered, what her wind-down routine?" Because sometimes we'll be texting and you're like, "I'm about to wind down or I'm winding down," and I'm like, "Okay, I feel like this is like a thing, the winding-down." And at some point, we need to talk about it because I want to know what your winding-down routine is, but I can tell it's something that you're super intentional about, and I love that.

Melanie Avalon: Okay, just to further clarify really quickly, I do all those things with the light and the sound, and I'm still doing work and blue light blocking glasses, but then when I'm really winding down, I stop texting people. So, I stop all social interactions because that tells that's something I probably should have added earlier that can be stimulating to you. Like when you're sleeping, you're not talking to people. I stop all social interactions, and then that's when I enter my meal period, and that's when I start really eating a lot.

Vanessa Spina: So, your wind down is before you have your main meal.

Melanie Avalon: It's like leading up to it, drinking some wine, doing some work, got the light going. And then when I actually start eating, that's when I cut off communication with people and it's just like me time. I don't check email.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah. I mean I put my phone, I plug my phone in and leave it in the kitchen so that I'm not having it at the table or anything like that.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, I have it, but I'm just like reading books on it. [chuckles]

Vanessa Spina: Oh, okay. That makes sense.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. And that's part of my wind down too is like, I have to read something. It's work, but it really tells my brain that I'm going to bed. And that's why I meant earlier about the order of things. Even if I get back super late, I do all the things. I still read a little bit of a book. I still do everything. Oh, and this is one last thing to keep in mind, just how powerful food can be with your circadian rhythm. Think about the fact that yes, light is there and it tells you when to go to bed and when to wake up. If you're really, really hungry, you will probably not be able to sleep. And on the flip side, it could be the middle of the day and you ate a huge massive meal and you need a nap. So, food can have a really intense effect on your rhythm and I think we can use that to our advantage. On that note,-

Vanessa Spina: Love it.

Melanie Avalon: -if you would like to submit your own questions for the show, you can directly email questions@ifpodcast.com or you can go to ifpodcast.com and you can submit questions there. Also, join my Facebook group IF Biohackers: Intermittent Fasting + Real Foods + Life. I ask them there for questions, so definitely comment on those posts. And also, if you have any questions about anything, it's a great community to join and talk about all the things. And you can follow us on Instagram. We are @ifpodcast. I am @melanieavalon and Vanessa is @ketogenicgirl. Okay, I think that's all the things. Anything from you Vanessa, before we go.

Vanessa Spina: I can't wait for your eBook to be out because I need know make copies available for all the night shift workers who contact me and ask about what they can do to hack the night shift. So, yeah, let us know [laughs] when your eBook is built.

Melanie Avalon: Maybe I will make a guide.

Vanessa Spina: I think it would be amazing. There are so many night shift workers and people who, unfortunately, they would love to get a day shift at some point. They're hopeful that they will be able to, but again, they're making those sacrifices for the rest of us, as you so beautifully pointed out. And I think, yeah, I mean, I know you're doing so many things, but maybe just something to think about.

Melanie Avalon: I actually might do that. I could get the transcript of this and I could hire somebody to throw it into something and then I could just design it a little bit.

Vanessa Spina: Totally. That would be fun.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, look at you inspiring me.

Vanessa Spina: I love it. I think it would be amazing. But, yeah, I had so much fun with you, as usual. And, yeah, looking forward to the next one and catching you next week.

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

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

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Aug 13

Episode 330: Pregnancy, Fertility, Red Light, Indoor Air Quality, Animal Fat, Cholesterol, Cortisol, Coffee, Leptin, Insulin, Fat Burning, And More!

GET THE EPISODE ON APPLE PODCASTS!

Forever Strong: A New, Science-Based Strategy for Aging Well

Welcome to Episode 330 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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Listener Q&A: sunshine - Is just coffee, first thing in the morning, okay?

Listener Q&A: Sunny - I have the same question re: clean fast with coffee. Is it a stressor?

Coffee inhibits the reactivation of glucocorticoids by 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1: A glucocorticoid connection in the anti-diabetic action of coffee?

The acute effects of coffee consumption on blood glucose and it’s relationship with serum cortisol and insulin in females

DANGER COFFEE: Get 10% Off At melanieavalon.com/dangercoffee With The Code MELANIEAVALON!

TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Welcome to Episode 330 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 cohost, 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.

Hi, everybody, and welcome. This is Episode number 330 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon, and I'm here with Vanessa Spina.

Vanessa Spina: Hello, everybody.

Melanie Avalon: How are you today, Vanessa?

Vanessa Spina: I am doing awesome. How are you?

Melanie Avalon: I am good. We were just saying it's been a while since we've talked. It's been quite a while because you were traveling and things came up, but here we are. So, we're excited.

Vanessa Spina: So excited to be back here with you. I've been looking forward to it, as always and yeah, I'm feeling good. I'm feeling energized and [laughs] ready to go.

Melanie Avalon: Okay. I have so many things to talk about. I have one random question for you, though. I listened to your beautiful episode announcing your pregnancy on your podcast, which was really special to listen to and hear your backstory and everything that you've gone through, and congratulations again.

Vanessa Spina: Thank you. This is it.

Melanie Avalon: Wait, have we talked about it?

Vanessa Spina: No, this is it like, officially sharing it on this podcast that yeah, I'm pregnant again, and super, super excited about it. And when this episode drops, we'll be at 21 weeks. And the day that this is coming out, we're doing it at 21 weeks. We have the big ultrasound, the anatomy scan, and yeah, it's been so exciting. And the baby's due date is December 25th, which is absolutely hilarious. He's going to hate his birthday. I mean, he or she is going to hate their birthday. [laughs] Yeah, we're just so over the moon, so excited. But thank you for the kind words about it, and I've been excited to share it on this podcast too.

Melanie Avalon: Okay, that was a complete fail. I totally forgot that we hadn't-- I would have done [laughs] that differently, but we've talked about it so much and I listened to your episode. Okay, friends, that was a big announcement. [laughs] It just happened. Oh, man. Because I was going to ask you the most random question about it, but first, I'm going to focus on the moment. Yes, I am so excited for you. I'm living vicariously through you because I think, like we've talked about, I don't really anticipate ever having children. I mean, I won't say never.

Vanessa Spina: I used to say the same thing, girl. And here I am like, baby number two coming so yeah, you never know.

Melanie Avalon: This is true. But in the meantime, [laughs] while I'm not anticipating it, I'm just living vicariously through you because I feel like we would approach it very similarly, like the pregnancy experience.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah. Probably very similarly. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: I'm just so happy for you.

Vanessa Spina: Thank you.

Melanie Avalon: I'm still going to ask my really random question because I was listening to your episode. We can put a link to it in the show notes where you talk in detail about your whole experience thus far. What do you think causes food aversions in pregnancy, especially things like meat, because you think with meat that it's like the most nutrient dense thing. But you were talking about how in your first pregnancy you had meat aversions and you were hoping that you don't get them this time around.

Vanessa Spina: Yes. It's so funny because I've talked to so many friends about this, especially people who are in the paleo space, who are in the keto or carnivore space. Why do you think that is? Because it obviously makes life a little trickier if you're mostly a meat eater and suddenly you are having meat aversions. I had aversions to steak, which is the most common one of all my friends and other moms who are similarly inclined lifestyle and diet wise. This time I haven't had it so far. And the predominant theory is that because of potential pathogens in like, for example, steak that is not fully cooked, because the risk is high from that it's almost safer to just avoid it. I think that it's probably a good theory. I also think it could have to do with other things like what your iron status is, because this time I was slightly anemic in the first trimester.

I actually have to check on how that's going, but I sort of ramped up my consumption of beef, especially because it has so much bioavailable heme iron in it and I wanted to kind of compensate for that a little bit. And I haven't had any meat aversions. So, I'm wondering because my theory was that maybe it has something to do with how many nutrients you need from that certain protein. And maybe if last time I was eating so much beef already going into the pregnancy that maybe I hit some kind of limit where my body was like, "Okay, we have enough of these nutrients, so we're going to have you crave chicken." Because that's what I was craving, [chuckles] it was chicken. So, I was making chicken fajitas like every night. But this time so far, I haven't had it at all. And for me, last time it started in the second trimester, so I may still be proven wrong, but I think this time because I was slightly anemic that my body needs the iron. And this time I'm not having any aversions. Like, we just had steak for dinner like an hour ago. So definitely not having any aversions. But when you have the aversions, it's really intense because a lot of people you can't smell it, you can't be around it. It's a pretty powerful instinct. There're some really interesting theories about it.

Melanie Avalon: Okay, wow. I have some follow-up thoughts and questions. Okay, so one that was going to be my two theories was the pathogens. My caveat about the pathogens is I find it interesting that we would have evolved enough for our bodies to know that we eat red meat more likely raw, but we typically cook other meats. Like, it's interesting that it would-- if that's the reasoning, it's interesting that our body would distinguish, "Oh, red meat is what we typically eat raw." But maybe and then two, I was going to say the iron, but I was thinking maybe it was because of avoiding nutrient overload, like iron and then the tangent from iron that you are going to like and you might be familiar with this. You probably are. So yesterday, actually two stories here. One, I interviewed a guest yesterday and have you ever lost an episode or like, have you ever recorded and you weren't recording?

Vanessa Spina: It's like the most brutal, painful thing ever. [laughs] Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: It's so awful. Like, we recorded like 30 minutes, and then his mic messed up. So, we started again and we recorded another, like, 40 minutes. I realized that second 40 minutes, I never hit start. Like, I never hit record. We were like, "We're just going to put a pin in this." [laughs] We're going to come back later. Because it's so defeating. It's like--

Vanessa Spina: Yeah, you can't do it the third time.

Melanie Avalon: Like, I can't. But in any case, it was an episode on red light therapy and specifically, like, laser implementation because LEDs as well, but also the laser modality. This man is so knowledgeable. His name is Forrest Smith. He has a company called Kineon.

Vanessa Spina: Oh, I got to interview him.

Melanie Avalon: He has a modular device that you actually strap to your body. So, it's for targeted treatment of my knee issues and it's really great. And he's honestly, I think he's the most knowledgeable person I've ever talked to about red light, which is saying a lot. Speaking of iron and hemoglobin, did you know that red light interacts with the photoreceptors on our hemoglobin?

Vanessa Spina: No, I didn't.

Melanie Avalon: Oh. So let me tell you. [laughs] So apparently there're photoreceptors on our hemoglobin. The receptors on hemoglobin attach to both oxygen and nitrous oxide. And when red light interacts with these photoreceptors, it makes it drop the nitrous oxide, which goes into the bloodstream, then that has systemic health benefits. And then the hemoglobin can take in more oxygen. So, it increases the oxygen carrying potential of your hemoglobin. So, it's like a double whammy.

Vanessa Spina: That's amazing because a lot of the benefits from red light therapy are attributed to the nitric oxide. So that's a really interesting sort of, like, other side to it that I didn't realize that was happening. I'm going to be diving deep into that, probably late into the night.

Melanie Avalon: I know. It was so exciting. He was, like, blowing my mind in so many ways. He also talked about a study where they studied athletes with ACL injuries. And those athletes, if you have an intense injury like that, you're more likely to have cardiovascular tissue inflammation later in life. And it's because, literally, the inflammation from the injury travels to the cardiac tissue.

Vanessa Spina: Oh, wow. That's crazy. The body just is so incredibly miraculous and amazing. It just never ceases to amaze me. All the new things we're learning too about it.

Melanie Avalon: It's just crazy. And he was talking about that because he was saying, if you have an acute injury, how important it is to treat it with red light to help mitigate things like that.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah, the red light is amazing. The whole reason why I really got into red light and wanted to create my own panels was because of my fertility journey and I wanted to really optimize our chances of conceiving. And I was going through all of these studies on red light that especially Japan and Denmark have been doing because they've been facing really low fertility rates. So, they've been sponsoring a lot of research on it. And the one in Japan is interesting, it had really good results, but the one in Denmark was actually incredible. And they had all these women who had been completely resistant to getting pregnant, and they did these red light therapy sessions with a laser, speaking of lasers, with something, a device called the GigaLaser. And they had such high rates of pregnancy, caring to full term and one woman was 50.

And when I was reading it, it just gave me so much encouragement because I had a loss as I mentioned on the episode. And it's not that I suddenly thought like, "Oh, well, now I'm not fertile, but I was starting to feel like maybe I need some extra help or boost." And so, I used the frequency, the wavelengths of light from that study to create the Sapphire panel. So, it has four wavelengths in it. And the Sapphire, which I use and have been using every day, I use it specifically on my abdomen because a fascinating thing about our ovaries is it's, as you well know, like, one of the areas we have the most density of mitochondria along with the heart and brain. And so, in the Danish study, they used the GigaLaser over the abdomen and they hit them with, like the number of joules was like 20,000 or something. It was like a crazy number with this laser. And all these women who were resistant to getting pregnant, got pregnant, had full-term pregnancies, and it was just like, so exciting.

I was like, this makes me want to create a panel that is specifically for this for myself. [laughs] I do think it probably boosted my fertility because the biggest thing as women get older is egg quality declines, and it's actually because of the mitochondria. And there's a number of things that can happen in addition to the mitochondria, just like losing steam or getting damaged over time. There's also a loss of CoQ10, which is one of the electron acceptors in the electron transport chain. So, I started doing the red light to support the mitochondria there in that area, and then also taking CoQ10. And yeah, it made me really passionate. So much so that I was like, [laughs] "I have to create my own line of red light therapy panels." But it's just like my personal story. But I also know that a lot of women deal with issues conceiving, and it's such an emotional, difficult thing for people that if I could create something that would help boost that in any way, it would just make me so happy.

Melanie Avalon: That's amazing. So, the wavelength is different than the normal wavelengths that people use.

Vanessa Spina: Every kind of red light therapy panel has different wavelengths in it depending on the device. And the standard wavelengths that you see in a lot of red light therapy panels is 660 and 850 nanometer. So, 661 is red, and the other is the infrared, which is the 850 nanometers. So, I added the 630 and 830 nanometer, which were the wavelengths used in that Danish study. So, I wanted to custom create because a lot of red light therapy panels will just have those two frequencies because they have been supported in the research. But those, specifically the 630 and 830 were used in that Danish study. So, I wanted to customize it to have those four. So, you don't always have four or you don't have them in that specific range. It kind of depends on the device.

Melanie Avalon: That is so cool. You know what I'm thinking we should do, [laughs] since I'm launching my EMF blocking product line and there're so many studies on EMFs and fertility, we should do like a fertility bundle [laughs] and it'll be like, buy the EMF blocking products.

Vanessa Spina: That would be amazing because I stopped using my AirPods at the same time about a year ago. And it was also because I didn't want that to interfere with my mitochondria, my fertility either. So, it's a really good combination.

Melanie Avalon: It's crazy. We should brainstorm some sort of promo. How can people get the Sapphire?

Vanessa Spina: If you go to ketogenicgirl.com, you can check out the Tone LUX line of red light therapy panels. And the Sapphire is like the big one, the half body panel that has those four wavelengths. And you can use it for any area of the body. I use it on my legs. I use it to precondition my legs before workouts. It's just a really powerful panel. So, I was using it on my abdomen a lot. I'm not using it on my abdomen as much right now because I'm pregnant, but I'm still using it on my face and other parts of my body and also for ambient lighting around the room, like I know you like to do too.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, yes. [laughs] That's my favorite use of it, which I know is probably most people like lower on the totem pole. But, yeah, I'm all about the ambient lighting.

Vanessa Spina: Yes. And I think the other thing that I have been and we talked about this on another episode, really researching is air quality and getting an air filter that is HEPA grade. And I know you know so much about air filtration, and that's kind of the next thing that I want to-- even though I am pregnant now, I'm still taking CoQ10. I'm still doing red light therapy. I'm still doing things to make sure because those things, they improve egg quality, but they also just improve your overall health and longevity and everything. So, I've been reading about how air quality and having an air purifier is so helpful for the mitochondria, because carbon monoxide is killer for the mitochondria. So, you really have to have really high-quality air.

Melanie Avalon: Were you using air purifiers historically?

Vanessa Spina: No.

Melanie Avalon: No.

Vanessa Spina: [laughs] This is a new thing for me. Okay, I have layers of different things that it's been, like, a thing I've wanted to look into for a while, but haven't.

Melanie Avalon: Okay, wait. Pause. Oh, my goodness I'm like, then again, I feel like the air quality-- I don't know. Is the air quality better in Prague than here?

Vanessa Spina: [laughs] No. And it was really bad when I was growing up in China. It was like, horrible, so yeah.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, my goodness. Okay, Vanessa, we got to get you on team-- Well, I guess you're-- I guess you're here.

Vanessa Spina: But I want to be educated. Like, I've been learning so much from you.

Melanie Avalon: Okay. I'm obsessed with air quality. I have so many. I mean, I go overboard. I have experimented with a lot of different brands, and it's overwhelming, basically, because, think about it, we're always talking about cleaning up our exposure toxins and our food, and then we think about our cleaning products, and then a little bit like our skincare and makeup. I mean, I'm talking about it all the time. But our air is what we are constantly in 24/7 [chuckles] and so many of us spend our time indoors, and they've done studies and apparently indoor air and this is for the US. So, again, I'm not sure about Prague, but in the US the indoor air can be 100 times more polluted than outdoor air, which is crazy. I just got some facts about this. We actually breathe around 30,000 gallons of air per day, which is just so much. There're all these different compounds that can just accumulate. So, people think about things like bacteria and viruses, but mold, VOCs, all of these chemicals from all of our products that we have. So, I am all about the air filters and purifiers. And so actually, we have a new sponsor on this show that I'm so excited about because I had been using their devices for quite a while and was a big fan of them because I think they make having high-quality air purifier so affordable for people. So, it's AirDoctor, I have one of their units. I love it.

Vanessa Spina: Literally looking them up right now to check them out because I want to invest in a really high-quality device or maybe multiple. See, they've got purifiers and well, they have HVAC filters for your whole house.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, I would love to do something like that once I have an actual consistent abode.

Vanessa Spina: Oh, it's nice looking.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. Okay, so things I love about them, they look super nice, aesthetically pleasing, they're very quiet. It's actually one of the only-- this is a true statement. It's the only air purifier I have that I run while podcasting because it's so quiet, which is amazing. And they're super affordable, which is what I love. When I was researching them in the past, one of their missions was to make high quality air affordable to people, so people can listen-- We have an ad for them in the show, so you can listen to that for more details. But we do have an incredible offer speaking of affordability. So, the coupon code, IFPODCAST, depending on the model you choose, will actually get you up to 39% off or up to $300 off, which is like crazy. So, it depends, again, on the model. So that's airdoctorpro.com. So, A-I-R-D-O-C-T-O-R-P-R-O dot com with the promo code IFPODCAST, for up to 39% off or up to $300 off, depending on the model. I have the 3000, the AirDoctor.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah. That's the one I was just looking at. It circulates about 638 square feet, four times an hour or 1200 square feet twice an hour.

Melanie Avalon: Yes, that's the one. I have the AirDoctor 3000.

Vanessa Spina: It's so cute.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. I love it. I have it in my kitchen. Yeah, like I said, "Looks super nice, very quiet." Has an ultra-HEPA filter, a carbon gas filter to trap VOCs. I really like its auto mode. Oh, this is what I love about it. Okay, so it's in the kitchen because I don't always trust the auto modes on these things. I've had units of different companies and I don't really feel like it's doing the auto mode because it never changes. So, this AirDoctor is in my kitchen and it's always quiet doing its thing. Every time I cook on my George Foreman Grill, if I use it, if I open it, like, open the George Foreman Grill, it like kicks into high speed. I'm like, "Oh, it knows." So, it's very impressive. Like, it knows, totally knows.

Vanessa Spina: It's like, intelligent.

Melanie Avalon: And it stays on for a little bit and then simmers back down. I'm probably going to get feedback about using a George Foreman Grill, but that's okay. You got to just pick your battles. It's easier to use than my cast iron.

Vanessa Spina: This is a really nice discount. Like, I just put the coupon code in just to see. And yeah, it's a generous discount.

Melanie Avalon: And they're already affordable, very affordable pricing. Yeah, and then you put in that discount and it slashes it. So yes, AirDoctor. I'm just so excited to have them on the show because I've been using them for so long. So, I do have quick other announcement. Oh, wait, just last question about what we were talking about. I have to ask you. When you said you were anemic, because I struggle historically with anemia, in what lab markers were you anemic? Like, did you do a full iron panel with, like, ferritin and everything?

Vanessa Spina: I did, and it's actually mostly because your blood volume increases by about 20%. I wouldn't say it's like a true anemia, but it's like a pregnancy kind of anemia, and it's mostly because you're diluting the volume of ferritin, everything, because your blood volume is increasing so much for the baby. And it plays a big role in my biggest pregnancy symptom, which was fatigue in the first trimester. I don't have any nausea. Any other issues? Same thing with Luca. The only symptom I really have is fatigue, especially in the first trimester and the third. So, I've really been amping up my consumption of beef. Like, we had burgers or steak pretty much every day when we were in Denver and trying to get at least some serving of beef in or some red meat every single day right now. But it's really interesting. It's like I didn't have it that I know of last time, but this time I seem to have it. And I know it's because I wasn't eating that much red meat for some reason. I just wasn't like, we just got out of the habit. I wasn't ordering as much steak; I wasn't eating as many burgers. I was just doing a lot of fish, like a lot of seafood, and I just was doing poultry, and I just wasn't thinking about it intentionally. So, I know that that's probably the main reason because I didn't have that with Luca. I was eating so much [laughs] red meat at least once, if not twice a day with him before getting pregnant and during up until I got the aversion. So, it's really interesting. It's like you have certain things like your cholesterol markers to change, and it's just like, transient part of pregnancy, so you kind of have a different lipid profile and overall blood profile when you're pregnant.

Melanie Avalon: So, it was your ferritin that was low for the anemia.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah. It was the ferritin, but it was also a couple of other markers. And I just knew right away that it was because blood volume increased so much. So, I wasn't too worried about it, but I was like, "I know that I can take some iron supplements, and I can just eat a lot more red meat, and it'll probably get better." And it did improve after that. So, we'll see how it continues to go. But women are often dealing with anemia because we tend to eat less red meat. We tend to eat healthier. We tend to eat more salads. Every time I go to a steakhouse, I look around. It's mostly men, not a lot of women there. And we also lose every month when we menstruate, we lose iron. When we give birth, we lose tons of iron. So, we're more at risk of anemia. And I do lots of posts about how women need bioavailable heme iron. And it's not the spinach, the heme iron, if you are not vegan or vegetarian, it's the red meat. It's the most bioavailable, absorbable, and it makes the biggest difference. And it's really not all in the spinach, as we've been told.

Melanie Avalon: It's so funny. So right now, I'm preparing to interview I'm reading two books. I'm reading Dr. Gabrielle Lyon's new book.

Vanessa Spina: Me too.

Melanie Avalon: I love her. Are you going to interview her?

Vanessa Spina: Yes.

Melanie Avalon: I love her so much.

Vanessa Spina: She's a dear friend of mine and she helped me out so much with my pregnancy and birth with Luca because she's a physician too and she just had two kids, so we had a lot. But she really, really helped me. We kind of bonded over that. Yeah, I'm reading it also.

Melanie Avalon: I was texting her and I was mentioning you. It was like a really long text because she was asking, what podcast should she go on? So, I gave her this really long list, and I didn't know if you knew her or not, so I included this whole thing about you in it, and she didn't address it, so I was like, "That's weird." She didn't address it. So, I didn't know that you guys knew each.

Vanessa Spina: Oh, yeah. For a while and yeah, she's been on the podcast once or twice, but yeah, she's really an amazing person. And Dr Don Layman her mentor, I just had him on the podcast last week again, but I've had him on three or four times, which is how I connected with her initially.

Melanie Avalon: Got you. No, it's so funny because she texted me. She was like, "Do you know anybody? Any podcast I should go on?" And then she said she was like, "I feel like you know everybody." I was like, "I know everybody. You're Dr. Gabrielle Lyon." [laughs] Where's that? That always blows my mind. And what's funny, though, so I'm reading her book, which I am just loving, but at the same time, I'm reading do you know Dr. Joel Kahn?

Vanessa Spina: Yeah. He's the big vegetarian doctor, right, who went on Rogan's podcast to do the debate with Chris Kresser, I think.

Melanie Avalon: I think that was him. Was that?

Vanessa Spina: Yeah, I think so.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, I did not-- Okay. Yes, that was him and I listened to that. Do you know my story about how I'm getting him on the show?

Vanessa Spina: No.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, this made my life. So, I have my list of guests to reach out to try to book on the show. I so rarely do that because I'm just so slammed with [chuckles] incoming requests anyways, so he was on this list of like someday.

Vanessa Spina: Your dream list.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. I probably added him after listening to that episode with Chris Kresser honestly. I totally forgot that that's how I originally heard about him. So, when that article came out, the one that made my age the title, like, 32-year-old podcaster article on CNBC profile piece.

Vanessa Spina: Oh, yeah, yeah. That was hilarious.

Melanie Avalon: So, after that came out, I talk in that about wine and alcohol, and he's like, for health and he's a big wine fan, so he saw that article, like, just organically and reached out to me and was like, "We should collaborate." And I was like, Oh, my gosh, [laughs] you're on my list."

Vanessa Spina: That's a real moment.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. No, that was like a hardcore moment. I was like, "Yes." [laughs] So I'm reading his book right now, which is called-- Oh, we should tell Gabrielle's book. Gabrielle's book is Forever Strong: A New, Science-Based Strategy for Aging Well, hint, hint it involves protein and muscle, and then Dr. Kahn's book is The Plant-Based Solution: America's Healthy Heart Doc's Plan to Power Your Health. And ironically, it's not the antithesis of Gabrielle's work, but they have very diverging viewpoints. So, it's very-- I really love when I have these moments of reading just complete different viewpoints at the same time. I think it's so helpful for, [sigh] I don't know, finding truth [chuckles] to be exposed to a lot of different viewpoints. So, I'm very excited about that. Okay, very last thing about the steak. I thought about you the other night because I went to see Wicked, the Broadway show. Have you seen that?

Vanessa Spina: No, but I think it's, like, in the news a lot right now because, isn't Ariana Grande in it?

Melanie Avalon: Oh, yeah. They're making a movie of it

Vanessa Spina: Oh, okay. I've heard really good things about the musical.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, it's so good. I think I've seen it now, I don't even know, maybe six times, but I saw it twice in a row, like, within five days. Oh, it's so magical. I want to see it again now. I almost cried when she was singing Defying Gravity. The second time I saw it, I was out very late, very long, drinking a lot of wine, and I got back and I was just ravenous. Like, ravenous and I felt like a caveman. Like, I went in my kitchen and I ate three steaks, and I didn't even really cook them. I mean, I sort of did. It's debatable.

Vanessa Spina: That's, like the thing I miss the most is from pregnancy is beef tartare.

Melanie Avalon: Ah, oh, yes you and I have this, we understand the raw meat. I literally just put on the grill for, like, a second. They were frozen too. [laughs] Put on the grill for a second, and then I just cut through it. It was so satisfying. And I was only going to eat one, and I was like, "I got to keep going." So, I ate three.

Vanessa Spina: That's what I was saying to Pete throughout our whole dinner tonight. I was like, "Steak is just so satisfying like, there's no other protein that-- I'm like every time we're eating it, I'm like, this is so satisfying." You know, it's a superfood. It's so nutrient dense. When it gives your body that much satisfaction nutritionally, it's amazing.

Melanie Avalon: It feels like a sigh of relief when you eat it.

Vanessa Spina: Totally.

Melanie Avalon: I also sometimes get that feeling with salmon, I think from the high omegas.

Vanessa Spina: Oh, yeah. I've been having salmon every day. [laughs] I crave it so much. I crave it so much, especially when I'm pregnant. So, I've been having it every day.

Melanie Avalon: It's so good. I'll go through, like, salmon periods, and I don't know what it is, but I'll just have to have salmon every night for a while.

Vanessa Spina: I really think the body just needs those fats, and the more in tune you are with that, especially if it-- like for me, I tend to do more, like, tenderloin with the steak. I eat more like lean chicken. Most of my proteins are pretty lean, but I think the salmon is like the fatty one. So, it's like my body knows if it needs to get those omega-3s, it should ask for salmon and I will deliver. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: So good, so good. Sometime we have to hang out in real life and go to some meat place and just eat all the meat.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah. And just, like, all the raw. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. I want to apologize to our vegetarian, vegan audience. I do respect their viewpoint. [laughs] No, I'm being serious. I respect your viewpoints. I just personally need it.

Vanessa Spina: Yes, I was vegetarian for most of my life, so I definitely respect it. But I'm still making up for that time [laughs] all the time.

Melanie Avalon: Reading Dr. Kahn's book, I just feel so hungry like, reading it. I would be so hungry without.

Vanessa Spina: I was always hungry because of protein leverage, yeah. And I often think if I were to do it again now, based on what I know about protein, I would be pounding, like, plant-based protein shakes multiple times a day. And I think that that would probably help a lot in addition to the other supplementation that you need to do if you can do. [chuckles] Yeah, I would definitely go about it a different way now because I definitely was not getting enough protein for years.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. Something I'm going to ask Dr. Kahn. I'm going to use myself as a case study because he talks a lot about cholesterol and how animal products affect cholesterol. I am the perfect case study. So especially because I've used InsideTracker.

Vanessa Spina: Shout out.

Melanie Avalon: I love InsideTracker. Oh, did you get your results from InsideTracker?

Vanessa Spina: No, not yet.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, man. I can't wait for you to get them.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah. It's just like I'm not really expecting much right now because I'm pregnant like everything is different. And we even discussed that when I went in for the test and they said, "This is not going to be optimal." I was like, "I know," because I'm like growing a person right now. So, I'm looking forward to doing it also afterwards, postpartum.

Melanie Avalon: Well, that's something great about it is how it keeps like in the app, you have all your data over the years now for me, and you can see-- and this is what I'm going to talk with Dr. Kahn about. You can see over time how everything's changing and it has these graphs and it's just so helpful. But the thing I want to ask him, because he's a cardiac doctor, so a lot of what he talks about is cardiovascular disease and cholesterol levels and how diet affects that and specifically how bad meat is for cholesterol. I want to be like, look at my cholesterol panel, which I have points in it with anti-tracker, it tests HDL, LDL, cholesterol, triglycerides and apoB, which is very exciting. You can see the trend. So, I have trends where everything's very high, not very high, but high cholesterol, LDL, HDL, and then right now, everything is shockingly low. And throughout that, I have been consuming the same amount of animal protein, very, very high amounts. The difference is the high spikes are when I would do low carb, higher fat and not animal fat, plant-based fat. So basically, I would do high protein with a lot of MCT oil. And in those times, everything's very high. When I do high-carb, low-fat, but very high animal protein, my cholesterol is low. And so that says to me it literally it can't be the animal. I mean, I guess it could, but it's really hard to look at that and say it's the animal protein because I've kept it consistent.

Vanessa Spina: I don't think it's animal protein, but people associate animal protein with animal fat. So, I don't eat high fat proteins except for salmon, which has healthy lipid profile. But I think if you're eating like carnivore and you're eating just like ribeye's and just tons of really high fat like pork and chicken, I think it could contribute to that. I prefer to get my fats mostly from salmon and olive oil and coconut oil a little bit, like just for cooking. But I don't cook with olive oil. So that's like, I think maybe the only other fat I get from animals like egg yolks, but it's so nutrient dense and nutritious. So, yeah, I can't wait to hear you interview him.

Melanie Avalon: And to that point, it's exactly what you said, people associate, when they say animal products, they're talking about the fattier part and the ironic thing and the reason I think I'm a perfect case study and I can't wait to talk to him. I added plant-based fats and I basically would eat lean protein with, like I said, MCT oil, coconut oil, really just MCT oil. And that's what would drive everything up. And then now, my most recent panel, I'm just pulling it up on the InsideTracker app because people were asking because I posted this on my Instagram, and it's actually too low now. [laughs] So, like, my total cholesterol is 104, which InsideTracker has in the red, not even in the yellow.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah. It's out of range, but we all know the reference ranges are not necessarily--

Melanie Avalon: This is by InsideTracker's range.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah. InsideTracker ranges might better than the general population.

Melanie Avalon: They actually don't have a-- Oh, this is so interesting. Is this the way it is for all of theirs. Oh, wow. I never realized this. So, this is not the way with all of their markers, like, HDL will go from green-- Like, on the low side, HDL will go from green to yellow to red. LDL will go from green-- So, LDL goes straight from green to red. So, you go from great to bad and same with cholesterol. So, in any case, everything is really low. So, my cholesterol right now is 104. My LDL is 49. But in any case, people wanted to know what I did. My HDL is low, too. It's 40. But the trigs are--

Vanessa Spina: What're the triglycerides?

Melanie Avalon: The trigs are 69.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah. That's perfect.

Melanie Avalon: So, it's a good ratio and I do want to research more how high does HDL need to be if your LDL and cholesterol are very, very low? But in any case, people want to know what I did to make it-- because it really did, like, severely drop. You can see it on the graphs. I did three things. I started taking my berberine before meals. Before I was just taking it in the fasted state in the morning. So, I think that had a major effect because people typically take it for blood sugar, but it's been shown to have an effect on cholesterol lowering as well. I've been using my CAROL AI Bike, which I'm so obsessed with still.

Vanessa Spina: That could have a huge effect. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, because they have a lot of studies on theirs on cholesterol beneficial lipid level changes in people. So, I've talked about a lot before, but basically, it's a long story short, it's an exercise bike. You do two to three per week of these 8-minute workout. It's the easiest thing you will ever do. It's only 8 minutes. The majority of the time, you're just like breathing, literally breathing. Like it's telling you to breathe. And you're pedaling very slow and you're keeping your resistance below a certain level and then you just do two 20-second all out sprints during which time it is yelling at you to run. So, you feel very motivated. It makes a whole story that you're like a hunter-gatherer in the woods running from a tiger. It's amazing. And I am seeing such changes in my leg definition and now getting my blood work back, I really think that that played a role. And the main part of it is it uses AI to adjust the pedals so that if you slow down, it increases resistance, so you're still pedaling max effort.

So, it forces you to actually do it's a REHIT workout, not a HIIT. So, it's high-intensity interval training, but like a new version of it that's more effective and time efficient. I'm obsessed. So, you can actually go to carolbike.com and coupon code MELANIEAVALON will get you $100 off. And I'm going to be doing an interview with them soon, so stay tuned for that. But yeah, so that's the changes I made. Oh, the berberine and then I stopped heating up my fruit because my HbA1c had jumped through the roof from doing that and it went back down.

Vanessa Spina: That's right. Oh, so that's really what it was then.

Melanie Avalon: It's ironic because I changed three things. Taking the berberine, the CAROL AI Bike, and stopping cooking the fruit. But yes, friends, this was so upsetting. My HbA1c, which is always around like 5, I started heating up my fruit because it made it taste like pie and it jumped to 5.8. I was freaking out, that's like not [laughs] okay. I went cold turkey, no pun intended, literally cold turkey. Started eating the fruit frozen again. And now my HbA1c is 4.9. So, that was in a month. It changed, a month.

Vanessa Spina: That's awesome.

Melanie Avalon: Which is really empowering to show how much change you can make in a short amount of time. Because even HbA1c, it's supposed to be a three-month marker, but it changed that much in a month. So, team exercise, team don't cook your fruit, team berberine before the meals.

Vanessa Spina: Yeah. We just have so much incredible access to biofeedback and data now. In terms of-- that was the thing that it made me so excited the first time I learned that I could measure my own blood at home and I could see what was happening inside my body in response to what I was eating. And then obviously the ketone thing really took off for me too. But I just think now we have the ability to get so much feedback, we don't have to poke around in the dark anymore. You can actually figure out if heating up your fruit is making your blood sugar higher. You can actually figure things out with these kinds of incredible tools.

Melanie Avalon: And it's so telling, especially with the fruit theme, because I did not change the amount of fruit I was eating. The only thing I changed was I was heating it up and that it can have that big of a difference is so-- it really makes you think more about processed foods and how we might be eating the same amount of food, but in a processed form, like how that changes, how it interacts in our body. It's crazy. It's crazy. So, yeah, [laughs] all the things I did want to do a fasting question before we wrap up. Okay, so we actually have two questions related to coffee. Vanessa, would you like to read both of them and we can talk about it?

Vanessa Spina: Yeah. Let's get into it. So, we have the first question from Sunshine. It came to us on Facebook, in your Facebook group, and the question is, "Is just coffee first thing in the morning, okay. Lately, it has gotten so much negative attention. I have seen more and more lately about if you only drink coffee in the morning, it causes leptin resistance and imbalanced cortisol. I am a longtime faster, OMAD, one meal a day was my go-to for a long time until Cynthia on this podcast convinced me that I wasn't eating enough protein in a 24-hour period. So, I lengthened my window. I don't eat until later in the day and only have coffee for breakfast. Is coffee okay just by itself." Thank you.

Melanie Avalon: Okay. And then we also actually have another question. And this is ironic because the first question was from Sunshine and this is from Sunny, and they're not the same person. They are different people. So, would you like to read Sunny's question?

Vanessa Spina: Yes. So, Sunny asks, "Melanie, I have the same question regarding clean fasting with coffee. Is it a stressor?"

Melanie Avalon: Okay. So, friends, I went down the rabbit hole with this question. And so, honestly, when I read this because I feel like people do think coffee and they think that it rises cortisol. I know I did like, I read this and I was like, "Yeah, I've heard that." Let me see what I find. So, my takeaway I found a lot. [chuckles] So I think this is just my theory because I'm going to go into what I found about it. I think people are confusing. Okay, well, first of all, let me step back. There are conflicting studies. So, there are some studies that show caffeine raises cortisol and there are some that show that it lowers. Overall, though, I read this really amazing review and walked away from that feeling. Like in general, caffeine and coffee actually has a lowering effect on cortisol. And I'll talk about why. I think people are probably possibly confusing cortisol with catecholamines because both of the-- so catecholamines, like adrenaline, epinephrine, noradrenaline, both of those can stimulate a sympathetic state. So, like a fight-or-flight type response. We get that from cortisol. We get that from catecholamines. Coffee, caffeine pretty consistently stimulates catecholamines. It does not seem to do so with cortisol and it might actually do the opposite. So that's my theory about where the confusion is coming in, just a theory.

So, what's really interesting is that there is a lot of data and literature on coffee's beneficial effect on diabetes and blood sugar control. And so, I found this really cool study, it's 2022. It's called the acute effects of coffee consumption on blood glucose and its relationship with serum cortisol and insulin in females. And so, it was looking at how coffee affects cortisol and insulin in females. And it also referenced a lot of the literature up to that date. And again, I liked it because it was 2022, so it was very recent. And basically, a lot of literature has shown that coffee lowers cortisol levels in the blood. They think that might actually play a role in its beneficial effects on blood sugar levels because ironically, in the short term, coffee seems to reduce insulin sensitivity. But there's more going on there because like I said, "The long-term effects are beneficial effects on blood sugar regulation and diabetes." So, the response to coffee seems to be connected with the cortisol. So, cortisol seems to go down and blood sugar seems to go down with coffee consumption and it tends to be an acute response with that cortisol. So right after drinking is when you're seeing the decrease in serum cortisol levels. And that's what they found specifically in that study. It also can reduce glucose and glycogen in the liver and it does that by inhibiting muscle glycogenesis, which is basically the formation of glucose in the liver.

And then at the same time, not only does it seem to lower blood sugar levels and reduce cortisol, but it might also affect other hormones. So, adiponectin and that might be playing a role in its beneficial effects on diabetes. And then Sunshine was asking about the insulin connection. There was another study from 2017, so they actually found that it did affect leptin levels, but that it did not affect insulin or cortisol levels. So that's like a baseline no response with cortisol. So, my takeaway reading all of it, and this is crazy because a lot of people are thinking coffee, stress, that it's the sympathetic state and a problem. But literally this article was positing that coffee might have antistress effect because of its reduction in cortisol levels. So, what is going on here? And then just as like another tangent, I didn't know this, there are over 1000 compounds in coffee that affect glucose metabolism, which is crazy, mind blowing and likely beneficially. So, my takeaway after reading all of that was coffee and caffeine is probably not having a negative effect on cortisol. It's probably having, if anything, a beneficial effect. And this fear and concern about the "cortisol," I think might be due to caffeine activating the sympathetic system via other modalities, which would be something to keep in mind. So, it might still be a concern for other reasons, but I actually don't think it's the cortisol. At least just not from what I was reading. And then I was going to go on a tangent about my new favorite coffee. But before that, do you have thoughts on the coffee and the cortisol?

Vanessa Spina: I'm so glad that you clarified that. Honestly, I'm kind of over the whole anti-coffee trend. As a sports nutrition specialist, I'm very aware that caffeine is actually one of the only scientifically backed supplements that is an ergogenic or performance aid. I'm such a huge fan of coffee and caffeine and not just because I'm super addicted to it, but also because I just think it has so many amazing properties. It actually helps with fat burning. It helps the body release those catecholamines that you were mentioning which bind to the beta receptors on our fat cells to help with fat flux. It actually even can stimulate brown fat. There're just so many wonderful things about coffee. I think the issue that people can run into is if they are doing too much potentially or if they're sensitive to it and they notice. If you have caffeine and you notice that every time you have it. I mean coffee, you feel anxious afterwards, try having a less potent dose of it or try going off it. I've done so many experiments where I was convinced by all this anti-coffee messaging, like maybe I should try it, maybe it is affecting my blood glucose, etc. And every single time I would cut it out for like a month, it would make zero difference, none whatsoever.

I probably was just like having less fat burning, less performance. I limit myself because I know myself. I have one cup in the morning and I make my own espresso. So, it's about 75 mg. I continue to have it during pregnancy because it's safe up to about 200 mg. If I really need it, I'll have another coffee in the afternoon, but I very rarely do that. So, I have talked to people though, like I have a friend who's a physician. She has like six or seven coffees a day because she's a super busy [laughs] physician who needs to be alert and on it all the time. And I think that potentially there could be issues, like if you were having just so much caffeine constantly, so much coffee. But I'm a big fan of it. I don't understand why it is being touted, like you said, "As having to do with stimulating cortisol." Other people say it makes your blood sugar higher if anything, that's probably just having you dump a little bit of glycogen from your liver and that's not a bad thing. It's not like, "Oh, it's making your blood glucose higher, so you're going to have diabetes kind of thing." [chuckles] Not at all, so I don't really get the anti-coffee rhetoric. I think it's a little bit like maybe trendy and so people are jumping on the bandwagon. And I think people like to deny themselves things and feel good about themselves for doing that. So, I think that may be where some of it's coming from, but scientifically it's like a proven performance aid. It's great for performance, [laughs] it's great for fat burning. So, I'm very pro coffee, just personally.

Melanie Avalon: Okay, so I'm so glad we're on the same page. And it's so interesting where that came from because that is the vibe that I have just tangentially experienced about coffee. Like I said, "I read the question." I was like, "Yeah, I've heard that, that makes sense." And then I went and looked at all the studies. I was like, "Oh, it does the opposite. It probably is really good for cortisol."

Vanessa Spina: Busting myths here on The Intermittent Fasting Podcast.

Melanie Avalon: My mind was a little bit blown and I walked away from reading all the studies and I was like; "I need my coffee for my blood sugar control." [laughs]

Vanessa Spina: Totally. People have it totally opposite. A lot of people get it, but a lot of people have it totally opposite. And I don't think a week or two goes by that I don't get some kind of comment or message stating that, like, "Oh, this person said that it's bad for my blood sugar, bad for my cortisol." And I'm just like, [sigh] "Here [laughs] we go again." So hopefully people listening to this will know and understand. And I know you will link up all those studies in the show notes for people because some people may be like, "I don't believe it, I have to go read that for myself so that I can be convinced too."

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. I'll definitely put a link. There was another study I found, and this wasn't coffee in the liquid form, it was coffee extract. But they found that coffee extract actually blocks the conversion of cortisol creation, which is crazy. So that's like also the antithesis that it increases cortisol. So, I'll put a link to it in the show notes. I do think that a lot of people can have an issue with mold in coffee and might be reacting to compounds in coffee and toxins in coffee. And that's why historically I'd been drinking literally Bulletproof Coffee since 2012. I am no longer drinking Bulletproof Coffee because, well, Dave Asprey is no longer with Bulletproof Coffee and can no longer confirm that they are-- I mean, they might still be doing all the mold testing and everything, but he's the reason I was trusting to drink that coffee.

So, he has a new coffee brand that I'm obsessed with. It is my official favorite coffee and I'm probably going to give this to a lot of people for like Christmas and stuff. It's called Danger Coffee. So, it's mold free. But what's really cool about it is it's remineralized, which is so cool because minerals are just so key. And this is probably something I need to go down the rabbit hole and research and see just how much does normal coffee potentially like, does it deplete minerals or not? Regardless, though, so Danger Coffee, he actually has a potent formula that has over 50 trace minerals, nutrients, and electrolytes in the coffee. So, you get all the benefits of coffee, none of the mold, tested for purity and potency, and you get these minerals, these nutrients, these electrolytes, and it tastes amazing. I prefer it to Bulletproof Coffee. So, it's my new favorite thing. I do have a discount if you go to melanieavalon.com/dangercoffee and use the coupon code MELANIEAVALON. So that's my favorite coffee for intermittent fasting. But yeah, just last comment is that researching all the coffee, my takeaway was that it sounds like the perfect thing to pair with fasting if you're a coffee drinker.

Vanessa Spina: It totally is, like it also has appetite suppression effects. Like if you are wanting to do intermittent fasting, it's like your best friend, [laughs] especially in the mornings. Now, I know that there is some rhetoric out there, some discussion out there about skipping breakfast and having coffee in lieu of breakfast and that being bad for your hormones, as we just talked about, it actually doesn't really have that effect. But some people do find that having a high-protein breakfast is great. It's great for your muscle mass, your lean body mass, it's great for your metabolism and you can have coffee with it. If you like to eat earlier in the day, then I suggest either doing a break-- and you still want to do time restricted eating or intermittent fasting, doing a breakfast and lunch or doing and closing your eating window early for the day or having a breakfast and then fasting until dinner. And you can have your coffee with your breakfast.

But if you prefer to eat later in the day, which I find so many people, myself included, prefer to do because we just don't feel that hungry in the morning, that's not a bad sign. And I think the fact that there's been this association, the fact that maybe people are saying that having just coffee for breakfast is causing leptin resistance, it's coming from the fact that having a high-protein breakfast can help if you have leptin resistance is not the same as having just coffee for breakfast as causing leptin resistance. So, if you do have leptin resistance, it's one of the things that's recommended in Dr. Jack Kruse's, Leptin Reset protocol, have a high- protein breakfast, like more so fat for calories, not so much carbs. Protein scientist Dr. Don Layman also recommends that. You know Dr. Paul Arciero, who we recently interviewed, also recommends that. It's definitely great for body composition, but I don't think that we can then infer that it causes leptin resistance. So, I'm really glad that you cleared it up with some of the research as well.

Melanie Avalon: Awesome. I love that we are on the same page.

Vanessa Spina: I'm a little bit passionate about this topic. [laughs] Don't take my coffee from me.

Melanie Avalon: I'm passionate about it. I don't drink that much coffee, though. I just have a little bit every morning.

Vanessa Spina: I know, yeah. And you're still passionate about it so.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I still love that little bit that I have, and I think it just works so well for so many people, especially just one last tangent. Like all of these pre-workouts and stuff that people are cramming down with all these weird ingredients. Coffee is a great pre-workout. I feel like you can get a lot of the benefits just with coffee and just like a lot of health benefits from it.

So, yeah, on that note, well, this has been absolutely wonderful. So, a few things for listeners before we go. We talked about so much in today's show. You can get links to everything that we talked about and a full transcript in the show notes. That will be at ifpodcast.com/episode330. If you would like to submit your own questions for the show, you can directly email questions@ifpodcast.com or you can go to ifpodcast.com and you can submit questions there and you can join me in my Facebook group IF biohackers. I've started to ask in there for questions and I kind of like using them because it keeps it really fresh. So, if you'd like your question featured, definitely check out that group and you can follow us on Instagram. We are @ifpodcast. I am @melanieavalo and Vanessa is @ketogenicgirl. And I think that is all the things. Anything from you, Vanessa, before we go?

Vanessa Spina: No, that's everything. Thank you so much for the wonderful questions and I'm super excited for the next episode.

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

Vanessa Spina: Sounds great.

Melanie Avalon: Bye.

Vanessa Spina: 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, transcripts by SpeechDocs, and original theme composed by Leland Cox and recomposed by Steve Saunders. See you next week.

[Transcript provided by SpeechDocs Podcast Transcription]

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 19

Episode 305: CGMs, Travel, Being A Foodie, Hosting Dinner Parties, Bioidentical Hormones, Progesterone, THC & CBD, Pet Peeves, And More!

GET THE EPISODE ON ITUNES!

The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture

Welcome to Episode 305 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 Cynthia Thurlow, author of Intermittent Fasting Transformation: The 45-Day Program for Women to Lose Stubborn Weight, Improve Hormonal Health, and Slow Aging.

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

BUTCHERBOX: Grass-Fed Beef, Organic Chicken, Heritage Pork, Wild-Caught Seafood: Nutrient-Rich, Raised Sustainably The Way Nature Intended, And Shipped Straight To Your Door! For A Limited Time Go To butcherbox.com/ifpodcast And Get Chuck Roast And A Whole Chicken Plus $10 Off!

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

SHOW NOTES

1:10 - BUTCHERBOX: For A Limited Time Go To butcherbox.com/ifpodcast And Get Chuck Roast And A Whole Chicken Plus $10 Off!

3:30 - BEAUTYCOUNTER: Keep Your Fast Clean Inside And Out With Safe Skincare! Shop With Us At melanieavalon.com/beautycounter or beautycounter.com/cynthiathurlow And Use The Code CLEANFORALL30 For 30% Off PLUS 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!

How to Meet Your Self: The Workbook for Self-Discovery

NUTRISENSE: Get $30 Off A CGM Program And Get 1 Month Of
Free Dietitian Support At nutrisense.io/ifpodcast With The Code IFPODCAST

22:50 - LOMI: Get $50 Off Lomi At lomi.com/ifpodcast With The Code IFPODCAST!

26:00 - Listener Q&A: Laurie - I'm a foodie and an entertainer, and i'm fasting. Is there a happy medium?

39:25 - Listener Q&A: Tracy - Have you done an episode on BHRT and if not, would you address it?

39:30 - Listener Q&A: Stephanie - I'm on progesterone only HRT — Can you use estrogen even if you still have a period ? Will it cause weight gain?

Ep. 220 A Detailed Guide to Healthy Hormones with Dr. Lara Briden

Episode 4: Reboot Your Hormones Naturally with Dr. Tassone

Estrogen Matters

The Science of Positivity

Ep. 198 – Dispelling Myths About Hormone Replacement Therapy

#42 – Avrum Bluming, M.D. and Carol Tavris, Ph.D.: Controversial topic affecting all women—the role of hormone replacement therapy through menopause and beyond—the compelling case for long-term HRT and dispelling the myth that it causes breast cancer

45:30 - Listener Q&A: Stacy - Does THC inhibit weight loss while IF?

52:40 - ATHLETIC GREENS: Get A FREE 1 Year Supply Of Immune-Supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE Travel Packs With Your First Purchase At athleticgreens.com/ifpodcast

54:05 - listener Q&A: Katie - I love that the two of you are so positive. What would be interesting is to hear some of your biggest pet peeves.

Nicole - What are your pet peeves?

Theresa - Biggest turn-off?

TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Welcome to Episode 305 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 and 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, Cynthia Thurlow, Nurse Practitioner and author of Intermittent Fasting Transformation: A 45-Day Program for Women to Lose Stubborn Weight, Improve Hormonal Health, and Slow Aging. For more on us, check out ifpodcast.com, melanieavalon.com, and cynthiathurlow.com. Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this show do not constitute medical advice or treatment and no doctor-patient relationship is formed. 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.

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And one more thing before we jump in, are you fasting clean inside and out? When it comes to weight loss, we focus a lot on what and when we eat. It makes sense because these foods affect our hormones and how our bodies store and burn fat. But do you know what is possibly one of the most influential factors in weight gain? It's not your food and it's not fasting, it's actually our skincare and makeup. As it turns out, Europe has banned over a thousand compounds found in conventional skincare and makeup in the US due to their toxicity. These include endocrine disrupters, which mess with your hormones, carcinogens linked to cancer, and obesogens, which literally can cause your body to store and gain weight. Basically, when we're using conventional skincare and makeup, we are giving these obesogenic compounds direct access to our bloodstream.

And then in our bodies, studies have shown they do things like reduce our satiety hormones, increase our hunger hormones, make fat cells more likely to store fat, and more resistant to burning fat, and so much more. If you have stubborn fat, friends, your skincare and makeup may be playing a role in that. Beyond weight gain and weight loss, these compounds have very detrimental effects on our health and they affect the health of our future generations. That's because ladies when we have babies, a huge percentage of those toxic compounds go through the placenta into the newborn. It is so, so shocking and the effects last for years.

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Also, make sure to get on my clean beauty email list. That's at melanieavalon.com/cleanbeauty. I give away a lot of free things on that list, so definitely check it out. You can join me in my Facebook group, Clean Beauty and Safe Skincare with Melanie Avalon. People share their experiences, ask questions, give product reviews, and I do a giveaway every single week in that group as well.

And lastly, if you're thinking of making clean beauty and safe skincare a part of your future like we have, we definitely recommend 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. It is totally completely worth it. So, again to shop with us go to beautycounter.com/melanieavalon or beautycounter.com/cynthiathurlow and use the coupon code CLEANFORALL20 to get 20% off your first order. 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 305 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon and I'm here with Cynthia Thurlow.

Cynthia Thurlow: Hey, Melanie, how are you?

Melanie Avalon: I am good. I did something that I haven't done in a long time that we've talked about a lot on this show, that listeners might be familiar with. I'm back on the CGM train.

Cynthia Thurlow: Oh, you are?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I haven't worn one. It's been a while. I go through periods, like, I put one on and I wear it for a while and then I take a breather. It's always really exciting to see where you are with everything with that. I'm curious because you said you wore one for months and months, right?

Cynthia Thurlow: I did for about 18 months and then I took a break. I felt like, especially with me doing a lot of travel, to me, it's just kind of one extra step to have to take. I do have a NutriSense CGM or a Freestyle Libre connected with NutriSense upstairs that I should put on at some point. But I've got, two trips in February and two in April, back-to-back, so I will definitely avoid having it on at that time.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, it is because I don't want to dissuade people if they're traveling that they can't wear it. It is something were moving around and hustling and sleeping and then going out, it's a thing. For listeners who are not familiar, it's a continuous glucose monitor and you put it onto your arm and it constantly measures, actually, your interstitial fluid to measure your blood sugar levels 24/7. But my question for you was, in those 18 months did you see any significant changes? Did you make dietary or lifestyle or fasting changes to address your blood sugar levels or what was your experience like?

Cynthia Thurlow: I think it really validated the way that I eat and certainly for me it was insightful. There were certain types of carbohydrates, like plantains, I think I've talked about it on the podcast before. It doesn't matter how I consume them. They really spiked my blood sugar quite significantly. The other thing that I have really started paying attention to is just the stress of travel. I live in a city now where there are very few direct flights, so there's always a changeover either in Denver or Chicago or Atlanta. If anyone's traveled in those big airports, I think I chronicled that I sprinted in the Chicago airport to make my LA connection, that was about a mile and a quarter, and I kept saying, I don't know how people who are not healthy are able to do that. I would have missed my flight. To me, knowing the net impact of that stress, because with cortisol going up, blood sugar goes up in response to that.

To me, it's like, now I know what I need to be doing. It just validated good behavior. I haven't changed my diet all that much. I'm still very protein-centric, definitely cycle my carbohydrates. I do notice the net impact on my blood sugar and certainly my Oura Ring scores if I deviate from what I normally do. I'll give everyone an example although I'm not wearing a CGM right now, over the weekend, I just felt like having a clean brownie. So, I made brownies. Typically, if I'm going to do that, I don't do it at 8:00 or 09:00 o'clock at night and so what's interesting to me is how badly I felt after eating said brownies, even though I'd had a good dinner, like a good substantial dinner. I was telling my husband, I just think my body is less comfortable with me consuming things that are really sugary even if that's very sporadic, but for me that just reinforces good habits. I'm like, next time I definitely won't do that. I felt like the whole next day, like yesterday, I really didn't feel good. I think it was just the amount of sugar I consumed, which is not my normal. Yeah, I have one more CGM to use and I'm kind of holding off. I have a trip upcoming to London and then one to Denver, and I'll probably do it in March, which is in between all my trips.

Melanie Avalon: Very cool. For listeners, if they would like to get their own CGM, they can go to nutrisense.io/ifpodcast and use the coupon code IFPODCAST and that will get them a discount. But speaking to your story, I remember I was wearing a CGM once and I had something sugary. It scared me what I saw on my CGM. It's haunted me with PTSD. Ever since that time, I've been like, "Oh, okay." [laughs] This is what that is doing. And that's what I think the CGM can be so helpful because it literally is a mirror showing you what's actually happening. But I do want to clarify, I think people might be surprised, I eat, it's not ridiculously high carb. It is by, I think, low-carb keto world, paleo world standards. I eat a ton of fruit carbs, like pounds and pounds of fruit. It's really exciting because I watch my CGM and I do really well with that.

My blood sugar does not spike that high and it goes down pretty soon thereafter, which is, I don't know. It's interesting though because I can consume that really high amount of carbs from fruit and be fine, but comparing it to when I had a more processed form, I don't know how it actually compared in grams of carbs, but the spike was so different. So, it's really, really interesting to see. I'm also curious of your thoughts on something. I'm interviewing Ben Azadi next week, which I know, he's a mutual friend of ours. That's actually something really funny. I knew of him, and I knew him through you, and I knew you are friends with him and my publicist independently booked him for me. He connected us. We already knew who each other was. It was just really funny. I was like, "Oh, you're Cynthia's friend?"

But it was interesting. A big question I want to ask him is and this is something that I've seen a lot of people talk about in the fasting community. So, he talks about how he considers coffee or tea breaking a fast if it raises your blood sugar. He wants you to test your blood sugar, and if the coffee or tea raises your blood sugar, he considers that breaking the fast. My question about that, this is what I want to ask him and I'm curious of your thoughts. I don't see why raising your blood sugar from coffee or tea compared to, say cortisol, like, your experience or exercise, why would we qualify one as breaking the fast and not the other? I mean, I understand that it's coffee and tea, but presumably the mechanism would be similar. Do you think you break your fast if your blood sugar goes high?

Cynthia Thurlow: I think it depends on so many different variables. I'm a little more gray in this area. I think that as an example if someone is not sleeping well and they just keep throwing more gasoline on the fire, they've got really intense exercise, they're fasting, they're drinking a lot of coffee because their adrenals are completely tanked or they're really stressed, in that situation I think that the resultant rise in cortisol and rise in blood sugar and compensatory secretion of insulin is a mechanism related to stress. I think this is when I encourage people if they feel poorly. Like, as example, if you're fasting and you drink a cup of coffee or you drink bitter tea and you don't feel good, you really should with a degree of caffeine that's in both of those, it should give you a little bit of energy boost.

But for some people that feel really poorly understanding that it's this lumping together of multiple stressors all at once, like it could be the mold and the coffee, it could be the fact that you're fasting, it could be that you didn't sleep well, it could be that you worked out really hard and so, I prefer to look at it just from the concept and the mechanism of really thinking about each one of these things in and of themselves are a form of hormesis and are you doing too much? Again, this is when a CGM can be helpful. To me, it's very different, like having an intense amount of physical activity versus consuming something that potentially has the ability to secrete some insulin.

I think that I find for most individuals when they're concerned about these things, I generally encourage them to lean into it. If you think you probably are breaking your fast because your body just is not well adapted to be doing those types of stressors and you very likely are. I don't think, per se, that coffee in and of itself, in an otherwise well-adjusted, well-slept, not over-exercising, not over-fasting person, I don't think, per se, that's breaking the fast. I'm hoping that I made that really clear. I think that many of us in the health and wellness space have differing opinions on some of these things. And it's interesting, I was just on Gundry's podcast this past week and we were talking about some of the nuances of does this break my fast? Does this not break my fast? I think what it really comes down to is are you metabolically healthy? Are you at your ideal body weight? If you're not those two things, then you probably need to be more conscientious about what you're consuming and when you're consuming it. For most other people, they have a little bit of play with what they're consuming and when they're consuming it. Did that help?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, no that really did. And I think a lot of it is just semantics and a paradigm around-- it's more like esoteric in a way. I guess the way I would phrase it is I wouldn't say that that's breaking the fast. I would say that it's not conducive to an easy fast. It's not conducive to making fasting easy for you or giving you the benefits that you want, but I wouldn't consider it actually breaking the fast. So, how was being on Gundry's podcast?

Cynthia Thurlow: It's funny. So, sometimes when you're on some of these bigger podcasts, they'll send questions ahead of time. And obviously, Dr. Gundry has been doing this for a long time. Sometimes smaller podcasts will do that because they just want the validation that they're asking questions you're comfortable with. I always say, like, I'm pretty comfortable with anything. There's nothing you're going to ask me that I'm going to feel unprepared for. Although it was interesting to see his kind of thought process and he really has a very thoughtful way of interacting with his guests, and it was really, really enjoyable. I think because we both come from these cardiology backgrounds, he was a surgeon, I worked in cardiology as an NP, and we have this mutual love for everything related to the heart. So, it was a really incredible experience. He was very gracious, very nice, very smart as you and I both know.

I love that we could talk about something that we both really fervently believe. By this, I'm talking about mitochondrial health, metabolic flexibility, intermittent fasting. We could talk about it and talk about it in a way that was very thoughtful. It was interesting. He had posted on Instagram not all that long ago, something around the fear-mongering about fasting and women. It's interesting to see there're some very polarizing opinions about this. It was just nice to have a conversation where it was very evident and clinically based. Like, this is my clinical experience, this is based on my research, this is based on your research, the things that we've read and did it in a way that made the information super accessible. So, it was really awesome. I always say when I had the opportunity to connect with interesting people it's always a blessing.

Melanie Avalon: That's amazing. You said he did send questions ahead of time.

Cynthia Thurlow: No, he didn't and what's interesting is most people don't ask me about stem cells and telomeres and so I was prepared to answer lots of questions. We didn't end up going down that path. I appreciated that there were very thoughtful questions and not like the normal, how do we say this, garden variety questions that I think most people ask, sometimes it's nice to deviate from what's expected.

Melanie Avalon: That's very exciting. Do you send questions to your guests?

Cynthia Thurlow: I do not. I always say I keep it. I always have several pages of notes, and I love that this is a Monday where I didn't have any of my own podcasts to record because my kids are off from school. From my perspective, I like being prepared. I like the guests knowing that I'm prepared, but I always allow the conversation to be very organic. If I think that someone has a lot that will resonate with listeners, I always say this is the first of two or we're definitely bringing this guest back because there's just so much to talk about and your guests know and your listeners know that you are super uber prepared.

Melanie Avalon: It's really interesting to think about, I was just thinking about why do I send the questions to the guests. Because honestly, I don't send it to them so that they will-- I think I send it to them so they will know-- I guess, I think it's about me honestly. I send it to them so they'll know that I read their book. [laughs] You know that I'm like taking the interview seriously.

Cynthia Thurlow: People really appreciate that. In fact, I'm trying to think about some of the more high-profile people I've interviewed in the last couple of months and Gabor Maté in particular was very appreciative that I had read the book, because a lot of those people, like, he's got a New York Times bestseller. I mean, he's just this prolific clinician and he's really changing the narrative for how we view trauma and addiction. I would imagine you get to a point where you got the same questions being asked every single day. At the end of the interview, he actually thanked me and said, thank you for reading my book. It's evident that you've read the book. I know now that I'm an author, I really appreciate it when people read the book and Gundry read the book because he was talking about different things throughout the book. I think it allows both the author and the podcast host to feel like we're in this together. We really want to ensure that there's this mutual admiration and appreciation for your craft and showing you in the best light, which I know you do with your guests as well. It's really an amazing opportunity as Melanie says, "Podcasting is the best form of networking."

Melanie Avalon: One of my favorite guests of all time is still David Sinclair and I did interview him when I was still relatively new to that other show. And I remember when I sent him the prep doc the first time and he actually answered via email and was like, wow, that's a deep dive. I was like, oh my goodness, I was so happy. [laughs] But thank you for the introduction by the way, I did book Dr. Gabor Maté. I'm so, so excited about interviewing him.

Cynthia Thurlow: It's funny, I've had a lot of people listen to that podcast, and if our listeners haven't listened to that podcast, it's the most personal podcast I've ever done. But you can't interview someone like that, not having invested in the work in yourself, because trauma and it's just hard stuff to talk about because there's no one out there that hasn't experienced some type of trauma in their life. It's just how we express it inwardly or outwardly. And for me, his book is amazing. It's one of my favorite books I read in the past several years. It's definitely a book like, you have to be ready to do the work, talk to yourself, the other person not to get off on a tangent, but do you know Dr. Nicole LePera?

Melanie Avalon: I do not.

Cynthia Thurlow: She's a holistic psychologist, and I don't know, it's like down a rabbit hole. I heard her on Lewis' podcast. I bought her book. I bought the workbook. I'm now in her healing group. It's just like I tell everyone, I talk about doing the work. I am always doing the work and how important it is to invest in yourself. If you're listening and you may never be in a position where you have the opportunity to connect with some of these people, but their books can be life changing. It can be very reflective. Gabor's book probably took me two or three weeks to get through because it's very heavy. There's a lot in that book that you have to kind of absorb it and okay. It's like I've read that chapter, I can take a break, I go back to it but it's an excellent resource.

Melanie Avalon: Well, I will have to check it out and we'll have to put links to it in the show notes.

Cynthia Thurlow: Absolutely.

Melanie Avalon: Friends, I am so excited to tell you about one of my new favoritest things ever. Okay, so you guys know I eat a lot of cucumbers. I don't think that this is any secret. I find myself throwing away pounds, yes, pounds of cucumber peels, every single night. I felt so awful just throwing it in the trash. It seemed like such a waste. I'd always wanted to try composting aka a sustainable approach to turning food waste into healthy dirt, but it seemed really intimidating and not very practical. It was on the to-do list for quite a while. You can imagine how thrilled I was when a company called Lomi by Pela reached out to me wanting to sponsor the show. Normally I have to think about all the brands that reach out to me. I was an immediate yes. I was so excited. I got my Lomi device, it is incredible. Lomi allows me to turn my food scraps into dirt with the push of a button. Lomi is a countertop electric composter that turns scraps to dirt in under 4 hours. By comparison, if you were to compost naturally, it would probably take at the shortest around six to eight weeks and maybe even up to a year. But nope with Lomi, I can literally do it in 4 hours. There is no smell when it runs and it is super quiet. I've been using Lomi for a few months now. It is substantially reducing my waste. I was taking out garbage bags all the time. It's probably cut that down by about 30% to 50%. In fact, I love it so much that I bought another Lomi for my parents for Christmas. Now with my Lomi, I throw out weightless garbage. That means that waste is not going to landfills and producing methane.

Instead, I turn my waste into nutrient-rich dirt that you can actually use to feed your plants. And Lomi is super cool. It has three different settings. It has the Eco Express setting, which is low energy consumption, provides the fastest results, and is good for your food waste. It has the Lomi Approved setting that's 5 to 8 hours. You can actually put in Lomi Approved bioplastics and other compostable commercial goods and packaging that are Lomi Approved. And then there's the Grow mode that's 24 hours, it's low heat with a longer duration and that actually preserves the microorganisms the most to help the soil and promote carbon storage in the soil. I am all about regenerative agriculture, so the fact that we can help put carbon back into the soil is so, so incredible.

Lomi is something I have instantly fallen in love with. If you guys are anything like me, I know you will as well. Turn your food waste into the dirt with the press of a button with Lomi. Use the code IFPODCAST to save $50 at lomi.com/ifpodcast. That's lomi.com/ifpodcast with the promo code IFPODCAST to save $50. We'll put all this information in the show notes.

So, shall we jump into everything for today?

Cynthia Thurlow: Yes.

Melanie Avalon: Okay. To start things off, we have a question from Laurie. This is actually kind of funny because I guess Laurie is listening to old episodes still, so she thought Gin was still on the show, and I don't think she realized that Cynthia is on the show, which is funny when you hear this question. So, I'm going to read her question. So, she says, "Hi, Gin, I've listened to more than a dozen episodes of Intermittent Fasting Stories over the past week in preparation for joining the IF train. You and your interviewees have motivated and inspired me. I am 100% in." For listeners who are not familiar, Intermittent Fasting Stories is Gin's other podcast where she interviews people who do intermittent fasting. If that is of interest to you, definitely check that show out. She says "I have only 20 pounds to lose and I'm very much looking forward to shedding unwanted pounds as I'm 61, and after 50 like so many others, the weight just creeped up. It is the health benefits I'm looking forward to, more stamina and energy, brain clarity, better sleep, and natural cravings for more nutritious food."

"I was introduced to IF in an episode of the Megyn Kelly Show Podcast, where she interviewed Cynthia Thurlow. I tried my first experience with IF about 18 months ago and was successful. So, Laurie, Cynthia Thurlow is now the host of the show. She says, "After the first challenge of deciding I didn't need cream in my coffee ha-ha, I was a believer in the IF methodology and the science behind it. Of course, after listening to many of your episodes, which go much deeper than the one episode on Megyn Kelly. I already know what I could have done better for better results and will be joining your groups for support." I do have a question/concern though and hopefully you can direct me to a specific episode of yours to help this concern of mine. So far, I haven't heard any topics of discussion on your podcast from people who consider themselves, "Foodies, who are able to square their love of entertaining, cooking, coffee dates, lunches, etc., because I have some concerns that this very thing that gives me so much joy in life, preparation of food, eating as part of my entertainment with people and serving people my delicious creations might fall away like they've described as their cravings for flavored coffees and salty snacks."

So, she's saying might fall away as their other cravings have fallen away. "Is there a happy medium?" Thank you for all you are doing for a huge population of women who have tried everything else, best, Laurie. I love this question. We actually haven't received the nuance of this specific question before, so I'm very curious. What are your thoughts on this Cynthia?

Cynthia Thurlow: Well, Laurie, thanks for your question and I'm glad that you were introduced to fasting during my podcast with Megyn Kelly, which we'll link up in the show notes as well. I think that any strategy that we are using to improve our quality of life needs to be something that's sustainable. So, when someone that is a foodie and I define foodie in different ways, sometimes people that are foodies just like really good food, but it sounds like Laurie enjoys the whole socialization piece, the cooking, the prepping, the gathering together around food. I don't think it's an all-or-nothing phenomenon. I do think that you can intermittent fast and also enjoy those things in your lifestyle. I think it has to be a reframe in terms of, if you choose to go, like to have a coffee date or go out to lunch with a girlfriend, or maybe you break your fast earlier or later.

Maybe if you have a big party on a Saturday night, maybe you fast longer on Sunday. I mean, there're a lot of different ways to work around that. The other thing is, as a menopausal woman and wanting to lose about 20 pounds, it's not just fasting that's going to help get you there. There are other things. We know that women, especially in the second half of their lives, we have less muscle mass, which also impacts insulin sensitivity. So, in most of my menopausal patients and clients, I'm really encouraging them to strength train, make sure they're sleep styled in. If HRT or hormone replacement therapy is appropriate for you, estrogen in particular is an insulin-sensitizing hormone, to really think about that in conjunction with intermittent fasting. But I don't think it's all or nothing. I think you can enjoy food and intermittent fast. In fact I'm married to a foodie and by being married to him, I've kind of been like a quasi-foodie for the last 20 years.

And he navigates really beautifully. I think it's always with the context in the lens of I moderate what I enjoy eating and I just adjust my fasting and feeding windows around my lifestyle. If I go on vacation, maybe I'm having three meals a day and a wider feeding window. It is certainly a sustainable strategy, but it's not all-or-nothing. Unfortunately, I think some people feel like you have to be gluten free, dairy free, all these things. It does not have to be that way. But what I do think needs to be entertained is that you're still doing activities that you enjoy. Because if intermittent fasting has left you with the impression that you can't do those things, then we need to find a reframe because you absolutely can enjoy entertaining and going out to dinner and having parties and lunch dates and coffee dates and you can absolutely do that and integrate that into this lifestyle. Melanie, what are your thoughts?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I agree with what you said snd it's funny. I'm actually reading a book right now called The Fun Habit: How the Pursuit of Joy and Wonder Can Change Your Life by Mike Rucker, I'm really enjoying it, but I just started it. I'm only like sixth of the way through, but he talks all about the importance of having fun. But in any case, I'm so intrigued by this question for a few different reasons. It's really interesting to me and this is just something to contemplate how? Well, first of all, let me start by saying I agree with Cynthia that I actually think assuming this continues to be something that brings you joy in life, you can maintain it 100%. I'll talk a little bit more about that. Before that, it's interesting to think about how if we have joy for something or something brings us pleasure and then it's an activity that no longer does, for whatever reason, if it's no longer bringing you joy, it's not like it hurts you or that you-- how do I say this? I'm not articulating this well.

I find it interesting that we would have a secondary emotion about something no longer giving us joy and presumably something else does give you joy. It's not like you lost something really. So, for example, with the coffee and snacks, people get sad at the idea of thinking they will lose their cravings for these foods that they once loved. But the thing is, if you no longer crave it anymore, you no longer crave it anymore. Really what you're sad about is the loss of something that you once enjoyed. But the ironic thing is, if it's literally not bringing you joy anymore, I just think it's funny to step back and be like, "Why am I feeling this about this experience?" Because also, presumably if you no longer have a craving for something, you likely are enjoying something else food wise, so you could focus on what you are enjoying rather than what you no longer enjoy.

I think it's important that we are okay with change and realizing that what we find joy in right now can be anything and that's where the joy comes from. It doesn't really matter if it was something we used to have joy in or if we'll have joy in the future. I don't want to say it's not important that things that really meant something to us for a long time if we no longer find joy in them, that that's just something we should brush off. It's an interesting thing to contemplate. Like, I can contemplate this for a long time, especially with the food because presumably when your cravings change, they really do shift to something else. Especially when people do fasting, or adopt a paleo diet, or whole foods diet, or cut out processed foods, they tend to really enjoy new foods that tend to be healthier for them.

Maybe it's like a loss of identity honestly because you identified with liking something before and now you no longer do. Like, for me for example, well I still really love the idea of funfetti cake, but I'm actually not sad not eating it. To get more specific to your question, Laurie, because I feel like that was very esoteric. I actually don't see and Cynthia covered this very well, it's really not that hard, I don't think to maintain all of this. Also, coffee dates. Coffee dates, if you're drinking black coffee, you can still do those the way you've been doing them. I understand like lunches, depending on what your window is. If you have a window, you could make your window something that includes lunches and dinners, or you could change your window around, or you could break it-- open it early like Cynthia was saying. You can make it work around meals.

Most people with intermittent fasting, not everybody, but a lot, do have an eating window that covers the evening in some capacity. That's when the majority of entertaining-type stuff, especially parties often happen. So, then there's no issue there. You can still keep doing all of that. It's really interesting too, even on the foodie side of things. I eat so plain as people know when I go to restaurants, I just get like completely plain steak or completely plain fish and plain vegetables. But what's funny is, I think I'm not a foodie just because I don't fit the definition, because I don't engage in the way meals are prepared when they often have a lot of ingredients that I personally wouldn't consume, but from all appearances, I probably look like a foodie.

I hardcore research the restaurants not to see if they have something I can eat, more because I'm curious about the experience in the actual meals and the food that they have. I get really into it. I get really into multi courses. I'm all about it. It's funny because I was with a friend and he was saying that-- we're picking out a restaurant to go to and he was saying well-- he commented on how I was such a foodie. I was like, well, I'm really not because I literally eat the exact same thing at every restaurant I go to pretty much. But I am very much into the experience of it, which is what I think Laurie is getting at here. The point of all of that meandering long answer was, you can definitely maintain it. Although in the end, it seems like your concern isn't even if you could, your concern is that you're going to lose that desire. I don't see any reason that you would lose that desire if that's something that is bringing you joy.

People lose the desire often with the cravings with intermittent fasting, because it's literally changing how their body interprets food and processes food because they're no longer eating. It's putting people more in touch with what their body needs and their cravings tend to naturally change to something less processed. But the joy of entertaining and cooking and being with others and all of that, I don't see how fasting would change that. If anything, I think it might enhance it. Actually. I really do think it might enhance it because it's enhanced it for me, because the meal experience is more concentrated to like this sacred time window where I really experience it more because I'm not eating 24/7. Have you found that Cynthia that you enjoy meals more now?

Cynthia Thurlow: Well, I mean I'm at a different stage of life, so I would say the past nearly three years when we had a whole year when the boys were home and not in school, and we had four different people eating at four different times because of work schedules, book writing schedules, school schedules. I definitely really savor my meal time especially when I'm not eating by myself, when I'm with my family that's a very sacred time on the weekend when we're all together, all eating at the same time. I think it just makes you more appreciative of the process of eating. It's not this mechanical, it's breakfast time so I eat breakfast. It's lunchtime, so I eat. I'm much more attuned to what my body needs at that given point in time, as opposed to when I was probably eating three meals a day and snacks and many meals because that's what I was telling my patients. It just felt like I was constantly eating whereas now it's a much more thoughtful way to honor my body.

Melanie Avalon: I think the take-home message, Laurie, based on all of that is that, yes, your experience with eating and food might change, but I think if your underlying joy for these activities is still there in being a foodie, I don't think that's going to change. You can definitely pair it with intermittent fasting. So, any other thoughts for that one?

Cynthia Thurlow: No. I appreciate that she's putting so much thought behind it, but it's really that reframe of not what you can't have, but what you can have and then adopting, if you're having a party at your home, maybe you're going to have a wider feeding window and maybe you're going to have a shorter feeding window the following day. I think there are a lot of different ways to navigate fasting and having a lifestyle that embraces a lot of entertaining.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, definitely. Now we still have some great questions from the AMAs that we asked for. We actually got two questions related to bioidentical hormones. So, I'm going to read those. So, Tracy sent, "Have you done an episode on bioidentical hormone replacement therapy? And if not, would you address it? And Stephanie said, I'm on progesterone only HRT, can you use estrogen even if you still have a period? Will it cause weight gain?" I will just say this is Cynthia's forte. [laughs]

Cynthia Thurlow: Let me be sure, I definitely told Melanie we needed to definitely answer these questions. So, Tracy, no, we have not done a dedicated bioidentical hormone episode, but I think we should definitely do one. Maybe we'll bring in one of my favorite colleagues to bolster that, a GYN friend, so that they can provide additional input. And then Stephanie said, I'm on progesterone only and let me be clear, a lot of women in perimenopause, the 10 to 15 years preceding menopause, and yes if the average age is 51, late 30s, you're there. One of the first hormonal shifts that starts to happen is that our ovaries stop producing as much progesterone. It's not at all uncommon to take just progesterone and still be in perimenopause. I do see several women who are also on estrogen, although interestingly enough and I learned this while writing my book that in perimenopause, women can have wild fluctuations in estrogen.

It's because of these fluctuations in progesterone we're making less progesterone, our ovaries, we're starting this early ovarian failure. Our adrenal glands are trying to pick up the slack with progesterone. Well, we get this relative estrogen dominance internally, but we can also have higher levels of estrogen because of exogenous exposure. So, it can be multiple things. But Dr. Lara Briden does a particularly great explanation of this in the Hormone Repair Manual and we'll link up the podcast I did with her, but you see these wild fluctuations in estradiol throughout perimenopause right before menopause when those estrogen levels are starting to falter. It's interesting because I've seen several women who've been on estradiol patches or they've been on different types of testosterone therapy or other types of therapies in perimenopause, but typically if you have a uterus and you are in menopause, you should be on both estrogen and progesterone to protect the lining of the uterus.

I know this question will probably come up, so I'm just going to address it. But testosterone therapy, interestingly enough, there's no FDA-approved testosterone option for women. You will see women using pellets. I am not a fan of pellets. They are wildly unpredictable. I've seen a lot of women that have had a lot of problems because they've been on pellets. Of course, there's always an exception. Every time we do a post about pellets, we get 10 people who tell us they have a great experience. They're the minority. I also did a podcast with Dr. Shawn Tassone talking specifically about pellets, which we'll also link up, but to reassure women that you can actually have testosterone replacement in perimenopause and menopause, but you want to fix the upstream issue. Interestingly enough, stress has a large impact on our libido and also our testosterone levels as well as insulin resistance. So, you want to make sure both of those are addressed before you consider testosterone cream.

Some people even prescribe subcutaneous testosterone administration, but you absolutely positively want to work with a practitioner who's familiar with all of your options and there's not just one size fits all, someone who does the testing. So, not just blood testing, but also the Dutch, which I use in my practice and I'm a huge proponent of, because it gives you information like how well your body breaks down and detoxifies estrogen. So, yes, you can just be on progesterone. More often than not, you're probably in perimenopause, which it sounds like Stephanie is, and then estrogen sometimes is added as people are getting closer to menopause. You don't have to just be in menopause to be getting bioidentical hormones and we could have a whole episode just on that, but I'll just leave it at that. We'll give you guys some resources and I will work with Melanie to find an appropriate person to bring on that is a GYN that will be able to answer all the things about HRT and bioidentical HRT.

Melanie Avalon: I really have nothing to add.

Cynthia Thurlow: And that's totally okay.

Melanie Avalon: [laughs] Historically, for so long, people ask me questions all the time and I'm like, I don't know. [laughs] This is not my area of expertise.

Cynthia Thurlow: That's totally okay. If we have a podcast episode like that, I'm happy to tell everyone what I've done, what I haven't done, what's worked, what has not worked, what I would recommend, what I would not recommend. I think most women have to go through several practitioners to get the care they want in middle age. I don't think it's a one size fits all, unfortunately.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. I'm just happy that there are so many changes happening, I think, progressively in the medical system with all of this because especially with the role of women in the medical system and how there's not really been that much attention to them and studies and things like that. So, I will not go on that soapbox tangent.

Cynthia Thurlow: Well, and it's interesting. There's a really good book if you're interested in learning more about the Women's Health Initiative and what has come out of that. We have a whole generation of clinicians and patients who are fearful to prescribe and take hormones. There's a really excellent resource called Why Estrogen Matters by Drs. Avrum Bluming and Carol Tavris, he is an oncologist, she is a researcher. They're an amazing, amazing duo and I had them on the podcast last year and we really unpacked the Women's Health Initiative. So that's a really good starting point. Why Estrogen Matters is a really great book to get you up to speed and if you want to spend 3 hours listening to a podcast, you can listen to Peter Attia's podcast with them. That's how I got acquainted with their work. My podcast with them, I think, is under an hour and 15 minutes. If you want a shorter one, [laughs] there's definitely my podcast with them but that's a really great resource.

Melanie Avalon: Well, you had me at Peter Attia, so sign me up. Okay, so we have a really fun question next.

Cynthia Thurlow: So, our next question is from Stacy. Subject is AMA question, "Does THC inhibit weight loss while intermittent fasting? Before Melanie answers, Melanie and I have been talking about the research around THC and it's really been very interesting. So, Melanie, what are your thoughts?

Melanie Avalon: It's really interesting because there're a lot of studies on both CBD and THC. I think when people think THC, they associate it with CBD especially with all of the CBD oils on the market because there are not THC oils on the market, and that's because of THC-- So, when you're engaging in something like cannabis or hemp and like CBD oil from that, if there's any THC in it as well, the THC is actually the part of cannabis that has the psychoactive properties to it. So, when people get CBD oils, they usually won't have THC or they'll have very minimal amounts. I know her question was specifically about THC, but for all intents and purposes, I researched both THC and CBD. It's really interesting because the studies are all over the board. So, for CBD specifically, some studies have found no effects, some have found that CBD can actually decrease body weight, others have found that CBD can actually increase body weight.

What's really interesting is one of the studies that I was looking at was proposing that maybe CBD was increasing body weight, but THC was counter to that. Another study I found was basically saying the opposite that THC might be responsible for the weight gain. Basically, it's really hard to say something either way and also it might have to do with the patient population. Sometimes they'll do studies in patients with weight loss issues or anorexia or something like that, and they will see how it affects weight gain or weight loss. That's important information to know, but it might not necessarily apply to the general public. It's really hard to say something either way. I know her question is actually about THC in relation to fasting. What I would say to that is that if it's having that effect either way, I don't know that the effect would be that strong that you wouldn't lose weight while fasting. But I think it's going to be very, very individual. What did you find in your research, Cynthia?

Cynthia Thurlow: Yeah, I think you did a really nice job explaining that. It's interesting because the studies I was looking at were comparing short versus long-term use. In individuals that have cancer and we call it cachexia, but they're very very thin and very frail individuals with HIV and AIDS that it can be helpful for appetite stimulation iin low-weight individuals. What I found from my research was that individuals that are at a healthier, "Normal weight" that's dependent on many many variables, but they are less likely to gain weight while utilizing cannabis. From my perspective, I didn't say anything that was specific to inhibition of weight loss while fasting, but more often than not, it's in my clinical experience, so again, this is different, that people who are still smoking a lot of marijuana or using CBD-type products are just more prone to snacking and eating outside of a feeding window.

I think it's highly individual and based on the research that I looked at, the utilization of these types of substances can be beneficial for people who are underweight, if they want to gain weight, but is really limited to the population I looked at in the research was cancer patients, chronically ill people that are underweight, and those that have HIV and AIDS, where they get this kind of starvation cachexia syndromes where their bodies are chronically malnourished. They're having trouble utilizing the food that they do consume, and then they're on medications that are probably impacting their desire to eat.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, and to that point, that reminded me of one of the things I had read, which was pointing out the paradox that users of CBD, I think specifically marijuana, I'd have to find it again, but it was talking about how that's associated with increased appetite and eating more and all of that, but that the users don't tend to weigh more. It's a bit of a paradox, and I think it speaks to that long-term piece of the overall habits. But I think that was the one where it said that maybe THC was responsible for mitigating that, but it's really hard to know. This is a 2021 study, so relatively recent. The title is Cannabinoid Use for Appetite Stimulation and Weight Gain in Cancer Care. I wonder if this was maybe related to what you had read, Cynthia, but like a quote from this, this is really interesting. They said, "Over the past 20 years, six randomized controlled trials have evaluated the impact of cannabinoids on appetite-related outcomes in oncology patients in comparison with the control group or placebo." Based on that literature, cannabinoids do not appear to improve appetite, oral intake, weight, chemosensory function, or appetite-related quality of life. But limitations are small sample sizes, lack of adjustment for compounding variables, difficulties in conducting the trials. Yeah, we need more research for sure. It seems to be all over the place.

Cynthia Thurlow: Well, and it's interesting, 20 plus years ago there was a drug called Marinol. It's probably still in existence, but it was THC. When I use the term street legal, like, people could prescribe it legally. This is way before the advent of all this legalization of marijuana and their byproducts and it was something that they're really pushing clinicians to use for the same patients I was talking about. The people who've got these wasting syndromes, cancer patients, HIV/AIDS, etc., as being beneficial, but I agree with you and hopefully with the legalization in many parts of the United States that there'll be more research that we'll be able to determine the net impact on many different variables.

Melanie Avalon: I agree and I do want to backtrack a little bit, I'm just thinking more about something I said earlier because I was saying that I thought that even if it was having an effect that you could still lose the weight with the fasting. I do want to emphasize if it's having an hormonal effect on you, I don't think we can overstate the role that hormonal changes can have as being a barrier to weight loss or weight gain. So, that could go either way. For people who are having this in their life, they're just going to have to look at themselves and see how it's affecting them. But I think it definitely could play a factor either way. I feel like this answer is not that helpful. Basically, you have to just figure it out for yourself if it's affecting you that way.

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Melanie Avalon: Now we'll answer another one of our AMA questions. This is a personal one. I'm really excited to answer this one. Nicole wants to know a few people ask this, which is interesting. Katie said, "The two of you are so positive. What would be interesting is to hear some of your biggest pet peeves. Nicole said, "What are your pet peeves?" and then Teresa said, "What is your biggest turn-off?" So, pet peeves and turn-offs?

Cynthia Thurlow: Yeah, I would say my personal pet peeve that drives me absolutely crazy are wet socks. In my house, we don't wear shoes. Every morning when my kids go off to school, I open up all their plantation shutters and I go through rooms and gather laundry and things like that and my kids are absolute water like hogs. There's water everywhere, it's on the floor, it's never on the bathmat and so If I have socks on and I walk into their bathroom and my socks get wet, there's something about wet socks that makes me crazy, and so I have to then change my socks. I would say, just from a personal perspective, that's my own quirky thing, but I would say things that bother me a lot like you travel, I travel, people that chew their gum really loudly and pop it in public and individuals talk on their cell phones as if no one is around in an enclosed space. I'm not talking about, like, if you're outside. I'm talking about you're in an enclosed environment and you are pretending as if no one is around you and you're speaking at full volume and yelling, and it's not a brief conversation, it's an extensive one. Those are probably my three that bother me the most. I generally with the exception of the socks, I just have to pray that someone walks away from me. It's like please go somewhere else and chew your gum and talk loudly into your cell phone. How about you?

Melanie Avalon: That's so funny. I'm having flashbacks too. Remember when people first started wearing Bluetooth headsets? Like earpods and they weren't a thing yet, so people would be like talking to themselves out loud. I just remember that first started happening and I was like, "What are they doing?" I realized it was the earpods. Yes, so I have quite a few. Okay, when people-- this one kills me. When you send a text to somebody that has multiple questions and then they only answer the last question, they don't address the entire text, drives me up the wall. Did you not read the whole text? There are multiple questions in there. People who can't really plan, although it can work if I can plan for us, but I need plans. People who really wear being busy like a badge of honor, that's their thing in life. That really bothers me. That probably bothers me too much because it bothers me to the point where I don't like to tell people I'm busy as the reason because I have this own concern around it. Last night, I was having a phone call or-- I was texting a friend and she was trying to schedule a time to catch up and I was so busy, I didn't want to tell her I was busy because I didn't want her to think I was just saying I was busy to wear busy like a badge of honor. Then finally I had to tell her, I was like, "Listen, it's just because I'm busy, I'm so sorry." So, that one gets to me.

Oh, this one, because growing up, my mom, she has a lot of autoimmune conditions and she would always say that it's in her genes, like, my grandmother had it. It's just the way it is. I think when people-- and I don't like to ascribe pet peeve to it because I don't want to-- When people say this, I really feel for them and I understand that they do feel like it's in their genes certain health conditions and that's their destiny and that makes me really sad, and I want to empower people to feel differently. I think when people blame genetics, I guess the pet peeve of it would come in when people are living a lifestyle that is not conducive to a healthy state, and then they just blame their health conditions on genetics, that bothers me. Typos, typos really, really get to me.

Cynthia Thurlow: Melanie has a fastidious editing like I, so when I do my next book, Melanie, I'm going to have you help me make sure there's nothing that should be edited.

Melanie Avalon: I feel so bad, if I'm ever hiring which, by the way, I really want to get an intern. I'm probably going to post-- need to post on one of those job-hiring sites. I've got to get an intern. Just so you know though, if anybody applies for an internship with me and there's a typo in your application no. [Laughs] Just because if that's your first impression, I don't see any excuse to have a typo. If it's something that you're really putting time into, after you get the job, that's different. If it's like your first impression or if somebody's hitting on me and sends a text with a typo, I'm like, "Nope, nope." And then just in general, probably my biggest pet peeve of all pet peeves is people getting offended by things. I really just don't think there's any reason-- Yes, people get offended but let me clarify getting offended and blaming other people for feeling offended.

My biggest thing is that if you're offended, there's something in you that's offended. Don't blame other people. I don't even care if it's something that is straight-up wrong that somebody else did. That feeling of being offended is something I think-- This is just my opinion, but I think it's a fear or anxiety or something that you're uncomfortable with in you. If anything, those actions that people do are just providing a mirror or a spotlight to figure out what bothers you and your psyche. I just can't handle today's culture of blaming everybody for everything. Just personal responsibility [laughs] is what I'm all about.

Yeah, the only reason I didn't want to answer this question and I don't know if this is true, but how you read these things about psychology and they stick with you? I read at one point that when you talk negatively-- This actually is good to know, when you talk negatively about somebody else, people ascribe that whatever you're saying and those negative characteristics subconsciously to you. So, ever since I read that, I was like, "Oh, I should not talk negatively about people because people might subconsciously ascribe that to me, which is a selfish reason to not want to do that. It's nice because it kind of curtails talking negatively about people as well." So, hopefully, people do not ascribe those attributes to us.

Cynthia Thurlow: No, but I think it's just a lot of what bothers me in general beyond the wet socks, which obviously is my own weird-- and I've been that way my whole life, has a lot to do with just being courteous of one another as a society just being thoughtful. The concept of treat others as you would like to be treated and I think in many ways we're so disconnected from one another that we don't even perceive the behavior that we're embracing wherever we are. I try to be a very thoughtful person. My pet peeves are definitely things where I'm just like that's that person is not being thoughtful of people around them, they're just off in their own little-- We used to call it our Own Private Idaho, that movie from many years ago when I was back in Maryland, there were a couple of people that would just say they were off in their Own Private Idaho, I was like, "Yes, they are." Not even aware. But I couldn't agree with you more. We choose to be positive, right?

Melanie Avalon: Yes. Quick plug, everybody now go buy-- If any of these interests you, go buy The Science of Positivity by Loretta Breuning. It is fascinating. It's a lot about cynicism and how we naturally engage in cynicism to like protect ourselves or it's a really, really, really good book and how you can actually be more positive. So, okie dokie. Well, this has been absolutely wonderful. A few things for listeners before we go.

So, if listeners would like to submit their own questions for the podcast, they can directly email questions@ifpodcast.com or they can go to ifpodcast.com and they can submit questions there. The show notes for today's show where we will put links to everything that we talked about. I know we talked about quite a few studies, so we will put those in the show notes. Those will be at ifpodcast.com/episode305 and then you can get all the stuff that we like at ifpodcast.com/stuffwelike and you can follow us on Instagram. We are @ifpodcast, I am @melanieavalon, Cynthia is @cynthia_thurlow_ and I think that is all things. Anything from you, Cynthia, before we go?

Cynthia Thurlow: No. I look forward to our next episode where we can dive into the rest of these listeners' questions along with our regular questions.

Melanie Avalon: Awesome. Well, this has been absolutely amazing and I will talk to you next week.

Cynthia Thurlow: Sounds good.

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 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, and original theme composed by Leland Cox and re-composed by Steve Saunders. See you next week.

[Transcript provided by SpeechDocs Podcast Transcription]

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
Cynthia's Intermittent Fasting Transformation: The 45-Day Program for Women to Lose Stubborn Weight, Improve Hormonal Health, and Slow Aging

Everyday Wellness

More on Melanie: MelanieAvalon.com

Episode 301: AMA Part 2, Celebrities & Movies, Calcium Supplements, Interview Guests, Dislikes, Travel, Eating Habits, Exotic Meats, Secrets, And More!

GET THE EPISODE ON ITUNES!

Remedies for a hangover-free 2018

Welcome to Episode 301 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 Cynthia Thurlow, author of Intermittent Fasting Transformation: The 45-Day Program for Women to Lose Stubborn Weight, Improve Hormonal Health, and Slow Aging.

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

NUTRISENSE: Get Your Own Personal Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) To See How Your Blood Sugar Responds 24/7 To Your Food, Fasting, And Exercise! The Nutrisense CGM Program Helps You Interpret The Data And Take Charge Of Your Metabolic Health! Get $30 Off A CGM Program At Nutrisense.Io/Ifpodcast With The Code IFPODCAST!

MANUKORA: Support Optimal Immune And Digestive Health With Manukora. Delicious, Raw, Sustainable, Traceable Manuka Honey From New Zealand. Manukora Superpower Honey Is High In Antioxidants, Prebiotics, And The Natural Antibacterial MGO Compound. Go To Manukora.Com/ifpodcast For A FREE Pack Of Honey Sticks With Your Order!

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

SHOW NOTES

1:10 - NUTRISENSE: Get $30 Off A CGM Program At Nutrisense.Io/Ifpodcast With The Code IFPODCAST

4:15 - BEAUTYCOUNTER: Keep Your Fast Clean Inside And Out With Safe Skincare! Shop With Us At melanieavalon.com/beautycounter or beautycounter.com/cynthiathurlow And Use The Code CLEANFORALL20 For 20% Off PLUS 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!

12:25 - Listener Q&A: Theresa - Celebrity crush and your go-to movie?

16:45 - Listener Q&A: Danielle - If they were to make a movie about you, who would you want to play you or if you were to star in a movie who would you want to act with?

19:00 - Listener Q&A: Nicole - Name one celebrity or person of notoriety, living or dead, with whom you’d like to share a meal & conversation.

19:45 - MANUKORA: Go To manukora.com/ifpodcast For A FREE Pack Of Honey Sticks With Your Order!

23:30 - Listener Q&A: Brittany - Calcium. I would love to hear how you both feel about supplementing vs not.

27:10 - Listener Q&A: Elaine - Do you ever totally disagree with your interview guest? Are any disagreeable with you?

30:35 - Listener Q&A: Theresa - Most embarrassing or awkward moment during an interview

33:15 - Listener Q&A: Danielle - How many of the 50 states have you been to?

34:45 - Listener Q&A: Hollie - How do you cook your scallops and how many cucumbers and blueberries do you really eat in a day. Do you eat anything else other than the previous three mentioned?

35:00 - Listener Q&A: Mariah - Curious how you consume your ginger and turmeric

37:45 - Listener Q&A: Melissa - Hello! I want to know what Cynthia Henry Thurlow eats (I know that Melanie Avalon eats scallops & cucumbers ). I’m a 51 years old female with 50lbs to loose. My window is 3pm to 9pm. How does a picky eater get in enough protein? My main source of protein is chicken & eggs.

42:20 - Listener Q&A: Theresa - Your “toxic trait” as my students would say (area you need to grow in or some bad habit you need to work on)

44:05 - Listener Q&A: Laura - What is something that we would be surprised to learn about you?

54:40 - LMNT: For A Limited Time 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 Wolf!

57:40 - Listener Q&A: Eileen - Thoughts on the information going around (originating from TikTok possibly) that alcohol stops fat burning for 36 hours?

1:01:10 - Listener Q&A: Becky - I heard you mention on one of your older podcasts, that you don’t produce enough acetylaldehyde dehydrogenase. I have the same issue, as do some of my kids. I was wondering if you also get a red face ( ie “Asian flush” ) when you drink? And have you found anything that helps, other than not drinking at all?

The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #171 - Dr. Nayan Patel

DRY FARM WINES: Natural, Organic, Low Alcohol, Low Sugar Wines, Paleo And Keto Friendly! Go To dryfarmwines.com/ifpodcast To Get A Bottle For A Penny!

1:04:20 - Listener Q&A: Theresa - most recent text: who is it to and what does it say

Our content does not constitute an attempt to practice medicine, and does not establish a doctor-patient relationship. Please consult a qualified health care provider for medical advice and answers to personal health questions.

TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Welcome to Episode 301 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 and 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, Cynthia Thurlow, Nurse Practitioner and author of Intermittent Fasting Transformation: A 45-Day Program for Women to Lose Stubborn Weight, Improve Hormonal Health, and Slow Aging. For more on us, check out ifpodcast.com, melanieavalon.com, and cynthiathurlow.com. Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this show do not constitute medical advice or treatment and no doctor-patient relationship is formed. So, pour yourself a mug of black coffee, a cup of tea, or even a glass of wine, if it's that time, and get ready for The Intermittent Fasting Podcast.

Hi, friends, we talk all the time on this show about the beneficial effects of intermittent fasting and especially how it can affect your blood sugar levels. How much do we talk about this? How diet affects them? How exercise affects them? How fasting affects them? How do you actually know what your blood sugar levels are? Besides when you go to the doctor and get a snapshot of that one moment in time, or give yourself a finger prick, which, again, is a snapshot of that one moment in time. What if you could know what your blood sugar was all the time? That would be revolutionary insight that could really help you meet your health and wellness goals. Guess what? You can do that now. I'm going to tell you how to save $30 off while doing it. We are obsessed with a company called NutriSense. They provide access to and interpretations of the data from the biosensors known as Continuous Glucose Monitors aka CGMs. Your blood sugar level can significantly impact how your body feels and functions. NutriSense lets you analyze in real time how your glucose levels respond to food, exercise, sleep, and stress. How does that work? Well, a CGM is a small device that tracks your glucose levels in real time. The application is easy and painless. I promise, promise, promise. Check out my Instagram. I have so many videos of putting them on so you can see what that process is like. It's actually really fun.

You can use the NutriSense app to scan your CGM, visualize data, log your meals, run experiments, and so much more. And you get expert dietitian guidance. Each subscription plan includes one-month free of dietitian support. One of my friends recently got a CGM and she was going on and on about how cool it was to talk one on one with a dietitian who could help her interpret her results. Your dietitian will help you interpret the data and provide suggestions based on your goals. Of course, if you're already super knowledgeable in this space, they will still be able to provide you more advanced tips and recommendations. Friends, seeing this data in real time is what makes it easy to identify what you're doing well and where there's room for improvement. Some benefits and outcomes that you can experience, weight loss, stable energy throughout the day, better sleep, understanding which foods are good for you, controlling your cravings, seeing how you're responding to fasting and so much more.

Each device lasts for 14 days and of course, lasting sustainable change takes time and that can be achieved with a longer-term subscription. We definitely encourage you to choose a six or twelve-month subscription which are cheaper per month and allows you to not only achieve your goals but also ensure that you stick to your healthy lifestyle for the long term. You can go to nutrisense.io/ifpodcast and use the coupon code, IFPODCAST to save $30 and get one month of free dietitian support. That's nutrisense.io/ifpodcast and use the code, IFPODCAST to save $30 and get one month of free dietitian support. Friends, you want to be in the world of CGMs? It is such a cool experience and you will learn so much. Definitely check it out and we'll put all this information in the show notes.

And then in our bodies, studies have shown they do things like reduce our satiety hormones, increase our hunger hormones, make fat cells more likely to store fat, and more resistant to burning fat, and so much more. If you have stubborn fat, friends, your skincare, and makeup may be playing a role in that. Beyond weight gain and weight loss, these compounds have very detrimental effects on our health and they affect the health of our future generations. That's because ladies when we have babies, a huge percent of those toxic compounds go through the placenta into the newborn. It is so, so shocking and the effects last for years.

Conventional lipstick, for example, often tests high in lead and the half-life of lead is up to 30 years. That means when you put on some conventional lipstick, 30 years later maybe half of that lead has left your bones. On top of that, there is essentially no regulation of these products on the shelves. That's why it's up to us to choose brands that are changing this. The brand that is working the hardest to do this is Beautycounter. They were founded on a mission to change this. Every single ingredient is extensively tested to be safe for your skin, so you can truly feel good about what you put on. And friends, these products really, really work. They are incredible. They have counter time for anti-aging, counter match for normal skin, counter control for acne and oily prone, and counter start for sensitive. I use their Overnight Resurfacing Peel and vitamin C serum every single night of my life and their makeup is amazing. Check out my Instagram to see what it looks like. Tina Fey even wore all Beautycounter makeup when she hosted The Golden Globes. So, yes, it is high-definition camera ready. They have so many other products, deodorant, shampoo and conditioner that I love, products for babies, and so much more. You can shop with us at beautycounter.com/melanieavalon or beautycounter.com/cynthiathurlow and use the coupon code CLEANFORALL20 to get 20% off your first order. Also, make sure to get on my clean beauty email list. That's at melanieavalon.com/cleanbeauty. I give away a lot of free things on that list. So, definitely check it out. You can join me in my Facebook group, Clean Beauty and Safe Skincare with Melanie Avalon. People share their experiences, ask questions, give product reviews, and I do a giveaway every single week in that group as well.

And lastly, if you're thinking of making clean beauty and safe skincare a part of your future like we have, we definitely recommend 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. It is totally completely worth it. So, again to shop with us go to beautycounter.com/melanieavalon or beautycounter.com/cynthiathurlow and use the coupon code, CLEANFORALL20 to get 20% off your first order. 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 301 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon, and I'm here with Cynthia Thurlow.

Cynthia Thurlow: Hi, Melanie.

Melanie Avalon: How are you today, Cynthia?

Cynthia Thurlow: I'm doing well. Still starving, off a little bit jet lag, but doing good. I'm just excited to decompress over the next two weeks. How about you?

Melanie Avalon: I'm doing well. We're recording this a little bit in advance, but when this comes out, it will be near the end of January, but I'm really excited about the New Year, 2023. I feel like there's a lot of exciting things and potential. This is an interesting random question before we jump in. I was talking with a friend, actually, with Jon Levy the other day, and I don't remember what brought this up, but we were talking about the concept of when you have projects that you're doing and how do you feel after completion. When you accomplish a goal or a project or something you've been doing, do you have a feeling of sadness or a feeling of, like, now what? Or a feeling of what next? Or what is that experience like for you? I don't really get that experience. When I complete something, I'm just really excited and ready for the next thing. I don't ever really feel like, "Oh, that's sad or what do I do now?" I'm always just excited to do the next thing. How about you? If you have a project or something?

Cynthia Thurlow: Yeah, I mean, I think about a lot of business travel I've had purposefully for different events. I'm always so grateful for the opportunities that for me, I'm always like, yeah, that was awesome. What's next? I'm happy and grateful, but I'm always looking forward and not looking behind, so I don't get disappointed even when things like, as an example, I did a business trip up to Chicago in November for an event with a colleague of mine, and the event wasn't at all what we expected it to be. I just said listen this just validates what we want. This just further provides clarity about what direction to take our businesses in. From my perspective, I'm always looking forward. I'm always viewing things from a very positive lens and being very grateful because I acknowledge that we have opportunities that not everyone else has. I would say that the glass is always half full.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, same. I also feel like I'm the same like I'm looking forward, not backward, but also things really last with me. I still feel really grateful for so many things that happened so long ago. I don't think they lose their allure. I was also reading a book last night because I'm just thinking about, like, a positive mindset and all of that. It's like Catch-22, but apparently, if you don't naturally have a positive mindset, you can rewire your brain to become more positive. The catch is that you have to want to do that. It's like if you're stuck in a negative mindset, I think it would be hard to-- if you're like a pessimist, that's what it was about. It was about optimists and pessimists, and could pessimists become an optimists? They can, but they have to want to. I don't know what that experience is like in their head. If they're naturally a pessimist, they might not want to become an optimist. I don't know.

Cynthia Thurlow: Yeah. I mean, I've got a couple entrepreneur friends or just people in my life that are like, the sky is always falling, they always view things from a pessimistic lens. It's hard for me to understand coming from a place of negativity when something really good has happened. I agree with you that it's very likely that they can go from being pessimist to being optimists, but it requires a lot of inner work. I think for many people, they're just not in a position where they can per se do that. It's something that they could certainly invest in over time to transition to a more heartfelt, grateful perspective as opposed to one that's always looking at the negatives. It's not to suggest all of us don't have a bad day or a bad mood or you're just having a crummy moment, but the optimist is always going to figure a way out. They're not going to stay in that kind of fixed mindset.

Melanie Avalon: So true, sort of relates. We are continuing our Ask Me Anything episode from episode 300, our celebratory episode because we got so many incredible, amazing questions and they're just fun, but they also relate to health and wellness. We're just going to keep on answering these until we get through all of the ones that we got. I'll start with one by popular request from Cynthia because she wanted to answer this and I do too. Actually, there's three and they're all related to a similar topic, so we can do all of them. First one, Theresa wants to know what is your celebrity crush and your go-to movie.

Cynthia Thurlow: [laughs] I have a thing for Charlie Hunnam. Do you know him?

Melanie Avalon: Who is that?

Cynthia Thurlow: Claim to fame as Sons of Anarchy? He's not even necessarily in that show like the greatest actor, but there's just something about him physically that I find so attractive. He was in the most recent rendition of King Arthur. He's British, he's blonde and he's hot, so I'll just leave that there. He's my get-out-of-jail card. Not that I'll ever meet him, but he's just a very attractive human being. I don't think I have a favorite movie. I think I have groups of movies that I've enjoyed throughout my lifetime. This probably makes me sound like-- I think I've always been more of a book person than a movie person. I have a cousin who went to film school at USC where Melanie went for undergrad. He'd be so disappointed to hear me say that.

I think I'm old school in terms of like 80s, a lot of the Steven Spielberg movies and George Lucas movies. I love retrospectively thinking about Indiana Jones movies. I mean things that my kids can watch. I don't have to worry about something obscure popping up that I then have to explain to them. I would say trilogies, things like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. I love, like, the Harry Potter series we've watched multiple times. We've read all the books, but things that I can really lean into and just enjoy and savor well-written characters. How about you?

Melanie Avalon: Celebrity crush is Johnny Depp.

Cynthia Thurlow: Oh, how funny. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: I love Johnny Depp. I was very much invested in the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard Trial. It was like the most intense real-life TV show. Like, I was literally just watching the court cases, like day after day the court trial. Go-to movie, it's one that you mentioned, Lord of the Rings is my favorite. Do you have a go-to Christmas movie?

Cynthia Thurlow: Oh, I love, "Why am I forgetting the name of it?" The one that has Hugh-- Love Actually. Love Actually is a favorite. What's the movie where I'm terrible with names Melanie, this is like a pathologic problem. I'm thinking of the couples that kind of switch places.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, yes, The Holiday.

Cynthia Thurlow: Thank you. I would say those are like, happy kind of holiday movies that we watch every year. I love Home Alone because my youngest is kind of exactly like Macaulay Culkin was at that age, and he would be that child. I would say those are probably, like, the Heat Miser, Cold Miser. So, like the old animated.

Melanie Avalon: That's my favorite out of all the animated ones. I love that one.

Cynthia Thurlow: Yeah. My husband was watching it the other night with our kids and texted me, and I was like, here I am in LA in my hotel room eating, like, room service, and my kids and my husband are home doing something that's holiday related. So, those are probably my favorites. How about you?

Melanie Avalon: I love the Heat Miser, Cold Miser ones. I think I've mentioned it on the show before, but Borrowed Hearts, it's like my favorite made-for-TV Christmas movie ever. I'm obsessed with it. It is the best. It has the main guy from, I think, Grey's Anatomy. It's like 1997, and I've been watching it for a long time. And then one other. Oh, I love The Holiday as well. I actually watched this past Christmas for the first time. I think I probably had seen parts of it when I was little, but they made the sequel to A Christmas Story, so I wanted to watch the original. It's kind of dark. I'm glad I didn't watch that growing up. I don't think that would have made me feel very good.

Cynthia Thurlow: There's an amazing rendition done in Ford's Theater every year. Last year we saw it was 2018 because then, of course, it was like 2019 and then the pandemic. But it's so well done. But I agree with you. It can be dark depending on the director and the way that it's written. I think the older I get, the less I like dark movies. I used to love being creeped out when I was little, I loved scary movies, and now I'm "Yeah, I don't really like that."

Melanie Avalon: It feels very adulty if that makes sense. Like, I was watching it and I was like, this doesn't make me feel happy and Christmasy. I'm glad I wasn't watching this growing up. So, the other quick celebrity-related ones, Danielle wants to know, if they were to make a movie about you, who would you want to play you? Or if you were to star in a movie, who would you want to act with?

Cynthia Thurlow: Okay, so, obviously, I would be the person advocating for someone to play me because I'm not a thespian. I would not be in a position to be acting as someone else. It's funny over the years, I've had different people tell me I look like different people. I've heard Jennifer Aniston. I've heard Scarlett Johansson, which I didn't really see, most recently, do you know Vera Farmiga?

Melanie Avalon: I don't think so.

Cynthia Thurlow: Yeah, she's got a very unique look. But I was told at this dinner that I went to at John's house, this one was like, "Hey, you look like an older version of her." I was like, you realize she's in her 40s, right? She was like, oh, she is just an FYI. Don't tell women that are older that they look like an older version of someone. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: Just don't, women and age just don't.

Cynthia Thurlow: Yeah, just don't even go there. I'm a very confident, secure woman, but I was just like, "That's not a compliment, lady." Those would probably be the people I've heard I resemble, but I see aspects of each one of them. Like, I love Jennifer Aniston's hair. I have lips like Scarlett. Vera, I probably look more like than the other two. How about you? I know you would want to just play someone because you are a thespian.

Melanie Avalon: Well, yeah, so I would want to play myself for sure. That is not even a question. If I were to star in a movie with somebody, I'm obsessed with Blake Lively and Keira Knightley.

Cynthia Thurlow: She's so cute.

Melanie Avalon: Blake Lively is besties with Taylor Swift, so then maybe I could become friends with Taylor, too. It would just be great. It would be amazing. Those are the two actresses I will watch any movie they're in. I think I have girl crushes on them. I just like looking at them. I just think they're so beautiful.

Cynthia Thurlow: Yeah. Blake, to me, just seems like a nice down-to-earth human being. Ryan Reynolds, who she's married to, he's so cute when he talks about her.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, I know. They seem very, like, in love. They seem very-- and they've been together for a long time now.

Cynthia Thurlow: Long time. This is her fourth pregnancy, so yeah, definitely a long time.

Melanie Avalon: There's usually Easter eggs in Taylor Swift's songs about the names of Blake's children, which is lovely. Which brings us to our next question. Easy answer for me, but Nicole wants to know, name one celebrity or person of notoriety, living or dead, with whom you'd like to share a meal and conversation. Taylor Swift. How about you?

Cynthia Thurlow: I thought about this. I gave this some thought, Nelson Mandela, because I don't know if I've ever told you this, but when I went to South Africa for the first time, he was still alive. We were supposed to go to Robben Island, which is where he was imprisoned. The weather was bad, so we couldn't actually go. It didn't look bad on our end while we were in Cape Town but were informed that it was not good weather. I felt such a connection to South Africa when I was there. Subsequent to that, I read his autobiography, and I thought, wow, I mean, this is someone that I'd love to meet. Of course, now he's deceased. That would not even be possible. That's who kind of popped up for me.

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So, honey in general has those properties. Honey also has hydrogen peroxide activity, which can have a beneficial effect on your gut and health. But, Manuka Honey in particular has a different natural antibacterial compound called MGO that only comes from the nectar of this Manuka tea tree. They actually measure it. I think it's really funny. They call it nonperoxide activity. The nutrients in Manuka Honey can help support optimal immune and digestive health. I personally found that when I was using Manuka Honey, it had an incredible effect on my gut. I became really obsessed with finding the best of the best, because there is a lot of controversy out there about Manuka Honey, and it can be difficult to make sure that you're getting a certified, verified source that is actually the stuff that you want. That's why I was so, so thrilled when Manukora reached out to me.

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We'll do something health-related. Now, Brittany wants to know, calcium. "I would love to hear how you both feel about supplementing versus not."

Cynthia Thurlow: I'm not a fan of supplementing. I don't think it's generally necessary. You get more calcium from green leafy vegetables than you do from dairy. That's a byproduct of the dairy industry. In cardiology, I just saw a lot of people that were over-supplementing with calcium and actually had plaquing in their arteries. Let me be clear. This does not mean this is going to happen to you. I'm just telling you in the context of working with cardiology patients, many of whom already had established disease. We started becoming a little bit more concerned about over-supplementation of calcium. If you're looking at calcium from the perspective of increasing tensile strength of your bones and bone health, lift weights, eat enough protein, get some good sleep, and if you need it, take HRT. That would be my little plug.

Melanie Avalon: I'm currently reading, we talked about this. Are you familiar with Morley Robbins or have you interviewed him or read his book?

Cynthia Thurlow: I have not.

Melanie Avalon: So, he wrote The Root Cause Protocol. He basically makes the case that the majority of our health issues are from not enough bioavailable copper, iron overload even if you're anemic, and this enzyme called ceruloplasmin, which nobody's talking about, it's kind of mind-blowing information in there, and he's very extreme with it. I'm very excited to interview him and ask him a lot of questions. I just finished reading the whole section on calcium, and he is not a fan. I will say that leading up to it, before reading that, I was very much on the fence about calcium supplementation. I think it's a very delicate balance and it's needed to be in the correct ratios with magnesium. On top of that, the studies are not so favorable. I haven't done a deep, deep dive overview, but I know there are a lot of studies. The studies are conflicting as far as calcium supplementation and does it have benefits? Is it neutral? Does it have negative effects? I have never felt comfortable supplementing it. He makes the case that unless it's in the correct ratios, which and that's more from whole foods, that he makes the case you're going to cause more harm than good, kind of like what you were saying.

He was pointing out the ratios. He doesn't like dairy, though, either, because he says the calcium-magnesium ratio is so skewed. Like, it's way more calcium than magnesium. Oh, magnesium, I should mention that's the other, the big big mineral for him that he thinks we're all very deficient in and need more of. It's really involved in iron regulation as well. So, stay tuned when I interview him. It's going to be mind-blowing.

Cynthia Thurlow: It sounds really interesting. That's one of the things I like about you is how open minded you are to entertain varying philosophies, perspectives, opinions on health and wellness-related topics.

Melanie Avalon: That's what I love about you as well. I think we're both very open minded. I never feel like with you, I don't ever feel like you immediately shut down anything. I think that's really, really important to be open to different perspectives and thoughts.

Cynthia Thurlow: Yeah, we should all be lifelong learners. Unfortunately, not everyone is. There's some pretty significant cognitive dissonance that is not unique to medicine. I want to just put it out there and just I was taught from a young age and this was reinforced in my medical training to question a lot and be open minded.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I love that. And actually, that reminds me of two questions in our lineup, so I will ask both of them. The first one, Elaine, she wants to know, "Do you ever totally disagree with your interview guest and/or any of the guests disagreeable with you?"

Cynthia Thurlow: I've been really fortunate that, yes, I have had guests that I don't 100% align with. And I think that's okay. It usually means that my team gets an uptick in emails like, why did this person talk more about, only about plant based as being the best protein option? Or why did the guest talk about this? And that's always interesting to navigate. I've never had anyone openly disagreeable on the podcast. I think that I do a really good job of vetting people, I think that we're all aligned in terms of wanting to provide high-quality information and wanting to do it authentically and with integrity. I have never had someone become belligerent or argumentative, and that's so not aligned with my personality. I'm a recovering people pleaser. For me, I have to kind of navigate those boundaries. So for full disclosure, I've interviewed three people for the podcast and I have not put out their episodes and it's been for a variety of different reasons.

Occasionally, I will interview someone and realize after I've interviewed them that it's really not a good fit. It would not serve the purpose of the podcast. I would say that those individuals, although they're lovely human beings, I'm sure the message isn't aligned and it's so far out of alignment that it would have been problematic had I published it. How about you, Melanie?

Melanie Avalon: So, in general, and kind of like what we're just talking about, I really do believe everybody I've brought on, I really do think there's truth in things they're saying. It doesn't mean that I think everything they're saying is true. I sometimes do disagree with them, but I do always think there's truth to be learned or something to be found there. Probably because using the phrase totally disagree, I think the closest I've come to that has been with people very far on either side of the spectrum. You mentioned it either plant based or on the flipside, carnivore. I've had some plant-based people where it was very much like, this is the way and animal products are awful for you and awful for the environment and I disagree with that.

And then on the flipside, I've had carnivore people where it was like, every plant is the devil and I disagree with that as well. So, that would probably be that. As far as any disagreeable with me in general, same experience as Cynthia. Everybody has been so kind, so wonderful. I've had one experience where I felt like the person didn't really want to be there. They had come in through a friend recommendation, which interestingly at the time it was one of my really good friends connected me to this person. And at the time I was like. "Oh, this is great," because it's a personal introduction. They're going to want to be here more because it was through a friend. Thinking back later, I was like, "Oh, that could go either way." It could be they're excited because it's a friend or it could be they're doing it as a favor for the friend. Maybe they didn't want to be there so much. I will say, stepping back the episode was very valuable, amazing information. I'm so honored to have had it. Very grateful for the interview. I just not sure that person exactly wanted to be there.

Which relates to the next question, which was from Theresa, which is, "What is the most embarrassing or awkward moment during an interview?"

Cynthia Thurlow: Probably one of those three non-published podcasts where it was this person in particular went off the rails and didn't realize that the language they were using was very offensive and would have been offensive to listeners. I actually had my team listen to the podcast to confirm that I was not losing my mind and they agreed with me. So, unfortunately, I can't share more than that. I would say that using language that is not appropriate in the context of pejorative statements, is that vague.

Melanie Avalon: It's vague, but it paints a picture.

Cynthia Thurlow: To protect people. [laughs] I think the one thing that I know we're very aligned on is that I will not publish an interview if it is not aligned with my mission. My mission is designed to inspire, educate, and empower women, and it was none of the above, so I will just leave it at that if an interview does not meet my standards, I will not publish it.

Melanie Avalon: I as will be very vague, but I had a guest on who, whenever I start off the show before recording, I ask the guest how much time they have for the episode. And so this guest told me that he had basically ample time, like no time limit. We were recording and early into the episode, he made a comment about time and like running out of time. But it was kind of, like, offhanded. I wasn't sure exactly what he was saying, so I just ignored it. And then a little bit later, we kept talking, and then he just interrupted me mid sentence and we edited it out, so, of course, you can't hear it, but he just interrupted me, and was like, I really have to go now or something. And I was like, "Oh, okay." The way it was presented was that I was basically taking up his time, which I would never want to do. That's why I ask in the very beginning, how much time do they have? I was mortified, I was so mortified.

Cynthia Thurlow: Well, but you didn't, I mean, Melanie, that's not a reflection of you. That's a reflection of him.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.

Cynthia Thurlow: I mean, if someone said if you were to say, Melanie, I have 40 minutes, you'd be like, cool, I can do 40 minutes. If they give you the green light that you're not on, like, a timetable, then the expectation would be is that you will finish when you finish.

Melanie Avalon: It wasn't far into the-- so it wasn't like an hour in. I think the first comment was, like, 20 minutes in or something, and then the final comment was, like, half an hour in. And I've never, so fun times.

Cynthia Thurlow: Yeah, that's not fun.

Melanie Avalon: Here's a fun question from Danielle. "How many of the 50 States have you been to?"

Cynthia Thurlow: I counted, 35. I have been to a lot of places.

Melanie Avalon: If you went to all of them, where do you think would be the last one you would go to and why?

Cynthia Thurlow: Now, let me be clear. I was born in South Carolina, so I love the south. I think there are definitely states that aren't higher on the hierarchy. Maybe a better question is what was I surprised by? Was there a state that I was really surprised by? I don't want to sound like I'm pejorative about any one state over another, but I would say that Alaska, not because I don't want to go, but it's just the distance to get there in terms of the things we have to do to get there from the East Coast. So, Alaska. Definitely want to see Alaska. And I'm just innately curious. Like, I'd love to go to the Dakotas. I've never been there. I love Montana. That was a surprise. I loved Utah. Although I've not been to Idaho. I think now it's just strategically figuring out how to make my way to all the other states. I would say probably Alaska, but only because of the distance.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I was thinking if you hadn't been to Alaska if that would be the one. I've only been to 16. It's mostly the one like the southern-related ones, northeast, and then traveling out to California. I should get on that.

Okay. Some eating and drinking-related questions. We got a lot of questions about what both of us eat. For mine, it was Hollie wanted to know "How do you cook your scallops and how many cucumbers and blueberries do you really eat in a day?" Do you eat anything else other than the previous three mentioned? And then, Mariah wanted to know, "Curious how you consume your ginger and turmeric." Okay, so this is funny. I'm always posting about my scallops, my cucumbers, and my blueberries, especially because I go to Costco. You guys following on Instagram, you will know this. I buy a lot of scallops and cucumbers and blueberries at one time and I post about it. Every time I post about it, I get inundated with DMs about how you cook these, so much to the point that I now have two things. I have a saved auto-reply. Do you use the saved auto-replies, Cynthia? Where you start typing it and then it fills in the rest.

Cynthia Thurlow: I need to, I don't.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, yeah, a game changer. [laughs] All I have to type in-- So, if I get a question about this, all I type in is SC for scallop. It fills out my whole answer, which the answer says something about, like, thank you so much. Please see the pinned highlight on my profile so that when people go to my profile, I have a pin post highlight that says how I cook my scallops because I get this question so much. To answer the question, and this will answer about the ginger and turmeric, I put these scallops in a Dutch and a Le Creuset. Do you have Le Creuset?

Cynthia Thurlow: I do.

Melanie Avalon: I love Le Creuset so much. So, a small Dutch oven-type situation. I put the scallops in there. I don't add any water or anything because when you cook it actually makes a water-soupy base, which sounds gross, but it's really good. I add to that, mushrooms, chives, and cilantro. When it's done cooking, I add to that ginger, turmeric, and lemon, and it is delicious. Do I eat anything else other than cucumbers, blueberries, and scallops? Yes. I love the cucumbers because it's very hydrating and it adds a lot of fiber and a lot of bulk, which I love. I love having massive amounts of fruit because that's my carb source, and I digest it well, and I do really well with blueberries. And I used to eat pineapple. The thing I switch around a lot is the meat. I find that being so simple like this, that I specifically crave different meats or types of fish besides the scallops every night.

I eat a ton of scallops, and then I eat whatever meat or fish I'm craving, which will be either chicken or steak or salmon, barramundi, tilapia. I adjust accordingly. Oh, and she wanted to know how many, cucumbers, I probably eat like 10 really really big English cucumbers and blueberries I eat like, I don't know, two and a half pounds, maybe.

The question for Cynthia. Melissa says "Hello, I want to know what Cynthia eats. I know that Melanie eats scallops and cucumbers. I'm a 51-year-old female with 50 pounds to lose. My window is 3 to 9 PM. Oh. And then she has another question. Before I do that, Cynthia, what do you eat?"

Cynthia Thurlow: A lot of meat and a lot of vegetables, steak, bison. We don't eat a lot of fish because my kids don't love fish, and fish is expensive, so my husband sometimes and I will just grill salmon steak. Actually, tonight we're having shrimp scampi as an example. Getting back to your original question, I think as a perimenopausal or menopausal female, based on research, we have to hit these protein thresholds. That's really important. I eat a lot of eggs. I occasionally eat chicken. It's not my favorite protein. I tend to like leaner meats as opposed to fatty meats. If you give me a filet versus a ribeye, I'm going to pick the filet. I learned over the summer through nutrigenomics testing that's actually what my body thrives on is lean meat, not fatty meat.

So, getting back to your original question, I think that on a lot of different levels, my methodology is always 40 to 50 g of protein in a meal and then non-starchy vegetables. It could be roasted cauliflower, it could be broccoli, could be asparagus, mushrooms, salad. I eat a lot of salad while I was traveling just because it allowed me to get in some vegetables. I'm not anti-carb, but I tend to hover, under 75 or under 50 g of carbs most days. On the days where I'm having higher carbohydrates, I may lean into blueberries, I may have just a green banana, which is actually what I had today when I was breaking my fast along with a protein shake. As I'm coming back from being in LA, it's just been a busy day and so it's always protein depending on whether or not I need added fats, I like salted macadamia nuts, I like avocado, I like coconut oil, I like avocado oil, I like butter, my tolerant ghee. I definitely try to mix up my proteins. I think that's important.

Your other question, which she included that, I'm 51 years old, I have 50 pounds to lose. My window is 3 to 9. How does a picky eater get in enough protein? If you look at the research, we have to eat more protein as perimenopausal and menopausal females especially as we're losing estrogen and your menstrual cycle is gone for 10 months. When you're diagnosed with or you're diagnosed, you're told that your menopausal, so 51 is the average age in the United States. I think you have to open up your window to get enough protein. Unless you can get grams in in that protein window and I find most women need a wider window than 5 or 6 hours. Now, Melanie is a really good example. She gets in a lot of protein in a fairly compressed feeding window, but that's probably not the average person. I would really lean into the protein piece. I would experiment with different types of protein. I actually like bison more than I like beef. During the pandemic, we got very creative with proteins. We tried ostrich, we've tried elk, we tried wild boar.

Melanie Avalon: Where do you get ostrich?

Cynthia Thurlow: There's a farm in the Midwest. It's called Blackwing. I have no affiliation with them, but you can definitely try some things there. We started with sausage because I was just like ostrich wasn't something that was super appealing to me, I can tell you. We've tried ostrich twice and it has not been a favorite protein, but, like, elk was good, wild boar was good.

Melanie Avalon: I love elk, ooh.

Cynthia Thurlow: Elk was really good. But I really like bison. I would encourage you to be saying your picky is being pejorative. You can change that, right? Understanding that protein is going to be very important for muscle-protein synthesis. It's going to be very important for satiety. It's going to be very important for maintaining or building muscle. As someone who has identified that you want to lose weight, protein is going to be your friend. You really need to lean into it. If you're sitting down for a meal, one egg is 6 g of protein. You need to eat probably at least four to really get enough of a protein boost and then probably be adding in something else as well. I just find that oftentimes I'm doing, like, a bison burger with two or three eggs and then my vegetables. I'm also currently obsessed with slaw. Shredded cabbage doing it different ways, like a clean coleslaw or like an Asian-inspired slaw. I don't know what it is. I'm going through a cabbage phase, which is both good and bad because I just can't keep enough of it in my house. Hopefully, that's helpful.

Melanie Avalon: It was very helpful. Awesome. I knew you would have that one covered. Okay, so here's something else, Teresa wants to know. "What is your toxic trait as my students would say, or basically an area you need to grow in or some bad habit you need to work on?"

Cynthia Thurlow: I don't think I have a toxic trait. I would say that my area of focus will always be patience because my brain works really fast, and I'm a very methodical thoughtful person. I would say I sometimes struggle with being patient with other people and sometimes being patient in traffic because I grew up in New Jersey, and some of that has kind of stayed in me, although I'm getting better now where I am. I would say that's probably an area I have to constantly work on is being patient. Being patient and being present. How about you, Melanie?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I think for mine, so I think the thing I've made a ton of improvement on is feeling guilty about everything. I literally will feel guilty about everything. I've worked with my therapist a lot on that. I think a lot of that has to do with how I was raised, like Bible Belt, Christian South, and just like a guilt complex. I think also, I know I'm very obsessive and intense and I think I've made a lot of progress in that as well as far as feeling the need for control over my life, I think just finding that balance of dealing with my own intensity because I can be intense.

Cynthia Thurlow: I think half the battle is just acknowledging I'm like, okay, I need to work on this.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, yeah, 100%. I definitely like looking in the mirror. Laura wants to know, "What is something that we would be surprised to learn about you?"

Cynthia Thurlow: Gosh. I think I'm pretty transparent. I would say that I think people make a lot of assumptions, and I say this because this is feedback, I've gotten over the years. People assume I grew up a certain way. People make assumptions that I've had it very easy in life, and I have not had a very easy life, but I've done a lot of internal work. I continue to do a lot of internal work. I try to be as authentic and real as possible. I think people would be surprised to know that I grew up in a pretty unhappy household and with parents that were not very happy people. I had to navigate becoming very resilient in order to excel and do well, given the fact that I wasn't really given the foundation to be able to be a healthy, well-adjusted adult. When I tell you I've been doing therapy since my 20s, I'm not kidding.

I'm a fervent believer in working on yourself, but I wouldn't be who I am if I had grown up in a different environment. I always say that I'm grateful for the experiences that I had because it's made me like the strong, resilient person that I am. It also means I have to constantly work on my own traumas that I've experienced. Again, I think that's why Gabor Mate's book and the book that Gabrielle-- Gabby Bernstein wrote this year were particularly impactful for me because we're constantly working on our stuff, and I think that's what people would be surprised. People assume I grew up very privileged. People assume I grew up very affluent, and I didn't. It made me that kind of scrappy individual that wasn't willing to let people tell me, no. Like, I was like, I'm going to figure this out. I've been able to navigate life pretty well, but with the support and love of good friends, specific family members, having lots of healthy boundaries, which I get better about every day.

Melanie Avalon: That's interesting. My family growing up, at least from my perspective, I'm just overwhelmingly grateful. It was very supportive and loving, and the one message we were always told was that we could do whatever we wanted. As far as career goes, we could do anything, we could achieve any goal, and our parents would support us in that. I'm just overwhelmingly grateful for that. I have three things. One, for the longest time I was terrified of phone calls up until college, like answering the phone. Have I told you this before?

Cynthia Thurlow: No.

Melanie Avalon: I left high school early, before senior year, and my mom was like, Melanie, you can't go to college if you can't answer the phone. I got major phone anxiety and making phone calls, like, "Oh, my goodness." In high school, we had to solicit ads for the newspaper, which required calling people. It was awful. The thing that cured me of it really quickly, I think I've shared this may be on the podcast before is my first internship was with Jerry Bruckheimer, who's one of the biggest producers ever. He does the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and so many things. They literally stuck me on the frontdesk as an intern and made me answer the phone for hours. It was answering the phone for like really, really important people and having this sheet of you had to connect them to the right office and you could not connect them to the wrong office. It was the most stressful experience of my life and that cured me of my phone fears. There's nothing worse than that as far as the phone goes.

Cynthia Thurlow: Yeah, knowing you now, I can't even imagine you having phone fears.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I know. Yeah, especially now because now I'm like doing phone calls 24/7 with random people. I remember that when they set me on that, they weren't supposed to do that. I was an intern. But the assistant had to leave. She was like, can you just cover the desk? And like, here's the stuff. And I was like, what? Like, the HR woman came over and was like, why are you sitting here? I was like, I don't know. They just told me to answer the phones. I think also people think I'm an extrovert. I'm very much an introvert, very much. I'm not shy, but going out is very draining to me.

Cynthia Thurlow: Well, that's why being in LA and doing four podcasts and I mean, I got back to my hotel room on Friday and just told my husband. I was like, "I'm ordering room service. I'm packing my bag, and I'm just going to watch something on my Netflix because I don't want to talk to anybody." [chuckles] I'm just done as grateful as I was for that experience. I'm like a rubber band. The rubber band has been stretched out, so the rubber band now needs to decompress.

Melanie Avalon: I have a fear of robots, like big robots, like Transformers. I might have talked about this on the show as well. So, Transformers is really scary to me. The concept of-- if the end of the world or if the next political upheaval involves robot-type machines, what are they called, robots? I don't know. There are all these videos--

Cynthia Thurlow: AI.

Melanie Avalon: AI. Yeah. That is like, terrifying to me. Terrifying. Even the nice ones? Like, even if it was like a really big robot and it was a nice one, like Bumblebee and Transformers. Mm, Mm. No, no. I would have a panic attack. Do you have any crazy fears?

Cynthia Thurlow: Snakes? I'm an all-boy mom, so I had to get really comfortable with bugs. And we have a bearded dragon. We have two dogs. I have a very nature-loving 15-year-old and he has been that way his whole life. Snakes, I am absolutely positively terrified of snakes.

Melanie Avalon: Have you ever had a bad experience with a snake?

Cynthia Thurlow: No, I don't know what it is. It's one of those things where, as an example, when we're still living in Northern Virginia, right outside of our walk-out basement, was this nonpoisonous snake. Let me be clear, there are plenty of poisonous snakes in Virginia, but this was not one of them. I looked at it and I said to my husband, it's not going to move because it's clearly just eaten something. So, it was like digesting. My husband when he got home, I made him get rid of it to put it in the woods. I was like, I don't want it anywhere near the house. If I walked out the front door and saw that, I probably would have just been hysterical, which is not the way I normally am. I would say I have an unnatural fear of snakes. Beyond that, there's not a whole lot other than the normal fears that you get as a parent.

I have an ER trauma background from many years ago and I've seen a lot of horrific things that have happened. In the back of my mind, the things that I don't allow myself to process because I don't want them. Like, I can talk openly about snakes, but the fear of anything ever happening significant to my boys. That's a fear that I have. That is not what I'm concerned about. I'm not worried about that. The snake thing, we have a lot of copperheads where we are in Central Virginia. I have to remind my kids, if they see them, like, to just leave them alone. Because sometimes the baby copperheads are actually more poisonous because they have more concentrated venom. Even walking the dogs, we have to be conscientious of that in times when they bred and they have a baby, it's out and just kind of trying to explain to Liam, don't play with it, don't touch it, don't go near it, go away from it, don't mess with it.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, what's really interesting about that? I'm just thinking about this because when we say snakes, I know you're saying yours is a natural fear, but a lot of people are scared of snakes. If we say snakes, your first thought, at least for me, is, "Oh, yeah, obviously because they're scary. If you think about it, like, there're a lot of reptiles and why are only certain animals do they have this fear response? Like snakes, most people aren't scared of lizards, but we could just as easily live in a world where lizards are the scary thing.

Cynthia Thurlow: Right, well, and it's funny because Liam at-- I think he was second or third grade and it was the only thing he wanted for his birthday was a reptile. And, my husband and I had to talk about, like, said reptile options, and originally, he wanted a tortoise, and when I started reading about them, and first of all, they live forever, and then they tend to carry a lot of zoological diseases and so we kind of settled on the bearded dragon. And the bearded dragon is quiet. It's totally mellow. He doesn't handle it enough anymore that he can take it out and let it run around, thank God. I had friends mine that were like, I can't believe you let your kid get a reptile. I said, well, first of all, he made, like, a whole-- this won't surprise you, Melanie, but he made a whole presentation for why he needed this reptile.

Melanie Avalon: It's something I would do.

Cynthia Thurlow: Yeah, exactly. I said he had such good arguments about it. We've had Kirby now for, gosh, like, six years. They do live a long time, but he doesn't bother anybody. He's in his cage, he gets fed, he's quiet, and he's not so big that he's scary. I think I would have to be honest and tell you that if I were in Florida and there were the bigger lizards that are there.

Melanie Avalon: The monitor lizards, they're like the size of alligators.

Cynthia Thurlow: Yeah, I mean, those are not pleasant. I'm drawing, like, a blank on what the bigger lizards are, crap, big lizard.

Melanie Avalon: The monitor ones are huge.

Cynthia Thurlow: It's like this name recalls sometimes, big lizard, there's actually something called the big lizard, great, iguana. If I were to see an iguana and it fell out of a tree, like, when they get cold, they fall out of the trees. I would probably lose my mind. The statistical likelihood of that ever happening is pretty low. When I saw them in Costa Rica, I just stayed away from them.

Melanie Avalon: Wait, wait wait. They fall out of trees?

Cynthia Thurlow: Because they get cold and then fall out of the trees? Yeah, I would lose my mind if one fell on me. That would be it. I would probably just lose my mind. But otherwise, I'm a really good boy mom. I got in the dirt with my kids. I played with my kids out in the dirt. I definitely didn't pull the girl card, but with a snake, I absolutely would.

Melanie Avalon: That's funny.

Cynthia Thurlow: Yeah. I would not be good with that.

Melanie Avalon: We did have an experience growing up because we had a basement where there was a snake behind the toilet, like a big one. I didn't actually see it, but the story was like my mom was like, we found one. This is when I was little, ever since then, I have a habit where when I sit at the toilet, I look behind it to see if there's a snake back there.

Cynthia Thurlow: Well, you talk about people in Asia. They'll have boa constrictors that come up through the toilet. I would lose my mind. Like, completely lose my mind.

Melanie Avalon: Like, in the toilet?

Cynthia Thurlow: In the toilet? Yep.

Melanie Avalon: Mm-mm.

Cynthia Thurlow: Yeah. I would be officially 'Cuckoo for cocoa puffs'.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, my goodness.

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Okay, here's a really good question from Eileen. What are your thoughts on the information going around originating from TikTok, possibly, that alcohol stops fat burning for 36 hours?

Cynthia Thurlow: Well, that's a good question, but I don't know how long alcohol impacts lipolysis, how long that is. We know that your body processes it as a toxin, so if you eat a massive bolus of food and drink a bunch of alcohol, you have the potentiality for stopping fat loss. I would have to do some reading. I don't know. Melanie, do you have specific research on that?

Melanie Avalon: I didn't research specifically how long alcohol stops fat burning. However, I can say it cannot be true that alcohol stops all fat burning for 36 hours because there are people, myself included, who have been having a nightly glass of wine for years and have lost weight during that time. So, logic says that's an incorrect statement.

Cynthia Thurlow: Yeah, it's interesting because I'm looking at brown fat activation mitigates alcohol-induced liver steatosis. So it can't be that long. I mean, intellectually, I can't imagine.

Melanie Avalon: Once you process the alcohol, you're not burning the alcohol anymore. There's no way there's a lingering thing that stops you from burning fat, because, like I said, it would be impossible then to lose weight while drinking every night, which so many people do. That literally just says that cannot be a true statement.

Cynthia Thurlow: Well, the other thing is, I think it's predicated on other things. Are you 25 years old? Are you 50? We know that as women are getting older, they don't process alcohol as readily. It impacts the detoxification pathways. If you are someone who's insulin resistant and you're drinking a lot of alcohol, I mean, that could be a problem. I think it has to be taken in context. I just did a really quick Doctor Google search, and I didn't see anything that said that specifically. So, don't believe everything you see on TikTok. I think that applies to everything on social media because sometimes my team will state something and we're always very research based. People are like, "Where did that come from?" We will share journal articles with people we're like, this is based on this, and here's the research. But I have never read that. I do think it has to be taken in context, how old are you? Are you insulin resistant? Are you metabolically flexible? Those things can increase the likelihood that alcohol is going to be inflammatory.

Melanie Avalon: Definitely. I'm actually really curious. I listened to an interview on Dave Asprey with this probiotic. Have you heard of this? It's called ZBiotics. Have you heard of it?

Cynthia Thurlow: I have not.

Melanie Avalon: I want to reach out to them and learn more. It's this guy who apparently has controversy because it's a genetically modified probiotic. They engineered this probiotic that specifically breaks down acetaldehyde, which is the byproduct of alcohol metabolism, and it's the reason you don't feel well from alcohol. Apparently, this probiotic, like you take it before drinking, because he talks in the interview about how the large percent of acetaldehyde that's formed is in the gut, and so the bacteria breaks it down. It basically mitigates a lot of the negative effects of alcohol. What's interesting is, he says you still get all of the benefits, like the cognitive bit, like feeling tipsy, because people want to feel the feelings. I'm really interested by that, which actually relates to one other question.

Becky said, "Cynthia, I heard you mention on one of your older podcasts that you don't produce enough acetaldehyde dehydrogenase." That is the enzyme that actually breaks down acetaldehyde into acetic acid. You are not getting as many of the negative-- you need it to break down acetaldehyde, which is toxic. She says, "I have the same issue as do some of my kids. I was wondering if you also get a red face, i.e., the Asian flush, and it's called that because that happens a lot in Asian populations when you drink. Have you found anything that helps other than not drinking at all?"

Cynthia Thurlow: Good question. Did I get a red face? Not always. Not that kind of stereotypical red face. I think that the things that I've learned, and I've actually done a TV segment several years ago talking about how to avoid a hangover around New Year's and the things that I think are helpful and beneficial are taking things like NAC before and after drinking, as well as glutathione before bed. We can link that TV segment that I did a few years ago in the show notes. To me, the best way to avoid it is to just abstain. That's what I embrace now, but I acknowledge that people that want to drink want to be able to do it responsibly and not have any untoward effects. I think that I would probably suggest if you're choosing to drink NAC glutathione can be helpful, but also leaning into higher quality options.

We both are huge proponents of Dry Farm Wines. I think about the clear liquors like vodka, gin, also thinking about things like tequila as another option are going to be cleaner than having more traditional wine, having sugary drinks, leaning into bourbon and heavier alcohols that are very likely full of ingredients that could potentially exacerbate a hangover as well as exacerbate symptoms you may experience from drinking.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, and that ties in whilst I was saying before that probiotic is specifically one that addresses that. What's interesting about glutathione because that's a really good example and I recently did a whole episode with Nayan Patel about his supplemental glutathione. What's interesting about that is this is what he said and sort of my experience as well it can really help with mitigating the effects of alcohol, but then it also can help you metabolize it faster and so you don't get as much of the tipsy effect that people are looking for.

It's interesting how finding that balance of how can you maximize if people are going in for a certain mental experience but also not have the health issues. I think that's where something like Dry Farm Wines, like Cynthia said. I'm obsessed with Dry Farm Wines. I gifted it to so many people this past Christmas. For listeners, if they would like to get a bottle for a penny, they can go to dryfarmwines.com/ifodcast, that's wine that's low sugar, low alcohol, and tested to be free of toxins and heavy metals, and mold. Yes, there's definitely a lot that you can do to have your drink and eat it too. So, one last one to end. "Teresa wants to know what is your most recent text, who is it to, and what does it say?" We cannot include if this was your most recent one. My most recent one was to you about the show, but before that.

Cynthia Thurlow: Mine was actually to my accountant and he was letting me know that he had sent me some information. I'm actually becoming an S Corp. For listeners, whether they're aware of what that is, but making some changes in my business heading into 2023. My real last official text was from my accountant who was reminding me that he had sent me an email, but otherwise, it would have been for Melanie because that was the next one.

Melanie Avalon: Congrats, by the way, I think I did it about a year ago. It feels very official.

Cynthia Thurlow: Yeah, it feels very official and I think we had been teetering on making that decision. This is the year I jokingly say I've always been very fiscally conservative, but this is the year that we've got some more aggressive financial planning within the business and the CPA and I just said now is the time. It's going to be an S Corp, ways to ensure that we are maximizing income and filing taxes properly. I would say fiscal responsibility is number one, but ensuring that I'm very aware, very transparent of what is going to benefit the business the most.

Melanie Avalon: Is it your name? The S Corp?

Cynthia Thurlow: It will be, I think so, although it's interesting, some people like you to do DBA, like doing business as.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I had a DBA leading up to the S Corp. Although I stopped renewing it, so I think it probably is not active anymore.

Cynthia Thurlow: Yeah, I had another LLC that I had to pay to deactivate. It's one of those things, they're like, oh, you can't just pay the renewal. You have to pay the fee. Because you didn't renew it on time, you have to pay that too. And I was like, fine.

Melanie Avalon: Always something. There's so much to learn. I feel like I learned so much so fast and I didn't even-- I was working with an accountant as well, but there's just so much.

Cynthia Thurlow: That's why, the way I look at it, they earn their money by maximizing your income and making sure you're paying your taxes properly, but also working within the law to ensure that you are taking every opportunity to be more fiscally appropriate. How's that?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, my last text was actually to a podcast guest. I've had Kirk Parsley on the show a ton, so this will be a plug. He's recording right now for, do you listen to? Well, probably not. It's not really our cup of tea, Jocko Podcast?

Cynthia Thurlow: Very aware of him, Mm-hmm.

Melanie Avalon: He is, I think, right now recording with him. I said, "How is hanging out with Jocko."

Cynthia Thurlow: Did they ever work together?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, they're friends. I don't know if they work together, but they're friends.

Cynthia Thurlow: Yeah. The SEAL community is pretty small.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, that makes sense. It's funny, I was talking to him about it beforehand because he's like the sleep doctor and that's his focus. We were brainstorming about should he just focus on sleep or other things. I'll be really curious to hear how that went.

Cynthia Thurlow: That sounds very exciting.

Melanie Avalon: I know. So, okie dokie. Well, this has been really fun. And this was part two. We're going to have to at least have a part three because there're still so many good questions.

Cynthia Thurlow: Don't worry for anyone that was asking. There were a lot of questions about hormones, bioidentical hormones, menopause, perimenopause, birth control, and perimenopause, etc., we will absolutely devote some time to those questions.

Melanie Avalon: We'll get to some of those next time. I actually did I was telling Cynthia we got a lot of questions as well about fasting when we did this and they were all really good. I think I'm going to save them for when we get through the AMAs. Maybe we'll do an AMA IF Podcast episode. Sorry, like a fasting related one. But yeah, so, this has been absolutely wonderful. A few things for listeners before we go. If you'd like to submit your own questions for the show. Like I said, we normally answer a lot of fasting-related questions. You can directly email questions@ifppodcast.com or you can go to ifpodcast.com and you can submit questions there. The show notes for today's episode that will have links to everything that we talked about will be at ifpodcast.com/episode301. And then you can follow us on Instagram, we are @ifpodcast, I am @melanieavalon, Cynthia is @cynthia_thurlow_. I think that is all of the things. Okay. Anything from you, Cynthia, before we go?

Cynthia Thurlow: No, I love this. We'll have to episodically do these kinds of Q&As. I think it's exciting to talk about the things that listeners are interested in learning more about.

Melanie Avalon: I know I'm like really excited because I have the document in front of me and we got through probably half of it, so we probably got one or two more episodes left. It'll be fun. So, okie dokie. Well, this has been absolutely wonderful and I will talk to you next week.

Cynthia Thurlow: Sounds good.

Melanie Avalon: Bye.

Thank you so much for listening to The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Please remember everything we discussed on this show does not constitute medical advice and no patient-doctor relationship is formed. If you enjoyed the show, please consider writing 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, and original theme composed by Leland Cox and re-composed by Steve Saunders. See you next week.

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