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Welcome to Episode 485 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, biohacker, founder of AvalonX, and author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine, and Barry Conrad, actor, singer-songwriter, and creator and host of Banter with BC.

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TRANSCRIPT

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

Melanie Avalon
Welcome to episode 485 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. If you want to burn fat, gain energy, and enhance your health by changing when you eat, not what you eat, with no calorie counting, then this show is for you. I'm Melanie Avalon, biohacker, founder of AvalonX, and author of What, When, Wine: Lose Weight and Feel Great with Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, and Wine. And I'm joined by my co-host, Barry Conrad, actor, singer-songwriter, and creator and host of Banter with BC. For more on us, check out melanieavalon.com and barryconradofficial.com. You can submit questions for the show by emailing questions@ifpodcast.com or by going to ifpodcast.com. We would love to hear from you.

Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this show do not constitute medical advice or treatment. So pour yourself a mug of black coffee, a cup of tea, or even a glass of wine if it's that time, and get ready for the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Hi, everybody, and welcome. This is episode number 485 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon, and I'm here with Barry Conrad. Barry, how are you today?

Barry Conrad
Melanie Avalon, I am doing so good, 'cause guess what I've been doing lately?

Melanie Avalon
I love guessing games.You have been running, eating, watching movies?

Barry Conrad
All of the above.All those things.

Melanie Avalon
Drinking?

Barry Conrad
Yes.That's, that's the, that's the closest.You're hot.You're really hot now.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, really?Drinking more water?

Barry Conrad
I need to drink more water.But do you remember when you, you sent me something a little while ago?It was, like, a kit of some sort.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, you're making the wine.

Barry Conrad
I'm making the wine.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, I'm so excited.

Barry Conrad
Yeah. Melanie got me this wine-making kit from a company called Craft A Brew. And Mel, I've gone fully down this rabbit hole now.

It's been ... I didn't know what to expect. I thought it was gonna be ... I don't know, I don't know what I was gonna expect, but it's, there's quite a bit to it. But it's, I'm up to the clarifying stage now of the wine-making, and it's ... Yeah, so just finished that two days ago, and I've got 14 more days before I can bottle all that up. Crazy, right?

Melanie Avalon
Oh my goodness.May I ask some questions?

Barry Conrad
Ask me.

Melanie Avalon
You said you're at the clarifying phase.When did you start, like, the whole entire process?

Barry Conrad
So two weeks ago.So you kind of, you start and then you take 14 days to the next step, which is, was Sunday.And then 14 more days, you bottle it up.So it's, like, two-week increments sort of thing.

Melanie Avalon
And does it come with the bottles?

Barry Conrad
It doesn't come with the bottles, but it comes with bottle stoppers. Um, like, it comes with bottle tops.

So I guess you just, you buy your 750 ml bottles. But I didn't realize, it's gonna four 750 ml bottles and a small bottle, so, like, four and a half bottles. That's a lot of wine.

Melanie Avalon
Four, four, like, wine bottles.So you could just use an old wine bottle.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, yeah.Well, I guess I, I, I didn't know how much wine I'd get from this, but it's, like, a gallon, so it's quite a lot.So I'll have a ...Hopefully it turns out good.I'll have to keep you posted.

Melanie Avalon
It's, I got the Pinot Grigio, right?

Barry Conrad
Yeah, exactly.My favorite.

Melanie Avalon
Did, did it have, um, ways to make it, like, drier or sweeter or anything like that?Or do you just, like, throw in the ingredients and let it do its thing?

Barry Conrad
You just throw in the ingredients and let it do its thing. But there is one step that you miss if you're doing Moscato, which I don't really like Moscato at all, so not doing that step.

But it doesn't, it doesn't-

Melanie Avalon
Is it, like, don't add yeast as much?Wait, wait, wait.Yeast eat the sugar and turn it into alcohol.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, yeah. It says if you, if you're making Moscato, let the wine sit for 24 hours with the air lock installed, da, da, da, da, da. Yeah, if you're making Moscato, use only the larger juice pouch. Yeah, it doesn't say don't use yeast, though.

But yeah, I, I'm not, I'm not doing that. I'm doing the full situation. Pinot Grigio.

Melanie Avalon
Oh my goodness.I'm so excited.I can't wait to hear how it turns out.

Barry Conrad
Well, I've never done anything like that before, so I'm ... I, you know I love my wine just like you do, so I can't wait to see how it tastes, how potent it's gonna be. Like, yeah, so many things.

But it does smell fruit- It smells fruity and like a Pinot Grigio already, so yeah.

Melanie Avalon
You're gonna have to have an official wine tasting.

Barry Conrad
I will.I'll have to do it and ...Oh, you know what?Maybe, I wonder if I should ...Yeah, we'll have to do it on the phone or something so you can hear my reaction.

Melanie Avalon
Yes. So actually, speaking of, I was talking with a glass brand yesterday, and I, I, I'll just talk about it really quickly 'cause I love these wine glasses.

So friends, if you guys are wine drinkers at all, you need to check out Glasvin. So they are natural, sustainable stemware, and but they're like ... You know when you have a glass and it just feels so sexy, like, really thin and crisp, and you feel like you're being fancy just holding the glass?

Barry Conrad
Yep.

Melanie Avalon
That's what these glasses feel like, and yet you can, like, wash them in the dishwasher, which I still haven't because I don't know, it makes me nervous. But, um, yeah.

They're hand-blown. They're in ... I actually went to a, um, a bar, like, a month ago or two months ago, and they were using these glasses, and it was, like, a James Beard-nominated bar. So they're used in a lot of, like, Michelin restaurants and James Beard Award restaurants. And they have literally, which is so cool, so if you go to their website, they have, like, 20 different glasses, and it's so that you can f- get the perfect glass for your situation, so, like, for what you're drinking. I mean, I guess for what you're drinking and, like, the, uh, environment that you're in. But they make ... So go grab them, friends. They make great gifts. They're what I'm using. You can get the universal. That's, like, their go-to for everything. I have the universal, I have the aromatic, and then they're gonna send me the Nick and Nora, so I'm excited to try those. I think I'll have a discount code by the time this airs, so if you go to melanieavalon.com/glasvin, so G-L-A-S-V-I-N I'm trying to get the coupon code Melanie Avalon, so go to that link, try the code Melanie Avalon, but get these glasses. I wasn't even gonna talk about that, but I got inspired based on what you just said.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, well, I, having a good wine glass makes the experience that much better, so I get that.

Melanie Avalon
It's, like, so important.I- when I have my, my tastings in my apartment and take my notes, and it's very ceremonial.

Barry Conrad
I think so too.And then, like, do you ever pair it with, like, a, like, a trinket of some sorts, or do you like to ex- like, do your wine separate and then-

Melanie Avalon
Mm, separate.Actually, that's interesting.Yeah, the only time I drink wine with food is at a restaurant.Otherwise, I stop drinking, and then I start eating.

Barry Conrad
So never, like, start drinking, cook, and then still have the glass whilst partaking of the meat and whatnot?

Melanie Avalon
Well, I have my very specific order. So I, I've, I actually-- I stand corrected.

So I, I drink the wi- I do the tasting. I drink the wine. Then I start eating cucumbers with the wine, but I'm still working. And then when I'm done, like, with the work and it's time to eat, eat, that's when I stop the wine.

Barry Conrad
That's so interesting to me.Wow, okay, good.

Melanie Avalon
It's like a whole thing.But if I go to the restaurant, I'll just be-- I'll-- I'm like a, I'm a, I'm a normal person at the restaurant.Well, not really, but at least as far as when I drink the wine.

Barry Conrad
That's so funny.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah.

Barry Conrad
Other than that, how's your day?How's-- What's happening?How are you?

Melanie Avalon
I am good.I'm trying to decide-- I'll tell you something fun that just happened 'cause this literally, literally just happened.I'm going to have one of the founders of the Enhance Games on my podcast.

Barry Conrad
What?That's amazing.That's awesome.

Melanie Avalon
I just got the confirmation literally right before this. So that will be exciting.

So you'll have to let me know... Well, Barry, you'll have to let me know what questions you would have for him. And I should get questions from listeners. I'm sure I'll get a lot of questions.

Barry Conrad
What's his name?What's the-- Which founder?

Melanie Avalon
So it's Max Martin, Maximilian Martin.

Barry Conrad
Well, I've made a note, so I can think of some things to ask, like how I did for Dr.Gabrielle Lyon.

Melanie Avalon
Yes.Yes.Yes.So I'm excited.

Barry Conrad
Did you know that you wanted to talk to him, and you had, like, a, a idea of questions you wanted to ask him, or was it just something that sort of happened?

Melanie Avalon
Oh, I went in, I went into the games with the goal of that was the mission. The mission was get the founders on my podcast.

Well, the mission was watch the killers and get the founders on my podcast. So yeah.

Barry Conrad
Mission accomplished, as they would say.

Melanie Avalon
Yes.Yes.But shall we jump into some fasting stuff?

Barry Conrad
Let's jump in. Today, I am bringing a study for everyone, and it's called Associations of Body Composition and Resting Metabolic Rate With Homeostatic and Hedonic Components of Appetite. It's a mouthful right there.

And Mel, I'm gonna get this link to you real quick so you can see. So this was done by Awa Alrouali and colleagues, and it was published at first in the International Journal of Obesity in twenty twenty-six, so it's pretty recent, and conducted by researchers at Loughborough University and collaborating institutions in the UK and all over, like internationally. And why this study appeals to me is that it tackles that question I reckon a lot of people maybe wonder about, and, and that is why do some people seem hungry all the time while others can go hours without even thinking about food? Like, is it just willpower, or is there something going on, like, biologically? And this is exclusive of intermittent fasting just in general, why some people are always hungry and others seemingly can just go forever without eating. And the researchers recruited a hundred and thirty healthy adults between the ages of eighteen and fifty-five. About fifty-eight percent were guys, and f- forty-two percent were female. So at the average age was twenty-five years old, and the average weight was seventy point five kgs, so that's about, like, a hundred and fifty-five pounds. And the average BMI was twenty-four, which falls within the, quote-unquote, "healthy weight range." BMI is kind of all over the place, but that's what they're saying in the study. The participants completed an impressive amount of testing. So the researchers, they measured things like lean mass, body fat, resting metabolic rate, appetite hormones, hunger levels, food cravings, food taste preferences, and smell sensitivity, and even how much people actually ate in, like, a controlled lab setting. So before we get to the results, uh, I have to say and explain that what resting metabolic rate actually means for people who don't know. So resting metabolic rate, or RMR, is the number of calories our bodies burn just by being alive, just by existing. So even if you stayed in bed all day doing nothing, your body would still need energy to power your heart, your brain, your lungs, and pretty much every essential function that you have. So the average resting metabolic rate in this study was one thousand seven hundred and sixty-four calories per day. Biggest finding was that resting metabolic rate was really associated, strongly associated with how much food people ate. So it was, it was actually a better predictor of energy intake than either body fat or fat-free mass. So for people listening, whether you're new to the world of nutrition or fasting or whatnot, this is really interesting because we often hear a lot that muscle is what-- having more muscle makes people hungry or whatnot. But this study suggests, like, the bigger situation may, may actually be energy demand overall. So in simple terms, layman's terms, it's basically like if your body burns more energy through the day, your body may naturally encourage you to eat more food to meet those needs.

Barry Conrad
So the researchers also looked at appetite hormones, and one of those a- those hormones was ghrelin. And you probably heard that if you listen to this podcast, that's often called the hunger hormone because it tends to rise before meals and it stimulates the appetite.

So people with higher resting metabolic rates tended to have lower fasting ghrelin levels. They also examined leptin and peptide YY or PYY. So for anyone unfamiliar with those, leptin is a hormone produced by body fat that helps, like, sort of signal energy stores to the brain. So while, while PYY is released by the gut after eating and it helps promote feelings of fullness, which is important. And the researchers found that fat mass and lean mass were both associated with different patterns of these hormones. So that, that suggests that body composition may influence appetite regulation in ways that really go, go beyond just determining how much you eat at any given moment. So another interesting finding was that people with more fat-free mass reported way greater hunger after meals, while people with more body fat tended to report less hunger. So bringing all this all the way back to IF, intermittent fasting, I reckon this study to me reinforces something we talk about a lot and on the show, Mel, and that is, like, hunger is not simply willpower. It's there's real biological signals influencing how much we wanna eat every single day. So if someone has a higher metabolic rate, they may genuinely experience a stronger drive to just eat when they eat food. And the biggest takeaway I reckon is that appetite is really complex. It's not just about body fat, muscle mass, or self-control. It's the interaction between the energy expenditure, hormones, body composition, and the brain. And understanding that all can help explain why fasting experiences can look super different from one person to another. Mel, what do you reckon?

Melanie Avalon
So I love this so much. It's interesting.

I've been thinking about it a bit because I'm prepping to interview Sarah Hill. She has a book called-- her new book coming out is called The Period Brain, but it's all about how women in different stages of their cycle, how it affects, like, everything, you know, your, your mood, your hunger, how you metabolize drugs. Like, literally it, it's crazy. Uh, even like reward value of food. So when you're in the luteal phase, food is more rewarding, so you're more likely to be, like, eating more, but everything else is less rewarding. So compared to the follicular phase, which is the first half of the cycle, it's reversed, so things are more rewarding. So, like, nicotine and smoking and, and alcohol and, and all of that is more rewarding, but food is less rewarding. And so what that means, and I'm gonna tie this back into your study, I promise, but just, like, with the rewarding factor, for example, it's like, oh, if you're a woman, you probably should-- if you wanna try to break a habit, you should probably do it in the luteal phase, not the follicular phase. Like, it's, it's that nuanced. W- but it's been making me think a lot about this metabolism issue or this metabolism subject and hunger because, for example, women in the luteal phase, their body burns-- I have to-- I'd have to check the exact numbers, but I think it's around, like, your metabolism goes up around, mm, I think it's around, like, three hundred calories or so total. So y- you're literally hungrier in that phase becau- because your metabolism went up, your resting metabolism, so what you're talking about. So there's definitely that direct connection between metabolism and then hunger and then, you know, consequently eating. And so, and that's why I think it's really important to be aware of that and make sure that you lead with, you know, food that is nourishing and filling and meeting your nutritional needs rather than just, like, you know, craving and binging and eating all the, the processed food junks, which will just make your hunger worse and/or with fasting, you know, that's a, a really great thing for addressing all of those hunger hormones that you mentioned during the fast.

So even if you do have a higher metabolism, you're gonna support a healthy appetite response, you're gonna actually decrease hunger by, you know, enter- entering into the fasted state. 'Cause I think people might hear that and might be like, "Oh, then maybe if I have a faster metabolism..." I, I don't know, I don't know what people are thinking, but the point is fasting would, you know, really, really help with that. And also teaser, I haven't finished doing the research on the study because it was-- I need to, like, take it in some more, but I was just reading a paper about ghrelin, which you were mentioning, the hunger hormone, and how it might not be what we think. So that's a teaser, yeah. It might, it might be working through a slightly different mechanism, so I will, um... Stay tuned for that. But yeah, no, I love this study. I love this study.

Barry Conrad
Well, I just think it's so layered, you know? Like, a lot of people just think, "Oh, I'm just hangry, I'm just always hungry," or it's, you know, "I'm just a bigger person," or, "I have more muscle." It's just good to be able to see it in more, like, detail or get more granular about it, you know what I mean?

Melanie Avalon
Exactly. And what I'm really fascinated about, I would like to see a graph of this.

I don't know how you would do this, but it's like some people-- 'Cause, you know, the, what you were saying, my understanding was the finding was that the higher their RMR, the hungrier they are, right?

Barry Conrad
Yeah.

Melanie Avalon
I wonder, I-- 'Cause there are, like, some people who it just seems like they have a really high metabolism, and they eat constantly, and they also don't gain weight. Like, I would be curious where-- Like, if you were to, if you were to plot it, like, on a X-Y graph, you could make the Y axis your metabolism, so RMR, and then you could make the X axis your... Wait, you might need mul- more than... Wait, let me think about this.

What I'm trying to plot is people's hunger, appetite intake compared to... Yeah, you need three. I don't know how to-- Wait. I don't think I went to enough school. How-- I don't know how to do a three. How do you do a, a graph with three things?

Barry Conrad
I definitely wanna see what's in your brain right now, like, what you're, what you're envisioning.

Melanie Avalon
I need a 3D graph.I'm sure this is, like, such a-- People are probably, like, screaming at their phones about how stupid I sound right now, but-

Barry Conrad
No

Melanie Avalon
... 'cause I, I-- What I'm trying to draw is- People's... Three factors, people's hunger, how much food people eat. We'll just, we'll just do that.

How much food people eat, which we're gonna assume correlates to hunger, their resting metabolic rate, and then their weight. Because there's gonna be some people, I presume, who have a very high metabolism, eat a ton, and yet are a, a low weight. So I would be curious what that would look like, the outliers.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, I mean, the study here says the average resting metabolic rate in this study for all of the participants was 1,764 calories a day, which isn't that much. But also that could be, maybe be max for like a female. Do you know? It just depends. Like it's, it's, it's interesting.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. I'm curious, you said these were like healthy weight people?

I'm, I'm wondering what they did with the outliers that there had to have been some people that were really, really high metabolism, eating a ton, and were thin. Like thin, you know?

Barry Conrad
Yeah, average age 25, average weight 70.5 kgs, which is pretty, pretty light.Pretty light, you know?

Melanie Avalon
What is that in pounds?

Barry Conrad
That's 155 pounds. It's pretty light for a dude, for example. It might be, it might be higher, maybe higher for females. It also depends on height, I don't know.

But that's pretty, seems like a pretty healthy... And the BMI is 24 across the board. Yeah, interesting. And I also think as well, like for example me, I, when I'm not fasting, even, even if I am fasting, if someone puts food in front of me, I just, I love food so much. I, I, I will always have the craving to eat it. It's not like, "Oh, I don't feel like eating," unless I've done like Christmas or something crazy like that. But I love food and I'm usually always hungry, and you can usually always eat again if there's like another occasion. So I wonder if my resting metabolic rate is higher. Do you know what I mean?

Melanie Avalon
So that actually speaks to what I'm saying.So you might have a higher resting metabolic rate, you would want to eat the things.You're also in very good shape.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, but also it's interesting, 'cause my family, like genetically, I don't know where that comes from as well because... Yeah, anyway, it's, there's so many factors. It, it's such... Yeah, I'd like to study exactly what you're saying, like get a graph.

And also factor in things like exercise. Do these people work out all the time, or are they just like plop out just like regular not working out? Just how much they weigh, what the metabolic rate is, that's it. You know what I mean?

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. And are you saying... 'Cause this is what I, this is what I feel about me, um, which is interesting, so there's two parts to this. One, prior to doing intermittent fasting, I was the exact same way. Like I could, I could always eat. I'd always be down. Like always. And if there's more f- I didn't understand people who didn't like eat everything on their plate. I was like, that like, that was like mind-blowing to me. Like you know people that eat like just like half of their food and they're done? I'm like, "You're not gonna eat the rest?" Once I started fasting, I actually got in... Like now the vibe is I, I don't like... Like I find food very alluring I guess, like esoterically or like in theory, but I actually don't wanna eat it.

I actually like a- like adamantly don't want to. It feels, it feels like the equivalent of the probably only time I wouldn't wanna eat before fasting, which was when I was like really, really excited or like on adrenaline or something. Bringing this full circle, I think, and I don't know if this is what you were getting at, I think if I, if I just ate the way my, my brain would like to... If I didn't, if I didn't do intermittent fasting and like do what I do, which has made it, like I said, to, I, I literally don't wanna eat during a fast. Like I don't want to. And then I love eating when I eat, so it works great for me. If I didn't do fasting and I started like eating again during the day, and if I were to let myself literally just eat whatever I wanted, I, I think I would, I would gain a, I would gain a ton of weight. Like I have no question. I don't think I would, I don't think I would just like eat it and, and burn it off.

Barry Conrad
Interesting. But that, I mean, it'd be interesting ex- experiment. Obviously that will never happen kinda thing.

Like, you know, most likely not, but it'd be interesting to see what would happen if someone like you or someone who'd done fasting for a long time as an experiment went back to, just as like a literal study, for like a month just ate regularly and just to compare, and then went back to fasting. I, I wonder if that there's a study that's been done like that.

Melanie Avalon
That would be interesting, yeah. I, I would really, I would love to read that.

I would not like to do it. I have, I have tried in the past like a different window, and I would never make it past like a day. It was, it was so miserable to me. It was so miserable to be hungry all day. 'Cause once I start eating any given day, I just wanna keep eating.

Barry Conrad
Yeah. Same.

We'll watch the space when I get a role that I think requires the character to have more weight and I eat more. I, but even then, I still think I'll, I'll still fast and just eat more. Do you know what I mean? Like I don't think I'd just all of a sudden not... I don't know. Interesting. Who knows? Who knows?

Melanie Avalon
Would you do a role that required you to be obese? What if you knew, and I'm not saying that as a judgment, I'm saying because metabolically it's very unhealthy. So that's, there's no judgment in that question.

What if you knew that it, and there's no way you can know this, but what if you knew that it would become, like you would win an Oscar?

Barry Conrad
Well, what is, it depends on what the definition, 'cause you know with, now with BMI you can not even look obese but you're technically obese.Like-

Melanie Avalon
So metabolically, like excessive body fat, metabolically unhealthy.

Barry Conrad
I don't, I don't know if I would just for, just for the Oscar. I don't know.

Ah. I would definitely gain weight. I would definitely, I'm not precious about that. I would definitely, if I, if I thought the character like that, that would be in context. But I wouldn't just... But also who knows? If it was in front of me, I might completely change my mind. You know what I mean? It wouldn't feel good, though.

Melanie Avalon
No, I know, I know. I think I've swapped a little bit in that I probably, I don't know, there's probably a time in my life where I would have done that, but I, now I- I, I wouldn't. I just, I don't think I could exist-- I wouldn't wanna exist in that metabolically unhealthy state, and I don't think it would feel good. Like, I, I just don't know if I could do it.

I would, however, I remember when I first started auditioning and, for things and I was like, "I can't do..." This is also when I was all intense about my, like I'd just become paleo and all the things. I remember I'd be like, I remember I would like look at, um, like castings, and it'd be like for, like McDonald's, and you have to eat, you know, eat a cheeseburger, and I'd be like, "Nope, can't do that." But now I'm like, "Hmm, maybe I would." Except not, 'cause I don't wanna be in a commercial for McDonald's. But my point is, I think I've, I've become more, now I could, I could temporarily for like one day eat something really bad for me, but I couldn't do it ongoing.

Barry Conrad
Well, interesting things.

Melanie Avalon
I know.So shall we go on to our next question?

Barry Conrad
Yes, let's jump into some questions. Let's do it.

So we have an email from Amy. She writes, "Bone broth or any type of broth. Hey, guys, I had a question regarding your podcast about bone broth and not being acceptable to consume during the fast. I initially read Jason Fung's how to book, and he includes bone broth as being okay? Just curious why you guys disagree on that? Bone broth has really helped me fast for longer periods, so I was sad to hear your opinion on that. Also, what about just regular chicken broth, the kind that doesn't have collagen or any health benefits? Lol. Smiley face. Thanks." Melanie, what do you think of this question?

Melanie Avalon
Hello, Amy. Thank you for your question, which by the way, I see the date on this question, and it is quite a while ago, so hopefully you're still listening. It's still relevant, obviously, though, to so many people.

So bone broth, this, this would have been when Jen was co-hosting actually that she asked this. Bone broth itself, and you're right, there's a lot of different opinions out there, and like Dr. Jason Fung, I think does allow bone broth. I mean, that's what he says, but I'm not sure if he's like evolved, if, if he's changed his mind on that at all or not. I'm pretty sure that Megan Ramos is also on this, is also on the same page there. The thing is, bone broth, it is-- actually, it's honestly one of the more fast-breaking things you could consume. And the reason I say that is that it is very high in protein and collagen and amino acids. And if we know one thing, we know that amino acids like very quickly shut off a- shut off autophagy, for example, which is the, the time when your body in the fasted state normally breaks down old and dysfunctional cells in your body. Bone broth contains calories. It can trigger an insulin response. It is a food. So if you're having it in your fast, in my opinion, you're not really fasting. You could be bone broth fasting, which a lot of people do bone broth fasts. They can fi- they find that really healing 'cause it's very easily assimilated nutrients by the stomach. It can be very healing for the, for the gut lining. So I think it really depends on your goals. If your goals are to have a, quote, "clean fast" and, and like actually be fasting, I would say no bone, no bone broth. But if you're interested in maybe like, l- yeah, like I said, like, like a healing fast to try to heal your, your gut or even like an extended fast thing where you maybe just drink bone broth for a couple days, I don't know. It really just depends on your goals is the point.

As far as regular chicken broth, I would, I would not, I would not touch that. There are so many ingredients in, especially when you look on the back of the labels at the grocery market, uh, grocery store. They're often super high in sodium. They usually have a lot of additives, flavors. So I shouldn't, I-- well, she did say regular chicken broth. So I wouldn't take chicken broth off of the table completely. You know, you can make your own, which by the way, I did go through a bone broth and chicken broth making phase. That was like a whole phase of mine. But I would be very careful with the brands that you purchase if you purchase it on the shelf. So, Barry, what are your thoughts?

Barry Conrad
Yeah, I mean, you, Melanie, you answered that so well. I think, Amy, I reckon, like it's important to separate those two convos sort of things. So will it help someone fast longer is one question, and is it technically breaking a fast is another thing, and they're not necessarily the same. Do you know what I mean?

So it's exactly what Melanie was saying. If you wanted like a, you can still have, like when people have water fasts, you can have a bone, like a bone broth fast, but it's not intermittent fasting, a clean intermittent fast in my opinion and in Mel's opinion. But if it helps you to, if you're wanting to lose weight or just have a healing situation like Mel said, great. That, that's one goal, but it, it just depends on what you want. It's the context. And I think as well, if someone's using a cup of bone broth strategically and it's helping them build a fasting lifestyle, for example, that they can stick to, like to start off with, if it does make it tolerable in the beginning, that's different also from grazing on snacks all day too. So depends on your goals. I'd, I'd-- we'd love to hear more. If you're still listening, Amy, please let us know what you think. But at the end of the day, drinking bone broth is a f- it is a food, and it has calories, so it's not technically clean fasting.

Melanie Avalon
Shall we go on to our next question?

Barry Conrad
Let's do it.

Melanie Avalon
All right, so next up we have a question from Sarah, and the subject is pre-dinner binge. And Sarah says, "Hi. Love, love, love your podcast. You are too awesome for words. Listening to the podcast helps so much with this journey, and it's so great to hear other people's struggles to let you know you are not alone. I have been doing IF for several months now. I am loving this change, and it works really well overall for me. I have lost ten pounds but mostly maintaining right now. I started with a five-hour window every day, but I was finding that this was too much for me as I was having a decent lunch and a dinner. "I have now been trying the one meal a day approach. My only problem is when it gets to that time of day, 5:00 p.m., I am starving. So hungry. This then leads to a binge of sorts, eating everything I can get my hands on before dinner, as I am starving. I find no matter what snack I eat, it does not satisfy me. Once I start eating, I cannot stop," with a frowny face.

"Once I have my dinner, I am satisfied and have no problem closing the window after this. I work out at least once a day, usually a 45-minute spin class, usually early a.m. I clean fast and I am trying to lose 20 pounds. What can I do to calm down the ravenous beast that is inside of me? Should I open my window earlier, and what foods will be good options to open my window with that will tame the beast? Thanks so much, Sarah."

Barry Conrad
Sarah, first of all, thanks for the question, and I had a smile on my face, especially towards the end with the ravenous beast comments and taming the beast. I, I love this because I think it's r-really relatable, you know? And you described it really well. You're cruising along through the day feeling real good, feeling in control, feeling committed to what you're doing with your fast, and then bam, suddenly 5:00 hits and it's like, you know, you're like the Hulk. Like, the switch flips and the ravenous beast awakens and suddenly the contents of your entire kitchen has been taken over like a tornado or something. You know, I think a lot more people experience this than they realize.

I think first of all, I wanna say that I don't think it's necessarily a willpower problem at all. From what you describe to me, there's some clues here. It sounds like your body's giving you feedback around eating enough and the nutri-- the food choices that you're having as well. So you mentioned that you start with a five-hour-- you started with a five-hour eating window and now moved to OMAD. So you also mentioned that you're doing 45-minute spin class most days, which is... That's a lot of cardio in the morning too, like on, on that empty stomach per se, and it, it's a decent amount of activity. So when I hear that all together, one of the first things that I think of is whether you're just asking too much of yourself right now without maybe having sufficient nutrients, sufficient protein in your eating window. Sometimes in the fasting world, Sarah, it's easy to assume that smaller eating window is better. It's like automatically better. If you, if you eat for one hour, it's great. If you eat for half an hour, it's better. Like, you know, that's not always true. The goal isn't to see how long you can go without eating and just to hold on and, and struggle. The goal is to really find a fasting rhythm that feels sustainable. It's about the long game and that it supports your lifestyle for the long run.

So if, if for example, every day ends with you feeling like this, like you're ready to eat the couch, your, your body might be just telling you something that really clear here. Like, what stood out to me most was your line where you say, "Once I start eating, I, I cannot stop." Now, honestly, that happens more when we wait until we're beyond hungry and also what we break our fast with as well could give us a clue as well. Are you reaching for-- What kind of snacks are you snacking on, for example? Are you, are you reaching for chips or charcuterie, or are you reaching for some boiled eggs, for example, or some, some cottage cheese or some yogurt, like, or eggs? You know? It's, it's really important to, to know that we don't really know. There's a massive difference between hunger and rev- ravenousness. So when you're pleasantly hungry, you can make clear choices, and when you're ravenous though, and I've been ravenous before, so I can speak from experience, your body does shift into this like, "Give me all the calories immediately" mode.

Barry Conrad
And at that point, it's kind of game over, and it's very difficult to kind of calm that down because your decisions, y-your decisions are clouded because your biology i-is basically trying to solve what it perceives as energy shortage, Sarah. So one possibility is exactly what you said in your question, opening your window a bit earlier maybe. That could be a, a solution. And I know some people hear, hear that and think that's somehow failing. Again, you're not failing by fasting for a shorter period of time. If moving from OMAD back to a slightly larger eating window allows you to feel more in control, more satisfied, less obsessed with your food, that may may be an option. So maybe try that and see if that helps.

Remember, we're trying to build something we can do for years. Another thing, again, I, I hinted at was what are you breaking your fast with, Sarah? So if you're opening with foods that digest really quickly and don't contain much protein, you just might not be getting that satiety signal you're looking for. So if, for example, if I were breaking a long fast and trying to tame that beast, tame the ravenous feeling, I'm gonna open with some protein. So for today, and this is actually real because I ate before doing the show, is I had eight, eight boiled eggs. I know that seems like a lot. I opened with that, um, something substantial. So I had the eggs, then I had a chicken curry that I made, you know, uh, with salmon. So opening with protein automatically makes me feel satisfied too, so I'm not feeling like starving by the time I get to like the, the big, like the main course kind of thing. So there's vegetables in there too. There's fiber in there. There's healthy fats in there and a little bit of quality carbohydrates as well. So notice what I said there, leading with the protein. That's really, really important, Sarah, because it's one of the most satiety nutrients you can ever have. Like it's so, it's so underrated and, and it could be like a really easy-- not an easy fix, but it could just cha- totally change the game. So play with shortening your fast and play with opening with your protein. I'd also encourage you to maybe slow down a bit when you open that window. So for example, I, I know that's easier said than done but, but even taking ten to fifteen minutes with that first portion of food before deciding what else you can-- what else you want can make a few-- can make surprising difference. So not rushing through it. You know, you've fasted for so long, so don't rush through- There, there's no emergency here. And another thing worth thinking about is you- you've, you've lost 10 pounds already. That's awesome. Like, that's so good. So sometimes when we're still focused on that 20 pound-- You said there's another 20 pounds? We can kind of forget to acknowledge what you've already done and what we're doing that is already working. So your body might also simply be asking for a slightly different approach now than it needed at the beginning.

Barry Conrad
So one thing I've learned through fasting is that, quote-unquote, "success" come, comes through listening and not pushing harder, 'cause your body, as I say a lot, and maybe it's a broken record, it's giving you feedback a lot. So if you're consistently feeling out of control about food, I wouldn't view it as a failure, Sarah. I'd view it as just information. It's just data.

So maybe OMAD is the sweet spot for you long term, or maybe your sweet spot is slightly earlier, you know, like 16 to 18 hours. Neither option is worse or better. What matters is finding the version that lets you feel energized. But Melanie, what do you think?

Melanie Avalon
Awesome. That was really, really epic and really great suggestions, and mine are all, mine are all, like, very similar and overlapping, so I'll just, I'll say them as well.

It's interesting because Sarah, what you were doing before it sounds like was working. You know, you, you lost weight. You said you're loving this change. It works really well for you, and this is, this is when you were doing a lunch and a dinner. You know, and now you're switching and it's not working. But the, the reason it wasn't working before, like the part, the part of what wasn't working before for you was eating too much at lunch and dinner. So it was, like, too much. So what you're trying to do is, you know, eat less. The irony is now with a one meal a day situation, even though it's one meal, it, it sounds like you're kind of... It- it's still like you're eating two meals because you're, you're, you're having this, this, like you said, a pre-dinner binge, so like one meal and then you're like eating again right after. So clearly, like Barry was saying, the way you're set up right now, like that situation is, is not working for you. And also as like a really quick side note that I was just thinking about, it's funny because you were saying when you had a five-hour window, you know, that it was two meals. My, my w- I'm not gonna bring up the whole great one meal a day debate. I'm not gonna go there. I do one meal a day and I tend to eat for four or five hours, so it's just interesting. I agree with everything Barry was saying. So my immediate first thought was the workout in the beginning is probably really stirring up your hunger, especially because it's early, and then that hunger is just building. So I would, I would try moving things around. Can you-- Could you work out later right before you eat and see what that does and/or like Barry was saying, could you open your window earlier? Especially because you have no problem closing the window, I would definitely try if you can, if it fits into your, your work schedule, your, your soc- your, your life schedule, I would definitely try opening it earlier and closing it earlier if you still wanna try this like, quote, "one meal a day" thing. Yeah, I would, I would try one of... a lot of things you can try. But the different things I would go in my, in my order, and again, it depends on your life, but I would try opening the window earlier, the eating window, and seeing if you are not ravenous, 'cause you're not waiting until un- you're not waiting until you're ravenous, and then see if you can still easily close it. Or go back to the two meal a day thing that you were doing, the five-hour window, and can you make, 'cause you were, you said, you know, you were eating too much. Can you either make the lunch lighter and not be really ravenous after and then have your normal dinner, or vice versa, have the decent lunch still and then have a, you know, not as heavy of a dinner? But either way, really f- I would still lead both meals if you do that with protein because that's so, so satiating.

Melanie Avalon
You know, like Barry was saying, it has the highest satiety factor of all the different macronutrients. It's gonna not mess with your blood sugar levels as much. So changing what you eat can have a, you know, a big effect on this.

Yeah, you have a lot of options, and I, I really would just channel what Barry was saying about it doesn't have to be, and I'm paraphrasing. But he was saying something about how, you know, you, you don't have to do this, and I'm saying it too. Like you don't have to do this one thing, like this one meal a day at this time is like the be all end all and that's what you have to do. No, you, you can do whatever works best for you. So experiment with the things and yeah. There's th- the good thing is there's like a lot of options that she can try experimenting with. Barry, shall we have our proverbial breaking of the fast moment?

Barry Conrad
I can't wait, and I can't wait to see what you have this week, Mel.

Melanie Avalon
All right. So the purpose of this part of the show is because what you eat in the eating window and h- well, the eating part of your intermittent fasting protocol is just as important as the fast.

And so we like to profile different restaurants and talk about how we would break our fast at said restaurant. Today, the restaurant that I have, you actually know, Barry, 'cause I, I decided with my last restaurant that I wanted to do this one next. Do you remember?

Barry Conrad
Oh, when was it?

Melanie Avalon
So I really wanna do, 'cause we did the Bazaar Meat at Las Vegas, I really, I really wanna do their f- their seafood one, the Bazaar-

Barry Conrad
The Maz, right?

Melanie Avalon
Uh, yeah.Let me-

Barry Conrad
Oh, this will be great.

Melanie Avalon
I wanted to do it while it was fresh in our memory having just done the, the meat one.

Barry Conrad
And the meat one was a vibe, too, and it was awesome.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. So we... Hold on. So a few, I think two episodes ago probably or a few episodes ago, we talked about José Andrés, The Bazaar, which I f- or Bazaar, I guess. I first went to it in Los Angeles. It's no longer in Los Angeles, but it is coming back in two locations.

He's like since rebranded it a little, like it's become, he has like Bazaar Meat, which is the one we did last or last time in Vegas. He has like Bazaar Bar. He has like another Bazaar just concept. This one, so this one is Bazaar Mar, which is seafood focused. And we noticed that in the Bazaar Meat it was basically all meat and then like a very brief seafood section. So we're very curious, 'cause I haven't looked yet. We're curious if it's like all seafood and then a very small meat section. Um, but what's really cool about Bazaar, The Bazaar... Oh, it is The Bazaar. The- he's really into like the science of food and eclectic and whimsical, and the vibes just always look really cool. I remember when I went to the old one, like, you know, I don't know how long ago, 10, 15 years ago, it was like Willy Wonka. It felt like being in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory meets like a really fancy bougie restaurant. So we are looking at Bazaar Mar at The Venetian in Las Vegas.

Barry Conrad
Awesome.Opening it now.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, oh, wait. And really quickly, Barry, before we jump, before we do this, I'm really curious. Did you, since our last conversation, was it last week? Have you thought about what you last ate before eating?

Barry Conrad
Do you know what?To be honest, I have not.I kinda, I kind of...I did the, I did the next day, but then after that I kind of, I kinda weaned off a little bit.Have you been thinking about it?

Melanie Avalon
I mean, yeah, I, I, I already was every time, but now I'm even more aware of it now. 'Cause now, 'cause before I was just doing it, but now I'm doing it and I'm aware.

So this is a teaser, listeners. Go check out episode, go check out episode 483 of the show. We talk about this fascinating study about how your brain, based on its memory of your last meal, affects the next meal intake. So it basically, if you eat distracted and you don't really like remember that meal, you eat more next time, which is wild.

Barry Conrad
It's a pretty awesome study.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah.It's, it's pretty cool.So well, it looks like they start off with the same...This is what they had at the other restaurant, right?They had the J-

Barry Conrad
Yeah

Melanie Avalon
...the Jamón experience.

Barry Conrad
Yeah.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. And I was talking about this because last time we profiled the restaurant, I was remembering, before we even looked at the menu, I was remembering having this incredible acorn-fed prosciutto that tasted like acorns, and here we are. They still, he still has it.

So I feel like we got... I would get some of that to start.

Barry Conrad
I actually, Mel, I actually thought about this after the show as well, 'cause I, I kept on thinking, what would that actually taste like?Like, I just, I can't...Like an acorn...Yeah.

Melanie Avalon
And again, literally like 15 years ago, and I still remember it.It was, it tasted like it had acorns in it, but it's just because the pigs eat, they only, I think they only eat acorns.I don't know.

Barry Conrad
I would get the same, I would get some of that too.I'm, I'm not gonna let that, this slip through my hands.I'm having some of that.

Melanie Avalon
I know.Every time we have to get it.And then, okay, so now I think is where we are getting...Well, okay, so now we're at, we have a little snacks section.

Barry Conrad
Little trinkets.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah.I'm seeing, so it's, I'm seeing...Oh, it is mostly, it is mostly seafood.

Barry Conrad
This is cool.It's like the flip from last time.

Melanie Avalon
Yes.Do you see anything you would like?

Barry Conrad
I would get the main lobster croquetas, which is lobster and shrimp fritters, saffron a- aioli, aioli. That sounds really good.

And then I would also get the puntillitas fritas, which is baby squid, aioli negro, piparra pepper, simply fried as they do in the south of Spain.

Melanie Avalon
Mm.

Barry Conrad
That sounds really good.

Melanie Avalon
Have you had squid before?I think we've talked about this.

Barry Conrad
Many times, and I love it so much.Mel, this is the year you gotta try squid.

Melanie Avalon
I think I have.So long as I can get it, like, grilled.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, grilled. That's the on- that's the best way to have it is grilled.

I mean, this is fried here on this menu, but I prefer squid particularly over calamari is grilled. Where, where- whereas I can have calamari fried and I can still enjoy it.

Melanie Avalon
Well, if they can make me some grilled squid, I'll try, I'll try it. I really want the river trout cone, except I'm not sure what, what it is. It says, oh yeah, "Smoke in chimneys trout flour, preserved Meyer lemon dill." I don't really kn- it sounds... I want that.

Assume- assuming, assuming it's like trout and not like an ice cream cone made of, you know, something else. And then maybe some tuna sashimi. Neptune's Pillow. I think they had that on the other menu. Tuna sashimi, spice- spicy tuna, air bread, spicy ricoto mayo. I'll just have the tuna sashimi, please. Plain.

Now we're to the caviar. They got, they got the beluga.

Barry Conrad
They do.Again.It keeps following us around.

Melanie Avalon
I know.I feel like ever since we signaled it out, we see it everywhere.

Barry Conrad
Yeah.

Melanie Avalon
Would you want any caviar?

Barry Conrad
Yeah, I'll definitely... Well, 100 gra- I mean, this is expensive for dinner, but I'm g- the 100 grams of beluga, please. Real caviar, fried steamed buns, egg yolk emulsion, horseradish, chive creme furnace.

That's the experience though, so I wonder. Yeah, well, I'll definitely get the beluga. What about you?

Melanie Avalon
Yes.I, yes.I, the thing is, caviar is so salty, I don't like having a ton of it.But I would have like a tiny bit.

Barry Conrad
Have you had it with blinis before?Do you like blinis?

Melanie Avalon
Those are with like cream and...Right?Aren't they with...What is it, what is that?Isn't that like a-

Barry Conrad
It's like a mini, think of like a baby mini s- tiny little pancake thing.Like, but small.So small.

Melanie Avalon
Not my, not my current version of myself.Probably in the past.

Barry Conrad
It's really good.

Melanie Avalon
Is it the fried steamed buns that come with it?Is that the blini probably?

Barry Conrad
No, no, no.That's, that's, that's sort of different, but I think it's maybe that's the same sort of, sort of vibe where it's on the fried steamed buns the same way it'd be like...Yeah.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, look what's next.Barry's favorite section.We have the oyster section.

Barry Conrad
Mm-hmm. I'm of course going for that. I'm gonna go on the half shell raw. It says, "Ask your server for daily selection cocktail sauce citrus." I'm gonna do a dozen of those babies. Let's go.

And some ceviche. Which is raw ceviche de tigre qu- with corn nuts. Love ceviche so much. What about you, Mel?

Melanie Avalon
That's oyster ceviche, is what it is, right?These are all oyster dishes?

Barry Conrad
Yeah, yeah.Yep.

Melanie Avalon
Okay.Well, I'm not partaking in this section.I will try yours so that you can see in real time the authentic reaction of how much I c- dislike oysters.

Barry Conrad
Well, our... You know what? The universe is gonna... I reckon there's gonna be a plot twist where you're like, "Actually, I'm waiting for the bad taste to, to hit me, but I actually like it." I reckon that's gonna happen.

Melanie Avalon
The day that happens is the day I also stop liking Funfetti. It'll be a parallel universe, but reverse.

A reverse parallel universe. Wait, wait, wait. In parallel universes, is it reverse or is it parallel? Oh, mirror u- mirror universe. That's what it is. It will be a mirror universe.

Barry Conrad
And maybe it'll happen because you went through that vortex for a second, so maybe it's already happened.

Melanie Avalon
Listeners don't know this, but we went through a vortex and we're back, and we lived a century while we were gone, but we don't remember it.

Barry Conrad
Mel ate all the oysters and stuff, so now she's all primed and ready.

Melanie Avalon
I know.Oh my goodness.Okay.So now we have raw and simple.Ooh, I see something I want.I have to look up mercury levels.

Barry Conrad
What?Which one?

Melanie Avalon
Do you wanna guess?

Barry Conrad
I think the mackerel tartare.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. Apparently mackerel, mackerel... One reason I like this restaurant experience is I learn a lot about mercury in different fishes.

Like, we learned about that really cool fish that I was really excited about eating, and I forgot it already.

Barry Conrad
Oraca.It's, like, some kind of-

Melanie Avalon
I think I'll rec- if I see it, I'll...It had three names.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, I've never heard of it before until we-

Melanie Avalon
Apparently it's, like, super low-mercury and looked really good. Okay.

So apparently mackerel varies drastically because it can be really small or it can be really big. So I would need to ask the restaurant which species. Is it horse mackerel? Is it Atlantic Mediterranean, Spanish, or king? You don't want king. You don't want Spanish. You don't want Atlantic Mediterranean. I have to check if horse is okay.

Barry Conrad
Okay.Do you have a plan?Do you have a, another one that you would like if-

Melanie Avalon
Oh, yeah. Horse mackerel is lower. So if it's horse mackerel, which it comes with... It's cured, lemon emulsion, apples, tomato, citrus gel, taro root chips. I'll just get all of that on the side.

Backups. I can get sea... I know I said I don't order sea scallops at restaurants, but I can get it as a appetizer situation. So I would be open to the, I don't know how you say this, Hokkaido sea scallops crudo, which is tomatillo and seeds. Oh, goodness. Aguachile, green grapes, jalapeno, cucumber oil. I change my mind. It sounds really spicy. Never mind. I'm out.

Barry Conrad
You don't like spicy.That's right.Interesting.

Melanie Avalon
So maybe the mackerel, but otherwise no.

Barry Conrad
Wow.Okay, good.

Melanie Avalon
Do you want a little sandwich?

Barry Conrad
I actually do. I'm gonna go for the anchovies ton bo karate, which is Spanish salt-cured anchovies, pan de cristal with smoked butter. That actually sounds so good, and a little bit probably spicy as well.

Melanie Avalon
I will not be getting a little sandwich.

Barry Conrad
You're not gonna get a little sandwich?

Melanie Avalon
No. Okay. Now we're at sea what else, and they spell sea S-E-A. Oh, okay.

So here... Okay, I think this is now we're into, like, entree territory. So they have, they have sea what else, which is some different seafood entrees, and then they have whole fish and shellfish. And it says, "Come on, guys. This is why you are here. José Andrés seafood offerings from the world. Please ask your server for seasonal selections and prices." And then, oh, we were right. There's one brief section for the meat eater, and it has... And then there's a vegetarian salad section. So yeah. So what are you feeling for your, yes, I'm saying it, entree?

Barry Conrad
I actually would like to get a... The whole fish sashimi sounds really good. I mean, it sounds really basic, but, like, 'cause it's sashimi, but I... That's delicious to me, a whole fish sashimi. Simple is good.

It says citrus olive oil. That's it. Really basic, really delicious. That sounds like me. How about you?

Melanie Avalon
So you're just getting that?

Barry Conrad
I'm gonna get that from the fish section, and then from the meat eater I'm gonna also get the strip loin Akaushi Wagyu, which is with potato puree, baby gem lettuce salad. So I have, like, a bit of a surf and turf situation going on.

What about you?

Melanie Avalon
Okay. I'm really excited about this.

Well, I would need to know... So you have to ask. We don't know what the fish is. So, like, that whole fish sashimi, we don't know what it is. So it would really depend on what it is. Um, so if it's a low-mercury fish, so if it's, like, a, if it's, like, trout or... They're not gonna have tilapia. Trout or tilapia or branzino or that, that fish that I can't remember from last time, then I would get a whole... No, I would get, I would get it live fire grilled. So I would get, like, the whole fish. It comes with Donnos tiara sauce, herb oil, and garlic chip. I would get that on the side. I... Can I have, can I, like, taste some of your whole fish sashimi? 'Cause that looks really good, but I don't want, like, a whole thing. And then, yeah, I want the whole fish. I love getting a whole fish.

Barry Conrad
There is something primal about that.Like, I don't know.It's just cool seeing the whole thing on the plate, you know?

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. I, and it, and it takes longer to eat 'cause you have to... You know, it's not, like, pre... You have to dig around and stuff. If I don't like the whole fish that they have, then I might get the Ora King salmon. I do like Ora King salmon.

So it's grilled over wood fire, salmon roe, Meyer lemon. Or Maya, sorry, sorry, Meyer lemon. And then I think I'm, I think I'd be good.

Barry Conrad
I've asked you this before.Do fish bones bother you or do you like to have it, like, filet?

Melanie Avalon
So the only reason they bother me is because it's so easy to, like, stab yourself with them 'cause they're so... You know what I'm talk- Have you ha- I mean, do you... Like, 'cause they're really skinny And you, if you're eating the fish, you just puncture your mouth. Like, that's been my experience.

You have to eat slow.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, that, that's not for me.

Melanie Avalon
We could do a st- We should do a whole fish diet. I bet people, if it was, like, with the bones, I bet people would lose so much weight because it would... First of all, they'd be eating fish, super healthy, assuming it's low mercury, and then people would have to eat slow.

It would slow people down.

Barry Conrad
Also, but also that to me, like, that's it's not as fun when you have to slow down. It's different if you can choose to slow down. But if you have to because you're being inhibited from getting to the food because of the bones, that can kind of be annoying sometimes.

Melanie Avalon
You don't like the bones?

Barry Conrad
If it's, like, fine bones, it's annoying.But if it's bigger bones, it's fine.

Melanie Avalon
What's actually, you know what actually might be worse? Uh, the worst.

So whenever I get a whole fish from Whole Foods, which I do on occasion as you know, and I bake it and everything, I get them to filet it for me and de-bone it. The problem is when you think the pr- That's when you puncture yourself really is when you think it's de-boned, but they, like, leave in some little pieces. And so then you're just, like, cho- You're, like, eating fast, like, chomping down, and then you're like... You puncture your mouth.

Barry Conrad
That's disappointing.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. That happened to me last time I did that.

But I lo- I, yeah, I love, I love whole fish. I, I feel like at restaurants they normally de-bone it. Maybe not in Europe, but here we Americans are... We're not resilient. Oh, you remember what they had on the, the Bazaar meat menu?

Barry Conrad
Uh, which one?

Melanie Avalon
The one we did last time.Do you remember what whole animal they had?

Barry Conrad
Oh, the pig.Oh, that was, that was wild.Like, maybe it was a wild pig.But it was, that's cra- Like, a whole pig on the table.

Melanie Avalon
Okay.So is there a dessert menu?

Barry Conrad
Beverage maybe, but I don't, I don't see dessert.But let's, should we click on-

Melanie Avalon
Was there a dessert menu last time?

Barry Conrad
I don't think so.

Melanie Avalon
Well, for m- it doesn't really matter anyways because for me, I would be getting more something that I had earlier on for dessert easily.

Barry Conrad
And I might copy you.I might copy if that's the case.

Melanie Avalon
Or just because they don't have a...No, they, I mean, they'll have a dessert menu.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, they should.But if they didn't, I mean, I would like to see what a, what a savory dessert would be.

Melanie Avalon
It's so great. It's like you just keep eating more meat and seafood.

So wine by the glass, I would have to... They have a very extensive list, and they have a lot that looks promising. So as per usual, I would get a something European, lower alcohol, probably like a... Actually, I might, I might have to go to the, the by the bottle list. But I would look for something European, red, dry, maybe a Cab Franc or a Pinot Noir. How about you?

Barry Conrad
Yeah, I would get a Daisy de Grana cocktail first, which is a Mi- Milagro silver tequila, Magdalena orange, lime, pomegranate, salt, air. Yeah, that, yeah, it sounds really good.

And then a bottle of white wine that some- like, one of their waitstaff can really recommend that will complement the seafood best.

Melanie Avalon
Wait, do you like, I, okay, do you like Sauvignon Blanc?

Barry Conrad
I just haven't had the best experiences, but I'm open to it if it's a good one.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, I mean, I don't like it, but they have a winery that I really like from my favorite valley, but they only have a Sauvignon Blanc. But you'd have to have the whole bottle because I don't... I'm trying to see, I'm trying to see if they have a Pinot Gris.

It's, um, Hippo- Hippolyte Reverdy Sauvignon Blanc. Let me see if they have... Oh. I would recommend getting one of their, one of their French white wines. Um, I'm just seeing really quickly if, if I see a bottle that I like.

Barry Conrad
I like a Chablis type vibe or a Pinot Grigio type vibe.

Melanie Avalon
Yes. They don't have a Pinot Grigio from France, but they probably do from Italy if you go to that section.

Okay, they have a very solid by the bottle list, so I will definitely be able to find something.

Barry Conrad
Either way, it'll be a long dinner.It'll be a really delicious, long, amazing dinner.

Melanie Avalon
I know.Well, you know you can go to the one in New York.

Barry Conrad
I actually forgot about that.I'm gonna copy and paste that now.

Melanie Avalon
They have a, oh, they have a bar and they have meat.I wonder if the bar is...I'm, I'm assuming it's in the same place.Oh, it's at the Ritz Carlton on West 28th Street.Do you know where that is?

Barry Conrad
I do know where that is actually.The Bazaar New York.Writing that down.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, so the, their bar is in the lobby of the Ritz Carlton. And then the restaurant is, I guess it's just in the Ritz Carlton somewhere.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, friends, we hope you enjoyed your time with us today. Thank you so much for the questions and all the things. If you have your own questions for the show, you can directly email questions at ifpodcast.com, or you can go to ifpodcast.com and submit questions there. The show notes for today's episode will be at ifpodcast.com/episode485. We will put links to everything that we talked about, so definitely check that out. You can get all the stuff that we like at ifpodcast.com/stuffwelike. And you can follow us on Instagram. We are IFPodcast. I'm Melanie Avalon, and Barry is Barry_Conrad. So anything from you, Barry, before we go?

Barry Conrad
No, thank you so much everyone for tuning in once again, and we can't wait to talk to you next time.See you later, Mel.

Melanie Avalon
Talk to you next week.Bye.

Barry Conrad
Bye.

Speaker 3
Thank you so much for listening to the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Please remember, everything we discussed on this show does not constitute medical advice, and no patient-doctor relationship is formed.

If you enjoyed the show, please consider writing a review on iTunes. We couldn't do this without our amazing team. Editing by Podcast Doctors, show notes and artwork by Brianna Joiner, and original theme composed by Leland Cox and recomposed by Steve Saunders. See you next week.

Jul 27

#484 – Special Guest: McCall McPherson, Fixing Hypothyroidism, GLP-1 Benefits, Fasting For Inflammation, Normal Vs. Conventional Ranges, Microdosing Ozempic, TSH Problems, Conventional Vs. Compounded Medications, LDN, Reversing Hashimoto’s, And More!

Welcome to Episode 484 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, biohacker, founder of AvalonX, and author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine, and Barry Conrad, actor, singer-songwriter, and creator and host of Banter with BC.

SHOW NOTES

McCall McPherson, PA-CA – Founder of Modern Thyroid Clinic

McCall McPherson is a licensed Physician Associate and women’s health expert focused on thyroid health, hormones, and metabolic health. She is the founder of the Modern Thyroid Clinic, a thyroid-centered functional medicine practice based in Austin, TX.

McCall became a thyroid health expert by way of being a thyroid patient herself. Her passion for perfecting thyroid treatment for her patients stemmed from years of personal suffering due to the mismanagement of her own hypothyroidism. She now lives, breathes, and thrives in understanding the proper nuances of thyroid care, combining her medical expertise and her personal experience to offer innovative solutions and a balanced approach to wellness.

McCall is a TEDx speaker, has been honored in the top 200 fastest growing health companies on the 2024 Inc. 5000 list and is a 2025 Top 500 Inc. Female Founder.

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IG | Website

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TIMELINE:

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⁠⁠If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving us a review in Apple Podcasts!

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

TRANSCRIPT

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

Welcome to Episode 484 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. If you want to burn fat, gain energy, and enhance your health by changing when you eat, not what you eat, with no calorie counting, then this show is for you. I'm Melanie Avalon, biohacker, founder of AvalonX, and author of What, When, Wine. Lose weight and feel great with paleo-style meals, intermittent fasting, and wine. And I'm joined by my co-hosts, Barry Conrad, actor, singer-songwriter, and creator and host of Banter with B.C. For more on us, check out MelanieAvalon.com and BarryConradOfficial.com. You can submit questions for the show by emailing questions at iapodcast.com or by going to iapodcast.com. We would love to hear from you. Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this show do not constitute medical advice or treatment. So pour yourself a mug of black coffee, a cup of tea, or even a glass of wine if it's that time, and get ready for the Intermittent Fasting Podcast.

Hi, friends. Welcome back to the show. I am so incredibly excited about the conversation I am about to have. It is with an expert on a topic, well, multiple topics, that I know you guys have so many questions about. And it's also crazy timing because I just crossed paths indirectly with this fabulous human being at Dave Asprey's Beyond biohacking conference, where she was actually a speaker twice, including on the main stage, which is amazing. I'm here with McCall McPherson. She is the founder of the Modern Thyroid Clinic. She is a licensed physician associate and a women's health expert. And she focuses on thyroid health, hormones, and metabolic health. So again, topics that I know all of you guys love. And like I said, she has the Modern Thyroid Clinic, which is based in Austin. She's a TEDx speaker. She's been honored in the top 200 fastest growing health companies on the 2024 Inc. 5000 list and is a 2025 top 500 Inc. female founder. And friends, when I had the opportunity to interview her, which I am just so honored about, I asked you guys for questions and they just came rolling in. So many things, thyroid, so many things, GLP ones, perimenopause, hormones, all the things. So I'm sure we will touch on a lot of amazing topics in today's show. Just to I definitely want to hear about your personal story, McCall . But just to start things off, I will say that I as well have had my own crazy journey trying to understand my own thyroid and being diagnosed with hypothyroidism and the amount of switching around and testing and different opinions I have interacted with when it comes to T4 versus T3 and compounded or NDT or T4 only or reverse T3. All the things is just absolutely insane. I feel like it's been the journey of a lifetime. So yes.

It really is. It really is.

And it's so common for people, I think, to experience that. And that was something that your personal story. So what was your story with your thyroid and that whole world and mismanaging of that?

Yeah. You know, so my most recent bump in the road was when I was 27, quite some time ago now, but I was on Synthroid. I'd been moved from Levithyroxine to Synthroid. I was already practicing medicine and I was debilitated. I mean, I was spending 16 hours a day in bed, no exaggeration during the work week, and then just all day, all night in bed on the weekends, stuck in that cycle of trying to rest enough to recover and rest enough for what was coming the following day or the following week and was overweight. I was losing my hair. I was depressed. I couldn't think straight. All the things, low, no libido. And of course, I was like, oh gosh, it's just simple. I just need to go back to my clinician. He'll increase my medication. Surely it's just my thyroid meds are off. And so naturally, like so many women, that's what I did. And I was turned away after he ran only a TSH panel, told, hey, we actually need to reduce your medication.

Oh, and by the way, here's a prescription for Lipitor for your high cholesterol. That was simply a manifestation of my thyroid problem and kind of left out in the cold and gaslit and dismissed. And through the brain fog, thankfully, I found someone who could help me waited months and months to see him. He took a progressive approach and looked at more labs and used more progressive medications. And I was on my way to get my life back. And that began my journey in the world of thyroid. And over years, eventually, Modern Thyroid Clinic was born out of it. So now I'm grateful. I get to help women who are on the same journey I was once on and help them to get their lives back.

Yeah, it's so powerful to hear. And it's honestly shocking to me that conventional medicine still relies so heavily on TSH only.

And even for me, so my, I first, I guess went on thyroid medication and I don't even know when, maybe like 2014 or so, the journey has been, like I said, like crazy with just changing around dosages and things. And even now, like most recently, like this happened, like even when I think I'm out of the woods, this is a couple months ago, because I am seeing a conventional endocrinologist because I finally got on a dosage that worked for me and my endocrinologist was down with like keeping me on it. But even recently he was like, well, your TSH is suppressed because I'm on T3 and T4. And he's like, so I think we need to pull you off T3. And I was like, whoa, I'm actually feeling okay. Let us please not rock the boat. So, but I almost had like a panic attack. I was like, not actually mentally, but just because I was like, wait, no, no, I'm actually stable, like I'm not symptomatic, but you're gonna change everything because of the TSH. So, and I realized we're using a lot of like letters and if people aren't familiar, maybe we can give them some definitions. But why is it that everything just revolves around this TSH factor, like still even today?

I know it's wild, isn't it? So research shows about 80 to 85% of the time when people get thyroid labs drawn, the only thing that's being checked is a TSH, which is wild, still, that's the stat in America. And in medicine, we are trained that TSH or your thyroid stimulating hormone, which is actually a hormone that your brain secretes and sends it to your thyroid to stimulate your thyroid. So hence the term thyroid stimulating hormone, it's supposed to be on a feedback mechanism. So, you know, when your thyroid is producing actual thyroid hormones, because again, TSH is a brain hormone, it should send a message back to your brain and say, oh my gosh, like we have plenty of thyroid hormone lower this person's TSH. Or inversely, when you don't have enough output hormones, theoretically, a message should be sent back to your brain that says increased TSH in cases of not enough thyroid hormone production or reduced TSH in cases of enough, right? So it's all dependent on the feedback loop, the message being clear to your brain, whether you do or do not have enough thyroid hormones. The reality is medicine's assumption that that is intact and actually working is what's flawed.

So research shows about 35% of the time that feedback mechanism doesn't work well. I've found data that shows it only accurately reflects thyroid hormones 1% of the time, which is crazy. So 99% of the time it can be wrong. And, you know, medicine's just not really in an era of evolving thyroid care. Guidelines haven't changed since 2014 from the American Thyroid Association. And so clinicians are just operating on this really outdated antiquated system, assuming that everything is working just fine. And in fact, we're working with flawed data.

Wow. So an analogy that I think is often used is it's kind of like if the TSH was the thermostat and it's saying that it's a certain, you know, temperature in the room, but it may or may not be that temperature in the room, like changing the thermostat may or may not actually, if the air conditioner is broken, for example. So, okay, some questions there.

So the 99%, is that 99% of patients you work with or just in general, that you've noticed that.

Yeah, I know, I found a study that shows TSH, and even when clinicians check TSH plus free T4, which is checked about 15% of the time, 11 to 15% of the time, it accurately predicts your most important hormone level, which is called free T3, 1.7% of the time.

So it reflects T3 variation very, very rarely, even when we look at both of those hormones together, which honestly, I think is one of the single-handedly biggest reasons that people are persistently having thyroid symptoms, because just imagine they're going to the doctor, they're only checking TSH or maybe TSH plus free T4, the vast majority of the time, and it's not giving us a picture of our most important hormone or what's called free T3, which I'm happy to go into those hormones as well, so people can have a little bit of an understanding.

Yeah. And also I would love to go into that. And one more quick question.

So like in my situation where I'm on, you know, I'm taking T3 and T4. So my TSH, I mean, maybe my TSH is working correctly because it's going down because I'm on the hormones. But then my endocrinologist, he gets, he freaks out a little bit when it goes too low because he says it's suppressed. When I just think about it logically, I'm like, but shouldn't it be suppressed? Like, if I'm getting enough, if I'm taking hormones exogenously, wouldn't it go down?

So here's how I describe TSH. So think about, for some reason, Melanie, I use automotive analogies, even though I serve like 99% women, but I've done it for so long, I'm fully committed at this point. So think about TSH, like how hard your body's pushing on the gas pedal of your car, okay? So we can push our gas pedal all the way down and go 100 miles an hour, or we can push it all the way down to get to 20 miles an hour. We can't use how hard we're pushing on the gas pedal to infer the rate of speed of our car, right? And that's what TSH is.

So when you have great output hormones, right? When your car is coasting and you're cruising and everything's good and your free T4 and your free T3 are great, well, you don't have to push hard on the gas pedal anymore. You can almost take your foot completely off the gas pedal and just barely touch it to coast. That's what TSH is reflecting. It's reflecting the energy going in to make your thyroid energy, AKA your thyroid hormones. So of course it's not high. And where medicine is continuing to get this flawed is they think a low TSH means that you're hyperthyroid. And when you're hyperthyroid, bad things can happen, right? You can increase risk for cardiovascular events, heart attacks, stroke, osteoporosis, but there's a very safe, effective way to ensure that that's not happening. And it's simply to check your TSH, but also check your output hormones, check your free T4, check your free T3. And if those are in normal range, TSH is independent of those risk factors in and of itself, but medicine is getting its wires crossed and thinking that that low TSH reflects high output hormones, even if they're checking the output hormones and they're fine, it still makes them nervous. So you're spot on. You should not ever, in my opinion, reduce someone's medication if their output hormones are great, simply to try to increase TSH. You're fixing an unbroken system at that point.

What's completely ironic about my situation is when this happens, because that's pretty much how I tend to present. My other hormones are always low too.

So like my T3 and my T4 will be low, my TSH will be low though as well. And so when he's like, let's just pull you off T3, I'm like, no, no, no, let's not do that. It's funny, I thought I had hacked the system. I was like, oh, I'm gonna use a conventional doctor and get my insurance benefits and I'll just kind of guide the prescription to where I want it to be until I hit this wall. So yeah, I'm not gonna do that anymore.

not uncommon. Like we have patients too that are like, well, I'm stable and I'll just have this person carry on my prescription.

But either the hiccup comes where they become, you know, nervous or God forbid you need a dose increase and they just are not equipped and trained how to effectively do that. My one question to ask you, since we're talking about your case and it's always fun to do that, is when you have your labs drawn, if you're on T3, T4, are you taking your medication before you have your labs drawn or are you withholding it and having your labs drawn? Because that dictates a lot in how your labs appear.

Yes, and I am so curious to hear your thoughts on this because I know the conventional idea is to not take them. Ironically, I actually, and I've been doing this for a few years now, I take mine in the evening, so I'd be curious your thoughts on that as well.

So I have not taken it when I do the draw because the draw is during the day.

right? I just need to overhaul your thyroid, my friend. You need to come to us. Let us help you because your productivity is really good.

I can't even imagine what it would be with proper thyroid support. So a couple things. Number one, well, they inherently go together. T3, or active thyroid hormone, I describe it as like gasoline for your body, is short acting. So depending on which medication you're on, it's actually going to peak and trough in about three to eight hours after you take it. So if you're taking it at night, you're using the time that you should feel the best, the clearest, the most productive, the most engaged, and you're sleeping during that window. So one, I think you'd feel better if you moved it to the day, and I'm happy to talk through that with you on or off the air.

But number two, there is a pervasive myth that is perpetuated in medicine, which is have people skip their thyroid medication before labs. And this is particularly important in people on a T3 based med. These are drugs like CITAML, lyothyronine, armor, renthyroid, and pthyroid. And the reason that it's so important not to do that is because think about it. Let's say you did take your, I'm

I'm so happy you said this. Okay, I'm like so happy right now. It doesn't make sense logically to me.

It makes no sense. So like, let's say you did take it in the morning and on a Monday you took your thyroid medication and Tuesday morning you went to have your labs drawn. If your T3 peaks in three to eight hours and you haven't taken it for 24 hours, how are your labs going to look when you get them drawn? Because TSH is a stable hormone. It doesn't fluctuate like the others.

Your T3 is in and out of your system a long time before you had that lab drawn. So what ends up happening is people present, their hormones are low. Let's say their clinician increases them because in the functional medicine world that is what happens. You get a dose increase when that occurs and three months later you do the same thing. Well, it will always appear low if you don't take it before you have your labs drawn because it's out of your system. So that's actually how bad things can happen on T3-based meds because people unendingly get dose increases over and over and over. But even aside from that, and I love that you understand this question, if we are trying to figure out what to do with your medication, we should probably have it on board to test it, to see what it's doing, to determine what to do next, but we can't do that if no one takes it before they have their labs drawn.

Literally this question has bothered me for so long because interestingly enough even like non-conventional people in this in the thyroid world Some of them will say to skip. Can I tell you how that happened?

Please do because I have wondered this for so long

Yeah, I know exactly how it happened because I traced it back to the source. And I won't say specifically who it is, but one of the oldest thyroid advocacy platforms around kind of started this dialogue and this rhetoric. And it has since been repeated so many times that everyone in the functional and integrative world accepted it as truth, which was always skip meds, pre-labs.

And this is a progressive thyroid advocacy platform that is huge. So honestly, almost 10 years ago, eight years ago, I went to the person who founded that platform. And I said, look, this is who I am. This is what I do. This is all I do. And this construct of keeping people off meds before labs is dangerous. Not only could it, I'm sure it has caused heart attacks and strokes, it can potentially kill people, but it's also damaging the evolution of progressive thyroid care because it's propagating this idea that thyroid meds are dangerous, that they're unpredictable, that they're uncontrollable because all of a sudden these people are going into atrial fibrillation and having a stroke, right?

So this person came back to me and she said, McCall, we can't depend on clinicians to increase people's thyroid medication. So we have to manipulate the data to ensure that people can get more. And I still have that email to this day.

Oh my goodness. Okay. This is wild. It's like this like an FBI episode. And what's so funny is I have literally contemplated doing this myself. Like, I shouldn't say that.

But I've like, I've thought about it before, especially when I've had the, you know, the hesitancy to properly up my medicine. I thought before I've like, you know what, maybe I should just stop my meds for like three days before the test. And then everything will be super low. And then they'll give me more, which is horrible.

don't do that. No, just find someone who really can partner with you on this for sure.

That's crazy. Oh my goodness.

That was the last thing I expected her to respond like, but she did. And it's been, like, it's fascinating. When you repeat things in medicine long enough, people believe them, right?

and that's what's happened. Yeah, and it's just, and I'll let it go, but it's just so interesting that, because every time I think about it, I'm like, it does not make sense logically.

And it's interesting that so many functional practitioners haven't questioned it a little bit more like you did. Wow.

we change that little by little.

Okay, so so many, so many ways we can go here. It's interesting. I asked listeners for questions about this and what they're taking and it was, it was all over the place.

So let's see, like Valerie says she takes natural thyroid armor. Karen says she has a functional medicine doctor. She takes Levo and Liah, Levo and Liah and her thyroid levels are optimal. Alyssa, she took Levo for a few years until her labs tested normal and then no issues. Erin, she has a whole thing about, she says, you know, the first step is to realize that your doctor isn't there to heal you. It's your job to educate yourself so that you know what to test for and to understand what your diagnosis means and then she says that she's started Levo four months ago. It didn't resolve anything so now she's switching to natural T4, T3 combo. Okay and what I'm just gonna ask from all of this is there's just so many, so especially with what you just said. So you can understand, you know, the potential problem but then the way you go about addressing it and like even for me like I've tried so many different things throughout the years. So what do you find when it comes to actually treating patients? Is it that some people, it could like, could two people have identical, I mean I know that's like very rare but completely identical labs and one is gonna benefit from like natural thyroid and one will benefit from synthetic and one will benefit from a combo and one T4 only. Like how do you know what to do? Honestly.

you know, so much that determines our plan for patients at Modern Thyroid Clinic is their labs. We obviously talk with patients too, like what is your preference? And we educate and explain pros and cons of each, because there are nuances. Like more than anything, what I want people to know is it's a two-sided coin.

Number one, this is incredibly complicated in real life. Like medicine grossly, negligently oversimplifies it. It is so much more nuanced than even 99% of functional medicine clinicians can grasp or fathom. Labs need to be perfect. People need to be very properly treated and managed. And the flip side of that coin is when they are, they get their life back in a very short period of time. Like days, people generally feel better. But we can't be guessing. We can't just be trying things to see what happens. Each person's unique biochemistry dictates a lot about their plan. And so let's take the person on levothyroxine with, you know, persistent symptoms. They don't feel better. Now they're switching to desiccated thyroid, just as an example, right? Because that's a lot of people that have persistent symptoms on levothyroxine. Levothyroxine-based medications, so levosynthroid, unithroid, t-rescent, levoxel, that is all an inactive hormone. It's crude oil. It doesn't actually help us at all until we convert it to gasoline. And most people do not ever convert enough of it to gasoline to feel good. So they're walking around with persistent hypothyroid symptoms. Their labs look fine to their regular doctor because they're not looking at them correctly and not writing the right labs. When in fact, you know, it's all crude oil, right? We don't put crude oil in our car. T4, levothyroxine-based meds are crude oil. We have to convert it to gasoline and free T3 is your gasoline. Cytomel, lyothyronine are pure T3-based medications. And then there's combinations like armor, renthyroid, NP, that's part crude oil, part T4, and part T3. So when someone presents at Modern Thyroid Clinic with persistent symptoms on levothyroxine or synthroid, what we don't do 99.9% of the time is switch them to a desiccated thyroid. So switch them to that NP, armor, renthyroid because the half-lives of those two medications are so wildly different, meaning if you stop levothyroxine today, half of it is still in your system in seven to 10 days. Whereas armor is in and out of your system in a few hours, right? So that is a complicated switch, but what we can do easily, and what I often encourage people in that situation, and there's tens of millions of them, is stay on your levothyroxine-based medication and add T3 to it. What you're missing is gasoline. You have a house, a garage full of crude oil, and your gas tank and your car's on empty. We can simply add cytomel and lyothyronine to that plan. On day one, most people feel better. Whereas if you switch them and titrate them to NP thyroid or armor or whatever, it's weeks of feeling bad before they start to rebuild again and get back to where they need to be. So all that to say is it's incredibly nuanced.

You need someone who isn't committed to one class, one type of medication, because every single person's needs in biochemistry are different. For example, with the woman switching to armor, let's say the activation of her hormones, her ability to convert crude oil T4 to T3 is low, well, armor has too much T4 in it for her. The ratio of crude oil to gasoline is too high. So she's not gonna get, or a lot of people will never get where they need to be with that ratio.

If their conversion, if their activation of their hormones is so poor, they can't efficiently convert enough to feel well. Does that make sense?

Yes, it does. So you said armor, even though it contains, quote, natural T4, it's still fast in and out the T4.

from it? It's way faster. Yeah, way, way, way faster than Levothyroxine for sure.

Do you know why? You know, I think that when they created Levothyroxine, like 50 years after armor was in existence, they were aiming to make it have a long half-life. That was the goal. It was, well, if people don't miss doses, if they forget a dose, if they skip whatever, if they take it at a different time, it's so stable that we don't have to deal with this whole problem we've had with armor for half of the century, with the peaks and the troughs and things. So I think that was top of mind when it was created.

Is there way more incentive financially and like with pharma to prescribe like that levo instead of armor?

It's an interesting question. So I'll say kind of two thoughts on that. Number one, I think the real reason people are always getting prescribed T4 is our medical training. Mine is a PA, but I've interviewed dozens of physicians. I met with two this morning on another podcast interview and even our board certified endocrinologist that's our clinical director at Modern Thyroid. I've asked them their training as well. And it is as follows to a T. Do not use meds with T3 in them. Only use T4 based medications like levothyroxine, synthroid, et cetera. If you put your patients on T3, you'll give them a heart attack or a stroke. So the real problem is number one, we are trained to be very afraid of these medications. And number two, we are actually not trained how to efficiently, effectively, safely use them.

So they are not an option in our treatment algorithms because no one knows what in the world we're doing. And second, I think years ago, I can't find this data anymore, but years ago, we started as a brick and mortar in Austin, Texas. We're now a nationwide telemedicine practice, but there's a huge endocrinology clinic here in Austin. The biggest one, it's like a group. I looked at the main physician there and how much money he got from various pharma groups. And the last year I could see, I believe it might've been 2019, but I could be wrong. He made $178,000 from the makers of Synthroid that year. So, you know, who knows? Could have been other things I don't really know, but gosh, it seems like, you know, where there's smoke, there's fire.

Yes, I just know my experience. It's almost aggressive, the desire to, like if I've like gone into a practice on something that was, you know, working at least enough. And then the message is like, well, how about we try switching to Levo? I'm like, why? Like, I'm, like I feel okay right now. I don't want, I don't, why?

So, um, that's, that's really, really interesting. But what about just one quick rabbit hole tangent question? I think the worst, the worst moment I ever had was switching around or playing with my thyroid medication was I had really high reverse T3. And at the time I was working with a functional practitioner, but she, to reduce my reverse T3, pulled me completely off of T4. And I thought I was going to die. Like I literally, it was a horrible, horrible experience.

Do you, and I also know some, like I've worked with some, or I don't know if I've worked with them, but I've had them on the show, even in the functional world who don't test reverse T3. So do you have, do you have thoughts on reverse T3?

Yeah, I love this tangent. So just to level the playing field a little bit to give people a concept and a construct of what reverse T3 is. So in the thyroid biochemical cascade, right, TSH stimulates your thyroid, your thyroid secretes this hormone free T4. That's your crude oil hormone. Again, doesn't do anything until we activate it and convert it to gasoline, which is your free T3. So T4, your crude oil can just sit there, kind of stockpile in your garage, especially if you're on a levothyroxine based medication like you are, or it can activate, which is what we want, or it can shunt to an inhibitory hormone called reverse T3. And reverse T3 is shaped just like T3, but in reverse, that's hence the name, right? And what that allows it to do is bind to the same landing spot as T3, but instead of binding and activating things like your energy, your cognition, your metabolism, it just binds and it sits there and it occupies the landing spot for T3. So it keeps T3 from being able to bind. So they compete for absorption. Therefore, the higher your reverse T3 is, the less T3 absorption you're going to get. And one of the most quickest ways to get elevations in reverse T3 is to over medicate people on a levothyroxine based med that can't convert it, that can't make it into gasoline, because they just create an enormous reservoir for reverse T3.

Now in the medical literature, reverse T3 is largely studied in ICU patients because the mechanism of it is purposeful. When you're sick, when you're stressed, when you're inflamed, when you're micronutrient depleted, calorically restricted, over exercising, pregnant, nursing, insomnia, all of these things drive up your reverse T3 on purpose so that you get tired, so that you lay down rest and recover. It's one of the mechanisms of forced recovery of your body. In the ICU, that's amplified by 10, right? Like you get crazy reverse T3 levels because you're in crisis physiologically. So medicine just assumes this isn't useful unless you're in an ICU setting, but that isn't true. It's actually incredibly useful. Will it be 100 or 200 like it is in the ICU? No. But it can be 25. It can be 30. It can be 20. And those numbers do matter and they actually do inhibit enough free T3 absorption to impact how people feel on an everyday basis. So people that don't believe in reverse T3 or they don't check it, they're just not educated on it. It's not a tool in their toolbox. So instead of kind of digging in, understanding the data and kind of analyzing and reanalyzing their own patient population, they just say, nah, it's not worth it. It's not important. It really is. It impacts a lot about how I treat patients, especially in reasonably elevated situations. Now, the last thing I want to do though is deplete someone's T4. Like people need T4. It's the lowest level that our thyroid gets on a 24 hour basis because T3 again is so up and down. We need enough T4 to pull from to convert 24 hours a day, but especially when we don't have enough T3.

So any change that I would ever make into a patient's levothyroxine or synthroid to reduce their reverse T3, because think about it, we're draining the source of it. If we reduce T4 and that's the source, naturally reverse T3 will drop. I would do that in a 12 microgram increment to give you an idea. Like I'm not dropping people more than that in one treatment cycle.

So to completely remove you off of that medication sounds terrifying.

It was, I literally felt like I lost my brain and I was quite young and I have one, oh, one quick clarification question. So I've actually never been on the branded like Levo or Lio or Lio. I've done compounded T4, T3. Are those similar, the same, different?

Yeah, do you want me to be candid? Oh, yes. This has like been the most epic thyroid episode ever, please.

So I'm an opinionated girl, right? But I have like 10 years and hundreds of thousands of pieces of data to back me up. So yes, when you get a compounded med, it's basically the same thing as a synthetic version of Synthroid Levothyroxine ground up, of Cytomel, Liothyridine ground up, it's usually the generic form. And the reason people advocate for compounds is you can make it into these unique doses, okay? Sure, that's valuable, kind of.

You can also just make unique doses with the standard medication doses that are available. I have patients split five micrograms of Liothyridine, which is 2.5 micrograms, that's how we increase and decrease, that's the doses we use, that is tiny. Now, well, there's a couple meds that we don't prescribe at Modern Thyroid Clinic, we prescribe no compounds. And the reason for thyroid meds, we prescribe hormone compounds all day, every day. The difference is this, is hormones come in milligrams. When you take progesterone, estrogen, testosterone, you're taking three milligrams, whatever it is. When you're dealing with milligrams, it's like baking muffins, a dozen of them, and trying to get an even amount of blueberries in every blueberry muffin. It's kind of possible, like you can actually get pretty close, right? When you're dealing with micrograms, which is what thyroid medications are in, T3 and T4 are microgram doses, it's like baking a dozen muffins and trying to get an even amount of poppy seeds in every muffin in that dozen. It's not really gonna happen. And in fact, what I've found is inevitably, it's not a matter of if, but when. A patient's compounded prescription is going to be inaccurate. And a three month supply of inaccurate compound thyroid medication is enough to completely derail a person for months and months and months, and backtrack them so much in terms of their quality of life, that modern thyroid clinic is all built on predictability and control. The reason we have such good outcomes is we don't allow any variables.

We're not guessing, we know exactly where a patient's labs are gonna land in three months after we change their medication with each of their labs within about a 0.2 variance. Every variable is accounted for. And because of the volatility and the inability for compounded pharmacies to do this extremely well, it creates variables that compromise people's outcomes. My last patient I prescribed a compound to was 2018. She had been my patient for years, years and years. She was stable for like three years. She came back after not seeing me for three months and her TSH was 12. That's like debilitating. Her dose had not changed at all. It's simply a flawed compound. And the better the pharmacy, the less frequent, less severe, but inevitably, and people, they get really riled up at me about this, inevitably it does happen. And again, I'm not anti-compound. We prescribe them all day every day for hormones. But for thyroid, you can accomplish individual dosing of T3 and T4 with standardized medications that are going to prove to be so much more predictable, controllable and stable.

Can I tell you a story related to this?

Absolutely. I'm loving this conversation.

So when did this happen? Maybe, I don't know, two years ago or so. So I've been using a certain compounding pharmacy and I was on, so I've been doing compounded NDT, so natural desiccated thyroid, and then compounded T3 additional. And I got my refill, like all my symptoms just started coming back, like I just started feeling pretty hypothyroid.

And so I went to the pharmacy and I was like, can you just like check this? Or I was like, I feel like it's, I don't know, it just doesn't feel right. And they're like, you just need to, they're like, maybe you just need to change your dose. Like they completely gas lit me. So I took the T3, I sent it off to a lab, I had it tested, it cost me like $400. And then I got the results and it was, the T3 was 30% of what it should have been. And I went back to the pharmacy with the paperwork and I was like, I was like, it's 30%. And then they still told me to my face, he said, well, maybe you just need to change your dose. And I was like, no, you need to make your medication correctly. I am so proud of you for that. It was crazy though. I've never, and I don't want to make it like, I don't want to make it too sexist or political or anything. But the way he was taught, I felt talked down to a lot, like as a woman, I was funny, I was actually on the phone with my business partner and he didn't know that because I had headphones in. And my business partner was hearing the whole conversation and he was furious and he's actually has a history in pharma. So he was like telling me what to say back to the guy. But it was a very mind blowing experience. I was like, I can't believe this is happening. Like I'm literally showing you the paper and you're saying I'm the problem.

Like, no. So I know this is a pervasive issue with compounding pharmacies. So I like that approach. So the standardized medication coming from like Levo and stuff, it's tightly, tightly controlled and tested.

It really is. Yeah. Most of the time, I don't even need people to be on brand name, to be honest.

With Levo and Liothyronine, there are some filler intolerances that will kind of tailor per person. Like vegans need to be on Cytomel. Liothyronine isn't certified vegan, et cetera, because there's so many different manufacturers. But for the most part, they're incredibly stable. The same with desiccated thyroid. There's one particular brand of desiccated thyroid that we don't use that we do find variants in. And that also, that's kind of backed up with testing validity measures as well. But for the most part, these thyroid meds are incredibly controlled, predictable. There's just not a lot of reason to compound them. I understand some people compound T3 to create a sustained release situation, which in theory, I agree with. We use T3 twice a day in the morning and in the late afternoon to mimic our natural body's rhythm of T3, which actually does an even better job than the sustained release form and is obviously more predictable and tightly controlled.

So that actually reminds me, going back to what you were talking about earlier, about me taking it in the evening. One of the reasons I do that, which I have been doing that for quite a while, is, well, I'm like a night person anyway. So even me taking it at, I usually go to bed at like 4am. So if I take it at 7pm, that's like my prime productive time after that anyways.

But I do intermittent fasting every day, which I do have questions about how that affects the thyroid. But I had a concern, personally, about taking my thyroid medication and then taking T3 and being fasted all day. I was thinking it would be better to take it closer to before I'm about to eat my big meal. So fasting in the thyroid, which I think somebody, we had questions about diet and the thyroid, but how does it affect the thyroid?

Yeah. So I'm a huge proponent of intermittent fasting. You know, there are people online that say if you have a thyroid problem, you can't intermittent fast. It's kind of a similar mechanism where if you repeat something long enough, people start to believe that it's true. You know, does fasting can fasting impact your adrenal glands, which impact your thyroid? Yes. Right. Does it not need to be done in extremes for people early on in their thyroid journey? Yeah. But like if women want to intermittent fast, a 16 hour fast four or five days a week, it can be incredibly beneficial for their body from a thyroid perspective.

Number one, it can reduce antibodies for hushy motos, the autoimmune component of thyroid disorders, where your body attacks your thyroid gland, because it is incredibly potent at reducing inflammation. And inflammation is a key driver of autoimmune disease, right? So it does that. It can help mitigate, prevent and reverse insulin resistance, leptin resistance, blood sugar dysregulation, metabolic dysfunction that is so highly correlated and associated with people, even in early, early thyroid dysfunction. So incredibly, incredibly powerful for that as well. You know, if someone is intermittent fasting, let's say like a normal fasting window, maybe they eat from, you know, 11 to seven and they wake up and they take their morning T3 in the morning. That's fine. Like they can absolutely do that. They can eat lunch, you know, at noon and take their second dose of T3 at two or three. The one thing is, I'm sure your listeners too, who do a lot of fasting, probably have noticed our body becomes more efficient when we're fasting. We're not like bogged down with all the excess things that are associated with breaking down, assimilating, excreting food, nutrients, et cetera. Everything starts to run a little bit quicker, a little bit lighter. And so sometimes people need a small dose reduction in their T3, especially initially when they're starting their fasting journey, not always, but hey, if you've got a great partner with you on your thyroid journey, they can be along for that ride and kind of tailor it to you and your newly adapted lifestyle. But for the most part, there's no reason that you can't fast and take your T3 during the day at, you know, normal hours. Though I know your circadian pattern is a little shifted.

Okay, so being in a facet state pretty much all day and taking T3 upon awakening, that could still potentially work for me.

Oh, absolutely. Like you might need a five to 8% reduction in your dose over time if you begin to feel a little stimulated and jittery.

Honestly, I'm just so darn curious what you'd feel like in general because I think it would shift your circadian pattern a little bit and make you feel better earlier in the day. And then you probably honestly do need a second dose, right? If T3 peaks and troughs in three to eight hours, we wanna occupy the bulk of your waking hours with access to T3 because that is our normal physiological response. So most people need a second dose, six to eight hours after their morning dose.

I did do that for a bit. I think it actually was one of the thyroid experts I was talking with said that he was reading about evening dosing maybe being more ideal. And then I think I switched and I just never switched back. I've done McCall, I've done like everything. I've done it all. Yeah, it's crazy how many different things I've done.

Well, speaking of the antibodies, so Becky, and you addressed this a little bit with the fasting, but Becky said, how can people get their TPO antibodies down to zero with Hashimoto's? And then Kelly said, are they supposed to be zero?

Good question. Okay. So let's frame this a little bit. So, you know, medicine views Hashimoto's as like the reverse lottery in conventional medicine. Like you've got this thing, there's nothing you can do about it. We actually never need to even worry about it or check it again.

All we need to deal with is your hypothyroidism that we replace with thyroid medications. We supplement those missing hormones. It couldn't be further from the truth. Hashimoto's is actually able to be influenced. I've been in remission for over 12 years myself. And at Modern Thyroid Clinic, we work to reduce antibodies as much as possible or ideally get people into remission. And what that means is measurably TPO and thyroglobulin antibodies reduce down. Remission is technically less than 34. It doesn't need to be zero. There's not a loss of thyroid function and meaningful autoimmune response if TPO is less than 34 and thyroglobulin is less than one. There are various ways that you can do this, but the benefits of reducing those antibodies are you preserve more thyroid function because you're losing it in real time with an autoimmune attack. And the higher your antibodies are, the higher the rate of destruction of your thyroid, you can also assume the higher your antibodies are, the more at risk you are of developing another additional potentially more serious autoimmune disease that can be life threatening, et cetera. So if we can reverse engineer that, reduce your antibodies, you can infer a risk reduction for developing another autoimmune disease, which is pretty remarkable, right? You can infer that risk reduction even before you're in remission. Maybe you're not all the way reduced risk, but as those antibodies drop, you are less likely to get another autoimmune disease. So I think some people get hung up on full remission. Any reduction is meaningful, especially a meaningful reduction. Some of the, you know, best ways in the scientific literature to reduce antibodies are supplementing with selenium, selenomethionine, 200 micrograms of selenium, vitamin D is a great one as well, and red light therapy. About 10 minutes of red light, six inches from your thyroid, 10 minutes once or twice a day has been shown to reduce antibodies in both Hashimoto's and Graves disease and can even improve thyroid activation of your hormones. That conversion from crude oil to gasoline. Some of my favorite ways that I found in my own data points over the last 12 years are low dose naltrexone. And I know you've spoken with someone on your podcast about this before. Incredibly, incredibly powerful. I've seen it reduced antibodies, TPO 500 points in three months with no other changes, intermittent fasting, glutathione, our body's most potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agent, either orally or just a cream directly placed on the thyroid gland. And then GLP ones are an incredibly, incredibly powerful way to reduce Hashimoto's antibodies. So what I tell people is also reducing dairy is the number one food that drives Hashi and number two is gluten, reducing one of those.

And I tell people, look, the goal is to build tools in your toolbox that are objectively measurably changing things in your body so that you can pull them and use them again in the future. If you go into a flare, and the way that you do that is you pick an intervention.

Let's say it's low dose naltrexone or LDN. You test your TPO and thyroglobulin antibodies on day zero. You do that intervention for 90 days and you recheck those antibodies 90 days later and you've seen if they've changed. And if they do, you carry on. If they don't, you layer in an additional tool and repeat and rinse until your antibodies are moving in the right direction in a consistent basis over the course of time.

Oh my goodness. Okay, so quite a few things. I know that's a lot to unpack.

No, no, I you hit you hit on so many topics So one I completely forgot about this McCall like completely so I've been in this biohacking world for so long And I use red light like all the time. I forgot that I Originally got a red light device to treat to try to self-treat my hypothyroidism like forever ago. That's why I first like got one That's so funny. Okay, and then so a few different things the the selenium Maris, she actually said she said I would really really like a definitive answer about an appropriate dose of iodine and selenium To support thyroid function. The data is exceedingly confusing. Amen

So for selenium, it's 200 micrograms for three months. So that's easy, right? Like that's a lot of the standard dose. It can even be down to 150, but between 150 and 200 micrograms period, it's extremely safe. Most people should try that intervention. I don't want to say all because I don't want to give medical advice, but it's harmless.

Oh, the data on iodine is, it is confusing. And here's where I stand, right? You can cherry pick data however you want, but I found the data that supports supplementing high doses of iodine is circular in nature, meaning it's coming from and being cited by the same two people over and over and over again. And what I have found in fact, and what also is supported in the literature, is if someone has Hashimoto's and you give them iodine, most likely their Hashimoto's is getting worse. Their antibodies will actually increase. And one of the most effective ways, especially when people have stalled on their other interventions and they can't move a needle with their antibodies anymore, one of the most effective ways to get them to reduce is to remove iodine exposure. It's to remove iodine from their diet, from their salt, eat low iodine foods, avoid iodine rich foods, put an air purifier in your house if you're somewhat close to the ocean where iodine is even inhaled. So it is the opposite that what so many people think they should be doing. And I am incredibly diligent and careful with people, even if I put them on a hair loss supplement that contains iodine, you better believe I'm checking their antibodies even with low iodine dosages, because in all likelihood, their antibodies are going to increase. So I avoid it completely.

Wow, okay. I mean, that tracks with Dr. Alan Christensen on the show a while ago for his thyroid book, which is all about removing iodine. And yeah, I mean, I agree with Maris and you and that it's confusing because, you know, there's that approach.

And then people will say the complete opposite. They'll say add iodine. And it's like, how can two completely opposite things be the treatment? Do you often put patients on a zero iodine protocol?

So, I do when we're stalled, mainly because my goal is always like, what's the shortest path that I can get this person in their life back with the least amount of effort on their part, right? And my patients are motivated, but when they come in, they can hardly get up and put on real clothes every day. They are truly struggling, and you've probably been in that place on your own journey, that trying to make them do wild, crazy things, jump through all these hoops every day and live in this teeny tiny box kind of sets them up for failure. So we start with the things that are the least effort for them that move the needle the most, and we work backwards from that.

And then if we stall, I will put them on a low iodine diet. And I started trying that after Dr. Christensen's book came out, and I was curious. It always starts with my own curiosity and then analyzing the data to see what happens, and I got to tell you, it worked.

Okay, that's really, really good to hear. And fun fact, he was actually on the biohacking podcast, the first episode of that show. He's such a kind man. He's so nice. He's like the kindest. Okay, I love that.

I remember when I met him, I was really in the throes of trying to figure out my thyroid stuff and I think we were emailing and I sent him an email. It might have been when they pulled me off of the T4 and he literally called me and was like, I got to help you. Like the second he read the email, he's so kind. He's a good human. Yeah, no, completely. And then to comment on the LDN. So I've been on that since also, probably also around since 2014. Another just really, really quick story. And again, this is all about advocating for yourself and understanding that doctors are not always like the conventional system, not to put down all doctors, but the system I don't think is always set up to listen to the patient or look at the whole picture. I had anemia in the past and listeners who have heard this story, apologies, but I was actually, I was hospitalized for it. It was not good. They asked me, like, you know, they were asking me about all my different habits and I was on LDN and at the, when I got discharged at the end, I asked for all the like the doctor's notes and I read all of them. There was like pages and pages. And one of them said, one of the notes said, like patient says she, you know, doesn't drink excessively, but she's on naltrexone. And I was like, Oh my goodness, because basically so low dose naltrexone, you know, in the form that we're talking about it, it's used for autoimmune conditions and you know, it's used in our world in a low dose because it temporarily blocks your endorphin receptors and then your body rebounds and makes its own endorphins. But the naltrexone form is used to treat alcoholism. So I just felt so misunderstood not seen. I was like, Oh my goodness. So nobody's believing anything I say here is the point.

Right, I got found out I was on it before applying for life insurance. Lot of hoops to jump through after that, for sure.

It's a similar thing where they think it's an altrex zone. Oh, yeah.

they think it's for substance abuse, you know? And I'm like, actually, it's going to make me live longer. So it's the total opposite of what you guys are thinking. But

So Kelly, she wanted to know about nodules because she said she's trying red light to treat them.

So I have seen nodules fade and I've never done one intervention, right? Like we've done multiple things. A lot of it is reducing inflammation. A lot of it is trying to reduce antibodies. I've used things like LDN, definitely use things like red light. And so I would continue the tools in your toolbox.

It's kind of like the antibodies. You have to test and retest and see what's working for nodules depending on how they appear and how aggressive they look. If they're benign, I would say, look, if you are my patient, I'd have you go every year to get an ultrasound and see if they're reducing in size, which is very, very possible. Sometimes they can go away.

Okay. And then you mentioned GLP ones, and I know those are still all the controversy and rage and all the things these days.

So how often, well, first of all, what has been your personal perspective and opinion and experience? Like when they first started becoming, like were you using them before they became a big thing? And then when they really became a big thing, and now I feel like just a lot of people are on them, and I have a lot of questions. But just your perspective of them all and your experience with your patients, what has that been like?

Yeah, so you can completely optimize a woman's thyroid and turn around her entire life in pretty much every way with the exception of her metabolism. So when a woman has had thyroid dysfunction for 10, 15, 20 years, and you fix her hormones, that magically does not unravel two decades of metabolic dysfunction that has made her left and resistant, insulin resistant, and metabolically disadvantaged.

And it doesn't matter when they get to that point what their lifestyle is, there is a point of no return where you cannot lifestyle your way out of that anymore. How do I know? Because I've seen thousands of people do it. Like crazy things that they should not be having to do just to maintain their weight. There gets a point where, you know, obviously I don't believe calories in versus calories out is real anyway because metabolically we all are unique. But truly, truly these people in this sector of medicine, they can do all the things and they can't move the needle. And it really contributes to a heavy, heavy chronic disease burden. So I was an extreme early adopter of GLP ones and ran them with beta groups in my practice and captured as much data as humanly possible so early on. I met with these women myself every week for years, just so I could understand everything, ran labs, an obscene amount of labs way too often. And I gotta tell you, the data that is just now been coming out in the last few months, I was screaming from the rooftop four years ago when I first started running inflammatory data on these patients. I was like, wow, their inflammatory markers are plummeting in three months. And a year later, the data came out that said in two years, their inflammation was reduced. Then I started running it in six weeks. Then I started running it after one microdose injection and saw the inflammatory markers reduced by often like 80%. So I really, truly believe. Now I can speak in this niche in the world of thyroid combined with GLPs. I think I have the largest data set in the world on those patients for lab data. Like I really do, I'd be shocked if someone else had more data points than I did. And so, I can tell you firsthand GLPs are great, they help people lose weight, that's wonderful. That is, we are scratching the surface of this and that is not gonna be the thing that people take these meds for for long. GLPs have infinite other beneficial usages. And I can tell you from practicing conventional, functional medicine, there is nothing I've ever seen, lifestyle, supplement, medication, LDN, whatever it is, nothing holds a candle to the inflammatory reductions that GLPs elicit in like 48 hours. It is crazy. And with that comes, you know, benefits from a longevity perspective of autoimmune disease reduction, dementia, Alzheimer's reduction, fatty liver, cancer. There's so many cancer risk reductions with GLPs, 19% colon cancer, 13% breast cancer, 9% pancreatic cancer, increased mortality in people diagnosed with cancer on GLPs compared to people that don't.

And then lastly, for my people in general, it does a really unique thing in that, hey, it allows thyroid patients to lose weight, but it also reverses metabolic dysfunction so that long-term they can actually come off of these meds and successfully influence their weight with effort, which is something they could not do before.

And what's been really cool for years, I was so frustrated with so many of my functional medicine colleagues that were kind of poo-pooing on this and just looking at them in such a small narrow-minded focus point. And I've watched almost all of them turn around and come around and see the benefits because they're undeniable. They're every day in my inbox in the literature.

those impressive stats about, you know, inflammation and cancer and potential longevity benefits. Are those in people who start off with metabolic dysfunction? Or if you're metabolically healthy, could you also experience those benefits?

It's a good

question. So the data is run on people metabolically disadvantaged, right? Because that's how we pull that's that's who's been on these meds for decades already, right? That's how we can get effective long term data because they started as diabetes medications. So they've been around for 25 years at this point.

Now, the analysis that I do in my practice is irrespective, like we run analysis on, you know, a simple thing like HSCRP and inflammatory marker in patients metabolically disadvantaged or people who are stable, who've done well, who don't have weight gain that just want longevity benefits and we still see improvements. So what I think is the future is, you know, not only will these meds be around to treat and protect people from cardiovascular disease, but from a longevity perspective, your chance of dying if you're on a GLP is reduced by 13 to 18%. For any reason, your chance of dying is reduced by that much. People will absolutely and they have started taking them just for the longevity benefits in healthy populations of people.

Okay, so a few quick questions. So you did mention people coming off of them and Michelle said, well, she said, she said, why is everyone on it? Just kidding, kind of.

Then she said, do you have to be on it for life? How about are the side effects? And then Joelle said, is it a lifelong drug or can you come off the drug without gaining the weight back? So people, when they come off of it, what is that transition like?

So I'll share with you what I can. In my practice of medicine and in my educating the masses, I basically hold everything open. I share everything freely and I don't hold anything back, including our optimal ranges at Modern Theory Clinic that are just ours. It took us 10 years to develop them.

The only thing I don't publicly share is the algorithm, the numbers that we are looking for that predicts that people can successfully come off of GLPs. But we are looking for very particular things in their labs that show metabolic sensitivity. And for people that are familiar with this, they could probably try to guess and get to some optimal ranges. But what that tells us is, hey, when these people come off in all likelihood, they will not regain weight. They will be able to, if in six months or six years, they need to lose 10 pounds, they'll be able to lose that with effort without needing a GLP. Basically, the effort that they put in will now be equal to the outcome, which is what is inherently lost in this community. The effort that these people put in does not yield the appropriate outcome at some point. And GLPs unravel that.

Now, regular medicine that deals with chronic obesity, people who probably are not willing and invested in their ability to influence their metabolism, weight, and their lifestyle, if those people and research backs it up, if those people go on a GLP, they diet exercise, they come off of the GLP, they don't diet exercise. Guess what? They gain weight back, right? It's not crazy. It's just predictable. It's science. But if we get, and honestly, too, 99% of them probably have a thyroid disorder that has never been appropriately addressed and is the root cause of their chronic obesity to begin with and their metabolic dysfunction. If you unravel that, you balance their thyroid, you balance their hormones, you resensitize their metabolism. About 85% of our patients come off.

About 15% don't want to come off. It's been life changing. Maybe that might even be up to 20% by now. It's changed their life. It's changed their relationship with food, their inflammation, their joint pain, their psoriatic arthritis, whatever it is. And so they want to stay on it and not necessarily metabolically, but for all the other benefits that come along with it. So that is possible too. Some strategies that we use, we reduce dosing to the lowest possible dose over time. Every month or so we reduce the dose. We spread out the dose more and more to rehabilitate their own GLP sensitivity. We also use metformin to do the same thing, to sustain low insulin, low leptin levels after they discontinue. And then in regards to the questions about side effects, when we first started, we had significant side effects. We were using standardized dosing. Pretty much every side effect that people hear about in the media is from not the medication itself. It's from over medicating people, overdosing, and rapid weight loss.

So muscle loss comes from rapid weight loss. Collagen loss comes from rapid weight loss. Gallbladder pancreatic issues come from rapid weight loss. Vision loss comes from a rapid change in blood pressure due to rapid weight loss.

And so if you slow that process down and you put people on to micro doses of medication, not only are they not nauseous, they're not vomiting, but all those other side effects associated with over medication and rapid weight loss also go away. And that's been our experience. I used to write 10 Zofran anti-nausea prescriptions every day. I think I've written one in the last three years. We adopted micro dosing very, very quickly before it was, had a term called micro dosing. We were already doing it. And keeping people on the lowest possible dose of these medications, not increasing them every four weeks is absolutely key to avoiding side effects and just beneficial outcomes.

Awesome. Yeah, I remember when when they first became really popular everybody was talking about the muscle loss and I I just kept thinking well It's probably a lot of it because people are just not eating Like they're like, of course, they're losing muscle and fat

And they're not moving their body, they're not doing anything to preserve muscle mass. Right?

The math is math thing. And there are inherent compounds in GLP ones that are muscle mass preserving, but they can't outpace eating 400 calories a day and sitting on your booty all day, you know?

And to the point of the microdosing, what Maria wanted to know about microdosing, Pamela said I would like to know how to properly microdose, and she said it also helps her alcohol cravings as well.

So the actual like microdose amounts, how micro of a microdose is this?

Yeah, so basically there is no standardized definition of what a microdose is because it's been created by people to solve a problem, right? Everyone's tolerance to these medications is individualized as well. So some people need less, some people need more. To give people some perspective, we start people on a quarter to an eighth of the lowest available dose of semaglutide or terzepatide. A quarter to an eighth, so that is a tiny bit.

And when medicine standardizes dose increases every four weeks, we absolutely do not do not do that. People will stay at that eighth of a dose for sometimes three, six, eight months because it continues to be effective. So a microdose is the lowest possible dose that you can get that is efficacious, that is lower than the starting dose of these medications.

Okay, and to that point, you mentioned trisepatide and semaglutide. So an anonymous listener literally just wanted to know the difference between those two.

Yeah. So, you know, somaglutide was kind of the more first-generation weight loss drug for this. Obviously, they were both around for diabetes. Terzepatide acts on more than one receptor. And, you know, supposedly in the media, people are like, oh, we love terzepatide because it has less side effects. And that's wonderful.

But what I'll tell you in my experience with my own patients is in microdosing, they both have very little side effects like nausea, vomiting. When you microdose, they're both very, very low. I prefer, personally, people to always start, 98% of them on somaglutide. And the reason and nuance behind this is because it only hits on one major receptor and people can retain enough appetite to fuel their body. The biggest risk with all of this is you don't eat enough food, you don't get enough micronutrients, and you don't get enough micronutrients every day. So you're in this depleted, devoid nutrient state. Terzepatide tends to bomb out people's appetite even at these tiny, tiny doses. And so people are not getting enough food, micronacronutrients, and it's causing issues.

So I always start my patients generally on somaglutide, see how they do, especially they have a lot of weight to lose. Let's say they have 80 pounds to lose. You can titrate them up over years and years and years, and eventually they're going to stall out and it's going to be less effective. Then I'll bring in terzepatide because it hits on that secondary receptor and can rebuild and continue to create weight loss and improved metabolic function even after they've stalled out on somaglutide.

And this is an interesting question. I kind of thought about this.

Anna Maurice wanted to know about the various shot locations and is there a better spot for each person? She said, some people prefer left thigh over right side abdomen, for example. I've seen a few posts actually that the left underside of the arm is good. Does it really matter or is it just preference?

Good question. So there's two reasons I have people change injection site location. Number one, most commonly, is nausea. So for whatever reason, when people move from injecting in their abdomen to their outer thigh, for example, nausea rates reduce. And that was more of the thing when we used higher dosing, but it persists, you know, even with microdosing, if they have a little bit of that, it's equally reflected.

And the second is stalling. So if they stall and they're not able to lose weight, and I mean, small amounts, our goal is very slow weight loss. We do not want people losing 10 pounds every month, you know? If they start to stall and a stall is like three weeks in a row of less than a half a pound of weight loss, we have them move injection sites, and it kind of spurs again, it reignites a little bit more potential for weight loss.

But that's a really interesting question. But ultimately you can do it anywhere. But I usually have people start with the abdomen and deviate out from there.

Okay, awesome. And did you experiment with them or do you take them?

You know what? I did for about the first year. Then to be honest and candid with you, my daughter had a health crisis and I just was having trouble eating on my own and lost an insane amount of weight in a short period of time. And so I had to stop them for the last three years.

I just restarted them about six weeks ago for heart disease prevention. And I'm inflamed too. I'm an inflamed person, but I started them for heart disease prevention because of some issues in my family.

Oh, wow. I'm sorry about your daughter.

Yeah, I'm really intrigued by it. A quick question, because you just said like a really inflamed person. It's funny, I've had this fear of inflammation for so long. It's funny, I'll be with my therapist and she'll be like, Melanie, not everything is inflammation. I'm like, but it is. She's just not inflamed. I know. I know. So here's the irony though. So like, I know there are other markers of inflammation, but like my CRP, for example, is a literal flat line. Like it's never even had a bump. I remember I was talking, I used to work with inside tracker and they were like, we've never seen a flat line like that for like years and years and years. So at least that inflammatory markers is not present for me.

Can you be inflamed and not like, are there other lab markers that indicate inflammation that you look at?

Yeah. So we don't run routine like every three-month lab markers outside of CRP for inflammation other than antibodies, right? Because that's just another manifestation. ANA is another one that's easy to run. There are some others, you know, IGF, things like that. For me personally, I want to have ran my genetics, but I've been inflamed my whole life. Like I'll gain eight pounds overnight if I don't eat well. You know what I mean? And people who are inflamed know what inflammation feels and looks like in their body. My husband, for example, has never been inflamed a day in his life. He has no idea what I mean. Your therapist might be the same, right?

But it's the foggy, malaise, weighed-down puffy that I think a lot of people don't realize is inflammation. But some of us are genetically hardwired for inflammation, and that is absolutely me. I have to reel in a lot of my life to manage it. Intermittent fasting is one of the most powerful ways I've been able to, actually. But I think it's discounted. I think it's heavily, heavily discounted, and people don't know it's happening or it's being written off as something else entirely.

Yeah, I'm really fascinated by it. The way I feel like it is for me is I just feel very reacty.

Like I feel like I react to stuff. And that's why, well, a reason that, like you said, with the fasting and reason I love fasting so much is it feels so anti-inflammatory for me when I'm in the fasted state. I actually had a holistic minded practitioner when she saw my CRP history say that maybe I should go off of LDN because maybe that was maybe it was being too suppressive of inflammation for me. Do you ever have people go, can you be on LDN for too long or do people go off of it? Should they go off of it?

I think most people honestly should be on LDN for the rest of their lives. It has anti-cancer benefits, anti-aging benefits.

If that were the case, then that would manifest as being immunocompromised, but LDN doesn't do that. It's a potent anti-inflammatory mechanism that actually improves your immune function while simultaneously reversing inflammation. So I do not think that that's accurate at all.

Do you have a dosage that you find that you work up to because I've actually been only I only do 1.5 milligrams Like do you try to find I know people go up to like four. Yeah, four

4.5 is the dose that research is done on. So that's where we pulled data from. I don't think it's necessarily one size fits all.

I have patients who definitely need more than that, specifically Graves patients. I think they burn through the mechanism of action really quickly, hyperthyroid people. But I think most people, I try to get them up to 4.5 if they can tolerate it, only because, hey, that's where we have the literature that's supportive of this. Okay.

Yeah, I wonder if I... It's been so long. Every time I have a conversation about it on the podcast, I'm like, maybe I should try bumping up my dose just to see.

Okay, wow. And when you work with patients, what is your model like? Do you work at all with insurance? Do you take new patients? Lab works, how does it all work at your practice?

Yeah, good question. Thanks for asking. So we are a completely cash pay practice for our time. We bill insurance for labs, we bill insurance for medication. But basically, you know, like, for example, our clinicians spend an hour with patients on their first visit. If we took insurance, we would charge between 35 and $64 for that hour. That's what we get paid from insurance. And that's just not realistic. We couldn't pay the admin staff to support the clinician for that hour for that amount. So we do completely cash pay.

All of our pricing is listed on our website. I personally am not taking new patients right now, mainly because I have a book coming out next year. I didn't know this. Oh my goodness. I know. It's very exciting. February 9. Take back your thyroid with Penguin Random House actually will have to have you back. I would love that. Oh my gosh. Is it about the thyroid? It totally is. It's about thyroid. It basically, you know, offers people the full, there is so much nuance to this and people deserve to have access to the nuance. They deserve to be able to navigate this complex landscape. Kind of like you touched on earlier, we are not in terms of thyroid in an era that we can sit back and passively just trust whatever our clinician says and expect to get our lives back. That's like a recipe for debilitating symptoms for the rest of your life. So I've given people through the book, start to finish the research, the daily habits, what to do when you get your labs back, how to interpret them, everything from A to Z that will allow people to successfully navigate this and truly get their lives back.

So for the next several months, I'm not taking new patients, but we have clinicians at Modern Thyroid Clinic that, you know, this isn't just my mission anymore. It's theirs too. This is their life's work. They all have a thyroid condition themselves. They've sat in the patient chair. They've been gaslit. They've been dismissed. They're just incredible, incredible clinicians. And because we have access to them, we can see patients nationwide. So when people come in, yeah, they would see one of our clinicians that are like just ours. We don't license this out to telemedicine network, like nothing. These are our people that deeply, deeply care about this work.

Oh my goodness. Amazing. And yeah, okay.

So I think for sure we'll, we'll air this on the intermittent fasting podcast. And then if you'd like to come back for your book, we can do that on the biohacking podcast.

I would love that.

much thank you and congratulations you must be what what phase of the book writing process are you in right now or publishing process

So we are done. We started pre-orders at the Beyond Biohacking conference this last weekend. So I can totally share the link with you that people can also go to Amazon and look up take back your thyroid and they can actually pre-order it. And we have some specials and things going on to support that that I can totally send you a link for too that you can put in the show notes.

But we are officially in pre-order med sister. I'm so excited.

Oh my goodness. Congratulations. And also, it must feel good.

I know like the actual the writing process and editing process is a lot. So probably not the best for a person's thyroid or they need extra support during that time. Oh my goodness. Well, was there anything else you wanted to touch on with listeners before we go? This has been so amazing. You had like all the answers to all the like all the controversy and all the things I've wondered for years and years. So just thank you for everything.

Absolutely. I feel like that's where I live, right? Getting clarity in all of that.

The last thing that I would just really want people to know is hypothyroidism is one of the most common endocrine disruptors in our country. And sadly, I think women think that because they have it, this is just what life looks like. They're condemned to a life of kind of suffering because of it. And that's not true. Our whole motto at Modern Thyroid Clinic is there's no reason to still have thyroid symptoms. And that's the message I want women to understand. There are all these barriers in medicine that can keep them from reaching their full potential, but that does not have to be their story. There is true, predictable algorithms and outcomes that can really intervene to change the rest of someone's life in a very short period of time. And in essence, there's so much hope.

Well, thank you so, so much for what you're doing. It's just absolutely beyond incredible. And yeah, when I told listeners that you were coming on, they were just, as you can tell from all these questions, so excited to, um, you know, ask them to you. So thank you.

And I'm so sad that I didn't meet you in person at the Beyond conference, but next, next year, for sure. Next year.

for sure. Absolutely. I'm looking forward to it. Please keep me posted too if you come to Austin.

Oh, I will. I will. Well, enjoy the rest of your day. Oh, and again, so sorry, one last time, the links. So how can people, if they want to be a patient, where do they go?

Thank you. So you'll go to modernthyroidclinic.com and you can find out about being a patient.

You can tune into my podcast at Modern Thyroid and Wellness and find me on all the social media platforms.

Awesome. Awesome.

and then pre-order. Take back your thyroid. Take back your thyroid. Well, thank you, McCall. This has been so wonderful, and we will talk again soon.

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

Jul 20

#483 – Using Memory To Eat Less, Biohacking Puberty, Hacking Distracted Eating, Stomach Pain With Fasting, Healing Tendons, Memorable Meals, And More!

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Welcome to Episode 483 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, biohacker, founder of AvalonX, and author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine, and Barry Conrad, actor, singer-songwriter, and creator and host of Banter with BC.

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

TRANSCRIPT

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

Melanie Avalon
Welcome to Episode 483 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. If you want to burn fat, gain energy, and enhance your health by changing when you eat, not what you eat with no calorie counting, then this show is for you. I'm Melanie Avalon, biohacker, founder of AvalonX and author of What, When, Wine, Lose Weight and Feel Great with Paleo Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting and Wine, and I'm joined by my co-hosts, Barry Conrad, actor, singer, songwriter, and creator and host of Banter with B.C. For more on us, check out MelanieAvalon.com and BarryConradOfficial.com. You can submit questions for the show by emailing questions at iofpodcast.com or by going to iofpodcast.com. We would love to hear from you.

Please remember the thoughts and opinions on this show do not constitute medical advice or treatment. So pour yourself a mug of black coffee, a cup of tea, or even a glass of wine if it's that time and get ready for the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Hi everybody and welcome. This is episode number 483 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon. I'm here with Barry Conrad. Barry, how are you today?

Barry Conrad
Mel, I'm doing so great. It's been such a great week. And hey, have you seen the new article? I know it's very related to biohacking. And I thought of you, it's about teenage boys trying to biohack their puberty. Have you heard of this article?

Melanie Avalon
Whoa.

Barry Conrad
I'm gonna i'm gonna send you the link right now so you can have a look at it.

Melanie Avalon
biohack their puberty?

Barry Conrad
So basically they, the long and the short is like, there's this growing trend of like teenage boys using like peptides and other compounds because social media is sort of saying they need to get bigger or leaner or more muscly and optimize that whole, you know, rig as quickly as they can. And it got me thinking about, I guess like the bigger conversation about, you know, what, what younger people are taking, especially without being fully developed.

And there's nothing wrong with wanting to improve your health performance or longevity. We talk about it all the time, but reading this kind of makes me go, what, like, where's the line, especially age wise, gender wise, you know, when we were growing up, Malala puberty was puberty. So now, now it feels based on reading something like this, like, well, actually, I can safely say a lot of people, all young people on social media exposed to all these new norms and upgrade this, upgrade that. And I'm curious for you, someone who's so well-versed in biohacking and for so long, what you think about that or what the evolution of it all looks like now, I guess, like, do you think social media is pushing some of these kids into chasing optimization? Do you think it's, yeah, what are your thoughts on that?

Melanie Avalon
It's so interesting. So I'll just read like one of the opening paragraphs because I think it gives a good idea of the vibe here. And I'll definitely read the whole article later, but it says, says a growing number of teenage boys are now entering the world of peptides, fat loss drugs, hormone optimization, recovery compounds, neotropics, and underground quote, biohacking culture years before adulthood.

What once belonged primarily to elite athletes, bodybuilding, subcultures, anti-aging clinics, and fringe internet forums has now exploded into mainstream youth culture through TikTok, YouTube, Discord, podcasts, influencers, and algorithm driven masculinity content. And unlike previous generations, these boys are not simply trying to become stronger. They're trying to become engineered, leaner, sharper, more muscular, more masculine, more desired, more admired, more high value. The modern teenage boy is now surrounded by digital ecosystem that continuously reinforces the idea that self worth can be visually optimized. And then it just goes on. And this is we'll put a link to this in the show notes. Show notes are at ifpodcast.com slash episode 483. And this article is in muscle and fitness. So I okay, I have so many thoughts. Number one is that I am so happy that my prepubescent adolescents and puberty and middle school and high school, that social media wasn't really a thing. For me, Facebook, Facebook started, we started getting on Facebook near the end of my high school. I can't even imagine being, you know, these ages like middle school, and high school as well. And being so exposed to social media, like the things that listened, where all you're seeing is filtered projections of people that aren't even real. And then on top of that, oh, and then half of it's not even real, it's like AI, I can't even tell anymore, which is like concerning whenever I see a video, I'm like, I don't know if this is real or not. And then on top of that, you know, they are actually using all these substances. And so on the one hand, okay, so I'm just so happy because that would be such a brain warp.

Like adolescence is hard enough without comparing yourself to the entire world and this like idealized version of idealized version of it. The ironic thing is okay, so like the things the things that listed I was thinking about how do I feel about these like in general, not not for adolescents. So like peptides, I'm actually like all about peptides, fat loss drugs, I don't know exactly what it's referring to there, like what fat loss drugs, maybe it's talking about like GLP ones or like other things. Hormone optimization, I don't think, okay, I said I was gonna talk about it like objectively, not for kids. Hormone optimization, I am all about done correctly and properly and to best support your body, not like as an adolescent, that's no, no, no, no. Recovery compounds, what does that mean? Like what? I'm not sure what that means exactly. Neutropics, so those can be really great for your brain. Again, I don't know if you should be experimenting with that when you're young.

Melanie Avalon
So like all of these things, I am all about people putting whatever they want in their body and I'm fine with people trying to achieve a certain aesthetic. I'm actually, I think people should try should do whatever they want to do.

I think young teens, boys and girls, but for this it's about teenage boys. I'm just, I'm just having flashbacks. I remember like, because my brother, I'm trying to think like what, what it would have been before this. I guess they would have been using like probably like protein powders. I feel like it was like protein powders. Like that was like the thing, you know, but it wasn't all of these other things. I find it concerning. I think you should be older before you're like doing all of this. What do you think?

Barry Conrad
It kind of makes me think of when you said you should be older before doing it. It makes me think of the drinking age before you drink alcohol kind of thing.

Cause now it's becoming a thing where these sorts of things are on offer now. You know, it just wasn't a reality to us, like all these things. But I do think an article talks about it as well. Unlike I guess my generation or like, you know, everyone else before this sort of generation, today's guys or girls, they're not girls. They're not just comparing themselves to like celebrities or an athlete. It's like what exactly what you said. Like millions of filtered people, chemically AI also melt. Okay. I'm not going to say who it is. I'm not going to call it out, but I was interviewed by someone and to promote the interview, they created an AI image of me rather than using just like an actual photo of mine, which I have so many of.

Melanie Avalon
Do they ask you?

Barry Conrad
No!

Melanie Avalon
You just did it? Whoa.

Barry Conrad
Am I like I didn't feel comfortable with that at all, but it's like they linked it and they put it on LinkedIn I'm like a serious LinkedIn So yeah, just the AI of it. That's

Melanie Avalon
you ask to do to call them out like did you talk to them about it

Barry Conrad
I'm trying to figure out a way to do it in a way that doesn't wreck the working relationship because there's other things. It's, yeah, it's crazy.

Melanie Avalon
We're going to have to talk about this on our next mythical call.

Barry Conrad
Yes, but what do you think of that even? That's crazy, right? Like not asking someone's consent for that.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, I don't even know what the rules are around that. I know it's a huge problem with massive celebrities, like all this content created where it's not even them. That's really not cool to do that without your permission. Wow.

Barry Conrad
It's like saying, Mel, thank you so much for your comment and your time today interviewing you, uh, and they, instead of using a supplied promo image that you give them, these are the ones that I'd like to go out, they'll just like create one that's not even, you know, that looks slightly different to you, like a lot different.

Melanie Avalon
That's crazy. No, this is yeah.

Well, for this article, though, I was just thinking about what I was just thinking because I mentioned like the protein powders because I just I just remember like when I was young and when my brother like in middle school, like they're all these protein path. I'm sorry, I'm thinking about this because I don't know if he knows this. I need to I need to ask him this. I'm gonna I'm about to apologize a little brother for something which I will tell you in person because my family doesn't listen to the show.

I used to because he okay, he had is it way or way? Is it is it the way or is it the case scene that you can make like protein fluff with? I think it's the way. Is it way?

Barry Conrad
I think I'm pretty sure.

Melanie Avalon
it's casein. It's the one that if you put in water and stir it up, it literally becomes this delicious, gooey, protein, fluffy stuff. And I discovered that. And I feel like I would sneak and eat his casein because it would be flavored. It was like vanilla and chocolate. And I would like... So sorry, Michael, that I probably ate a lot of your casein.

But the thing with that is you have to... If all you're using is protein powders and stuff, you have to do the workout and eat the protein to get the gains. It's not like all these other compounds where you're actually changing your... Potentially changing your biology or your physiology. It's just such a whole other world. And I don't know that young kids... I mean, if you can't even get a tattoo until you're 17. You know?

Barry Conrad
I think we're both pretty unanimous on like these things are all perfectly fine for adults to do whatever they want. But I think for developing teenagers and kids, this shouldn't be, it shouldn't be an option for them to have access to it.

I think you're still developing, right?

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, I would say I would say like when you're 17, maybe.

Barry Conrad
You think?

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, I think if you're old enough to get a maybe like or 18 18 is when you're when you're an adult, right?

Barry Conrad
Yeah. Wow. I guess just interesting. But I guess, okay, we could go on this favor, but Segwaying Biohacking, tell me Mel about Dave Espry's conference. How was it?

Melanie Avalon
So if listeners want to hear about the enhanced games, I went to that in Vegas, check out last week's episode for that. And then I flew to Austin for Dave Asprey's, now it's called the Beyond Conference. This was my fourth time going, I think. And it's so fun because, well, I'll tell you some more stories offline, but it's so fun to actually get to see meet and hang out with all these podcast guests and brands that I just adore.

So like sponsors for this show, I met up with Timeline. I love the Timeline supplement so much. I'm trying to think which booths I went to. I got to meet Throne, who I'm going to have on the Melanie Avalon biohacking podcast. They make like a toilet monitoring sensor thing. Obviously met with Oro Glittathione. I love them. Got interviewed by Stimrogen, who they're actually going to be coming on this show. In the next coming months, I'm going to be doing an episode with them all on supporting endogenous stem cell release. I got to go to a really nice dinner party with Wonderfeel, which makes an NMN supplement that I love. And it was co-hosted by Benazzotti, who I'm sure you guys love Benazzotti. And my sister was there because she's his COO. So that was nice to have like a little intimate dinner party. But the conference is just so fun. And some listeners did come up to me. I feel like, and I know more of you guys are there. So please come up to me. I feel like people don't, the ones that did come up to me. It was so good to see you guys. And yeah, it's just, you got to go Barry. You would love it. And I feel like you could meet so many brands. It's just so great. It's like everything ever biohacking. It's so high energy. And I mean, one of the main reasons people go is to listen to speakers. The only one I listened to, I briefly went in to listen to Jay Shetty.

Barry Conrad
How is that?

Melanie Avalon
It was good. I went in because my friend, I got to meet in real, in person, Sergey Young, who I've had on the Melanie Avalon biohacking podcast twice. He's a longevity investor. And he has a book called, I think it's called like the Art and Science of Growing Young. I'm probably misquoting it. I got to meet him in real life and it was, he was so great. And then he was going to it. So I just went in with him briefly. But yeah, that was, that was really cool.

Jay's really inspiring. And what's kind of funny is I got invited by BiOptimizers, one of our sponsors, to a, like a private event with Jay Shetty. And it was going to be that morning. But it was pickleball and it was outside and it was like morning through the afternoon. I was like, I can't. Even though I really want to hang, I really want to meet him in like a more intimate setting. I know. Outdoors in the morning? No. But thank you for inviting me to BiOptimizers. Thank you. I wanted to go in spirit. Yeah, it was great. So listeners, friends, definitely check it out. If there's one conference, that one and the Udaimonia conference in November are just really, really epic for, like, if you're at all interested in all this stuff, it's just so fun. And then there's like a dance party with Steve. What's his, do you know the Steve Aoki, the DJ?

Barry Conrad
Yeah, yeah, yeah. How was that?

Melanie Avalon
That was fun.

Barry Conrad
Did you get your dance on?

Melanie Avalon
I did. I was exhausted though, by that point.

Oh, yeah. And then I hung out like in the... I always hang out after that. We're always like the last people to leave. And I got to meet with Joe Cohen from Self Decode. And I was hanging out with Ian Clark from Activation and...

Barry Conrad
Sounds awesome. What was the highlight of this one versus was it different to other past ones because now it's the BEYOND conference, right? What did they change to BEYOND?

Melanie Avalon
It was very similar. I will tell you a story offline.

I had something kind of crazy happen, which I can't, I cannot talk about. But what I can't talk about, trying to think of what the highlight would be. Honestly, just like that the expo is, I can't even describe how big it is and how many brands there are and how many cool people are around. Yeah, and you get there's like tons of samples and I highly, highly recommend.

Barry Conrad
So good.

Melanie Avalon
We should go to Eudaimonia!

Barry Conrad
You know what? I'll be so done.

Melanie Avalon
and West Palm.

Barry Conrad
His palm, I've never been to his palm, too.

Melanie Avalon
I like it. And that one's in the, that one's in my time. It's in the winter.

Barry Conrad
Oh my gosh, you you being on in heaven then because you know, like sun hats to dodge the sunlight. No sunscreen.

No cold packs dear god Yeah, and also mel you didn't you go from enhanced straight to? This one as well. Like you really did it

Melanie Avalon
Mm-hmm. I was, yeah, I was dead. I was dead. It's funny.

So on the way back, no, on the way from, here's a question for you, and then we can get into the listener questions. Do you talk, okay, when you fly, do you talk to the people next to you on the plane?

Barry Conrad
I feel the vibe out and it also depends on my mood. If I'm tired, then the headphones are going all the way in or I'm reading something.

But if I'm fine, I'll just, if the person is not giving me like, don't talk to me vibes, I'll ask them how the day is going and see what happens.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, I usually do not. But it's funny. So the second and the third flight, so the second flight, so it was from the enhanced games. And the guy I was sitting next to I was like, he really looks like he looks like he was at the games. Like he just had that, that look. So I had to ask. And he wasn't, but he was a bodyguard. And his client was like two seats over. So it was funny, because it was like one of the few times that I actually struck up a conversation.

And it was so fascinating to talk to him. And I felt so safe. I was like, oh my goodness. And then I realized, I wish I had like a bodyguard friend, like in my friend group, because when that wouldn't that be great, every time you'd go out, you would just feel so safe if there was like a bodyguard in your friend group.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, just like a big dude, just like, you know, no one's going to mess with you.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, and then on the third flight I sat by this girl and we started talking and now we're gonna be friends and we're gonna Hang out and go to theater. So

Barry Conrad
That's great. See, so you did kind of change this time around for some reason.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, but I am socially kaput, I'm done. So friends, yes, that's all.

Barry Conrad
A little time for Melanie to recover for a little while, right?

Melanie Avalon
Yep, I don't know how you do it.

Barry Conrad
Well, you just did. You just did. I reckon you know what? I reckon you're going to keep on increasing your...

Melanie Avalon
Oh, yeah, that's what I was gonna say last time. I'm two things I'm really grateful for.

One, I'm really grateful that I was outside in Vegas heat for six hours because I was dreading the summer coming so bad and now I'm like, oh, it's fine. Like, this is nothing compared to that. You know what I mean? Like, it seems so easy now, the summer, compared to the enhanced games. And then, yeah, doing two back-to-back trips, now one trip seems like no big deal at all.

Barry Conrad
See, it's all going to just keep on switching out.

Melanie Avalon
So next I got to do three back-to-back trips and then two will seem like no deal, no big deal.

Barry Conrad
I believe it. What's the space?

Melanie Avalon
Should we jump into fasting stuff?

Barry Conrad
Let's do it.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, so I have a study. I am so excited about this study and I've been excited about it because we were going to record Right before I left and we rescheduled so it's been like waiting for me to talk about I'm gonna send it to you

Barry Conrad
I can't wait to see it.

Melanie Avalon
So it is published, it's called eating attentively, a systematic review and meta analysis of the effect of food intake, memory and awareness on eating. And wait, I didn't talk about this one already, right?

It's been so long.

Barry Conrad
I don't think so, no, I don't think so.

Melanie Avalon
So the oh, I know why I thought I talked about it because I mentioned I think the reason I found this was because when I interviewed Jason Fung he was he had one section where they talked about food amnesia and basically people so they've done studies where people with amnesia if They eat an entire meal. They'll eat like in another entire meal right after so they think that That the prefrontal cortex is partly involved in our experience of hunger so like Part of our hunger is based on what do we remember about when we last ate?

So I wanted to learn more about it. So I found this this review and again, it's 2013 So it's a while ago But either way it was a really nice meta-analysis up to that date where they looked at all these different studies to see How does attention and memory affect? what like your food intake so they looked at 24 studies and I'm just gonna tell you some of the Takeaways from this

Barry Conrad
Super interesting

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, and it's not what you would think. Some of it's not what you would think.

So here's one of the findings. So distraction, so we talk all the time about eating when you're distracted. I think it's pretty, I mean, I think most people would think that if you are eating while you're distracted, that you eat more. Like that's pretty, I mean, does that seem pretty intuitive to you? Like if you're distracted, that you just tend to...

Barry Conrad
Like you're watching TV or whatever you're distracted to, just keep eating, yeah.

Melanie Avalon
And they've done studies on that where like the stale popcorn study in the movie theater, people would just eat tons of stale popcorn without even realizing because they're distracted. Or they've done the bottomless soup bowl study where they had participants with a soup bowl that kept refilling itself and they didn't realize and people just kept eating it.

But here's the interesting thing. So while it does increase what you eat right then, it actually increases what you eat later more. So when you eat, when you eat distracted, it's a moderate effect. You will eat more. But if you eat distracted, you eat significantly more later. Like it's a much larger effect size. So isn't that interesting?

Barry Conrad
That is really interesting. It's like, so it's, you kind of forget, it's like, you forgot, like, yeah.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, it's like it's like because you're not like paying attention to eating later when your brain's like time to eat it it they think it has to do with like that we eat episodically and it has to do with episodic memory. So we literally think back to your brain subconsciously thinks back to what did you eat last time and then it that helps it inform how much you should eat this time which is fascinating and it's not so restrained eaters are not protected.

So what that means is even if you are like dieting and you're like consciously trying to watch what you eat later or just in general if you were distracted before you will still eat more even if you're like consciously trying to not.

Barry Conrad
That's wild.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. And then so removing visual cues of what you've eaten increases how much you will eat. So for example, they looked at four different studies. So the bottomless soup one that I'm talking about, so like if they keep refilling the bowl, you'll keep eating it. They did one where they would remove or not remove pistachio shells from the desk. So like if there are shells on the desk, you eat less. But if those are taken away, you'll like keep eating more. Removing empty plates from a buffet table. So if you see empty plates, you'll eat less. But if they take them away, you eat more.

And then eating in a dark restaurant, you tend to eat more. So one of the like takeaways that literate gave was like saying, if you're trying to, you know, not eat as much, don't like put away the plates and stuff when you're eating, like leave it all out.

Barry Conrad
like empty like empty plates or like plates with food or just like any plates

Melanie Avalon
like like keep out all this so don't put away any dishes like keep it all out like make it very obvious of what you've eaten.

Barry Conrad
Oh my gosh, okay.

Melanie Avalon
And then, okay, they found that, oh, this is interesting. I feel like I have done this like my entire life.

So recalling what you eat earlier reduces how much you eat later. And there were six studies. Okay, so six studies looked at this. So if the people were about to have a snack, if they had them like right, or even just remember what they had last eaten, like what did you eat last? And if they thought about it, then they would eat less of the snack. Yeah, all you have to do is create this episodic memory of recently eating, and then you'll eat less. You don't even have to consciously try to eat less. You just will.

Barry Conrad
I might try that just to see what that feels like.

Melanie Avalon
I do that. Always. Do? Mm-hmm. I always think about what did I eat last? Like the night before? What was my one meal a day the night before? Before I eat my next meal?

Barry Conrad
What does it make you I don't know like does that set this like how does that make you feel when you do that? Or why do you when did you start doing that?

Melanie Avalon
I do it because I always feel like when I'm, it's like my meal situation, I'm like fueling my body. Like, what do I need? And so I think back to like, what did I have last time? Because I found that I don't like eating like the same thing. I feel like my needs change.

So like, you know, I'm not gonna have fish, like, well, I do have fish every night. But like, did I have like a lot of salmon the night before? Like when did I last have salmon? Do I need some omega-3? Like, I just, I don't know, I just think back to what I had last and that kind of informs what I eat next time. I don't do it to eat less, but I do it to inform what I'm gonna eat, but I guess it probably has that effect.

Barry Conrad
That's so interesting to me.

Melanie Avalon
I'd be curious, listeners, if you'd... Because, yeah, I'd definitely do this. I can always tell you what I ate the last one meal a day, the prior night.

Barry Conrad
And then does that kind of make you feel more full before you start? Like, how does that make you feel physically when you think about, when you recall it like that?

Melanie Avalon
It depends what it was. So if it was like a ton of steak and everything that I'll probably feel fuller.

If it was like lean fish, I might not feel as full, but I guess either way, it's going to technically make me feel fuller, even if I didn't realize it.

Barry Conrad
So if you have a stronger recollection of your last meal, you probably going to be, you might feel less inclined to keep eating more. Okay.

Melanie Avalon
And then, okay, just a few more. So the authors in this, their hypothesis is that all of these different effects, so like distraction making you eat more while eating, these reduced cues, taking away or not taking away the empty plates and stuff affecting you, remembering what you ate last, and then also just increasing attention that it all has to do with, which I keep, I've already said, so this is kind of like, I'm just saying it again, but it all has to do with with the strength and the accessibility of your episodic memory of your recent eating.

It says, your brain uses memory of recent meals to inform decisions about whether and how much to eat next. Anything that degrades that, like distraction, removing cues, increases later intake, anything that strengthens it, attention, recall, leaving wrappers, reduces it. Oh yeah, and then this is what they're saying, which this is why I found this was because, like, like they talk about those prior studies where patients with amnesia, they'll just eat multiple meals if they are not told that they already ate.

Barry Conrad
Wow. So they don't even really feel that satiety. Wow. So it's really about the memory of it.

Melanie Avalon
Mm-hmm. Let's see. Yeah, so I just found this absolutely fascinating. Oh, one last thing.

So they propose they propose four things that could help for like a weight management approach from this that don't rely on calorie counting. Number one, eat without any distractions, especially the TV. Number two, recall what you ate before you eat the next time. Stay aware. Number three, stay aware of food as you eat. And then number four, keep the visual cues of what you've eaten around you.

Barry Conrad
It's so good. It's so interesting, Mel, because you shared something a little while ago about, you know, like when you're watching TV or scrolling social media, whatnot, and this supports that. You know, like when you're distracted during your meal, scrolling, watching TV, working, whatever, that we're going to tend to eat more later on. Because from what I can hear you saying, it's like your brain actually doesn't even create that same memory of the meal if you're not focused. And that's so crazy to me.

It's not, wow, it's not just society. It's actually memory.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. And I remember I forgot about this until now, but when Jason talks about it, and again, he only talks about the amnesia study, but his takeaway, because in his book, again, it's called The Hunger Code, he talks about like different tips for dealing with like hunger and appetite.

And so his tip from this was to make your meals really memorable. So make them like flavorful and spicy and focus on them, because then you actually will eat less at your next meal.

Barry Conrad
So good. No taken.

Melanie Avalon
I know. Isn't that so interesting?

Barry Conrad
I've never, I've actually never heard that before, that's super fascinating.

Melanie Avalon
I know. It kind of makes it better for eating at restaurants and stuff because you're probably going to be more not as distracted.

You're going to be in the moment and enjoying the food and everything, and so you'll probably eat less at the next meal.

Barry Conrad
I reckon too, because it's memorable and yeah, great study, Mel.

Melanie Avalon
Thank you. So is this going to change? We're going to have to report back and let me know if this changes your perspective of food.

Barry Conrad
I mean, it might, I don't know. I like, I might just think about it more. Just in, you know, be mindful and see what happens. See if it makes me feel any different.

Melanie Avalon
I feel like this could be an entire, I feel like we could make a book out of this. Like this diet hasn't been done. We're like, I need to make content around this. Like this would be a really good like viral content.

It's like the memory diet, the, what would you call it? What would you?

Barry Conrad
The memory memory king diet, the memory, the memory diet.

Melanie Avalon
I'm actually shocked this hasn't been, that this isn't like a book already, you know?

Barry Conrad
the memory method, the memory.

Melanie Avalon
Man, I wanna like pitch this.

Barry Conrad
It's very, very interesting. And I'm pretty sure a lot of people, like most people I know, have never heard of this concept.

Melanie Avalon
I know, I hadn't.

Barry Conrad
I haven't.

Melanie Avalon
So interesting I could like think about it forever

Barry Conrad
I'm going to write this down so I can actually think about this later.

Melanie Avalon
I wrote it down, I wrote down memory diet, I want to do it. I can make like an e-book, you know what? I should make this into like a really short e-book. Do it. I'm going to.

Barry Conrad
The memory diet

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, I probably should make like a like a short ebook listeners. Let me know if you like this.

I should make a short ebook that's just like all of my Collection of like tips and tricks over the years for dieting without dieting

Barry Conrad
You should. I think a lot of people would find that really interesting.

Melanie Avalon
Like a really easy download, like 99 cents Kindle ebook, 99 cent Kindle ebook. I'm going to do this.

Barry Conrad
And then a section could be the memory section.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. It can be things like food order, like fasting. There are so many things.

I can even do my hack for how to, you know, my hack about like how I like look at the food stuff while eating like fruit. Like look at the desserts while eating something sweet and healthy.

Barry Conrad
That's really funny still to me that yeah, even like how you look at food, food blogs and stuff, I would like that's really funny.

Melanie Avalon
Like, look at food blogs while you're eating. Don't look at them while you're not eating. Then you're just miserable.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, you want to be fit and satisfied of why you're doing it, not be deprived.

Melanie Avalon
Shall we move on to some listener questions?

Barry Conrad
Let's do it. So the first question we have today is an email from Ruth and it reads, Hi, I'm really enjoying your podcast. I'm on episode 13, just episode 13. I started I have 10 days ago. I love everything about it other than my stomach hurts when I eat.

And in bracket, she says even just in the first few bites, is there something to eating less frequently that makes your stomach hurt? It doesn't hurt when I'm not eating. How will I hear your answer? I may not listen to your current episode soon because I'm towards the beginning. Thank you for your service, time and effort.

Melanie Avalon
All right, Ruth. So there are a few different things that could be going on with this. The one that immediately came to my mind was stomach acid production. So we have stomach acid called HCL, and it helps us break down our food. And when you start fasting, it can be building up. And then when you actually do eat, you might be releasing more of that stomach acid, which could be causing some irritation or discomfort.

Hearing that, you might be like, oh, take the antacids. I would not do that. I do not think that's a good route because you need that to break down your food. And a lot of people who have acid reflux, it's not because they have too much acid. It's actually because they don't have enough acid, and then the food doesn't break down, and then it actually goes back up a little bit. And then that's why you feel like you're getting too much acid, but it's just because the acid is in the wrong place. Not that there's too much of it. But that could be one thing. It could be that because of this change in your eating, your pancreas is making your digestive enzymes on not making enough maybe because you're eating more now. And so your stomach is just uncomfortable from that. Words cannot describe how much I suggest trying digestive enzymes. So I made mine. If you go to AvalonX.us slash digest, these enzymes are a game changer for digestion. They help so many things. They help food intolerances. They help breaking down your food, food discomfort. I would definitely, definitely get them ASAP.

And it's my favorite formula, my favorite blend. You can use the coupon code I have podcast to get 10% off. So definitely check that out. Your stomach just might not be accustomed to eating more at one time because of your fasting pattern. You don't say how long you're fasting, but if it is like a one meal a day situation or you're eating a lot more, it could just be discomfort from that. There could be shifts in your gut microbiome. So what I would do, because you just started intermittent fasting like 10 days ago, although by the time you listen to this, it was probably like 10 years ago, but hopefully not. I would try easing into the eating window. So break your fast with something gentle, like so maybe like some broth, some bone broth, maybe some cucumbers, a small piece of fruit, like something small to like get your digestive fire going and then just eating slowly and mindfully. And I also would just give it more time. So like if this is still, I would give it like another week or so. And if it hasn't gone away, look into it more. But I would imagine it's something with your stomach not being used to this eating pattern and having more food, like I said, being in a fasted state, maybe building up that hydrochloric acid and then maybe not producing enough digestive enzymes. And then you're eating a lot. So I would go slow, I would break it, break your fast more gently, use digestive enzymes and see what that does. Barry, do you have?

Barry Conrad
Yeah, Ruth, first off, welcome to fasting, welcome, welcome, welcome. It's awesome that you're already seeing benefits after just 10 days and that you want to keep going despite this, uh, this little situation, you know, and I mean, sometimes when you've been fasting for a while, your stomach can be a little sensitive during the first few bites as digestion wakes back up, especially also think if you're new to it and you're not used to it quite.

I think some people it's almost like a brief cramp or ache that settles once your meal actually gets going. I'd be curious, I'd be curious what you're breaking your fast with dietary wise. I don't think that she says it here. I'd love to hear more, Ruth. If you're opening with something very rich, something sugary protein or a massive meal, you know, your stomach may be reacting to what you're eating at first, like what those few bites are. Sometimes starting with something smaller or eating a little more slowly can make a big difference. It's really important. What we break our fast with. I really recommend breaking your fast with some, you know, just something gentle. Don't annihilate your digestive system with, uh, do eaters or something like that. For example, ice cream, you know, the good news is from what you're saying is that the discomfort is happening when you start eating and then it goes away. So that, that is at least a different, very different story than having the pain all day. I think if it does continue though, I reckon, especially if it gets severe, it's very important to see your GP, see your local healthcare provider, just to rule out anything that could be kind of finicky or unrelated to fasting, even, but Ruth, like one of the favorite things in your message is that you're only on episode 13. That's awesome because you got such a fun ride ahead of you. Melanie will tell you, um, by the time you eventually hear this answer, you'll probably be so seasoned, but you keep us posted. I'd love to hear more about what you're eating to open your window and yeah, let us know by the time you hear this, what the difference has been like.

Melanie Avalon
I'm glad you, I totally forgot about that one. It's so true because when you're eating constantly, I think it can be hard to know if you're reacting to food because you're just always eating. But when you take that fasted time and then you bring back in food, if you are like sensitive to a food, you're going to feel it. So yeah, it could be that too.

That was another good one. All right. Shall we answer one more listener question?

Barry Conrad
Yes. So we have Amy on Facebook, and she asks, how can I heal damage tendons while also preventing future tendon injuries? Like what foods would assist with this? What foods could I avoid? I'm getting mixed answers from various medical professionals.

Some say rest slash no exercise. Some say resistance training. The only supplement that's suggested is creatine and regular doctors have no idea if food can help or hurt. What suggestions does the biohacking community have? Melanie.

Melanie Avalon
Awesome, Amy. Well, thank you so much for your question. And I was not excited to hear it because I'm not happy that you're dealing with damaged tendons.

And at the same time, I think I talked about this on a prior episode. I was experiencing a tendon flare up. And so I was, it was exciting for me to look into how to support that. And here's why it's confusing. So the confusing thing about it is apparently the idea used to be like to rest the tendons for them to heal. However, tendons have poor blood supply and they actually heal very slowly if you're not stimulating them. They actually need controlled mechanical stress to properly respond and heal. So what's often suggested now for like movement of them is strategic eccentric exercises. So like slow control lengthening movements. And that can be the best for helping rehab the tendons. So examples of these are like heel drops for the Achilles or slow negatives for other tendons, as far as the well, I'll go into the food and stuff, but I will say red light game changer for me, at least for the pain, especially. So I use Kenny on I will put a link in the show notes. They have these these module red light LED, they're like three like small ones. And you can actually strap them around like your appendages or you can hold it. It's a game changer for me for healing and helping that pain.

And then also we talked about this before, but I am loving to Nasi. They make a CBD blend that has a certain type of CBD in it. CBD a they have a special type of CBD in them called CBD a, which has been shown to be almost three times as effective as CBD alone. And they have a so they have like an ointment and a lotion. I have found that rubbing that in to my tendons, especially when I have those that that pain game changer, like so helpful. They've actually shown that it's more more effective than common over-the-counter non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. So things like ibuprofen, acetaminophen, this works better than that. So definitely get some of that. We do have a discount code. So if you go to tenasi.com, that's T A N A S I dot com and use promo code. I have podcasts, you can get 25 percent off. So stock up on that. I love the ointment. It's amazing. I just rub it into the tendon and I feel immediate pain relief. So that coupled with kidney on the red light game changer. And then as far as food and nutrients.

So this is going to be about just supporting everything that your body needs to heal and build tendons. So tendons are primarily collagen based structures. So having collagen, gelatin, bone broth, especially with vitamin C can be really helpful. There's even research showing that doing that 30 to 60 minutes before exercise can be really helpful. So bone broth plus vitamin C. And then you can get vitamin C and things like citrus and bell peppers and berries, vitamin C just as well alone can be helpful. So fruits to kiwis. I love kiwis for vitamin C. And then protein and amino acids are really helpful. So obviously like eggs, meat, fish, dairy, you really want to get glycine and proline in particular, which are really important for forming collagen.

Melanie Avalon
Omega threes are really helpful for reducing inflammation, which is definitely going to be happening if you have damaged tendons. So, you know, having your wild caught. Well, that's a whole tangent. Having your low mercury, high omega three fish. So things like salmon or the better fish, bare moondi, sardines, maybe fish oil supplementation. And then you also want nutrients like zinc. So that's going to be found in things again, like beef, pumpkin seeds, oysters, oysters are really high in zinc. Maybe that's why they taste so bad. And then copper as well works with zinc together to help with the connective tissue integrity. So that's also in shellfish. You can get that in liver, nuts, seeds, and then silicone and silica are really helpful. I know that's high actually in cucumbers. It's not on my list, but I do know it's in cucumbers and then bananas, green beans. So just eating a really high nutritious diet that's high in protein, high in nutrient rich foods, making sure you're getting some collagen, vitamin C. I think that's going to be the best way to support it nutritionally.

You want to avoid things that are inflammatory. So avoiding sugar, refined carbohydrates, processed vegetable oils and seed oils. That's not good. Ultra processed foods. So yeah, that that's the things. Oh, and then I will say turmeric is like super anti-inflammatory. So adding turmeric to your food, having it in a supplement form like curcumin and especially pairing it with black pepper. Like it's shocking the studies on how anti-inflammatory turmeric is. And I actually recently did an episode all on Ayurveda and we went on a tangent about turmeric. So it's really great. But yeah, what are your thoughts, Barry?

Barry Conrad
You know, that was epic. That was like, you answered that so comprehensively.

Anyway, I totally understand like the mixed messages and everything because tendon injuries seem to like be at that frustrating sort of like crossroads where the answer is like, it depends kind of vibe. I do think from looking into it and talking to people in, in like the fitness world specifically, tendons usually don't love extreme situations or like complete rest for a long period of time can actually make them weaker. So it's, so hammering through pain isn't the answer either though. So what I mean, you want to lean more towards progressive loading. So giving the tendon a reason to adapt sort of thing, but doing it in a gradual, safe way on the nutrition side of things, I'd, I'd encourage you to focus less, maybe on a magic food necessarily and more on giving your body those building blocks. Like, you know, Mel talked about them plenty there, plenty of protein, vitamin C rich foods, staying hydrated, making sure you're eating overall enough in your eating window, collagen as well, sleep is massive. As for creatine, you know, I don't often talk about it, but I've, I have the last creatine that I took was from a brand called Momentus and it was really great and creatine is definitely one of those one of the few supplements I put in the, this is awesome category because it's, it's just really good for supporting training, recovery, and brain health muscle function overall. It's, it's really good. I guess my short answer is like avoid the extremes, keep feeling your body, load that tendon progressively and think about the long game. Cause this it's not that they're pretty slow learners tendons, but they do adapt with time. So keep us posted with that. I hope all of this is helpful for you, Amy. Thanks for your question.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, tendons are, it's just not cool. And what's funny or interesting is, mine were flaring, I think I talked about this ever since I had to do a round of cipro, which is an antibiotic, which is linked to tendon flares. And chat GPT kept saying, no, there's no way, like, you're not on it long enough for it to have that effect. But I swear, Barry, like I was fine. And then I did that and it all flared up. So just saying.

Yeah, so sending you all the good vibes, Amy, with the tendons.

Barry Conrad
You're sending your good vibes and keep us posted, like what happens with you tenants.

Melanie Avalon
Such an interesting sentence.

Barry Conrad
it is with what happens with your tendons.

Melanie Avalon
let us know what happens with your tendons. Have you have you torn or like had tendon injury before?

Barry Conrad
I actually have not. I actually I was half expecting to sort of have some sort of a Tendon situation from the marathon, but the half marathon, but no, but I haven't yet.

So I knock on wood. Hopefully not not ever but

Melanie Avalon
Well, if you do, get that tenasi, get that red light, eat the diet.

Barry Conrad
protein, baby.

Melanie Avalon
Shall we have our proverbial breaking of the fast moment?

Barry Conrad
I'm really excited to do it this week at Cutweight. Let's do it.

Melanie Avalon
All right. So the purpose of this part of the show is just as important as the fast is the eating window.

So we like to... And now I'm going to think about it with a whole new perspective because you know what we were talking about earlier about memory and food intake and the effect it has. So us like thinking about these foods and how you would eat at the restaurant and having attention and paying attention to it, I wonder if that would make us eat less later. Probably not. You probably have to...

Barry Conrad
No, probably not.

Melanie Avalon
But either way, I feel like we are drawing attention to the importance of I'm gonna start saying this like ongoing for this section, the importance of paying attention to what you eat and taking it in to nourish your body and also to it's very important that you have that episodic memory of your meal so that your body can correct so that your brain can correctly inform what you eat next meal.

Barry Conrad
I love that. I think that's so great. And I agree.

Melanie Avalon
We like to pick a restaurant and profile it and say what we would eat. So Barry, what restaurant do you have for us today?

Barry Conrad
Melanie, I am very, very excited about this week's restaurant because I just went on the weekend.

Melanie Avalon
to this restaurant.

Barry Conrad
to this restaurant. Yeah, I'm going to send it to you right now. So I can vouch. And this restaurant is called Lilia. And it was opened by acclaimed chef Missy Robbins, one of the most influential Italian chefs in America, and still one of New York's toughest reservations nearly a decade later.

Can vouch for that as well. It sit inside this beautifully converted... It's like a former auto body shop, but you can't tell. It's blending industrial Brooklyn vibes with understated elegance, fully ala carte with handmade pastas, wood-fired seafood, amazing Italian dishes that have this cult following. The wine list is really delicious, featuring everything from regional bottles to special occasion pours. And it's famous for muffledini with pink peppercorn and parmigiano reggiano, one of the most talked about pasta dishes in New York. And the vibe is so nice. Mel and it's this year is their 10th anniversary as well. And it's still one of the hardest reservations to get. Honestly, it's so hard to get into. So it's amazing. It's really tasty. When did you get it? I got it. I actually, it wasn't a waiting list and it opened up at the very last minute, but I made it like a week ago for Saturday and like a 4pm reservation opened up. I'm like, I'm going to grab that, grabbing it because the weather was bad. And so I think maybe somebody canceled.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, I'm excited. Is it? Oh, wait, I have a question because is it the pictures look very bright? Is it bright? Or is it dark? The lighting lighting looks a little bright.

Barry Conrad
You know what, it's not bright. It's like a lot of daylight, like sunlight rather than, also time of day, it was like four. So it wasn't like, it wasn't bright at all.

Like, I don't even think there was any really lights and I was like really like just like from outside, but I don't know what it's like at night, but I can see the photos, it's not that bright.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah it is, these photos are like...

Barry Conrad
Is that really bad for you?

Melanie Avalon
Are we looking at the main page?

Barry Conrad
to our story page.

Melanie Avalon
I mean, it looks like it's outside. Oh, our story. Wait, let me go to our story. Oh, OK.

That's much better. OK. I was talking about the home page. Yeah, no, that looks nice. It looks like it looks very New York-ish.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, yeah, definitely. It's really, it's really cool. It's really vibe-y and it was honestly so delicious. So, so good. So I'm curious to see what you would order.

Melanie Avalon
Are you going to pick what you ordered? Are you going to? Yup. Ooh, I'm excited. So menu dinner.

Barry Conrad
So it's not like a massive menu, but the food is like next level. Actually, you know, I talked about Delmonica's before being my favorite merchant since coming here. This is like right, like equal.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, so did you get a cocktail snack?

Barry Conrad
Yeah. So there.

Melanie Avalon
No, don't tell me what you ordered yet. Okay. What were you gonna say?

Barry Conrad
Well, I was going to sort of say what one of the cocktail snacks was like. So I'm not going to say.

Melanie Avalon
Did you get the housemaid mozzarella?

Barry Conrad
I didn't, but one of the things on here is like so famous just for this cocktail snack that it's like so good. Yeah, it's honestly incredible.

Melanie Avalon
I don't think it's what I'm gonna get. What are you gonna get? The prosciutto.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, it's not that, but that still looks amazing too. I have no doubt it's amazing.

Melanie Avalon
which is prosciutto, basal, mcmustard, and parme, parme, is it parmesan? But the Italian word for it.

Barry Conrad
Pommes gienon.

Melanie Avalon
Yes, butter. So is it the first thing on the menu?

Barry Conrad
No, it's the roasted ramp focaccia. What is that? It sounds really basic, but basically it's like a focaccia bread, which is just unlike anything that I've had before. And like this green garlic butter on the side that looks like a dessert, like just green, like almost like a little mousse. It's so good.

And the bread is like warm and almost like cake-like. It's honestly, Mel, really good. People just, yeah, it's a real hit. So got that.

Melanie Avalon
Were they hyping it up? Like did they tell you it's like their most famous thing?

Barry Conrad
Well, people were having it and then we got it and it's like, oh, yeah. And they said, yeah, that's actually one of the most famous things.

Melanie Avalon
Nice. Okay. I'll be happy because I like, I like prosciutto.

Barry Conrad
Yes. Anything from the to start situation?

Melanie Avalon
No. Did you get anything?

Barry Conrad
Guess what I got.

Melanie Avalon
Did you get the chicken liver, Christina?

Barry Conrad
Yes.

Melanie Avalon
with ramps and basalmic.

Barry Conrad
But also it's not just one, it's like three kind of big crostinis with like the most incredible chicken liver pate. So good. Like actually so good. And quite filling, like it's not like tiny.

Melanie Avalon
What are ramps?

Barry Conrad
I have no idea, I don't know what that means.

Melanie Avalon
We are so shockingly uninformed with food, it's crazy. Okay, it looks like it's some sort of greenery.

Barry Conrad
Do you see it? Yeah, yeah. It's honestly so young. Mel is not coming. She's like, okay.

Melanie Avalon
Okay. Oh, this is so cute. So they have little fish. They have big fish.

Barry Conrad
to any of the fish.

Melanie Avalon
Hosta. So are these all the entrees? And yes, I'm using that word. Yeah, so like little fish big fish

Barry Conrad
So what they what they like to say how they explain the menu is like these first three are kind of like what you might get as smaller things But the little fish is still bigger. It's still like decent.

But then the last three are like big big

Melanie Avalon
Okay. So could we do like a little fish course then? And then, and then jump into the big? Yeah, yeah.

I really want the, and they call it prawns in the US. I would like some grilled head-on prawns. And I'll have the fennel pollen, lemon, and chili on the side, please. Did you get something from the little fish?

Barry Conrad
We didn't actually get anything from the fish sections. No, but so what I will get is the grilled scallops, because that sounds great. Grilled scallops, walnuts, yogurt, marjoram and chovy.

Melanie Avalon
I need to look up one of these big fishes. Hold on.

Barry Conrad
You're looking up a picture?

Melanie Avalon
I'm seeing what it is. Yeah. I have not heard of orada. Want me to look up the mercury levels?

Barry Conrad
to see if it's any good.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, did you know Orada, also known as Gilt Head Brame or Dorad is a fantastic safe seafood choice. It has very low mercury levels, making it safe for anyone including pregnant women and young children to eat two to three times a week.

Oh, it has a relatively short lifespan and does not accumulate high levels of heavy metals. Awesome. And it's whole. Yes, I love whole fish. So I am, this is no question. I am, I haven't even looked at the next section, but I am definitely getting the grilled whole orata.

Barry Conrad
And also, Mel, you just uncovered, you just unlocked a new fish that, you know, there's.

Melanie Avalon
I should try. Yeah, but wait, but it's wait. It's so it's also called. I said I yeah, I'm not seeing that on a mini before guilt head Bream or Dora. This could be really cool.

Hold on. Let me see. Okay, so did I say see Bream? Is that what and guilt head? Did I just say guilt?

Barry Conrad
Yeah, you shake your head.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, so in one study from 2022 December, published in Environmental Pollution, Wild Fish and Seafood Species in the Western Mediterranean Sea with Low Safe Mercury Concentrations, I'm gonna read this whole article later, they looked at 58 species, only 13 were safe for human intake in all cases. And that was one of them.

Barry Conrad
Wow, so it's definitely worth trying.

Melanie Avalon
I know. I'm going to be on the lookout for it now.

Maybe they'll have it at Whole Foods. They might. I'm going to look for it. Okay. And it comes with, I can't speak this, Tajiasca, Olive Vinegarrette, and Marjoram. I'll have that on the side.

Barry Conrad
Anything from the pastors jumping out at you?

Melanie Avalon
I'm gonna have to guess what you got. You got a pasta?

Barry Conrad
Three pastors.

Melanie Avalon
You got three posses? Yeah. Oh, my gosh. OK, so did you get the you got the ricotta? Naki.

Barry Conrad
No.

Melanie Avalon
You didn't? I thought you loved that.

Barry Conrad
I do love Nyoki, but just what I saw there is like, no.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, did you get the fettuccine with lamb sausage?

Barry Conrad
Yes, that was one of them.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, it comes with tomato, passato, lemon, and pecord. Yes. And then did you okay, so that's one. Did you get the mafaldini?

Barry Conrad
Yes. Nuffled any pink, purple, yeah.

Melanie Avalon
and Parmigiano. Okay, and then did you get did you get the sheep's milk cheese?

Barry Conrad
Yes, honest email.

Melanie Avalon
Are you impressed?

Barry Conrad
I'm very impressed. You guessed them all. How did you guess that?

Melanie Avalon
I mean, I got the first one wrong, but you do love Naki, so it was a good guess.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, it was a good guess.

Melanie Avalon
I don't know. I just feel like I can like, I just know what you would like.

Barry Conrad
And honestly, if you saw the photo, if you show the photos of these, which we can another time, but honestly, it's so, it's always so incredible. It was the best pasta I've had ever.

Melanie Avalon
Barry, have you have you thought about becoming like, not as your main thing, but as your like, secondary main thing, like a Instagram restaurant reviewer?

Barry Conrad
Is that a thing?

Melanie Avalon
I mean, yeah, you could do it.

Barry Conrad
No, maybe, maybe I should, maybe I should write that down as like something to do.

Melanie Avalon
you could be like the person, especially like in New York, you could become like the person people follow in New York. Like because people want to know what these restaurants are like, and they would just follow you and like you could have partnerships and like you would never pay for a meal again.

I'm just saying this could be like one of your callings.

Barry Conrad
It actually could be because I love food so much, as you know, null so much.

Melanie Avalon
I think you should do it.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, I mean, I get to do that sometimes, but not like as a thing thing, like, you know, all the time, that'd be so cool.

Melanie Avalon
and like you post really good pictures and I think you should just start doing it and see if it.

Barry Conrad
See if people will like it, yeah.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, you could even create actually like an account like a separate account for it.

Barry Conrad
Hmm. A friend of mine does something similar and he's just really good at it. And he's a photographer as well. So his photos look amazing.

Could be your calling. Well, I'm putting the, I'm writing that down. Does anything from.

Melanie Avalon
your second calling.

Barry Conrad
What is the, is anything from the meat jumping out at you? I know that you love your meat.

Melanie Avalon
Wait, I just have a question, though. So how how were the

Barry Conrad
Oh, the pastas? Okay.

The hierarchy for me, sheep's milk cheese agnolotti. Never tried agnolotti in my life. Is that a type of pasta? It's a type of pasta. It was so delicate. And that's sheep's milk cheese. Oh my gosh. That was heavenly.

Melanie Avalon
Was it a sheet milk white sauce?

Barry Conrad
Yeah, really like rich and delicious. And then that and in the pink Muffledini peppercorn with

Melanie Avalon
Is mafaldini a type of pasta?

Barry Conrad
Yes it is and it was like a sort of like almost like a jagged it looks kind of like a almost like a um you know those fries that kind of look like crinkles

Melanie Avalon
Yes.

Barry Conrad
It kind of looks like crinkled pasta. I've never seen that before.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, I think that's what I want. If I was a pasta eater, was the sauce parmesan-y? Was it a parmesan sauce?

Barry Conrad
And like pink pinkish peppercorn.

Melanie Avalon
That sounds so good. That sounds amazing.

Barry Conrad
And then the fettuccine with lamb sausage was like third, but not because it was bad. It's just because I never tried the first two.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, your favorite was the sheep milk or the

Barry Conrad
Yeah, it was just, it was so rich and so delicious. It was just like nothing I'd had before.

Melanie Avalon
Scott Honey, was it a $45 add-on like last week?

Barry Conrad
Now wasn't a $45 and is actually like pretty reasonably price everything and it's like big pretty good portions too and that says a lot for me.

Melanie Avalon
I didn't expect that just because there's no prices on this menu, which is usually like not a good sign.

Barry Conrad
It's not cheap, but it's definitely good.

Melanie Avalon
Did you get anything from the meat section?

Barry Conrad
No, kind of just like past it out just because only because people also had said like friends of like, you know, this place, the past is like next level, and there's plenty of meat joints around. So I just wanted to kind of like dive in.

Melanie Avalon
I wonder what grilled pork collar. Is it the collar of the pork? I mean, if we've learned one thing on this show, I think it's that it usually is what it says it is. Remember, remember there was one and we were like, oh, it's not actually that, but it was. It was, oh, the, oh, the cheeks, the cheeks, yeah. I just really, I don't know if this, this might be a true statement.

I don't know, I don't remember, like all the different restaurants we've done, but the restaurant looks really nice, but as far as like a specific dish, I really want that grilled whole orata, like so bad. Yes. Can you go back and get it? And that can be your first post on the account that you're gonna create that I'm like making you do now.

Barry Conrad
That's really, really funny. You really, you really want that. So which one, the, the orata? Yeah. Okay. The orata.

Melanie Avalon
I love... Do you like whole fishes? Like, whole fishes...

Barry Conrad
I do like whole fishes.

Melanie Avalon
It's so good because you get to like, it makes you feel like, you know, like a, like rustic, you get to like, eat the different part, like, and then and it's low mercury. Did you get dessert?

Barry Conrad
Yeah, but I can't seem to find it on this menu. I do see, like, if you go to wine and cocktails and stuff, we can go there.

I can't seem to find the dessert menu in here for some reason. Did get a little something like a chocolatey type situation, but honestly, I was, and this is a lot coming from me, but it was kinda full-ish. Not even, not full, but just like so satisfied.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, it's interesting. Do you find eating pasta versus like a meat only dinner that you feel like more full after the pasta?

It's actually a reason I don't like eating that. I don't like that like super full feeling.

Barry Conrad
Yeah. But it was, I definitely didn't feel gross. It didn't feel like I was stuffed. It just like, wow, like just enough.

But I did have the Milano sour. I will say that from the cocktails. I had two of those and then some, what else? And also had some Chardonnay, I believe. Yeah. So, and the wine's pretty good. If you check out the wine and cocktails list.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, I'm looking at the, is this the bottle list though or everything?

Barry Conrad
I think it's everything, you can't, I think you can get a-

Melanie Avalon
You can get a glass of any of this.

Barry Conrad
I don't know. I don't think all, but you can. I think some of the bottom ones are mainly by the bottle.

Melanie Avalon
But it looks like they have a lot by the glass, yeah? Is it all Italian? Is every single wine on this Italian?

Barry Conrad
Yes, it's Lillia, yeah, yeah.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, yeah, then I'll be good. I can definitely find something that I like.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, it was not what I expected like not because it was just so not too far away from home. It's like it was just delicious. It was just so so good.

Melanie Avalon
I want to go. I want to get the orata.

Barry Conrad
You'll have to like, you have to note that down and I forget it because now you got to be on the lookout for it.

Melanie Avalon
I know. I feel like I'll, I will remember.

I wonder if it's normally called, like what it's most normally called. Yeah. Oh, okay. Orrata is the Italian name. So it's probably called Seabream, more. Okay. Well, epic, amazing, good find. Please go back.

Barry Conrad
Do you like if I bring restaurants that I've already been to? Is that like cheating?

Melanie Avalon
Oh, I think it's fun. I should do it too. I'll do it too. I was actually thinking about it when I was picking the restaurant for tonight. I was like, you know what, Barry does a lot of New York restaurants, I should do like some more Atlanta restaurants. And I can do ones where I've been.

Oh, I know what I'm going. Well, okay. So listeners, friends, I hope that you enjoyed your time with us today. We would love to hear from you. If you have questions for the show, please email questions at I have podcast comm or you can go to I have podcast comm and submit questions there. The show notes for today's episode will be at I have podcast comm slash episode 483. And you can get all the stuff that we like at I have podcast comm slash stuff we like. And you can follow us on Instagram. We are right now I have podcast Melanie Avalon and Barry underscore Conrad and maybe soon we'll have another one from Barry's restaurant adventures and New York we will promote it every time we do the restaurant section. So I think that's all the things. Anything from you Barry before we go?

Barry Conrad
Thank you so much for hanging out with us. Once again, listeners, we appreciate you all so much for tuning in and we'll catch you next week.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, actually we won't because, I mean, we will, but next week is, next week, listeners tune in. It's a very special episode with Macal McPherson on thyroid issues, hypothyroidism, how fasting affects your thyroid in a good way, by the way.

So we will be back on the flip side of that one.

Barry Conrad
Catch you in the flip side then, everyone.

Melanie Avalon
Talk to you in two weeks.

Barry Conrad
It's actually two weeks.

Melanie Avalon
Bye. Bye.

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

See you next week.

Jul 13

#482 – The Enhanced Games, Burning Stubborn Fat, Breaking World Records, Too Much Stress, Fasting & The Gut MB, ADF & The Brain, When To Exercise, And More!

Get 25% off with code melanieavalon at melanieavalon.com/enhanced!

Welcome to Episode 482 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, biohacker, founder of AvalonX, and author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine, and Barry Conrad, actor, singer-songwriter, and creator and host of Banter with BC.

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

TRANSCRIPT

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

Melanie Avalon
Welcome to Episode 482 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. If you want to burn fat, gain energy, and enhance your health by changing when you eat, not what you eat, with no calorie counting, then this show is for you.

I'm Melanie Avalon, biohacker, founder of AvalonX, and author of What, When, Wine. Lose weight and feel great with paleo-style meals, intermittent fasting, and wine. And I'm joined by my co-hosts, Barry Conrad, actor, singer-songwriter, and creator and host of Banter with B.C. For more on us, check out MelanieAvalon.com and BarryConradOfficial.com. You can submit questions for the show by emailing questions at iapodcast.com or by going to iapodcast.com. We would love to hear from you. Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this show do not constitute medical advice or treatment. So pour yourself a mug of black coffee, a cup of tea, or even a glass of wine if it's that time, and get ready for the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Hi, everybody, and welcome. This is episode number 482 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon. I'm here with Barry Conrad. Barry, how are you today?

Barry Conrad
Hey, Mel. Hey, everyone listening. I'm doing great. Thanks for asking, Melanie.

Before I say anything, I have to ask you about your recent adventures. There's so many. I feel like there's the enhanced games. There's Dave Espry's conference. Tell me everything. I want to hear all about it.

Melanie Avalon
Yes, and I was thinking about this. I think I'll tell you about the enhanced games this episode and then Dave's conference next episode. How's that?

Barry Conrad
Yeah, sounds great.

Melanie Avalon
But, yeah, I felt like I was channeling my inner Barry Conrad. Like traveling non-stop, just like all the events and things back to back. It was wild. I wish you could have gone to the enhanced games. I think you would have found it really fascinating.

I know we've already talked about this, but listeners, they did not tell us. Oh, and maybe I should say what the enhanced games are. So basically the enhanced games, it was the first year that they've done it, and it was a sporting event where they wanted to see the true potential of the human being when quote, enhanced. I'm not allowed to use other words. So they use medically supervised enhancements, if that makes sense, FDA approved, of course. And they were trying to break some world records and most of the athletes were Olympians and former world record holders. And most of them were also quote, like past their prime. Like they had it, most of them hadn't competed in like five or six years, maybe even like 10 years, which makes sense because I feel like athletes right now wouldn't want to do an event like that because it might jeopardize their career by doing it. But it was so interesting.

I actually sat by one of their financial advisors. So I was kind of getting like an interior glimpse of everything, but they did not, okay. So they broke a lot of personal records. They didn't break a world record until the very last event, which was very surreal and exciting and important for them.

Because if they hadn't broken any world records, I think they would have been really upset. But they didn't tell us until, and you know this, but they didn't tell us until the day before that it was outside. So it was a Vegas heat. I was out there for hours and hours and hours. Would you like that situation? I feel like you would have been fine, right? Or do you like, how do you feel? It was like 90, it was like mid high 90s.

Barry Conrad
listeners, to give you context, I did later receive a photo of Mel in a very attractive hat with her sunnies on and she was like, it's so hot. It's like, and I know, Melanie does not like heat. She likes the cold, she likes cryotherapy. So I was feeling your pain and it depends how unbearable was the heat though. Was it was it humid or was it.

Melanie Avalon
It was not humid, it was dry heat, so it was Vegas heat, which is better than humid. But it was, yeah, like high 90s.

And then the sun was like glaring off of, there was a lot of reflective surfaces. So it was, ah man. Yeah, when I found out, but I did, I did, you inspired me, Berry. I am all about Instacart now. I am all about it. I used it like 24 seven. And so the second I found out that it was outside, I ordered that hat. I ordered sunscreen, cause I hadn't brought sunscreen. I ordered cooling packs, which I did not, I was not aware that these cooling packs, these instant ones, they get so cold. I have now bought like 50 of them because I'm gonna like just use them, like ongoing. Like I could be using it right now.

Barry Conrad
I'm so glad that you said that. Keep, continue, continue.

Melanie Avalon
I'm trying to think what the fourth thing was. I ordered four things. Wait, sunscreen, cooling backs, a hat, something else. What else would I have ordered to...

Barry Conrad
Water, snacks, trinkets, a beverage of sorts.

Melanie Avalon
I ordered like an electronic wind blowing thing that you put around your neck. It didn't work at all. I wore it for like a second and I was like, this is no, we're not doing this.

Barry Conrad
I like to see a photo of that, by the way.

Melanie Avalon
Well, I already returned it. It kind of looked like headphones, like big headphones, and you'd like put it around your neck. There is one that works that I've had in the past that actually gets cold, but this was just blowing air. Regardless, not to talk about the heat the whole time.

The actual event was very cool. I've actually never, since I haven't been to a sporting event, I don't think, like a competition sporting event since the 1996 Olympics.

Barry Conrad
Wow, that's wow, really like it.

Melanie Avalon
I mean, I've been to, like, football, but, like, weight lift, you know, like, competition style. So, yeah, it was, it was really cool, and it, and they're probably, yeah, they're coming back next year and they're gonna up the prize.

They also gave away big monetary prizes, so, and then the killers played at the end.

Barry Conrad
I saw that on your story and you love the killers. So that would have been was that whether how good you expected them to be.

Melanie Avalon
Yes, they only did four songs, but I just love Brandon Flowers so much. So, yes, he's amazing.

It was amazing. And what was really nice was the entire thing was invite only. So everybody there, it wasn't that relatively speaking for how big of an event it was, it wasn't that crowded. It was very nice. And they took care of us very well.

Barry Conrad
That sounds awesome. What was your, okay, A, what is the enhanced games? Were the enhanced games, what you expected them to be like? And B, what was the most surprising thing about watching it?

Other than the heat. Other than the heat.

Melanie Avalon
Good questions. So, ironically enough, minus it being outside, so if it was like this but indoors, it was almost exactly what I thought it was going to be. Really? Actually, you know what was different? I thought it was going to be more crowded. I was thinking it was going to be like an arena stadium situation and it wasn't that crowded. It was crowded, but it wasn't that crowded. I think it was like maybe a couple thousand people.

You said most surprising? Yeah. Probably, I don't know if this is the most, but this is what immediately came to mind. The first swim one that I watched, I was trying to record it and they were so fast. I was shocked. I was blown away when they jumped in. I was like, they're like halfway down the pool. Yeah, that was really cool to watch. And then watching the weightlifting, insane. Insane. I want to know, I was talking with the guy next to me and he was saying he has a friend who does it and he was like, if you knew, you can't even envision how heavy those things are that they're lifting. They have one of the guys from Game of Thrones there, Thor something, the mountain, I think.

Barry Conrad
Like do competing or like watching? Competing. Competing. Wow.

Melanie Avalon
I think he was actually the world's strongest man most recently, maybe. So he was there. Yeah, there was for one of the run events, there was like four full starts. That was interesting.

Barry Conrad
Is that just because everyone's so geed up, so ready to go that they're just like, yeah, let's go.

Melanie Avalon
I guess so. But it's just crazy because obviously it's faster than we can see. We can't see the false start, but it's all monitored with the way it's set up electronically. So that was kind of funny to see that happen over and over again.

And there were actually a few of the athletes were not, quote, enhanced, but the majority were. And they also... Oh, for the swimmers, I know they wore some special type of swimsuit that isn't allowed in traditional sport competitions.

Barry Conrad
I wonder why that, that is a thing though. Like if it's, if it's a tire, how is that enhancing your, you know what I mean?

Melanie Avalon
Like, why is that not allowed? I don't know.

Barry Conrad
I did see the video. I don't know if it was the same one, but I did see a couple of videos of swimmers diving into the pool. And one of them looked so fast, looked like it was sped up. It was so fast.

Is that what you were talking about?

Melanie Avalon
Probably. Yeah. It like that dive in moment. I was like, Oh, they're gone. I was like, Oh, cause I was like, I'll just like record them the whole way. And then, yeah, I was like, they are so fast. So yeah, it was cool.

And then there was like an after party after. How was the after party? It was, it was good. I was, I was dead. Oh, also because the night before, and I don't know, I don't remember if I told you this already, but the night before I had to go to a had to, I had the honor of going, well, I did have to go, but, um, there was like a, a pre party thing. And I was like so late with the plane. And then like, everything was taking way too long. So I was like running, carrying like my 12 case of water. And then I even, I think I told you this, I went, did I tell you, I went to the party with no makeup. I don't know if you, I don't think that's how late I was. And that's how dire the situation was. I have never gone to a social event with no makeup. So I just like, and my hair wasn't curled. I just, I put on glasses and I went, I like went into it. I like quickly put on a cocktail dress, straightened my hair because there's no time to curl it, no makeup, put on my dark glasses. And I was like, okay, this is what we're doing right now. Which is like a big deal for me. My point is, um, cause you were saying, oh, the, the after party, the next night I was so, I was, I was so dead. It was fun, but I was, I was dead.

Barry Conrad
What do enhanced people, what are they like in a party scenario? Are they dancing? Are they kind of just tired from, you know, competing? What's the deal? Did you get to meet any of them?

Melanie Avalon
I've met quite a few of them via Instagram, but well, this is what's interesting. I really thought, and I might have said this already too as well, I really thought I was going to know a lot of people. I thought it was going to be a ton of biohacking people, and I didn't know anybody. After I left, I found out I knew like five people, but everybody kind of looked similar. They were all like sporting-ish people. I don't know how to describe it, but it was interesting.

Barry Conrad
Would you want to go to another, another one of those types of events?

Melanie Avalon
I'm really, really, really glad. Two things, I'm really glad they didn't tell me that it was outside before because I wouldn't have gone. Serious, I would not have gone. No, I wouldn't have gone. So I'm glad they didn't because I'm happy that I went.

And even if it's outdoors next year, I think I could do it again.

Barry Conrad
If it was outdoors next year, what would you do as a preparation situation?

Melanie Avalon
Like what would I do differently? Yeah, I would bring more of those cold pack things.

Barry Conrad
Well, what do you mean? Like, I'm trying to picture what you mean. Are they like?

Melanie Avalon
They're like $2.99 at Target and you shake them, you pop a thing in the center and then you shake it and they get so cold.

They get like ice and they stay that cold for like 15 minutes, even in the heat. And you really, to like remove heat from your body, there's like a few points on your body where if you keep them cold, like you will feel cooler. So like, you know, it's like around like your collarbone and your wrist, your inner wrist. So like, if you can like keep those cold, you can really cool yourself off more.

Barry Conrad
some more callbacks and hats.

Melanie Avalon
And I'll probably bring the same hat, probably wear the same outfit, honestly.

Barry Conrad
It looks great. I mean, you look like you were really like, I could not tell by looking at that photo that that was like pretty much a last minute thing. I thought it was planned. It looks planned.

Melanie Avalon
Thank you. Well, just it was just the hat that was the additional add on but yes, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Barry Conrad
And also go Instacart. CML, C, it's how good.

Melanie Avalon
And then I ended up using it like the entire trip for like, especially for that water, because that water is heavy. I always like going on, it's funny, people will go on trips and have to recover from it because of like diet lifestyle.

I feel like whenever I go on a trip, it's like a workout for me and I like gets me in shape.

Barry Conrad
Really?

Melanie Avalon
Mm-hmm, for sure.

Barry Conrad
Because you're carrying so much stuff.

Melanie Avalon
So I carry stuff around, I walk a lot, and then I don't change my diet. I actually eat probably less because it's like more complicated to get access. Oh yeah, wait, that's the last thing I was gonna say because this is going really long.

But did I tell you about my $300 credit? Tell me. Okay, so they gave me a $300 credit at the hotel, which was, it was at the Resorts World Las Vegas. And we stayed at the Hotel Conrad and, oh, Hotel Conrad, oh my goodness, you should go. Um, but I had not used the credit. So the day that I was leaving on my flight, I went to one of the fancy restaurants and just had them give me like $300 worth of steak and chicken. And then I took it with me.

Barry Conrad
Oh my gosh, that actually sounds like heaven. That sounds amazing.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah and it's funny they were like because it was like brunch time and they're like well we don't have steak right now and I was like but on the menu they had a salad where you could add a six ounce filet mignon I was like well can you just give me like six salads with six filet mignons and don't give me the salad they're like yeah we can do that I was like okay

Barry Conrad
That's so funny. So what do you, so what do you mean take it with you? So you, you ordered it as you were checking out and then you took it in like a go to go situation.

Melanie Avalon
I have one of those it's a game changer one of those like freezer lunchbox thing like lunch box it's not a lunchbox it's like a yeah it is it's like a freezer lunchbox have you seen these?

Barry Conrad
It's not the silver ones, right?

Melanie Avalon
They probably are, there's probably different brands and different types. I got on Amazon, but basically you freeze it and then you can like keep stuff cold.

So I just, it was already frozen from the night before. So I just filled it up with steak.

Barry Conrad
That's so good. And then what, you took it back to, you took it back home with you?

Melanie Avalon
That took Austin.

Barry Conrad
Took it to Austin. Wow, so you were sorted. You were sorted like you had so much steak and chicken.

Melanie Avalon
I ate it like throughout the rest of the days, which this is, I'll stop talking now.

Barry Conrad
And also, was it good steak and chicken? Was it good stuff?

Melanie Avalon
It was, yes, it was really good. It was good.

Barry Conrad
Yum. That's also so much Steak and Chicken. I love that.

Melanie Avalon
It was, it was really good. Yeah. And so one last thing for listeners. So in addition to the games, enhanced also has a, they have a product line and they have a telehealth thing as well.

And I'm, I'm learning all about it right now, but I'm really happy because they, they sent me the products and wanted me to post about it. And I was just like, these better be products that I agree with. And it's like good stuff. Like one, like they have like a supplement called longer and it's like all the things I talk about all the time. So it's like N M N and Spermidine and N A C and like all of these different compounds. So listeners, if you want to check out any of their stuff, go to Melanie Avalon.com slash enhanced. And I don't know if I'm going to have a coupon code. I probably will. So use the code Melanie Avalon and that should hopefully give you a discount. So yeah. Oh my goodness. This is so long. I've got to stop talking about it.

Barry Conrad
No, but seriously, how fun. It sounds like such a great experience and like, sounds like you had the best time and you had the best time eating.

You had the best time, you know, going to your first enhanced game is awesome. Come with to hear more later.

Melanie Avalon
Thank you. Thank you for supporting. Maybe next year we can both go.

Barry Conrad
That'd be a vibe. That'd be so much fun. And also you'll have someone else to sit outside with to bear the...

Melanie Avalon
I know, although it can't be our first time that we hang out in person because we can't have the first time we hang out be when I'm miserable.

Barry Conrad
Although I still can't picture that. I can't picture you being all miserable. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, anything new with you before we jump into listener questions?

Barry Conrad
No, let's jump in. I really enjoyed listening to what you had to say. That was a highlight.

Melanie Avalon
But I do, I'm genuinely authentically because I know when we were talking about before I went, it was like, you know, what is it going to be? And like, how do we feel about this?

I just feel like it's really cool. Like I'm really I think it's really cool what they're doing. I find it interesting that mainstream media is like attacking them so bad right now.

Barry Conrad
other really

Melanie Avalon
Mm-hmm. Yeah, but I think it's really cool

Barry Conrad
Awesome.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, well, to start things off, do you have a study for us to discuss?

Barry Conrad
I have a study for us to discuss and today I'm bringing one called Dynamical Alterations of Brain Function and Gut Microbiome in Weight Loss. And I'm going to send you a cheeky link so you can check it out.

And this was by Jing Zhou and colleagues published originally in Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology in 2023 and was conducted in China through researchers at Henan Provincial People's Hospital and Jing Zhou University People's Hospital. So it's a human IF study, intermittent fasting study, but instead of just looking at it from sort of like a purely weight loss perspective, the researchers really wanted to see what was happening inside both the brain and the gut while the people were losing weight. And the study, it involved 25 adults with obesity who successfully completed the intervention and lost weight. So their BMI ranged from 28 to 45 years old and their average starting weight was about 97.5 kgs or as you Americans like to say, American listeners 215 pounds, but the end of the study, their average weight had dropped to about 89.9 kgs, so about 90 kgs, which is a loss of roughly 7.6 kgs or nearly 17 pounds. So there weren't tiny changes. There were meaningful results of a relatively short amount of time. So the participants went through a 66 day intermittent energy restriction protocol. So meaning for the first four days, they ate normally while the researchers worked out what the usual calorie intake was. And then came a 32 day phase where every other day calories were reduced. So for about a week at a time, the participants consumed about two thirds of their normal cows, then one half, then one third, et cetera. And then finally, just one quarter of what they'd normally have on a day. And on the days in between, they just ate normally. After that, there was another 30 day phase where they kept the protocol at home. So on the reduced calorie days, the men took in about 600 calories and the women took in about 500 calories, alternating those days with normal eating days. So I guess for listeners just tuning in now who are new to intermittent fasting, this is close to what we call like an alternate day fasting protocol, closer to that rather than a typical 16 eight, which could mean 16 hours fasting, eight hours eating. So what makes the study super interesting though Mel is that the researchers weren't just tracking the body weight and a lot of people just associate intermittent fasting with weight loss. They actually performed functional MRI scans of the brain and really looked at stool samples from the participants as well. They analyzed those. And if you've heard the term MRI before, listeners out there, but you're not sure what that means, it's basically a way of like researchers looking at the activity inside different parts of the brain. So they can sort of see like which areas are becoming more active, which areas are becoming less active. And the first major thing, the first major finding rather was that the activity decreased in several brain regions involving appetite.

Barry Conrad
learning, food reward, memory, and self-control. So in plain terms, parts of the brain involved in responding to food became less active as participants progressed through the study. And I think it's really great because one of the things we hear all the time from listeners is that after fasting consistently for so long, food can seem to take up less mental space because of just the benefits of fasting and just taking the thinking out of food. You get in touch with the satiety signals that often describe fewer cravings, less food noise. I know I have.

And this study, it can't prove that's what's happening, but it does suggest there may be more biological changes occurring in some of the brain regions involved in eating behavior. So the researchers also looked at the gut microbiome. And for anyone not familiar with what that means, your gut microbiome is like a collection of a whole bunch of bacteria, trillions of bacteria and other microorganisms living inside your digestive system. And scientists now know these microbes play roles in everything, like from digestion to metabolism, even communication with the brain. So the researchers found changes in several of these bacterial species, including reductions in E. coli and increases in bacteria that have previously been linked to metabolic health. But here's the part that really stood out to me most of all. When they compare the gut findings with the brain findings, they really found correlations between changes in specific gut bacteria and changes in activity in brain regions. So again, it doesn't prove the gut bacteria caused those changes. It does mean, though, that the two appeared to change together. So that's what the gut-brain connection becomes so interesting. And for years, we've, as I said before, we really, by and large, thought weight loss is about calories and whatnot, it's all about a calories in, calories out issue. This study really does suggest there's so much more going on. And as people lose weight through, as the people lost weight through the intermittent energy restriction, changes occurred not just in the body weight, but in the communication between the gut and the brain itself. So that's pretty awesome. It was just really cool to read that. And IF intermittent fasting doesn't just influence how much we eat or whatnot. It also plays a part in some of the biological systems involved in hunger cravings and our behavior and our eating behavior. I think this is a really awesome glimpse and fascinating glimpse into how, just how interconnected our brain, the gut and weight loss really are. Mel, what do you reckon?

Melanie Avalon
Awesome. So okay, quick question.

You said the areas of the brain that were affected included the appetite. Did you say that there was a decrease in all of the areas you mentioned, or those were the ones that were affected? So like the reward part, the self-control, hunger, like were they all down-regulated? Even the even the self-control and the do what I'm talking about?

Barry Conrad
Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. So the activity, the decreased activities were in appetite, food reward, learning, memory and self-control. So all of those.

Melanie Avalon
Learning and memory were down. Did they comment on that?

Barry Conrad
the activity decreased in those brain regions. So I don't know if it's decreased in learning. I don't know what that necessarily means.

Activity-wise, like less learning or just activity in general. So basically, parts of the brain involved in those, in responding to food became less active, basically, in the appetite, food reward, learning, memory, and self-control. They didn't really comment beyond that, which is really interesting.

Melanie Avalon
So they say our results showed that it longitudinally reduced the activity of, and then they characterize it as obese-related brain regions, including the cognitive control circuit, the emotion and learning circuit, and the cingulate cortex and the sensory circuit. So I guess whatever was affected is related to obesity in the brain.

Or not obesity in the brain, but obese-related regions in the brain. That's really interesting. Yeah, but just to like step back, I cannot agree more. I feel like it's becoming just so clear every day with more and more research just how much like the gut microbiome affects everything. And like the inter, like the bi-directional relationship, like you were saying, between the brain and the gut microbiome. And now we know that just like weight loss and dieting, I would wonder if it's like the weight loss causing that, or is it the fasting, like what is it exactly? But there's just so many factors involved. That's so fascinating. It doesn't surprise me, but it's really, really fascinating.

Barry Conrad
Again, just another study to support the whole notion that intermittent fasting is just so much more than just about weight loss. There's so much going on in our bodies than just like losing weight, calories in, calories out.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, exactly. Which to that point, friends, check out last week's episode, which is a special episode with Dr. Jason Fung, who I know was like an OG in the fasting world and probably the person, I mean, quite possibly the person we've talked about historically in the entire history of this show, maybe the most because he's just like such a figure in the fasting world. I bring it up because his most recent book is called The Hunger Code, and it's all about this.

It's not just calories in, calories out. It's so many other things. Awesome. Awesome. Fine. Thanks. Nicely done. Okay. Shall we jump into some listener questions?

Barry Conrad
Let's jump right in. So to start off, we have an email from Kristi, and she says, hey, first of all, I love your podcasts and books. They're both informative and entertaining, like sitting down and chatting with friends. So thank you.

I'm about a month into my IF journey. I have only lost a few pounds, but my clothes fit better. My skin rashes are going away. And most importantly, for the first time since puberty, I no longer feel out of control or guilty about my eating. Now for my question. It is my understanding that one of the reasons fasting works is because it is a quote unquote good stress on the body, much like exercise. However, if the body is under a lot of other stress, for example, poor sleep, health issues, relationship stress, et cetera, sometimes even good stress like exercise may not be good for one's health because it can overtax the adrenals. I've even heard in some circles, like the bulletproof diet, that one should not do high intensity exercise after not getting enough sleep because it can be too much for the body. Would this be the case with fasting too? I find on days that I have had little sleep, I do feel hungrier. Before IF, I would turn to sugar for a quick energy boost, so it could just be a habit. I usually end up opening my window earlier on those days, but I do try to get in at least 16 hours as opposed to 19 to 23 hours. What are your thoughts? Thanks so much, Christy. Mel, what do you reckon?

Melanie Avalon
Awesome, Christy. So really, really wonderful question and very intuitive question. And I think this is where it's very individual. So you're completely accurate in what you're saying about the stress bucket.

And we basically have, you know, a stress bucket every day that gets filled with all these different things that you mentioned, you know, like sleep and exercise and diet and lifestyle and fasting and hormones and all the things. And so that can mean that if somebody is really, has really built up these chronic stressors in life, that fasting too much, it could be too much of a stressor for them. And I think, I feel like I'm a little bit of a, well, I would be curious about this. For me, I'm so like comfortable and in a way de-stressed by my fasting protocol, that if I were to go off my fasting protocol, when I'm really stressed, I think that would just make me more stressed. I mean, I know it would, like it would have the opposite effect. I think I'm pretty, I think I'm a little bit unique that way, though. And because I'm so accustomed, I've done this for so long, and it's my pattern, that not doing it, like I said, I think would stress me out more mentally, physiologically, like all the things for a lot of people, though, especially people who have, you know, tried different hours of fasting and who may be comfortable with shorter fasting windows, then, you know, it's very likely that, you know, if you're sleep deprived, if you're, have a lot of mental and emotional stress that a longer fast on top of that might just be, you know, too much. So I think I would just encourage people to be as intuitive as possible with fasting. And you know, you like you know, with fasting, you should I feel like most people can, can know how they feel about fasting and can know if it feels more or less stressful to them. And it's interesting too, because a lot of these factors affect similar pathways as fasting. So for example, like if you're sleep deprived, we know that that raises cortisol and that raises and that raises ghrelin, which is the hunger hormone, and it lowers leptin, which is the satiety hormone. So that's another example where, like for me, because it would do that, it's actually helpful for me to do fasting because I find that fasting has a beneficial effect for me on my hormone, like hunger related hormone levels. So I find it beneficial. However, some people might find that fasting while sleep deprived just further raises cortisol and just makes them hungrier. So again, you just have to know what works best for you. Barry, do you, and then one last thing about the sugar cravings before IF for the quick energy boost that completely makes sense because sugar is basically the fastest energy boost that we can give ourselves. It's just like immediate energy accessible to our bodies. I love that you're aware that maybe that's just a habit that's going on there. However, it does make sense that you would have these cravings if you're overstressed because your body is looking for that fast energy.

Melanie Avalon
So it could be habit, but it also could be just a real signal. That said, because you have the cravings for sugar, it doesn't mean you have to eat the sugar. You can still meet that energy in other ways.

Buy more, less inflammatory food choices. Oh, which that's one last thing I'll say. Again, this is for me, but for a lot of people, fasting can be very anti-inflammatory. And so that's another reason that I find it's helpful for me even when I'm stressed. But again, it's very individual. So Barry, yes, what are your thoughts?

Barry Conrad
Yeah, Mel, you answered it so awesomely. You know, Christy, I'm a firm believer that, you know, fasting should work with your life, not against it. And flexibility is really important. That's something that I've learned myself over the years.

So for example, if you have had a really terrible night's sleep and you're under a lot of stress at work or in life and family, whatnot, I don't think it's necessarily the day to white knuckle your way through the longest possible fast, just because, you know, it's really important to listen to your body. And it sounds like you are paying attention to your body's feedback, which is great. Sleep is massive, as Mel said as well. Hunger hormones can shift, cravings will and most likely will increase because your guards are down and you're not really tapped in as much. And your body will, you know, it's going to start looking for that quick energy. You know, those Doritos, the chocolate bars, the candy, it's happened to me in the past. So you just sleep is so important. And if your normal rhythm is 19 to 23 hours, but on a rough day, you're doing 16 and then you're nourishing yourself. Well, that's still a pretty successful fasting day, Christy. So don't be too hard on yourself. I think sometimes people can get focused on maximizing that fasting stress, as you said, that they forget. Recovery really does matter so much too, as we like to, we love to say it's the fast and the feast. They're both so important. It's not just the fasting, but you know, Christy, congrats on smashing your non-scale victories. Like, seriously, you got your better fitting clothes, your healthier skin, and especially, you know, feeling free from guilt around food. That's great. Just don't feel like you have to hold on to that fast just with the clocks here. So you have permission to do what feels right for you and your body.

Melanie Avalon
Yes, 100%. And also one last comment. Well, I'm glad you pointed out and honored her non-scale victories because yes, those are all amazing. So congratulations, Kristie.

And then also, this is interesting because she was saying about hearing in some circles about not doing high-intensity exercise after not getting enough sleep. The irony of that is I've also read the exact opposite. I think it was when interviewing Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, maybe. I know it's come up in one or two podcasts I've done where doing exercise, and I would have to check what type if it was high-intensity. I thought it was high-intensity after sleep deprivation could actually counteract the negative metabolic effects on muscle from the sleep deprivation.

So it's interesting. Yeah, I've heard the exact opposite. Shall we answer another listener question? Let's do it. So we have a question from Leslie, and she says, when is the best time to work out at the tail end of the fast?

Barry Conrad
Yeah, awesome. Thank you so much for your question, Leslie, and very fitting. We just talked about exercising that last question there. And it's one of those questions that's, it sounds, it can sound simple on the surface, but it's actually, there's a lot of layers there. My short answer to that is, at the tail end of the fuss, maybe, maybe it is better. I mean, I know that's not the ultimate satisfying answer, because we all love the idea that there's one magic pill or find that magic window.

Everything suddenly becomes easier. But what I've learned personally through fasting and through co-hosting the show as well, and my own training is that the best workout time is the one that matches both your goals and your physiology seriously. And a lot of people love training at the end of a fast. I have trained at the end of a fast and it feels great. And there's a reason for that because your instant levels are lower, your body is relying more heavily on that stored energy. And many people, a lot of people like really talk about feeling that mental sharpness and that focus. I've definitely experienced that. And there's that sense of clarity that comes with that as well, like deep in the fast when you're training, because you're not digesting food, you're not feeling heavy, you're feeling light. And it's almost like a euphoric feeling for certain types of exercise. It can feel amazing. There have also been plenty of times where I've trained towards the end of my fasting window and felt like that. Although for me personally, I like to train in the morning, which is kind of maybe halfway through my fast. But I think where people can sometimes oversimplify it is just because you're fasting, you're training fasted and it works well for some workouts, it doesn't mean it's going to automatically be the best choice for every workout. So Melanie talked about in the last question about the types of training that could benefit from being sleep deprived or whatnot. So in a related way, just because you're fast, you're training fasted, that might not support every type of exercise. So for example, if you're listening to the show, you know, I've trained for half marathon recently. And what I noticed was that different workouts created different demands. So if I'm doing an easier run, a recovery run, something steady, training faster can feel awesome. I feel light on my feet focused, really my energy feels stable and I feel clear and strong. But if I'm doing a big hard session, speed work intervals or like a super demanding run or super demanding workout, that's a different situation. So because those things, those workouts rely so much on glycogen, like heavily on glycogen, which is stored carbohydrates. So while our body can use fat as fuel, it's not always the preferred fuel source. When you're asking for that type of workout, so it just depends on what you're after. In those sort of instances, it's not wrong, quote unquote, to have that fuel beforehand. And I think it's important because sometimes people start treating faster workouts like a Magnus Opus kind of thing, like it's somehow superior.

Barry Conrad
You know, and they're not, they're just a tool, whatever works best for you. And I think the goal isn't to suffer through a workout. So you can say, I did it fasted, I worked out fasted. The goal is to get the benefits of the workout. And that's a mindset thing.

Another thing I think that people can sometimes overlook is recovery. And I talked about that before. If you're training at the tail end of your fast, say even at the tail end of your day and you feel energized afterwards, I'd say safe to say you're recovering pretty well. You're sleeping well, you're eating well in your window. Your strength is improving and you're enjoying your workouts. And that's all a great sign.

But if you're, for example, constantly tired, constantly exhausted, your performance is dropping, you're getting injured more often, you're sort of dreading those sessions and you're struggling to recover, that could be just a sign that your body's telling you something. And hydration and electrolytes, shout out to hydration and electrolytes, seriously. I've learned this the hard way as well. Sometimes what can feel like low energy isn't a lack of food or sleep even, it's dehydration or low sodium.

So for example, if you're fasting, even if you're fasting and you're drinking lots of water, sweating and training, a simple electrolyte adjustment can change the game. It can change completely how a worker can feel. But one thing I do enjoy about training near the end of a fast is what comes afterwards. There's that satisfying feeling about finishing a workout and then guess what? Breaking your fast baby with a nutrient dense meal, which is awesome. So that can feel great and that you've earned it, your body's ready.

But it's again, go into that rhythm of what you enjoy, what feels good. Don't push through that just because you think you should. The biggest thing going back to what I said in the start of this answer is flexibility. I really believe in that because your normal might be XYZ, but be kind to yourself. If you're not feeling it that day, be flexible.

You can always jump back on tomorrow. Early on, I know for sure, I probably would have been way more rigid about this. I would have thought there's one way. Now I've way more in touch with my rhythm because your body's constantly giving you feedback, which you already are paying attention to. So yeah, best workout is the time that allows you to train consistently, recover properly and enjoy the process. Mel, what do you reckon?

Melanie Avalon
Awesome. That was really epic. So well, quick, really quick.

I pulled up my notes from Dr. Gabrielle Lyon because I wanted to check that. So she said that working out when sleep deprived, high intensity interval training may be best for preventing cognitive impairment from the sleep deprivation. And then this is not in my notes, but I think in general doing resistance training when your sleep deprives, because sleep deprivation is catabolic, so it breaks down your muscles. So doing some, even if it's light resistance training when sleep deprived, stimulates the muscles since that anabolic stimulus so can help with muscle preservation. Okay. Just wanted to say that. Back to Leslie's question. I agree. I feel like the main takeaway, and you said this a few times, and I disagree so much, is that the best exercise is the exercise that you do. So whatever works best in your lifestyle that you find enjoyable that you will keep doing consistently, that's what I would lead with.

I will say it really does depend on your goals as far as the physical aspect. So if burning stubborn fat, for example, is one of your goals, training at the very end, like right before breaking your fast, especially if it's a longer fast. And I've thought this for years. And again, there's a guest that talks about this as well, who is escaping my memory at the moment. But it's a really good way to burn stubborn fat, because once you're at that point where you're really deep into the fast, your glycogen is depleted in theory. So your body has to turn to fat burning mode more. Growth hormone is also elevated during fasting. So once you eat right after, you're going to have a bigger bolus and a bigger boost from that. And then like Barry was saying, you might find that you just feel lighter and more focused. And for me, I like that you can eat right after, because some people work out earlier, and then they find that they're hungry after, as far as like doing, and we've talked about this historically throughout the show, but some, especially like high performance athletes and such, might need to have more intense scheduled training with their meals and might do better with fed training. I think things like that though, we do know that as long as you're eating within a 24 hour window, after you're working out, especially with like the muscle, sorry, the stimulus from like resistance training, like you can still maintain and even build muscle. So the idea that you're going to just waste away and lose muscle is not accurate. But as far as I know, now I'm just saying the same thing over and over. I do think if your goal is to really tap into fat burning, especially like stubborn fat, then the tail end of the fast is an awesome time to do it. Or if your goal is to feel very light and focused, like Barry was saying, a great time to do it. And then all of that said, the best time is the time that you're actually going to do it. So good. I do think it's a good hack though.

Barry Conrad
No, I totally forgot about that because I know we talked about that in the past and I have actually done that towards the end, like jumped on that Stairmaster at the very end of my fast, like do my regular weight training in the morning, but then at the end of the day, jump on the Stairmaster or the incline walk and yep, that zaps that fat all the way down, really does.

Melanie Avalon
Again, going back to talking earlier about traveling, I think that's another reason that the, because I don't normally, I'm not normally like walking around a lot and stuff like that at the end of my fast. I'm usually in my apartment doing work, but like when I'm traveling, I'm like out, I'm doing things.

It really helps me tap into that fat burning mode. So, shall we have our proverbial breaking of the fast moment speaking of?

Barry Conrad
I thought you'd never ask.

Melanie Avalon
Okay

Barry Conrad
Sounds great.

Melanie Avalon
I know this is one of my favorite parts of the show. So every show we like to celebrate the importance of the evening window as well as the fast by profiling restaurants that we feel are really cool and we talk about what we would order.

And so I am picking today's restaurant.

Barry Conrad
I'm so excited. I can't wait. I'm in suspense. Is it going to be Disney? Is it going to be scary? Is it going to be, I don't know, Taylor Swift esque? I'm not sure. I don't know.

Melanie Avalon
I wanted to do something in honor of Las Vegas since I was just there. And I thought about it and I thought about doing one of the restaurants that I wanted to go to in the hotel. Maybe I'll do that in the hotel Conrad. Maybe I'll do that next time.

But I found a different one, which is actually in multiple cities. And the reason I want to do this one is because it used to be in LA and it's not anymore. And I loved it. And I haven't, I went, I think he's rebranded since then. And you might have heard of it because there's one in New York too, I'll send it to you. Have you been to the bazaar?

Barry Conrad
No, but I've heard about this place.

Melanie Avalon
I really want to know I tried to quickly find it out. I feel like because now it's called like bizarre meat. Yeah, I don't think it was called that when it was I went back in college so a long time ago when it was in LA.

But what it's really what's really cool about it's by Jose Andres. Is that how you say his name? I should know this.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, so it's bizarre meat, not there's bizarre ma, bizarre meat, bar centro, so bizarre meat, yeah?

Melanie Avalon
Bazaar, mar, maybe that's, it's in Vegas. That's in Vegas too. Oh wait, a place to enjoy the freshest fruits from the sea. Oh, so it's like a seafood one. Okay, so he must have, I could be wrong, but he must have rebranded it a little bit. Because when I went in LA, it was just the bazaar and it was, I think, and it was so cool. It was like the vibe of this place is like whimsical wonderland. It feels like Willy Wonka. They do really intriguing and interesting food combinations. Like when I went, it was all about like the science of, they used like scientists to come up with the flavor combinations and stuff. And I think it was like dishes with liquid nitrogen. And to this day, I remember some of the, I remember, you know when there's like a dish that sticks with you forever and ever? We got this prosciutto and I swore, I could have sworn up and down that it was, what did it taste like? It tasted like almonds. Like I could have sworn it was like flavored and it wasn't. It's just because they acorns, I think that was it. It's the pigs that it came from like only ate a diet of like acorns and it tasted like that. It was amazing.

But we can do, well, you should go to the one in New York. I'm gonna write that down. But now they have bizarre meat. So the locations are Las Vegas, Chicago, Miami Beach, New York, Washington, DC, Nashville, coming soon to Glendale in Los Angeles. So I guess it's coming back. So yeah, it must be different because now it's like bizarre meat. So I think there's a little bit more of a meat focus rather than the standard focus. But okay, should we do the Vegas one? Or should we do New York? Since you can actually go there.

Barry Conrad
Well, you choose. What do you reckon? Because, yeah, you choose. The ball is in your court.

Melanie Avalon
I wonder if it's the same menu. Let me see.

Barry Conrad
Okay, I'm going into bizami right now, clicking on the menus.

Melanie Avalon
So New York only has bizarre meat, but Vegas has bizarre Marr and bizarre meat. Now this is so hard. What should we do? What should we do?

Barry Conrad
Well, you love, I feel like you love seafood, but I feel like you love meat more.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, and should we do Vegas or should we do New York? I'm gonna see if they're the same menu.

Barry Conrad
Yes, you did the same.

Melanie Avalon
moment of truth.

Barry Conrad
Here we go, drumroll brrrrr.

Melanie Avalon
I think it's similar, but no, it's not.

Barry Conrad
in a good or a bad way.

Melanie Avalon
I don't know. It's just different. It's different.

Barry Conrad
I feel like because you were just there.

Melanie Avalon
Do Vegas. Yeah. Do you find the menu?

Barry Conrad
I've got the dinner menu open.

Melanie Avalon
located in the Venetian and it's a wild celebration of the carnivorous where bold flavors theatrical flair and inventive techniques redefine the modern steakhouse.

Barry Conrad
Sounds great. Sounds delicious.

Melanie Avalon
We have the men, the dinner menu. Oh, there it is. The first thing on the menu. Do you see it?

Barry Conrad
Yeah, that's all I see.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, so the first thing on the menu is the Jamon Iberico De Balota hand cut from the famous acorn-fed black-footed Spanish pig. I swear it tastes like acorns.

I didn't believe them. I was like, this has acorns in it.

Barry Conrad
Do they have is it like a big portion or is it like a little like what it how does it come is it a

Melanie Avalon
Well, again, this was like a long time ago, but back then it was small because it's it's like prosciutto.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, yeah. Well, I have to try that, so I'm getting that.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, this is like it's literally the first thing and they call it the the gemone experience so you can get yeah We'll just we'll just get that

Barry Conrad
Yeah, but also there's that you see there's the impoteros, which is a Spanish and domestic cured meats platter. So I wonder if that would be on there too or not.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, probably and it probably includes it. I just want that. I want the gem on. I want I want it. I've been thinking about it ever since then ever since

Barry Conrad
It sounds delicious. Interesting.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, do you want any of the little snacks?

Barry Conrad
Definitely Patatas Pravas, because I'm a big fan. I love those. And then...

Melanie Avalon
Oh, here's see here's where like they do weird things like they have cotton candy foie gras

Barry Conrad
That's so okay. You know, that sounds wild that I love foie gras.

Never try cotton candy foie gras. So let me just dive in and do that. Crispy corn with crispy corn nuts, cotton candy foie gras. What about you?

Melanie Avalon
Maybe some of the Neptune's pillow, which is tuna sashimi with ricotta mayo and air bread. I would just have the sashimi, please.

Barry Conrad
Yum. What interesting names by the way too. I like their names.

Melanie Avalon
I wonder if they still do it, like the one in LA had a gift shop and it was like Willy, I swear it was like Willy Wonka. Okay, do you want any of their little sandwiches?

Barry Conrad
I love a Philly cheesesteak vibe, so I'm going to grab one of those, but what's really catching my eye is below that, which I'm sure you can see.

Melanie Avalon
The sloppy gel. Oh, you're at the oysters. The next section is oysters. Yeah.

Barry Conrad
But before I go there, do you want any of the little sandwiches?

Melanie Avalon
No. No. Your Philly cheesesteak, by the way, comes with Wagyu beef.

Barry Conrad
which is great. That's partly why I got it as well, because it's not just the basic one.

Melanie Avalon
Yes. Okay. Here we are from the raw bar. We arrived.

Barry Conrad
What would you like to get from the robot, Mel?

Melanie Avalon
I will have a shrimp cocktail, please. I love a good shrimp cocktail.

And it comes with Pecu, Pecu-o, Pecu-o, I can't speak, I don't know what that word is, cocktail sauce and avocado. I'll have all of that on the side.

Barry Conrad
I will have half a dozen of the ponzu oysters and half a dozen of the smoked oysters, and the ponzu oysters come with just ponzu, ginger, salmon roe, and smoked oysters, applewood smoked oysters, apple mignonette, air, and then I'm going to also get a shrimp cocktail because I just don't have them enough, so I want to just try them all.

Melanie Avalon
I have them all the time. I literally every every time it's on the menu, I usually get one.

Barry Conrad
They're refreshing, they're almost like a dessert in a way. You know, they're cold, they're delicious, you know?

Melanie Avalon
I ate a lot of shrimp on this trip as well. It's a good thing to get from like, yeah, like at Whole Foods because you can just get it, it's already cooked, you know? So it's easy, it travels well, you can eat it while traveling.

Okay, ooh. Now we have the, from the Jamon bar, we have tartars. Do you want any? I love tartar. This is, this is a double yes. I want the classic, beef sirloin, egg yolk, mustard sauce, anchovy, Parker rolls, sauce on the side.

Barry Conrad
I will also get the classic. You can't go wrong with the classic and I'll give that all. That sounds great.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, now we have carpaccio. This is like meat heaven. Literally like every form of meat. I'm so happy here.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, aren't you glad we chose this one of the seafood one, the Ma?

Melanie Avalon
Yes. I feel like I need to do the seafood one next time because I'm really curious what it is. I probably will do it next time.

Carpaccio. Love Carpaccio. Yes. Oh, they have bison buffalo style. Yes. I want bison buffalo carpaccio. I've never had that. It comes with pickled cherry, blue cheese, buffalo wing sauce. Oh, but it's still bison. So I'll have that but all the stuff on the side.

Barry Conrad
I'm going to go the wagyu kapachio, Japanese wagyu, horseradish, creme fraiche, caramelized onion, meganas and capers. Yum!

This is honestly so delicious, the more we go down it's like a little surprise. Treasure hunt.

Melanie Avalon
soups and salads, anything you want.

Barry Conrad
I mean, I think I'll leave that for this time around.

Melanie Avalon
Okay. And now we are two meats from the fire. And the quote says, come on, guys. This is why you are here, as Jose Andre says.

This is the heart and soul of bizarre meat. Our young animals are nested in a Spanish Cozuela and roasted in a wood-fired oven. This traditional method achieves a crispy skin and juicy interior. Okay. So they have, oh, wow. They have an entire one-fourth suckling pig. And a whole suckling pig? Oh my goodness. That's where it's like the entire pig, right? Like... The whole thing. Oh, it's $620.

Barry Conrad
Imagine though, I mean, Mel, can you, yeah, I mean, that's a lot. Imagine having a, how would they serve that?

Melanie Avalon
9 to 11 pounds. Yeah, I wonder.

Barry Conrad
Would they cut off the meat for the guests or would we have to like sort of just cut it off the pig? You know what I'm trying to say? Like, how do they?

Melanie Avalon
I'm looking it up. I need to know. I need to see.

Barry Conrad
Imagine a massive pig in between us. We're just trying to talk and looking around the pig like, hey.

Melanie Avalon
I'm seeing I'm seeing if it comes off on Google images. Oh, yeah, there it is.

Really? It's kind of like, you know, when you when there's like prime prime rib, it's like that, but it's like the pig. They like cut slices off of it.

Oh, my goodness. Oh, it looks kind of. Oh, man.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, not feeling it.

Melanie Avalon
No, I mean, it's interesting. It's just crazy, because it's like the entire pig is right there.

Barry Conrad
Well, that's, that's quite a, an offer. I mean, that's 24 hours notice, but still, what if a lot of people, what if 20 people wanted a whole pig? That's, that's a little.

Melanie Avalon
I wonder how many they sell a day, you know, you got to imagine that there's like a lot of business dinners where they're trying to impress their clients and, you know, order this.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, of course. A whole suckling pig. Are you tempted by the quarter suckling pig or the whole suckling pig at all? Not really.

Melanie Avalon
I mean, if it's like just me and you, I feel like a quarter suckling pig. But if it's like a whole thing, I mean, I would like to see that for sure.

If this is all being paid for by somebody, then yes. How about you?

Barry Conrad
Yeah, I think the quarter something. Yeah, if we're like when we're eating and be the quarter, we're not going to do the whole thing.

That's I feel like we'd have a lot of to go containers if we did the whole cycling thing.

Melanie Avalon
Oh my goodness. I wonder if anybody's tried to order it to go.

Barry Conrad
Can I have a pig to go with, please? A whole pig.

Melanie Avalon
And that's the first time we've seen that on a menu, right?

Barry Conrad
Same first time ever. I've never heard of that or seen it and didn't think that was even something restaurants could offer.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, now we are to our big guy's cooked Jose's way, which is 46 degrees Celsius. What is that in Fahrenheit? Is that hot?

Barry Conrad
Yeah, definitely not.

Melanie Avalon
114.8.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, it's pretty hot.

Melanie Avalon
So is this the, okay, oh, so these are rib state, these are bone and rib eyes. Oh, and it's the ranches that they're from. That's cool.

Barry Conrad
You like that.

Melanie Avalon
I love seeing where they're from. So I would want to look up these different ranches and see if any of them are like, you know, regenerative, organic, or if they're grass, you know, if they're grass fed.

I wish they had like a tasting.

Barry Conrad
Like one of the other restaurants we saw, we could do like little trios of things. Remember that?

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, in Memphis.

Barry Conrad
Well, maybe we could get like a little, I don't know. We can maybe talk to the chef and see what we could do, you know?

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, they do tasting later for the Wagyu. This menu is so complicated.

So right underneath that they have so from all of this meat stuff, because right underneath it, then they have like other things. Do you see what would you get out of all this stuff?

Barry Conrad
Well, out of the big guys, I'm intrigued by the, the Akashi. I'm not sure why I just would want to try that, but I, I agree. I'd like to like do a tasting situation, see even if we can have like a taste before we try it or order, it's a big commitment to order our whole thing without knowing.

Melanie Avalon
I'm asking chat. I gave it a picture if any of these are grass fed. Oh, it's a breed. Oh, wait, I don't know. It's not being helpful.

Barry Conrad
Well, I will go with the Akashi. I think I'll go with the Akashi and then also I would want to, from the nuts of big guys, I love pork chops so much.

I'd want to grab some pork chops underneath there.

Melanie Avalon
Awesome. I think I would ask them if one of the ribeyes is grass-fed and leaner, and if so, I might get that. Or maybe they have a bone-in strip. Or I've never had beef cheeks, have you?

Barry Conrad
I actually have, and it's really good. This is a stew, never mind. You don't like stews? Let's go to Yahoo, we've got stuff inside it.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. So I think I would go with the, actually, I think I'll get the bone and strip and or possibly the, the leanest ribeye available. Would you get any of the Wagyu?

Barry Conrad
You know, I would try this, the snow aged wagyu that sounds interesting.

Melanie Avalon
That just sounds cool.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, it sounds cool. So it sounds like we're trying Marukami Niigata Prefecture Snow Age Wagyu. Let's go. Let's try it. I'm all for it. What about you?

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, I would want them to like tell me about the different ones and again, I feel like all Wagyu is, I don't know, I would have a lot of questions about the farms they come from. You know, it's funny.

So the next section is from the sea and it's just four things. I wonder at the Marr restaurant, is it like all sea stuff, but then there's like a from the land and it's like four things.

Barry Conrad
Just four things, yeah.

Melanie Avalon
I'm going to do it as my next restaurant so we can find out. Would you get anything from the sea?

Barry Conrad
Yeah, I'll get the guess what I get, you might get hurt.

Melanie Avalon
Do you want the, I know, I mean, I know it's either the, is it the octopus?

Barry Conrad
Yep. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon
the grilled pulpo a la galaga, Galician-style octopus, potato, and pimenton.

Barry Conrad
I've had grilled octopus probably a couple of times this past month. I just love it so much. It's really good.

Melanie Avalon
Shockingly unexpensive compared to everything else on the menu. I wonder why that's interesting

Barry Conrad
That is interesting.

Melanie Avalon
I was actually thinking about you at the Whole Foods counter yesterday.

Barry Conrad
Why? What did you get?

Melanie Avalon
They had an octopus and I was like, I don't know. I just thought about you.

I was like, maybe I should get that. Did you get it? No. No. I did get an entire branzino and I like the entire fish, you know, like the whole fish eyes and everything.

Barry Conrad
I also had dinner real quick with another Melanie, but it's Melanie, not Melanie. And she also famously does not like oysters and does not like octopus.

So it's like, is it a Melanie thing? I don't know.

Melanie Avalon
Well, I don't know, well, I don't like oysters. I don't know if I don't like octopus, but oysters, yeah.

Barry Conrad
Well, she doesn't know either. She's like, is that, have you tried it? No, just, I just don't like it. It just doesn't, you know,

Melanie Avalon
No, no, no, no, no.

Barry Conrad
Do you see anything from the vegetables and potatoes?

Melanie Avalon
No. Do you?

Barry Conrad
No, because I reckon I got the bravo sputata, so I think I'll be good with that.

Melanie Avalon
Shall we look at the dessert menu? Let's do it. Can I have a bite of your pork chops too, by the way?

Barry Conrad
Sure. Of course you can. This is one of those places where we need it need a few hours to kind of really settle in.

Melanie Avalon
Oh man, okay, menus, go back to menus, desserts.

Barry Conrad
I know what I'm getting.

Melanie Avalon
Can I guess?

Barry Conrad
There's a couple of things that I'm going to get actually, and only because I've been having one of the other things more recently as well.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, are you gonna get the oh, this is hard. I feel like you would like want to try most of these the first thing

Barry Conrad
I want to do the chocolate hazelnut mousse because it's chocolate and then the tart de queso because it's like Basque cheesecake. Yeah, I've been having a lot of like that kind of cheesecake lately and it's really good.

Melanie Avalon
Would you add truffle and chestnut honey for $45? That's, it better be minuet honey.

Barry Conrad
that should be like a whole other dessert it's like special no i think i'll leave that but that sounds good what about you

Melanie Avalon
I would be getting a repeat of something from the dinner menu, maybe more of that ham, the acorn fed, the acorn fed prosciutto. And then they have lots of lines.

Let me see if I see anything right off the... So I'd have to look these up and see which ones, again, are organic. Oh, I've actually had one of these. Which one? Round pond. I'm pretty sure they're organic. Is it good? It's very traditional Napa cab. So it's very full bodied and it is good. But I would want something from Europe. So maybe the Nebbiolo or probably the Nebbiolo, or maybe the Cab Franc if that is a organic winery.

Barry Conrad
You know what, I'm actually going to get, I don't have to do by the bottle, but I'd want to get like a bottle of the Pinot Noir, the 2023 Leoco Mendocino County, California Pinot Noir, just because there's so much meat going on here. I'm just going to stick to some red.

Melanie Avalon
I love that. I love that your intense red is a pinot noir, which is like the lightest red. I'm not I'm not shaming you.

Barry Conrad
No, you know what, I happily admit that I'm not as versed in red, so if you want to educate me on a heavier red, please, especially for this meal.

Melanie Avalon
Pino's tends to be lighter. So if you wanted something for really to meatsteak, you would want a Syrah or a Cabernet, Sauvignon. The Tempranil can be heavier.

Barry Conrad
The Tempranillo blend. I love Tempranillo, so maybe that could be a situation. Let's do that.

Melanie Avalon
but probably like Sera and Kabsav are the intense ones. But you like to Prinioso, you know?

Barry Conrad
I do. I still can't get over the Syrah to the Shirez.

Melanie Avalon
Sarash, Aras, Sarah, it's so funny. Depends where you're from. Okay. Awesome. Well, I really want to go here. Same. Interesting that they're opening too in Los Angeles, you know.

Barry Conrad
Do you know which parts?

Melanie Avalon
I mean, one says Glendale and then one says Glendale and just Los Angeles. I wonder if it's going to be where it used to be, which was, I think, like, I think it was in West Hollywood.

Barry Conrad
That would go off for sure.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, let's see. Oh, it might be downtown. Oh, let's see. It's gonna be oh, guess what? It's gonna be at the Conrad Los Angeles

Barry Conrad
That's great. I love it. I need to stay there.

Melanie Avalon
It's going to be the con, the first Conrad hotel in Los Angeles, in California. And they are going to have two Jose Andre group things. They're going to have, uh, what are they going to have? I'm not sure. I guess they'll have that. And then they'll have something else. Very cool. Oh, he's here. He, he said, I love Los Angeles. It's where we debuted the bazaar years ago.

Yes. And since then we've evolved with many new stories to share through food. Okay. It's going to be downtown. Okie dokie. Well, listeners, friends, hope you enjoyed your time with us, I feel like we need to do like a vegetarian restaurant sometime to make up for all of this, but I wouldn't order anything. I would just drink wine the whole time. And then I would go home and eat, but for listeners and friends, thank you so much for spending your time with us. If you would like to submit your own questions for the show, you can directly email questions at if podcast.com, or you can go to if podcast.com and submit questions there, and you can get all of the stuff that we like at if podcast.com slash stuff we like. And the show notes for today will be at if podcast.com slash episode 482. And yeah, you can follow us on Instagram. We are if podcast, I'm Melanie Avalon, Barry is Barry underscore Conrad. And I think that's all the things. Anything from you, Barry, before we go.

Barry Conrad
That's all the things. Thank you so much for tuning in once again everyone and we'll catch you next week.

Melanie Avalon
next week. Bye.

Bye. Thank you so much for listening to the Intermittent Fasting podcast. Please remember, everything we discussed on this show does not constitute medical advice, and no patient-doctor relationship is formed.

If you enjoyed the show, please consider writing a review on iTunes. We couldn't do this without our amazing team. Editing by podcast doctors, show notes and artwork by Brianna Joyner, and original theme composed by Leland Cox and recomposed by Steve Saunders.

See you next week!

Jul 06

#481 – Special Guest Jason Fung, The Hunger Code, Rethinking The Body Fat Equation, The Three Types Of Hunger, Calories Vs. Hormones, Skipping Breakfast, Food Amnesia, Food Addiction, Why You Can’t Lose Weight, And More!

Welcome to Episode 481 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, biohacker, founder of AvalonX, and author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine, and Barry Conrad, actor, singer-songwriter, and creator and host of Banter with BC.

SHOW NOTES

Jason Fung, MD, turned his passion for disease prevention into a groundbreaking, clinically proven, and natural treatment for type 2 diabetes and obesity that has helped thousands of people around the world lose weight and reverse and prevent metabolic disease. Often called the founder of intermittent fasting, Dr. Fung was one of the first medical doctors to prescribe a lowcarb, high healthy fat diet alongside intermittent fasting to his patients struggling with diabetes and obesity. Today, Dr. Fung continues to promote the fasting lifestyle while simultaneously addressing the root causes of hunger and overeating in his patients.

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

TRANSCRIPT

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

Melanie Avalon
Welcome to episode 481 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. If you want to burn fat, gain energy, and enhance your health by changing when you eat, not what you eat, with no calorie counting, then this show is for you. I'm Melanie Avalon, biohacker, founder of AvalonX, and author of What, When, Wine. Lose weight and feel great with paleo-style meals, intermittent fasting, and wine. And I'm joined by my co-hosts, Barry Conrad, actor, singer-songwriter, and creator and host of Banter with BC. For more on us, check out MelanieAvalon.com and BarryConradOfficial.com. You can submit questions for the show by emailing questions at iofpodcast.com or by going to iofpodcast.com. We would love to hear from you.

Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this show do not constitute medical advice or treatment. So pour yourself a mug of black coffee, a cup of tea, or even a glass of wine, if it's that time, and get ready for the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Hi friends, welcome back to the show. We have a very, very exciting special episode for you today. Jason Fung is a legend on this show. We've been talking about his work for years and years and I know you guys know who he is. If you don't, he is basically one of the grandfathers of all things fasting. He wrote the obesity code, life in the fasting lane, the complete guide to fasting, and so much more. And today he is here for his newest book, The Hunger Code. Friends, I am obsessed with this conversation. We talk about all the factors that might be affecting why weight loss is so difficult because there is not one answer. There are so many things. Is it just calories in versus calories out? We talk about that. So get ready for this very special episode. You are going to learn what actually creates hunger, the three types of hunger, how you can rethink the body fat equation, the role of calories versus hormones and weight loss, how memory affects food intake, whether or not food addiction is real, and so much more.

So now without further ado, please enjoy this wonderful conversation with Dr. Jason Fung. Hi friends, welcome back to the show. I am so incredibly excited about the conversation I am about to have. It is with honestly, probably the most well-known popular guest to my audience. That's highly possible. It's definitely somebody that I've been following from for years and years and years. So you know him for the obesity code, the complete guide to fasting, life in the fasting lane. We actually had him on the show. I don't know if you remember this, Jason, but you came on for the cancer code back in, was that 2020 that that book came out? 2020, it was a while ago. Yes, yes. You have your newest book, The Hunger Code, Resetting Your Body's Fat Thermostat and Age of Ultra Processed Food. So when the opportunity came on to have you on the show for this, I was obviously a 100% complete yes. I'm just smiling because especially on the Intermittent Fasting Podcast, which we launched that show in I think, I don't even know, 2016 or 2017.

Melanie Avalon
Like you were always mentioned in the listener questions, like 24-7. So we were always talking about your work and really, really grateful for all that you're doing.

And I loved reading The Hunger Code. So friends, this book dives deep, deep, deep into the, which we can talk about, the potential myth of calories in versus calories out and the role of hormones and comparison to that. And then it's really a deep dive into all of the things that affect our hunger. So Jason talks about how we have three different types of hunger. And there are all these tips and tricks that you can follow and implement into your life to deal with your hormones and your hunger. And something I really liked about it is I love when I find really cool random studies with little like things that I haven't heard before about our eating habits and how we can optimize our lives in that way. And there were so many incredible studies in here that I've actually been talking about on the intermittent fasting podcast. So love this book.

I have so many questions and oh, I don't think I've even said his name. I'm here with Dr. Jason Fung. Jason, thank you so much for being here. Thank you.

Jason Fung
Thank you so much. Great to be here.

Melanie Avalon
So to start things off, this book, so the, okay, I just mentioned all of your different books, but what was the book immediately prior to this one? It was.

Jason Fung
Probably it was a while ago as the Cancer Code, that was in 2020, and then, you know, and then COVID was happening and all this crazy stuff is happening. So I sort of took a little bit of a break and then, you know, but then there's been some new research and stuff.

So then I thought, this is really interesting. Sempic was becoming very popular, which was sort of pointing the way to how you really have to focus on weight loss, which is on the hunger piece, not the calories piece. So then that's why I thought, well, this is actually really, really interesting. And I haven't seen a lot of stuff written about this. So I thought this actually is really important. So that's why I started working on this new book, The Hunger Code. And to me, it's very exciting. It's sort of new stuff. It's not a hundred, you know, it's not all diet related because really there's a lot more to it than just the diet.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, it's overwhelmingly comprehensive and everything that it covers. And I didn't really say that the cancer code was the last one.

Okay, so this is interesting, just hearing with what you've said. So you said something in the book about GLP-1 agonists and like Ozimpic. And it was actually the exact opposite of something another guest said, but very similar and I'll tell you what it is. And I'm curious your thoughts on it and how much it even matters in the grand scheme of things, which is you were saying that taking these GLP-1 inhibitors that it shows us that it's about hunger, not calories. I had a prior guest on the show who literally said the exact opposite. He was like, these clearly show that at the end of the day, it really is just calories because it just makes people eat less calories. So, I mean, I know where you land on it because I read the book, but the calories versus the hunger, is it both? Does it even matter at the end of the day? Where do you land?

Jason Fung
I've heard that argument too that it's all about the calories and then, you know, oh, that's, that's what it shows. It's like, I think it's, truthfully, I think it's a really, it shows really a very shallow sort of level of understanding. Because if you think about, you know, if you say, okay, people are over or getting overweight because they're overeating, right? So it's like, okay, that's fine. That's a very shallow level of understanding because you have to understand why they're overeating.

It's not that they're overeating. You have to understand why they're overeating. So if you're overeating, why is it that you're overeating, right? And the answer is, of course, you eat because you're hungry and you stop eating when you're full. So the problem of the overeating is really a problem of over hunger. That's the real problem, right? That's what the GLP-1 shows you because GLP-1s do not restrict calories in any way, okay? So if you think about what the sort of root cause analysis, if you look at sort of what's causing problems, right? You could say that, okay, calories is sort of how the whole thing is played out, but what is controlling the calories behind it? Because if you're not hungry, you're not going to eat. It's not about willpower, right? You didn't eat because you didn't want to eat, right? The hunger, when you turn it off, stops you from eating, right? So it's the hunger that is sort of the more deeper root cause of the whole issue, if you will, right? So you can restrict calories, and people have done it. There's lots of ways to restrict calories. You could wire somebody's josha, or you could cut somebody's stomach, right, to the size of a walnut, which is what bariatric surgery does. And the thing is that when you physically restrict calories, what happens is that you just get hungrier. So if you wire somebody's josha, which is very popular in the sixties as a weight loss control method, what happens is that people just get hungry and hungry until they find a way around your physical restriction of calories. So they drink smoothies and eat ice cream and stuff, and they regain all that weight. It's incredibly unsuccessful. It fails virtually every time, because if you think about it, suppose you just go on a calorie restricted diet while hunger keeps going up and up and up. So your calories goes down, but your hunger goes up. Well, you're eventually going to lose, and it's really miserable while you're doing it. So what happens instead if you're to reduce hunger? such as what the GLP won, right? So if you reduce hunger, you also will reduce calories, but notice that you're not fighting with yourself anymore, right? Before, you're always fighting with your hunger because calories went down, hunger went up. They're complete opposites. If you control the hunger, hunger goes down, calories goes down. So therefore, you're actually going to succeed, which is precisely what Ozempeka showed, like virtually all the studies have showed that, right?

Jason Fung
So it's not about controlling the calories, because when you control the calories, you're going to fail, right? It's about controlling the source. Sort of like if you have a fever, you could put some cold cloths on your forehead and stuff, and your temperature will go down, but you're still gonna have an infection, right? Because the infection is what caused the fever. So if you treat it with antibiotics, then you treat the infection, which naturally lowers your fever, right? As opposed to lowering your fever, which does nothing for your infection, because the infection is a sort of deeper cause, right? So you always have to go into that deeper level of understanding. And in the hunger code, I talk about the sort of this concept and logic called the three whys, right? And to understand a problem, you have to sort of ask the question, why three times? Otherwise, you're going to be stuck at a very shallow level of understanding.

So if you're just say, for example, why did the Titanic sink? The wrong answer is because it hit an iceberg, right? And you say, well, why would that be the wrong answer? It did hit an iceberg, absolutely it did. Because if you stop at that shallow level of understanding, then your advice to prevent future marine disasters is don't hit icebergs, right? Which is really stupid, right? It looks like that's not good advice. So therefore you really have to go to a deeper level. So you have to ask the second why. So why did the Titanic sink? One, the first why is because it hit an iceberg. Why did it hit the iceberg? It's like because the captain couldn't avoid it in time. The third why is to say, why couldn't the captain avoid the iceberg? And the answer is because it was going too fast. Now that's the real answer. So the solution therefore is in bad weather, slow down. And that's actually good advice, right? As opposed to the don't hit icebergs advice, right? You know, the don't hit icebergs people is exactly the same level of understanding as the calories people. Because if you say, okay, well, you know, why are you gaining fat? Well, because calories in is greater than calories out. Yes, that is true. But that's the don't hit icebergs level of understanding. The more important question is why is calories in greater than calories out, right? Not that it is, but why is it greater than calories? Why is calories in greater than calories out? And the answer is because you're hungry, right? And then the third question, the third why, which is, I think, even more interesting, is why are you hungry, right? And that's where you have to say, well, that's a really critical question because if you can understand why you're hungry, then you can actually control your hunger, which will therefore allow you to successfully lose weight in the long term. And the answer is there's three different types of hunger. There's a physical type of hunger called homeostatic hunger, which is controlled by hormones. There's a emotional type of hunger, which is called hedonic hunger.

Jason Fung
And there's a social type of hunger, which is called conditioned hunger. So there's three very different reasons why you might be overeating. But the point is that you can't get to that level of understanding until you get to that sort of third why, right? And so what Ozumpik does, of course, is it plays on the homeostatic hunger, uses the GLP-1 system to overwhelm your hunger, basically shuts it right down. But it shuts down all your hungers, right? So it shuts down all of that, and therefore you eat less, and therefore the calories goes down, right?

But again, this whole calories in, calories out thing is people are just stuck at this really shallow level of understanding and insisting that they're right. The calorie bullies are like, oh, I'm right, I'm right. You did hit an iceberg. You did hit an iceberg. The advice is don't hit icebergs. It's like, okay, well, that's just not helpful. It's just like if you were to say, okay, you're a kid that took your car, went on an icy road, flew off the edge, right? What's your advice, right? It's slow down, right? Your advice is not, well, the reason you flew off the road is the force of gravity and the force of friction. You know, the force of friction was less than the centrifugal force pushing off the ground. Like, that's stupid, right? Slow down. Your root cause was you went too fast, slow down, right?

But you have to get to the why did you slide off the edge of the road? It's like because you're going too fast, right? So this is the whole argument. It's not that the calories in, calories out is necessarily wrong because it is technically right. Just like don't hit icebergs is technically right. But it's not useful, right? And that's the real problem. And there's so many, the same examples, right? It's like, why did the plane crash? It's like, well, because the force of gravity was higher than the lifting force. Well, that's always true, right? It's like, but that's not useful, right? You know, you're playing crash because you didn't do proper maintenance on it. So you do proper maintenance, right? But you have to get to that understanding of, well, why is the force of gravity higher than the force of lift? Well, because your engine didn't work. Why didn't your engine work? Well, because you didn't maintain it. So therefore when you say, okay, how do I prevent crashes? It's like, get proper maintenance.

Not make sure the force lifting force is greater than the gravity force, right? Because that's a superficial understanding. And that's the whole problem with these calories people is they're so smug and so sure how right they are because they're like, it's physics, right? It's all like, you know, gravity versus lift. How can you deny that? It's physics, it's like, no, because you're not understanding the sort of deeper problem. So here's the thing, right? So if you think about the types of hunger, you have homeostatic hunger, you have tonic hunger, you have conditioned hunger.

Jason Fung
So suppose you have somebody who is not getting enough sleep, right? And that's their problem. And we know that if you get sleep deprivation, you will gain weight. It's a very common reason why people gain weight, sleep deprivation. So therefore, what's the solution? Well, the calories will keep people say, well, eat your calories. It's like, wait a second. Your problem was you didn't get enough sleep. Why would you be talking about calories? Your solution should be get better sleep, obviously, right?

So what does it have to do with calories? Or say you have a situation, somebody is depressed and they're eating a lot of junk food because it makes them feel better. Well, that's why they're gaining weight because they're eating junk food like crazy. They're eating potato chips and ice cream all day long because they're depressed and it makes them feel better. It's a comfort food. So therefore, the solution is to deal with the emotions and try and figure out another way to feel better rather than eating, right? It had nothing to do with the calories in, calories out. It had everything to do with their emotional state.

But you only get to that point by understanding the sort of deeper reasoning. So every time people talk about, it's all calories, like they're pretending that it's a math problem, you know, it's just add this minus this and it equals this. It's like, it's not a math problem. Nothing in the human body works quite like that. And that's why when you simply focus on the calories, it almost always fails. And that's just the reality, right?

Every single study has shown that if you just restrict calories, you're going to fail in the long term. And it's not like nobody's ever done this. Millions of people have done these calorie restricted diets and it completely fails.

Melanie Avalon
Well, okay, so many things here. Speaking of it being a math problem, I had a mind-blown moment when you rewrite the equation. So, you know, you make the proposal that instead of thinking of it as, you know, our body fat equals calories in minus calories out, we can change it to, I think calories in equals body fat plus calories out. And I literally went and I did like the math with it, where you like add one to both sides. I was like, Oh, yeah, that actually does work out.

And like, when you think about it that way, you know, that's such a reframe. Okay, so question about the three hungers. Because I think when we think of, well, first of all, I think when we think of hunger, most people think of the first type, the homeostatic. So the, you know, the physical hunger, but we've also got, like you said, this hedonic hunger that involves emotions. And then we've got the conditioned hunger based on our environment. So in a way, I feel like the hunger, maybe people would understand it more if it's like the desire to eat. Either way, why do you think like with a simple, for example, presumably, and you've touched on this, but presumably, it's affecting the homeostatic hunger. So just the literal physical hunger, but it seems to work for the others as well. So are those hungers on a hierarchy where if you really address like that, that, you know, actual hunger that it filters into the emotional and the environment and everything else.

Jason Fung
Well, it's sort of like that. I mean, when you're talking about GLP-1 drugs, what's happening is that you're using one system, which is the GLP-1 system, to basically overwhelm all the other systems, because it's not a normal level of GLP-1, it's a sort of super high level, super physiologic, if you will. So you can't achieve those levels of GLP-1 by yourself. So it's, it's artificial.

So you can use super high levels of that to overwhelm everything else. Just like, you know, for example, if you take certain drugs or like chemotherapy and you're nauseated, right? Well, all your hunger will go away. It doesn't matter if you have social hunger or if you have emotional hunger, you're so nauseated that you just can't eat, right? And there's different ways that the GLP-1 system does this, like through the, directly through the brain, but also slowing the, the, uh, emptying of the stomach and so on. So there's multiple ways that it works, but each one of them can, like, they're all part of eating behavior. So they all sort of exist on a continuum, but at any time, one of them can sort of take over one of the others. And this is, this is, for example, hedonic hunger, which is the emotional type, is one of the big things that affects it is actually the ultra-processed foods. So ultra-processed foods are designed to create sort of maximum pleasure. And therefore they can lead to things like food addiction because of the way they're processed.

And that can overwhelm your homeostatic system, right? Because of the way it's, it's again, this sort of artificially constructed food that is able to create so much sort of eating behavior that it overwhelms the other, the natural breaks on the system because your body normally tries to slow down what you're eating, right? But people have had the sensation where you start and you just can't stop, right? It's like an addiction, you know, if you're addicted to alcohol, you can't stop, even though, you know, it's really going to kill you. It's the same with ultra-processed foods. And the key is not the food necessarily or the calories or whatever. The key is the processing has made it such that you really can't stop. What's funny about food addiction, for example, is that it's, the research behind it is sort of exploding, especially in the last five or six years. You really have to treat it as an addiction, right? And the reason that's important is because in addiction, you have to treat with abstinence, right?

And that's where it falls apart. Like if you have somebody who's addicted to alcohol, you would never say to that person, hey, just have a drink, everything in moderation, right? Because when they start, they can't stop. You'd be like the worst friend ever, right? But when people are addicted to ultra-processed foods, people are like, well, everything in moderation, you can have it. It's like, why would you say that? It's like, would you say to a cocaine addict, oh yeah, just take a little bit of cocaine, just take a little less cocaine. It's fine. It's like, you're not a very good friend, are you?

Jason Fung
You're not a very good doctor if you say that. Yet at the same time, food addictions, we don't, we don't treat as real, but there, you know, what the research is showing, especially in the last few years, is that it is real and people describe it all the time, right? People say, I'm addicted to bread. I start, I can't stop. I'm addicted to chips. I'm addicted to, you know, pizza. I'm addicted to sweets. I'm addicted to chocolate. We just didn't believe them. They're saying it all the time.

We just didn't believe those people, but it turns out that they were much more right than wrong and now we have ways to measure it, something called the food, uh, Yale food addiction score. And, and, and as predicted, a lot of the foods that are a lot of the people who struggle with weight are actually food addicts, not simply loss of willpower. Just like somebody who's an alcoholic, right? Addicted to alcohol. You can't just will yourself away from that addiction, right? Or if you're addicted to narcotics like Michael Jackson or something, you can't just will yourself all the money in the world won't do that for you, but what you have to do is acknowledge it as a real addiction and, and treat it as a real addiction. So that's, you know, that's, that's the thing. So, so if you have that, that may completely overwhelm your other types of hunger. So all of them are sort of important in their own way, but they're going to be different. Like, it's not like a hierarchy. It's like some people for some people is going to be the homeostatic hunger for some people is going to be the hedonic hunger, the emotional, some people is going to be the social hunger, right? Which is called conditioned hunger. If you have a problem with conditioned hunger, but then you have to bring a totally different toolbox to bear because it wasn't about the diet is about your habits. And therefore, how you're going to get better is by treating that conditioned hunger.

Whereas the person who, you know, had an addiction to refined carbohydrates, their problem is you need to cut out refined carbohydrates. And the person who is sleep deprived, who had too much cortisol, the problem is to get more sleep. So you see that there's actually different solutions for everybody, right? But the problem with these calories, people is they want to apply the same solution to all these different problems, right?

The man with the hammer, every problem is a nail, right? So it's like, oh, your problem is sleep deprivation, solution, calorie restriction, what? Your problem is food addiction, solution, calorie restriction, right? It's like, huh, your problem is bad habits, solution, calorie restriction. It's like, why do you bring the same solution to every single problem? Why don't you try and understand the problem so you can treat it perimenopause? You're gaining weight, solution, calorie restriction. What? The problem is perimenopause, right? It's like, we all know it's a high risk period of weight gain. So why do you treat it as a willpower problem?

Jason Fung
It's obviously a hormonal problem, right? So, you know, the problem goes on and on is it's really trying to, and what I write about is always trying to understand the deeper levels of what the problem is so that you can come up with a good solution, right? Not just, oh, hey, it's all about calorie restriction, calorie restriction. That's going to solve everything.

So if your problem is that you're under stress and that's why you're eating, the solution is deal with the stress, right? Deal with it in a way that is not eating.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, that completely makes sense about the different hungers and kind of like with the GLPs turning off one system and overwhelming everything else, I can see how that would happen. Like with hedonic hunger, for example, say you could be depressed and you know, not wanting to eat at all. And then that would overwhelm, you know, the other, the other two systems, or like with the conditioned one, I guess if your environment literally changed so that you couldn't eat, then that would overwhelm the other ones as well.

The addiction piece, I, so I feel so strongly about this and I loved reading your take on it in the book, because like you were saying about the moderation that people advocate for with food, and maybe this is just coming from my own personal history, but for me, it is like the foods that really would just be a gateway food. I just can't have any of them because if I have just a little bit and they're all like ultra processed foods, it's like funfetti cake and stuff, like if I have a bite of that, I am so miserable, like the idea of like moderating that is not anything I want to engage with. And yet, I feel like society says, oh, that means you don't have self control around food. And it's like, maybe, maybe, maybe I just need abstinence here. So I really like empowering that in people.

Jason Fung
thing right because it's like well if you know that you know somebody has an addiction to food and I hear all these the reason people didn't treat it as real is because people say well there's really silly stuff right it's like you have to eat right so therefore you can't abstain from food like that I'm not saying abstain from food I'm saying abstain from alter the the ultra processed foods that you're addicted to right so if you are

Melanie Avalon
the front fatty

Jason Fung
Exactly. If you're addicted to alcohol, I don't say don't drink anything, right? Why? That'd be stupid, right? Of course, you can drink water. Of course, you can drink tea. So if you're addicted to funfetti cake, I don't say don't eat beef, right? Why would I say that, right? So it's a stupid argument.

And then other people say that, well, food is all natural, right? So therefore, you can't be addicted to it. It's like, well, you know that cigarettes come from tobacco plants, and morphine comes from the poppy plants, and marijuana comes from the marijuana plant, right? I suppose those things can't be addictive either, right? It's like, of course they're addictive. Alcohol comes from, you know, whatever you're fermenting, right? Grains or whatever, hops. It's like, of course you can be addicted to those. The key is that you process them. It's the way you process them and sort of isolate and concentrate the addictive substances in it. And that's what happens with ultra-processed food.

So you can be addicted to bread, or cake, or chocolate. But very few people will ever tell you, I am addicted to eggplant, right? I can't stop eating it, right? It's like, of course I can stop eating it. I love eggplant, actually. But I can stop eating it. It's not that difficult. Or I'm addicted to beef. Like, I will eat until I explode. It's like, nobody ever says that, right? I'm addicted to liver. Like, who says that? I'm addicted to eggs. It's like, people eat eggs, but it's not like you're addicted that you can never stop, right? But it's the processing that really makes that thing addictive, right?

So these arguments that, oh, it cannot exist, or you cannot eat food, you have to eat something, is right? That all these arguments have such huge holes in the argument. Yet, you know, people just repeat them over and over as if that explains it, right? It doesn't explain anything. And people, if you listen to people, they'll tell you exactly the same thing. They'll tell you exactly what they're addicted to, because they know they're living that life, right? So if you understand that, then you have to say no, just like the alcoholic has to say, no, we have to not drink alcohol. And how do you treat an addiction, right? So you go to like, Alcoholics Anonymous or something, you can say, okay, well, what do they focus on in a real addiction problem, such as Alcoholics Anonymous? Well, they talk about forgiveness, right? They talk about making amends. They talk about, you know, being at peace with yourself, spirituality, having friends, right? That's the sponsor or whatever. Well, that's the way you treat addiction, not just, hey, just say no, or, you know, hey, just don't do it, right?

It's like, the way we treat food addiction is so primitive compared to our understanding of addiction medicine. It's like we're in the stone ages, right? We don't even acknowledge as exists, even as everybody says it, right? I'm a chocoholic, right? I'm addicted to sugar. I'm addicted, right? It's just crazy when you actually think about it.

Melanie Avalon
We don't acknowledge it exists or we shame people for trying to break that addiction by abstaining.

Jason Fung
Yes and that's that's that's that's the hardest like oh of course you just like oh you know people say I'm addicted to the cake is like oh you can have a little business birthday cake is like why would you say something like that.

Melanie Avalon
I literally have like childhood memories where my mom would be like, Melanie, when you go, like when we go to our grandparents, you have to have some of your grandmother's cake because she like made it for you. And I was like, maybe I don't want the cake. Maybe like, so it's, yeah, it's so, so interesting.

I think I just have like an in real time epiphany. I, I, I think the, the eating window and the eating approach that I landed on personally, I came to because I realized it was a way for me to almost like hack the three hungers. Like it let me have all three hungers and not experience the, like the weight gain and the metabolic effects of if I were to indulge in them all the time, which is that, so I do daily fasting and I do a one meal a day eating window and in the eating window I only eat whole foods. And so that addresses the, so the homeostatic hunger because I am hungry when I'm eat, when I start eating. So I get to experience that hunger and then be full. It addresses the emotional side of things cause I'm not like constantly using food to deal with emotions cause it's just not an option cause I'm fasting. And then for the third one, the conditioned, it is a habit. I do have my like nightly one meal a day thing. And so I, in a way I get to experience all the hungers without them creating damage.

Jason Fung
Yeah, and that's exactly what in the book I talk about the three golden rules. And, you know, the first two is one is cut out the ultra processed foods, and two is make sure you have a daily fasting period or some kind of regular fasting period. And that's exactly right. Because by building that rule in, so I'm not going to eat between, you know, 7pm and you know, 12am or whatever, 12 noon, I should say, that that what it does is it creates those sort of guardrails, so that you can sort of follow along, right, it creates structure into that eating window, right.

So if you think about eating plan, right, so say, say you have a say you want to do a marathon, right? What do you do when you get a coach, right? And then the coach will say, Okay, week one, we're going to do this week two week three week four, you have you have a plan, you have a guardrail, right? So if you think about it, it, you know, this this sort of eat fewer calories, it's a completely stupid plan, right? Does it tell you anything about what you're supposed to eat? No, as long as you eat fewer calories, right? Does it tell you anything about when you should eat? No, not at all. Does it tell you anything about how you should eat, right? Eat slowly, eat mindfully, right? Does it tell you about, you know, what you're supposed to eat in terms of processing? No, nothing. Does it tell you about where you're supposed to eat? Like, eat at a table, don't eat in, you know, while you're in the car, you know, because these things can trigger you, right? Because you can develop habits like eating in front of the TV, right? So, you know, if you think about the sort of who, what, when, where, how sort of thing, all the questions you want answered about this eating plan that you have, this calorie restricted diet gives you nothing, there is no plan. It's as if some your running coach were to say, well, do whatever you want, as long as you run, and then we'll get to the marathon and you'll run, right? It's like, what are you talking about? That's the worst plan ever, like you're fired, right? As opposed to the person who says, okay, week one, week two, week three, eat this, don't eat this. This day, we're going to go for a long run. This day, we're going to go for sprints. You know, that's a plan. That's a real plan. Right? And that's what you don't have with most people. And unfortunately, this is like, 99% of doctors give you this plan of just eat fewer calories, right? But no, no idea how to do it, what to do. You're not taking into account friends, like who you're eating with, you know, because that's actually really important. So if, you know, talking about the social side of things, if you think about how important it is, you think about, you know, for example, if you're in a board meeting or something like that, or a meeting at work or something like that, right, and you're really bored, it's a million afternoon, somebody orders a plate of cookies, what's going to happen? You're gonna eat the cookies. Why? Because you're really bored, and you want a little thing to pick you up. And that's going to give you pleasure.

Jason Fung
So you eat the cookie, right? It takes a lot of willpower to not eat that cookie. Now, replay that and say it's the 1970s. So there's this equally boring meeting at work. But there's no cookies. Are you really going to get up, leave the meeting, go downstairs, find a coffee shop, buy yourself a coffee, come back in while everybody stares at you and says, Where did you go? Like, what are you doing? Right? So there wasn't a willpower problem at all. It was a social situation problem, right?

But it's like, okay, well, why don't we actually acknowledge that, right? So it's like, maybe you have to figure out ways to get around that, right? Maybe you have to change your physical environment, maybe you have to change the people you hang out with, right? Because again, if your friends are eating french fries, all day long, you're eating french fries. If your friends are eating salad all day long, you're eating salad. That's just the way life is, right? There's lots of studies if you, if your best friend becomes obese, your own risk of obesity goes up by like 100% right? It's like, when my brother started playing basketball, I started playing basketball. That's just the way life happens, right? When I go out with my family, I eat pretty well. When I go out with my high school friends, it's not so good. It's actually pretty bad, right? Lots of, you know, fried foods and french fries and all this kind of stuff. The difference wasn't me. I'm the same person. The difference was the social situation, right? And it's so important. And yet nobody acknowledges just how important it is. When we're talking about the different levels of hunger, I remember talking on the fasting method, you know, some of the coaches there, because we have the fasting method, we have coaching, she was saying the head of coaching there, she's a PhD in psychology, she's saying, there's an interesting way to put the hungers. And I think that the homeostatic, the physical hunger that we all think about as hunger, is probably like 10% of the actual problem. The other 90% is between emotional and social, right?

And if that's the case, then really having some kind of person, whether it's a, you know, like an alcoholics anonymous, you have a sponsor that you can talk to, but a coach, right? It's like, I don't understand why people don't, don't do the, you know, don't have like a weight loss coach or some kind of coaching, which is what we do at the fasting method, because it's like, look, you have a personal trainer, like there's lots of personal trainers, right? It's like, you know, there's, you can find an exercise program, literally in 30 seconds online, that is very, very good. So why do people have personal trainers? Because they know that they won't exercise unless there's that trainer standing right there, they've made the commitment to the trainer. And that's why that was that's what keeps them accountable. So it's a social problem, not a knowledge problem, right? We treat it like a knowledge problem, you must eat this and not this, right? It's like, it's not a knowledge problem, never has been a knowledge problem.

Jason Fung
The problem was the accountability problem was the social situation. The problem is the people, right?

So then you hire somebody like a trainer, or a coach that makes you accountable, and then you're successful at working out or running or doing your marathon or whatever it is that you do. But we should really apply and people have life coaches, people have CEO coaches, they have executive coaches, they have all kinds of coaches. Why? It's not because they're stupid. It's because they know that that is going to make them more successful. It's the same for weight loss coaching. But that's by only by understanding that there's a huge social component, the condition component to your eating behavior. Do you get to that point where you can say, Oh, this makes sense, then let's let's think about that sort of framework.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. And to that point, it is possible, you know, to engage in eating situations and not eat, because I do that a lot. And that said, I've been doing that for, I don't know, since 2011. And it does not get, I mean, it is easier. I can do it now pretty easily, but I still feel weird. If I like go to something where I'm not eating and everybody else is like, I still feel weird because of my fasting window.

Oh, but I will say I felt related to that with the social eating situations. I felt very seen. And I think a lot of our listeners will as well, because you do talk about, you do talk about the, you know, hormonal benefits of eating earlier rather than later and the effects on insulin and things like that. And you also say though, if you're skipping, you know, one meal, breakfast socially for a lot of people works best to skip breakfast. It's nice to hear that, to hear that. Cause I feel like everybody's like, you have to eat breakfast all the time. If you eat one meal, eat breakfast. So it's nice to know that people can find what works for them socially. Cause I definitely skip, skip breakfast.

Jason Fung
It's certainly true because the whole thing about breakfast is it's been a sledgehammer that people have used, oh, you're going to die, you're going to die, it's like, what? You think the human body is just so stupid that you're going to die if you don't eat breakfast? Forget the fact that your body has stored on you thousands and thousands and thousands of calories. That's what body fat is, right? It's a store of calories, right? So if you don't eat, you're going to draw down those stores of calories, just like if you put food in the refrigerator and you don't go shopping, you can take food out of the refrigerator, right? Your body puts calories into body fat that's stored there. When you don't eat, your body will take those calories out of body fat. Why? So this is 100% natural. Why would it kill you, right? It makes no sense, but you know, people distort things for their own, you know, a lot of the research of course was done by breakfast food companies, right?

So trying to point out how important it is to eat breakfast. And I'm not saying that you have to skip breakfast. Like some people works very well to eat breakfast, right? It keeps them more full down the line and so on. If you wind up eating a whole bunch of ultra-processed foods, right, then, you know, because you want the convenience, right? And convenience is one of the keys. So the real problem with breakfast is that everybody's in a rush. So instead of eating like eggs and, you know, meat, eggs and ham or something like that, you wind up eating like cereal, right? You get some ultra-processed refined carbohydrates, right? And the problem with that is that you're going to spike your insulin way up and then that's going to store a bunch of body fat and just leave you hungrier down the line, right? So you're not actually reducing your hunger, you're actually inducing the hunger by eating all those ultra-processed carbohydrates in the morning, right? So you're in a rush, so you grab a muffin, you grab a donut, you grab cereal, right? All ultra-processed carbohydrates. So it's like eating breakfast can work, but you have to have the time to boil an egg and eat it and clean up and all that stuff, right? And people just don't have the time and don't want to get up early for that. That's fine. Then don't eat breakfast. It's fine, right? But again, there are other nuances. So I talked about a lot of this in the obesity code. In the hunger code, I talk a lot more about the nuances of, you know, it's not necessarily the carbohydrates, but it's really the insulin. That's the issue because insulin is the hormone. And so I dive a lot deeper into the whole process. Like, it's not just about the carbohydrates, the proteins, fats, carbs. It's not just about the calories, but also about the process of digestion, then absorption, which affects the hormones, which affects your weight, right? And all along that path, there are ways to adjust it. Just like, you know, for carbohydrates, you can try to increase your resistant starch. You can try to eat things that are higher in amylose versus amylopectin.

Jason Fung
You can use vinegar and other organic acids to reduce the insulin effect. You can change your meal timing, like eating the proteins first, or you can try eating earlier in the day.

You can do things like walking after a meal. All those things are going to affect your insulin levels, which is going to affect your weight gain in the end.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, I learned. I actually I had no idea about the amylose versus amylopectin and the different types of it like I Yeah, I I was really blown away by that Actually one of my favorite tips because again to listeners there are there's all these different sections in the book It really covers like you did an excellent job at Covering all the things that you know could play factors in people's different types of hunger but one of my favorites and I actually went on a A rabbit hole tangent looking at more research around this topic because I just found it so interesting but it was the thing that you mentioned about how the prefrontal cortex is probably involved in our hunger because When like they did studies with people with amnesia And if they didn't know that they had eaten they would like they would just eat it all again

Jason Fung
wasn't that fascinating? It's like, wow, I think they wound up eating and I'm sure you can do those studies now because it's a little bit unethical.

Yeah, so in the study they did to people at that meeting gave a full meal they ate and then like 10 minutes later gave them another full meal, they ate all that and then when they gave them a third meal, they ate like 80% of that or something like that. It was like, wow, that's ridiculous.

Melanie Avalon
It's so interesting. And it led to one of my favorite tips, which was make meals memorable.

And when I went down the rabbit hole, because I was like, that's so interesting. So I went down a whole rabbit hole, like reading reviews of the studies on memory and episodic eating and distracted eating. And one of the things I was reading was saying that like, if you eat distracted, not only do you eat more then, but you actually eat more later. And it's because you weren't remembering, like the brain basically like remembers what you last ate. And so you have a tip where you say make meals really memorable, like add spices, like, you know, make them flavorful and memorable in a moment. And that will actually have an effect, which I found fascinating.

Jason Fung
mindfully as well so make sure you're not like distracted and all that make sure you're savoring and you know being grateful and all this sort of stuff like it's actually really important stuff like even though it's not always measurable i think there is a lot of scientific truth to these things which often gets poo pooed like oh you can't measure it right they're still really really important so yeah i thought that was really quite quite like there's a there's so much you know there's so much to this whole journey that we're on right so to dumb it down to a single factor like it's all calories right it does it such a disservice because it's like it had nothing to do with the calories it had to do with the fact that you were you know watching the movie and stuffing your face with the popcorn just out of pure mechanical habit right and they've done all these studies right where they fill people's popcorn tray like i don't know if you've read those studies but you know when people are eating eating popcorn they gave them like really stale awful popcorn people just ate it anyway because they're so distracted by the movie they just didn't care right and it's like and then when they from the popcorn when they weren't watching them they're like oh this is awful it's like it's very funny this whole this whole thing but yeah i think there's a lot of truth to what you're saying and and again why would we deny the truth of all that right because they does play a role in eating behavior

Melanie Avalon
Speaking of the ultra-processed food, you mentioned that our, so our total energy expenditure today is down. However, our physical activity is actually up.

So the difference there, is it that the metabolism is actually down or do you think it's the, speaking of the ultra-processed food, could it be that the thermic effect, like just processing these foods is so easy now that we have lost that aspect of it?

Jason Fung
It certainly could be the thermic aspect of food because a lot of the ultra-processed foods are basically pre-digested, right? They're trying to make it easier to digest, so therefore it bypasses all of those sort of satiety mechanisms much more quickly. So if you think about satiety mechanisms, there are ways that our satiety is the way that our body signals us that, hey, you're full, you need to stop eating. So if you eat a very bulky meal, right, like, you know, something like leafy green vegetables or broccoli or whatever, it's a big, big volume. It fills up your stomach, right, and therefore you get the message that you need to stop eating. Or when you eat foods that are hard to digest, your body, it stays in the stomach. So when food goes down into your stomach, your stomach actually holds it and then sort of churns it around, mixes it, puts in stomach acid and so on. But natural foods are actually, are held there much longer. Ultra-processed foods tend to get, go through the stomach very fast. It's called gastric transit time. And so if the food is being held in the stomach, then your body's going to get the message that, hey, you should stop eating because your stomach is full, right?

So anything that's very bulky, right, and there used to be this thing called volumetric style which had, you know, a decent amount of research behind it or, you know, there's old methods like, you know, chew your food like 40 times each, right, and again, that's to make it mindful, to make it memorable, so that you're slowing everything down, right? So if you're eating slowly, you're going to have time for these satiety mechanisms to catch up. So yeah, it could be certainly the thermic effect, it could be the ultra-processing of foods, it could be, I think there's actually probably a lot of different things that contribute to this. But it was interesting because a lot of the research was basically saying that if you look at the activity of modern humans, because there's this argument that people are less active now, you know, we walk in the past when we used to drive, and now we drive, but it actually doesn't hold up because how much energy we expend through sort of movement and exercise throughout the ages has actually remained relatively constant. So this obesity epidemic isn't simply that, oh, now we have cars. Well, we had cars in 1920. The obesity epidemic didn't get going until the 1980s. So it's not a car problem, if you will, right? It's still an intermediate drive problem. I think there's multiple aspects, right, because certainly if you're more active, then you're less likely to do other things, but they play different roles, so exercise is one of these things that has, you know, it's not the calorie effect necessarily, it could be the effect on stress relief, it could be the effect on the sympathetic nervous system, there's so many different aspects to it other than the calories,

Jason Fung
right? But it's a complex subject, right, and I think it deserves some real, you really have to think about it because there's, you know, in the book, there's like 50 tips, which means there's like 50 different ways you can go off the rails, right, and the problem is when somebody says, oh, it's all this one thing, calories, right, then you're missing the other 49 other things, right?

It's like, that could be the problem.

Melanie Avalon
So actually to that point, so thought experiment, because we're saying, you know, that it's not all one thing, if we didn't have processed foods, or ultra processed foods, if we only had access to whole foods, do you think that would, would that solve it for the majority of people?

Jason Fung
I would think that that's a very big step in the right direction because it takes care of a lot of the issues around homeostatic hunger. So natural foods trigger sort of a tidy mechanism. You can eat a hamburger patty, could you eat 50? Unlikely. It's just very, very hard to do.

Whereas if you eat one potato chip, could you eat 50? Quite easily, right? Or if you had one sip of cola or soda, could you drink a whole liter of soda? Probably, right? Because natural foods have natural satiety mechanisms. So therefore, that takes care of the whole homeostatic thing. There are other, and it also takes care of a lot of the hedonic things because the ultra-processing is what we're saying about the processing is what leads to the sort of extra reward that you get with foods, right? And that's been engineered in by different ways, like different books about the bliss point and stuff, what's the exact proportion of salt and sugar and fat, and what chemicals can we use, what texturizers, what emulsifiers, what artificial flavors, what artificial colors, right? It's a very scientific process of how to get you to eat more and more and more. But when you stick to natural foods, you're not only going to take care of that homeostatic hunger, the physical hunger, because you're not going to have natural satiety hormones. You're going to take care of a lot of the emotional problems because, again, it's very hard to become addicted to natural foods because people don't say, I'm addicted to shrimp, right?

So it takes care of two big things, and then it's just a social part of the hunger. But again, it's not like they're independent of each other. If you solve two of the three big problems, well, you're mostly the way there, right? And that's simply by cutting out a lot of ultra-processed foods. And the other thing about ultra-processed foods, again, food addiction and ultra-processed foods, the data that the research on this is really just exploding in the last five years. There's so much evidence. And now, of course, with the new dietary guidelines and stuff, there's this huge focus on ultra-processed foods, which I think is very, very welcome, because what it tells you is it goes way beyond just the sort of calories, just the macronutrients, right? The protein versus fat versus carbs, to understand about processing as part of the problem. And I think that's something that is, I think, very, very interesting. And we're only going to hear more and more about that in the future because the data's just coming in.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, to that point, do you think, I think about this a lot, like, especially, you know, something like smoking and tobacco was so prevalent for so long and such a normal part of society. And now it's very much, you know, people don't, they know it's not a good thing and it's not cool to do anymore.

And with the ultra processed foods, like slowly things have been actually taken out like trans fats and then, you know, like red dye, whatever recently. And then, you know, the food pyramid changing. Do you think there actually is a future where the culture changes as a whole and we actually stop eating these or do you think it's too ingrained in the system?

Jason Fung
I think you have to acknowledge where the problem lies first, right? So if you think about smoking, the real change was when, you know, people, when the Surgeon General said smoking is bad for you and you should stop smoking, right? It still took like 20 years.

One of the big things I think was stopping the advertising of cigarettes to minors, right? So if you think back, right, they used to advertise cigarettes to children all the time. They had this very famous character called Joe Camel, which was one of the most recognizable figures, you know, anywhere, and it represented, you know, one of the, you know, Camel brand cigarettes. And they had like cigarettes in the vending machines, right? Which sounds completely insane now, right? That you could go into any hospital or anywhere and just go to a vending machine and buy a package of cigarettes. And they sold cigarettes in the pharmacy, right? This is like, it's just the most bizarre thing to think about these days. I actually worked as a student when I was in high school, I worked in the pharmacy and like half my day was selling cigarettes in the pharmacy, right?

So it's totally bizarre. But to think about that now, you have the, you know, the old cars, remember, had the little ashtray on the other thing, the old airplanes had a little ashtray on the side, like totally bizarre. So yeah, definitely we can change. It's just a matter of getting behind it. So Ultra Process Foods is in that process. And what's funny is that tobacco companies in this process of, you know, they were slowly getting edged out because everybody was basically taxing them and putting restrictions on advertising and, you know, no more cigarette vending machines and stuff.

So they actually went out and bought all the Ultra Process Food companies and basically applied the exact same playbook, right? So they started advertising to kids and sugary cereals, you know, buying the research off, right? And seeing how you had to eat breakfast and all this sort of stuff, they applied the exact same playbook. And it really wasn't until you started to ban all the advertising that you really started to make the smoking sort of uncool, right?

Because before people would smoke because it was cool and they didn't care that they would get lung cancer. Everybody knew that anyway. They still smoked, but it was cool, right? So that's the thing that really sort of, I think, turned the tide in the United States was that sort of banning of advertising, getting rid of Joe the Camel and stuff, right? Joe Camel, you know, it was just a, it was sort of this great, you know, example of how to do things right. So I think we're in that process now with Ultra Process Foods, where we're saying that, hey, these chemicals and these things are bad for us, right? I mean, a lot of this stuff is just not stuff we should be eating. So you look at the market for like whole foods and organic foods and, you know, non-processed foods and people want to be healthier, but they need the help to say, look, it's really important.

Jason Fung
We need to focus in on this and maybe we need to stop advertising to kids and maybe we need to take away some of this. This advertising for Ultra Process Foods that we need to get people just back to eating natural foods, right? But it's a long process.

It's like a two decade process, even for something as clear cut as smoking. But we've started, and that's super encouraging because up until this most recent dietary guidelines, everybody is stuck on calories, calories, calories, right? And the reason that calories is such an effective boogeyman is that nobody sells calories, right? So you could go, like you buy food, you buy drinks, you buy snacks, you don't buy calories, right? So therefore, by putting it as calories, calories, kind of making calories the sort of villain is that nobody suffers, right? You can still go selling your potato chips and your ultra-processed foods because, hey, broccoli has calories, steak has calories, right? So that's no different, right? So they're trying to lump themselves in. It's very sneaky what they're doing, but this research on ultra-processed foods is slowly sort of peeling back the dangers of it, right? And there's been a couple of very, very interesting studies, one about four months ago, looking at the effect of ultra-processed foods on kids' behaviors, which I thought was very, very interesting. And there's a clear link, there's a clear association between how much ultra-processed foods they eat and their behavior in schools, right?

So it goes beyond just weight. It also, we talk about attention spans and, you know, mental health, that could keep playing like a very important role. And you know, a lot of the ultra-processed foods really stimulate insulin. And just yesterday, I saw this study on post-menopausal women. They looked at the nurse's health study, so 34,000 people or something like that. And they looked at all different diets and said, which one is the best? Which one do perimenopausal women do the best? And in terms of cardiac health and weight, it was the low insulin diet. So eating things that don't stimulate a lot of insulin was far and away the best diet to do, which is exactly what we're talking about.

We're talking about cutting down refined foods, refined carbohydrates in particular, you know, intermittent fasting, which is another way to lower insulin. All those ways to lower insulin is the way to prevent weight gain in perimenopause, which is sort of one of the highest risk periods. Just talking about perimenopause, this is an aside, I always think it's so funny because you have all these people that tell you it's all about calories, calories, calories, but it's like, okay, if it's all about calories and therefore about willpower, then why is it that women in perimenopause always complain about weight gain? So you can look up any study, women gain weight in perimenopause. That's just the fact, right? Everybody knows it. If you actually listen to people, they'll tell you, I'm eating the same thing, I'm doing the same thing as I did for the last 15 years.

Jason Fung
Nothing's changed, but now I'm gaining weight. Like, it's not a calorie problem because our calories are the same. It's not an activity problem. Their activities are the same. The problem, obviously, is their hormones.

Their hormones are changing. They're perimenopausal. So if it's the hormonal part that's changing, that's causing the weight gain, why are we focused on calories? It was the hormonal change. I don't know if it can be any more clear than that, like honestly, and that's why you have to focus on the hormones.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, to that point, I actually had like a dozen listener questions. I don't, I don't think we're going to get to really any of them.

But Maris, for example, she said, why are all my numbers A1C fasting insulin rising in perimenopause when I do daily 20, 22 to 24 hour fast, work out with weights, stop eating by six or 7pm and take berberine, so frustrating with three exclamation points.

Jason Fung
It is frustrating. And the problem is like estrogen and progesterone, which are two of the big hormones that change, determine weight. Like, think about it this way. I mean, if you change your diet, your diet, you can change insulin predominantly. If you were to talk about stress and all this stuff, you can affect mostly cortisol. But the problem is actually estrogen progesterone, right? So that's why you're doing all the sort of right things. But those things are focused on different hormonal systems. The estrogen progesterone part, you may not necessarily be able to fix because hormone replacement therapy is still a pretty controversial topic, right?

But if you think about it, it's actually really important because when estrogen goes up, for example, then your appetite starts to go down. And you can actually track this in the menstrual cycle. So if you look at during the 28 day cycle, they've done these studies where they've looked at women and they actually, as you go from day zero to 14 ovulation, estrogen is rising and people are eating less and less. So if you look at the calorie intake on a normal cycle, it actually goes down from sort of day zero to day 14. And then after ovulation, estrogen goes down, progesterone goes up. And as the progesterone goes up, it's a stimulant to appetite and they start to eat more. So there's this very predictable pattern of sort of estrogen going down, you know, you're going up at the beginning of the cycle, you're eating less and then progesterone going down. So, you know, during menopause, of course, those levels are sort of all going out of whack, estrogen is going down. So therefore, you're losing that protection, people may be more hungry, right? And then the change in progesterone as well in terms of, you know, eating behavior, but also fat storage. Because remember, it's not just about the calories you're eating, right? It's about where your body is directing those calories to, right? So if you think about estrogen and testosterone, for example, during puberty. So prior to puberty, men, boys and girls have roughly the same amount of body fat. After puberty, after, you know, when they're 18, girls have about 50% more body fat. Is it willpower? No, not at all. It's because the boys have testosterone, which directs all of their energy, all of their calories into building muscle. And in girls, you have a lot of estrogen and progesterone, which is directing a lot of the calories towards subcutaneous fat, the breasts and the hips in preparation for child caring, right? So it makes sense. The gain in fat had nothing to do with willpower, diet, all this kind of stuff, right? Had everything to do with estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. So that's the thing. That's the answer to the question. Unfortunately, it doesn't help you in terms of what you can actually do about it necessarily, because if you work on the diet more, it wasn't an insulin problem. If you stress, it wasn't a cortisol problem.

Jason Fung
It was the estrogen progesterone problem, right? So should you take hormone replacement? Like those are questions that are a bit controversial, right?

So the whole hormone replacement question is, there's been sort of a couple of 180 degree flip flops in the last few decades. So, you know, that's a different question. But that's the, that's the answer is like, it's, it's a hormonal issue, but it's an estrogen, progesterone issue, rather than the other one, which is why it's often very frustrating that you can't attack it with a diet.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, to that point, I love, love the example of puberty and how the fat deposition changes because I love when there's an example where it just makes things so obvious. Like clearly, hormones are playing a role if a boy and a girl can eat the same amount of food and it becomes fat or muscle or whatever, like wherever it goes on their body is different because of their biological sex. Like how much more clear can you get?

Or like the ultra-processed foods, the concept that a lot of poverty will have like obesity problems. So if it's a lack of money to buy food and they're buying ultra-processed foods and they're actually gaining weight, I just feel like that's a really good example of clearly there's a problem here with ultra-processed foods.

Jason Fung
Yeah, yeah, because really, if you think it's a, you know, willpower problem, the rich people should actually have more obesity issues, right? But they don't.

Why? Because they don't tend to eat those cheaper sort of ultra processed foods, right? They'll go for the more expensive natural foods, which are better for you in that they're, they activate the normal, proper sort of satiety signaling and hunger signaling and all this sort of stuff, right? So it is, it is, you know, once you start to think about the sort of epiphenomenon of obesity and, you know, linked to socioeconomic status and stuff, it makes way more sense when you, when you have that framework, other than calories in calories out, right, which is such a, such a simplistic, flawed notion. It's like anybody who says that to me, you know, I sort of instantly know that it's like, okay, these people haven't really thought about it too much, right? You know, and it's very, it's very hard to sort of get through to those people because they're so sort of set in their ways of thinking. You know, they think that it's all a math problem when it's, it's actually a much more complicated issue of not just hormones, but it goes further than the hormones. It comes into, you know, emotions and social situations. It's just like if you look at countries, for example, it's like Japan has one of the lowest obesity rates in the world and the United States has more. Is it just a willpower problem?

I don't think so. And what happens when you take that Japanese person and plunk them down into San Francisco? Well, they gain weight. They gain a lot of weight, right? Then within a couple of generations, the Japanese Americans are actually just as obese as the regular Americans. And it's like, why? What's the difference? It wasn't genetics because they're still the Japanese people. They're still Japanese. The difference was the environment that they're in, right?

The people around you influence what you do to a huge degree. So this is called social modeling. And that's why they have these social influencers, right? Influencers on social media. That's why they're so important. That's why everybody's paying these influencers to tell whatever because they know that those people, you know, have an outsized influence. That is, you know, and we all know this, right? Like peer pressure is the term we use in schools and stuff. What your friends do is what you do, right? That's really important. But it extends further than that all through your life. Everybody around you is eating natural foods. You'll eat natural foods, right? If everybody around you is eating ultra processed foods, you're eating ultra processed foods. And that's the difference.

Not the not the willpower, not the anything else. It's where you live actually determines to a huge extent your rate of obesity. If you live in Japan, your rate of obesity is very low. If you live in America, it's very high. If you live in Italy, it's very low. If you live in New York City as an Italian, it's very high, right? So it's like, it's where you live. That's really important. And again, why don't we acknowledge this?

Jason Fung
Because we're stuck in this, you know, simplistic notion of calories in calories out. That's all it is.

It's all about willpower. And your friends don't make difference in where you live. It doesn't make a difference in your emotional status makes doesn't make a difference in your hormonal status makes no difference. It's like, no wonder we've gotten nowhere in the battle against obesity, because we didn't even begin to understand the complexity of the problem.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. And I'm just thinking about all the messaging that just further supported this whole issue, like with the Coca-Cola, I think, like the companies that would put all the focus on exercise.

So like, oh, let's raise all this money. So put the focus on exercise so that people can keep drinking, keep drinking Coca-Cola.

Jason Fung
They put a lot of money, they put millions and millions into promoting exercise. And exercise is good in many ways, but for them, for Coca-Cola, it was a way to sort of take themselves out of the blame and then put it on something else. Like, you know, don't blame the sugary soda for your obesity. Blame your lack of exercise, right? That's the messaging that's there, right?

And unfortunately, they have huge clout because, you know, they have lobbyists and all this sort of stuff. So even if you look at people who are very well-meaning, like Michelle Obama, it's like, oh, we're gonna do this, let's move or whatever. It's like, okay, well, how about let's have better food and get rid of the ultra-processed foods and get rid of advertising to children, right? Because that's what worked for smoking. Like, we gotta get it so it's not like, you know, it's not in their face all the time that they should be eating, you know? You watch television or whatever and there's advertising for snack foods constantly on streaming, on billboards and, you know, everywhere you go, right? It's like, okay, well, even though she was very well-meaning about it, she chose the least effective way to do it, right? Which is exercise.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, or and another one and I know this is a little bit controversial to say, like the health at every size movement. So I'm all for like love yourself at every size and body positivity and body acceptance.

And yet there was this whole movement where they were literally trying to say that it was healthy to be metabolically unhealthy. And I feel like it was I feel like it was because it is so hard to make these changes because of where like the the condition hunger and the societal hunger. And so it's just easier to like write it off as healthy.

Jason Fung
Yeah, and I really didn't like that either, because it wasn't actually true, right? So it was, it was, you know, there's a lot of health consequences of being overweight and obese. And a lot of the studies coming out of the GLP ones, the osempic studies are basically showing exactly that. When people lose weight, there's actually all sorts of improvements in health grammars that you can measure, right? Diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, all this sort of stuff. And back pain and knee pain and all this sort of stuff. So the problem I had with the whole body positivity is not that they shouldn't be positive. But it's like, don't lie to people that this is actually healthy, it's not actually healthy, right?

So it's fine, don't you shouldn't be fat shaming, you know, we should be treating people with compassion, just like, you know, the problem with, and I think that where it arose came out of this whole calories in calories. So the story we get sold is that it's all calories in calories out. So you just need to eat less or move more. It's all about calories, just like your other guest was saying, it's all calories, it all comes down to calories. So if you can't lose weight, then you didn't have enough willpower to eat fewer calories or move more, right? It's a willpower problem, right? It's a discipline problem, right? So therefore, if you're overweight, it didn't just mean you're overweight, it means you're lazy and stupid, right? So that's where the whole fat shaming came out. It comes out of this calories in calories out messaging. That's why I call them the calorie bullies. Because you're not treating people with compassion anymore, right? Just like if you have somebody who's an alcoholic addict, right? You could say, it's all alcohol and alcohol out, right? If you can't break the addiction, you're just lazy or stupid, right? It's like, no, they're addicted, like, let's treat them with compassion. And that's where alcoholics are not, it's just like, okay, spirituality, forgiveness, you know, making amends, all this sort of stuff, right? And I think we have to do the same for obesity.

It's not necessarily their, their problem. It's not, it's not a willpower problem. It's not a discipline problem. It's not any of that. But let's figure out what the problem actually is. Is it a sleep problem? Is it a distress problem? Is it a hormonal issue? Is it an ultra processed food issue? Is it a social issue? Is it a habit issue? What is it so that we can fix it and treat people with compassion rather than labeling them as if this is all calories. Therefore, this is all willpower. Therefore, you're weight is really a reflection of your, you know, moral status, right? You don't have, you know, willpower and all that sort of stuff. So that's, that's where I think I really don't like the whole calories and calorie out, all those calorie bullies, because it really needs to sort of a detrimental sort of attitude towards treating obesity as a willpower problem.

Jason Fung
What it never was, it was actually much more complicated, much more nuanced. But rather than trying to understand the nuance, they're basically trying to hammer us with this calories, calories, calories. And so that, that's where that fat positivity movement came out of like, we shouldn't be shaming people. We shouldn't be doing this. And I absolutely agree with that.

On the other hand, you shouldn't be telling him that this is healthy, right? It's like, you're not telling, like telling people lies is never good. It's never a good strategy. That's it.

Melanie Avalon
No, not the solution.

Jason Fung
Yeah, it's like I agree you shouldn't faint shame these people I agree you should treat them but don't just tell them it's healthy because it's not healthy.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, could not agree more. A nice maybe ending question.

Zoe, she said she read the obesity code and she wants to know if any of your theories or ideas on diet and fasting have changed since publishing that book.

Jason Fung
If anything, I'm more convinced of the correctness of that book, honestly, because as I mentioned, if you look at what people are talking about now, they're talking about insulin and they're talking about fasting with much more acceptance. So all of the studies coming out now are showing that, hey, it's really a hormonal issue. It's not a calories issue. You know, that study that I was telling you about yesterday that just came out yesterday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Again, the low insulin diet was the best diet by far, right? So getting to the complexity of that. So all of the stuff about insulin, about cortisol, and the obesity code, it's all still there. It just took a lot longer than I thought for people to accept it.

But, you know, and that's where the hunger code sort of takes off from the obesity code. It's really a follow-up. And if you read the hunger code, you'll notice some people, it's funny because I read this one comment said, it's a rehash of the obesity code. I'm like, there's nothing about the hunger code in the obesity code, right? I talk about hedonic hunger, conditioned hunger, homeostatic hunger, gas for transit times, you know, there's nothing in there, right? You know, other than maybe the first little bit, which is basically, you know, expanding on the hormonal piece. But that's where I think this is trying to take off from. But no, I haven't changed my mind about any of that. I think the research is really just coming in stronger and stronger that we have to focus in on all of these issues, right? The insulin in the cortisol is always the focus of the obesity code, right? So again, eat fewer refined carbohydrates. And I made a clear distinction in that book that it was the processing, right? The unrefined carbohydrates are not necessarily a bad thing, right? You can eat a lot of natural grains and stuff and still be fine, right? You don't have to cut them all out. You could if you want to, but you don't have to, right? There are other ways to sort of get to that. So that's, you know, that's my feeling. If anything, sort of, you know, held up to the test of time, if you will.

Melanie Avalon
One just really quick note about the insulin thing. Something I like that you said in this book, and it's because I feel like people are always like pair, pericarb, well you talk about no naked carbs, but I feel like people are always like pericarbs with fat, pericarbs with fat.

And I'm like, I don't know why the messaging isn't pericarbs with protein. Because for me, fat, like if you look at the studies, it seems that it just elongates, it doesn't change the area under the curve much. It just kind of like elongates the release of the carbs, compared to protein where I feel like it mitigates that a little bit.

Jason Fung
I think that both of them can work, but the problem is, you know, sometimes when you pair carbs with fat, it can result in a very much more...

Melanie Avalon
like hyper palatable.

Jason Fung
Yeah, hyper palatable, rewarding situation. Like if you take pure starch, it's not that good, right? Like if you just take boiled potato, like pure starch, it's not that tasty that people are just gonna keep eating it, right, but if you pair it with fat, like french fries, potato chips, right, then all of a sudden it's way, you know, a lot better, right? Same thing with fats, right? If you take pure fat, again, you can drink olive oil, but not that many people do, because it's not that tasty, right? It's not that great to drink olive oil. You can, but it's not great. But then again, you just pair it with a little bit of carbohydrate, and it's a bit of an unnatural situation because carbohydrates are the way that plants store energy. So if you think about carbs, it's like potatoes and rice, that's the way a plant stores energy. Animals store energy in the form of fat, right? So when animals eat, like a pig or a cow or whatever, and they wanna store energy, they store fat. They don't store starch, right? That's just the way it is. So therefore, they're two different sort of storage forms. So in nature, they don't mix that much. So that's why when you pair them together, you get these novel combinations that can be very palatable.

So pairing the carbs with the fats is little on the tricky side because it is a little bit unnatural because they're just the way that people evolve, right? Plants have starch and animals have fat, right? So they don't mix. And that's why when you go to a very, very, some plants do, of course, coconut oil and avocado oil and stuff, but in general, they're a little bit exclusive to one another. So yeah, you have to be careful. Sometimes carbs plus the fat can work, and sometimes it doesn't.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, for me, I just feel like it's like carbs, stimulating the insulin and then the fat, easily stored, sewed together. Maybe not the best combination all the time.

Jason Fung
Yeah, it may not be the best combination and that's where something like protein may be a better sort of intermediary for separating them in the meal or, you know, something else. But as I said, this is all great discussion because this sort of points out the complexity of the whole situation, right? Everybody wants to be like carbs good or carbs bad or fats good or fats bad. It's like there's a lot more to it than that.

Like in the more you know, the better you'll do because then you'll be able to appreciate the nuance of, hey, this is this, this is this, right? So this is the whole thing about the calories is like you're trying to make it into you're trying to shoehorn all of this complex physiology into a single statement of calories, right? It's like you can't do that just like heart disease. It's not just about smoking. What causes heart disease? Well, it's age and sex. It's diabetes. It's high blood pressure. It's cholesterol. It's exercise. It's, you know, smoking, you know, there's like 10 different factors that affect heart disease. It's like there's lots of different things. Whereas obesity is like, oh, it's only one thing, calories. Like why? Like what disease does that? Right? No disease in humans is like a single factor like that. Maybe a few genetic diseases. But other than that, everything's this multifactorial complex mix of things. So you have to attack all of them. Whereas with obesity is like, oh, it's a simple one thing math. It's like, OK, well, if that's what you think you've already lost, right, you have the wrong idea about what what the disease is. So therefore you're not going to be able to treat it.

Melanie Avalon
Exactly. So takeaway is nuance and all the things and friends, again, cannot recommend enough the hunger code, get it now.

We only barely scratched the surface. It's all in there. And thank you so much for everything that you do, Jason. Like I said, I've been following your work from day, well, not from day, I mean, I don't know what your day one was, not from day one, but from my day one in this world. The last question I just ask every guest on the show and it's just because I realize the importance of mindset, which is something that you talk about in the book as well. So what is something that you're grateful for?

Jason Fung
I'm really grateful for, I think, the, you know, the, the open mindedness of people, I've been, I've been grateful that a lot of people have read what I've written and been helped. And I think it's because people are looking for something sort of different than the what they're, you know, being shoved down their throats, which is calories, willpower, calories, discipline, right? This no pain, no gain sort of thing, right? So I've been, I've been grateful that people have sort of read it and accepted it. And it always makes me very happy.

When I hear somebody, like sometimes somebody will come up to me and say, Oh, I saw you on, you know, YouTube, or I read your book, and I lost like 50 pounds. I'm like, wow, that to me is, is I'm so thankful that people have accepted that and that I was able to help them, you know, without even knowing them, right? But just by pointing out the right thing, it makes me, you know, I'm grateful for, you know, for your support, and for all the people who have supported me through this to get the message out there. Because again, it's, it's, it's gratifying to help people, right? And I think that's, it's this whole thing about altruism. It's like, you know, when people look back at the great things they did in their life, it's always about helping other people, mostly like families and friends. And I was able to help my son do this, and I was able to help my friend do this, right? So, you know, I'm grateful for, for all the support and the acceptance that I was able to help people, because it makes me feel good, right? It makes me feel like I've done something important.

So, you know, that, that to me is, is sort of the best gift that I have gotten is that, you know, this, this feeling that I've been able to help people. So, you know, and it's through, you know, people like yourself who have been able to spread the message and so on.

Melanie Avalon
Well, you are certainly doing that. Again, thank you so much for all that you've done.

I know listeners all over, you have changed so many lives and they are so grateful. So thank you, I love your new book. Friends, get it now, get the hunger code and we'd love to have you back in the future.

Jason Fung
Oh, absolutely. Thanks so much.

Melanie Avalon
Thanks, Jason. Bye.

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

Jun 29

#480 – The Ideal Food Order, Food Mitigators, Supertasters, Kale: Good or Bad?, Reducing Loose Excess Skin, Supporting Insulin Sensitivity, Oxalate Problems, Finding Organic Wines, And More!

https://melanieavalon.com/oxalates/

Welcome to Episode 480 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, biohacker, founder of AvalonX, and author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine, and Barry Conrad, actor, singer-songwriter, and creator and host of Banter with BC.

SHOW NOTES

LINKS

Featured Restaurant: https://ocean-prime.com/locations-menus/beverly-hills/

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠STUDIES: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-025-03719-2

https://melanieavalon.com/immunitycode1/

https://melanieavalon.com/immunitycode2/

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

TRANSCRIPT

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

Melanie Avalon
Welcome to Episode 480 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. If you want to burn fat, gain energy, and enhance your health by changing when you eat, not what you eat, with no calorie counting, then this show is for you.

I'm Melanie Avalon, biohacker, founder of AvalonX, and author of What, When, Wine. Lose weight and feel great with paleo-style meals, intermittent fasting, and wine. And I'm joined by my co-host, Barry Conrad, actor, singer-songwriter, and creator and host of Banter with B.C. For more on us, check out MelanieAvalon.com and BarryConradOfficial.com. You can submit questions for the show by emailing questions at iofpodcast.com or by going to iofpodcast.com. We would love to hear from you. Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this show do not constitute medical advice or treatment. So, pour yourself a mug of black coffee, a cup of tea, or even a glass of wine if it's that time, and get ready for the intermittent fasting podcast. Hi, everybody, and welcome. This is episode number 480 of the intermittent fasting podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon. I'm here with Barry Conrad. Barry, how are you today?

Barry Conrad
Hey, Mel, I'm doing great. I can't complain.

It's a beautiful evening here in New York. And I have to say, this has been happening a lot. Well, you know that it happens a lot anyway for me, but more often than not recently, I'm loving so much being in the kitchen. Like I love cooking. Like it's honestly so much fun for me. I'm loving like the dinner parties and stuff, like hosting people, making the fresh pasta, making all the, just the whole experience. I really, really am enjoying it right now for unwinding and it's really therapeutic for me. I really enjoy it.

Melanie Avalon
That's so amazing. People can watch it because your your podcast is video as well. I was gonna say like you should be a TV show so people can watch it but people can watch it right banter with BC.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, but I guess the difference is, yes, you should watch it. And also the differences are not really cooking.

I'm more partaking, but I just love food and wine so much. And that's why we talk about fasting and feasting, but it's an experience every time. And I love watching people's reaction and having them enjoy the food as well. It brings me a lot of joy.

Melanie Avalon
I've told you about John Levy, right? You need to go to his influencers dinner thing.

Barry Conrad
Oh, you are this guy that has.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, we're like he has, you know, like, I don't know how many people doesn't or so people who are all, you know, doing really cool things in life and nobody introduces themselves and then they cook a dinner together.

Barry Conrad
I should write this down so I can make a note to check it out.

Melanie Avalon
I need to reach out to him anyways about something, so that'd be your jam.

Barry Conrad
Yeah. Do you ever get the impulse or desire to do stuff like that? Or do you like hosting people in general? Or do you like you prefer just to kind of separate home from going out and stuff like that, or dinner situations? What's your,

Melanie Avalon
If I had, so growing up, I was the host girl. So like all the parties, like this, like the class parties and like all the things, the Christmas parties, like they were always at my house. And I loved it.

I love, I love themes. For me, it's more about like the theming and the like plot of the evening. Like I just love creating an entire experience for people. So it's not like just the food for me or just, I was going to say just the wine. I guess I wasn't drinking wine in high school, but in college I would have wine at the parties. So for me, it's more about like the entire experience of it and the entertainment aspect, I guess. I would now, I just, I don't have the space for it. Like I have a one bedroom apartment. So I have zero interest in my current location.

But if I had a house someday, like if I had like a, I would love to have like a grand house and like have fabulous parties.

Barry Conrad
I can totally see that happening, by the way.

Melanie Avalon
And it's funny, I think we probably have a very similar, I think that the specifics of what makes us the happiest about it is a little bit different because yours is probably a little bit more about the food than mine is, but I think we probably, like what you were describing about how much you just love it, like I loved hosting parties.

Barry Conrad
Yeah. And also just the whole, you know, like the cohesion of the night, the cohesion of the night, like the music, the, the type of sort of cuisine it is trying to keep, yeah, trying to keep it in a theme and the whole thing, the ambience, the whole, the whole situation is just fun.

Melanie Avalon
I know I would like to I would like to give a formal apology to my family for everything I would make them do for my parties.

Barry Conrad
Like, what did you make them do?

Melanie Avalon
I remember one year I literally had so many parties. We had a great Gatsby theme party for our Honors English class and I made it 1920s themed and I made my brother be a bartender at a little fake bar and I made him dress up as a bartender in a suit and I made him make these drinks, non-alcoholic of course.

Barry Conrad
It's hilarious and awesome too though. I mean, wow, it's it's fun

Melanie Avalon
And my mom, shout out to my mom, she was so helpful. I think she liked doing the parties too, but she was so helpful, like helping me throw all these parties.

Barry Conrad
Are your family very festive in that way? Are they very celebratory and they like to party and have house parties?

Melanie Avalon
I think I'm the one that likes to have the parties. We like getting dinners, but I think I'm the one who, like, I only remember my parents having maybe, I only remember them having maybe like two or three parties total, like work parties, you know?

How about your family?

Barry Conrad
I mean, yeah, not, not really. I mean, no, not, not parties per se, like gatherings and stuff, but not, not a whole situation, like, you know, themes and stuff.

I think that's probably more me, the performers.

Melanie Avalon
I know actually i didn't put that that together to and to but that probably know the type of person that wants to be like an actor and everything probably also gravitates towards the type of these types of things.

Barry Conrad
It's like a scene, like, you know, like create the moment, create the scene.

Melanie Avalon
I mean, think about it. So like, like the Golden Globes and the Oscars and everything, they're basically one big party, like dinner party.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, I actually wonder what the food and what that's like at that particular level, you know.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. I served at the... What did I serve at? The Emmys. What was that like? Ehh... Chaotic. I wouldn't do it again.

Barry Conrad
Do you know what? I just had a flashback too of the slime photo.

Melanie Avalon
Oh gosh. I still have written down on my to-do list, Spellmageddon, because I need to download all those photos from Getty Images before they go away. Okay, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it.

Barry Conrad
Solaris, how are you? What's been having with you?

Melanie Avalon
I am good. So actually speaking of wine, can I tell my little teaser that I mentioned last week? Yes. Okay. So I'm going to be, I'm going to be like specific and vague at the same time about this. And this is not this literally, I just had the conversation about this two or three days ago. So it's very much a new idea. Nothing is set in stone.

That said, I've talked for years and years about my obsession with wine and my obsession with organic, low alcohol, low sugar, like finding wines that make you feel good the next day. So like wines that you can drink and live your best life. And so I love dry farm wines. I drink, I order them all the time. Like I always have dry farm wines in my wine collection. And I've also started branching out because I realized like, oh, because I love dry farm wines. And you can, it's a membership program though. So you order like a lot at one time. And oh, by the way, you can work directly with them, which is what I do now, not work with, talk with them directly. And like specifically, like they'll tell you what they have in stock in your preference. And then you can like pick what to order. And so that's what I do now. Point is, I've also like branched out and like tried to find other websites that carry wines that would fit dry farm wines criteria that I like. And so doing that, I found actually I found three websites that I really like. And one of the websites, I'm not going to tell you which one, but one of the websites, the founder, he's not the founder, he acquired the company, but the owner of it, he's a song. And he reached out to me because he's thinking of like rebranding the site or making it more direct to consumer. Because he does a lot in the world of wine. So he basically is thinking of like doing something more with the site. So we had a call and I think if we move forward, I might work with him on the site, rebranding it and everything like that.

And then I could have like a section of my personally recommended wine. So these would be wines that I've personally tasted and tried that I know are a certain alcohol percentage that I know are organic. And they're all affordable too. That's the other thing. I want to make it affordable. And they're all affordable. And then you would be able to order them like a la carte rather than... Again, I love dry farm wines, but this would be... So do both because I still drink dry farm wines. But in addition to ordering an entire case of dry farm wines, this would be like you could actually pick what you want. And they would all be things that I really like. And they would be affordable. And then we also might do some other projects that we want to do involved with this. We have like a lot of ideas.

Barry Conrad
Oh, wow. Well, that's so exciting. That's like a no brainer. It seems like it fits you like a glove and makes total sense.

Melanie Avalon
I really want to do it. I've been wanting for so long to have like a resource where it's like these are Melanie's recommended wines because I am crazy with how many wines I taste and try and friends I spend hours researching wines before I order them if they're not from dry from wines. That's the good thing about dry from wines is like I trust them implicitly so I can just order from them. I don't have to I don't have to research the alcohol.

I don't have to research if it's organic after research soul fights. I literally just pick the ones that I like and then if I don't like them, they also have a money back guarantee, which I love. But when I'm ordering on my own, so I'm like going and trying to find ones that would fit dry from wines criteria, it I literally spend like hours researching. So this would be me being able to be like, these are all wines that I vetted and I love. And you can feel good about ordering and drinking.

Barry Conrad
I love that. I love that idea so much.

And also because you are so genuinely like listeners like Melanie, this is her like on and off the show. Like she loves, you really do love it. And also on that as well. What about, remember you said you did that, not a course, it's like a level two situation with the wine. How was that? How was that night?

Melanie Avalon
the W set or the one I went back to like the class recently.

Barry Conrad
The one that you went back to.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was really, really fun. Shout out to Vino venue.

They're a local wine restaurant bar. They have wine on tap that you can order taste of and they do classes. That's where I did my WSET certification, but they have so many epic classes. So yeah, they had me back for level two wine tasting like a pro. It was really fun.

Barry Conrad
How did it, was it fun, was it?

Melanie Avalon
Mm-hmm. I finally might one of my favorite parts and I should just order this online but they had one of those kits where you can smell all the different like things that you often see as flavor as as Descriptors of wine and I realized oh like this is what current red current smells like like I'll describe things as being like red current And I realized I didn't actually know what it tasted or smelled like So that was helpful I want to order one of those kits and and smell like all the things like gooseberry and like rambleberry and red current

Barry Conrad
I'm just amazed like how people can even just literally smell like swish around some wine in the glass and be able to pick up all these, these notes and then be able to accurately, you know, say what it's amazing.

Melanie Avalon
So that's one of the things we learned too, which I had known, but I like relearned it, which is basically there are different levels of tasters. So there are super tasters on one end and then on the other end, there's like people who barely taste at all, then there's like the happy medium.

You actually don't want to be a, well, maybe you want to be a super taster, but if you're a super taster, you actually, I think it can be a hindrance because alcohol, what was it? So for super tasters, alcohol tastes really bitter and harsh. And if you're on the flip side of it, you're not a super taster, alcohol tastes sweet. So it can affect your entire perception of the wine. And you might actually, if you're a super taster, you might not really get the full picture because your tongue is going to focus in on certain flavors, if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Apparently people have different numbers of taste buds too.

Barry Conrad
What are you, where do you fall on that? And what about the, what are we in the taste buds? How many, how does that work? Like how many people have different numbers of taste buds?

Melanie Avalon
They said they used to do a thing at the class, they don't do it anymore, but you could put a solution on your tongue and you could see how many taste buds you have.

Barry Conrad
That's awesome. I would do that.

Melanie Avalon
I think I'm probably in the middle, I think, but I'm not sure. I don't, I don't know how you would like verify.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, I'm definitely not like the super taste because it's not bitter to me to drink wine.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, me neither. So, oh, that's interesting.

So this is saying like, for example, the increased bitterness may be protective against alcohol intake and some individuals. So maybe the bitter sweet flavors of beer and alcohol are often too bitter for super tasters. Yeah, so because you would think like a super taster would be like perfect for like wine tasting, but probably not because if you're a super taster, you probably are not going to like wine as much.

Barry Conrad
Yeah. Well, I didn't like beer for ages as well. I don't know. Maybe you can, can you change? If you were a sweet potato and that's just a genetic thing.

Melanie Avalon
You know, yeah, I think you're stuck with like what you how you taste

Barry Conrad
We'll bring on Mel's wine adventures. Here we go.

Melanie Avalon
Yes, we shall see. So, but on that note, shall we jump into some fasting-related things?

Barry Conrad
Let's do it.

Melanie Avalon
To start things off, I have a study that I found. This study is called Individual Variations and Glycemic Responses to Carbohydrates and Underlying Metabolic Physiology. It was published in Nature Medicine in June of 2025. The study looked at a few different things. They were looking at the different blood glucose responses to different types of carbs. They looked at seven different types, so 50 grams of different starches, so rice was one, bread was one, potatoes was one, pasta was one, and beans. Then they also looked at two simple carbs, which were mixed berries, so blackberries, strawberries, blueberries, and then also grapes. That was to look at high-fiber versus low-fiber simple carbs. They were looking at two main different things. One, they were looking at how do people respond to these different carbs? Does everybody respond the same? Do they respond differently? Then two, they wanted to see if you preloaded carbs, specifically rice, with either fiber, protein, or fat, would it affect your blood sugar response to the rice 10 minutes later? I found the study because I specifically wanted to look at studies eating things before carbs to see how it would affect. That's how I found the study.

The whole part that's looking at how are people responding differently to the seven carbs, that was not what I was looking for, but it was fun to read that as well. Long story short about the responding in general to different types of carbs, it was 55 different people, and it was all over the place. People responded differently to different carbs. People within themselves will respond the same, but compared to other people, it would be different, which just goes to show you that you can't make assumptions about like, oh, this is a high GI carb, and this is a low GI carb. By that, I mean glycemic index, so your blood sugar response. We don't want to have intense spikes on our blood sugar. We also don't want it high for a long period of time either. They basically found that people responded differently. Some carbs were basically better for people than other carbs for the same people.

The way they tested this was people were a continuous glucose monitor, which we've talked a lot about on the show, so they could see how people were responding. I'll just give a few of the takeaways from that because more I want to talk about the preloading. This was interesting. They found that people who were... Here's an example of how people are different. 19 of the participants had the highest blood glucose peak after eating rice, but then others were highest after bread or grapes or potatoes or pasta, so it's just all over the place. However, no participants had the highest response to... I'm trying to say if you want to guess, or should I just tell you?

Barry Conrad
Mmm, potatoes?

Melanie Avalon
It's a that's a good guess No

Barry Conrad
some of the options.

Melanie Avalon
Okay so the options were okay i'll say exactly what is so jasmine rice buttermilk bread shredded potatoes macaroni pasta can black beans mix berries that are blackberry strawberries blueberries and then grapes.

Barry Conrad
Jasmine Rice. No. Which one?

Melanie Avalon
That actually rice was, a lot of people had high responses to rice. Uh-huh. It was the beans.

Barry Conrad
I was going to say beans.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, they said it might be from the protein content in the beans and then the mixed berries, probably from the high fiber. So no participants had the highest spike for beans or mixed berries.

And then they also found really interesting correlations. And I don't think I ever would have been able to guess this, but the people in general who were the most insulin sensitive, so had the best blood glucose control, they actually spiked the highest after grapes. And the people who had the worst blood sugar control, they tended to spike the highest after potatoes. So basically, if you're insulin resistant, you might struggle more with potatoes. And then if you're really, if you're more insulin sensitive, you might see high spikes with grapes. In any case, so looking at preloading, so again, they looked at preloading with fiber in the form of P-fiber or protein, which was egg whites, or fat, which was cream. And they had it 10 minutes before the 50 grams of the rice. And they found that all three of these did make the blood glucose response to the rice not as detrimental. So it was a lower response. It wasn't like massive, but it did have an effect. And then it also, again, it varied by different people. The fat, however, it actually elongated the timing of the blood glucose response. Like it took, it made it longer for the participants to get a higher blood sugar response to the rice. And this is something I feel very passionate about because people will say, oh, have your carbs with fat because that slows down the, you know, mitigates the glucose response. I don't think that is a good idea. I could be wrong. I like I've reserved the right to change my mind. However, in my opinion, all it does is it slows down. You're still getting all the blood sugar response. You're just getting it longer and you're actually processing it later. So now instead of like processing the carbs earlier, you're kind of just making that spike happen later, which I don't know necessarily that that's a good thing. Either way, maybe it's good for some people. I just don't know why the recommendation is eat your carbs with fat when the recommendation, in my opinion, should we eat your carbs with protein? Because eating your carbs with protein also mitigates the blood glucose response later, but it doesn't elongate that that time like the way the fat does. So I think it can have you it can make you have a better blood glucose response without just like dragging it out. It's just that's my opinion. But I think that's supported by this study. So their theory is about why these like preload foods had this effect. They said it could be two different things. It could be that they, they said it's probably two things that work together. So one is they literally just decrease carbohydrate absorption of the rice. And then the second might be through releasing, I don't know if it's Incretin or Incretin, Jason Fung talks a lot about it in his book that I'm reading right now, but those are satiety related hormones and then insulin secretion and insulin action.

Melanie Avalon
So because of so having fiber or protein or fat before the carbs might activate these pathways, make you actually absorb less carbs and give you a beneficial effect where you don't have as much of a blood glucose response to the rice. And they did say, and then last thing I'll say is they did find that people who were insulin sensitive. So people with good blood glucose control had a better effect. It was more, it was more, more effective to do this, this protocol.

But for people who are insulin resistant, it didn't have as much of a fact, which is really, it's kind of disheartening because you know, the people who are insulin resistant are the people who need to most, you know, get quote, get help, like they need to more see beneficial changes because they're insulin insulin resistant and it's harder for them to actually make changes because basically they were just saying like, when you have, if you're that insulin resistant, you're just not as responsive to these things. So yeah, it could be a longer, longer journey for insulin resistant, but it doesn't mean don't, you know, take this into account and do this. It just means that it's kind of like the whole thing, like the rich get richer than poor get poorer. Basically, if you're in a good state of insulin sensitivity, you benefit more from the good things and if you're not, you don't benefit as much, which all goes back to having a foundational diet and like having intermittent fasting, like doing foundational things that will prevent you or keep you or help you become not insulin resistant anymore. And I think intermittent fasting is, I think one of the best ways to do that. So yeah, Barry, what are your thoughts?

Barry Conrad
I think this is this is so interesting because it almost makes you realize why like diet arguments solely online is kind of pointless because it's not just this food is bad for everyone because you know everyone it's so different and it's so surprising how there's different spikes happened with like the grape thing that really threw me and then even like the potato situation really surprised me obviously that must mean I'm okay because I'm not getting those spikes really but like do you do you reckon that people focus too much on blaming individual foods instead of looking at their overall insulin sensitivity because I mean I feel like it's not it's more what's happening happening underneath metabolic metabolic rather than what food is bad you know I mean like based on this

Melanie Avalon
Yes, exactly. That is a perfect thesis to take away from this because people, especially with the internet and clickbait and it's like, oh, eat this food to lower your blood sugar. Do this, to do this, do this, do this. It's so different. How people respond to food is so different. So you have to find what works for you, the foods that help your blood sugar. And that's why I think it's so helpful if everybody at least once does a two week trial of a continuous glucose monitor. Because then you will see how you are actually responding to food because otherwise you won't know. So yeah, I couldn't agree more. The takeaway is basically foods affect people differently.

If I were to do a takeaway from the fiber protein fat preloading, I do think preloading with fat, I don't think that's the best idea. I think this supports preloading with fiber or protein. But either way, and again, the reason I found the study was I was reading Jason Fung's book, which is called The Hunger Code. And he was talking about the role of the order of what you eat and how eating carbs last. It was mind blowing to me because he gave the ideal order of food and it's literally the order I eat in. Because he says, start with fiber and vegetables and then have protein and fat and then have carbs. And the way I eat every single night is I start with tons of cucumbers, so tons of fiber, and then I have my meat and then I have my fruit. So I literally do that exact order.

Barry Conrad
Did he say why, like, does he break down why he says that?

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, so that will have the best effect overall. And I realized I literally just said that everybody's different.

I do think in general though that principle of fiber first and then protein fat and then carbs, I'm going to clarify about the fat. What I mean by that is I don't think you should on purpose have a big amount of fat to mitigate and then have carbs. But I do think in the ordering of things like fiber and then protein fat and then carbs, I think that can work really well for a lot of people. He just talks about how it has the best effect on blood sugar levels, on hormone. Actually, when they mentioned the incretin, so just the different hormones that affect hunger and satiety, that pattern probably has the best effect on your overall appetite and just everything, blood sugar, all the things.

Barry Conrad
I think, I mean, the study definitely is like, it's more like a strong argument for personalized nutrition, like getting really personal about it. And another reminder, you know, why, you know, not all glucose spikes automatically mean something bad.

And that, you know, and also, it also makes me kind of go, oh, now you kind of know why some people swear by one way of eating. And another person says it like ruin their digestion because people just don't know.

Melanie Avalon
Exactly, exactly. And this is not the only study that's looked at this.

There have been a lot of studies looking, or I don't know if there's been a lot, but there definitely have been, Zoe did a study where they looked at people's blood glucose responses to different foods, and it was all over the place, all over the place. Some people, bananas were the best thing ever, other people that just shot their blood sugar through the roof, and then some people could eat cookies, and it was fine, but a grape would really bother them.

Barry Conrad
Great study, Mel. Now I want to know where I'm at.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, with like how you're responding to the different foods.

Barry Conrad
I don't feel, I mean, it's almost like if you don't feel bad, is it bad? You know what I mean? I don't feel.

Melanie Avalon
I think like, yeah, because the question is like, how intuitive can you be with all of this? I do think, I think if you're in a perpetually insulin resistant state, A, you're probably hungry, normal. I think it's harder to tell how things are affecting you if, if you're in a perpetually inflamed insulin resistant state, because you're just going to struggle in general, in general. So it can be hard to know like what's helping and what's not.

But if you're really insulin sensitive, then you probably for sure can tell because normally, you know, you would eat and be fine, but then you would notice like when it's different. I'm just thinking for me, like if I think of these different foods, I mean, I don't really eat. The only ones I eat from there are the berries. And that's just what works best for me, although that it is interesting that berries and beans, like I said, were the only ones where note for at least not that it was the lowest, but nobody had that as like the highest response for beans and berries.

Barry Conrad
Rice and potatoes were pretty high.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. And again, especially if you're insulin resistant, potatoes were not the best.

Interestingly, I would not have predicted this. They said for rice, the Asian population from their group actually had the highest blood glucose response. And now I'm just going down a rabbit hole because at first you'd be like, well, the Asian population normally eats rice, so wouldn't they have like a lower response? But then also they said that the people who were most insulin sensitive responded the highest to grapes. So maybe, I don't know. I don't know. I'd have to think about it. Like maybe having like a high spike, but then it quickly resolves can be better depending on the situation. I mean, that's what I personally think for a lot of things. Like I would rather have some fruit and spike up and go down as long as it doesn't drop down too far and make me reactive hypoglycemic. But I would prefer that a spike and a drop and a lower area under the curve than just kind of like high for a while. And then now it's just like, not super high, but like high. I think that can potentially be more problematic.

Barry Conrad
Also, to me, it doesn't almost make any sense that they found it with the eye in Asian population eating rice, because you'd kind of think like even genetically, aren't they predisposed to digesting that while they eat so much rice. So it just kind of like doesn't kind of make sense in a way.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, well, that's what I'm saying. Like maybe because I don't think they talk about the area under the curve. So it could be that they have a high blood glucose response, but then it quickly drops. So overall, they actually like processed it faster, basically, like, it went high, then it went low. I don't know, I'd have to like, I'd have to read this at the study and see if they talk about the area under the curve.

But regardless, the point is, the point is that people react differently to foods. If you're insulin resistant, that's not good. And these little, especially these little hacks and tricks, you really have to foundationally fix your insulin resistance. And then you'll, the good thing is, then things will work even better. So it can be like an upward, what's it an upward spiral? If you're working on insulin resistance, and fasting, one of the best ways to do that, because that literally forces your, you know, with fasting, it forces your body, your blood sugar to go down, tapping into a fat burning state, helps you process carbs better when you do eat them.

Barry Conrad
massive non-scale victory that people don't often talk about in the media.

Melanie Avalon
Yes. Okay.

Barry Conrad
Awesome study, Mel. It was so fascinating.

Melanie Avalon
Thank you, thank you, thank you. So on that note, shall we answer some listener questions?

Barry Conrad
Let's do it. And our first question is from Jahida and Jahida says, my name is pronounced as Jahida, smiley face. Thank you for taking the time to answer my question.

I am 35 years old. I joined the IF OMAD lifestyle in July. I have had amazing NSV success, non-scale victory success, but my favorite part of IF is how my body talks to me. I know to eat until I'm satisfied. I learned some foods make me sick. Some foods give me that blah feeling, but I feel amazing when I eat good, wholesome foods full of nutrition, especially avocado. I'm obsessed. I've never really paid attention to how I felt. And after three kids, 13 years old, 11 years old, and a six year old, my weight has been up and down. Since I was a little girl, I was raised with my mom who taught me how to survive on a budget. We lived a very poor life and my diet was basically Spanish rice, fried foods, ramen, and lots of bread, all carbs, except for the two meals. They fed us in school. Sad face emoji. Finally, my question is how does loose skin play play out in this lifestyle? I started off at my biggest, which is 248 pounds in 2015 and have fluctuated up and down using so many different diets out there today. I'm weighing in at 178 pounds. And when I started in July, I was 182 pounds. This being said, I have loose skin. What can I do to help me? Have you talked to any other IFAs who started off with a high weight, but lost a lot of weight and can share any tips? Are there any studies out there on loose skin? I've been taking college and supplements for three months, one hour prior to my OMAD and exercise, doing strength training three times a week for 30 minutes. Aside from my daily walk with the dogs, sorry for my question being too long and over the place, you're amazing. And I absolutely love listening to you every Monday to start a new week. Thank you for being there for us all.

Melanie Avalon
All right. So Jahaida, thank you so much for the question. So this is something that Jen Stevens used to talk about a lot when she hosted this with us, which because she had, you know, a massive group of people doing fasting who would report back with their experiences with fasting and a lot of people would lose weight really fast, have loose skin. And she would always say that a lot of them did experience either didn't get the loose skin like you would expect, or that it did eventually go away.

There is an idea out there that because of like the increased autophagy from intermittent fasting, which is like breaking down old problematic cells and proteins in the body that that might help with the excess loose skin. That said, there aren't a lot of like, really good studies on this. And it is very true that I'm having flashbacks now because I interviewed Joel Green forever ago, man, like 2019, I think. And he talks all the time about like the extracellular matrix, which is, it's like a surrounding part of the cell. And it can become with inflammation and like weight gain and weight loss, it can be basically become rigid, and then it's just kind of stuck. And that can be another reason that you might get this loose skin that doesn't seem to go away. I think, on the one hand, when you lose like a massive amount of weight and have like, you'll see people who like, you know, go from morbidly obese, and then they lose it all. And they just have these like these roles and roles of skin, that type of situation, really, you might want to go like, depending on your goals, the surgical route to remove that skin. That said, a slower, steadier approach, it is possible that it will go down, maybe away. You can do things to help. So strength training and building muscle can definitely help. The collagen supplementation, it might help. There's been some studies looking at taking it before exercise and saying that that might be helpful for that. So that's a possibility. I think in the end, it's more about time. So I think one of the most detrimental things for loose skin is like, when people yo-yo, so they like game weight, lose weight, game weight, lose weight, game weight, lose weight. If you want any chance of that skin going away without doing a surgical intervention, I think you really have to play the long game. So like, lose the weight and keep it off. And as time goes on, you know, your body will, you know, remodel. Unfortunately, with age, we lose skin elasticity, and we lose collagen production. And so anything you can do to support that would be helpful. So I would definitely look at things like red light therapy. And there are like skin tightening procedures that you can do that aren't surgical that you could look into. But it's something where I don't think there's, unless people, like I said, people will say that fasting helps.

Melanie Avalon
I haven't been there. So I haven't experienced the issue. So I can't speak to it personally.

It might help. If it's really bad, you might need to do a surgical intervention. But in the meantime, I would eat an anti-inflammatory diet, do things like red light therapy, do strength training, all the things. And also congrats on your weight loss in general. And I think it's great that you with fasting, you it's kind of we're talking about before before this about how you need to be intuitive and like know what foods work for you. And you said that you've learned that some foods make you sick and some make you feel blah and some make you feel amazing. So that's incredible that you're having that intuition. So I would just like keep on that train, eat intuitively in a way that feels good in your body and see what time does. So Barry, what are your thoughts?

Barry Conrad
Yeah, Mel, you answered that so comprehensively. It was so great.

Johaida, thank you so much for sharing your story. You know, I'll echo what Mel said about strength training. It's a massive deal because building muscle underneath can really change the look aesthetically and feel of the body over, again, that word time, time, time, time, the long game. Walking is great. Protein is very important. Hydration is very important. I'm glad also, Mel, that you talked about autophagy because I do believe, you know, that began playing the long game, intermittent fasting can help, you know, our bodies do rebuild. Again, what Mel said, too, is whatever you can do to assist that. Naturally, that's great. But again, if you want to get rid of or not have the loose skin in the short term, then you may need to go the surgical route.

You know, like, we don't have enough, as Mel said, we don't have enough studies to fully say if you do intermittent fasting for this amount of years, autophagy will cause this to happen, for example. So at the end of the day, you've had this massive transformation. And this is the reason why you even have this. So cutest to your massive weight loss, it's incredible. Seriously, it's a massive transformation. Yeah, it sounds like you're doing the right things. Let us know what you decide to do if you want to. And keep us posted. I mean, again, I just encourage you with the long game. It's the long game.

Melanie Avalon
All righty, shall we answer another listener question?

Barry Conrad
Yes.

Melanie Avalon
So we will answer one more listener question, and this comes from Amy, and it's a simple question, but it's, is Kale good for me or bad for me? I have heard arguments both ways.

Barry Conrad
Anyway, I actually have kale at least once a week and I usually have it in a curry or like a stir-fry or stew and I think kale has become one of those foods that people, some people can project all their nutritional fears onto. I think it's like once one week it's a superfood, the next week it's apparently trying to destroy your thyroid or the reality is for most people it's incredibly nutrient dense and absolutely fine.

It's loaded with fiber for one, you know, vitamins K, C, A, antioxidants and compounds that support so much detoxification pathway. So where some of the quote-unquote bad for you situation like that conversation comes from, Amy is that kale's a cruciferous vegetable. So it contains compounds called goitrogens, am I saying that right Mel, goitrogens?

Melanie Avalon
Yes, oitrogens.

Barry Conrad
So it contains compounds called goitrogens which can interfere with thyroid function in very large amounts. So, Amy, I don't know how much Kelle you're eating on the daily, but if you're eating pots and pots and pots of it, maybe I would avoid that. But I mean, it can interfere with thyroid function in very large amounts, especially if someone already has thyroid issues and is now deciding to throw a ton of that into their daily diet. But we're talking about extremes.

And most people are not sitting down eating industrial quantities of raw kale smoothies, you know, downing that all day. And cooking reduces a lot of those compounds anyway. So my take, I mean, it's really simple. I don't really, I don't think it's that bad. I'm guessing you're not an extremist. So I don't think you should worry. Melanie, what do you think?

Melanie Avalon
So I have interesting thoughts about kale. So I think the reason that this became an idea that they are the kale is bad for you is because there was like this massive trend of like kale smoothies. I don't know if it's still happening, but I just remember like there was a moment where it was like all the kale smoothies all the time and like kale smoothies are going to save you. And so people were eating like massive amounts of kale that they would not have normally been eating like out in the wild without seeming like you're eating a lot because it's all like juiced into or, you know, made into a smoothie.

And the concerns are goitrogen are goitrogens and oxalates. The goitrogens I do think are probably less of a concern. People will say that they inhibit thyroid function. I do know that there was like, I think there was a study that kind of made this a big deal because there was like a woman who was eating, I don't know how much she was eating, but it was like some massive amount and it made her like severely hypothyroid or something. So people would talk about that. I do think for most people, the goitrogens aren't as much as an issue, especially because you get so many other benefits from cruciferous vegetables.

And cruciferous vegetables are the ones that have goitrogens in them. The oxalates I actually do think can be a problem. So I interviewed Sally Norton in 2021. I can put a link to it in the show notes. And she makes the case that a lot of people have oxalate built up in the body. And when people think of oxalates, they think of like kidneys, kidney stones and things like that, which if you're having kidney stones, you probably have a problem with oxalates. So if you've ever had kidney stones or anything related to that, I would not eat high oxalate foods. I actually wouldn't. I think it actually can be pretty dangerous.

So if you get my app called FoodSense Guide, you can look up all these foods and you can see which ones have oxalates in them or not. It also looks at like, how many? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Ten other, oh, 12, sorry. 12 different other compounds. So amines, fodmaps, gluten, glutamates, histamine, lectins, salicylates, sulfite styles, nightshades, oxalates, and whether or not they are autoimmune paleo. If you've had kidney stones, I would definitely, I would not eat high oxalate foods. I also think, especially interviewing Sally Norton, I think a lot of people have a lot of health issues that could be from oxalates and they don't realize it, including osteopenia, osteoporosis, fibromyalgia, arthritis, these can actually come from an oxalate overload. And something that Sally talks about is the importance of reducing oxalate intake and removing oxalates from your body. But she also talks about how if you have a high oxalate load and then you go onto a low oxalate diet, your body will start, because basically the oxalates are like these crystals that are sharp, like literally physically sharp and toxic to the body and the body will store them to protect you.

Melanie Avalon
And so when you start, if you cut out all oxalates, you start dumping these stored oxalates that you have and people can actually feel pretty sick. So she has a whole protocol where you like slowly reduce, I think you slowly reduce your oxalate intake.

The point is, I actually, I don't think any one food is good or any one food is bad. I do understand why with kale, on the one hand, it seems like a superfood, like it has all these incredible nutrients. And on the other hand, it's like, it's the worst thing ever. I think for some people, it can be problematic. So it's going to depend on you. Might not be problematic at all. You might not have an oxalate overload problem. You might eat it in not egregiously huge amounts and be fine. But there's so many other different manifestations of how people's relationship with oxalates and food can manifest. And what I mean by that is, you could have different levels of oxalates, you could eat different amounts of oxalate, heavy foods. So the answer is, there is not an answer. It is not good, it is not bad. It depends on you and your body.

But I do think oxalates are pretty bad.

Barry Conrad
I'm glad you swooped in there with that, Kevin, about the ox lice as well. That's really interesting. And also very important to know. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, I actually think it could be a huge problem for a lot of people and they don't even realize it. Like that was one of the interviews that has stuck with me for so long where I'm like, wow, like I wonder how many people this is affecting and they don't even know.

So I don't want to underplay, you know, feel like, oh, all the kale is fine all the time because it actually might not be, but it might be. All right, shall we have our proverbial breaking of the fast?

Barry Conrad
Yes, let's do it.

Melanie Avalon
Alrighty, so the purpose of this part of the show is that the magic of fasting is not just the fasting. It is also in the eating window. So we like to find restaurants that we would like to try and talk about them and talk about what we would eat to break our proverbial hypothetical fast.

Barry Conrad
Yes. Mel, I am so excited about this restaurant this week.

I don't often choose restaurants in this vicinity in California, and I've chosen one in Beverly Hills called Ocean Prime. Have you heard of this place?

Melanie Avalon
Okay, let me see because, you know, I lived in LA for 10 years.

Barry Conrad
They have different locations in different parts of the U.S., but this is the one, this is the one, apparently, to go to.

Melanie Avalon
I'm gonna see where it actually is.

Barry Conrad
you might know where it is. Maybe you've been there. But for listeners, Ocean Prime is in Beverly Hills.

It's described as a modern American classic known for seafood and steak, done at a super high level. It's fully a la carte with amazing luxury, crowd pleasing dishes. The wine list is meant to be polished, extensive, strong in Napa for dough and champagne, consistently ranked as one of the best special occasion restaurants in the US. And it's the vibe is meant to be sleek, dimly lit, refined, and a go to for celebrations, which sounds like our vibe.

Melanie Avalon
I wonder if I've been here. So I'm seeing where it is. And the thing about Beverly Hills is there's like the triangle, which is basically like, I mean, Beverly Hills is bigger than that. But that's where all the stuff is.

And I used to intern there. So I used to intern right by here. I don't think I've been there. I haven't eaten there. But I have I

Barry Conrad
Have you seen it this place?

Melanie Avalon
Well, I've definitely probably driven and walked by it. I don't think so. But it definitely looks like a vibe that I would like.

Barry Conrad
It looks really good and if you look at the dinner menu, it looks delicious.

Melanie Avalon
I might have been to the bar here.

Barry Conrad
I know that you said you like to go to restaurant bars. You know bars at restaurants are so underrated, you're right.

Melanie Avalon
Yes, they're like my favorite. Well, what is the first thing on the menu? Shocker.

Barry Conrad
surprise surprise surprise oysters on the half shell but I'm gonna I'm gonna invite you to have a gander at that and see if anything catches your eye from the on ice menu Mel

Melanie Avalon
Are you going to get oysters on the half shell?

Barry Conrad
Of course. Yes.

And other things. Does anything else, does anything look good to you from that section? Also, there's not that many. Like, I don't think I've seen a menu that has an on ice section. Maybe it's called something else, but I like that.

Melanie Avalon
I see one of my favorite appetizers, so.

Barry Conrad
I think I know what it is. What is it? Jumbo Shrimp Cocktail.

Melanie Avalon
Yes, I love a good jumbo shrimp cocktail, especially if they're like large shrimps, jumbo.

Barry Conrad
See if the jumbo is not just the glass, it's the actual shrimp.

Melanie Avalon
I wonder what the smoking shellfish tower is. It says custom built. What does that mean?

Barry Conrad
Does that mean we get to have a say in what we...

Melanie Avalon
Maybe that would be great because if that's the case we could like because I they also have king crab legs and they have cold water lobster tail so maybe we should do maybe that can we like build it ourselves.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, let's assume. Let's just like pretend this is the deal.

Melanie Avalon
I mean, I guess we would put everything. I mean, we definitely want the shrimp. I want a lobster tail and crab legs and you want oysters.

Barry Conrad
Rosé. What's Rosé and Garnet? What's that? I don't know.

Okay. But I think, yeah, I think definitely all of that. We could easily eat all of that while we just kind of chat and check out the rest of the menu.

Melanie Avalon
I remember every time when I worked at Flemings and was it Flemings that had, yeah, they had a really intense seafood tower and I would always get really nervous when people would order it because the price is kind of like here, the price isn't on it and it is so expensive and I'd always be like, I hope they know how much this is, like when they're ordering it.

Barry Conrad
How much do towers go for?

Melanie Avalon
I don't it depended what you got on it. But I mean, it could easily be over like $100 for just that tower, which is like an appetizer.

So I was always just like, I really hope I did, I did find that the type of people who order seafood towers tend to be familiar with it. So I don't remember having that many moments where people, you know, got upset.

Barry Conrad
It's more like you're just wondering like, I hope you know how much this cost, cause uh.

Melanie Avalon
It's either for a server, it's either a really good thing or a really bad thing. It's a really good thing if they know and they're down because they're probably going to have a high check and they're probably going to tip you well.

The flip side is people who don't know and then they get sticker shock and then they make up for it by tipping lists.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, that's so you don't want that situation going beneath the smoking shellfish tower.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, we are using the correct terminology.

Barry Conrad
I knew that you'd say that. And listeners, by that, Melanie means it's called appetizers and entrees.

In Australia, entrees is the appetizers. And then our entrees, American style, is called manes in Australia. So Melanie's very happy with this.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, but we have agreed that we go by the menu. We've spent so much energy being like, are we going to do appetizers or entrees or mains or what? We'll just go by the menu.

Just go in. Let's let the house decide.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, that's true.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, so appetizers. Oh, I see what I want. This is easy.

Barry Conrad
Are you getting the stakes that's off?

Melanie Avalon
Oh yes, the prime steak tartare with caper, shallots, and crostini all on the side please.

Barry Conrad
Yum. I am going to go for the Point Judith Kalamari. I love Kalamari so much.

So I'm going to go for that. And then also the Ahi Tuna. OK, the Point Judith Kalamari with sweet chili sauce, and then the Ahi Tuna Tata, which is avocado, ginger, ponzu, and sesame seeds.

Melanie Avalon
I'm assuming it's GFM gluten free. Is that what that means? I don't know what the M is though. I think so.

Barry Conrad
Gluten-free meal? Gluten-free...

Melanie Avalon
I know. What's the M? Well, here it is. Oh, can be made gluten free with modifications.

Barry Conrad
Oh, gluten-free, modified or whatever.

Melanie Avalon
Oh wait, so the prime steak tartare cannot be modified to be gluten free? That's confusing. How is that even possible? I don't believe them. They can talk to me. It'll be fine. We'll figure it out.

Barry Conrad
If they can build a tower, they can, surely they can.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, the shrimp cocktail. Yeah, we're good. Okay. Are you gonna get some sushi?

Barry Conrad
Seeing as I'm at Ocean Prime, I'm going to probably go for the Ocean Roll, which is their number one tuna, salmon, hamachi, avocado, chili garlic oil roll. So I'm going to go for that because it's in the name, Ocean, doing it.

Melanie Avalon
I would get the sashimi, which is number one, ahi salmon, hamachi, ponzu, carrot salad, although I actually, I feel horrible, I don't, is hamachi and ponzu, are those, what is that?

Barry Conrad
So a hamachi is Japanese amberjack yellowtail.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, okay. I'm looking it up to. Okay. Popular buttery fish used in sashimi. Let's see how it goes on the mercury front. It is, oh, generally low to moderate, making it safer than high mercury, like swordfish.

Well, that's not much of a comparison because swordfish is like out the roof. The other one was ponzu. Yeah. Oh, it's a, it's a sauce. So basically if we get that, I will definitely have the salmon and maybe I'll like taste the hamachi, but would you like some of the hamachi?

Barry Conrad
Yeah, I'll take it. That's one benefit of eating with me. I'm usually game to have the leftovers or whatever someone doesn't want most times.

Melanie Avalon
Is there anything you won't eat? Well, we know that you don't like the birds that are not chicken. The quail and the peasant and the pigeons.

Barry Conrad
Pigeons, no rodents, no, no rodents, no rats or anything, but people eat rats and dogs and not obviously not here, but that I know of, but I would eat most things.

Melanie Avalon
Is there anything like just like comes to your mind like no, I wouldn't eat that. That's like a normal thing.

Not like a rodent. Actually, no. There's not a food that you don't like. That's like a normal food.

Barry Conrad
No, because even the ones that I don't like I would still eat like there's nothing that I there's certain things that I wouldn't like go out of my way to order but if it's there I'd eat it but there's nothing that I would be like I don't eat that.

Melanie Avalon
So you're probably, yeah, like we established, you're not a super taster.

Barry Conrad
But I taste foods intensely and I love the taste.

Melanie Avalon
I know I think I think we're the same I think we're both like medium like I think we're right in the sweet spot where like we really taste the food and flavors but we're not such a super taster that we get turned off by certain things.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, I was going to ask you if there's any food that you own, but I know one of the answers to that already.

Melanie Avalon
What is that? Oysters. Oysters, olives.

Barry Conrad
Muscles

Melanie Avalon
I will try mussels. I haven't had mussels before so I can't comment yet. I will try that because I can't comment yet. The only ones that I know I don't like are olives, oysters.

Barry Conrad
Oh, is this so good on a charcuterie board or in a martini? Hmm, interesting.

Melanie Avalon
Although I should retry them now, maybe I like them now, maybe.

Barry Conrad
Do you like any of the, I feel like you're not really a scoop and sell gal. Do you like anything on that?

Melanie Avalon
I think I'm good. How about you?

Barry Conrad
I may do the lobster bisque because I do like a good little chowder vibe, so I'll just have that to taste. But moving on from that section into the seafood heaven.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, I need to get my bearings. I need to look at the... Okay, so there's seafood, there's chicken and chops, there's prime steaks, and then there's accessories and there's sides.

Okay. So now are we looking... Are we like zooming out and looking at all of that?

Barry Conrad
I think let's zoom out and look at all the main events here because otherwise you'd be eating everything unless that's what you want to do.

Melanie Avalon
I mean, yes, but okay, let me take this all in. That's a lot.

Barry Conrad
A lot of good options.

Melanie Avalon
So they do have something that is one of my historical favorite things, but I don't actually eat it now. Well, part of it is one of my favorite things. Actually, there's a few things that I absolutely love, but I don't eat them anymore.

Which ones? I think if, okay, so if I'm going to go through like categories of, not categories, like a certain type of dish, there are two dish types that just light me up, like I could dream about them. And like they're like a style of a dish, I guess. The linguine? No, one of these things, which is not on this menu, but I literally, I love it so much that I googled like this as a cupcake to be like, is this a thing?

Barry Conrad
Is it the, no, I don't know. I don't know which one. Is it the, the corn spoon bread?

Melanie Avalon
No, should I tell you? So I love teriyaki.

What's wrong with teriyaki? I mean, it's basically like sugar. So like back in the day, like chicken teriyaki, anything teriyaki, I love. Anything teriyaki and anything Alfredo. So the other night I Googled, I was like Alfredo cupcakes and there are recipes for it.

Barry Conrad
Alfredo cupcakes? Yeah. That's not what I was expecting you to say. That's because it's like a savory vibe to me.

Melanie Avalon
I know. This happens.

I think of things I really like, and I'm like, what if that was like, what if I combine two things I like, like cupcakes and alfredo? So yes, so teriyaki salmon looks really promising, however, I will not be getting that. I think I'm going to go the, well, I know we're at an ocean restaurant, you don't know.

Barry Conrad
and a half status seafood.

Melanie Avalon
Maybe, maybe I would get twin lobster tails. Yum. I don't get that very much and I think I really like it.

Barry Conrad
Lobster's amazing. It just never, never lets you down. Ever.

Melanie Avalon
And again, another food that tastes nothing like you think it's going to taste like.

Barry Conrad
It's so sweet and delicious. Yeah, it's really great buttery, you know.

Melanie Avalon
And I know how to de-shell a lobster tail since I had to do that as a server.

Barry Conrad
Are you good?

Melanie Avalon
Good enough.

Barry Conrad
Well, you might have to do my one.

Melanie Avalon
I can de-shell your lobster tail for you.

Barry Conrad
A bit you like do it like a boss, like real quick, done.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, you have to basically you put the fork in the like lobster to hold it and then you just take your knife and you just like slice off that little piece that's holding it to the tail and then you pick and then you're supposed to like pick it up a certain way with the utensils. I don't remember now, but it's a whole thing.

Barry Conrad
Wow, look at you. Okay. Well, I'm going to get the loves details as well. Are you going to get anything extra? Another, like another.

Melanie Avalon
Yes, I think I'm going to go like the surf and turf route. So I will get the twin lobster tails and oh, backtrack. That's an option. So stop.

I'm not getting twin lobster tails. I'm going to get a steak and add a lobster tail because they have that as an add-on. So I will get the, I want a fillet. I think I'll get a, oh, what's that? I have to look this up. A Piedmontese fillet.

Barry Conrad
I've actually never seen that before.

Melanie Avalon
and exceptionally lean, tender, healthy beef from Italy's Piedmont region, cattle known for their unique muscle structure with virtually no fat. Whoa! Low in calories and the fat that is there is very juicy. It's usually grass-fed.

Oh, wait. Oh, it can be grass-fed, grass-finished or grain-finished. Okay, but regardless, that's a winner. I'm happy. I'm gonna get the eight ounce Piedmontese filet and I'm gonna add a lobster tail. Perfect. And I'm gonna get it blue, as blue and rare as they will bring it. Yes. Oh, I'm excited. Now I'm gonna start looking for this on menus.

Barry Conrad
Oh my gosh, I've never heard of Piedmontese. Okay, now something new, there we go.

I would do the double lobster tails for sure and then also the rack of lamb, because I love lamb so much. And then I would get on the side baked lobster mac and cheese. I love mac and cheese so much. That's what I would get.

Melanie Avalon
So my question for you is you can't eat pigeons, but you can eat lamb. Like if we're talking about like really cute little animals.

Barry Conrad
are not cute to me they

Melanie Avalon
They're not? No, not really. They're just like not like, they're not food to you.

Barry Conrad
I don't know where this comes, but it must be in that story that I told you about the bakery thing where I had the pie that.

Melanie Avalon
for listeners basically, what was it? You had really off chicken? Was that it?

Barry Conrad
I went to a bakery it was a pie and i feel like the quote unquote chicken pie was not chicken.

Melanie Avalon
And you're like, to this day, you're like, maybe it was pigeon.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, it could be not real at all.

Melanie Avalon
Well, we're going to have pigeon together.

Barry Conrad
But lamb is delicious, and especially because living in New Zealand for so long, it's just delicious over there. There's no place on Earth that does lamb, then you like New Zealand. So I've just always loved it.

Melanie Avalon
I bet super tasters don't like lamb because it has that really specific taste, you know, that like taste. We've talked about this. Like it has that taste.

Barry Conrad
Is this like how you say fish can be fishy? Or chicken can be chickeny and lamb can be lamby? It's like.

Melanie Avalon
You know what I mean? Here's my example.

If there was a lot of red meat on the table and you don't know what's what, like you don't know if it's beef or buffalo or bison or boar or elk or lamb, I feel like most people probably could not match up all of them. I feel like I might could match up a lot of them. However, I think most people could pick out the lamb because it has that taste, that lamb taste. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Barry Conrad
I do. And it also does look different as well. It does definitely has a taste.

Melanie Avalon
It's like a how would you describe it? It's like a gamey gamey fishy gamey.

Barry Conrad
But no, the fish, I still can't get my head on the fishy. This fish tastes like fishy, like what do you mean?

Melanie Avalon
Fishy, people know what fishy is. Fishy is like that, like I've said before, it's when you get everything that you don't like about the ocean in a taste and fish.

And for me, I eat fish while I eat scallops every night. Actually, I eat fish every most nights. And sometimes there'll be like a weird smell in my trash the next day. That's like, that's fishy, but it's only like sometimes.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, but that that's like so gross because it's like left out there. But I mean, if it's just freshly made, you know, like chicken, comfy chicken, even. That's true.

Melanie Avalon
I stand by my fishiness.

Barry Conrad
Sound bites. There we go. I stand by my effectiveness. I do.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, so you got what you got the we've got the lobster Mac or the normal Mac Wait, no potatoes. What'd you get?

Barry Conrad
I got the Recolam, the lobster, twin lobster tails, and the baked lobster mac and cheese on the side. And then is there dessert? Should we look at the dessert menu?

Melanie Avalon
Oh, yes, let us look

Barry Conrad
I don't know what I'm getting. Do you want to guess?

Melanie Avalon
I do want to guess, are you getting the chocolate peanut butter pie? Yes. Yes.

Barry Conrad
And also the creme brulee, because I love creme brulee.

Melanie Avalon
That's nice. It bounces out like you get the chocolate and the vanilla.

Barry Conrad
and that you're going to have one of the previous courses that you really liked.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, so if I were ordering a dessert, I would get the 10 layer carrot cake because I love carrot cake. However, I probably would get a for dessert.

Assuming they made the tartare for me, I might get like another one of those. I might get some more shrimp or some, or some sashimi. I would just get like a second round of something.

Barry Conrad
And anything to drink, there's the one list.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, look what they have. Do you see it Barry at the top?

Barry Conrad
the wine of the cocktails.

Melanie Avalon
At the top of the wine list, what do you see?

Barry Conrad
de blanc de blancs.

Melanie Avalon
You know, you just passed right by it. You like the first thing on the menu.

Barry Conrad
The Champagne.

Melanie Avalon
No. The first thing on the menu.

I'm going to see how long it takes for... I think you're just not going to see it. The wine or the cocktails? The wine. Coravin. The Coravin. I've been telling you about this.

Barry Conrad
Tell me again, remind me, remind me.

Melanie Avalon
It's the system where you can, it like drills a hole into the wine bottle and lets you... So basically it allows them, yeah, so basically you can like taste these wines that would be really expensive and they're probably not selling them as like, they're not going through the wine fast enough to preserve it normally. So they use this Coravin system that lets you pull wine out of the bottle and then preserve the rest of the wine in the bottle.

And I've actually started using it, so I wasn't really using my Coravin that often, but then you know how I was talking to bring everything full circle at the beginning about how I've been researching and ordering wines that I don't know if they're going to be okay for me or not because it's not dry farm wines. So what I've started doing, because what I do now is if I order a wine that I research and I feel good about, but then I don't like it, I just give it away. So now I've realized when I don't know if it's not a dry farm wines, it's a wine that I'm trying, I use my Coravin system to taste it. So then if I don't like it, then it's like I never opened it and then I can give it away and I don't have to worry about like giving it away really quickly because it's preserved.

Barry Conrad
That's such a good option to have, by the way.

Melanie Avalon
I love core events. They're awesome.

Barry Conrad
And I totally bypassed it. Sorry. Coravin.

Melanie Avalon
I was like, I don't think he's actually going to see it. Like your mind was incapable of seeing it.

Barry Conrad
even though it's massive font.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. Weird that they have the Justin on the Coravin list. I would not consider that a Coravin wine.

I'm very familiar with that wine. Okay. So I think for me, let me look, as per usual with Los Angeles restaurants, it's a very California heavy list. I think we're going to have to go buy the bottle. So I'm going to have to do a lot of research and figure out which bottle, but I'm sure I can find one. But by the glass list, I don't really see anything.

Barry Conrad
Nice. I'm going to have to go with, again, I'm just going to do something different and ask them what they recommend in the way of white wine, perfectly like a Pinot Grigio, and then I'll get a bottle of that.

Melanie Avalon
Perfect. Let me see what Pinot Grigio they have. If I, I've, I've had like the, the king estate. Is that good? I think it's sustainable. Maybe it might actually be organic, but yeah, I think this is a buy the bottle type place for me.

Is there a cocktail?

Barry Conrad
Well, of cocktails, if it's, hold on a second, I got cocktails. Cocktail definitely will be getting the

Melanie Avalon
Oh, wait, pause. I looked it up. I was right. I don't want to say it if I wasn't sure.

But yes, the King of State Pinot Gris is biodynamic. So that's a good option. I would have some of that one for sure.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, get a bottle of that and then I'm definitely going to get a tequila premier cocktail, which is fresh azul anegio tequila, dos jombres mezcal, fresh agave, onasturro and orange bitters. I'll have that to start and then have the bottle of pina grigio chilled right there.

Okay, yes. I'm so hungry again now. I want some seafood. I want some lobster.

Melanie Avalon
Are you going to eat again?

Barry Conrad
I would like to, but I don't know, I went to work up really early this morning and went to bed kind of late, so I don't know if I'll be able to, but maybe we'll see, see how we go.

Melanie Avalon
Awesome. Let me know if you do. And good choice for the restaurant. We should go. Especially because there's so many locations. Is there one in New York?

Barry Conrad
Yes, there is one in New York, actually, there actually is one.

Melanie Avalon
You should go. Yeah.

Can I tell you? So like I'm always looking at different restaurants and I feel like there's so many ones in New York and I'm like, if I was Barry, like I could just go to all these places all the time.

Barry Conrad
You got to tell me, you're going to send me any recs that you see that you're like, you got to go there.

Melanie Avalon
The thing is I save them like for this show, but I should just like send them to you, you can go.

Barry Conrad
I'll go to some of them anyway.

Melanie Avalon
Yes, awesome, okay. Well friends, thank you so much for joining us on today's episode. The show notes for today's episode will be at ifpodcast.com slash episode 480. That will have a full transcript as well as links to everything that we talked about. So definitely check that out.

And if you would like to submit your own questions for the show, you can email questions at ifodcast.com or you can go to ifpodcast.com and submit questions there. And lastly, you can follow us on Instagram. We are I Have Podcast, I am Melanie Avalon. Barry is Barry underscore Conrad. Yeah, I think that's all the things. Anything from you, Barry, before we go?

Barry Conrad
That's all the things. Thank you again so much everyone for tuning in and we'll catch you next week.

Melanie Avalon
I will talk to you next week.

Barry Conrad
Talk to you next week, Mel, bye.

Melanie Avalon
Bye. Thank you so much for listening to the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Please remember, everything we discussed on this show does not constitute medical advice, and no patient-doctor relationship is formed. If you enjoyed the show, please consider writing a review on iTunes.

We couldn't do this without our amazing team. Editing by podcast doctors, show notes and artwork by Brianna Joyner, and original theme composed by Leland Cox and recomposed by Steve Saunders. See you next week.

Jun 22

#479 – Intermittent Fasting and Sleep, Sugar Cravings and Binge Eating, Exogenous Ketone Benefits, Fasting During a Half Marathon, Cooling and Heating Resistant Starch, Personal Circadian Rhythms, And More!

Welcome to Episode 479 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, biohacker, founder of AvalonX, and author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine, and Barry Conrad, actor, singer-songwriter, and creator and host of Banter with BC.

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

TRANSCRIPT

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

Melanie Avalon
Welcome to Episode 479 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. If you want to burn fat, gain energy, and enhance your health by changing when you eat, not what you eat, with no calorie counting, then this show is for you.

I'm Melanie Avalon, biohacker, founder of AvalonX, and author of What, When, Wine. Lose weight and feel great with paleo-style meals, intermittent fasting, and wine. And I'm joined by my co-hosts, Barry Conrad, actor, singer-songwriter, and creator and host of Banter with B.C. For more on us, check out MelanieAvalon.com and BarryConradOfficial.com. You can submit questions for the show by emailing questions at iapodcast.com or by going to iapodcast.com. We would love to hear from you. Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this show do not constitute medical advice or treatment. So pour yourself a mug of black coffee, a cup of tea, or even a glass of wine if it's that time, and get ready for the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Hi, everybody, and welcome. This is episode number 479 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon, and I'm here with Barry Conrad. Barry, how are you today? I have to hear about, you know what?

Barry Conrad
You know what, Melanie, I'm doing so good. I'm just doing so amazing. And if you're referencing the half marathon, yes.

Melanie Avalon
Yes, the one I did not text you the day of, and I feel so-

Barry Conrad
It's so funny listeners like Melanie was like freaking out. I can't believe I forgot that like, but it's like, I don't expect you to know my schedule.

Melanie Avalon
but I wrote it in my calendar. But I just wrote it in the wrong place in my calendar, so I didn't see it.

Barry Conrad
these things happen. It's totally fine. I was not down about anything. I wasn't like wise and male messaged me.

Melanie Avalon
The whole world is not about me. Wishing you.

Barry Conrad
It's totally fine, but thank you so much for caring and for asking. And I'm very proud to say that I reckon I smashed it.

Melanie Avalon
Oh my gosh.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, the Brooklyn experience everyone in New York and it's my first marathon and I clocked in at one forty seven so that's my goal was one hour and forty six and I got one hour and forty seven so I'm happy with that I'm pretty happy with that.

Melanie Avalon
and was this the first time because I know when you and we talked about this but I know when you were prepping for it you were like running certain amounts did you had you run the full amount yet prior

Barry Conrad
No, so usually what happens and this is what I didn't know prepping for a half marathon is I thought exactly what you did like you like do the whole full noun so you're ready kind of thing that that was my guess but you meant to do a combination of long runs and then sprint training like interval training and then recovery runs and then the long runs really the longest you're supposed to do is like the longest study was like 19 k's so what is that in miles it's not the full amount of k's was 21.5 k's 22 k's so it's like I didn't go all the way to the end but I did I did quite a lot of it but you're not supposed to do that much you're going to do kind of a long run and then taper off because you need your body can't be too fatigued it's so much

Melanie Avalon
So it's kind of like, in theater, you don't do a full tech dress rehearsal everything, you do like a tech rehearsal. Like you don't do it, you don't like actually do the full thing prior.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, well, with theater, for example, like you obviously go full out in rehearsals, but when it comes to tech week, you're just standing there and doing sort of marking the song with the scene and then having the lighting be, you know, getting the lighting and sound right. But this is, I've never been more challenged ever.

Like this physically has been, it's been so challenging and also so rewarding, because, you know, for people who don't know, and I've probably have sound like a broken record. Back in 2017, I had a pulmonary embolism, which means a blood essentially hit my right lung and took off my right lung. You know, at the time, I couldn't speak without gasping for air, let alone run or perform or sing or act or anything. So I avoided running, avoided swimming, avoided anything pushing myself. So training for this really, over the last few months was like, way more personal than I expected it to be. It started as like, just this fun NYC thing to do, but because everyone here runs, but it quickly became something way bigger. And it was hard, but you know, especially sometimes fears can creep in, especially during the longer runs. But I have moments where I suddenly remember, you know, this is how far I've come. So not to be dramatic, but Brooklyn was buzzing and the energy was on 10 people were cheering everywhere, your body's dying and screaming. It's like, you're not going to make it. But you just do you find it, you find that strength. So I'm pretty proud.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, it's absolutely amazing. Did you know the whole time?

I know you just said that you're like, I'm not gonna make it, but I'm gonna make it. But did you ever have a moment where you were seriously thinking you might not make it? Or were you pretty sure you were gonna make it the whole time?

Barry Conrad
I felt really good because I had been training really consistently. Mel, as you know, I've been talking about training and stuff. So I felt good going into it.

But then on the day, it's like after six, even after six miles, I'm like, oh, man, this is actually it's actually pretty hard. It's like, am I going to finish this? It's really becomes mental game. But it shows what you can actually do. Human body is so resilient, so strong. So, yeah, you just find that you find it. Your body feels like lead, but you just go, go. Like you feel like you're exerting 100 percent, but you feel like you're moving like a centimeter at that point. So you just go. Yeah, so I'm I'm super proud.

Melanie Avalon
You should be. And I'm sure listeners, because we talked about it beforehand, what did you end up doing with like food and fasting and fueling? How did you fuel it?

Barry Conrad
This was interesting. So part way through my training, a few weeks out, I went for a morning run, just like a regular run. Actually, no, this was meant to be a longer run and literally maybe a minute into it. I felt just off like my legs felt like lead. It just didn't feel right.

I was going really slow. I tried to go for a long one and I just had to turn back and call it. And what I actually realized was I had not been feeling myself sufficiently. I'd been sticking to my eye protocol as per and eating the same volume of food, which normally is fine, but I actually just, I forgot. I forgot that to fuel myself, you know, fittingly. So after that happened, Mel, I started eating way more, like just eating almost double the amount of carbs a day, eating a lot more leading up. I actually did stretch my window from decrease moment from 20 to 18 hours for the final week leading up to the marathon, the half marathon, just to get even more food in. But what I did, didn't do was eat on the day. So I definitely just ate my normal evening and I just ran fasted.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, wow. Did you bring like a backup? Nope. You just committed.

Barry Conrad
I committed. Why you're running these marathons, these little stations of people with tables of water or electrolytes, you kind of grab that as you go without stopping sort of thing, like you're running and drinking. I didn't have a snack, I didn't have breakfast or anything like that.

I toyed with like, should I do it? I've never done it before, so why start and kind of, you know.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, yeah, that's what I think we talked about this when we were talking about it. It's like if you are going to do that, you probably want to like test it first. Like if you're going to bring like a, you know, like a honey gel or something, you probably want to test, not guess.

Barry Conrad
Maybe if I, if I did a marathon, which I doubt I will, that's like double what I did that might call for like a situation, but I just didn't even think about it. To be honest, I didn't feel off at all.

I felt fine in the morning mornings are great for me. So.

Melanie Avalon
Well, congratulations. That is a huge, huge accomplishment.

Barry Conrad
Thanks so much. Honestly, I highly recommend not necessarily a half marathon, but just do hard things everyone because you can do it. Like you can push yourself beyond what you think you can do.

Melanie Avalon
How did you break your fast after the marathon?

Barry Conrad
Oh, well, so as soon as you rock up to the end, there's like a meeting area and they have all these bagels that they're giving out. So everyone's having like a bagel and like drinks and stuff like that.

I had like the bagel, which is fine, but after we got all changed and stuff, we went to like a, went to a pub and we had like burgers and everything. The whole world. It was awesome. Just went in.

Melanie Avalon
I bet you slapped really well that night.

Barry Conrad
I did. And I'd also could hardly move the next week. I took the week off gym the next week. I was just like, I'm not going to do anything.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, did you do recovery stuff like cold water or red light or?

Barry Conrad
I did a lot of like, I did a lot of cold stuff and then also just, just ate really well, you know, slept really well and took it easy. Cause it's a pretty traumatic thing to body through.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. I learned this week, or I didn't learn it this week, but last week, I interviewed Dr. Tommy Wood. He has a book called The Stimulated Mind, all about the brain.

But one of the little fun facts I learned was that, at least in marathon runners, during the run, the body actually eats the brain's myelin sheath. What? Yeah. Because it needs that much fat, energy. Apparently, but like the amount of things that happen to your body during that intense intensity is a lot to recover from. A lot.

Barry Conrad
It is, but also, you know, have to give cuters to intermittent fasting, no injuries, no nothing. Even during training, like I'd no hiccups in any way.

I was like at the beginning, it was a little tense of like, am I going to get injured or something? Cause I've never done this before. Cause I'm not like 20. So, but no, nothing at all.

Melanie Avalon
Well, nicely done. Do you feel back to normal now?

Barry Conrad
Back to normal, a-okay.

Melanie Avalon
Oh my gosh. Well, congratulations. That's so, so epic. I will not do that.

Barry Conrad
No, never say never or never.

Melanie Avalon
Never say never, I will not do that.

Barry Conrad
Is there something in the realm of possibility that you would do that you thought that you would never do that you might consider doing or not really like a stunt or like an adrenaline activity or anything like that?

Melanie Avalon
So something like now that I would always say never, but now I'm like, hmm, maybe. Thank you.

Barry Conrad
Yeah.

Melanie Avalon
Maybe I'd jump out of an airplane, skydive, maybe. I could definitely be paid to do that. I couldn't be paid to do a half marathon or a marathon. I think that's the bar.

It's like, what could I be paid to do? The one thing you could never, ever, ever pay me to do, unless my phobia goes away, is even if I was completely safe, it's all fine, I can breathe, it's all good, be locked in a box, I just couldn't.

Barry Conrad
You claustrophobic? Yes. Same.

Melanie Avalon
I pause because there's like two types of claustrophobia. I'm the type that's like being constricted is what I can't handle. So I'm fine like in an elevator, I'm fine in small rooms, but it's when I can't get out.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, I get that. That's pretty scary. Look, fear factor.

Melanie Avalon
Which it's interesting to think about because it's like, I'll pay you a million dollars to like get in this coffin and nothing's going to happen to you. You can breathe and then you can get out after like three hours, but you can't get out before then. I don't know if I could do it.

Really? Maybe, you know, I probably could if I figured out some sort of mind game that I could do in my head. Literally convince myself I'm not there, but yeah, yeah. Well, congratulations.

Barry Conrad
Thank you. What about you? It's a film of you known on all things Melanie Avalon.

Melanie Avalon
I just have a very brief announcement for listeners. So by the time this comes out, this should be official because we're working on it literally right now. But my Glow Coffee, you can now get subscriptions. We've been getting a lot of requests for that. So basically, it is a incredible way to get your coffee, don't have to think about it, and you get a discount for life and free shipping if it's three bags or more. So I just wanted to provide that to people.

So if you go to glowcoffeeco.com, you can get a subscription. And as a brief reminder of what it is, it is the perfect coffee for your fast because we source beans that were super high in antioxidants, which is where we get a lot of the benefits from coffee. And then it's, well, it tastes amazing. And on top of that, it's organic. It comes from an all female-led initiative. So go get a subscription now, oh, and you can pause or cancel at any time. So honestly, even if you're going to do a single purchase, just do a subscription because then you'll get a discount and then you can just cancel or pause. But I hope you don't cancel or pause, but you can cancel or pause is the point. So yes, I've just been like working on that.

Barry Conrad
That's so exciting. Congratulations.

And how great for all because because I actually have been seeing in the even in the Facebook group, people asking you about, I'm sure that I saw someone asking about subscription. So that's really exciting.

Melanie Avalon
Yes, we've been doing some reach out to some of the customers and be like, what do you think? And what's your feedback and all the things? And everybody loves it. So that's good.

We haven't gotten any negative feedback, but people have been asking about subscriptions. So yes, yes, yes. Next week, I'm going to tease another beverage-related venture that I may be going on. So stay tuned.

I can't wait to hear. It's very fresh though. All this stuff is very fresh.

Barry Conrad
I love how you, you're just happy. You just like tease things like you just put it out, put it onto the universe. You know what I mean? You're not precious about it. I love that.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. I've thought about it before because some people don't like, which I understand, but they don't like jinxing. They don't like saying it before it's happening. But I'm like, you know what? I'll just say all the things. And if it doesn't happen, I highly doubt people are going to... I'll remember it more than other people, I think.

I agree. Okay. Shall we jump into some studies and fasting stuff and all the things?

Barry Conrad
Let's do it.

Melanie Avalon
Awesome. Do you have a study to start us out with?

Barry Conrad
I do. So the study I'm bringing today is called computational identification of ketone metabolism and as a key regulator of sleep stability and circadian dynamics via real-time metabolic profiling.

Melanie Avalon
Whoa, okay, can I pause you?

Barry Conrad
Yes.

Melanie Avalon
Literally, that's like, that felt, so like listening to you read that felt like being led down a path and just having literally no idea where you're going. Like every word you said, I was like, oh, now this direction, oh, now like, like computation, I'm like math.

And then it's like ketones, okay, ketone, sleep, like, just like, where are we?

Barry Conrad
No, that's what I thought as well when I first read the study, but it's a mouthful, but I got sucked in, so I had to bring this one today. It's something very different. I'm going to send you the link so you can see where I've led you to. Here we go. So, this study was by Hao Wang, Keijing Shou, and Michael Lutterley. And before I get into the nitty-gritty of it, everyone, important disclaimer here is it wasn't a human clinical trial. This was primarily a lab study using fruit flies. I don't know if that's a first for the podcast. Okay, go with me here. Follow me here. It sounds a little wild, a little crazy initially, but fruit flies, I actually used a lot in sleep and circadian rhythm research because scientists can study their biological clocks really precisely. So, the reason I thought it was really interesting for us here on our podcast is because it directly looked at ketones, fasting, circadian rhythm, and sleep stability altogether, which is a massive thing in the fasting world right now.

We talk so much about sleep and circadian rhythms on the show. And for people who may not know, that basically means your body's internal clock. So, it's the system that regulates when you naturally wake up and you feel sleepy. For me, that's, you know, I wake up really early naturally. Melanie likes to wake up later, like we all have different sort of cycles. So, it's when you feel awake, sleepy, hungry, energetic across 24 hours. And the more and more people are experimenting now with even sinking their or trying to line up their fasting, even their protocols to that clock. So, eating early in the day, avoiding late night meals, for example, extending overnight fasts and whatnot, just trying to see what mode you can find that's going to work best for you. So, this study is why, that is exactly why I was attracted to the study because it gives a deeper metabolic level look into everything. So, the researchers wanted to understand whether ketones could actually influence not just how long something sleeps, but how stable and organized the sleep wake cycle actually is, which gets good. So, ketones are molecules your body naturally produces when you haven't eaten for a while. So, during IF, during fasting, our bodies sort of gradually shift away from relying mainly on glucose and they start producing ketones from stored fat for energy. And one of the main key terms is called bitter hydroxybutrate or BHB. And that was one of the compounds used in this study. And the researchers used genetically modified fruit flies. Yes, I said it. The researchers used genetically modified fruit flies, including some designed to mimic Alzheimer's related sleep disruption. And they then increased ketone activity in two ways. One way, by giving BHB directly and the second way through intermittent fasting. And this study, in this study, intermittent fasting meant the flies fasted three times weekly for roughly 16 to 24 hours. What they found was so interesting because the ketone related changes didn't simply make the fly sleep a whole lot longer. They actually seemed to improve the transitions between being awake and being asleep.

Barry Conrad
So, around, especially around nighttime and waking periods. So, for everyday people out there listening to our show, think about those nights like your sleep feels really messy, it feels broken up, fragmented, and you keep waking up, right? So, you can't properly settle or feel, you feel really alert and wired at night.

The researchers are basically suggesting metabolism ketones might play like a role in how stable those sleep transitions are. So, they found that IF and BHB improved sleep consolidation in Alzheimer's bottle flies. What does sleep consolidation mean? It means sleep becomes more continuous and less broken up so instead of so think instead of lots of interrupted little wake-ups during the night sleep becomes really deep a lot more stable overall and the circadian rhythm patterns also become more organized so that's part of that consolidation and one of the more interesting things about this was that the ketone activity was was the strongest during the transition into nighttime sleep so this sort of lines up with what we talk about a lot with fasting and circadian rhythm alignment there's a lot of interest out there in weather eating late at night for example might interfere with you know your metabolism your metabolic signals and eating earlier you know eating during early winters and longer overnight fasting periods might support them so obviously the study doesn't prove intermittent fasting cures insomnia or Alzheimer's but it and I mean it does not show that because it wasn't a human trial but I still think it's super interesting because it sort of reinforces that idea that like metabolism and ketones and meal timing and your body clock they're all connected so to be honest it's anecdotally you know it lines up with what a lot of people report when they fast consistently more stable energy less late night hunger more consistent sleep timing easier wake-ups in the morning so I reckon yeah practical thing is not everyone needs to suddenly obsess now over ketones it's more that when we talk about if we're probably talking a lot more than just weight loss about a lot more than just weight loss we also might be influencing deeper biological systems tied to sleep quality energy regulation and circadian rhythm so Mel what do you what do you think about this study

Melanie Avalon
Wow. Okay. So, so question you said, did they, so they both looked at intermittent fasting in the flies and they also looked at giving them exogenous ketones as well.

Barry Conrad
So when they used the flies, they included some design to mimic the Alzheimer's, and then they increased ketone activity for both of them, giving BHB directly to the animals through IF. You're right.

Melanie Avalon
So did they like do it together or did they look at fasting versus giving BHB?

Barry Conrad
I think they did it together from what I can understand from the study.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, yeah, because I would be so curious. I'd be curious like if they got the effects just from fasting, like was fasting enough? Or did they have to have supplemental BHB? Oh, I see. Yeah, BHB and IF. Yeah. Yeah. The reason I'm so fascinated by it is because I would love to know if fasting alone was enough to create the effects or if they had to add it in.

But I've become so intrigued by the exogenous ketones ever since interviewing the founder of Hard Ketones a few weeks ago. And one of the things he was talking about was using those for sleep specifically, like for this reason. Well, basically just to support the brain in general, but also to support sleep. And yeah, I really like how you're saying that they found that it helped with the transition and not being as fragmented.

Barry Conrad
And I never actually, I never even considered, I didn't know that about fruit flies, that they are used a lot because, you know, that their biological clocks can be studied so well. I didn't know that at all.

So when I first saw this, I kind of first skipped over and I was like, hold on, let me keep reading. And I was like, wow, this is really, really interesting.

Melanie Avalon
that they're good to study for circadian rhythm. Yeah, that is, that's like really interesting.

Well, I definitely know for me that, well, my personal fasting pattern is a game changer for me for sleeping, but the irony about it, I find it really interesting that I think some people sleep better in a fasted state or like on an empty stomach and some people sleep better like in a fed state. Like for me, I need to be in a fed state unless I'm taking a nap during the day. Cause the fasting is so, it like, it makes me too alert to sleep.

Barry Conrad
Cause how long after you, like generally how long after you finish eating, do you KO like, do you, do you go to sleep?

Melanie Avalon
I literally go to sleep right after. And what's funny, sorry, there's no transition time. Like I don't sit around not eating. I literally eat and go to bed.

Barry Conrad
That's so interesting.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. And it's interesting because growing up, one of the things I most disliked daily or nightly was like finishing dinner and then now I can't really eat again until tomorrow. And like the waiting period, like basically I'm very happy to always like just eat right up until bed.

But I didn't do that growing up because I was also eating. I mean, I probably did. That's where like dessert comes in. So like you eat breakfast and then I'm just like eating ice cream, like sneaking ice cream the rest of the night.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, but also I think that's it's so interesting because a lot of people say, well, you know, need to make sure you eat so many hours before you go to sleep. It's just so many rules that are blanket statements passed around and people subscribe to that, but everyone's so different.

Melanie Avalon
It is so true. And I think people more and more are coming to realize that people have unique circadian rhythms. What's interesting, the only people who I think have adamantly told me, you could be a morning person if you just tried hard enough. It's always the morning people who say that.

I'm serious. Because people have told me that. And it's always a morning person who says that. I have never met somebody who was like a night person and then did that and became a morning person and told me that. I have not had that experience. I'm sure they're out there, but I have not met them.

Barry Conrad
Okay, well, you know that I'm a morning guy. Well, Mel, have I convinced you to try to be a morning person? No.

Melanie Avalon
Have you tried to? No, no, no, Barry, it's not one of these.

Barry Conrad
You got to do what works for you. I can stay up late, but I know I'm just more effective. It depends what I'm doing as well.

Actually, another question. If you're out, for example, and you're eating a late dinner or drinks and stuff, is it weird if you're out because you might finish eating but you're still out and you're not at home and able to go to sleep straight away? How do you feel in that moment? How does that feel?

Melanie Avalon
I have no interest in, I think we've talked about this, I would not get like an early dinner and then do something social. So like if I ate, I would not want to go out dancing or go to a show or go to a bar after because I'm like in food mode.

So normally when I eat, it's like dinner and then I come home and then I don't normally eat again at home, but I just feel kind of, I just feel sluggish and I don't really want to be like doing like a lot of physical stuff right after eating.

Barry Conrad
Same. I mean, I don't, I don't eat as late, but I definitely am like eating pretty close to at least maybe a couple hours before I go to sleep. Look, it's not that long.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, like a lot of people will get like dinner and a show. So they'll go to dinner and then they'll see a show. I just I can't I would I can go to dinner, but I wouldn't eat anything.

Barry Conrad
I'd fall asleep, like I'd feel sluggish and like not awake to focus, you know, maybe drinks.

Melanie Avalon
So I would like to do like a show and then dinner I could do that order

Barry Conrad
That's so funny.

Melanie Avalon
Yes, if I could change this about myself, I would.

Barry Conrad
We talked about this, listen, we talked about when we finally do meet up and hang out, what the schedule is going to be, it's like, no, well, I can't do that very, I have to, I can't do dinner first, I have to do dinner after, like we can't do dinner that night, how about we just go out? I'm like, what?

Melanie Avalon
I mean, you can do whatever you want. I'm just presenting what I will do. So hopefully there's like overlap in something we both want to do.

Barry Conrad
It'll be fine.

Melanie Avalon
Yes. Oh my goodness. Well, awesome study. Yay, fruit flies. I was actually reading an article this week about eight ways to make your at home fruit fly trap.

Barry Conrad
Really? Mm-hmm. Do you have a lot? Is it? Is that a thing in ATL? There's a lot of fruit flies there.

Melanie Avalon
I mean, I guess I don't have them, but I guess.

Barry Conrad
Did you get a trap going just in case?

Melanie Avalon
No. If a fruit fly makes its way in, then maybe I will. But we're good for now.

Okay, shall we jump into some listener questions? Let's do it. We have a question from Amy. And the subject is sugar cravings and binging while on IF. And Amy says, Love your podcasts and look forward to them each week. Thank you for all the hard work and research for us IF'ers. I have a question I have not been able to find answered in other places and could use your insights. I've been enjoying an IF lifestyle for almost four months now, starting in July 2018 and using 16.8. I had about six to eight pounds to lose, which I did, and I'm now at my goal size. On 16.8, I open my window at 12.30 with lunch and close it after dinner by 8pm. And following Dr. Fung's instructions, I do not snack in between. For example, I walk for an hour a day plus strength train three days per week for an hour each. I love carbs but do track my calories daily with a maintenance goal of about 13.70 net of exercise. According to the calculators online and my own experience, this is a good number for me for my size. Over the past four to six weeks, I find myself getting into what I can only term as binge eating about once a week, with the cravings being for sugary junk, particularly anything that has vanilla frosting. Whether from a vending machine, bakery, or off the store shelf, Melanie's Fonfetti would be just right. I have no history of eating disorders in the past and it is a little scary. My net calories on the other days are in the 1100 range, so I have a feeling that it's my body's way of telling me I need to get that 13.70. Over the full week, my total intake averages out to the 13.70 daily number and any temporary weight gain from the extra intake resolves itself within a couple of days, but I am concerned about the pattern. I've read that sugar cravings are normal when starting IF, but I am well past that stage now. Is this a thing and if so, what does it indicate and also what is the best way to address it? IF has been hugely beneficial to me and it's a workable lifestyle, but in my zeal, I feel like I'm becoming a little bit obsessed or too obsessed with food. Any thoughts? Thank you so much for any input you may have. All right, so that is Amy's question. Barry, what do you think?

Barry Conrad
Amy, thank you so much for the question. I really, really appreciate how self-aware you are about this as well. It tells me that before you freak out that you're in a really good place, even if it doesn't feel like it right now. You're obviously, from what you're saying, observing patterns in your eating. and you're training and you're thinking about it and asking questions before things get too crazy.

So, I did have to laugh at the inch thing, that's hilarious. The half inch. I don't think that there's anything wrong here. I don't think what you're experiencing is really particularly unusual, Amy. I think it makes a lot of sense actually physiologically and psychologically. I will say the fast is important, but like we always say on the show, the feeding part is very important as well and making sure we're eating enough is really important. You've lost the weight you wanted to lose and it sounds like you're really disciplined. You're training. That is a lot. You're giving me a run for my money, an hour walk a day, three times a week and then also training, weight training three times a week. You're very disciplined. You're exercising consistently, tracking those cows carefully and once a week getting those cravings, the sugary vanilla frosting situation and it feels probably like it's staging this massive rebellion on you, but it sounds less like a loss of control and probably more like your body's trying to get enough food and rebalance. One thing that stood out off the bat here is your maintenance target is 1370, so 1370 calories net. But on most days, you're actually only like closer to 1100 and then once a week, there's the bigger intake that essentially brings that average back up. That is a clue here, Amy. It's a decent amount of because a decent amount of research shows that when our energy intake stays consistently lower than what our body needs or perceives it needs, especially when you're leaner and slighter and more of a little like a small individual anyway and you're also exercising so much, hunger signaling can't really ramp up over time. So the body doesn't just look at one day, for example. So it looks at patterns, hormones like ghrelin, leptin, dopamine responses, things like that, like foods that are like highly palatable, all of that can really shift when our body and our system senses under fueling and sugary foods, they tend to become that easy target because they're just quick. You know, you're going to feel that instant burst of energy. It's going to taste really, your body's not sitting there craving steam broccoli after vanilla frosting is on top, you know, once that instant fuel. So first, I want to normalize it because when I first started as well, there was a period as well where under fueled as well, you have to find that balance. So what you're describing, it doesn't immediately sound like this binge eating disorder, you know, at all.

Barry Conrad
It just more sounds like a very regulated discipline person whose body occasionally pushes back when intake gets a bit too tight, I reckon for too long. So I reckon one of the biggest hints is that weight gain results quickly and your weekly intake averages out right around maintenance. That's what that's a good sign. And your body may actually be doing a fairly intelligent compensation mechanism there.

So could intermittent fasting be contributing towards that? Maybe, but I don't think fasting itself is the problem here. I think the bigger thing, the big issue, if you will, it might be the combination, the really strict combination of the fasting, the intense calorie tracking, the maintaining really lean body weight, exercising regularly for a decent amount of time, and then mentally tightening the reins a bit too hard. You said something there at the end, what did you say? You're like, I feel like I'm becoming a little too obsessed with food. So that's the part I'd pay attention to as well because the goal of our fasting is not to make our food occupy more mental space.

Over time, it actually creates more freedom and more peace. So if you do notice yourself white knuckling through the week and then diving into the vanilla frosty waves, that's feedback worth listening to. I even wonder if maybe your body might respond well to a bit more nourishment during the week instead of the pendulum of swing. So maybe slightly increasing your daily intake a little, like even more protein. Get more satiated, more healthy carbs that could reduce that intensity of the cravings. And I reckon also some flexibility around how you're thinking as well, like sometimes when food becomes that mentally, like not allowed, like it's bad, quote unquote, bad, they can also gain that power. So if the vanilla frosting suddenly becomes this mythical object, your brain fixates on it, like it's going to be harder to turn away from it. Whereas if there's a little bit more permission. I can have it if I want to, but I don't want to, you know, it's just the power sort of like the allure, it's not as alluring. So I think as well, Amy, for women around your age, hormonal shifts can also influence appetite regulation, cravings, and your energy signaling.

So your body becomes a little less tolerant of aggressive restriction. The good news is, you know, your message just doesn't sound worrying at all. Like I said, it sounds like your body just needs more fuel and it sounds like your body is communicating really clearly to you. And one of the best things fasting teaches us is how to actually hear those signals instead of finding them. I don't think you need to abandon fasting. I don't think you need to panic. I definitely don't think you should shame yourself for craving funfitty, frosting. I just think your body might be asking for more balance and more nourishment. But Mel, what do you think?

Melanie Avalon
That was overwhelmingly amazing and comprehensive and incredible. Yeah, you said essentially everything I was going to say as well.

Basically, I'll throw in one little thing, especially since Amy, you're a fan of Dr. Fong. So he has a new book that came out. I'm actually going to interview him in less than two weeks for it. Well, by the time this episode airs, I don't think it'll be out yet. My episode, the book is called The Hunger Code, Resetting Your Body's Fat Thermostat and the Age of Ultra Processed Food. And the huge takeaway and the reason I'm just thinking about a lot, especially with your question, is he is really, really intense about calories not being an accurate way of looking at things as far as how our body interacts with food. So it doesn't think in terms of calories. It thinks in terms of nutrients and hormonal signaling. And so we can think like, okay, I'm going to calculate this exact amount of calories that my body needs. And one, we just have no way of knowing what that is because there are so many other factors that affect the amount of quote, calories we need. We can't just base it based on our body weight and our activity levels because we don't actually know how many calories are burning when we do activity. It's all like, it's all guesstimations. We don't know how much our body is adjusting to what we're eating. So it can down-regulate the calories it burns or up-regulate the calories it burns, which throws the whole equation out the window. We don't know how much we're personally extracting calories-wise from food because based on our gut microbiome or our digestion, that can all be different. So my point of it all is that it could seem like you're getting quote enough calories, but you just might not be. And it sounds like you're not. It sounds like with the, and like Barry was saying, with the slight mild restriction for the majority of the days and then this one quote binge day, the binge makes up for that deficit because the body, your body is needing more on an ongoing basis, which it's not getting. And so then it's creating this insane drive, which leads to this binge-like behavior. And then the cycle just starts over. And like Barry was saying, it makes sense that you crave sweets because they are the most like immediate form of energy. So glucose and sucrose and all the sugars, fructose, they're very quick for the body to process and get energy from. So that's why we crave all the sugars. That's probably one reason. And then the other reason would be like, you know, emotional connection. So for me, like Fonfetti, I don't know, it's just like my favorite thing from childhood. But I agree with everything Barry said. I would focus on, I would either let go of the calorie idea completely, or if you want to keep it in because it makes you feel safe, definitely up it. And get more food, more nutrition, more calories during those days when you're eating less. And focus on really nourishing foods, you know, protein, fat, high fiber. I bet if you do that, things will resolve because your body's just asking for more.

Melanie Avalon
And I agree with Barry too that, you know, you're saying that you don't have a history of eating disorders. It doesn't sound like disordered eating.

It sounds like your body is literally compensating for not eating enough normally. So check out Jason Fung's book, The Hunger Code. I want to read that book. If you want to really convince somebody of, how do I say this in a really nice way? He says the same concept over and over and over. It really gets it into your head about the calories. So I'm excited to interview him about it.

Barry Conrad
That's so awesome. And thank you so much for your question. Keep us posted.

Melanie Avalon
Yes, thank you, Amy. Also, she said she's from Tennessee. That's where I'm from. So shout out.

Did I know that? I mean, I was born here in Atlanta, but I, my defining years were there. There you go. So, okay. Would you like to read the question from Lorena?

Barry Conrad
Yes. So now I have a question from Lorena and she says, I see contradictory info on cooling starch to make resistant. Some say after being refrigerated, you can heat it back up before eating it. But others say you need to eat it cold if your goal is for it to be resistant. So for instance, eat your potatoes as potato salad, not as baked potatoes, etc.

Melanie Avalon
So you know what's really wild about this? I did not plan this.

I had this question in the lineup for a bit, and then I was reading... I didn't plan this and then I didn't know I was going to talk twice about Jason Fung's book. But I was reading his book, The Hunger Code, and he has a whole section on Resistant Starch. And he literally said it was the nuances of this question. Like he was saying that with rice, you could... Oh, and should I backtrack and I will tell you what Resistant Starch is for listeners that are not familiar. But he was saying for rice, you could heat it and then cool it to create the Resistant Starch. And then if you heat it back up, it would still have Resistant Starch. But he was saying with potatoes, if you heat it and then cool it and then reheat it, that you lose the Resistant Starch. So potatoes always need to be cold. So I went down the rabbit hole, and it's actually not that simple. And I can totally see, Lorena, why you see contradictory info because I as well, I found so many different things. But really briefly, what Resistant Starch is, it's a type of starch to like interlocked glucose molecules that forms when you take starches like rice, pasta, potatoes, heat them up, and then cool it, it creates a matrix that we can no longer digest, but our gut bacteria can. So the results of that are a few different things. One, you get, quote, less calories. Speaking of calories, actually that speaks to the last question. You get less calories from it because you actually can't break it down anymore. So that's an example of how calories are not calories because heated and cooled rice could be different than fresh rice. Number two, by feeding the microbiome, it helps them create short-chain fatty acids, including, we talked earlier about beta-hydroxybutyrate. So that's produced in the liver, like during fasting and all the things. There's also butyrate, which is a short-chain fatty acid produced in the gut, and it helps fuel our colon cells. It has a lot of beneficial signaling in the body. So it can be really helpful for people to integrate Resistant Starch to support their gut microbiome, their inflammation, their energy levels, all the things. That's why people like Resistant Starch. So I went down the rabbit hole and it looks like it does vary by different types of starches. And again, so the way you create this is you take a starch like pasta or potatoes or rice, you heat it up, then you cool it. And when it's in the cooled state, we got Resistant Starch. If you heat it back up, that's where it gets little, we're not really sure how much Resistant Starch is left. It looks like rice does tend to maintain more of the Resistant Starch if it's reheated as is pasta. Potatoes, again, in Jason's book, he said that they lose all of it. So it looks like some studies have found that some types of potatoes do lose almost all the Resistant Starches, but others don't. So one study found that in boiled white potatoes, when you reheated it, it kind of lost all the Resistant Starch, but red and yellow potatoes retain more.

Melanie Avalon
The pasta seems to create a type of Resistant Starch that does seem to be more resilient. And so if you heat it back up, it might maintain more of it. I just think if you want to get the most Resistant Starch, just eat it cold if you can.

And if you're heating it back up, probably stick with rice or pasta and gently heat it up. So don't really, I don't know, I don't know what would be like. Maybe don't refry the rice or anything, just have warmed up a little bit. But basically, studies say all different things, but if you want to be sure that you're getting the Resistant Starch, eat it cold. There's also a possibility, especially with rice, that if you reheat it and then let it get cold again, you might actually create even more Resistant Starch.

But I'm done. Barry, thoughts?

Barry Conrad
Well, Mel, Melanie, I think that you answered this question perfectly, especially with, you know, Jason Fung's new book and everything as well. I just think this is not planned.

I just had roasted Yukon gold potatoes and steak before this podcast. So it was very hot. It was very, very hot, crispy, delicious. But I guess I never really thought about that, you know, and it's one of those nutritional rabbit holes where people start acting like, you know, a reed of potatoes is going to destroy your entire metabolic health or whatnot. But I'm glad Mel broke down the science to add a bit of context there. And it's really fascinating that if it's rice, it's one thing, if it's potatoes, it's another thing, if it's pasta, it's another thing. If you heat it, cool it, heat it again. And I didn't know that, Mel, that you take in less calories because we can't break that down after it's been, can you repeat that again? So you, if you heat up pasta, cool it and then try to heat it back up again, you don't take in as much.

Melanie Avalon
Well, you want to pause at the cold.

Barry Conrad
pause there.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, because we're uncertain how much remains when you heat it back up again. But basically, yeah, it takes some of those glucose molecules and it forms them into a matrix that we can no longer break down. So it literally locks up calories, but your gut, but your microbiome can break them down.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, I mean, for me, personally, all I really have to add is eating, eating mostly whole foods consistently matters more than whether it's not going to be dire if you know something's cold or hot. I think it's the bigger picture, but I think it's important to know what is going to be sustainable for you and it's going to work best for your body.

And if, you know, if you're stressing over resistance touch percentages or actually enjoying the meal or if you have got issues, it's all dependent on that as well. But Melanie, you answered that really, really amazingly.

Melanie Avalon
So next time you make that meal, Barry, you could let the potatoes cool down. So it's a cold cold. Yeah. Like potato salad.

Barry Conrad
I do love potato salad so much and also like, like a roast dinner or like a roast lunch is such a steeped in my memory as a kid and just, it's just, have you tried, have you had roast potatoes, roasted potatoes, crispy roasted potatoes?

Melanie Avalon
They're my least favorite manifestation of potatoes. Really?

Well, I guess I have to think through all different manifestations, but yeah, I'm not, I, like, I used to love like baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, potatoes, old gratin, scalloped potatoes, basically all the potatoes, but roasted, not as much.

Barry Conrad
And white rice, like I love white rice so much and I can't imagine having, I mean, yeah, I can imagine having a cold with, I guess with sushi, that would be that, but it's so good with like a curry or something, you know?

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, yeah. And I will say, I do think there's a lot of like potential benefits for the resistant starches.

So I'm getting really intrigued by the short-chain fatty acid production from our gut microbiome. So it's definitely a good thing to try if people want to try it, but just know that if you cool it down and heat it back up again, hard to know how much is left.

Barry Conrad
So heat it up, cool it down, and then see how you go. See how you feel and how, yeah, okay.

Melanie Avalon
Shall we have our proverbial breaking of the fast?

Barry Conrad
Oh my gosh, I can't wait. I'm so ready.

Melanie Avalon
So the purpose of this part of the show is, like we've been saying all episode, what you eat, the breaking of the fast, the eating part is very, very important. It's arguably just as important as the fasting.

So every week we like to pick a restaurant to profile and talk about what we would order at said restaurant while breaking our fast. And Barry, I'm so excited about the one I have today. So the backstory on this is, I think, let me see when this restaurant was founded. Hold on.

Barry Conrad
I'm curious, like if it's a Disney restaurant, if it's a scary restaurant, if it's a...

Melanie Avalon
It is not any of that.

Barry Conrad
Oh, wow.

Melanie Avalon
I know. Okay, okay, this tracks this makes sense. I was like, I feel like this restaurant was founded like right after I went to college because I think I would have loved it. Because this restaurant is where I grew up in Memphis. And look, I just checked when it was founded and it was founded the year the year after I left for college is when it opened. So I never went to it.

And I have wanted to for the longest time. So I need to go really bad. It's called flight. But so here's what makes it special. Are you ready? So the concept of it is that you get everything in flights. So I mean, you don't have to. So you'll see when we look at the menu, but they'll have a section and you can order it all you can order anything a la carte. Not only can you order it all a carte you order you can order in different sizes. So if you just want to try like a small bit of an entree, you can get a smaller size of it and then you can get like something else. Or you can order the flights where they bring like three out of the same thing. Not the same thing, but you'll see when we look at the menu. It's literally like everything I could want.

Barry Conrad
Cause you like to try a little bit of everything, right? Yeah.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. Do you see the menu?

Barry Conrad
Yeah, I'm pulling up the menu, going to the one with appetizers and all that, that's the one.

Melanie Avalon
Yes. So, okay, the appetizers are not flights really yet, but we can still look at them. And they use the correct terminology, appetizers. Oh, and they also do wine flights, obviously. They have a big wine selection as well. I want to go here so bad.

If I ever go back to Memphis, I'm going to eat here. So do you see any appetizers? Oh, and it's downtown in Memphis, by the way. Do you see any appetizers that you like?

Barry Conrad
You know, I've got to go to the ocean flight.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, they have one flight on the appetizers.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, the ocean flight. I'm going to catch an ocean flight. That's New Orleans barbecue shrimp jumbo lump crab cake lobster ravioli. And I can't get past oysters. Gotta do some oysters.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, yeah. Do you want to read about the oysters or are you going to are you going to get the because there's two oysters?

Barry Conrad
Oh yeah. Oh man. Okay. I'm going to do the fresh oysters on the half shell. Special tea oysters, mignonette, cocktail sauce.

But also, Melanie, I see below that a charcuterie plate. How am I going to not have that as well?

I wonder how big these are.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, I don't know.

Barry Conrad
You know i'm gonna i'm gonna stop their fresh horses in the house shell and the ocean flight that's for me from the appetizers.

Melanie Avalon
Perfect. I'm gonna get the Snake River Farms Wagyu Carpaccio with arugula, Shea Parmesan, capers, olive oil, but all of that on the side, please.

Barry Conrad
Yum. That's very you.

Melanie Avalon
And then salad and soup. Here's where we're starting to enter flight world.

So like, here's the example. Like you can order an individual salad or you can get a flight of salad where they bring this, they bring like a little bit of each one. And then there's just a flight of soup where you can get an individual soup or you can get a little bit of each one.

Barry Conrad
You know what? Melanie, I would do the flight of soup because I prefer the soup to the salad situation.

Melanie Avalon
so you would get the lobster bisque soup of the day and seafood gumbo.

Barry Conrad
I would. This is such a good idea by the way, it's so unusual.

Melanie Avalon
I know. I wish every restaurant was like this.

Barry Conrad
I also wonder how big every, I wonder how big the flights are, you know what I mean?

Melanie Avalon
I was looking on Yelp and it looked like, I'm seeing if there are pictures on the actual website, you can look on like the main page of the website, but yeah, it looked kind of like, like, I think it depends on what it is. Bigger than an appetizer, but not entree size.

Barry Conrad
Are you going to have anything from the salad and soup?

Melanie Avalon
No, I'm saving it all for the entrees and okay. So friends, so to give you the setup, they have seafood with three options. And like I said, for each of the options, you can get a small plate, an entree, or the flight.

So they have a seafood section with three, a butcher's section with three, a steak section with three, a farm and field section with three, and a fish section with three. Oh my goodness.

Barry Conrad
Oh my gosh, it's so good.

Melanie Avalon
What are you, and I'm checking like prices wise, it's like, Ooh, could you mix and match? But it looks like if you go the route of getting the smaller, depending on what you get, basically, it might be cheaper to get like the pre-selected three together is my point.

But what would you get?

Barry Conrad
This looks really good. Oh man, this is hard. Oh, cause remind me. So this is in Memphis.

Melanie Avalon
Like this, mhm.

Barry Conrad
So I reckon I'm going to have to do two.

Melanie Avalon
Two flights.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, the water tarts like the seafood one, which is the shrimp and grits lobster crab benedict, and the shrimp and grits is mushrooms, applewood, smoked bacon, falls, milk cheese, grits, lobster and crab benedict is jumbo lump crab, main lobster poached egg, bacon, hollandaise, house-made cheddar biscuit, and the diver's sea scallop is potato gnocchi, lobster cream, and then I have to get the big bad cab. Which is the steak one, which is borson stuffed fillet, potato puree, red wine, baudelaire, and elk tenderloin, which sounds amazing.

That's truffle white cheddar macaroni, mushrooms, kalua glaze, and bison rib eye, potato gratin, cabernet syrup. Melanie, this looks amazing.

Melanie Avalon
Isn't it so cool?

Barry Conrad
Yes.

Melanie Avalon
So I think this is like so hard. I think I would I would also get the steak flight, the big bad cab, but I might see if they could, since it's only a dollar off, again, I don't know how they do with substitutions, I might see if instead of the bores and stuff filet, could they swap it out for the wild boar tenderloin? Because I love the idea of trying boar, which comes with loaded mashed potatoes and wild berry compote. But yeah, so basically, ideally, I would get like wild boar tenderloin, elk tenderloin, and bison, oh, wait, bison ribeye. Yeah, maybe.

Yeah, all of that. But like completely plain and rare. And I don't need any of the sides. I can just get some like steamed spinach. I'm surprised you didn't get the diamond head ranch quail.

Barry Conrad
You know what, I'm actually really upset because there's also chicken and waffles. There's just too many things that I like. So I can't have everything. So I had to choose.

We'll just have to go to come back the second night and then do the two other ones. I'll do like the farm and field and the butchers.

Melanie Avalon
Well, and the perfect thing is, then there's also, like I said, you can get a small plate of things. So like if you really liked one thing, you could just order like another small plate of it.

So like for dessert, I would probably get a small plate of something I hadn't tried, like maybe the flounder or the quail. I think I'll get the quail for dessert.

Barry Conrad
Oh my gosh, I'm looking at the dessert right now and I'm in heaven already reading it.

Melanie Avalon
So the dessert is also flights. What do you think you would get?

Barry Conrad
Oh, man. Oh, I have to get two flights, so the chocolate flight, which is, you know, lava cake, peppermint gelato, the peanut shop brownie, which is traditional brownie, the peanut shop in quotation marks, roasted peanuts, butterscotch caramel, salted caramel gelato, and chocolate chip cookie cake, yum, dark chocolate sauce.

And then the traditional dessert flight is the creme brulee key lime pie, which I love pecan. You say pecan, right? It's pecan, graham crack crust, and pecan crust, the cheesecake, which is French berries. There we go.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. So I would get, like I said, something else from the menu, probably the quail, something lighter.

So like chicken, well, quail is not chicken. So like poultry or one of the fish, like the flounder. And so if we look at, let's see if they have, do they have their wine menu online? Wine list. Yes. Okay. So they have all these, they have flights for the wine as well.

Barry Conrad
This is a really good idea, seriously, it really is. Because you can also, because it's not like all set, you know, like a lot of set menus are like that set, but you can actually, like you said, choose like a little something from the individual things, if you like it, a smaller one.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, looking at the wine list, I know almost every single one of these wines, unfortunately.

Barry Conrad
What's your favorite if you had to?

Melanie Avalon
I mean, they have, they have a ton of wines though, which is really cool. I shouldn't, I'm not, I'm not putting them down.

Okay. Now we're getting to Europe. Sorry. The first page was a lot of, Oh, it was white wine. This may be the most familiar I have felt with a wine list before.

Barry Conrad
Wow, that's a big call.

Melanie Avalon
Oh my goodness, they have derriouche. That's my parents' favorite winery. Whoa. Well, we have got to go here. They would be so happy.

Okay. European. I would have to look up the European wines. I think what I'm going to have to go, even though I really want to do the flights, I think I might have to go by the bottle. They have a ton of wine, so I'd have to find a European one that I like the look of.

Barry Conrad
How big is this restaurant? There's a lot of options.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, and they have silver oak. They have all my family's favorite wineries. They have Duck Horn, Stag's Leap, Silver Oak. My parents would die.

I wonder if they have, wait, that would be wild. Let me check. They have Chimney Rock. That's like a boutique winery and Napa that my parents are obsessed with. This is crazy. I'm going to, after that, tonight I'm going to send this menu to my parents and be like, have you been here?

Barry Conrad
Chimney Rock, yeah, well, I see it now.

Melanie Avalon
So my first really quick memory for my 21st birthday, my parents took me to Napa to go wine tasting and stock me up on wine. And the first winery we went to was Chimney Rock and we did a tasting of Cabernet's from like five different years and I picked out my favorite year.

It was 2012. No, wait, that's not possible because I turned 2008, it was 2008 and I took that bottle home and it was very special. So that's my story.

Barry Conrad
My mouth's actually watering, looking at all this wine, because you're getting excited and it's making me excited that you're excited, because you never get this excited about a wine list.

Melanie Avalon
Well, the funny thing is, it's not really many wines I would drink, but it's all wines that are like, that my family loves so much.

Barry Conrad
Oh my gosh, so you can forego a flight, but you're sure you can probably find a bottle or two that you'd probably like, right?

Melanie Avalon
I can definitely find a European one on here. Oh, wait, is the bottle list all the US?

Hold on. Oh, no. Here's some other ones. Okay. I could find something, hopefully. But yeah, do you see a cocktail?

Barry Conrad
Do you know what? I would actually pick their brain and I don't normally do this.

I would probably pick their brain and get them to suggest two bottles, one red and one white, and just to have that, because we're having a combination of seafood and meat and just sip on that.

Melanie Avalon
sounds good. I feel like it's the place to do it.

I literally have one of these bottles in my cabinet right now. Which one? The Duckhorn Paradox. Is it good? I don't know. I haven't tried it. So this thing happens where people will give me really nice bottles of wine, but they're not actually a wine I would drink because of like the high alcohol content and everything. So they kind of just sit there and then I either re-gift them or sometimes they just sit there. But sometimes it's like so nostalgic because of who gave it to me. So then it just sits there. Like my Duckhorn Paradox.

Barry Conrad
Do you have a, I know that you sent me a photo of this before, but do you have a big wine like storage situation?

Melanie Avalon
It's like a cool little table where the thing holding up the table, the you store the bottles underneath it.

Barry Conrad
Okay, cool. So you got heaps of room

Melanie Avalon
And I got it on Amazon and it's like the most amazing thing ever. I highly recommend it, friends.

Barry Conrad
Actually, we probably need that.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, you it's great because it holds. Let me let me let me see how many it holds. Holds 30 bottles. That's pretty good.

And it like puts them all in like a really and then on top of it, you can make it your little like, you know, it's like on top of it. I have like some bottles of liquor that people have given me that I don't drink. But I have like wine related stuff on top of it. It's like my little bar section.

Barry Conrad
I might need like another photo or like a rack of where you got that so I can maybe.

Melanie Avalon
I'll send you a link and we can put it, wait, let me check and see if it's still available and we'll put it in the show notes.

Barry Conrad
We need to know the alcohol storage situation. I also haven't had a good Tempranillo in so long. I haven't had Tempranillo, I used to love Tempranillo so much. I still do. I just haven't had it in so long.

So I'd love to rekindle that romance over some red meat.

Melanie Avalon
Meant to be yeah friends. I will look for it and if it exists, I will put it in the show notes

Barry Conrad
So good.

Melanie Avalon
All right. Well, this was so fun. Anything else to touch on?

Barry Conrad
No, this has been awesome. And I'm honestly so hungry again now.

Thank you, Melanie. Thank you so much for tuning in, everybody. Tuning in once again, we really appreciate each and every one of you listening, and we'll catch you next time.

Melanie Avalon
Yes. And so listeners, just to wrap everything up, the show notes for today's episode will be at ifpodcast.com slash episode 479. Those will have links to everything that we talked about. So definitely check that out.

We will put, there will also be a transcript there. And if you would like to submit questions for the show, you can also do it on the website as well, or you can email questions at ifodcast.com. And lastly, you can follow us on Instagram. We are IF Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon. Barry is Barry underscore Conrad. And I think that's all the things.

Barry Conrad
It's all the things.

Melanie Avalon
So I guess I will talk to you next week. You will.

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

Jun 15

#478 – The Magic Unlimited Food, Fueling Jiu-Jitsu & High-Intensity Training, Looksmaxxing, Extreme High-Protein Intake, Fasting & Marathons, And More!

Welcome to Episode 478 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, biohacker, founder of AvalonX, and author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine, and Barry Conrad, actor, singer-songwriter, and creator and host of Banter with BC.

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

TRANSCRIPT

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

Melanie Avalon
Welcome to Episode 478 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. If you want to burn fat, gain energy, and enhance your health by changing when you eat, not what you eat, with no calorie counting, then this show is for you.

I'm Melanie Avalon, biohacker, founder of AvalonX, and author of What, When, Wine. Lose weight and feel great with paleo-style meals, intermittent fasting, and wine. And I'm joined by my co-hosts, Barry Conrad, actor, singer-songwriter, and creator and host of Banter with B.C. For more on us, check out MelanieAvalon.com and BarryConradOfficial.com. You can submit questions for the show by emailing questions at iapodcast.com or by going to iapodcast.com. We would love to hear from you. Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this show do not constitute medical advice or treatment. So pour yourself a mug of black coffee, a cup of tea, or even a glass of wine if it's that time, and get ready for the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Hi, everybody, and welcome. This is episode number 478 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon. I'm here with Barry Conrad. Barry, how are you today?

Barry Conrad
Mel, I'm doing great. I can't complain. I am at the final week of training for this half marathon, which comes up this Sunday. Oh my goodness.

Melanie Avalon
Yes, I'm making sure I had this in my calendar. I'm pretty sure I did.

Barry Conrad
And I know by the time this airs, it would have been passed by now, but it's, it's, I'm feeling the crunch. This is it. It's all happening now.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, there it is very marathon. Oh my goodness. So are you how you feeling?

Barry Conrad
I'm feeling good. I have been training pretty consistently and the longest run I've done so far for my training is 19 kilometers, which is just not, it's just shy of the 22 kilometers that you do for the half marathon.

So that is 11.8 miles, so about 12 miles.

Melanie Avalon
Oh my goodness, I'm out.

Barry Conrad
It's been good. It's been going really good.

You know, what I do, what was interesting to me, which is silly, was that I went to train the other day, maybe last week, and I went to do another long run. And I just part out, which means I just like, I started and my legs were just, it felt like lead. And then I realized I actually haven't been eating to accommodate for this training. Like I've been sticking to my normal fasting window and not eating more carbs and things like that. And your body needs more food. So as soon as I rectified that, I bounced back. But at the time I was like, why can't I do like one kilometer right now? And it's like no brainer, right?

Melanie Avalon
Wow, that's actually going to relate a little bit to a question we have today. So so now you you adjusted and feeling better.

Barry Conrad
Yeah. I just said feeling better.

So definitely living my high, high, high carb life at the moment, not in a reckless way, but making sure that the night before actually every night I'm getting just extra carbs intentionally because your body needs it. You can't just run on fumes and good vibes. You know?

Melanie Avalon
Do you have like what type of cards do you have?

Barry Conrad
I metabolize rice really well, so just extra rice. Potatoes are really good for me. Those things really, really help me.

I don't buy carbs. I want to be clear. I'm not going to go for pizza and stuff like that. That's not what I mean. A lot of people carb load with all of that. But the night before, I might have a big bowl of pasta or something like that. But on the daily, I'm just having more rice than I normally have, more potatoes than what I normally have, not shying away just. And because, Mel, you know I eat. So I'm intentionally eating even more than I normally do because I literally need to.

Melanie Avalon
Oh my goodness. Are you nervous or excited or how do you feel?

Barry Conrad
I'm excited because I feel like if I can do the 19 k's it's only three kilometers more to finish the half and I reckon that will everyone keep saying that on the day you just feel this extra adrenaline so hoping that's going to kick in because I have a goal of a time that I want to make so hopefully I can smash that out.

Melanie Avalon
I am sure you're gonna kill it. That's amazing. I'm so excited for you. What time does it start?

Barry Conrad
I think it's like 7 30 a.m. So it's but it's not too far away from like the starting points not too far from my place. So it's good

Melanie Avalon
wow is it a like is it like the new york marathon like is it a thing

Barry Conrad
Yes it's called the brooklyn hot the brooklyn experience half marathon so it's it is a thing that happens every year and running just so massive here i had no idea until i moved here i don't know what it's like in atlanta is it a thing there.

Melanie Avalon
I wouldn't know. Not really in the scene.

Barry Conrad
But do you see like what you're driving to, you know,

Melanie Avalon
Okay, I don't ever see it in real life. Like I don't see it in the wild. That said, I do see, I either like have friends who do things or I see things about it. So I know it, I know what goes on.

I just, I don't go anywhere where it goes on either. Yeah, that's amazing though.

Barry Conrad
Random question, just say, just say you got sent a script or like a pitch from a casting director saying, Hey, Mel, we love what you do. We have this part in this film that you be perfect or you have to like do, you have to run in the film. Would you do it? Like you'd have to be like a runner.

Melanie Avalon
Would you do it? I mean, as long as I don't have to do a marathon in the film, I am capable of running. Yeah, I would do it.

Well, I mean, depending, depending. Yeah, as long as it's not, there's a lot of depending on criteria, you know, as long as it's not like, you know, as long as it's doable and I can have a stunt double.

Barry Conrad
I also don't see how people can do an entire marathon. Now that I'm training for a half, a whole marathon solo.

Melanie Avalon
Did I tell you when we did that Mind Blown episode on that crazy marathon? Tell me.

Have I told you about this? It was the men's marathon at the 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis. No. It was literally horrible.

Barry Conrad
A men's marathon?

Melanie Avalon
Uh-huh. I don't even remember everything that happened, but basically they completely messed up everything organizing it. So let's see. They did it on the hardest part of the day in St. Louis on a dusty country road. Oh yeah, they had minimal water supply because they were testing. The only water was at one well halfway at the halfway mark because they were testing the effects of purposeful dehydration. And then there were like, the signage was like all wrong. People got lost. Only 14 out of 32 of the people completed it.

One guy got to the end and they greeted him like he was the winner, but then later they disqualified him because they found out he had taken a car for part of the ride. And then the actual winner, he was at near collapse and hallucinating by the end of the race because he had been given brandy and eggs and strike a nine by his trainers. The fourth place winner actually took a nap, actually got like, he was racing and then he saw an apple orchard and ate some spoiled apples and got sick and took a nap and then he still finished. It was just like a mess.

Barry Conrad
Someone needs to adapt this into a screenplay. It sounds funny.

Melanie Avalon
it should be a screenplay because we did a whole episode on it and we like literally went through the whole marathon and it was just like, it was just crazy. So yes, thankfully, things are not like that anymore.

Barry Conrad
No, not anymore. But yeah.

Also, Maldiz, did you see that article that came out about the big longevity guys sort of having a moment? Who? Okay, I'm going to send it to you. Hold on a second. See, tell me if you've seen this. Send it to you. Basically, okay. I'm not going to name check anyone because the point...

Melanie Avalon
It's a picture of everybody.

Barry Conrad
I guess the point I'll bring it up is that

Melanie Avalon
The title is the longevity bros are fighting and then it's it is literally the four but

Barry Conrad
Okay. The point why I wanted to bring it up is not to like name check or lay in, but it's more like it just got me thinking like more broadly about just the conversation at the moment online, like lately, like about health and fitness and longevity and whatnot. And like you can see someone like it looks amazing, or they've got this massive following. And they sell the idea of like live longer, lose body fat, build muscle, da da da da da. And you kind of go, well, if it's working for them, they're massive deals, I should just jump in. But then like, how much of that have we do we actually look into properly as I was like, I think like, when people really peel it back, there's so much marketing and positioning and stuff and AI, you don't really know what's real anymore, people can literally create versions of themselves that don't exist, you have like, people doing surgical enhancements, passing off as bio hacks. And now this whole looks maxing thing as well. Where have you heard of that thing? It's just crazy.

The whole what thing looks maxing. Have you heard of that?

Melanie Avalon
What is looks maxing?

Barry Conrad
It's basically the gist of it is to enhance your physical attractiveness, but I'm not going to get into it because it's pretty intense on here. But if you look it up, it's wild. People try to optimize their appearance in ways that can be pretty extreme and they're like young men. It's like this movement at the moment and it's scary, yeah, like lots of stuff.

But yeah, I mean, I'm all for people doing whatever they want to their body and whatnot, but this article just made me think about the bigger thing of like if you're selling something great, but then there's got to be like a level of transparency like around what you're doing. I think, you know, because just encourage people to do their due deal engines. Like don't necessarily believe it just because they sell it. I mean, yeah, and also see your doctor. Don't fall for the scams. What do you think, Mel, about these, you know, this time we're in at the moment.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, it's interesting. And if listeners would like to read the story, which I haven't read it, but we will put it in the show notes.

Barry Conrad
Yes. The longevity bros are fighting. Great title, by the way.

Melanie Avalon
And now that you say it, I did the other day hear some, I heard somebody say the word looks maxing. And that was the first time I heard it. And I thought they were just making up that word on the spot. They were like, oh, it's kind of like looks maxing. But they were talking about, I don't know, something like getting your eyebrows trimmed and stuff. But I think that I'm all for people wanting to look their best and, you know, look away that makes them feel good about how they look.

I'm literally like people, I'm very libertarian in a lot of my thoughts. I'm like, do whatever you want. I do think that social media, I mean, we have like AI and filters. And so none of it's real anyways. Like it's all, I mean, most of it's not real anyways. It's all like filtered up. And yeah, I guess there was that question of the cognitive dissonance of people promoting longevity, but then going to extremes or, you know, creating a fake sense of reality. And I think it all becomes much more, I mean, obviously it becomes much more intense with social media. I don't know. It's all just exhausting when I think about it. I just want people to do whatever they want to do. I guess I know for me, I guess maybe some of the reason I have personal cognitive dissonance about it is I do, everything I promote is because it really radically changed my life. Like if I'm talking about something, it's because I love it. And it really helped me in whatever way it helped me. Like sleep or stress or digestion or beauty, like all the things, like it helped me. That's what I'm talking about it. So I have that. And then at the same time, I mean, I like use filters and I want to create this, you know, image. So I guess I'm in it too at the same time. That's maybe that's why I'm like, people do whatever you want. I don't know, but I do think it's very, very intense right now. Everything is very intense with AI.

Barry Conrad
I think it's different what you're saying though, because if you're saying that you're doing all the things and whatever, if you're transparent, I think that's the whole point. I feel like people only really have a problem, I think, when said people aren't being transparent.

I don't think people really can have a problem with anything. Actually, people can do whatever they want anyway and people will still have a problem, but I think the main thing is transparency. Just be real and not say it's like X product when it's Z product doing the thing.

Melanie Avalon
And again, I haven't read that article exactly, but I definitely think if you're attributing certain effects to products that's not exactly what's happening, that's a major problem going on there.

Barry Conrad
I do. You're still right though.

It is such a time of where everything is way more heightened now where social media and everything, it's just so accessible and yeah, it's everywhere. It's kind of, I feel like we're in the vortex.

Melanie Avalon
Mm-hmm. All right. Well, on that note, shall we jump into some fasting related things? Let's do it.

So I have a study to start us off with and I am so excited about it. This study, it's actually, it's not the newest study. However, it's fascinating what was found in it. So it's from 2014 in the Journal of International Society of Sports Nutrition. Mm-hmm. And it is called the effects of consuming a high protein diet, 4.4 grams per kilogram a day on body composition and resistance trained individuals. Before I tell you what was actually found in it, I want to show you another article I was reading that I saw and I wanted to share really quickly.

Barry Conrad
Yes.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, so to go on a quick tangent before we jump into because one of the things they talk about in this article is they talk about a lot of the or this journal article, they talk about a lot of the confusion out there surrounding what a high protein diet is. And they say that, you know, there are studies and articles out there that talk about, quote, high protein diets, but they don't even consider that a high protein diet.

So in this study, they were trying to they were trying to test like an actual high protein diet. So, again, 4.4 grams per kilogram a day. But it made me think of this other article I read the other day, which I will send to you. And I was laughing because this article is called this is just like a casual article. It's called the mind boggling amount of protein Arnold Schwarzenegger ate in his prime. And basically, they're talking about how, you know, he ate this mind boggling amount of protein, which they said was up to 250 grams of protein per day. And I was like, what? I feel like I eat 250 grams of protein per day. That's like not a lot to me. I mean, I mean, that's a lot. It's a lot. But I do think I feel like that is like the range I exist in for what I eat.

Barry Conrad
Which i think is hilarious cuz that's considered like what the some crazy and saying about but it's actually really not.

Melanie Avalon
I know. And then they say, okay, they say at 250 pounds, he needed 250 grams of protein every day, which is too much protein for most people. Too much.

It's not too much. Yeah, I just, I don't know. So when I saw that, I was like, this is, this is really funny and laughable. Mind boggling. In any case, back to the study.

Barry Conrad
And also, like, have they met you? It's like, have you met me? Like, I eat that on the daily.

Melanie Avalon
I was literally like I was like counting up the protein that I eat and I was like, yeah, that basically I am Arnold Schwarzenegger is the takeaway. But so what they studied and the study that I'm talking about now, they wanted to look at a very high protein diet. Again, that's 4.4 grams per kilogram a day, which is the equivalent of I want to say what that is in pounds. So that is the equivalent of around 2 grams per pound per day ish. So like a 95 pound person would be there would be 190 grams, 120 pound person would be 240 grams, and then 150 pound person would be 300 grams a day. And the way it was set up was they had 30 healthy resistance trained individuals in the study. And then they were in one of two groups. So there was the control group and then there was the high protein group. So the control group, they just kept doing their same thing. There's their same training, their same dietary habits, and they did this for eight weeks.

So for two months, and then the high protein group, they were instructed to consume 4.4 grams of protein per body weight daily, and they were told to maintain the same training and the same diet as far as like fat and carbs. So basically, they weren't supposed to adjust for the high protein, they're supposed to still eat their normal food intake, but just have much more protein. And so they ended up consuming on average, around 800 calories worth of protein extra per day, they consumed on average, 307 plus or minus 69 grams of protein, compared to 138 grams plus or minus 42 in the control group. So both groups did this, and the high protein group, they were consuming 5.5 times the daily recommended daily allowance for protein. And what they found, despite having 5.5 times the recommended amount and around 800 calories more each day, there was zero change in body composition between the two people. So between the two groups. So basically, adding in all of this extra protein didn't make them gain weight, even though it was excess calories. And it was really interesting because they then they went back and they talked about some other studies that have been done on this. And they were saying that in some other prior studies that have been done where they looked at a quote, high protein group, although they don't they don't even really like consider it high protein in prior studies. But when it was when studies like similar to this with like adding high protein, a high protein arm was done in like non active individuals, it would actually lead to muscle gain in those individuals. But it didn't in this group. And they think it's because this group was like regularly training and they didn't change their training regimen anyways. So they think they just like maintain their current muscle, but they didn't the thing is they didn't gain any weight from it. And so I'm also of interest of interest is they the added protein was in the form of whey and casein protein powder. So it was protein powder that they were adding, because they said otherwise they didn't think it would be possible for the participants to eat that much protein, although I think I could.

Melanie Avalon
But in any case, in any case, that just speaks to me if they're adding in 800 calories of protein in a very processed form, like imagine the metabolic effects, if they had actually had it in whole foods form, like I would imagine it would be even more intense as far as I don't know, like not like weight loss per se, or like, how do I say it, like it really speaks to the profound effects of adding in protein to your diet, and how it doesn't really make you gain weight, even when it's in like a processed, you know, protein powder form. Interestingly, so they're out of the 40 subjects initially recruited, 10 dropped out, three of those people. said that they could not, they just couldn't eat that much protein, which again, we talk about, you know, people are often like writing in wanting to know they have hunger, like they want to, you know, how can they deal with like wanting to eat more or whatever it is. Like if you, you can go to town on protein as my point, like if you want to like eat all the things and like you're struggling with like weight loss or weight loss resistance or like overeating, just like go to protein because not that it's a free food, but it's you can have so much of it and feel very full and you're not going to gain weight from it. Like fat gain, which is amazing.

And then some of the other interesting things that they found, oh, it was over 800 calories per day that they were having every day for eight weeks. So they, they said that a lot of this could be due to the thermic effect of protein. And they also referenced a prior study as well, which I thought was really interesting. So apparently the other studies have found that people who are overweight and obese have less of a thermic response to food. And so the thermic response of food is the calories that you burn just by digesting the food and protein has the highest effect of that. And that's another reason that you could have more protein calories and not quote gain weight because you're burning a lot of calories, just digesting and assimilating the protein. Interestingly enough, there's a thermic effect for protein, which is the highest. And then next up is carbs and then fat. So fat has a very low thermic effect. And then they, they referenced another study where people who were obese had less of a thermic response to food, but not to protein. So basically if you're, if you're overweight or obese, if you eat carbs or fat, you might actually burn less of those calories than people who are normal weight and healthy. But protein across the board, there's like not a change. So again, protein is like an incredible food for weight loss because you don't have this issue of not burning as like your metabolism, not being as high as people who are already at a lower weight. I'm loving this by the way. I know. I loved it so much. Then they also, I already talked about this, but they did say again that they thought it was actually kind of odd that the group eating 800 calories more protein didn't gain muscle.

Melanie Avalon
But again, they said it's probably because they were, they didn't really change their, their training at all. So yeah, their takeaway though, it was basically that for people that you can add all of this protein, like the super high amount of protein and knocking weight from it, even in a calorie excess.

So what are your thoughts?

Barry Conrad
This, this study is right up my alley the whole time you're talking about this. I had a massive smile on my face because I'm all about, I'm team protein.

And it explains a lot because you eat pounds and pounds of animal protein and whatnot every night. I do the same thing every day, lots and lots and lots and lots of protein. And you don't, I have not experienced any fat gain from that. If anything, I find myself becoming lean on my body composition is way more detailed, better than before. And this really explains it. And I did, I do understand the confusion that some people might have thought about, well, shouldn't more protein equal more muscle? Well, actually no, like you have to actually accommodate for that. So if you want to get the extra gains, you're going to have to go harder in the gym as well to break down that muscle first, and then, and then that extra protein intake is going to really have an effect, but you can't just do the same training and expect the assault to look like Arnold, you know, for like a bit of references, you know what I mean?

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, no, actually to comment on that really quickly, because now I just remembered the other detail about the prior study. So they were saying that in the other study that they looked at where the participants ate like a lot of calorie excess and then but some of them were having higher protein and then that group in that prior study that they mentioned like everybody did gain weight but they weren't just it wasn't just like I don't think it was just protein excess it was like a way excess of calories that they were having and they think that the reason people in the higher protein arm did gain muscle gain more muscle was because they were eating at a like they weren't trained and they were eating at a probably at a protein deficit before.

So it's like now they were actually getting the protein they needed to like build muscle for their just normal, you know, daily activities.

Barry Conrad
I also find it really interesting that you said some of the participants used like, I guess, supplementation because that's what they thought was the only way that they could actually take in enough protein. It's not a problem for me.

I do realize that it makes you more full, so I do get that. I've got some mates at the moment who are trying to intentionally, like this couple of friends of mine, they're trying to intentionally have more protein and they're struggling. They're like, we tried to have more with dinner, but we just can't. It's really hard for a lot of people.

Melanie Avalon
No, like to that point, and this is what I want to say to people, because like I said, people struggle so often with hunger, like their hunger, like what can they do? It's so ironic because people will ask, you know, how can I eat less?

Like because they're struggling with hunger and appetite and wanting to eat more. It's like the answer literally could be eat more, just focus on the protein. Like eat all the protein and try to gain weight doing that. You know, like make if you make that like the main thing. So it's just, I just think it's such a paradigm shift and it can help so many people rather than thinking about how do I restrict, think of how much protein can I eat.

Barry Conrad
I think so as well. Instead of leaving the house with a banana or like little snack bars and stuff, and then by the time you get to the end of the day, you feel full from those things, and then you can't have any protein, reverse it.

And just how much protein can I consume? Not in like a gluttonous way or anything, but just it's just more like you were saying, like that shift amongst a shift and just see if it makes a difference.

Melanie Avalon
It's kind of like a mental hack, but if your thing is that you just love like eating and eating and eating and you want like unlimited and you want to not even think about it, tell yourself that you have literally unlimited lean protein and see what happens because you literally can just go to town.

Barry Conrad
on it.

Melanie Avalon
It's so good, it's so good. I literally eat so much of it.

Barry Conrad
You do, and you said you have lots of chicken and stuff. I have lots of chicken wings or steak and whatnot. It's just so good. And also, yeah, you don't gain weight. You really don't.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, and I do want to emphasize the reason I say lean protein is because you also could have like, you know, tons of super, super fatty rib eyes. And now you're going to be adding lots of protein, but also be adding a lot of like fat calories.

But if you're having like, you know, more normal, like chicken and like leaner cuts of red meat, fish, you really Yeah, like I said, you can go to town.

Barry Conrad
I also found it was interesting, Mel, that two people dropped out.

Melanie Avalon
I know. So three dropped out because they said they couldn't eat that much protein and then one dropped out from GI distress and then the other people didn't say why they dropped out.

Barry Conrad
That's a good find.

Melanie Avalon
Awesome!

Speaker 3
Awesome, though.

Melanie Avalon
Shall we jump into some listener questions? Let's do it.

So we have a question from Joseph and the subject is IF and sports competition. And this is really appropriate. Like I was saying earlier with Barry sharing about his marathon training. So Joseph says, I've been doing IF for about nine months now, usually 16, eight, sometimes 19, five. Once a week I skip, just eat breakfast with my kids, but usually something paleo. I feel like my body is pretty used to IF now. Jiu-jitsu is my sport of choice. And I've trained a few times at the end of my fasting window and felt really good. I was apprehensive at first, as I was worried about not having the stamina. On the weekend I competed in a jiu-jitsu competition that had me competing at 10.30 am I gassed out really bad three minutes into a five minute round and felt really faint, it could have been due to poor cardio as I've not done much cardio lately. Usually I would open my eating window at 2pm after feeling so faint, I ate some organic figs for some energy and felt better for my next round later in the day. I was wondering if during high intensity sports, the body takes longer to turn fat into energy. Should I skip IF on competition days? Thanks for all the work you put into the podcast. And I thought this was perfect because you kind of described not the same thing, but you know, you just described earlier, hitting a wall.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, Joseph, thank you so much for the question. This is such a great question and fitting as well. And I appreciate like how you clearly laid out the experience. And this is really a good example of where fasting meets real world performance. And I love that you've been consistent for that those nine months moving between your windows that you say here in 19 five and 16 eight. And that you're even training with that as well at the end of your fast and feeling good. So that already says that you're metabolically flexible and you built that ability to tap in, which is great. And that's a win.

Okay, but let's look at the actual situation. Competition day is a real different beast. It really is. And training fasted and competing fasted aren't the same thing. So when you're rolling into training, you can pace yourself a bit even if you don't realize it in competition, everything ramps up. So adrenaline is higher. I was just talking to Mel about this before and intensity is higher. Your output is higher. You're just pushing more closer to your max because of of game day, essentially. And that kind of horsepower, I guess, an effort relies so much on glycogen, which is stored, stored carbs in your muscles. And even if even you have your very fat adapted, your body still is going to so that's things like like scrambles and grips and like the takedowns and whatnot, like those big bursts of effort. The fax oxidation is amazing for steady energy, but it is slower. So it doesn't deliver the same speed your body demands for those sort of moments. So I reckon what's likely happening is not that your fasting is necessarily failing or wrong. It's just that the fuel source at the time didn't match the demand of what you were doing.

So the fact that you felt better, for example, after eating the figs is a big clue. That quick hit of carbs gave your body that accessible energy. It sort of topped up your glycogen just enough, helped you stabilize a bit from what you're saying for the next round. Should you skip IF on competition days? I'd sort of more reframe it. Like I wouldn't, it's not about necessarily skipping fasting. It's about like tailoring it to aligning it like with your fuel for what your goals are performance wise. So on competition days, I'd say I'd absolutely consider like if you want to widen your window a bit more, that doesn't necessarily mean chucking it out, you know, completely. It just means being flexible for the short season that you're doing this. It could, you could have like small, maybe like an easily digestible meal a couple hours before competing, something with carbs or and a bit of protein, nothing heavy, just like enough to give that, that quick access to fuel. I know for me, when I do the half, I'm definitely like considering even for me, like though it's early in the day, like whether to have something just beforehand or whether to do it fasted. So I'm considering the same and even considering this week, widening my window, just like even by a couple hours, like to 18 instead of 20.

Barry Conrad
So think of fasting as your baseline. I like, and performance days, the more the exception, you know, like where you can adjust. It's, I'd also say don't overlook the role of hydration and electrolytes and sleep because feeling faint can sometimes also be compounded by like lack of sodium because you're sweating so much, you're really under a lot of stress. So making sure you're well hydrated and having adequate electrolytes.

I'm literally talking to myself as well while talking to you and it's going to make a massive difference. And you also mentioned cardio and that's, which is worth getting into too. Okay. Most of your training has been strength centered or like skill-based adding more conditioning to what you're doing is going to help with that gassing out feeling, which is the worst feeling because you feel like I'm doing everything right. Why am I gassing out? Honestly though, in this case, it does sound more like a fueling situation rather than a cardio thing. So again, nothing went wrong. Your body's doing what it's supposed to do. It's just the access to fuel in the moment for what the demand is. So yeah, train faster if it feels good, but fuel for performance when it counts and don't overthink it because it's not like, it's not all year. It's just for what you're doing, like the competition. So it doesn't really matter. The balance is where you're going to get the best of both worlds. So don't overthink it, I reckon. Mal, what do you think?

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, you said it perfectly. And it's so interesting because he literally like the question he asked, where he said is he was wondering if during high intensity sports, the body takes longer to turn fat into energy. So that is nailing it exactly.

And like like Barry was saying, but just to emphasize, it's not that it's taking longer for fat to turn into energy. So that's happening all the time. It's that behind intensity literally is not fueled by fat. It's like Barry saying it's fueled by glycogen. And so if your glycogen stores aren't there, there's nothing to fuel it. So that's why you're getting that feeling. I think that's like the ongoing question is, you're just gonna have to figure out how to properly keep your glycogen stores topped off in a way that keeps you sustained and fueled. And I feel like it's so different for different people. So like some people would be fine, you know, filling up their glycogen stores like the day prior, and then be fasted. And they, you know, work through those glycogen while they're doing the high intensity activity. But some people might need those top off. So having, you know, some sort of rapid way to get glycogen in, which is likely what happened with the figs, because figs, you know, quickly convert, they can contain glucose and fructose. And then that quickly repletes your liver glycogen. So you had, you know, something to fuel from. But then you also need to end your muscles, the glycogen as well. So I feel like that's always the ongoing question. I'll be curious, Barry, what you end up doing, you know, with with your glycogen stores. Like you said, you know, if you're gonna do like, actually day of type stuff, or, you know, or not, have you, you haven't decided though?

Barry Conrad
Well, Mel, like it's, it's, I literally relate to what Joseph is saying here. Cause that gassed out feeling is exactly how I felt when it's like, what's happening? Like it feels wrong, but it's literally your body saying you're just not fueled. You don't have enough glycogen. That's what it is.

So I am considering either just going to 18, six for the week or, and just eating more beforehand or sticking to my 20 and eating morning of, I don't know about eating morning off cause it's seven 30 starts. So I don't know. Maybe just maybe increasing my window for the week and eating more, getting my glycogen stores up, maybe perhaps. I reckon.

Speaker 3
Yeah

Melanie Avalon
Uh, either way I would, I mean, I, you know this, but I would test out what you're going to do before you, before day of, cause I think, I think a lot of people will make the mistake of like fasted training and then they're like, okay, but day of all, like have the, you know, the easy to use like, you know, honey or like whatever it is. But then that, if you're not accustomed to that, then you might actually end up like rebounding or bonking from that. You know, it's like so hard to, hard to know.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, I'll keep you posted because it's actually a good experiment for me, for the future.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, hopefully that helps, Joseph.

Barry Conrad
Thanks, Joseph.

Melanie Avalon
All right, shall we do one more question?

Barry Conrad
Yes. Joanne on Facebook says, do you still recommend feels gummies?

Melanie Avalon
Okay, Joanne, thank you so much for your question. So this is perfect timing because I do still love Feels. So Feels is a CBD brand, and it's one I've been using for years and years. And I never actually took the gummies because I like just like straight up CBD without anything that would break my fast or something like that.

We recently found, I'm so excited, a new CBD company that I am so excited about. So they are called Tanasi, and I had a call with one of the founders and what makes their CBD really unique. Oh, which by the way, so Barry, do you use CBD?

Barry Conrad
I have in the past, but I don't currently. I have definitely used it before though, which really helps you to relax.

Melanie Avalon
I love it. I've been using it for years and years every night. It's really good for helping to modulate your natural cannabinoid receptors and helps with endogenous production of these cannabinoids. So basically, it can be really great for stress relief, sleep, muscle pain, whatever it may be. It can be really helpful.

And I had not heard this before. So Tenasi, they make a patented CBD plus CBD A formula and they have studies on it and it is two times better than CBD alone. And it's even better. It's been shown to be better than over-the-counter pain relievers like acetaminophen and supporting your body's response to inflammation. So basically, it can help with pain and inflammation, but in a healthy way where it's working with your body, not just giving you a drug that's making things more problematic in the long term. But all of their studies is on this special formulation they have that nobody else is doing. And the products are really great.

And by the way, so I'm going to tell you what's in the products, for example, when I originally came across them, I was not going to partner with them because they had outdated labels on their website, which showed... They used to have more additives in it is my point. And I had a call with the founder and I was like, I love this idea because I wasn't familiar about this specific form of CBD plus CBD A. I was like, but I can't really partner with you guys because of the other ingredients. And then that's when he realized in real time that their website was outdated. So I'm holding the products in my hand right now so I can tell you literally what's in it. So for example, they have a tincture form and it has the CBD. So it has four milligrams of cannabinoids per drop. And all it contains is MCT oil and then the CBD. So there's no, yeah, nothing problematic. It's THC free. So there's that. They also have a lotion. So if you want to do topical absorption for pain relief, that is an option as well. And then they also have another topical version that is just almond oil, beeswax, and the CBD-C-B-D-A formula. So I am such a fan of CBD. I think it can have really profound effects on people's sleep and stress and mood. It helps my sleep so much. I'm just thinking about what I use it the most for. And I think, yeah, I love it for sleep. And I love this brand. I'm so happy that I found them. And I'm so happy that they reformulated to have this pure form that I'm really excited about.

I also talk to them as well because they don't say that it's organic or anything like that, but they do heavy, extensive. He was very clear on this that in order to have the effects that are shown in the studies, it has to be rigorously controlled. So it's super pure, tested to only contain what it says on the bottle. And I'm excited. So if listeners would like to try it, you can go to tenasi.com and use the code IFPODCAST and that will get you 25% off, which is amazing. So oh, and you also get free shipping over $75. So definitely, definitely do that.

Melanie Avalon
That's T-A-N-A-S-I.com. Use the promo code IFPODCAST to get 25% off and you also get free shipping over $75. So yeah, I'm really excited to have found this brand.

Barry Conrad
So good, Mel, and now I'm also curious to jump back into CBD land again.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, I know I jumped in and I never left. Like I, I, I'm serious. Like I, I started it. It's funny because when we first started taking sponsors on this show, like years and years and years ago, I remember cause CBD was like really controversial for a while, you know, cause because of the whole, you know, comes from the marijuana plant, the hemp plant. And I remember there was like an explosion and like all these CBD brands were, were reaching out like so many. I think we literally got pitched by a CBD brand like every week. And the only one I felt good about was feels, which I, I still do love feels as well. And, but now it's just like so normal. Like I don't even feel like I have to, you know, it's just like completely normal to talk about, which I'm so, I'm so glad about it.

I'm so happy that those regulations, you know, that this happened and you, if you want to like look into it more, I know there's a whole historic historical reason about problems with the hemp plant and it had nothing to do with like CBD. It had to do with because it was being used, I think for like paper production. I don't even know. There was something like, there was like a lot of politicalness behind it all. But yeah, my point is I never, ever since I started using CBD, I literally use it every night of my life. Like it is a game changer for me. Helps me fall asleep, but it helps me stay asleep. That's what I really find. And I find like, if I wake up in the middle of the night for whatever reason and can't get back to sleep, which is rare these days, but it does happen. I'll, you know, have some CBD from the tincture and I'm, I fall back asleep. It's so great.

Barry Conrad
Definitely did help me sleep now. Yeah, it's just just just relax and just like helps you with anxiety And if you're feeling overwhelmed as well, I remember that as well.

And if your mind's racing, so I totally get that

Melanie Avalon
And actually, I've been having some shoulder pain. I just realized, I'm gonna put this on there. Man, I wish I had done it earlier during the podcast. I could have like in real time reported back. What's wrong with your shoulder, what happened? I don't know, I pulled something like years ago, but it's like flaring up for some reason. So yes, so that is my CBD update.

And I am currently literally massaging the oil beeswax one on my sore tendon. So we shall see.

Barry Conrad
See, listeners, Mel, honestly, Mel, whatever Melanie talks about, she literally really does use, even after the podcast when we're talking on the phone, we talk about the same stuff. So it's like she uses this and I'm so pumped that you're using it in real time for everyone.

That's funny and awesome.

Melanie Avalon
And I'm so happy we're having this conversation because I don't think it would have occurred to me to, I'm gonna report back, I'll report back next week. Wait, can it really work that fast?

Barry Conrad
What, you can feel the difference? I think so. That's awesome. It feels like it. Why report next week when you can report next moment?

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, I know. Okay, I'm going to use this. I'm going to go through this bottle. Awesome. All right.

Thank you again so much, Joanne, for your question. And yeah, definitely check out Tenasi and get that 25% off and the free shipping.

Barry Conrad
Awesome!

Melanie Avalon
Shall we have our proverbial breaking of the fast moment?

Barry Conrad
Couldn't be more ready. Let's do it.

Melanie Avalon
Okie dokie. So the intention of this part of the show is the health benefits of fasting are not due to just the fasting. They are also due to the eating window. So we love celebrating breaking the fast and eating all the things and talking about what we would order by profiling different restaurants.

So Barry, do you have something for us? And also I really do think the CBD is working. There you go. Real time. Yes. Okay. Okay. So what is your restaurant for us today?

Barry Conrad
Okay, the restaurant is called Sexy Fish, and it's in London, UK, and I've just sent you the link now. And why this restaurant is special is because it's one of the most visually incredible-looking dining rooms in London. Damon and her sculptures, glowing ceilings, massive fish installations, fully a la carte with Japanese-inspired seafood and sushi, wine-less that's vast and global and built for big nights out, and apparently the vibe is high-energy, glamorous, loud dinner as a spectacle, basically. It's just, like, really outrageously beautiful. So let's check it out.

Melanie Avalon
Oh my goodness, I'm Googling it for pictures.

Speaker 3
Oh, look at the bathroom. Is that the bathroom? The bathroom. Do you see the picture of the bathroom?

Barry Conrad
Think of the selfies, the obligatory selfies that you take.

Melanie Avalon
Oh my goodness. Listeners, friends, look up the sexy fish, London.

The bathroom is like fish tails holding up seashell sinks and everything is pink and there are fishes and oh. And then the actual dining room is stunning with the lights and oh

Speaker 3
Oh, okay.

Barry Conrad
And this is the thing we talk about, like, you know, the, the lighting and the, the vibe adds to even before you take a bite or have a sip of wine or anything. It's just going to elevate, you know?

Yes. Yeah. So click on that ala carte situation there, that menu, and it's a very, very extensive menu. So yeah, there's lots here, lots, and it's not all, not just fish, but you'll see, you'll soon find out.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, I like this menu. I like the vibe of the menu, even the menu. So vibe it is. Okay. So it's, it starts with, it starts with while you decide.

Barry Conrad
Do you remember, Mel, we had a restaurant that had a similar thing. Do you remember that?

I can't remember the name of it, but it was the only one that I can think of. It's like a while you decide on the appetizers. So on the while you decide, there's little bites here. Anything catching your eye there, Mel?

Melanie Avalon
The only thing I have not had squid before, have you? Yeah, you haven't. Yeah, and we talked about this. Yes.

Assuming it's not like fried, I think I would try maybe the salt and pepper squid. Oh, fun fact, I used to not eat pepper on anything. I don't know why, but I recently, oh, I know why. Because I was, I'm prepping for a show with a doctor who has a book about Ayurvedic medicine and literally she has like an entire chapter on turmeric. And I know turmeric curcumin from turmeric absorbs better with black pepper. So I started like adding black pepper. And then I started looking up the benefits of black pepper. I have become a black pepper fiend.

I now like, I use so much black pepper and I love that you like grind it, you know? Yeah. Actually, I got a blend. I got like a blend of like at Whole Foods. Whole Foods, they have like a black, white, green, organic pepper blend and a grinder. And so now I'm putting on everything. So my point is the salt and pepper squid, I might say hold the salt, but keep the pepper. you

Barry Conrad
I can definitely verify, not that I've eaten at this place, but salt and pepper squid in general as a dish is such a vibe and it's so delicious. And if they're grilling it and not frying it, but all both ways are good, but it's just so good, Mel.

And the, yeah, a bit of lemon juice on there, the salt and pepper, yeah, it's really, really good. Good choice.

Melanie Avalon
It's a weird texture, right? It's like gummy.

Speaker 3
ish.

Barry Conrad
It's maybe weird if you haven't had it, but it's not that hard to eat. Some people think it's gross because it's kind of tough or a little bit tough. But yeah, you have to try it, I guess.

Melanie Avalon
Have to get it here at sexy fish are you gonna get something from the while you decide menu.

Barry Conrad
I would definitely get the, the a five wagyu toast sounds interesting to me. I don't know. Yeah. It just sounds good with truffle mayo and then the King crab croquettes.

I do like anything crab. Why not?

Melanie Avalon
Awesome. And then we're entering berry territory. Tabiar and oysters. Berry texted me a picture the other day of a shirt where the emblem, like the logo, wasn't oyster.

Barry Conrad
It's like an oyster shirt. I just actually laughed in the store and they were like, are you okay?

Melanie Avalon
So funny. Oh, and they've got they've got the caviar that we've talked about the beluga one. That's super expensive

Barry Conrad
It seems to be a theme so I feel like are we gonna like are we meant to be having this blue together.

Melanie Avalon
We must have beluga, yeah, I think.

Barry Conrad
Blue energy. Anything catch your eye out of the caveat there? I know you don't.

Melanie Avalon
I mean, beluga.

Barry Conrad
Beluga. Beluga all day.

Melanie Avalon
How about you?

Barry Conrad
Yeah, beluga for the table, and then I can't not have oysters, so these galato oysters, I'm gonna get a dozen of those babies. Let's do it.

Melanie Avalon
Perfect. Okay, and then moving on. I haven't skipped ahead. I'm going like in order like in real time Now we're at the sushi counter

Barry Conrad
Yum, I love sushi.

Melanie Avalon
They have a sashimi section, so I would get the sake, the salmon Scotland. So the Scottish salmon sashimi.

Barry Conrad
Sashimi's so good because like, you know, we're talking about lean protein before. This is the perfect example of this. You could just eat platters of the stuff.

Melanie Avalon
Except salmon is actually not that lean, but it is an example though of protein.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, I would get the, what would I get? I'm going to get the Zuwagani, Zuwagani snow crab.

Melanie Avalon
Mm, I would have some of that too. Oh yeah, yeah, I want some of that. I would actually want to get, you know what? I would want to get the snow crab and the king crab from Norway, the terra bagani. So then I could, I love, if there's something I love, I love like tasting and comparing different things. Like I want to go to a restaurant where there's like steak tastings, where it would be like the different, that's what I would like. Like, you know, if the meal was like a sliver of like filet and ribeye and pecana and like all these different types, like I like comparing things. I think I just love doing it.

So I would want to get the two crabs and compare them.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, yum. I was actually eyeing the same one. It looks really good. We might have to have more later, but yeah, that's good. Anything from the marquee or the sexy signatures?

Melanie Avalon
We know we're in London because we've got prawn. Um, I might, I mean, if the wagyu and foie gras was on the table, I would have a bite of that.

Speaker 3
Yeah.

Melanie Avalon
They don't have, oh, wait, oh, prawns are shrimp. I was like, they don't have shrimp, but they don't have just like straight up shrimp. How about you?

Barry Conrad
I would do the prawn burrata and caviar, but then also in the maki, I would, the smoked eel and foie gras sounds interesting to me.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, that's interesting. I would taste that, the eel, for sure.

Barry Conrad
I don't think I've tried Eel, I'd remember it if I did, I don't think I have.

Melanie Avalon
Have you seen an eel like at the aquarium? They are so scary.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, they're kind of out.

Melanie Avalon
They're so scary. They're like the scariest, I think they're the scariest animal.

They're not the scariest animal. Have you seen my, have you seen my posts of the Georgia aquarium that yields? Probably. They are terrifying. They're literally like nightmares incarnate. These are like the big eels, like the ones that are like, you know, six feet long. Yeah. I'm going to send you, I'm going to send you like a post and you'll see. They're scary.

Barry Conrad
I mean, they are scary, but I mean, they're not the scariest animal ever, like...

Melanie Avalon
Yes, they are. I'll send it to you and you'll see. Okay. They're terrifying.

Barry Conrad
Okay, let's go down to the next page, which is raw and chilled, or the skewers, they both look good.

Melanie Avalon
Oh now we have beef carpaccio. I want that.

And there are skewers. Grilled scallops. Yes. And grilled tiger prawn. Yes. And chicken yakitori. Is yakitori the spice or like a sauce or is it oh so it can just have salt or it can have a sauce on it.

Barry Conrad
It's grilled over charcoal often seasoned with salt or sweet soy glaze, literally meaning grilled bird. That sounds pretty good actually.

Melanie Avalon
and they have grilled octopus, they have so many things.

Barry Conrad
Well, actually, you know what, Mel, that whole skewer section, I would get one of each of those. There's glazed pork belly, grilled octopus, chicken yakitori, grilled tiger prawn, grilled scallops.

Have you tried tiger prawns, by the way?

Melanie Avalon
I don't think so because we don't really have prawns here.

Barry Conrad
It's so good. It's so good.

Melanie Avalon
Oh my goodness, wait, guess what Barry? I should have had more trust.

Speaking of like AI earlier, I should have had more trust in modern technology. So now you can just like, I just typed in eel and it found my pictures of the eel. I'm going to send this to you. You have to watch it. You have to click play.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, they actually are massive. That's not what I was picturing, so they're not nice at all.

Melanie Avalon
And they're like six feet long, and they're like, yeah, so, okay. Um, back to the menu. Are we at salads or this menu is confusing to me. There's so many sections.

Barry Conrad
There's salads and rubata, so side by side, so we have anything from the salad jumping out at you?

Melanie Avalon
No, I always pass the salads.

Barry Conrad
What about the robota?

Melanie Avalon
Although if I was getting a salad, they have what might be the most intriguing salad that looks delicious.

Barry Conrad
The crispy duck.

Melanie Avalon
Yes. Crispy duck and watermelon with pomegranate. That's cool. Not getting it, but that's cool. Okay. Robota.

Barry Conrad
And that means a method of cooking food over a hot charcoal grill. So basic, literally like fireside cooking. So that's going to be really good, Mel. That's going to all be really good, I reckon.

Melanie Avalon
They have an Australian prime ribeye. I actually don't know if I would get anything from this section. Do you see? Maybe grilled lobster. How about you?

Barry Conrad
I would do the grilled lobster and definitely the caramelized lamb rack with red yuzu kosho and herbs. That sounds so good.

Speaker 3
I'm.

Melanie Avalon
amazing. And then we are down to

Barry Conrad
We're almost done. It's a big menu. It's quite comprehensive.

Melanie Avalon
I wonder like when you go here, do you just order like lot like little, you know, different ones at a time, you just

Barry Conrad
Yeah, I kind of get that vibe as well. Like you just kind of, it's like a long booking. You just order.

Melanie Avalon
Like you just like keep ordering things? Oh, I know. I know what I want meal wise, but before that, what is guaiosa? What is guaiosa? Guiosa? Guiosa.

Barry Conrad
like a like a dumpling kind of a thing like you know like a dumpling I'm out no okay not really not really a dumpling it's like a pocket of it's like a okay it's like a Chinese dumpling but it's really honestly it's it's really really good trust me it's really really delicious

Melanie Avalon
I'm out for that. I'm out for that and I'm out for tempura because that means fried, right? Okay, good. So I can like ignore those categories. Are you getting anything?

Barry Conrad
I can probably pass on those too because there's so many other things here. There's the wagyu section.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, the wagyu section, very excited about. I want the Japanese A5. So they have a filet and they have a sirloin. I mean, they both look amazing, but honestly I could probably go the sirloin route.

Barry Conrad
Same. I would do the same. I prefer a solo in any way. That's my favorite.

Melanie Avalon
Actually, no, this will be an example where I want to do both. So this is the example so that I can like compare. So like one A5 sirloin, one A5 filet, and then do a tasting.

Barry Conrad
Okay, looks like last but not least, any of these rice and veggies and noodles intrigue you in any way.

Melanie Avalon
No, I just read the category and I'm I'm out again. How about you?

Barry Conrad
I would I'm sort of tempted to at least try some of the well definitely have steamed rice because I love steamed rice But then I want to just have like a bite of the lobster udon ramen because I love udon and I love lobster, so

Melanie Avalon
And then they have treats add-ons. Apparently, we could have been adding. They should have put this at the top of the menu.

Because how many people are going to start at the top and not realize? So you can add on caviar or black truffle to anything.

Barry Conrad
It's actually quite a decadent, it's quite a lot of food.

Melanie Avalon
Are you a truffle fan? Have you had black truffle?

Barry Conrad
Yes. I am a truffle fan. Yeah, they should have put that at the top.

Melanie Avalon
I don't think I've actually had black truffle.

Barry Conrad
It's pretty yum. Should we go to the dessert? Oh, this is a very big dessert menu.

Melanie Avalon
Although I need to stay on this menu because I'm going to get for dessert, this is the perfect menu to have a savory dessert because I could just order another of whatever I had most enjoyed. So I probably might get like more sashimi or more carpaccio or more, you know, more of something.

Barry Conrad
I'm just going to get the chocolate fondant on the dessert menu and the

Melanie Avalon
I'm supposed to guess, don't-

Barry Conrad
and okay I'll get I'm getting one other one what's the other one do you think I'll get

Melanie Avalon
Well, I would have said chocolate fondant, obviously. And then second one, do you maybe want to try the cinnamon donut?

Barry Conrad
Yes, I actually would I actually would do the term term a cookie

Melanie Avalon
Oh, okay. I was looking at that too. That looks cool. Kalua, coffee, and marshmallow.

Barry Conrad
It's like tiramisu, but tiramucucchi.

Melanie Avalon
That's cool.

Barry Conrad
Yeah, so I reckon I'll do that and then there's some cocktails on the side there. Definitely going to go for a Don Julio Espresso Martini. That sounds really yummy. Because this kind of place is quite different, so I'll do that.

They have a wine list? They do. So go back to the click back and then there's wine and sake. Yay. Have you had a good day? Have you had a good day? Have you had a good day? Have you had a good day? Have you had a good day?

Melanie Avalon
had sake before I've definitely been at a place and people had it but I don't think I did I definitely had it like when I was I didn't have it but I went when I was in LA and we went downtown somewhere and like sake was happening but I don't think I had it how about you

Barry Conrad
I have had it. It's not it's not my favorite thing or maybe I just haven't had a good experience, but it's I find it heavier than Yeah, I find it pretty heavy to drink but it's an experience for sure.

Extensive list here by the way of wines.

Melanie Avalon
So basically, whenever it comes to wine for listeners, they know my protocol. I have to... Well, I now have my chat trained, so I have like a chat thing. I just take a picture of the menu, I give it a chat, and then it tells me what is organic, what is lower alcohol, what has minimal sulfites or low sulfites, and then I go that route. So okay, they have a lot of wines on this list, so I feel confident that I can find something easily.

Probably will be a French wine of sorts. This is a really big list.

Barry Conrad
It is actually, I would definitely get a bottle of sablee as well. Like a good white, especially all the fish we're having, yeah. I'm with like the lobster and stuff, you know.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, maybe like a nice light gamay from France. Which speaking of tomorrow, I am going to a level two wine tasting course. Remember I told you that I went to like the level one tasting course here. And I, do you remember that story? I like basically they thought I was really stupid cause I, cause like the entire class were, was like older people who were there to learn about wine. And then I walked in like clearly like with the influencer tickets and looking really stupid and then I was tasting the wines and I was tasting the wrong wines from, but then I won the exam at the end. And so I'm going back to level two tomorrow.

They're having me back. So shout out by the way to Vino venue in Atlanta. If anybody lives in Atlanta and they ever want to do any sort of wine class or like wine tasting, they literally have classes all the time. Like their calendar is crazy. So their website is vino venue.com. B-I-N-O-B-E-N-U-E.com. And you can check out all their things. So I'm going to that tomorrow. And do you want to come?

Barry Conrad
I would love to come to something like that, I'd love to go to that. You're going to smash it, by the way, you're going to be so good.

Melanie Avalon
I'm nervous. I feel like I got a I wonder if there's gonna be an exam at the end again, probably.

Barry Conrad
There'll be another story to go along with that so I can't wait.

Melanie Avalon
probably about how I like don't win and I'm tragically torn.

Barry Conrad
You drinks like so many great wines, you're going to be fine.

Melanie Avalon
We'll see. The thing I'm excited about is apparently at this class, this is something that I've wanted to do for so long. Apparently we'll find out if they actually do it.

Apparently they have like a, cause you know like they'll talk about when you're wine tasting, like all of the different aromas and like flavors. Yes. So apparently there's like a sniffing board. So we're going to smell the different things. Like the actual, like, so like, because I realized like when I make wine notes, I'll be like, oh, this is like current and like, you know, ramble berry, but I don't actually know what those.

Speaker 3
taste like. So you smell it first, then taste it, then say...

Melanie Avalon
I have no idea. They just said that they said they used to do it in level one, but it got too complicated So now it's only in level two.

And so here we go Sniffing board here. I come so but in any case, this is a great find Sexy fish this may be I should be keeping an ongoing list.

This might be up there for ones. I want to go to the most

Barry Conrad
Well, it's very U-coded and like visually anyway, and also with the sashimi piece as well.

Melanie Avalon
It's literally everything I like. The vibe looks amazing. The bathrooms look, I can't even. And then I can just order lots of meat and fish without like just meat and fish, like on repeat, like rinse and repeat. Sounds like Melanie Heaven.

I know. Sexy fish, come to Atlanta, please. Awesome. Well, this was so much fun. Friends, we hope you had the best time with us. If you would like to submit your own questions for this show, you can directly email questions at ifodcast.com, or you can go to ifodcast.com and submit questions there. These show notes for today's episode will be at ifpodcast.com slash episode 478. They will have a transcript as well as links to everything that we talked about. So definitely check that out. And you can follow us on Instagram, we are ifodcast. I am Melanie Avalon, Barry is Barry underscore Conrad. And I think that's all the things. Anything from you, Barry, before we go?

Barry Conrad
No, this has been an amazing episode. Thanks so much for tuning in again, everyone, and chat to you next week.

Melanie Avalon
Awesome, I'll talk to you next week.

Barry Conrad
Talk to you next week, bye!

Melanie Avalon
Bye! Thank you so much for listening to the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Please remember, everything we discussed on this show does not constitute medical advice, and no patient-doctor relationship is formed.

If you enjoyed the show, please consider writing a review on iTunes. We couldn't do this without our amazing team. Editing by podcast doctors, show notes and artwork by Brianna Joyner, and original theme composed by Leland Cox and recomposed by Steve Saunders.

See you next week!

Jun 08

#477 – Struggling To Change Your Eating Window, Safe Non Toxic Mattresses, Fasting Longevity Benefits, Over Fasting Problems, Does Gum Break The Fast, Artificial Sweetener Problems, And More!