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⁠⁠The Impact Of Intermittent Fasting On Sperm Parameters⁠

Welcome to Episode 419 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 419 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 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 419 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon. I'm here with Barry Conrad. Barry, how are you today?

Barry Conrad

Hey everyone hey mel, how's it going i'm doing great today it's a kind of a bit of a rainy day here in cindy but it's beautiful day otherwise and i'm super stoked to be here with you all.

Melanie Avalon

Oh my goodness, it was rainy here today as well.

Barry Conrad

I feel like you love that, you prefer cold and cool.

Melanie Avalon

It actually was cooler. Yeah, it was nice. I liked it

Barry Conrad

So no cryo today or cryo still?

Melanie Avalon

Oh, cryo every day. Every day. Even if it's, yeah, freezing.

Barry Conrad

which now I'm yet to still experience and actually book into do I need to do it. I've been making a mental note to try it because I'm curious because you always do it.

Melanie Avalon

Well, when you come to Atlanta or the US, you can do it here. The one I go to two people can go in the old one I went to. It was only like a one person unit, but this one actually, I think I says up to it says max capacity is like four or five people.

Barry Conrad

I'm picturing like a sauna set up where you can sit around in like this freezing freezer. Is that the deal or what what's the

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, it's kind of like that little bit bigger, bright, like blue lighting and very cold.

Barry Conrad

Okay, I feel like you'll school me, but I'm all for it. I'm up for the challenge. It's a vibe.

Melanie Avalon

It's yeah, it's super fun. How are you? How's your your day? I'm good So when this comes out, it will have been a month post launch, which is still in the future for me right now Finally of my EMF blocking product line. I've been working on it for years. Whoo. That's awesome. Congratulations. Thank you I'm so excited. These are the EMF free headphones so that you can use your phone and not transmit EMFs to your brain and body amazing. So I'm very excited

Barry Conrad

What inspired you to create that and why that in particular?

Melanie Avalon

I went through a period of time where I was like very sensitive to everything in the environment and that's when I became aware of EMFs and some people are more sensitive than others, but it's not woo woo. It's very much a real concern. Like I've said before, EMFs are classified by the IARC as a group to be carcinogen. And if you look in your iPhone in the legal section, it literally says, it literally suggests that you put your phone on speakerphone or use like wired headphones so that you reduce your RF exposure. So this is very much a real thing. The EMF free air tubes on the market right now, they didn't have, I couldn't find any that were the, like the app, you know, like the Apple earbuds. Yeah. I couldn't find any that were that type of earbud. They were all the like ones that go like in your ear. And I also couldn't find any that were like girly. So I'm making, I'm making black and rose gold. So the whole spectrum in this like Apple form and they're digital up until like below your neck. And then there's this little bead thing that stops all the EMFs and then it turns to analog. So no radiation goes into your head. So I'm very excited. And the reason it took so long, literally I've been talking about this for over a year, probably two years now, a lot of them weren't good sound quality. I literally kept trying so many, there'd be a good sound quality, but then the microphone wouldn't be good or vice versa. I'm working with like a production partner and it would take a long time between samples. So I have literally tried so many samples, but I finally got ones that I feel good about.

Barry Conrad

I want to see them, I want to experience them too, I want to see what they sound like.

Melanie Avalon

So this week I just got the final finals to take photos of. So we're going to be taking photos this week. So I'll send you some pictures so that you can see how exciting and I'll send you some once I get them.

Barry Conrad

Speaking of rose gold, Melanie, I never ever, ever, ever, ever wear gold ever. But I just went to the MJ musical premiere.

Melanie Avalon

Yes, I saw your pictures from that. How was that?

Barry Conrad

It was actually, I'm going to say, the best musical I've ever seen. Wow. In terms of the production and the talent, it's just like, like regardless of what you think of Michael Jackson, like the music was incredible. The performances were out of this world. The production was, you, Mel, you would have loved it. And I was so blown away, blown away. It was amazing. Is there a plot? Yeah. So it's, it kind of throws back to the past. And then the present day is the day, the making of the dangerous tour that he did. So basically the rehearsals and preparation for that and that time of his life, which I like that they really touched on a lot of stuff that might be controversial, which is good.

Melanie Avalon

Did they play? No, probably not. Do you want to know my favorite Michael Jackson song? Tell me. What's your favorite?

Barry Conrad

I have a couple i'm gonna say man in the mirror don't stop till you get enough and human nature that's my three favorites.

Melanie Avalon

Mine is, let me make sure this is actually the title of it. I feel like I have a hunch. Do you want to guess?

Barry Conrad

Is it you are not alone? I don't know, is it? No.

Melanie Avalon

No.

Barry Conrad

Is it the Free Willy song?

Melanie Avalon

yes yes oh my gosh you guessed you guessed that song is so good

Barry Conrad

That's good. It's a good one.

Melanie Avalon

Ah, the music video and he's like dancing and they two clips from Free Willy. Ah, man. Okay. We used to watch Free Willy. Did you watch Free Willy growing up? I'm guessing so.

Barry Conrad

Yeah, of course, yeah.

Melanie Avalon

Did you have it on BHS?

Barry Conrad

We actually did.

Melanie Avalon

Do you remember like the commercials in front and they would do the music video? There was like a commercial for like Batman I think and then they would do the music video. Will you be there?

Barry Conrad

That was my first guess, but I don't know why I went with you. I knew it was going to be something heartfelt. That's my hunch. There we go.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, treasured memory. So in my childhood house, we had a, like a grand piano, and it was a disclaver, so it could like play songs, and it could play that song.

Barry Conrad

Really?

Melanie Avalon

Yeah.

Barry Conrad

So you love it, you love that song, you really do.

Melanie Avalon

It could play that and it could play like Titanic and it could play Aladdin. We just had like...

Barry Conrad

That's funny. I don't know why that made me laugh. It just, it's hilarious. But the reason why I brought that up is I wore a shirt with rose gold buttons and also rose gold cufflinks. And it made me think of you because you mentioned rose gold, but I don't really wear that, but I actually loved it because it's not like a tacky yellow gold, like rose gold is really nice. It's a nice color.

Melanie Avalon

I remember when I first like really discovered it as like an option. It's when it became really popular and it was like everywhere for a second. I was like, this color is so great. It's like everything I love about pink, but in like a really classy, refined elevated version.

Barry Conrad

Nicely put I like that. That's really and also it's very unisex too. Like it's very as non offensive It's not like too pink or too gold. It's just like the perfect medium. I reckon

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, you can come with me next week. I'm going to the Neil Diamond musical. Have you seen that? A beautiful noise.

Barry Conrad

listeners, Melanie does this to me every week and she'll either message me or on the podcast, do you want to come to this? I would love to come to that. Thank you. No, I haven't seen it. Tell me about it.

Melanie Avalon

I don't know. I just know that it's Neil Diamond and all of his songs. I think it's like a working session where he's like working through his, I feel like I looked up the plot and I'm like, I don't know that there's like much of a plot here type thing.

Barry Conrad

Well, I think the music will be, I mean, Neil Diamond's a legendary artist. So I feel like people will be just loving the music, you know?

Melanie Avalon

Oh yes, Sweet Caroline here we come. And I had an epiphany about this because we were saying Mama Mia. I was saying how I actually loved it, but I was saying how I wasn't really a Mama Mia fan. I didn't realize I would like it as much as I did, but I was thinking about it. I was like, honestly, I probably enjoy. So me going to like a musical or a show that I don't like, I probably enjoy it more than a lot of people going to shows they do like because I just love theater so much that even if I don't like it, I have the time of my life. Like it would be hard to make me not enjoy it.

Barry Conrad

I was going to ask you about Mamma Mia. What did you what did you love most about the show? Like, did it surprise you or did you kind of know what to expect?

Melanie Avalon

I'd seen the movie and I listened to the soundtrack, you know, in the past. I didn't realize that I liked the music as much as I did. And I kind of liked the whole intrigue of like, who is her dad? Which of the three dads is the dad?

Barry Conrad

I did see it as well. I saw it in Australia. It's, I mean, it's pretty fun. It's a fun show. You can't deny that.

Melanie Avalon

What's my favorite song from that? Well, Dancing Queen, probably. Such a cliche, but...

Barry Conrad

I feel like I could just see you dancing in the aisle.

Melanie Avalon

Yep, always.

Barry Conrad

put your moves you have like a signature move will you know when we go out when we go out then i'll get to see you on the dance floor to see.

Melanie Avalon

My dance moves? Yeah. You're the dancer.

Barry Conrad

Yeah, but also like when you go out, it's kind of, you know, you don't want to like try to look like you're trying to dance. It's more like, I'll just like move and like have a good time, but I'm not going to go there and like do like a full choreograph set and try to pull focus, you know what I mean?

Melanie Avalon

Yes. What makes me happy is I feel like the way Taylor Swift dances at stuff, like when she's always having like the time of her life at things, like what the way she dances is the way I dance at things.

Barry Conrad

Basically, what we both feel like we both are saying is you just got to have fun. As long as you have fun, you don't care. That's dancing. You don't, if you're too concerned about looking cool, you're not really having a good time anyway.

Melanie Avalon

I think I've told you this before, I kind of had like an epiphany, perspective epiphany change about dancing because I was so like in middle school and high school dances were like so awkward and I felt really uncomfortable and embarrassed. So then when I like came into my maturity and was like, oh, this is awesome. It's like I discovered the concept of like dancing and I was like, this is so fun. I want to do this all the time. Drinks help too.

Barry Conrad

Did you have like a moment where that happened where you like, Hey, this is fun.

Melanie Avalon

I think so. Honestly, probably. I'm trying to think when was the first time I really danced and wasn't scared anymore. I feel like it's not that long ago. Definitely post-COVID.

Barry Conrad

Cause you definitely look like you're having the time of your life when I look at your stories and stuff like you just having a good time you're not like caring about anything like you're just having fun so that's the whole point right so what would you like before we just.

Melanie Avalon

Well, I was like, I don't know, because like, I don't know how it is in Australia, but like, middle school, high school dances. Wait, when did you? Okay, wait, when did you move to Australia?

Barry Conrad

a while ago. Fuck.

Melanie Avalon

Not date, for like middle school, high school, whatever you call it, what country were you in for that?

Barry Conrad

I was in, I was in New Zealand. And it's like, yeah, it's very, like, we call it a four in Australia and New Zealand, we call those dances a formal if, or, M L you want to go to the formal with me, it's not like a prom, but it's like your version of prom.

Melanie Avalon

We have Formals and PROM.

Barry Conrad

Oh, you do?

Melanie Avalon

Mm-hmm. And we have semi-formals. Did you have semi-formals?

Barry Conrad

I don't understand.

Melanie Avalon

We have semi-formals, formals, and prom.

Barry Conrad

What's the diff? Like, what's the...

Melanie Avalon

And then other ones like homecoming. We have homecoming, semi-formals, formals, prom, there's a lot of options. Sadie Hawkins, did you guys have Sadie Hawkins? No way. That's where the girl has to ask the guy.

Barry Conrad

Did you do that?

Melanie Avalon

But one of my biggest regrets to this day is I didn't ask my crush in high school to it. I wanted to. I did ask a guy, but not my crush. Actually I put that in my book and I put his name in the book. Did you really? I said, quote, that I did not invite my crush Stuart Horner to the 10th grade dance. Shout out.

Barry Conrad

You actually name-checked him. Did he ever reach out to you or find?

Melanie Avalon

I doubt it. No, actually, you know, what I did do, though, is I did when I published that book, because I mentioned a lot of names of a lot of people. So I did this was like back in the Facebook days. I mean, Facebook is still here, but this was like before Instagram. So I did a post and I was like, shout out to and then I tagged everybody that I mentioned. So I think I tagged him, but I doubt he saw it.

Barry Conrad

Wow. Good for you that you're just confident to do that. That's awesome.

Melanie Avalon

Thank you. I feel like life is too short to be scared anymore. I spent too long being scared. Like it dances.

Barry Conrad

So would you just sort of like, what, hug the wall or like sit down? Like you, you wouldn't like dance.

Melanie Avalon

There's like stand there, you know, like, like move, like slightly sway my body, like a little bit. It's just so awkward. Middle school is such an awkward time and high school a little bit.

Barry Conrad

I agree too. I feel like, yeah, you just learn so much more about yourself as you grow, like, which is so freeing and feels awesome.

Melanie Avalon

I know I cannot agree more. And I used to be so scared of like the age I met now. Like I thought that was over the hill, like, but I feel, I feel great.

Barry Conrad

I feel exactly the same way. It's so relative. When you're in high school or a kid's like, oh, that's old, that's old. It's actually not. It's just old perspective. It really is. Although, let's be honest, some people act really old and that's probably why too. They're just boring and don't have any life for them, so that's probably why.

Melanie Avalon

It's your mindset. Actually, something I learned in the book I'm reading right now called Ageless Aging, she said that your perspective on aging correlates to people's biological age. So people who are more fearful of aging actually, no, no, it correlates to mortality. So people who are more like worried about aging, it correlates to reduced mortality.

Barry Conrad

Wow, she talks about like, I guess, stuff to support that happening or what, how does that work?

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, I mean, the book is all about how to support longevity.

Barry Conrad

Is there anything for the dudes in there or is it more like female kid?

Melanie Avalon

I'm not finished with it yet. But thus far, it is all applicable. The whole beginning of it is about the perspective of women and aging and culture.

Barry Conrad

Nice. Interesting. Ageless aging. What a good title as well.

Melanie Avalon

I know. So, well, one of the things that we know is anti-aging or supportive of longevity is intermittent fasting.

Barry Conrad

Absolutely.

Melanie Avalon

Do you have a study or something to start us off with?

Barry Conrad

I definitely do. I'm really excited about this study that I found. It's called the impact of intermittent fasting on sperm parameters. On sperm what? Parameters.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, that's cool. Oh my goodness, we have not talked about this on the show. I am so excited right now.

Barry Conrad

When I found this, I was, this is awesome.

Melanie Avalon

Did you type in intermittent fasting sperm?

Barry Conrad

I did, spur of the intermittent fast. No, I was just curious about if there was any research around it, cause I'd never ever heard anyone talk about it. So it's like, let's try to find something.

Melanie Avalon

This is so great. And you know, it's so true, because I feel like so much of the talk about intermittent fasting and reproductive health, it's always focused on how it affects women's reproductive health. Rarely do we talk about men. That's so interesting. Whereas the rest of the world focuses on men, but for this one topic. Well, there you go. The rest of medical literature. Okay, so what did you find? I'm excited to hear this.

Barry Conrad

Yeah. So it's, it's called intimate, the impact of intermittent fasting on sperm parameters. And it's from team kindervunge Hanover in Germany, and silent university medical center. And this was in October 2023. And like, as you were saying before, like, we know a lot about, you know, female fertility and, you know, female focused studies regarding intermittent fasting, but not so much about male in the same topic. And we know that diet and antioxidants play a massive role in male fertility. But what we don't really get a lot of is how fasting impacts sperm health, which is why when I found this, I'm like, yes. And that's where the study comes in. And the researchers basically wanted to, to see if intermittent fasting could improve sperm quality. So things like, like sperm concentration, motility, morphology. And what makes this really even more interesting to me is that they weren't just looking at any men, they specifically studied men undergoing IVF treatment. So this is the connection on which I think might be applicable to some of our listeners, maybe going through that. So when we talk about men in IVF, just to zoom out for a second, what does that actually mean? Because we we kind of think it's something focused on just females and hormone injections and egg retrievals, embryo transfers. But male fertility plays just as big of a role in whether IVF is successful. So

Melanie Avalon

This is so interesting.

Barry Conrad

Yeah. So if a man being part of that treatment means undergoing something called semen analysis. So that's when doctors check for things like sperm count, sperm motility, morphology, just to see if the quality of the samples are good. And if the sperm aren't moving well, or if the count is low, it can make conception harder, even in a lab setting. So in some cases, they were saying like if sperm motility is poor, doctors have to use a technique called intracytoplasmic sperm injection. And it's along with where basically like a single sperm is injected directly into the egg to improve the chances. So the fact that the study was done on men who were already dealing with fertility challenges makes this melt like even more compelling. So basically, these guys took, these researchers took 20 men in the IVF process and tested this sperm before and after 30-day intermittent fasting period. So they fasted just from 14 to 16 hours a day, mostly stopping food intake around 6 to 8pm and not eating again until 8 or 10am the next morning. And so here's where it which is how well the sperm move significantly improved. Out of the five men in the study who had poor motility at the start, guess how many showed so much improvement out of the five? All of them. Four out of the five showed so much improvement that they now were considered to have normal motility after the fasting. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. And that's because like motility is it's a big part of fertility and because if the sperm, if they can't move efficiently, the struggle to reach the egg, like to fertilize the egg, whether naturally or IVF is really tough. The next thing is sperm viability. So that means how many sperm are actually alive. That also improved significantly. And even sperm pH levels saw like a big shift which matters because sperm thrive in a very specific pH range. So if the environment's off, it can actually damage them. So those two things change. What didn't change interestingly was sperm concentration. So that means like the number of sperm in the sample. It did go up slightly, but not in a way that was statistically significant in the study. And the sperm morphology, which refers to the shape and structure of the sperm, didn't really budge. But basically the big takeaway here is IF appears to have a positive effect on sperm motility and overall sperm health, at least in the short term. And yeah, it's a small study. While it was a small study, it's one of the first to directly compare sperm parameters before and after fasting, which is super exciting because it just opens the door for, I reckon, more research on how fasting could actually be used as a tool to support male fertility, which I think is fresh, new, exciting. And when you think about the science behind fasting, Mel, we know that makes sense because we already know IF reduces inflammation, improves hormone balance, metabolic health. So these are all things that are key for reproductive function.

Barry Conrad

And also it increases human growth hormone, as we know, which plays a huge role in repair. And that could also be a factor, I reckon, why the sperm function might have improved. And practically, if you're a guy out there, shout out to our male listeners, or you're a female or male with a partner or husband, if you're dealing with fertility challenges, IF could actually be a simple naturally strategy to try or to help. I mean, it's not a magic bullet. It's very new research. But this study, I mean, it just suggests that it could be a valuable tool in the bigger picture later on. And maybe intermittent fastings, not just about longevity and fat loss and retaining muscle, but also a reproductive level tool as well. So I think that's really exciting. So what's the space for more research on this area? Mel, what do you reckon?

Melanie Avalon

Wow. Okay. Such a great find. Kudos to you. Thank you. And it just goes to show like it never even occurred to me to research this. So I'm so glad that you brought this up. Even when it's like a small study, it's really exciting when the results like that are very, like when you have smaller numbers, you need more impressive results to show more of the effect, if that makes sense. Things can be statistically significant, regardless of sample size. But when you have a small sample size, it's more important to like the four out of five example, to have higher numbers like that, because it really shows something that's going on. I think what I find really interesting about it is, this is interesting. So when they look at the longest lived populations, and people often talk about Loma Linda, for example, which is a vegan community in California as having particularly long lives. And people will say that about the vegan population as well. So I do know there have been studies that have found negative effects on some of the sperm parameters. I'm not sure which ones in vegan populations. I think some have found favorable effects, but some have found negative effects. That's basically a concern. So like whenever I whenever I interview people well known in the vegan populations, I often talk about this topic because it is something that is kind of out there as a potential negative. So I find it really interesting that my experience to date learning about male fertility, sperm and longevity, it seemed to have been a trade off sometimes like you can't have the longevity and have the sperm, you know, the beneficial sperm effects. So it's really exciting to hear this finding with fasting, which we also know is great for longevity and health and wellness, and these beneficial effects on some of the sperm parameters. Wow. And it was 30 days.

Barry Conrad

It was 30 days and just 14 to 16 hours a day, which I think it's not the same thing, but just to set listeners at ease. It's not just about doing 30 hour fast, fasting is so beneficial even like past the 12 hour mark. There's so many benefits to fasting, so just 14 to 16 hours a day, so I keep going.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, no, no, this is amazing. I hope they do more studies, more follow-up studies on this.

Barry Conrad

It's so topical as well, because I'm sure, I mean, statistically, from a listeners, there's going to be someone going through IVF or just about to or just maybe in the process of trying again. And maybe it's not even something that their partners have even or they've even thought of themselves that could help.

Melanie Avalon

Awesome, great find. Thanks. So we will put a link to that in the show notes, which will be at ifpodcast.com slash episode 419. All right, so what we wanted to do was we wanted to talk about a Facebook post that I posted that has a lot of really interesting answers, but maybe before that, we have a really quick question that's also fasting related that maybe we could answer to get both in, if you like. Okay. It's Gwen's question, do you wanna read it? Okay.

Barry Conrad

So Gwen from Facebook asks, how long should your eating window be if you're trying to do just one meal a day?

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, so I really love this question. I don't know if we've actually answered this, like, prescribed a number for this. But the reason I like this is because when I think when people hear one meal a day, they think, Oh, like an hour, you know, like that it has to be like 30 minutes or an hour. Of course, if you're very style, you can knock it back in like 15 minutes, 10 minutes, it should be as long as it needs to be to get in all the food and nutrition that you need to get in. So for me, when it's like, how long should it be? It's how long it should be for you. So for me, I eat a lot of seafood and chicken and cucumbers and blueberries. And I eat for about four or five hours, like, it's kind of like having a really, really long meal at a restaurant. But other people so like, because because Barry, when you do your one meal a day daily, like, is it around a similar amount of time? Or what is it like for you?

Barry Conrad

Yeah, when I'm doing my one meal a day, if I'm working from home, for example, or just before heading out, the cooking is one thing, but it'll be... It's less than an hour, like, from cooking to eating and finishing up, usually. I mean, I don't generally go, hey, I've done 24, so let me just keep trying to fill up that four hours. No, I'll just, like, finish eating once I've had enough. What about you? You have four hours or so?

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, like four or five hours and I'm, I go slow. I take my time. I read my books.

Barry Conrad

She enjoys her self. Yeah, it's good.

Melanie Avalon

I do. Yeah. It's like a feast every night. So my answer for you Gwen is there is no one answer. It's however long it needs to be to get all the food in that you need to get in and want to get in and the pace that you want to go at for that.

Barry Conrad

To add on to that, I think it's such a good question, because as soon as I saw this, it harkened back to the great One Meal a Day debate between Melanie and, you know, the original co-host, Jen Stevens, and then even we revisited in episode number 404, actually, if you want to listen to that listeners. And interestingly enough, we put up a poll on our podcast Instagram, and the question was, what's your definition of One Meal a Day? And we had three options there. A, you've got to eat the meal within one hour. Max. B, it can be spread across two to four hours. And C, just eating once a day. Timing doesn't matter. Mel, which one do you reckon had the most votes out of those three options?

Melanie Avalon

Wait, so say them again. So timing doesn't say them again.

Barry Conrad

So A, you've got to eat the meal within one hour, B, it can be spread across two to four hours, and C, just eating once a day, timing doesn't matter.

Melanie Avalon

So I would say once a day timing doesn't matter, but was it two to four hours?

Barry Conrad

Yeah, our followers, they voted 62% of our followers voted for that one, followed by 29% for just eating once a day timing doesn't matter. And then lastly, 10% with you've got to eat the meal within an hour. Interesting.

Melanie Avalon

very interesting to me. Yeah, so they would have answered this question a little bit differently. But technically, you know, if everybody has different perspectives on it, I feel like that further supports my answer.

Barry Conrad

No, it does. Like it doesn't like negate your answer. It's just like really interesting that no one thought that one like just eat it like really quickly, which like, I think we all agree. That's not what it is.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah. That's so interesting. I mean, cause you, you can't really, I mean, if you're eating throughout the day, it's much easier to have it in a small amount of time. But if when it's your one meal a day, I feel like most people might need a little bit more time there. I a hundred percent agree. Awesome. Okay. Friends, listeners join my Facebook group called IF biohackers, intermittent fasting plus real foods plus life. I put a lot of fun, like, I put a, I put a question in there every single day, actually. So there's a lot of fun community in there and berries in there and I'm in there and all the things. So I didn't anticipate doing this, but I posted something and it got so many answers I thought would be fun to talk about. And it was, if you had to pick, what is the one health thing biohack supplement lifestyle choice, et cetera, you wish you started sooner. So, and there's 58 comments. Should we go through them first or should we say our answers first?

Barry Conrad

Let's go through them first, let's see what they have to say.

Melanie Avalon

Okay. So, Baren Adet said intermittent fasting. I'm going to count how many people say intermittent fasting. Okay. Trevor, oh, he said this is a great thread. Janice said, I agree, fasting. And then she said a close second is red and near infrared light therapy. Kate said HRT. Anna said IF and loss of outdoor walking. I like that. And then April commented on that and said, I used to be a runner, but I'm shifting to more outdoor walks now and perimenopause and love it. Patty said eating whole foods and more protein. Jackie said more protein, lots more protein. Protein has the building blocks to repair our skin, muscles, red blood cells, hormones, literally everything. Don't skimp on protein. Holly said fasting. There's another one. And eliminating seed oils. Alice said intermittent fasting. For the clarity of mine, it has given me along with all the other non-skilled victories it has brought about. Stephanie says, actually, it's hard to say. When I was younger, I feel like I didn't need any of these, quote, AIDS that I use now. It's only since my 40s and now into my 50s that I feel like I can't get a handle on the lack of energy, pain, and how to keep weight off. I feel like red light supplements, chiropractic, and occasional acupuncture when I'm in a really bad place are barely holding me together at this point. Stephanie, I'm sending her lots of love and keep on trying the things and looking at your sleep and diet and everything, because I really think people can feel better at any age. I truly, truly do. Lisa said fasting. Christine said resistance training. Karen said hitting my protein goals, HRT and fasting. Carolina said resistance training and eating more protein. Sheila said intermittent fasting. Lisa said intermittent fasting. I am still newer to getting it all down. Alexander said intermittent fasting, obviously. Rachel said intermittent fasting. Deborah said fasting and BHRT. BHRT is probably the most beneficial. So that's bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. Denise said sunscreen. Oh, I have thoughts on that one. Maria said fasting. Olivia said fasting. Amy said exercise and IF. April said agree with others on fasting, more protein and red light. We'll add regular use of sauna and cryotherapy. Monica, fermented foods. That's a new one. Teresa, I used to be so tired. I'm not exactly sure what supplements I'm taking that gave me my energy back, but I used to have to nap around 5 to 6 p.m. every day and I no longer need to. Jane, red light therapy. Julie, fasting. Amy, morning grounding and sun exposure. Teresa, meditation, protein intake and berberine. Deanna said strength training. Noreen said breaking the fast with protein. I like that idea. Karen said fasting. Sherry said strength training. Ginger said HRT. Stewart said morning sunlight and cold water. I wonder if he means drinking cold water.

Barry Conrad

Or if it means, like, swimming or...

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, or like cold water shower. It could be a lot of things. Becky said carnivore and daily health system. I don't know what that is. And somebody asked her, but she didn't answer. Susan said definitely IF. Nikki said wearing my aura ring because I used it to significantly improve my sleep. Julie said activating my life with natural activators. Michelle said bioidentical hormone replacement therapy and strength training. Paulina said strength training. Tia said intermittent fasting. Shauna said whole foods, hot yoga, walks in the sunlight, NIF, curious about the red light therapy. And if it works, Claudia said choosing to eat more saturated fat and less polyunsaturated fat. Christina said fasting. And Lisa's last one said the NRF2 activators hands down to have a medically proven natural product that lowers oxidative stress, multiple independent medical journals written up in PubMed. It's phenomenal. Yeah. Okay. So that was, I was counting on my hands. That was 24 people at a 58. No, not exactly half. So 24 people at a 58 mentioned fasting. That's a lot. Yeah. So what are your thoughts on all those answers?

Barry Conrad

I'm not surprised with the intermittent fasting being the number one that you would have started sooner because mine's exactly the same. I wish I knew about it sooner, followed by just a better education about whole foods and that you didn't have to demonize different macronutrients that they could all work for you and you don't have to be afraid of carbs or afraid of fats sort of thing. So definitely ayah for me, followed by just more of a more knowledge base of how to eat properly, you know? What about you?

Melanie Avalon

Yeah. So mine's similar. So I started fasting in sophomore year of college. For me, hands down, the one health thing would be your second one, which was I wish I had eaten not as all those processed foods growing up. I wish I'd eaten more like real food and not all the fast food and like everything. But then on the other hand, I feel like weird. I feel conflicted because I have all these really great memories of that food. And I actually like having those memories. I like that I know how everything tastes, if that makes sense. And what's so interesting is I can remember now how I haven't had processed foods in forever. But pizza, cake, things like that, even candies, I really remember exactly what they taste like. It's interesting how much that memory stays with you.

Barry Conrad

Yeah, and I think it's better that you know rather than like I'll never know so and you'll be living in that that mystery or that just not knowing it's good that you've experienced it and you know that it's not for you doesn't work for your body more importantly that's great.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, I think I wish like if I could have raised and I love my parents, so this is not like anything about them I'm just saying like from what I've learned If I were raising a child, I think the approach I would take is because this is how I would have wanted to have been raised I would have liked if in our house Everything was like healthy so like unprocessed foods but then if my mom had like Made for like made made healthy quote healthy versions of things so like for like birthdays and cakes and cookies like if we had made like them with almond flour and gluten-free and Stevia and like so I think that I wish I had had like a whole foods basis at home I wish our pantry hadn't been filled with like little debbies. Wait, we talked about this. Are there little debbies in Australia? What's that? Oh my goodness

Barry Conrad

What? Little Debbie's? Mm-hmm. Little Debbie's. No, that's... I've never heard that in my life.

Melanie Avalon

Have you heard of hostess, like Twinkies?

Barry Conrad

Oh, Twinkies, yeah, Twinkies, for sure.

Melanie Avalon

it's not Twinkies, but it's like a package. It's probably the most little Debbie is probably besides hostess hostess and little Debbie are like the most famous packaged snack cakes brand and little Debbie like little Debbie is the mascot. And there's all these different ones that are like from childhood like cosmic brownies and nutty buddies and all these things.

Barry Conrad

I'm literally just looked it up when you said it. I see like brownies cakes, like cookies, doing everything and the little Debbie.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, like all packaged, you know, they're always like on the end cap in the aisles and you and we would always pick up little debbies like it's very much like a thing. So I wish our pantry had not been full of those. And then I wish that I would have liked it if my parents would have like educated me about the importance of Whole Foods, but then let me if I'm like out have have other things, and just communicated to me that, you know, if you have this, you can have it, but you might not feel well. And that's okay. Then I would have like learned, oh, this is what these other foods taste like. And maybe I don't feel that well when I have them, you know, I think that would have been like the best balance, like have the Whole Foods at home, make the the paleo and the healthy versions of cakes and cookies and stuff at home and then be allowed to have things when I go out. And maybe I just don't feel well from it.

Barry Conrad

I like that. So basically just education on food and you can make your own choices. I like that a lot.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, so I think that's what I that and and then also in that realm like maybe making the smarter alcohol choices earlier

Barry Conrad

I guess we just don't know what we know, right? Don't know.

Melanie Avalon

That's the other thing I really want to emphasize is I'm really all about not having regrets, you know? Like everything's a learning experience and it can always get better from here. So I don't, you know, I'm not like down on myself about any of that. I just learn and go from there.

Barry Conrad

Love it. Once we know better, we can do better, all right?

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, exactly. When do you think you would have started intermittent fasting? Like at what age?

Barry Conrad

If I knew about it and I could choose to do it.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, mhm.

Barry Conrad

I think probably late teens because I still want to, I don't know, I wouldn't want to start it too early, but I also would have loved the, like for someone to teach me that it's okay to not eat all day, but then still have like a generally not too much of a strict window growing up, but then late teens maybe start knuckling down to like maybe like a 16 eight or something like that. And then from there I can build on it. But just like you said, just knowing you don't have to eat all day. This is what happens when you do. This is what happens when we fast and then having that choice.

Melanie Avalon

What's really funny is growing up every Wednesday, we would go eat at the country club and it was like this massive buffet. And I would, so I would do intermittent fasting once a day, once a week, because on Wednesdays, I would not eat all day so that I could just like pig out at the buffet. And it's funny because I thought I was like doing harm to my body by, you know, not eating. I was like, this is so like bad that I'm like not eating. And then I would like have my feast. And now literally it's like that's what I do every day is fast and feast. Although the foods I was eating were not the best. That's okay.

Barry Conrad

I think I did the same thing and like you used to think, oh, you're starving. But it's like, wow, a little do we know.

Melanie Avalon

I know. So, so yeah, so friends definitely joined the Facebook group. Oh, I'm trying to think I was going to comment sunscreen. I actually, I don't really go out in the, um, the sun that much, but I do wish I had used, I definitely wish I had used non-toxic sunscreen and more of it growing up when I was like in the sun all the time. Cause I would like go out, we would be in Florida all summer and I would just, I would not, not only would I not put sunscreen on, I would put on all those like creams and lotions that make you tan even more. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, I do. Or I would put like oil on my skin so that I would tan more.

Barry Conrad

so bad that's not I wouldn't not concern Aussie thing but I do think a lot of Caucasian or or people that don't have darker skin like they I've seen them do that and know people who do that like they'll put coconut oil on or just oil to literally to tan and fry like fried bacon skin you know

Melanie Avalon

I remember the one time I got so burned. I looked like a raccoon for days. I got sick because you know, when you get so burned that you get like sick because you get sun poisoning or whatever it's called, I was like almost throwing up. I was so burned, but literally, yeah, I was like a raccoon for days. It's horrible. And I remember we would have our relatives come stay with us in Florida. And one of my relatives, they were, they were very intense with like health stuff. And I thought they were so weird at the time. What do you mean? Just like they were very much aware of it. Well, they were very, very religious, but they were just would only eat. Yeah, they wouldn't eat like the processed foods. And I thought they were so weird and they would not like, I don't know, they would like make their own like cleaning product, like everything I do now they were doing. But we would go on. We would go on bike rides and they would my uncle would not use sunscreen. Instead, he would like tape paper towels to his skin. What to like block the sun. And I thought he was so weird. And now I'm like, oh, he was on to something. I mean, I don't know if I would like tape towels to my skin, but it's just funny how you can have such a paradigm shift with your thoughts, you know. Well, that's a first. Papering paper towels. Yeah. Do you wear sunscreen? Do you wear non-toxic sunscreen when you go out?

Barry Conrad

I do and it's got at least SPF 30 plus for sure. I think it's so important and that's one thing that I actually, I don't know where it comes from or whether my mom instilled it, but from a young age, it's like sunscreen, like I was always really big on that, even inside, like, just because you're not on the side, like, it's really important because the sun's getting in, it's really, really...

Melanie Avalon

You use sunscreen inside.

Barry Conrad

Yeah, because I'm still I'm sitting in front of a window right now. As long as it's not dark, those UV rays, man, they are, especially in Australia, New Zealand, really, really, really strong and harsh. So for sure.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah. So you're using one that has a physical barrier, not like a chemical barrier. Okay. So I'll ask the question, what type of sunscreen do you, do you use? Does it have a chemical barrier or a, like a.

Barry Conrad

It's a physical barrier and definitely SPF 30 plus minimum because it's really important to, it's not just any sunscreen, like it has to be the right strength to help mitigate the effects of the UV rays. It's really, really, really important and something that I, from a very young age, I can't even pinpoint the age. My mom was always like sunscreen, sunscreen, very important. Even inside, doesn't have to be outside. On my lips as well, which there is a lot of skin cancers that develop on your lips as well. I have a balm. Yeah, very, very important.

Melanie Avalon

Awesome. So yeah, and I think it's so like I said, similar to what you're saying, like I wish I had used more sunscreen, but I wish I had not been using the chemical bear, the chemical sunscreens, because those are like they contain carcinogens and endocrine disruptors, and they're going straight into your bloodstream. So you really want like what Barry's using where it has something like zinc oxide in it that is just creating an inert physical barrier between your skin and the sun, not chemicals that are not good for you.

Barry Conrad

Melanie, what were you saying about the other answers on the poll of the thread that you made? Like what was surprising to you of some of those answers, like the hormone, the therapy you were talking about? Can you touch on that? Is that more?

Melanie Avalon

Well, so I might punt that a little bit in that a lot of people. So this post inspired me to post another post because I saw so many people commented hormone replacement therapy. So I actually created another post where I asked people their thoughts on hormone replacement therapy and it got so many answers and every single one was overwhelmingly positive. So I think hormone replacement therapy is beneficial for so many women, even though it kind of has had a bad rap because of women's health initiative, which is a whole not their rabbit hole. Yeah, so it was nice to see that. Let me look through and see. Oh, I like the one about walking outdoors. Oh, this is interesting morning grounding and sun exposure. So kind of the flip side like getting that therapeutic, you know, light in your life.

Barry Conrad

It is different though, like the morning sun and just it hits different pun intended. It feels different. It's better for you. It is really nice and walking outside is one of my favorite things when I first started getting into intermittent fasting and even listening to this podcast. One of the ways I listened to the I consumed the show was by walking walking for miles and miles and just it's because it's like it's an underrated fat burner and people think it's like not really exercise. It's so effective. Anyway, walking is great.

Melanie Avalon

It's so great. And if you're walking, definitely get paluvas, which are minimalist shoes that separate your toes and they let your body walk naturally the way it's supposed to walk. Because when we wear normal shoes with walking, it actually is very detrimental for our health because it messes up all the signaling from what we should be feeling on the ground that signals to our body how to walk, how to, it affects like our posture, our bones, our muscle, so many things. So I'm obsessed with paluvas. I never thought I would be, but I am now.

Barry Conrad

Did I see on Polluvers, did I see your sister post like in the gym wearing those? I think I'm pretty sure I did. Polluvers.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, yes. She's like all on board. She was listening to my episode with Brad Kearns or Mark Sisson, who we had on this show as well. Yeah, she's like obsessed as am I. They blew my mind about the problems with modern shoes. It's crazy. And what I love about them is they have so many options. Like you can get any style that you like. They're amazing.

Barry Conrad

I gotta try them.

Melanie Avalon

If listeners go to pelluva.com, that's P-E-L-U-V-A.com. The code IFPodcast will get you 15% off. And it used to be 10%, but I got it bumped up to 15%. So, and literally they have, like I said, so many styles. It's incredible. Shall we break our fast?

Barry Conrad

Let's do it. I'm so ready for this.

Melanie Avalon

All right, listeners, friends. So the time has come for us to proverbially, virtually, simulatedly. Someday we're going to come up with the word for this.

Barry Conrad

And all we'll make our own up, just like I say, Trinkets, we can say something our own thing.

Melanie Avalon

let's just make up a word. Well, time for us to break our fast because as you guys know, fasting, the health benefits of fasting are not just about the fasting, they're equally, I would say equally about the eating because if you just fast, you actually won't get any of the health benefits. The eating part is so, so key to it. So we like to always feature a restaurant that we find exciting or, you know, alluring for whatever reasons it may be. And then we talk about what we would order at that restaurant. So Barry, do you want to know why I picked this restaurant? So I picked, it's called, it's called Saskatoon restaurant. It's in Greenville, South Carolina. And there was a very specific reason I chose this restaurant.

Barry Conrad

Why tell me?

Melanie Avalon

So my first podcast that I ever went on as a guest, like as the person being interviewed. So this was around 2014, over a decade ago. And Edwin Wu, who is the owner of a rush of this restaurant called Saskatoon, reached out to me to come on his podcast. And because I think at the time, I just had myself published book. I didn't have, I didn't have my book and stories. I didn't have my podcast. I did not have a following. I had like a blog. But yeah, he asked me to come on and I remember being so nervous, which is like so crazy and surreal to think about now. It was so cool because he had this restaurant, which is very like paleo and has all these cool, you know, game meat and things like that. So A, I need to actually go to this restaurant because it's doing everything I want in a restaurant. And B, I'm really excited now to actually look at the menu and see what I would order. And it's kind of like a lodge feeling type setting the restaurant.

Barry Conrad

Which I think they did a really good job with the website to make you even feel like convey that vibe like you definitely get that vibe looking at the website and now you had me at steakhouse saskatoon steakhouse I'm in.

Melanie Avalon

Yes. And it says the first thing it says is welcome to Saskatoon, the call of the wild in the heart of the South. Like I love that it's like in Greenville, and it's this whole like lodge hunter vibe. Okay, it says that tucked away on nine acres of beautiful landscape and organic gardens. Saskatoon lodge is the perfect replica of an authentic Northwest mountain lodge. We specialize in wild game prepared to perfection with mouthwatering cuts of buffalo elk, antelope, kangaroo, even alligator and ostrich. Oh my goodness. Okay. Shall we say what we would order?

Barry Conrad

Let's go. Okay, I'm going to click on the menu. So exciting. I love this.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, so I think I went first last time. Do you want to go first? What you would get for the appetizers?

Barry Conrad

Ah, man, spoiled for choice. This is really good. What jumps out at me straight away. I've got to go for the BA's charcuterie and it has to be an end.

Melanie Avalon

Which is, wait, do you want to read it? Do you want to read what it is? Because people are not, this is like wild. This is not your normal charcuterie.

Barry Conrad

So B.A.'s charcuterie, seared kangaroo, wild game sausage, smoked salmon and duck breast with mature cheeses. Delicious. Pickled vegetables, olive oil, crostini, house-made jam. That already sounds like a huge meal. So that's like a good situation there. And then I have to go for the Saskatoon Spicy Shrimp as well. Those two, which is Saskatoon Spicy Shrimp, is plump shrimp, skewered, grilled and served with a Cajun Rumelade sauce. Did I say that right? Rumelade? Rumelade.

Melanie Avalon

I think so, yes.

Barry Conrad

I'll have my lad's sauce. Delicious. What would you have?

Melanie Avalon

good choices. Okay. So I am definitely also getting the Tarkudari. I love kangaroo. I'm so jealous of you having access to kangaroo more freely.

Barry Conrad

Also on kangaroo I went to a wedding two weeks ago Mel and basically we stayed at a lodge

Melanie Avalon

Oh, is that the one that you sang at? Did you sing? Did you sing Taylor Swift?

Barry Conrad

I didn't sing Taylor's first, but...

Melanie Avalon

You said you were going to maybe sing Lover. I tried to convince Barry to sing Taylor Swift at this wedding.

Barry Conrad

I had to go with what was ever moving and evolving.

Melanie Avalon

Did you wear white?

Barry Conrad

Yes, so white party on the first night, and then the next day was the ceremony. It was very festive. But the reason why I brought it up was we stayed at this lodge where kangaroos literally would just come and hang with us while we're sitting around drinking and eating. I can send you videos. They're literally right by us at our table and stuff. At the table? Yeah, they even came into the reception. They're around. They're everywhere. Just guests.

Melanie Avalon

Aren't they aggressive?

Barry Conrad

They can be.

Melanie Avalon

And they're very, very lean meat.

Barry Conrad

Oh yeah, the meat here. Do you have access to it over there in Atlanta?

Melanie Avalon

so, so, so. Yes and no. I love kangaroo. So one of my favorite restaurants here, which I'm trying to decide if I should say it because I'll probably do it as one of our restaurants, but it's called Canoe. I haven't done it yet, right? On this. Oh, yeah. So they have a kangaroo appetizer that's fabulous. And you can buy kangaroo ground beef at Sprouts, which is a chain here, kind of like Whole Foods, but not Whole Foods, but not in every state. Because when I moved to California, I don't think I could buy kangaroo there. Some states you can't have kangaroo, but we have it here. Why? Weird laws about importing certain meats and things. Okay. Yeah. So it's so good though, like kind of like the Maui Nui venison that we love. I was.

Barry Conrad

Just about to say that, Mel, you read my mind, perfect.

Melanie Avalon

why I'm here. I'll give listeners a link. So we love Maui Nui Venison, which is also a very, very lean venison from Hawaii. They are an invasive species there. So having this company actually helps the environment because they're kind of wrecking the ecosystem. They do it very sustainably in a stress-free environment for the animals and the meat is just absolutely delicious. So I cannot recommend it enough. I love it. You can go to MauiNuiVenison.com. That's M-A-U-I-N-U-I-V-E-N-I-S-O-N.com slash I-F podcast to get access. That is the link to use. But yeah, kangaroo, I also love because it's a very similar vibe. Although I've never had very, I've never had like a kangaroo steak. I've only had kangaroo as a seared kind of like at Saskatoon, like a seared appetizer. They have like steaks for it, right, in Australia?

Barry Conrad

They have steaks and also like a stir-fry pack packs of like stir-fry cut up meat like that as well. You have the key though is to cook it not too long because it can be tough if you don't cook, you know, but it's delicious and so good for you. The protein content is amazing. It's so lean as well.

Melanie Avalon

Well, so I love so this charcuterie board is speaking to my heart. So seared kangaroo. Yes, wild game sausage might upset my stomach because of I don't know what's in there. So you can have it. You can have it smoked salmon. Yes, smoked duck breast. Yes. And then you can have do you want the mature cheese, the pickled vegetables, olive oil, Christina in the gym.

Barry Conrad

Load it on my plate.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, so like when you order yours, you can just get it normal. And for mine, I'll be like, can you just have everything like kind of separate, you know, make sure that there's no, it's probably fine. There's probably not anything on top of anything. So I would get that. And then actually, I'm going to do a curve ball. And you have to really know me to know why this is a curve ball because it seems like an obvious answer. But I would get the bacon wrapped scallops, which are pan seared, then oven roasted with citrus, garlic cream and remoulade dipping sauces, I would get all the sauces on the side. Do you know why this is a curve ball?

Barry Conrad

Because you don't really, you don't really eat bacon really.

Melanie Avalon

I love bacon. It's true that I don't eat that much. It's a curveball because everybody knows I'm obsessed with scallops and I eat pounds of scallops every night so people think I'll order scallops when I go out, but I never order scallops when I'm out.

Barry Conrad

Ah, so that's the COBOL. Oh, you don't really order it out. Okay.

Melanie Avalon

Because I eat them every night, and I'm used to eating them in mass amounts and at home, but when you go out, you get a scallop. So I would never order scallops as my entree. A scallop. Yeah. I would never order a scallop entree because it would not be filling enough and it would be so expensive for a tiny amount of protein. But as an appetizer and with bacon, the bacon is what's getting me because bacon is... I had a moment probably a few months ago where I just sat there contemplating bacon. I was contemplating, why is it so amazing? Why do people get ravenous and frenzied and passionate and jealous of bacon compared to all the other meats?

Barry Conrad

Because that's so good.

Melanie Avalon

But it is so good, you know, like it like lights up your brain, like why?

Barry Conrad

And you know what, when you, when keyword, when you go to New Zealand, the bacon there is like nowhere else in the entire planet that I've ever had it. It's amazing.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, really? Yeah. Would you like to taste my bacon-wrapped scallops?

Barry Conrad

I would love that. Also, I wonder how many you get. I wonder if it's like a whole

Melanie Avalon

That's the thing, it's probably like two or three.

Barry Conrad

I wonder how big it is if it's just like little or like a substantial, either way, I'm trying some. I love scallops. You like scallops, right? I love scallops. I don't, this is my, not really a curable, but I do like scallops, but I never ever really have them. So I'm actually inspired today to when I go to the store to get some today with my steak.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, nice. Steak and scallop. So that, that's an exception. I might like, if I'm, if I have like an entree where you can add on scallops, I might do that. I would basically never get scallops as my entree at a place, but I would get them as an add on or an appetizer.

Barry Conrad

You just need to tell me how to prepare the scallops because you're like a pro at that.

Melanie Avalon

People always ask me that. I feel like I'm not a good person to ask. I feel like I'm not a good person to ask for preparing anything because I'm so crazy. What do you mean? Like how to prepare a steak. I'm like, uh, I want it like as blue as it will come. For scallops, I cook them in a Dutch oven. Do you have one of those?

Barry Conrad

I don't, but I could probably figure like a workaround.

Melanie Avalon

This is good to know, taking notes.

Barry Conrad

Okay. Well also what's your definition of a Dutch oven? Because it might be different.

Melanie Avalon

Like, like a cast iron, like who set, which I thought was like her set, but then I heard it pronounced like crusade. So now I'm wondering if I'm pronouncing that brand wrong, which is embarrassing, but.

Barry Conrad

Ah, ah, ah, ah, yes, I do have one of those. Sorry, that's, we don't, yeah, I do have, we do here. I do have one.

Melanie Avalon

Is it la crusade or la crusade?

Barry Conrad

Like we say, but I mean, I guess tomato, tomato.

Melanie Avalon

It's La Crucet. I'm so embarrassed. I have said La Crucet so many times on so many podcasts.

Barry Conrad

Do you say Follette? No. I knew the answer to that. I'm just trying to be...

Melanie Avalon

Can't believe I say okay, so I cook the scallops in there and I cook them it sounds like gross to say this way but in their own juices like I don't add any water or anything because they're so They're so like water like they're so like full of water that you can cook them and it it's like all fine

Barry Conrad

Okay, no take-in.

Melanie Avalon

So, okay, shall we move on to our entree?

Barry Conrad

Let's do it.

Melanie Avalon

Your dinner does include fresh vegetables and your choice of a of their farmhouse special potatoes. Do you want my potatoes?

Barry Conrad

absolutely. I love potatoes. We're doing that.

Melanie Avalon

You get to choose from skin-on-garlic mashed potatoes, jumbo baker, or golden wedges. Which would you have?

Barry Conrad

I'm not going to do mashed potatoes. I prefer like sort of like whole sort of potatoes. So whatever the, whichever one of those means that.

Melanie Avalon

So the jumbo baker, because yeah, the jumbo baker, because the golden wedges are probably like fries.

Barry Conrad

I'm not doing that. I'll do the jumbo Baker skin on. Let's do it. And I would get the,

Melanie Avalon

Oh, and it's organized by for friends. It's organized by wild game tame game. So wild game is like their specialties tame game, which is beef and steaks and then fish and seafood and then the birds and then pork. Oh, this menu is amazing. Okay.

Barry Conrad

It's actually amazing.

Melanie Avalon

So what would you get?

Barry Conrad

this is this is really tough i don't know what this is and can we just get it's just one man's right

Melanie Avalon

No, you can't. No, no, no, you can get, I mean, you can get two. I would get two. I'm gonna do.

Barry Conrad

I'm going to get the Saskatoon mixed grill, which is, it says here, chef's choice, a selection of three wild game cuts with the mild mushroom cream, which I love mushroom sauce of any kind. And so listeners, basically that grill is like the, like the, it's the elk, the lamb and the antelope all in there anyway. So that was separate. So I'm just putting in that grill. And then the second one, this is tough.

Melanie Avalon

The thing though is we'd have to talk to the waiter because it sounds like the mixed grill might be things not featured on the menu as well because it says ask your server. So it might include lamb, elk, or antelope, and it might also have other things. I must go to this restaurant.

Barry Conrad

Yeah, I feel like we both should because this is a very us like a very protein heavy amazing place Assuming that it's got just the wild game Selections in that mixed grill i'll go with that and then i'm gonna go for my second option a seafood situation which would be the Sizzling rainbow trout and so fresh from the cold clear idaho waters And grilled for a light smoky flavor served sizzling in the pan With your choice of citrus plum sauce or lemon pepper seasonings and garnish with a large Shrimp delicious. That's me

Melanie Avalon

I love that they have two salmons. They have a cedar plank salmon and a pecan crusted salmon.

Barry Conrad

I haven't tried to become aggressive before.

Melanie Avalon

So for me, I will also get to, so I want everything. I want the entire menu. I think I have to get Antelope because I don't know that I've ever seen Antelope on a menu until this moment. Have you?

Barry Conrad

No, not on the menu.

Melanie Avalon

I haven't. This is a first right now happening in real time. So eight ounce free range and field harvested from Texas, char grilled over live flame, very lean and high in protein. So I think I'm going to get that and I'm going to get it as rare as they will bring it. And I have to ask about the mixed grill because if they have something else, they also have an elk loin. Oh, this is so hard. Okay. I'm gonna get the antelope, the elk loin, which is eight ounce portion with grilled portobellas and our signature ginger demi glaze. But I'm gonna get all that on the side. And then for dessert, I'm going to get some seafood. So

Barry Conrad

Of course, you know, Melanie, like when we, if this was like real IRL, we would definitely just order like a whole bunch of things and just like, you know, have like a massive table.

Melanie Avalon

because there's another section, the specials. What? Yeah, with a kangaroo filet, ostrich filet, stop it.

Barry Conrad

Oh my gosh. Okay. There's odd. I didn't see that. Okay.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, I have to change my answer. Me too. I have to go here like multiple times because I think, okay, so I think what I'm going to do because I want everything, I'm going to get the two things that I have never seen on a mini before, which is the ostrich fillet and the antelope.

Barry Conrad

That makes sense. I get that.

Melanie Avalon

Did your answer change based on the specials?

Barry Conrad

You know what, I'll stick to my answer. I'm happy with that. Cause I've actually had ostrich pie before.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, you have?

Barry Conrad

Yeah, in South Africa. How's that? Delicious. It tastes a bit like chicken. Well, it tastes like chicken.

Melanie Avalon

So I was going to ask is it like chicken? Is it like a white meat?

Barry Conrad

It's a white meat and it was like a creamy sauce and it was really, really good. That's something that I fondly remember as a kid in South Africa, ostrich pie, really good.

Melanie Avalon

Wow, okay. Well, you know, this is not... Okay, let me see how far this is from me. My sister and I were talking about this and we want to go on a road trip. So you should come with us.

Barry Conrad

So you could try some of these, try some of these, the restaurants that we've talked about.

Melanie Avalon

It is directions.

Barry Conrad

Honestly, this looks really good now. This restaurant is, like, delicious.

Melanie Avalon

So it's, oh my gosh, it's only, what? It is only two hours and seven minutes from me.

Barry Conrad

Woah, what do you mean you could drive there tomorrow night for dinner? Literally.

Melanie Avalon

Oh my goodness. Okay, I have to go. You have to come too.

Barry Conrad

Oh my God, I'm jealous that you get to just go. You can literally just jump in your car. It's basically like being in peak hour traffic for a little bit extra time.

Melanie Avalon

That's the funny thing is like literally, yes, you could go somewhere here in Atlanta for two hours or for an LA like two hours, same amount of time as Saskatoon Greenville. So dessert. What would you get for dessert?

Barry Conrad

Okay. So let's go to the desserts. I'm going to go for a couple of things. I'm going to go with the chocolate mousse pie, which looks really good. And mousse is spelled M-O-O-S-E. So it's not like mousse, like desserty mousse. So I'm curious to see what that's going to be like.

Melanie Avalon

because this restaurant.

Barry Conrad

And then I'm going to go the better than sliced bread in quotation marks, bread pudding to go. If I can get that on like as a second, that'd be really good. What about you?

Melanie Avalon

I am going to have, I think I'm going to have the trout.

Barry Conrad

For dessert.

Melanie Avalon

Because it's like light, you know? So it's a really nice way to end the meal. And I love trout. And it's low in mercury. It's delicious.

Barry Conrad

I feel like this restaurant would actually, it'd be an easy eat because the food is like it's mainly, it's so high protein so I don't think it's going to feel bad, you know, quote unquote bad in your gut, yeah.

Melanie Avalon

It literally looks amazing. Like I wish it was here because I want so many things.

Barry Conrad

Well, Melanie, didn't you say it's two hours and a bit to drive there from where you are?

Melanie Avalon

Yep. So Saskatoon, here I come only a decade later, but I'm going to show up and be like, hi. Remember me? Here I am.

Barry Conrad

And then you'll be, we'll see like a thing in your story, you know, where to, friends? Hint.

Melanie Avalon

Yup. Oh my gosh, the emojis. The emojis can be like every single animal that they have. Which is, this may be the most animals I've seen represented on a menu. In like one menu. From all over.

Barry Conrad

I'm really curious as to why that is, like the region will let you know, like why.

Melanie Avalon

Like, like why he's doing

Barry Conrad

this. Like why they have some like access to so many, I guess, like it's just so much variety of animals in this region, I guess, Greenville.

Melanie Avalon

I think it's about his just like his love for this, you know, like his love for so he's making it happen. I don't think it's the location. It's definitely not the location. It's the the founder doing his passion. So this was super fun for listeners. You definitely need to let us know what you would order at a restaurant like this. I wonder I want to know if like people are as crazy as I am with everything.

Barry Conrad

Well, we actually like to add on to what Mel said, like we want to know like, what would you order? We should, you know, put it out there because we want to see how you would do it. You know, are you a Barry? Are you a Mel or somewhere in between in your order style?

Melanie Avalon

or none of the above.

Barry Conrad

Or none of the above?

Melanie Avalon

Yep. You can email us at questions at ifodcast.com or you can go to ifpodcast.com. You can submit questions there. We would love to hear from you. These show notes will be at ifpodcast.com slash episode 419. 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. That's where I post all the and we are I have podcast. I think that's all the things. Anything from you, Barry, before we go?

Barry Conrad

Have an awesome week, everyone, and don't be shy. Get at us on social media. We'd love to keep hearing from you what you're up to, what your fasting's like, what you'd order. And yeah, we'll talk to you next week.

Melanie Avalon

Alright, I will talk to you next week.

Barry Conrad

Bye!

Melanie Avalon

Bye. 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!

Apr 21

Episode 418 – Special Guest Allison Schaaf, Fast Easy Healthy Meal Prep, Saving Time With Meals, Decluttering Your Kitchen, How To Approach Meals With Kids, Creating Recipes, Getting Enough Protein, Integrating Meat At Breakfast, Using Instacart, And More!

Welcome to Episode 418 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.

SPECIAL GUEST BIO

Allison Schaaf is the founder and CEO of Prep Dish, a meal-planning service that helps busy individuals and families save time while enjoying healthy, stress-free meals. As a registered dietitian and trained chef, Allison combines her expertise in nutrition and culinary arts to create practical, delicious meal plans designed for real life. With a passion for simplifying mealtime, she has helped thousands of subscribers reclaim their evenings and enjoy meal time.
Beyond Prep Dish, Allison is also the founder of the nonprofit, Miscarriage Hope Desk, a resource for women navigating miscarriage and recurrent pregnancy loss. Through this platform, she offers support, education, and community for those on their fertility journey.

Allison is also the host of the Meal Prep Monday Podcast™: 10 minutes of actionable meal prep advice, helping you answer the dreaded “What's for Dinner?” question with ease.

Allison and her husband have 3 young boys and enjoy living in the Texas Hill Country with their chickens, goats, cats and bees.

LEARN MORE

Website } Meal Prep Monday Podcast™ | IG

Plus, my listeners can get a 2 week free trial at prepdish.com/melanieavalon!

SHOW NOTES

SPONSORS & DISCOUNTS

PIQUE FASTING TEAS

LMNT

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.)

Melanie Avalon

Welcome to Episode 418 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. If you want to burn fat, gain energy, and enhance your health by changing when you eat, not what you eat, with no calorie counting, then this show is for you. I'm Melanie Avalon, biohacker, founder of AvalonX, and author of What, When, Wine. Lose weight and feel great with paleo-style meals, intermittent fasting, and wine. And I'm joined by my co-host, Barry Conrad, actor, singer-songwriter, and creator and host of Banter with B.C. For more on us, check out MelanieAvalon.com and BarryConradOfficial.com. You can submit questions for the show by emailing questions at iapodcast.com or by going to iapodcast.com. We would love to hear from you. Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this show do not constitute medical advice or treatment. So pour yourself a mug of black coffee, a cup of tea, or even a glass of wine if it's that time, and get ready for the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Hi, everybody, and welcome. This is episode number 418 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon, and I am here today with a very special guest. I am so excited about this interview. And what's funny is I was just talking with this fabulous human being right before this. And I actually, I have been so familiar with what this woman is doing and such a fan of her company and her brand for so long that I couldn't even remember if she had been on the show before. I've been hearing about her company, Prep Dish, on my friend Noelle Tarr's Well-fed Women Podcast, which used to be the Paleo Women Podcast. And I was such a fan of Prep Dish from that podcast. And then Allison and Prep Dish actually sponsored our show years and years ago. So yeah, that's why I couldn't actually remember if Allison had been on the show. I'm here with Allison Shaff, the founder and CEO of Prep Dish. They're such a cool service, and we're going to dive all into it. But they're a meal planning service so that you can easily save time, optimize your grocery shopping, make really healthy, stress-free meals that fit your own dietary needs and protocols, and all the things. It is so cool. I think it can really, really help optimize people's lives when it comes to time and health and wellness and all the things. So Allison, thank you so much for being here.

Allison Schaaf

Thank you for having me and I am also just so excited to talk with you. I've been a fan of your work and your podcast for so long and we're finally making it happen.

Melanie Avalon

glad to be here. Yeah, this has been such a long time coming. I'm really excited because I've always been so inspired by what you're doing with this company. So I'm super curious. Okay, when did you launch prep dish? How long ago? 2012. So it's it's been a while. Okay, wow. Long time ago. What's your background?

Allison Schaaf

Yeah. So I started out, my background is I'm a dietician, but also went to culinary school. So I've always had both the culinary background and the nutrition background and always was looking for ways to combine the two. When I was cooking, it was always through a nutrition lens. And when I was doing nutrition, it was always through the culinary lens. And I started out as a personal chef going into people's homes and cooking for them. And while I really enjoyed it, I knew when doing it, I was like, this is not going to be sustainable for when I have a family someday. And then also, I wanted to reach more people. If I'm cooking for people one on one, I maxed out really quick with my clients. I started hiring chefs, but that was a lot of work. And so I was like, how can I... And that was kind of when the online stuff was just coming out. So I was like, how can I write down this system that I've created and working with my clients and write out these recipes and then just get it into people's hands? Because I'd kind of come up with all these efficiencies and better ways of preparing meals. And so that's what I did is while I was going in and working with clients, I was writing down my systems and putting it into a PDF and then eventually got it online and out to the masses.

Melanie Avalon

I love that so much. It's kind of similar. I feel like it's a little bit similar with what I do, because people, at least like my parents and people will often ask me if I want to be, if I ever wanted to be like a doctor, like individually working with people on health. And for me, what I love is having this platform where I get to take all this information that I love and spread it, you know, make it like mainstream and like reach a lot of people. So it's kind of like, I feel like it's kind of similar, but it's like on the food, the food side of things. When you were working as a private chef, or like and working privately with clients, like when you were coming up with meals, were there ever meals that you really loved that the clients didn't like or vice versa, meals that you weren't so sure about, but you'd be surprised that they liked? Like what was the collaborative experience like working with people and creating these meals?

Allison Schaaf

Yeah, it was interesting. I always try to elicit feedback as much as possible, just like I do now with the meal plans. And there were some clients that would do a good job. What I did is I print out the menu. And what I would tell them to do is just on the menu that was printed out, write any notes of things they liked or didn't like. And before I even started here, I went through an extensive questionnaire of, you know, what do you like and not like in your preferences. And it was really good feedback, though. And just in creating these meal plans of what types of foods people like, what were the things. And even if they weren't giving me the feedback, they they would in what they selected, right. So I'd send out options each week. And the thing that I found interesting is a lot there were a few where I would always try and like mix in all this variety. But I'd put in a few that I knew they liked, like lasagna or something. And there were they would always go back to the same things versus like, I would want to do more variety. And sometimes they would want to do more of the like staples or things they enjoyed. So that was interesting. And yeah, there were definitely some dishes that like every client liked, like lasagna being one of them. And then the other is, you know, kind of dependent client to client.

Melanie Avalon

What about your personal palette? Do you like most foods and can you create dishes and recipes that you like even if you don't actually like the food?

Allison Schaaf

No, actually, I think this is the short answer. I'm pretty open on things, but I will say like, so I'm gluten free, so all of the meal plans are gluten free for that reason. We've always had people push us to do vegetarian, but I can't do that many carbs and that many like, I can do some of like all of those things, but to do just straight up vegetarian plans because so I'm not creating the recipes anymore, I have another chef dietitian that's doing that, but I do test them sometimes and also just kind of out of principle. So I don't do the vegetarians. We do have one meal week on one of the plans that is a vegetarian dish, but to just do all vegetarian is too much. So that's kind of where I draw the line, I guess. But all of the others, you know, I'm pretty I can do all the different flavors and stuff like that.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah. So I think that's something people will be excited about with prep dish, which we can, we can talk a little bit more about how it works, but you do understand this need for protein. We talk all the time. It's one of the, probably the topics we talk about the most on this show besides actually fasting, which is people really struggle, especially with intermittent fasting to get enough protein in their eating window. Yeah. How do you integrate protein into the meals?

Allison Schaaf

Yeah, that's something and we focused even more on that in the past few years. And that's something where, you know, one we're calculating to make sure that there's, so our meals, there's one that we guarantee it's at least 30 grams of protein per serving with our super fast meal plans. And just one thing we've also helped a lot is like giving resources for getting more protein at breakfast and how to incorporate meat into the first meal of the day. So even if you're fasting, like I know sometimes it's just like we're not always raised to like eat meat when we first are eating no matter what time of the day that is. And so just kind of coming up with creative palatable ways to get in enough protein and also things like specific to breakfast, like it's not easy to eat enough eggs to get enough protein at six grams of protein per egg. So what I found is it's easier to do like a combination of some protein and some eggs or, you know, such that you're mixing up the protein sources and that way it's palatable. So it's really just like, okay, let's figure out how to get the protein. But then also how do I actually make it palatable? And it's something I can sit down and eat in one setting.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, I have a major question there and I based on when this airs, I don't know how much this will still be an issue or not, but do you adjust for the market? So like with eggs, the egg craziness, the egg scarcity and price increase, do you adjust for things like that? We do.

Allison Schaaf

try and be really aware of prices and what's out there and if there are cost issues or even scarcity type issues. One thing that we always do is we keep things flexible, right? So that you can always sub things like whether it's, oh, I don't like broccoli, so I'm going to sub with asparagus, or my preference is... Or you have a food intolerance, we keep it really open for that. And same thing with cost. So if there's something that we know is a higher cost item, then we may even on the menu just say, hey, instead of the lamb chops, you could sub it with a pork chop or something that's a little more cost efficient. So we do try and keep them to where they can make them their own, depending on whether it's preferences, allergies, or cost.

Melanie Avalon

Awesome. Okay. And I feel like I definitely want to give a foundational overview still related to that really quickly with making things your own. When you eat out at restaurants, do you make a lot of modifications or do you order things as they come? I'm just like so crazy at restaurants. So I'm always curious how people, especially people with really culinary backgrounds, how they navigate restaurants and if they're gluten free.

Allison Schaaf

Yeah, it's interesting you say that I have a friend who's notorious. She we always joke that the menu is a suggestion merely a suggestion for her like she's always like picking and choosing all the things and like any menu that's like no modifications. Thank you. She's like, Oh, no. And she does have kind of some intolerances and stuff. And I will sometimes especially with the gluten thing. But you know, I'm in the Austin area. So I found most places are really good with that. But yeah, there's, there's signs are I'm trying to do some switching around and substitution.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, it's just funny because I'm like your friend. I'm like, it's just a suggestion. And it's very rare actually that I come against a wall where they can't make a suggestion. Although that actually happened over the weekend because like most of their meats were pre-marinated in things. So I couldn't, I just couldn't change that. But yeah, okay, that's funny. Okay, just to give listeners an overview because I think when it comes to making mealtime easier and more efficient and more cost-effective and also more tasty, I think the first thing people think of is like meal delivery services or meal kits. That's the first thing, at least for me, that comes to mind. So this is not that. This is a meal planning service. So can you describe to listeners a little bit how it actually works, especially like in with our, you know, our modern internet and I mean, the internet has been around for a long time, but like with the internet and stuff, people might think, oh, I can just find recipes online. So like, how is this actually optimizing people's lives when it comes to their meals?

Allison Schaaf

Yeah, sure. So I'll take a step back first. And I know this is a podcast, so it's not visual, but I'm a visual person. So the meal plans are literally like a PDF that comes to you in three different pieces. And I'll explain those pieces. And as I explained them, sure, you can put them together on your own. It's just whether you want to spend that time upfront and doing that, which is kind of, you know, one or two hours, or if you want someone to just do it for you and hand it to you. So the three pieces, the first one is the grocery list. So at the top, it's, you know, the five meals depends on that. We have a few different plans. So they're kind of set up slightly differently, but say like five meals for the week, and then the grocery list that you need to make those meals, there's some things there, like it's done really efficiently. So if you're going to use half of an onion for a soup, the other half of the onion gets used in a dish later that week. If you're making a chimichurri, maybe you use it on Monday with the salmon and again on a salad on Wednesday. So everything is like really considered, I guess, in terms of the ingredients, the flavors, the, you know, variety, all of those things. So it's really well thought out. The second piece is a meal prep piece. So that's very specific instructions of like, Hey, if you have an hour at the beginning of the week, sometimes I even do it like to, you know, on a Monday night, right before dinner, I just do some of my chopping for the week. But it's like, Hey, here's some tasks that you can do upfront, whether it's, you know, 30 minutes in the afternoon, or like while you're making dinner, and you do all these prep things. So then the rest of the week, the dinners are just like almost like a meal kit, you know, you don't even have to chop them. It's like, Oh, the marinade is already done. My carrots are chopped, I just have to throw it in the saute pan. The third piece is the actual instructions of what you need to do at dinner time. And that's where we try and keep it super simple. The thing I try and avoid is having to do much, not just thinking, but also work at dinner time. Because by the time that time comes around, if you're exhausted, if you've had a long day, that's when you're going to make poor nutrition choices. And so to me, the key to healthy eating is having that plan and that heavy lifting done upfront. So when you get to dinner time, it's like a no brainer, you don't have to think, Oh, what am I going to make? And I know I should be healthy, but maybe I should just call and take out and blah, blah, you know, so it's like if you've done all the work up front, it just makes that decision. Like, it's not a decision, right? It's just there, it's in the fridge, it's already chopped, you just here's what you do, you follow the instructions.

Melanie Avalon

Awesome. And so, because I think the last time we were sponsored by you guys was, I mean, a while ago, probably like four years, five years ago. Is it still the setup where you have like a grocery shopping day? Like you do all, like the majority of your prep all at once, and then then throughout the week, everything's like pre-prepped. So then you still cook it fresh the day of, but it's mostly like pre-prepped.

Allison Schaaf

Exactly, yeah, so that prep days like sauces and chopping and then, yeah, dinner is just kind of the finishing steps.

Melanie Avalon

Awesome. Yeah, that must be a game changer, especially for parents. And so you have you have three young boys? Yes, I do. So has that has having children yourself come to inform your like how you approach all of this?

Allison Schaaf

It does. It's interesting. It's more like the whole concept of using meal plans has come full circle, because in the past, I used them and they were great. But now it's I literally rely on them week to week, you know, it's like I have got to order the groceries, I've got to do this, I've got to have it printed. So if I'm not, you know, there, someone else can step in. And like, it is we rely on them in a way that I didn't in the past, you know, I used them and I thought they're great. But now it's like they are our lifeline to eating healthy throughout the week. And, you know, it has given me some insight in terms of, you know, dealing with, you know, picky eaters and such. But, you know, my kids honestly are pretty, they're pretty good eaters. So I haven't dealt too much with that. But it, you know, it's been interesting to just watch it in action with a full family. How old are they? Six, four and 14 months. So they're pretty young.

Melanie Avalon

Oh my goodness, oh wow, okay, and boys, all boys, they eat a lot. Oh yeah, do they? I bet, oh my goodness.

Allison Schaaf

Even the 14-month-old, he can go to town on some chicken thighs. I don't know what it is about chicken thighs, but he loves that.

Melanie Avalon

Oh my goodness. Is it all gluten free in your household?

Allison Schaaf

Yeah, it's easier that way. I'm the only one with the intolerance, but it's just easier to have it be across the board, no gluten.

Melanie Avalon

You have thoughts, experience, or advice with raising kids, how to encourage them to make healthy food choices, but also not have them feel... I mean, I guess your kids are still young, but not have them feel like they can't eat, that they can't eat the things their friends are eating, or how are you going to deal with that?

Allison Schaaf

It's, I will say, it's really hard. I've been surprised at how early and often it comes up. It's like every, like I, in the house, you know, we eat the way I eat and, you know, like, sure, like it, you know, Easter's coming up. Like, I'll make like a carrot cake and all that. Like, so I'll make things like that, but it's like, you know, special occasions and we don't treat it as, I think one thing is to not treat it as like so special that then they like, it's this thing they only get and they crave and they go crazy. But it's hard because when we go out into the like, quote unquote, real world, it's just like a bombardment of like mainly sugar, but just all sorts of stuff that I would prefer they not eat on a regular basis. So it's really hard to filter out like, okay, it's okay for them to have that sometimes and on occasion, but like, the more you go out and like, even when we're traveling, I find that I do a lot of Airbnb's and like, having some meals at home and that sort of thing. But yeah, like we go to church and they have donuts and this and that and it's like, well, if that's every week that adds up. So, you know, I don't know, some strategies are volunteer to bring snacks, volunteer to be the snack person. And, you know, kind of know what you're getting into. And sometimes I see where, where can I avoid the snacks and other times I just have to, you know, loosen up about it, to be honest, it's, it's been interesting.

Melanie Avalon

I literally just applaud moms out there and I don't think I'll ever have kids. I just don't like see it in my life, but I that's one it like this issue is one of the things I think I would most Just be I don't know. It just seems like a really big challenge

Allison Schaaf

Yeah. I mean, the only place that I'm really blessed is their school is amazing. They go to a small Waldorf school and the chef like sources the food. I mean, the families will donate like lamb that they have from their ranch and venison and, you know, just really high quality. They have ferments every week. I mean, just insanely healthy. So that does help me feel better that here and at school, they have this like really healthy foundation. And so their bodies, I mean, gosh, I think back to what I ate when I was that age, like I think their bodies can tolerate the things they're getting.

Melanie Avalon

Um in between that's amazing. Okay. I love that. Do they have a favorite recipe of yours?

Allison Schaaf

I don't know if there's like one recipe that like, oh, that's the one some things that I know have always been favorites meatballs or something that kids like, they always seem to like, some of them will go through phases. But yeah, I mean, I don't know, my kids are really good eaters. So they kind of like most of it. Yeah, the one thing I've had to do sometimes with them is I found it is easier to instead of mixing everything into like one pot, sometimes like separating it out. I think they I've done that a little bit. So that's kind of the adjustment I've made, they prefer it being separated. It's a little less overwhelming that way, you know, if like, if I have a big salad, I wouldn't serve a thing of greens with like the chicken and the, you know, beans and the sweet potato, like all mixed together, I'd be like, Okay, here's the lettuce, here's this, here's this, and they'll eat all of the things. But I think when it's just all mixed together, sometimes that's overwhelming.

Melanie Avalon

So you said that you now have, you know, somebody creating the recipes on your team. Do you still, do you ever get like inspirations though for new recipes? Like what's your creative, like do you, are you ever in the shower and like a recipe comes to you like a new recipe?

Allison Schaaf

I don't know if that happens as much anymore. I did, it was funny though. I did have a meal plan editing dream the other night. I haven't had one of those in years. Oh really?

Melanie Avalon

Yeah. Just like what happened last night? A nightmare or a good dream?

Allison Schaaf

It was a good dream, but it was, I mean, it's kind of vague. That's how dreams are. But I was like, oh, I haven't had one of those in a while. So yeah, I will. We do have a board that anyone on the team can actually access. So if they make a recipe or if they see something on Instagram that we want to try, then we'll always, you know, we can add that to it and she can put that in there. And what she does is she looks per quarter. She looks at the new menu items and so she creates them. Then she sends them to me, I give any feedback and then she goes through and writes the recipes. And then when it's time for testing them, we divvy it up amongst the teams. That way everyone on the team can kind of be involved and they just test them out at their house, you know, with their family. And then we go through, do a final round of edits and then they're released out.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, wow. Do you know, going back to when you launched in 2012, are there any recipes from the original days?

Allison Schaaf

Yeah, there's a few that sometimes we'll like bring back. And then there's something like, oh, I missed that like soup recipe, like there was a roasted red pepper and sweet potato. And they're like, maybe we should bring that back. And yeah, there's different plans. So super fast, it's like brand new recipes each week. But some of the others, what we do is like each year, we'll just like cycle in new recipes, not like the entire menu is new. We do surveys, so we'll be like, okay, whichever ones were hit, we'll keep those in there. Because I mean, at the end of the day, and that's the thing, like I said, I learned with the clients, like people don't want brand new recipes all the time, like they want to see that like, you know, salt and pepper chicken drumstick stick, which is simple, but a favorite, like, you know, they want to see those come back. So we mix things up. But we also like don't scrap all of them except for with the super fast.

Melanie Avalon

Do the recipes adjust for your family size?

Allison Schaaf

So the recipes are quote unquote for servings, but we don't do a lot of like, you know, I'm not into calorie counting. I mean, with kids, especially, it's crazy, because like, they really do. And I've read this of like, you know, they don't adjust, you know, I always think like, Oh, you eat kind of the same amount, like ever, you know, however many meals and each day, with kids, it's like you really have to look at their caloric and take over the course of a week, like they will have meals where they almost nothing, you're like, that's all you're eating. I mean, I don't say that, because it's better not to comment. But over the course of a week, research shows they will eat, you know, a consistent amount and like what they need. But like meal to meal, and even like within the course of a day, some days they'll have days where they don't eat a lot. And other days they'll eat a ton. Anyway, so back to the sermons. Yes, they, they each are for servings. And then if people want to adjust, they just, you know, they can double actually at my house, I usually always double just so I have leftovers for lunch. And honestly, sometimes I just have to double so we have enough for all of us because we have, you know, my family, then we have no pairs, we're feeding a lot of people. And yeah, but that's the nice thing about having the meal plan versus the kit, is a lot of times people can look at a recipe and know like, Oh, I know that my family needs, you know, two pounds of protein for dinner, or four pounds of protein for dinner. And so they can kind of adjust based on that. And they know, like, okay, one bunch of broccoli is fine, or one bunch of sari asparagus is fine. Whereas some families, maybe they need two bunches, because they just know their family, like eats a lot of veggies. So I think that's the nice thing is it is flexible to where they can, you know, everyone can adjust based on, you know, knowing their family, and you kind of learn that over time of like, how much, you know, there's certain proteins that I know in my family, oh, we're gonna eat more than what it calls for. But others, it's like, okay, we'll eat that amount.

Melanie Avalon

So you commented how you don't comment on the kids, like how much they're eating. How do you feel about that? Do you just let your kids eat whatever amount they eat and you respect that? Do you think, do you encourage them to eat more or less? How do you deal that?

Allison Schaaf

So there's a dietician, Ellen Satter, and she has this philosophy and it's, you know, as the parent, I decide what and when I'm going to feed them, right? Like we have set meal times and set snack times, and I decide what's being served at those meals and snacks. It's their decision to decide what and how much they eat. And I have no opinion on that. And I try to like not even pay attention. And this is I think actually where parents really with very good intentions can get it wrong, you know, by making those comments by, you know, focusing on it by making, you know, saying things like, Oh, it's so yummy. It's like kids catch on to that. They are smart, you know, you don't like if you legitimately like something like, sure, I'll comment on the food, but I'm not going to make a comment on it to try and like manipulate them because it's going to do the opposite. They're going to feel the force and they're not going to eat it. So I just don't comment. And my kids eventually they try everything I serve them. The other thing I remind parents is often if it's a new food or something they haven't seen in a while, maybe at dinner, they don't eat it. But if we have again at lunch the next day, they'll eat it. Even at dinner, sometimes my kids I have one when he always is like, Oh, I don't like that. I'm like, okay, then don't eat it. And nine times out of 10 by the end of the dinner, he's eating it. He just wants to not be forced. He wants, they want to like sometimes they're just playing around with their independence and they want to be able to make the comment of saying, I don't like that. And here you say like, that's okay, you know, and not like forcing. It's funny because his older brother old sometimes be like, but you just had that like three nights ago. You do like it. And I want to say that, but I know it's better like not to.

Melanie Avalon

Oh my gosh, that's so funny. So would you like make them try everything or if they don't even want to try it? I know you said that they tend to try everything, but.

Allison Schaaf

I don't yeah, I've never I've never had said I don't have the one bite rule I just put it on their plate and then they decide and but i've never had any issues with things, you know

Melanie Avalon

This is so interesting. If I ever were to have kids, this is what I'm going to adopt. I love this. Sounds like a great system. And then the other question I had was if people really are looking to optimize their time with all of this, and I actually have another question about time, but if they are looking to do that, could you with the recipes even use like Instacart or something? Like could you have somebody get all the ingredients?

Allison Schaaf

By the time this airs, I can almost guarantee we have Instacart set up to where you can click and it'll automatically fill an Instacart cart. So we're testing it right now. And like, I think it's going to launch tomorrow or the next day. Oh, wow. Congrats. Yes. So I've wanted that for a long time. And I'm really excited to have that because I do most of my grocery shopping online, but to have the cart pre filled. And then you can go in and like, okay, what are like the things that I need to add? And, you know, you can kind of like play around with it and adjust it. But yeah, to have it pre filled and then only make some tweaks, I'm excited because it's going to save me a significant amount of time and like, make it easier to not put off that grocery putting in that grocery order.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, that's amazing. Okay. Yeah, and I'm so fascinated by this whole business creation process. So was there a moment where you've had the idea for this company? Or like, do you remember or was it? Did you ideate on it a little bit?

Allison Schaaf

I kind of ideated on it for a little bit. I remember the first year that I did it. This was funny. The first year, I was like, okay, I'm going to have four, like literally four meal plans. You know, like one for the spring, one for summer, one for fall, one for winter. And I was working with this business coach. He's actually now a close friend of mine and she was like, Allison, you've got it. Like, I think you can actually do more than that. And so then I was like, because I couldn't wrap my head around doing more than forks. They took so long to make. And then, and then like a few months later, it was like, okay, after I launched, I was like, okay, I actually need to do one each week. And I thought that they were going to be like $25 per meal plan, like per week, because they took me so much time to create in the beginning. And then she kind of helped me come up with ways to make it more efficient and then, you know, over time. And then now it's like, well, we have four meal plans each week that we're cycling through. So it's, you know, but it was a journey that first year to kind of figure out how like just to wrap my head around like what was possible.

Melanie Avalon

Wow. So is it is it seasonal eating? Is there like seasonal theming to everything?

Allison Schaaf

Yeah, for sure. In the winter, it'll be more soups and stews. In the summer, we use the grill some. There are more salads and also just seasonal. I mean, any more of the grocery store things are not as seasonal, but there still is. And we try and rely more on a summer tomato or, I don't know, root winter veggies in the winter and in the spring, more peas and asparagus.

Melanie Avalon

How did you build an audience? Like, how did you find the people?

Allison Schaaf

Yeah, it took a while to figure that out, and that's changed over the years, you know? Gosh, in the beginning, so it's funny now, you know, they say, oh, it's like they call them influencers. But back then, I don't think that's what it was called, but you know, there were bloggers. So I would like work with bloggers to get the word out. And then there was one, and I don't even know if she still, but it's 100 days of real food. That was a really popular one. And so I would, and she would do Facebook posts. And so that would like help build the audiences. And I think we did like Facebook videos together and stuff. But that was some of what we did back then was working with bloggers and also like Facebook posts or sometimes like email, sponsored emails. So it's always been some version of like working with influencers that just kind of evolved like even what they're called and where they're at. Like is it on a blog? Is it on Facebook? Is it on podcasts? Is it on Instagram? And I'm just kind of figuring that out. And then, you know, of course, word of mouth has always been really big for us. It's just, you know, people, people sharing it.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah. And like I was saying, I remember hearing you on the podcast all the time. I just thought it was so unique because like I said, I just would think of meal delivery kit services. I hadn't heard of this comprehensive meal planning idea with the Instacart thing, which I think is really exciting. Have there been certain benchmarks throughout the evolution of the company that were exciting next step moments for you, like the Instacart thing? Have there been other ones?

Allison Schaaf

Yeah, the Instacart one. I mean, bringing on the super fast plan was, that was kind of a funny story because that was, now it's been quite a few years, but there was a podcaster. It was like, I can't remember his name, but it was a male fitness podcaster. And he was big into like efficiency too. And you know, the meal prep on the plans is like, you know, one to two hours. But he's like, no, he's like, you've got to do it. He's like, I want you to do a plan for me. That's like less than an hour of meal prep. Like that's what you have to do. And he challenged me. And we did like a challenge, I think, where it was like, oh, here's these super fast plans, but everyone loved it. And so then we just incorporated that. And now like one of our plans that you get each week, and it's our most popular plan is our super fast. And that's where it's like an hour or less of prep to get everything ready for the week. And it, you know, just really, it's, they're still very like healthy. It just relies more on, you know, pre chopped vegetables and leans more into like, okay, if we're going to make a salad dressing, let's double it and have it also be a marinade. And so just like really, like leaning into all those efficiency hacks.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, I love this. I have an idea for you for it, although it might already be integrated, so I'll have to ask. But before that, as far as the actual time saved, so I love this, you know, the super fast idea. Well, first of all, never having been a parent with children and a family and meal prepping, I don't know how much time it normally takes to do all this. I imagine it takes a lot more than I envision it takes. So how much time realistically, do you find people saved by using this service?

Allison Schaaf

I know that's that one's tricky. And we've tried actually in the past, like to quantify yeah, to do that and to be able to like have these hours and put it into marketing. And I've, I've seen other meal plan services like do that. And it's tricky because it's not something I would like geek out on that. Like I love like things like tracking my time and knowing how much time things take, but like other people are not really good at doing that. So we haven't ever, I don't know, I don't have good numbers for you. But I can say, I mean, people definitely will say like, it saves a lot of time. The other big thing that people comment on is it really prevents them from eating out as much like if they want, you know, if you're wanting to eat healthy, a lot of times that is like, how do I not do takeout, you know, and, and the thing they realize is like takeout actually isn't saving them a ton of time, right? Like they're stopping to go through the process and make the decision and do the order or maybe, you know, you know, they're still like cleanup, if you have it brought to the house, like there's still some cleanup and this and that. So it's just kind of being more organized with it and having this system and, but yeah, for sure. I mean, some people will say like five to 10 hours because, you know, in the beginning of the week, just like looking up recipes and planning out your grocery list, like that can easily be, you know, two hours or more just figuring out like what we're going to eat and how do I turn that into a grocery list. And then, you know, each night you're spending an hour to, you know, in the cleanups, maybe an extra 30 minutes, it's likely you can shave time off of that. So I don't know, there's, there's definitely.

Melanie Avalon

hours saved. I'm just thinking now it's funny so I think because we're airing this I think before okay so either last week's episode or next week's episode one of those episodes we talked about with my co-host Barry like what is the one health hack or bio hack we wish we had started sooner in our lives and mine was I just wish growing up I had eaten I wish in my like home environment it had been more like whole foods and less processed foods and I'm just thinking I wish my my wish my mom had had this service growing up because I feel like it would have just helped so much like so much for everybody.

Allison Schaaf

everybody. Yes, absolutely. Same. I mean, it's same thing. And even so not only for the health of the food, but the thing that's really cool is you can eventually like, I mean, I'm already getting my kids involved, you know, like they're helping out, they're doing chopping, they're doing all of these. I mean, I have, you know, the culinary background, so it's like really important to me as well. But because of the way the plans are designed, it's easy for people to pitch in to delegate tasks to have, oh, you know, give your husband the grocery list or you know, one night you're not home, whoever if the babysitter is there, she can read the instructions and pick up where you left off. So it's a good way to get everyone involved. But yeah, definitely getting kids involved, not just with exposure and eating healthy, but like seeing how it's done, you know, like when I was a personal chef, I would do in home cooking classes. And it was just shocking how people had no, and I wasn't that surprised with my mom actually wasn't a huge cook, I kind of got more of it from my grandmother. But yeah, I mean, just a lot of times, kids will go to college and not even know how to make eggs.

Melanie Avalon

you mentioned that the fast version how many different versions of the plans are there so there are

Allison Schaaf

4 so super fast the one that I talked about there is gluten-free and then paleo So, you know the gluten-free would still have the grains where the paleo doesn't and you know has all the paleo Compliant and then we have a low carb as well. Okay

Melanie Avalon

Okay, awesome, is the low carb keto or is it just lower carb?

Allison Schaaf

So just lower carb, I'd have to go back to see, I don't remember our exact numbers on our criteria, but we did, we used to call it

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, I think you did when we were last promoting it.

Allison Schaaf

structured it slightly different. I mean, the meals are still basically the same, but we don't do the fat bombs as much anymore. We didn't find that people really wanted those. And then we also found that people weren't looking for a true keto. So it is low carb, but it's slightly different back from when we did call them keto, but not that different. Some of it was a marketing decision more than anything else.

Melanie Avalon

Keto is still very popular, but there definitely was a really intense like keto wave where people were you know much more into it would you ever have like a Like a romance or like a date night version for people cooking for their romantic dates and things

Allison Schaaf

I think we maybe haven't done that, you know, we'll do a lot of like bonus, bonus, like handouts or recipes, you know, so if someone's already a subscriber, like, we'll give them, you know, on Valentine's Day, I will sometimes incorporate things like that. So I feel like we did that one year and then yeah, I like over holidays, sometimes we'll try and give you like, Oh, like here's something you could make for Easter. I keep thinking about since that's coming up or so things that aren't included in the meal plans, we will sometimes just give them here's a special, you know, so breakfast actually, because most of our meal plans don't include breakfast, but because we've done all this protein stuff work, I realized that breakfast is the place where people are falling significantly short on protein. So we've given more resources for that just given them to our subscribers and not part of a meal plan, just because I'm like, okay, if you're wanting to increase your protein, like it's important to get it dinner, but it's a lot easier to just naturally get enough protein at dinner. Whereas you have to make more of an effort. I find it some of the other meals.

Melanie Avalon

So to that point, so for people who are doing intermittent fasting, will it work with all different approaches to that or would they modify it? How would that work?

Allison Schaaf

Yeah, no, I think with intermittent fasting, it works just fine because, you know, like most of them are just dinner recipes. And I say dinner, but you know, hey, here's five recipes to use for meals throughout the week. You can use them for dinner, you can use them for lunch, you can, you know, like I said, I'll sometimes use them for dinner, but double it. So then I have leftovers for lunch. So yeah, you can kind of because I know, you know, you do the home at or the one meal a day. And yeah, but you know, you can just have that be your one meal. And maybe, you know, if it's a couple, they can use it. And because it's for servings, or maybe they still double, you know, you kind of have to get and play around with it. The, the servings are a suggestion. It's, you know, you have to figure out what serving sizes work for you and the situation. But yeah, the meals, we don't really designate like time of day or type of meal that you use for.

Melanie Avalon

And then do you provide wine pairings ever? That's my that's my idea

Allison Schaaf

That's my request. I would love that. And I know that you and I are both fans of Dry Farm Wine. I'm on the Vivino app, and it's funny because I'll see you on there sometimes. I log my apps, and I love your tasty notes, by the way.

Melanie Avalon

I am wondering because I, oh my gosh, that's so funny, with the Vivino app, because I use dry farm wines and listeners are probably familiar because I talk about it all the time, but they provide a subscription service to organic, low alcohol, low sugar wines that they find in Europe and they test them to make sure they're organic and mold free and you really will feel so much different drinking them. So I'm always trying these new varietals because you get just random things to try and I am obsessed with the Vivino app and I leave reviews and I sometimes put my link in there as well and I always say it's dry farm wines. A, I wonder if they're ever gonna kick me off of it because I put my link on there. You do the link? Yeah, it hasn't happened yet though, knock on wood. Two, I always wonder if listeners or somebody is gonna see me on there and be like, oh, that's so funny, do you leave reviews on it? I do.

Allison Schaaf

just because I like to go back. So I only, we only drink dry from wines we have for years. It's like the only thing we drink in our house. And yeah, I've always left the reviews because it's nice too. If you get a repeat bottle, you can go back and you can look, but I've noticed lately the wines they've sent, I don't know if they're just like newer wines, but they're not always in there to leave. But yeah, we enjoy it too. We sit down and I got my husband one of those little wine wheels for his birthday one year. And so we'll sit down with the wine wheel and, and come up with the notes and just makes it, you know, more of a fun experience and more enjoyable, I guess.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, my goodness, I love this so much. Okay, have you talked to you talk to their they call it like their VIP line, but anybody who's ordering from them can talk with them. Do you have our email with them?

Allison Schaaf

I have when, so the only issue, I mean, I love dry farm wines, but sometimes in August, because I'm in Texas, we've had the, they get over, they get corked or like whatever it's called when they're too hot. And so we've had to return them. But I mean, I've had their, their people you talk to are amazing when you talk to them. But is there a specific thing that they're good to talk

Melanie Avalon

to about? Because I've been ordering from them since forever. It's like one of my earliest things in this whole world and podcasting and help stuff. So I used to just order, like have the box come surprise, like surprise varietals each time. But then I started emailing with them and they are incredible. And they will actually, they'll like curate each box for you. And they'll like keep notes of what you like and don't like. So now all my orders, they like hand selected and I like asked for like extra low alcohol. So they're like 11.5% or less. And when you start talking to them, I don't know if this is, I'm guessing this is just how it goes down once you start talking to them. Because when you order through the subscription, like it takes, you know, I don't know, it takes a few days, I feel like to, it takes longer. When you're like emailing them, they like ship it right away. It's amazing. Start emailing them.

Allison Schaaf

Okay, I'm totally going to do that because we do have ours and I have once or twice like if I find one that I like, I've requested it or I've, there was one even one summer there was a white and I don't remember what it was right now but I really liked it so I just ordered like six of them or something but oh my gosh I'm totally going to do that and yeah I do like the I decide do like the lower alcohol and sugar ones so I would make that request too so I am definitely stealing that hack thank you.

Melanie Avalon

You're welcome. Oh, and so email them ask for Chiara. That's who I talked to. She's incredible. And she'll like remember what you like and like, yeah, and she'll make suggestion. She's the best. And then when you, then when you want like gifts for people, it's amazing because you can, you can like ask your friends like what type of wines they like. And then I'll just tell Chiara and then she'll like send them a custom box. It's so great. Speaking of saving time. It's great.

Allison Schaaf

So the little hack that we have is whenever we're traveling, we will a few weeks in advance, just ship a box out. So that way, like if it's the holidays, and we're going to be there for a week, or even just a few days, we'll just send a box and then whatever we don't drink, like that's like a gift to them. But then that way, we don't have to get to the location and like go buy wine. And we'll just have it there. And one time we even did a road trip. And we started at my sister-in-law's house, we had a box sent there. And then the road trip, we made like 10 stops to visit friends. And so we had the two old bottles of wine. And then each house we stopped at, we could like, one, have a gift when you show up at someone's house. And two, it was dry farm wine. So then it's like, okay, good, I can drink wine that I know I'm not gonna be hung over the next day.

Melanie Avalon

This is so brilliant. Oh my goodness. Okay, if you're ever in Atlanta, I would love to we have to like go out and Over wine and like discuss all this. This is amazing Have you ever thought about collaborating with them with your meals with your meal prep? That would be cool

Allison Schaaf

That would be smart because you were asking about wine pairings. We actually, I don't know that we have done that. We do use wine in the cooking and then, you know, people don't use it. You can always just like some chicken stock, but yeah, we definitely use wine to deglaze our pans. So the other gal that helps with recipes, she's Mediterranean diet is kind of was her forte before she came on board. So she likes to, and she's in California. So yeah, we use wine in the recipes, but yeah, wine pairings, I might have to reach out. We are, I do, I'm also an affiliate for them. So it's definitely something I talk about as well.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, I would love wine pairings, I think would be so cool. And then you could like refer people to them as well, like through the recipes. That's a great idea, thanks. I love like going into brainstorming mode. Okay, love that so much. Another topic that I'm personally passionate about in addition to the wine, which is optimizing my space and I'm always trying to like declutter my living space and everything. So when it comes to the kitchen and it comes to like kitchen appliances and like duplicates of things and tools, how do you best approach the kitchen to optimize having everything you need? Maybe what are your favorite appliances and tools? And also like, what can we get rid of? Like what do we not need in the kitchen? You can probably get rid of them.

Allison Schaaf

lot. I love going doing all this stuff. And yeah, we did a renovation of years back. So that was really fun for me. And then, yeah, I'm constantly like, same way, like what can I pare down? One thing I did a few years ago in the kitchen is I got really strict, I went through like every door and I'm like, I am only doing stainless steel, I'm getting rid of all plastic, because when I try not to use plastic, and then to I'm strict about not using plastic in the dishwasher. So I got I kind of like anything, anything that I could, I was like, okay, stainless steel, I mean, spatulas, I sold spatulas that are silicone. And yeah, I really just try and like constantly like pare down and not just that, but then like by really high quality. So I think the key is like higher quality and like less. So for example, like a few really good knives are important. And that's where you need to splurge. But then the crappy ones you can just like get rid of. And then, you know, kind of play around with it, too. You know, kind of same thing like I do with my closet, like, you know, set them aside, you know, maybe leave two or three spatulas set aside, if you have more, set those aside. And then if you don't use it in a month or two, then okay, I can get rid of that. I don't like a lot of the single use gadgets, unless it's something that you really are like using all the time. You know, like, usually you don't need a lot of those weird like, oh, here's a thing to like slice hard boiled eggs, or here's like a weird strawberry slicer, I don't know, you just need a good chef's knife. You don't need all the things just to slice one thing. So yeah, good cutting board, good knife, you know, food processor and blender, like I think those things are helpful as well. But yeah, beyond that, I don't do a lot of the a lot of the one offs, you know, unless I really see a purpose. And also with prep dish, we try and be really intentional of like not using fancy gadgets that maybe not everyone has. So yeah, that's my approach is just really kind of higher quality and less and you know, less is more.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, I was going to ask with the meal preps and everything, will they ever need anything that they wouldn't have in their kitchen with prepping tools?

Allison Schaaf

They really shouldn't. I mean, again, like a good knife is going to be helpful and especially like going bigger. A lot of times the mistake I see people use is they're a little intimidated maybe and they use like a small paring knife. A larger knife is going to be helpful. A larger cutting board, like a larger sized cutting board and like either like a wooden ideally or even bamboo are fine too. Those are important. Having a blender or food processor, you need to have at least one. I like to have both, but at least one of those will get you pretty far. But even things like instant pot and a slow cooker, if we have those things on the menu, there's a way to like sub and use something else. Just we don't want to overwhelm people. The other thing that is important is to have like some glass containers for when you're doing meal prep to like, you know, store things in. But yeah, other than that, we really do try and keep all of the extras.

Melanie Avalon

to a minimum. I love this conversation so much. And one of the, I think one of the things, like one of the biggest changes I made with my kitchen that the purpose was to, quote, declutter, but it actually makes me so happy. Beyond that, I read somewhere, and I realize it's probably different in different scenarios if you have a larger family and heirloom things. But I basically read to, like, use the nice china. It was saying, use the sentimental nice stuff, because why save it to use it once a year when you could just use it all the time and get more joy from it? And that's what I do. Because I have these different plates that have been given to me as gifts or, like I said, things from relatives. And I was like, oh, I could just use this as my everyday stuff. And it breaks while I got more joy out of it using it daily. And it was so great. It helped me get rid of a lot of stuff. I get so much joy from using it. So yeah, that was one of my favorite packs. That's really smart. That's really smart. And then I also like buying, like you said, the high quality stuff. So I'm obsessed with, which I just realized it's pronounced La Crucet. I've been calling it La Crucet for so long, and I'm so embarrassed. But I love getting all my heavy duty cast iron and keeping all of that around. Out of those four plans, is the fast one the most popular? Or what do people gravitate towards the most?

Allison Schaaf

super fast is the most popular one, yeah. But you know, again, it depends on, you know, if someone, you know, the paleo one, if someone's grain free, like that's, you know, you want to do the paleo one, or if you're a local organism, part of it's just, you know, whichever one is going to work for you and what your dietary preferences are.

Melanie Avalon

one more little topic I wanted to ask you about which is it says in your bio that you live on a wait are you not on a farm but you have chickens goats cats and bees

Allison Schaaf

Yeah, I know. I'm like, I think it's kind of like a little mini farm. It's six acres, so it's not huge. But yeah, we have chickens and goats and bees and it's an adventure every day out here for sure. It's a lot of fun. Do you eat the chickens or the goats? The short answer is yes. So with the chickens, mainly the eggs, my husband has processed a really mean rooster one year at Christmas. I think he also just wanted to see if he could do it. Not great eating. It was a lot of work, like a day or two of work for like a few bites. So we're not going into meat birds anytime soon. The goats, yes, we will occasionally process them. We bring out a little processor and it's a very good eating and it's nice knowing what went into it. And I would like to milk them at some point, but we haven't gotten there yet. But at some point, I would like to have goat milk as well.

Melanie Avalon

Oh my goodness, you could even make gold.

Allison Schaaf

cheese. I know I have a neighbor and they had goats and she did that so she kind of inspired me like okay someday yeah and then the honey from the bees is really nice too it helps with the also when you know whenever there's like a cough or sore throat type of thing it's nice to have the the local honey. Do you get the help?

Melanie Avalon

for hunting yourself from the beehive.

Allison Schaaf

I don't know if I would say myself, my husband. My husband's pretty involved with a lot of this stuff as well. But the honey is, the honey harvesting as they call it, that's like twice a year and it's a lot of fun because the kids can get involved with the equipment and you kind of like spin it around and you have the, I can't even think of all the names, but there's the, I don't know, it's not the hive. Anyway, but they do the whole thing and they have a lot of fun with it. But he's the one that has the bee suit and goes out and like tends to them.

Melanie Avalon

That is so cool. Oh my goodness. That's amazing. Okay. Well, this has been such a pleasure. It's so exciting to finally connect with you after all these years and years and years. And I just am obsessed with what you're doing. And you do have a special offer for our audience. So what, what is the deal with it? What can they get there?

Allison Schaaf

free trial so it's just 14 days to try it out you can have access to all the different plans you don't have to choose you can look at all of them poke around see what's there it's set up at prepdish.com Melanie Avalon and I just always encourage people to start there and if nothing else just kind of get some ideas of of how we do it and see if it might be a fit and yeah might as well try it for free

Melanie Avalon

Awesome. So again, this is amazing. It's literally free, like literally free. So friends, if you've been inspired by this, I know I have. I mean, it's funny, I eat basically the exact same thing every night, like literally the same thing. So are a few key foods. So I'm not the best customer for this because I'm not creating recipes. But now I'm like, I got to go download this and do this myself. Listeners, go to prepdish.com slash Melanie Avalon, that will get you a two week free trial. Again, literally nothing to lose. You can try all these recipes, see what you think. Congrats again on the Instacart integration. That is amazing. And yeah, anything that you would like to share with our listeners before we go?

Allison Schaaf

Gosh, no, in my head, I'm like, man, wine pairing soon.

Melanie Avalon

I know, I feel like that's, yeah, I think that could be amazing.

Allison Schaaf

Oh, and then I'll give a quick plug though. I do have my own podcast at Meal Prep Monday, where we talk meal prep and, you know, food and nutrition, but I also kind of go off on tangents. I probably, you know, do talk about wine or kids or travel and all the things. So that's there too.

Melanie Avalon

Awesome. Awesome. Well, we will put a link to that in the show notes as well. And yay. Well, this has been so amazing, Alison. Thank you so much for what you do. I've been a fan of it for so, so long. I really think you're going to, you save or you, you just help so many people optimize their lives, their health, their wellness, all the things. So thank you so much. And we'll have to talk again in the future and let me know if you're ever in Atlanta.

Allison Schaaf

I will. Thank you. I really appreciate it. And it's so fun to finally connect. Likewise. Have a good rest of your day.

Melanie Avalon

day. You too. 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 re-composed by Steve Saunders. See you next week!

Allison Schaaf

you

Apr 13

Episode 417 – Birthday Fasting, Preserving Muscle Mass With Fasting, Anti-Aging Foods, Pro-Aging Foods, Red Meat Vs. Chicken And Fish, 10K Steps, ADF Problems, And More!

Identifying the relation between food groups and biological ageing: a data-driven approach

Welcome to Episode 417 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, biohacker, founder of AvalonX, and author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine, and Barry Conrad, actor, singer-songwriter, and creator and host of Banter with BC.

SHOW NOTES

SPONSORS & DISCOUNTS

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Peluva's barefoot shoes are a zero drop minimalist shoe with a distinctive 5 toe design, to create the most authentic barefoot style experience. Get 15% off with code ifpodcast at peluva.com.

MAUI NUI

Maui Nui offers 100% delicious, wild harvested axis deer. Maui Nui axis deer are free roaming and stress free, making the cuts incredibly high quality and nutrient, free of hormones and antibiotics. Maui Nui's mission is to help restore Maui's ecosystem by responsibly managing the overpopulated axis deer that are damaging Maui's land. Head to mauinuivenison.com/ifpodcast to secure your access to select venison cuts.

ONESKIN

FEATURED RESTAURANT

Logan Brown

STUDIES

Health Effects of Alternate-Day Fasting in Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

The Effects of Intermittent Fasting Combined with Resistance Training on Lean Body Mass: A Systematic Review of Human Studies

Effects of alternate day calorie restriction and exercise on cardio-metabolic risk factors in overweight and obese adults: an exploratory randomized controlled study

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.)

Melanie Avalon

Welcome to Episode 417 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. If you want to burn fat, gain energy, and enhance your health by changing when you eat, not what you eat, with no calorie counting, then this show is for you. I'm Melanie Avalon, biohacker, founder of AvalonX, and author of What, When, Wine. Lose weight and feel great with paleo-style meals, intermittent fasting, and wine. And I'm joined by my co-host, Barry Conrad, actor, singer-songwriter, and creator and host of Banter with B.C. For more on us, check out MelanieAvalon.com and BarryConradOfficial.com. You can submit questions for the show by emailing questions at iapodcast.com or by going to iapodcast.com. We would love to hear from you. Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this show do not constitute medical advice or treatment. So pour yourself a mug of black coffee, a cup of tea, or even a glass of wine if it's that time, and get ready for the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Hi, everybody, and welcome. This is episode number 417 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon. I'm here with Barry Conrad, and I have an announcement to make. So listeners do not know when we are recording this, so it doesn't give away any incriminating details. But I just found out right now that it's Barry's birthday, and I kind of freaked out because I feel like I should have known this. Happy birthday, Barry Conrad. Happy birthday.

Barry Conrad

Thank you. Also, hey everyone, hope you're having an awesome day. It was really, really funny just before we started recording, Melanie was totally blindsided. She was like, what? What do you mean? She was like, it's totally fine that you didn't like, I'm not expecting anyone to know, you know? But thank you. I feel the love.

Melanie Avalon

birthdays are just so important to me. Like I just, ah, so if I had known, I would have, well, you just wait for next year, I'm going to do something crazy. How do you feel about birthdays?

Barry Conrad

You know what, I don't typically like pay attention to like numbers and things like that in terms of like birthdays because I don't, I feel amazing, but I do really like celebrating them. I think it's really special to celebrate with the people you love. I like the festivities, the trinkets, the food, the drinks, just hanging out with the people that I want to hang out with and I love celebrating other people too. So I do like birthdays in that way.

Melanie Avalon

I do too, I think it's so wonderful. See, I'm gonna take a gratitude moment right now for the world for giving us Barry Conrad. Thank you, universe.

Barry Conrad

That's very, very, very sweet. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Melanie Avalon

with you in it. Just saying.

Barry Conrad

Thank you. That's very kind.

Melanie Avalon

Question, do you change your fasting on your birthday, your fasting habits?

Barry Conrad

Full disclosure, I'm just going to let you all know just before I press, like, not I press record before I sign on for the episode today, I had a delivery of cupcakes and trinkets and things. So today I'm going to be a bit more lenient with my fasting window. Totally fine. Not phased. What about you when it's your birthday?

Melanie Avalon

Well, I will say just as a quick note on that, I think one of the things I love about intermittent fasting, like having it as part of your ongoing lifestyle is when you do have those indulgences or, you know, take it a little bit more lax, it doesn't completely derail you. Like it's so easy to have those moments, I feel, at least compared to the way it was for me before intermittent fasting, if that makes sense.

Barry Conrad

It makes a lot of sense. And I feel the freedom to do that because I know that tomorrow I just jump back straight back on again. It's totally fine.

Melanie Avalon

Yep. And to answer your question, I don't really change. Well, I typically go for my birthday dinner, but I don't, I don't eat anything I wouldn't normally eat. Right. It's not really any different. Like literally every meal, every dinner I have feels it's like the food I would want to eat anyways. It's like a celebration.

Barry Conrad

Yeah, which is what it's all about, right? And also, you wouldn't have your funfetti.

Melanie Avalon

No. It's funny how many people DM me Funfetti related content on the regular. I can't escape it. If Funfetti ever comes up in social media content, I get it from listeners.

Barry Conrad

It's sort of part of your, the Melanie Evelyn zeitgeist, like funfetti, intermittent fasting, wine, glow coffee, funfetti, intermittent fasting, funfetti.

Melanie Avalon

What's funny listeners is the other day Barry sent me something, it was a picture of a cake with like sprinkles all on the outside and he's like, is this Funfetti? I felt like you were like so proud of yourself, but this is the thing Barry, Funfetti is about what's inside the cake. So you have to see, this is what I told him, I was like, you have to see what's inside the cake because the inside might be just plain vanilla, in which case it would not be Funfetti, it would be a vanilla cake with sprinkles on the outside. But Funfetti cake has sprinkles on the inside.

Barry Conrad

I don't know how that would taste, but also you're right. I was super proud of myself. I was like, I totally found the thing.

Melanie Avalon

I was like, do I tell him?

Barry Conrad

just let me down easy

Melanie Avalon

Okay. So for your next birthday, I'm going to, I'm not going to tell you what I'm going to do. I'm not going to tell you what I'm going to do. You just have to wait and see. If you're still in Australia, it's going to require some, uh, it's hard to get things to you in Australia.

Barry Conrad

I'm pretty confident I won't be here my next birthday.

Melanie Avalon

well fingers crossed you have successfully gotten things from me before though right i sent you flowers you sent me

Barry Conrad

flowers when I had the ankle situation.

Melanie Avalon

I had to find an Australian flower shop, that was difficult.

Barry Conrad

I appreciate the, the commitment to getting them to me and also the shot, the shot glass. Tell them about the shot glass.

Melanie Avalon

Yes. So Barry loves saying, we're going to get lit or it looks lit, which was not a phrase normally in my common vernacular terminology that I use. So then I was in Austin and they had a shot glass. What does it say? It says, it's a light bulb, right?

Barry Conrad

It's a literal light bulb, like the shape of a light bulb, you open the top and that's the way you put the drink in. It's awesome. I need to get it and check it out again.

Melanie Avalon

Doesn't it say something about getting lit because it's a light bulb?

Barry Conrad

When i got that i'm like melody you're the best i can't believe you sent me this is awesome.

Melanie Avalon

I was like scrambling in the Austin airport, trying to get to my flight and saw it, and was like, must buy this right now. Well, happy birthday. I hope it is everything. I don't know. I hope it's everything you would want it to be and more and that you have all the celebrations and eat. Wait. So if people send you, do you just eat whatever they send you even if it's, yeah, do you eat everything that they send you?

Barry Conrad

Well, Melody, I'll let you guess the answer to that.

Melanie Avalon

That's a yes.

Barry Conrad

That's a yes. I mean, not straight away. I'm not eating it right now, but I'll, you know, in a couple hours or so, I'll get those cupcakes out and eat them. I'll probably have some wine first, like later on. So, you know, line that gut a little bit and then I'll have some cupcakes. Why not?

Melanie Avalon

actually related sort of, I think you would be proud. I thought of you. So Saturday I went out with actually a podcast guest from the Melanie Avalon biohacking podcast, Dr. Eric Zielinski. He wrote like the healing power of essential oils. He's like the essential oil guy, like the essential oil guys. So we went out with him and his wife who they are so inspiring. She is having her seventh baby right now in like a month. And last time we met up with them two years ago, she was also pregnant. They're gonna have seven kids and she's like a, like a pageant woman. Like she doesn't look like somebody with seven kids, which would wear me out.

Barry Conrad

That's so impressive.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, it's very impressive. And they have it like down to a system. It's, yeah, they're super cool. In any case, it was my first experience in a long time of we met them for dinner, we had dinner, and then my sister decided, my sister and I decided to stay and have drinks at the bar. So it was the first time in, I don't even remember the last time, where I had drinks at the bar, like on a full stomach. Normally I break my fast with wine. It was a different experience. I literally made the comment to my sister. I was like, this is my first time being at a bar with like a full stomach, having drinks in a while.

Barry Conrad

I'm impressed i'm proud of you because it is very like not what you normally do so that's a good thing right to enjoy it.

Melanie Avalon

Yes, but I don't like it as much because once I once I eat then I'm like in wind down mode and I'm like tired and you know

Barry Conrad

What did you have? What was the specialty menu item?

Melanie Avalon

I had lots of salmon. I tried to, they had a lot of, it was a Persian place and they had a lot of like lamb and steak and I literally tried to order everything on the menu and everything was pre-marinated. So they couldn't, they couldn't like fix it for me.

Barry Conrad

So give us an example of how you ordered it. What did you ask? How did you say it?

Melanie Avalon

I was like, well, I was like, can I get, you know, the lamb like completely plain and they're like, Oh, it's pre-marinated. And I was like pointing to like, obviously the lamb sirloin. They're like, it's pre-marinated. I was like, Oh, well, what about the lamb chops pre-marinated? What about the lamb neck pre-marinated? Okay. I was like, well, what about the steak? They were like pre-marinated. I was like, well, let's not pre-marinated. And then they were like the steak tenderloin. I was like, great, I'll have that rare. Like, Oh, we can't do a rare. I was like, okay. Oh, I got salmon.

Barry Conrad

It was fun. I'm not surprised that you asked for that. And also, I'm kind of like, come on, guys, why can't you prepare it rare? That's like the basic.

Melanie Avalon

Like they said it was like pounded very flat, so it had to be cooked. I don't know. I don't agree. Like I feel like they have the meat. They could have just not cooked it.

Barry Conrad

just seared it like for two seconds on each side and just, you know.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, I should have been more, oh well, lessons learned, but it was really good. You would have liked it.

Barry Conrad

I think I would have as well. I'd be smashing that meat for sure. All the steak, all the lamb.

Melanie Avalon

the marinated

Barry Conrad

Mm-hmm. How are you other than that? You never told me. How's what's new with you?

Melanie Avalon

I am good. Oh, well, speaking of meat, something I wanted to tell the listeners about. So we have a new sponsor on the show and I am so, so excited. Have we talked about this? So have you had venison deer meat?

Barry Conrad

I have had venison deer meat and it's pretty delicious. High protein, succulent, easy to cook, so good.

Melanie Avalon

I had not had it as like a like a steak since I think honestly the only time I had deer meat have I told you this story from childhood my like being scarred so I just had this memory of being like five or six at my grandmother's house and she made some spaghetti and it was the most delicious spaghetti and she was like I'll tell you after why it's so delicious and we ate all the spaghetti and then at the end she was like it's deer meat and like when you're like a little five or six year old and you watch Bambi and stuff it was upsetting.

Barry Conrad

It's scarred you emotionally.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, I freaked out. And I don't think I've had it since then. Now I have because we found what we found. They found us. I had heard them before on other podcasts. So when they reached out, I was so excited. Because I was like, yes, I'd actually been dying to reach out to them. So the brand is Maui Nui. And what is so incredible about them is, so they're in Hawaii. I don't know if you've been familiar with the access to your overpopulation problem there.

Barry Conrad

I've definitely heard about it, but tell us.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, so they're an invasive species there, and they've actually taken over the island, basically. And it's doing damage to the ecosystem in Hawaii, so it's a problem. So this company is solving so many problems environmentally and health-wise. The deer, so you just mentioned, Barry, like the protein and everything. So it's pretty much like the highest quality protein that you can get with the least amount of calories. It has up to 53% more protein per calorie than grass-fed beef because it's so lean, like you just said. They're so sustainable with everything. They have this really cool video that I watched about how they actually source the deer responsibly. It's completely stress-free for the animals, and it's really delicious. And I'm so sad because I don't think they can shift to Australia, so Barry has not tried it.

Barry Conrad

I'll just have to try it. I'll have to try it when I come over there soon. So that's happening.

Melanie Avalon

Yes, yes. I tried it and it tastes absolutely amazing. It's so lean, so delicious, so good for you. So friends, check it out. So to secure your access, you can go to MauiNuiVenison.com slash iapodcast. So that's M-A-U-I-N-U-I-V-E-N-I-S-O-N dot com slash iapodcast, MauiNuiVenison dot com slash iapodcast. Barry, have you been to Hawaii?

Barry Conrad

I actually have been to Hawaii, but only for a day, like only in transit. I really want to go to so bad, like to have a vacation. What about you?

Melanie Avalon

Where were you on the way to?

Barry Conrad

I was on the way to the States, actually. So it was via, I was on Hawaiian Airlines. And so I had to stop through there and I was like, I want to stay. Can I just like miss my flight? But got to do it. Got to make it happen next time.

Melanie Avalon

Would you believe I have been twice? Have you? Yeah, when I was younger, to Lanai and Kauai. But I have not been recently.

Barry Conrad

What did you think of it? It's beautiful.

Melanie Avalon

And there's, like, lays everywhere. They, like, greet you with lays. Like, all the stereotypes were true. I feel like it's very... In a good way. It's very... It lives up to its stereotype.

Barry Conrad

I feel like if you went there as an adult, you know how, listen, is how Melanie does. If you follow her on Instagram, she does the mirror selfies and the boomerangs and things. I feel like if you went as an adult now, Mel, you'd wear the laze and like do like a little shimmy in the boomerang, I don't know.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, yes. All the things. Oh, and I could find all the pictures. Oh, my goodness. I could find the pictures from when we went, when we were little and I could recreate them now and I could do a mashup. You could. Yeah. Well, we should go for your birthday.

Barry Conrad

Yeah, you know what, I'd be so down and then I can have all the Maui Nui I want as well.

Melanie Avalon

All the Maui Nui, yes, well, like eat the Maui Nui. All right, well, shall we jump into some fasting-related things?

Barry Conrad

Let's jump on in.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, so I am for this episode, I am we're starting off with a study that I found. So this study that I found actually, interestingly, remember Barry, I don't know if it was last week or two weeks ago, when I had the moment in real time when I realized that I read the wrong book for Stephen Gundry.

Barry Conrad

Yeah, I remember that. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon

Did I, I don't know if I actually said it on the podcast, I might've paused, but basically I was talking about Dr. Gundry's work and how I was about to interview him and I realized in real time on the podcast that I had read the wrong book because he has so many books. So I had to reschedule him. So in any case, I'm interviewing him this week, finally, and I just finished the correct book, which I can plug. It's called the Gut Brain Paradox and it was really fascinating about the connection between the gut microbiome and the brain. So many things, kind of crazy how our microbes really do control, I mean, our personality, our cravings, so many different things. But in any case, near the end of the book, he referenced a study and I was like, oh, that's interesting. I want to read that because he said it was a 2024 study that looked at food groups and how they affect biological aging. So I went and found the study and it's called Identifying the Relation Between Food Groups and Biological Aging, a Data-Driven Approach and it was published May 2024 in the journal Age and Aging. And what I thought was interesting was the foods that Dr. Gundry listed as pointing out of what it found with correlations and then also the foods that the study itself discussed in the conclusion about the connection between food and age compared to all the foods and the findings. Not that it's cherry picking, but they kind of like ignored some of the surprising findings in my opinion, which just goes to show, I think we, you know, we like to focus on things that sound good health-wise that support our theories about health, but people don't always talk about things that might be contrary to that. So in the book, for example, I'll read what Dr. Gundry says. In Dr. Gundry's defense, if you actually read just the conclusion, it kind of says the things that he pointed out, but I went and actually read the whole thing. So it says that a study published in May 2024 that followed 4,000 American women, and let me qualify about this. The study wasn't actually a study that just looked at 4,000 American women to find this. They actually just reanalyzed the data from the women's health initiative. So they just went back and looked at prior data to find these connections. So he said it looked at 4,000 American women listed the foods most associated with accelerated aging. Here's the rundown. Eggs, organ meats, sausage, cheese, legumes, starchy vegetables, added sugar, and lunch meats were what accelerated aging. The foods most associated with decelerated aging were poultry, nuts, peaches, nectarines, plums, and solid fats. And then he says that basically those first foods are high in a compound called NEU 5GC that he talks about in the book, which is this compound that's found in red meat only that is linked to a lot of health conditions that I had no idea about. So that was really interesting. Then he's saying that the good foods are high in polyphenols and things like on his plan. Biological aging is the idea that our bodies have an age that is not connected to our chronological age.

Melanie Avalon

Rather, it's how is our body actually aging independent of chronological age, which Barry, we still got to get you, speaking of birthdays and aging, we still got to get you to do some sort of epigenetic biological age test because I feel like you would be, I bet yours is like so low.

Barry Conrad

I was about to actually just say, yeah, I need to do one of those. Like for real, that's happening. I'm just curious to see what it would be.

Melanie Avalon

Mm-hmm. You probably like blow most people out of the water here. I have all the things they looked at Okay, do you want to play the guessing game? Do you want to guess if I know I read some of them just now? but do you want to guess if it I'll like say the thing and you can guess if it increased the biological age or decreased

Barry Conrad

Okay, let's go.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, although I did say some of these already, X.

Barry Conrad

increased the biological age.

Melanie Avalon

Yes. Organ week.

Barry Conrad

increased.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, which I want to circle back to like why this might be sausage.

Barry Conrad

Increase, but all of these as well just to say I'm really annoyed to hear this because I love all these so far So keep going

Melanie Avalon

I know. We're going to talk. We'll talk about it. Poultry. Decreased. Yes. Nuts. Decreased. Yes. Cheese.

Barry Conrad

increased.

Melanie Avalon

Uh-huh, legumes increased. See, this is like, this is why we're going to talk about this because like legumes are the darling of the, you know, the, what's the word? Like the darling of the longevity, like blue zones, all the things. So it's okay, I'll stop. Starchy vegetables.

Barry Conrad

increased.

Melanie Avalon

Yes. Discretionary oil. Decreased? Mm-hmm. Discretionary solid fat.

Barry Conrad

Decreased

Melanie Avalon

Mm-hmm added sugar

Barry Conrad

Decreased. No, no, no, no, increase, increase, increase.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah. Okay. Here's where it's going to get really interesting. So these are lifestyle factors. Are you ready? I'm ready. BMI. What's the... A higher BMI. So like higher weight.

Barry Conrad

OK, being greased.

Melanie Avalon

Mm-hmm blood pressure

Barry Conrad

increased.

Melanie Avalon

Mm-hmm systolic blood pressure

Barry Conrad

increased.

Melanie Avalon

Yes, diastolic blood pressure. Nope, it decreased, which is interesting. Okay, smoking.

Barry Conrad

increased for sure.

Melanie Avalon

Mm-hmm education

Barry Conrad

decreased.

Melanie Avalon

Mm-hmm osteoporosis

Barry Conrad

increased.

Melanie Avalon

decreased. Isn't that interesting? But they're not going to say that in the conclusion.

Barry Conrad

That's so surprising.

Melanie Avalon

Uh-huh. I have a theory about that though. Uh, well, maybe. Okay. Cardiovascular disease.

Barry Conrad

increased.

Melanie Avalon

Mm-hmm arthritis

Barry Conrad

increased.

Melanie Avalon

HDL cholesterol. Decreased. Hmm. HDL is considered to be the good cholesterol though. So total cholesterol, total cholesterol. Increased. Decreased. Triglycerides.

Barry Conrad

Decreased.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, which is like shocking because trigs are always the thing that people are like, you got to get those low, like people argue about cholesterol, like every day, all day, LDL, HDL total, but trigs, everybody's like on the same page that you want those low. And yet, here it's saying that they like higher trigs decrease biological age. And then okay, they're racist, American Indian.

Barry Conrad

increased

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, Asian.

Barry Conrad

Decreased.

Melanie Avalon

increased.

Barry Conrad

Really?

Melanie Avalon

Mm-hmm other race

Barry Conrad

decreased

Melanie Avalon

increased. I'm trying to find because they don't have Caucasian right there. Yeah. And then let's see if I did all of them. Oh, and then blood glucose.

Barry Conrad

increased.

Melanie Avalon

Mm hmm. And so pretty good. You did really good. You would have passed just then just just barely. But what's so interesting about this is honestly, I think it just okay, I do think probably certain foods are connected to aging and longevity as our lifestyle factors. But I think if anything is clear from this, it's that correlational data is just not good to go off of because you could cherry pick this and like pull out the really crazy ones. And it would just be contrary to everything we've been told. Like you could read the study and you can make the headline, which they didn't, but you could have made the headline osteoporosis and triglycerides. And oh, this is what they left out. This is not the whole thing. They also had pizza. What do you think pizza was?

Barry Conrad

Increase for sure. It has to be. Pizza decreased. What a farce. That's so crazy because we're always told pizza is one of the worst foods you can have. Carry on, Mel.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, and I do think it is. But the point is, they found this about pizza decreasing. Do they put that in the conclusion? No. It's like buried in the data, you know? But they're going to say in the conclusion, okay, let me read the conclusion of the actual study. So in the conclusion, they say, in conclusion, we identified several compelling associations between food groups and biological aging. Basically, they did exactly what Dr. Gundry said, eggs, organ meats, sausage, cheese, legumes, starchy vegetables, added sugar, lunch meat, and fat added after cooking, accelerated biological aging, while peaches, nectarines, plums, poultry, nuts, discretionary oil, and solid fat decelerated aging. But they didn't say that pizza decelerated aging. And they didn't say that fat in general, because then they had fat, it's just like a category, and it increased aging. Like they say fat increases, but butter decreases, which it's like, okay, well, what's happening there? My point is,

Barry Conrad

Seems contradicting.

Melanie Avalon

So my point is, I don't think we can look at these types of studies that are correlational and make any sort of causational claim. You just have to question everything. The type of people that are eating eggs, organ meats, sausages, cheese, they also might just be eating an unhealthy diet in general, which is different from somebody eating like a whole foods based approach on processed foods. It's just very different. So I do think there's important information in here. I also think it's a pretty good mirror into how studies can be misleading when it comes to this stuff.

Barry Conrad

Yeah, I 100% agree. I have a lot of eggs on the daily, sausage, lunch meats, if they mean, if that means like deli meat, is that what lunch meat?

Melanie Avalon

any sort of process meet.

Barry Conrad

Yeah, I have heard that's really bad for you, so I do avoid that a lot of the time, but eggs, I eat a couple dozen eggs a week at least. My biological age is going to be increased now.

Melanie Avalon

Well, if you just get yourself some osteoporosis and then you'll be good.

Barry Conrad

And you know, just a whole lot of fats, I mean, not fats, get some, yeah, some fats and some nuts and some chicken, you'd be fine, mitigate it.

Melanie Avalon

Do you know what my theory is for the osteoporosis? What?

Barry Conrad

I'm curious.

Melanie Avalon

I think it's probably that the people who don't have osteoporosis, I think the overweight and obese population are much less likely to have osteoporosis. So osteoporosis may be more likely found in people who have lower weights, and so maybe something's coming into play there.

Barry Conrad

That's an interesting theory. Imagine putting that as the headline. Get some osteoporosis and live longer!

Melanie Avalon

Exactly, but they're not gonna you know, so I find it all really really interesting So we will we'll put a link to this in the show notes

Barry Conrad

I also found the compound, the NEU5GC situation, really surprising. I had never heard of that before and that's in, as you were saying, like beef and pork and lamb and that's a lot of what I eat weekly. So that's really kind of concerning, but also what you said, you got to just question everything and how's your lifestyle with that, you know?

Melanie Avalon

Exactly. Yeah. And it's interesting. I had never heard of this before. And he does. I'm going to talk to him about it this week. He dives deep into it basically. So there's NEU5GC. It's a sugar molecule along the gut wall and the blood-brain barrier. It's in beef, pork, lamb, and bison. And we have, we fish and chicken, humans fish and chicken have a similar one called NEU5AC. And so they're very, very similar. The only difference is one oxygen molecule. But because the 5GC version is so similar yet foreign, we can eat those foods. Our immune system sees it as foreign, makes antibodies against it. And then it just creates like an inflammatory response. But he says that actually having more of the 5GC protects you, sorry, having more of the 5AC protects you from the 5GC. So he says having chicken and fish actually helps protect that effect from red meat.

Barry Conrad

Wowzers, very interesting.

Melanie Avalon

So yeah, always something.

Barry Conrad

That's the thing as well that there is always new findings. It's like, well, I thought this one thing and now it's actually this. So it's like adapting to new research, but then also not treating that like gospel as well, because that could also be proven not necessarily wrong, but just different or nuanced. So it's like, it's a constantly evolving situation, everyone.

Melanie Avalon

Exactly. I feel like never treating it like gospel because, like I just said, and we just saw, some of the things are so contradictory and are just not, like, or just like the trigs, like it said, having higher trigs reduces your biological age. I mean, it's pretty much accepted that you don't want high trigs. So, triglycerides.

Barry Conrad

Awesome study Mel, it was great. Thank you.

Melanie Avalon

Thank you to Dr. Gundry. I can't wait to interview him this week and I want to ask him about this study and be like, what do you think about the pizza and the osteoporosis and the trigs?

Barry Conrad

That's a good leading question, especially those three.

Melanie Avalon

To start us off, I'm just wondering.

Barry Conrad

Is he on social media? Did you know Is he on?

Melanie Avalon

Dr. Oh, yeah, yeah, I think so.

Barry Conrad

Yeah, pretty sure. Imagine if people tagged him saying, oh, I'm just, you know, I'm baking my pizza right now. It's in the oven. You know, Dr. Gundry said it's all good. So, you know.

Melanie Avalon

Oh man, I actually, you know what? I actually am gonna, I'm gonna try to ask him about it. He's really great though. I really, this is my, I think my third time having him on the show.

Barry Conrad

And really awesome that he was able to reschedule so soon, right?

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, I'm so grateful. Okay, shall we jump into some more fasting related things?

Barry Conrad

Let's jump all the way in. Let's do it.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, so we have a question from Alice. Alice says, I'm curious about ADF and how it affects muscle growth. I'm 67, 53, and weigh between 140 to 145. I've been doing IF for about four years now. I was originally down 30 pounds to 135 after the first five months of IF, but have slowly gained back 10 pounds. I resistance train two to three times a week, spin three times a week, yoga and Pilates once a week, and I like to get my 10,000 steps in when it's not too hot. Have we talked about 10,000 steps on here, Barry? I think we did. Have we really? I don't know if we have. We'll circle back. I have a fun fact about it. ADF really worked for me to lose weight, but I worry about losing muscle mass as I age. If I make sure to get enough protein on my up days, is that sufficient enough to prevent losing muscle mass on my down days? Thanks for all you both do to help keep us healthy and informed. You're both so inspiring. Okay, ADF. But do you want to hear the 10,000 steps?

Barry Conrad

Yes, tell me.

Melanie Avalon

Do you know where that came from, the idea to do 10,000 steps a day?

Barry Conrad

No, but I hope it's not a marketing situation like the Kellogg's breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Is it?

Melanie Avalon

in Japan at some point, whenever this became a thing, they were trying to encourage people to walk. And the character for 10,000 looks like a man walking. So they picked it.

Barry Conrad

So basically, every PT, every, you know, nutritionist, personal trainer, anything, it's like it's based on the story. That's what you're saying?

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, basically. Although it's still like a good, you know, still a good noble goal, especially walking. And since then they've done studies and like the perfect amount where basically you get the maximum bang for your buck. And then after that, it plateaus. It's somewhere I just, I'm reading a book right now called ageless aging. It's about aging and women specifically. It's like very tailored towards like women. But she said now it's somewhere around 8,000 something is like the ideal number. So it wasn't too off. But yeah, the original 10,000 steps was a marketing thing.

Barry Conrad

New it new it just like how logs you know we need to definitely get the links for that cuz i want to look more into it that's shocking and still good still a good noble goal to have.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, yeah, so I want to see what the character looks like. Let's see 10,000.

Barry Conrad

Same. I'm imagining like anime vibes.

Melanie Avalon

In any case, how do you feel about ADF and muscle?

Barry Conrad

Alice first of all you're killing it sounds like you're absolutely killing it and the fact that you you are doing IF for what you say four years and and training and spinning and Pilates side note Pilates is actually way harder than I thought until I tried it.

Melanie Avalon

I haven't tried it, actually.

Barry Conrad

It's actually so hard, Mel, like I had the first time I ever tried Pilates was on camera for like a gym and it was was a fail with such. I was shaking and trembling and all these females were kicking my, you know, it was crazy back to the question and you're aiming for 10,000 steps, which is awesome as we've just talked about. Honestly, that seriously solid Alice for what you're saying. And if you're thinking long term about muscle mass, that's it's even more important as we age, which is super important. And with ADF and for new listeners, that means alternate day fasting welcome and how to help you lose weight. Wondering how it affects muscle growth and maintenance is a really important thing to focus on and you're hitting your protein targets and you're eating days and you're training consistently and you're already doing a lot of the key things to protect yourself, which is great. Like muscle maintenance, one of my favorite topics, as you probably know by now, especially as we get older, it's going to come down to a couple things. So since since you're training a couple times a week, two, three times a week, you're giving your muscles that stimulus that it needs, but the next big piece of that is protein. And this is where things get really, really important, especially with ADF because on those fasting days, you're not actually like you're not taking in the protein on those days, which means your body isn't getting the like amino acids. It needs for repair and growth. And so the question then becomes, I reckon, can you make up for it on those eating days? And yes, and I would say hitting your total protein target over the course of those up days and making sure each meal is going to contain enough high quality protein is really important. So for someone in your age group, you're saying you're 67, the protein is going to have to go up because as we get older, our muscles become less sensitive to the muscle building signals from proteins. So the general RDA is 0.8 grams of protein per kg of body weight, but that's sort of the bare minimum to prevent deficiency. So I'd personally recommend 1.5 to double the RDA of that to build. And the quality also matters. So it's not just any protein. It's got to be, well, now I'm not too sure if I should say eggs, lean meats, fish, Greek yogurt, whey protein. They're all your friends.

Melanie Avalon

It's a Maui Nui venison.

Barry Conrad

Maui Nui Venison. And another thing to think about, Ellis, is I guess your total calorie intake over time. Because yeah, I do reckon ADF can be great for weight loss. But if you're in too much of a calorie deficit over the long run, the muscle loss can sort of become a bit of a worry if the protein, even if the protein is high. So you're active training Pilates walking, burning a lot of energy, just make sure like on those days you're eating replenish you properly. I mean, some people experiment with that modified version. So it's more like what, up to 500 calories more on the fasting days around that ballpark, just enough to maintain that muscle without breaking the benefits. That could be something to play around with. But overall, Ellis, from what you're saying, you're doing so much right already. And like the level of activity and dedication you have is, it's awesome. So keep doing what you're doing. No stress. Melanie, what do you reckon?

Melanie Avalon

awesome. Thank you so much for doing that. I found some good studies looking at actual fasting and muscle mass retention. And I found two meta-analyses that I think will be very helpful and then one that looked at specifically alternate day fasting and muscle and how it's affected if you are doing it with resistance training and it compared it to normal calorie restriction. So for the meta-analyses first, so there's one called the effects of intermittent fasting combined with resistance training on lean body mass, a systemic review. So this was eight studies and it looked at, so not just ADF but intermittent fasting in general. Let me see how many were ADF. So some of those were ADF, some were modified ADF, some were time-restricted feeding and some were diet breaks, whatever that means, and then others as well. So they found that lean body mass was generally maintained and one study actually saw a significant increase in lean body mass. And they also saw that body fat mass was significantly reduced in five out of eight studies. So the results suggest that IF paired with resistance training generally maintains lean body mass and can also promote fat loss. That's awesome. But like I said, this was not just ADF, this was all different types. Some of them were ADF. So that brings us to a meta-analysis called health effects of alternate day fasting in adults, a systemic review, a meta-analysis. So this looked at seven randomized controlled trials covering 269 people in total and it specifically looked at ADF. And what they found was that in animal experiments, weight loss can actually redistribute fat in ADF groups without losing lean muscle mass. So that's amazing. And then they said that new research showed that exercise plus ADF would experience the best effects and cardiovascular disease risk and also the least amount of muscle loss compared to ADF alone. And I'm going to talk about that study in a little bit. But in their analysis, they did find a significant reduction in lean mass in the ADF group. And they said this serves as a caution for patient populations at risk for sarcopenia because ADF could exacerbate muscle loss. They said some studies have shown that adequate or excessive protein consumption during weight loss can mitigate losses in lean mass. So basically with ADF, yes, there is the potential of losing muscle mass. You can possibly mitigate that if you have enough protein or excessive protein. And then that other study I wanted to talk about was called effects of alternate day calorie restriction and exercise on cardio metabolic risk factors and overweight and obese adults and exploratory randomized controlled trial. And this was really, really interesting because they actually looked at groups that did resistance training, anaerobic exercise. And they looked at people who were just doing calorie restriction versus those who were doing ADF.

Melanie Avalon

But what they did find interestingly was that the exercise plus ADF group experience some muscle loss, but it was less muscle loss than the group doing just calorie restriction alone, which supports the protective effective exercise quote, but shows it's not always foolproof. So basically takeaways from all of this are that calorie restriction definitely can lead to and most likely will lead to loss of muscle. Pairing, fasting with exercise can be protective, but you might still lose some muscle. Pairing it with adequate protein or excessive protein can be helpful, but you might still lose some muscle. That is different than that first study I talked about where they looked at all different types of fasting and didn't find the muscle mass loss. So what I think is that out of all the different approaches to fasting, ADF is probably the one that is going to be most problematic for muscle loss. I'm not as concerned with like the one meal a day or the time restricted eating like the 16, eight approaches. Those I feel pretty good about, especially if paired with exercise and protein that you're probably going to be fine with muscle. I would be cautious with ADF. So if you're doing ADF, have a lot of protein, like Barry was saying, pair it with resistance training and then just wait and then monitor, like, see, are you losing muscle? Maybe you won't, then in which case maybe it's fine for you. But if you are, then you need to reevaluate and see what are your goals, you know, what's important to you. Yeah, going into this, I didn't know what I was gonna find, I didn't, because I knew that pairing with exercise and resistance training and protein could be really protective. I wasn't sure what I would find for ADF, but it does seem like ADF might be an issue.

Barry Conrad

Mmm, but super interesting. I could talk about this all day, like muscle and fasting and protein and exactly what you said, Melanie, sounds like it's the one that's going to probably lead to more muscle loss than the other protocols, which is who wants that? No one.

Melanie Avalon

I think because I think the problem with it is it's not like because we know when you do an extended fast, like days and days, yes, you lose muscle, but you definitely go into a protective mode. But it's like with ADF, you're having these days where you're, you're having like a little bit of calories. So you're, you're not, you're kind of, in my opinion, you're kind of stopping your body from staying in a slightly protective state because you're going into the feeding state, like the anabolic state by eating, but you're not having like barely anything. So you broke down muscle throughout the day and then you're not having enough in that window to build it back up again. But like a little bit to like get you there. But I just think it's not enough support for the muscle for a lot of people.

Barry Conrad

I just don't think a lot a lot of people can eat enough protein anyway generally so i think that's that's a big part of it because even on that five hundred ish calorie day. For example you could have four hundred twenty five grams of. What you know official or what not and that's gonna that's gonna give you more than enough protein but it's still a lot to eat even though it's five like less than five hundred calories for that. So it's just i think it's being able to digest it all as well i don't think a lot of people can do that. You know so.

Melanie Avalon

So yeah, so definitely keep us updated, Alice, and thank you for your question.

Barry Conrad

Thanks, Alice.

Melanie Avalon

Do we have time to do our restaurant?

Barry Conrad

Let's do it. Time to break out fast. How do we say it?

Melanie Avalon

It's time to break our fast, our hypothetical.

Barry Conrad

a simulation.

Melanie Avalon

our simulated hypothetical meal to iterate the purpose of this friends is so we can focus on how important the eating window is. The fasting is not just about the fasting, it's also about the eating window. And you can hear about how we order when we're out. You can hear my way of doing things. If you have dietary restrictions, I want to empower you to make choices and you can still go out and have all the fun. Or you can be like Barry, also really healthy and also not as intense as me.

Barry Conrad

No, it's not intense. It's just different. There's no rules when it comes to that. I think it's a good thing we're different. I agree. Okay, so the restaurant I've chosen for this week is called Logan Brown. So friends, Logan Brown, I'm going to send you the link. So Logan Brown, it's based in New Zealand. So my family live in New Zealand. I love New Zealand. It's in Wellington. It's this place in a beautiful restored like banking chamber from the 1920s.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, I love that. I love one. Oh, yes, I love when things are in like, things like that.

Barry Conrad

Yeah, it's there all about sustainability, you know, none of the it's, it's all fair trade free range organic produce as well as like responsibly caught seafood. They've got amazing dishes. They're incredible hospitality and the co-founders Steve Logan and L Brown have been featured on the TV series hunger for the wild where they explore local food sources and cooking tradition. So it's a super interesting place. And I can't wait to get into this menu, Melanie.

Melanie Avalon

Awesome, we pull, okay, dinner menu.

Barry Conrad

Turn the menu.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, I love it. Yeah. It says, we are proud to represent the best of what our people and country produce ethically and sustainably. Love that.

Barry Conrad

I reckon, Melanie, I'm going to throw the ball to you to go first.

Melanie Avalon

So, well, bread to start. I'm gonna pass. Are you gonna have any bread?

Barry Conrad

I'm gonna go with the Logan Brown sourdough bread to start there.

Melanie Avalon

They do for listeners have a gluten free loaf available on request. Which is good. Yep. Oh my goodness. And it's speaking in your language. Entrez wait, the entrez is the appetizer, right? The starter, right? I cannot.

Barry Conrad

Thank you Logan Brown. You know what? We see each other. They get me. It's good.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, this is a set menu too, so you pick one of each thing.

Barry Conrad

So Melanie, what would you have for your entree slash starter?

Melanie Avalon

Okay. If it was a small, I would see if they could do the snapper crudo, like very plain. I'd have to check the mercury levels of snapper, but if it was like a small little bit, I might have like a little bit of that. So, oh yeah. And it is snapper crudo with pickle, rock melon, citrus, labna, caviar. Oh, caviar. Gonna have the caviar. And puffed rice.

Barry Conrad

I'm going to go the same for sure and I'm going to ask them to put like extra TLC in mine so give me a little bit more than what they normally give people.

Melanie Avalon

You can have some of mine too.

Barry Conrad

Yeah, because you might see it and go, I'm just going to have a bite of this.

Melanie Avalon

I would want, I would want a bite. It's mostly, I'm worried about the, the mercury, but okay. The, the main dish. Oh, okay.

Barry Conrad

That looks good. That looks real good.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, I am getting, I'm torn between the pork and the lamb. I think I'm going to get the lamb, the coastal lamb loin, which comes with Aberdeen duck bolognese, spiced pumpkin mousse, and roast grapes. And I'm going to get it completely plain, please. Rare.

Barry Conrad

I'm going to get the miso glazed high grounds pork.

Melanie Avalon

Can I taste a bite of it? Oh, wait, but does it come with stuff on it? Oh, me so glazed. Never mind.

Barry Conrad

Well, I was thinking because, you know, whenever we order and we both like kind of want I would kind of want what you have as well So it's like if I get this and she gets that maybe we can kind of taste Each other's you know, I mean like have a bite

Melanie Avalon

Well, the problem you can taste mine because mine will be deconstructed, but yours won't be so I might have to like if you can like cut into the middle and like cut out some of the middle that hasn't touched any of the outside

Barry Conrad

I'll do some surgery on the table. It's like, what's happening over there? Table number three. It's like, she has to eat the centers. She can't eat the.

Melanie Avalon

I hope to have this inter, please. Oh man. Awesome. And then dessert. I'm going to see for dessert if they will bring me some pork, if they'll substitute.

Barry Conrad

That's so funny. It's hilarious, Mel.

Melanie Avalon

I'll pay an upcharge, what would you get?

Barry Conrad

I'm going to get the pomegranate and dark chocolate mousse, which is red velvet sponge. Delicious. Salt, caramel, and black Doris plum. That sounds like a me dessert. I'm going to go for that one.

Melanie Avalon

That does sound like you.

Barry Conrad

I also do on cheese though.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, I was gonna say, I feel like, oh wait, oh perfect. I'll get the cheese and you can have my cheese and you can get the mousse.

Barry Conrad

a lot though because you know like you're going to probably have like a real little bit and have it slowly and like a civilized way and I'll be like smashing it, you know.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, well, but yeah, but we're going to work on that. This is going to be exercise in eating slowly.

Barry Conrad

Okay, I need to work. Actually, you know what? I take that back. In a restaurant like this, I'm gonna keep it together. Don't worry about that.

Melanie Avalon

I have faith in you.

Barry Conrad

I feel like I'm painting myself to be this like savage when it comes to eating like a barbarian or something. It's probably more in your head. Also, Mel, there's a beverage list. Oh, let's-

Melanie Avalon

Let me look.

Barry Conrad

This looks good.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, I love this. It's like organized by like light-bodied red, medium-bodied red, full-bodied red. Okay. So friends, I would have to look these up to see if they were organic or not. But since they have a light-bodied red, I'm definitely going to go from there because those tend to be lower alcohol and lower sugar because the sugar and the alcohol, a lot of that is what contributes to the the fuller body. So we're already winning. They have a gamay, which is one of my favorites by the glass. I probably do a lot more expensive. Oh, okay. Okay. Well, this winery is they're in transition to organic and they're sustainable. So I might get the Esthe two terraces vineyard gamay or one of the Pinot Noir's. They're all New Zealand though. So I would have to look them up and see which ones are organic. But this is a really great list.

Barry Conrad

I knew you'd like it, and listeners, if you haven't been to New Zealand, the wine there is delicious. It's so good. It does taste different to what you get in America and even in Australia. It's very, very, very good.

Melanie Avalon

I want to go here for the wine alone. What would you get?

Barry Conrad

I would get a glass of the medium bodied red Muriel Creanza Rio de Tempranillo to start. I think that'd pair really well with what I'm ordering and then of course I gotta do a if they have, do they have like a margarita type situation? Let me have a look here. No, these cocktails are merely a guide. Okay, so I would, don't see anything tequila. I would ask them to make me a, I'll pull a melody. I'm gonna say, can you please do me like something that's not on the menu and just make me a margarita with your special touch? I'll do that. I'll, I'll, I'll augment it. There we go.

Melanie Avalon

Although I feel like the good thing about that is it's a very common request, you know, to just have like a margarita or like a martini and not going rogue like me.

Barry Conrad

oh wow thanks mel on my birthday well you know just basically there you know you're not really doing it

Melanie Avalon

Okay, wait. Okay, I take that back. Okay, when you ask, you could be like, can I just make up something? Oh, ask for like a margarita with that rock melon because I saw that on one of the dishes. That sounds cool. Because you could get the watermelon margarita.

Barry Conrad

That could be good.

Melanie Avalon

Okay. One time, Barry and I were doing a call and he was at a restaurant and they had a watermelon margarita and I was so excited. I was like, you have to get that. Get it now.

Barry Conrad

And Melanie hasn't reciprocated that yet like she has and she's like yeah i'll make sure that i'm out and i'll you can be there in real time while i order that has to happen i will do it.

Melanie Avalon

for your birthday.

Barry Conrad

Great. Sounds good.

Melanie Avalon

So awesome. Well, thank you. Great find. Happy late birthday. No, no, no, happy birthday for you in real time. Happy early birthday from me in the U.S.

Barry Conrad

Thank you so much. I really, I'm feeling the love and I really appreciate the kind of words. Mel really, really, really do. Thank you.

Melanie Avalon

Of course, I really appreciate you. And this was super fun. And listeners, if you would like to submit your own questions for the show, you can directly email questions at iphodcast.com, or you can go to iphodcast.com and you can submit questions there. These show notes will be at iphodcast.com slash episode 417. Those show notes will have a full transcript as well as links to everything that we talked about. So definitely check that out. And you can follow us on Instagram. I am Melanie Avalon. Barry is berry underscore Conrad, right?

Barry Conrad

That's right.

Melanie Avalon

And we are, I have podcast. So yeah, anything from you before we go?

Barry Conrad

Thank you guys for tuning in and we'll catch you next week. Talk to you next week. Talk to you next week. Bye.

Melanie Avalon

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

Apr 07

Episode 416 – Intermittent Fasting Benefits, Vitamin D Supplements, Tanning Beds, Skin Absorption Of Chemicals, Resistant Starch For Weight Loss, Ordering At Restaurants, And More!

Intermittent Fasting: What is it, and how does it work?

Welcome to Episode 416 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

SPONSORS & DISCOUNTS

ZBIOTICS

ZBiotics' new Sugar-to-Fiber is genetically engineered to turn sugar into fiber in your gut. It produces an enzyme called levansucrase, which makes fiber using sugar from your diet, gently and all day long - supporting microbiome diversity and gut health. Get 15% off any first time orders of ZBiotics probiotics with code ifpodcast at zbiotics.com/ifpodcast.

PIQUE FASTING TEAS

LMNT

MD LOGIC

Get 10% off MD Logic's D3 + K2 supplement with code ifpodcast at mdlogic.com.

LINKS

Featured Restaurant: Pine Creek Cookhouse

dminder

STUDIES

Effect of adding vegetable oils to starches from different botanical origins on physicochemical and digestive properties and amylose–lipid complex formation

Resistant starch intake facilitates weight loss in humans by reshaping the gut microbiota
The Effect of Heat-acid Treatment on the Formation of Resistant Starch and the Estimated Glycemic Index in Potatoes

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.)

Melanie Avalon

Welcome to Episode 416 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 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 416 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon. I'm here with Barry Conrad. Barry, how are you today?

Barry Conrad

Hey, everyone. How's it going, Melanie? I'm feeling good today. How are you feeling today? What's happening?

Melanie Avalon

I'm feeling so great. I'm curious since it is April 7th. Do you ever do crazy April Fool's jokes? Do they have that in Australia?

Barry Conrad

Yeah, okay, listen, okay, just to kind of zoom out from this for a second, because Melanie's always asking, do they have this in Australia? Do they have that in Australia? And one of the things she asked me was, do you guys have peeps?

Melanie Avalon

Peeps, yes. Perfect timing because peeps are very much celebrated or used around Easter, and isn't Easter around this time?

Barry Conrad

Mm hmm. I think April 20th coming up. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon

Oh wow, you knew it right off the top of your, doesn't it change?

Barry Conrad

I don't know if it's different in America. Is it different or is it the same? I don't know.

Melanie Avalon

is on Sunday, April 20th this year. Yeah, it changes. It's always on a Sunday. It has to change because it's always on a Sunday, you know?

Barry Conrad

You're right there we go i was wondering cuz that my next question was like who decides why changes and you know why does this holiday change in other holidays anyway we know the answer sundays. But you have peeps we don't have peeps in australia meaning like the candy like the what is it marshmallows we don't have that.

Melanie Avalon

Yes, did you look up the link I sent you?

Barry Conrad

I did look it up and we don't I don't I've definitely have not seen them here.

Melanie Avalon

These are such a thing in America and they're kind of polarizing. Like people either, you're not going to meet somebody who feels lukewarm or is like, could go either way. People either love or hate peeps. Same with like candy corn, I feel. They have candy corn in Australia.

Barry Conrad

We do not.

Melanie Avalon

Oh my goodness.

Barry Conrad

Do you, but do you like it or did you like it before, like, you know, when you were eating the candy?

Melanie Avalon

or candy corn. Both. Actually, I'm going to undo what I just said. I do like peeps. I do like, and candy corn, yes, I do. And peeps are, they come in all different, so the traditional one is like, it's like a yellow chick, like a little chicken and it's yellow. But they come in like a hundred varieties and they're always coming up with special ones so that Valentine's Day, they'll have like Valentine's ones, I think the newest one right now is like a churro one. So not pee-ups? Okay, this is the other thing. So I say peeps like people, like your peeps, and I spell it P-E-O-P-S, and Barry was giving me grief about it being pee-opes. Like, it's not pee-opes, it's people. That's how you spell people. So if you do peeps, wouldn't you do P-E-O-P-S? Am I the only person?

Barry Conrad

Can you ask your friend, ask your friend chat GBT about this because chat GBT.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, I can. I can do that. Let's see. How would we ask this? We would say, if you were to shorten the word people into the short form, how would you spell that? I don't want to give it any leading. Oh, no.

Barry Conrad

What? Do they do P E E P S?

Melanie Avalon

Well, okay. It says a common shorthand for people is P-P-L, like people. Other informal variations include peeps spelled P-E-E-P-S. Okay. Yes. Going forward, I might need to adjust how I spell that word. Do you think other people have been thinking that too? They're like, pew-oops, pew-oops. When I, cause I send that all the time. I say peeps, P-E-O-P-S.

Barry Conrad

Do you know what I think they might be thinking? What? She meant to spell it properly like P-E-E-P-S and she just, it was a typo. Because that's what, that's exactly what I thought when I saw it was like P-O.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, what? Yeah. I will adjust. I will adjust my behavior going forward. Thank you. Thank you, Barry.

Barry Conrad

Listen, this is not fasting-related at all, but do you go P-E-E-P-S or P-E-O-P-S? Maybe we'll put a poll up on the Instagram.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, please do. That's so funny. Wait. So, but April Fool's jokes, so do you have or how do you feel about April Fool's jokes?

Barry Conrad

I love, you know what, I actually love April Fool's jokes, but I never make them, but I don't know why, like I love like seeing them and laughing and cracking up, but I just kind of, I don't know, do you make them or do you prank your family and stuff?

Melanie Avalon

So here's the thing, this is like things are about to get real. So I think they're super fun. I also, I'm not saying like if you're doing April Fool's jokes, you're like lying, but I feel very uncomfortable not telling the truth. So I don't think I can like do it. And I would feel like a bad person. I would struggle with that aspect of it, even though it's a joke. I just, my mom, like her one virtue was never lie. And that got like instilled into me. So I don't do well with like jokes that require altering reality presentations.

Barry Conrad

I know this about you actually so that that tracks that make sense but it's but it's like it's like okay well okay how about when you're doing a scene or something like that as an actor did you feel bad about like that or is that different it's a different thing.

Melanie Avalon

No, because people know, people know you're, you know, you're not actually. And this is not a moral judgment. Like I literally think it's not a problem. If this is all like my childhood coming out. This is my point is like it's hard for me to like actually implement a serious April Fool's joke.

Barry Conrad

What about when I think it was another show when I was like, just before we started recording, and Melanie was like, does my mic sound good? And I said, it sounds like you're really far away. And she goes, oh, really? I was like, no, I was just kidding. Could you say something like that? Or is that still like, it's not telling the truth.

Melanie Avalon

No, no, like in the moment, I'm glad you're clarifying. So, because that you can just, you quickly correct it, like the next second. But it's not like you have somebody existing in a state for an extended period of time where they think like reality is different than what you said. It's, I think it's the time issue.

Barry Conrad

This is like the one meal a day thing. How much time do we have between the between the

Melanie Avalon

How much time has passed with the lie for it to become a problematic lie? Yeah, that's a good question. I'm going to ponder that.

Barry Conrad

And also, how do you feel about your friends and family playing those April Fools jokes on you? Do you laugh or do you find it hard?

Melanie Avalon

Oh, I would, I would find it funny. I mean, it depends, it depends what it is. I don't think I've ever been the brunt of like a really intense April Fool's joke. I feel like it's more a thing you do in childhood, you know, or like companies will do it on X formerly known as Twitter and stuff.

Barry Conrad

Do you know how celebrities or public figures will often post like, I'm retiring or say something like that on April Fools or I'm dropping an album. It's like April Fools, like stuff like that on the Instagram.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, I feel like people can use it to be mean too.

Barry Conrad

I think so too. That's not what we're about here.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, we're not, we're not a fan. Or I used to fantasize about using it. Like if I like liked a boy in middle school or something or high school, because then you can like test it. Like I like you. And then if they're like, I like you back there and you wanted to tell them anyways, then woo, everybody wins. No April fools. But then if they're like, no, you're like April fools.

Barry Conrad

That's sneaky. That's pretty, that's on the sly right there.

Melanie Avalon

Uh-huh. That's how I would want to use an April Fool's joke. Like, I would want it to address something that I wanted to address with somebody. I wouldn't actually do this, but this is how I would like to use it.

Barry Conrad

So basically, listeners and all people listening should not expect Melanie Avalon to put up an April Fools situation on her Instagram story and try to prank people this Easter or April Fools, I should say.

Melanie Avalon

unless I'm just planting the seeds right now to have the best one ever next year. Maybe that's all, maybe this is all a mind game. Not really. It's not. But maybe it is now that I think about it.

Barry Conrad

Yeah, you could make it one. We'll see.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, okay, anything new in your life?

Barry Conrad

Yeah, I'm actually, this is a week of photo shoots for me.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, yay, new photos. I feel like you have a lot of photo shoots.

Barry Conrad

Well, not that many. I feel like you have a lot of photo shoots.

Melanie Avalon

like I went through a period of time where I was having a lot, but I feel like you consistently, like since I know you have had a lot of photo shoots, which is a good thing. I support. I think it's great.

Barry Conrad

Well, this one is it's a new pro. It's new promo shoots for things coming up, which I promise I will definitely share. I keep talk hinting to this thing, but it's promo shoots and I'm super excited. I had one yesterday and I have another one in two days. So it should be really fun like Bondi beach sunrise one. So that'd be really sick. Can't wait.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, I want to see the pictures. I love looking at photo shoot pictures. Awesome.

Barry Conrad

Do you know what I like to do as well?

Melanie Avalon

Look at photo shoot pictures.

Barry Conrad

have like a mirror there so I can see my pose.

Melanie Avalon

Wait, wait, wait, wait. Do we talk about this?

Barry Conrad

I don't do that, but I said this because you're making fun of me.

Melanie Avalon

No, I'm just- I got really excited for a second. Have you tried this? Have you tried this?

Barry Conrad

You know what? I saw a photo of yours.

Melanie Avalon

Would you feel awkward?

Barry Conrad

Well, I saw a photo of yours on Instagram, because you're on Instagram, and I thought, did she use the technique for that photo? So I tried to do or pretend like, how do you do it? I'm trying to see it in my mind, how you set it up.

Melanie Avalon

What Barry is referring to is that when I do a photo shoot, like a professional photo shoot where it's not a selfie, it's like a photographer taking my picture, I need to see myself, I need to pose myself. And I used to feel very insecure about this concept that I need a mirror to pose. And then I saw a video where Paris Hilton was talking with one of the Kardashians and they were talking about how Paris Hilton has to have a mirror at her photo shoots so she can pose herself. And then she is the queen of photo shoots. So then I felt better about myself. Not that I needed her validation, but it helped a lot. What's the question? How do I do it?

Barry Conrad

Yeah, like give us like a quick walk through like

Melanie Avalon

So we ordered, well, there's two steps. I ordered like a rollaway mirror, so I have it set up so I can be like posing in the mirror while they're shooting. And then I also hold a little handheld mirror in my hand so that I can sometimes like pose my face right before. And it works. I have a photographer that I work with Adrienne, shout out to Adrienne, and she totally gets it and she knows I got to pose my face and it works so well.

Barry Conrad

Just like what we talk about on the show, do what works for you. And I think it's, you know, I'm not, I'm not giving you a hard time. I was just teasing like sort of, but I think it's awesome that you do that because it works, right?

Melanie Avalon

I'm teasing you about teasing me, so it does work. I think you should try it. I think you should try it and report back and let me know if it completely like changed your life for photo shoots.

Barry Conrad

Okay, if I am in a studio or someplace that has a mirror, I'll do it. But I don't think I'm going to like buy a mirror and then bring, or bring one.

Melanie Avalon

Well, if you move to the US, I can come be your assistant and I'll bring a mirror. I'll bring the rollaway mirror and I'll like roll it around for you. Roll it around.

Barry Conrad

She's rolling rolling. It's like your workout. It's like there she goes bouncing around

Melanie Avalon

I'd be like, where do you need it? And I'll put it there.

Barry Conrad

What about when, okay, Melanie, here's an exciting thought as well, but what about when, not if, what about when we do a promo shoot for the show, you and I? Isn't that exciting?

Melanie Avalon

Oh my gosh, we should do that. And we should have a rollaway mirror.

Barry Conrad

Then I get to see her process.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, we can do it together. We can both be posing in the mirror. It is going to be such a moment.

Barry Conrad

Wow. It's all full circle. That's exciting though. I just had that thought in this moment. So that's something to look forward to. We must do that. Are we going to mimic the artwork? Are we going to do the same, try to do the...

Melanie Avalon

Oh my. Yeah.

Barry Conrad

Or something completely different.

Melanie Avalon

We can do a lot of things, but that should be one of them. We should reenact the art, yes. And then we should do some of us like podcasting with my rainbow mic.

Barry Conrad

Me with my blue one. Love you. I love you.

Melanie Avalon

And then we can do some that are very like acting drama class where it'll be like, do how you feel while podcasting.

Barry Conrad

In front of food or like at a restaurant like eating.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, and then we can have some of us eating and some of us not eating like holding clocks.

Barry Conrad

holding clocks, that's so funny.

Melanie Avalon

I'm looking right now, I'm staring at the OG inspiration of the artwork, because I don't know if you remember. You probably do, like way back in the day, the original artwork was a photo of a clock.

Barry Conrad

Yes, I do remember that. I actually do remember.

Melanie Avalon

That clock is on my wall, I'm staring at it. I have that clock, so we could shoot with that clock. That's cool. It needs to be touched up a little bit, some of the paint's coming off, but what do you expect? It's been how many years? A lot of years. There we go. I forgot that clock was there. You know how you stop seeing stuff because it's in your environment every day? I forgot that, I don't think I've looked at this clock, like looked at it in a long time.

Barry Conrad

So what, you were just minding your own business and then you thought, okay, what is something that could be a great, you know, like photo for the podcast and you just looked up at the clock and you had a Eureka moment or like what, how did that work?

Melanie Avalon

This is kind of like how you were talking a few episodes ago about how you don't remember but then you remembered your origin story of starting intermittent fasting. I got it at Target. I think I went to Target with the intention. Yeah, I went to Target with the intention of finding a clock to shoot a cover for the show and I found this red clock and I was like, that's it. That's it. This is the clock.

Barry Conrad

Wow.

Melanie Avalon

It's exciting. So I think that's what happened. I know it was Target.

Barry Conrad

that specific that you remember that.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah. Shall we jump into some fasting related stuff?

Barry Conrad

Let's do it after taking you all on a trip from April Fool's through to photo shoots.

Melanie Avalon

April Fool's, to peeps, to photo shoots, to The Clock, Memory Lane, Barry's secret project.

Barry Conrad

Let's dive into some fasting. Are you guys ready for this? So I've brought a study this week, it's called intermittent fasting. What is it and how does it work? So it could be very basic for people that do already follow the podcast, but for listeners who are new, this is going to be particularly for you. And so the study I'm bringing is called that intermittent fasting, what is it? And how does it work from Johns Hopkins medicine? Yeah, we're about to dive into what Mark Mattson's research on intermittent fasting has uncovered based on his decades of groundbreaking studies. And so a bit about Mark, he is a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins University. He spent more than 25 years examining the effects of fasting on not just the body, but the brain as well. And his work goes way beyond just weight loss. It touches on the profound health improvements ranging from brain function to reducing the risks of diseases like Alzheimer's, diabetes, and even cardiovascular issues. So here we go. Mattson's research and what I've found here suggests that IF intermittent fasting for newbies isn't just a way to lose weight, it's about triggering natural beneficial processes in the body. Many of which we don't even realize are happening. So when we fast, our bodies switch from burning glucose, which is sugar, the burning fat for energy and metabolic change that has shown to improve fat loss and increase energy levels. But what's really exciting is that this metabolic switch also kicks off repair mechanisms at the cellular level. So it's like our body gets a chance to really rest, repair, and function more efficiently, but the magic, it doesn't sort of stop there at fat loss. His work has also shown that intermittent fasting can actually help your brain become sharper and more resilient over time, which is so exciting. And fasting triggers a process in brackets, which like, this is one of my favorite things about fasting here, autophagy. And as some listeners may know, it's the body's way of cleaning out damaged cells and regenerating new ones. So this process can reduce brain inflammation, protect neurons, improve memory, and for those of us, I definitely am one of these people wanting to keep our minds clear at its peak. This is a game changer because it doesn't just help prevent cognitive decline. It actually boosts brain health and promotes longevity. So for Mattson, he's saying intermittent fasting isn't like, it's not just a 20 diet, it's a lifestyle that taps into our biological. Roots. And he goes into say, like our ancestors who didn't have access to constant, like 24 seven food supplies were forced to fast regularly. And it's that biological adoption that he says, our bodies are still attuned to even in today's day and age, even if we don't face that food scarcity. So the modern food environment, as we all know, like we, we often eat way more than we need and it can disrupt metabolism or it can lead to obesity, chronic diseases. So by practicing intermittent fasting, we can align our eating habits with, with that evolutionary biology, resetting our bodies, metabolism, give me the chance to fully function at its best.

Barry Conrad

And what I really love about this study, Melanie, is that Mattson saying that intermittent fasting doesn't require complicated meal plans or calorie counting, as we know, hear from experience. It's just simple. You pick a window and for new listeners, that means a protocol like 16, a 19 five, one meal a day, which is Oh, mad, just whatever works for you and stick to it. So during your eating periods, you focus on eating nutrient dense meals with whole foods. So we're talking about lean proteins, healthy fats, plenty of veggies. And it's not about restriction. And if you, you are new to the show or even if you've been listening for a while, we're about definitely enjoying our food, but it's rather giving our bodies the time it needs to reset. His study also provides hope for people that have chronic diseases because intermittent fasting has been shown to lower risk of conditions like type two diabetes, heart disease, even cancer. And plus for those of us looking to manage our way, fasting naturally helps improve insulin sensitivity and reducing overall calorie intake without the need for like intense calorie counting or deprivation. So you know what I think. The biggest thing about this research that stands out for me is how it connects the dots between a simple habit, delaying a meal or two or three, and the long-term benefits it can offer for both our brain and body health. And the best part, it's free. It's a free tool, accessible to anyone. You don't need like a whole bunch of supplements or complicated routines. You can fit it into your life, which I love. And so for anyone new, particularly to the podcast, if you're on the fence, wondering about intermittent fasting, if it could work for you, whether it's for better health, sharper mental clarity, or even fat loss, Mark Mattson's research lays out a pretty compelling case and we'll definitely have the link there for you to see. As always, before jumping into any new routine, it's always best to chat with your healthcare professional because I'm not a doctor. Melanie, what do you think about that?

Melanie Avalon

Awesome. And so to clarify for listeners, so this is an article from John Hopkins Medicine, and they're talking about Dr. Mark Mattson's work, and he's done a ton of studies on intermittent fasting. So I don't think this is like any one study that he did, but yeah, he's pretty much one of the... Probably one of the primary researchers that has made fasting what it is today with the former co-host of the show. She's interviewed him before on her show. Cool. Yeah. I would love to interview him sometime. I wonder like by Google him, like how many articles he's done. Let's see.

Barry Conrad

Yeah, imagine having him on the show. That'd be so awesome.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah. So if you, oh, and he's done articles like with Walter Longo, we've talked about before. Yeah. If you go to Google scholar and look him up, so many different articles come up.

Barry Conrad

In 25 years in the game, that's a long time examining the effects of fasting, which I think is awesome, incredible as well.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, no, he's amazing. So like on ResearchGate, which is a website I really like to find articles and they often will have the full article even if you can't find it on other sources. So he has 1,121 publications. It doesn't mean that they're all like just him, but that means his name is attached to 1,121 publications. Citations were like citing his work 159,271. Yeah, so he's super cool. And he really did find like you just so eloquently went through. He has found so many of the mechanisms of IF, how it benefits our brain, our health, all the things. And I love what you ended with about how it's free, which is just so amazing. You don't have to buy anything. Cause I love it.

Barry Conrad

A lot of people when it comes to a plan or a diet or a new health, quote unquote, fed, it's like, okay, this sounds great. And then there's like the cell. It's like, well, there's no cell. It's free. Anyone can do it. You can start anywhere you are. And I love that about it.

Melanie Avalon

Awesome. Yeah, we should have them have them on the show. That'd be fun. That'd be amazing. Add it to the to-do list. Shall we jump into some questions for today?

Barry Conrad

I think we should.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, would you like to read the first question?

Barry Conrad

Okay, so Amanda from Facebook asks, Can you please explain making rice more resistant starch? Dave Ashbury talks about it, but I don't see the how to some say vinegar, some say coconut oil. Does it have to be heated back up? Can you eat it cold? Does it really have less impact for calories? Also, I do not understand what can and can't be absorbed through the skin. I feel like this with so many things applied with a patch are other things seeping into our skin. For example, you can take magnesium transdermally even in a bath. Would this mean the minerals in the ocean soak into you while swimming? The chemicals in a pool?

Melanie Avalon

All right, great questions from Amanda. So to tackle the resistant starch piece first, and this was good timing because I had done a lot of research on it and then I'm actually prepping to interview this week, the week that we're recording, not that we're airing. I'm going to interview for I think the third time Dr. Steven Gundry. Are you familiar with Dr. Steven Gundry, Barry? I am. Yeah. Yeah, the plant paradox. He's written so many books. I've had him on the show for, he had a book called The Plant Paradox people might be familiar with. It's the diet where you reduce lectins in your diet. It's like a New York Times bestseller. A lot of people follow it. So I had him on, not for that book because that was before I knew him, but I had him on for a book called The Energy Paradox. And then I think I had him on for unlocking the keto code maybe. He had another book called Gut Check that came out in January of 2024. He also has a book coming out called The Gut Brain Paradox of April of 2025. So around this time, so I will be doing that interview at some point, but in his book Gut Check, he did talk about resistant starch. And so it was good because it helped me understand more the benefits that come from resistant starch and why. So basically resistance starch, what it is, is when there's been a modification to starch, which is something that we eat normally in our diet, there's four forms of it, RS1, resistance starch one, two, three, and four. And basically the starch, because of how it is changed, like the chemical structure of it by different means, which I'll go through, it makes it so it's not digested by us in the small intestine, it makes its way to the large intestine. And there it is fermented in the colon by microorganisms and they produce short-chain fatty acids, which have a lot of beneficial health effects, which Dr. Gundry talks about in that book. But those short-chain fatty acids, they regulate our metabolism, they boost our energy, they can help with fat loss, inflammation. He makes the case that they're signaling molecules to the mitochondria, so many things. And the different forms, so there's RS1, that's the one, it's naturally found in coarsely ground or whole grains like bread, seeds, legumes, so it's there naturally. RS2 is a form that due to its structure, it's not digested, and it's found in raw potatoes, green bananas, high amylose corn. Then there's resistant starch 3, RS3, and that's one that Amanda is referring to, and that's where you actually, it's formed by cooking. So you cook and cool starchy foods that don't normally have a lot of resistant starch, if any, in them. So potatoes, rice, pasta, oatmeal, bread, and then you cool it. And then in its cooled form, it's become resistant. Resistant 4 is a chemical form of resistant starch, so it's in commercial compounds. Oh, there's also RS5, so there's five, not four. So RS5, that's found bread containing fat as an ingredient, foods with artificially produced.

Melanie Avalon

I think it's also in a non-viscous type of dietary fiber, resistant maltodextrin. In any case, we'll talk about the RS3 one, which is the cooked and cooled one. It does have metabolic health benefits, and it can potentially help with weight loss. So there's been studies on this. There was one study called, Resistant starch intake facilitates weight loss in humans by reshaping the gut microbiota. That was February 2024 in Nature Metabolism. They looked at 37 participants with overweight or obesity, and they tested resistant starch supplementation with them. And they found that, let's see, they showed that eight weeks of resistant starch supplementation helped lead to weight loss or an average of 2.8 kilograms, which is pretty cool. As far as the oil and stuff, so adding oil may, especially coconut oil, may increase the resistant starch content. So I found one study, it's called, Effective Adding Vegetable Oils to Starches from Different Botanical Origins on Physiochemical and Digestive Properties and Amylose Lipid Complex Formation. They looked at coconut, rice bran, and sunflower oil, adding it to rice starch. And they found that adding oil increased the resistant starch in all of them. So for coconut oil, it went up 13.37%. Rice bran oil was actually 15.21%, and sunflower oil was 10.75%. And there's been quite a few other studies on adding oil, and it does seem to increase it. So it's probably going to increase it around 15% or so. As for vinegar, I couldn't find a lot of specific studies on this. It is possible that adding a little bit of vinegar, that the acidity may reduce the glycemic response. So there's definitely a benefit there with vinegar and blood sugar control, but I wouldn't go to it specifically for increasing resistant starch content. For that, I do think that adding one to two teaspoons of coconut oil would enhance that. And as far as cold versus reheating versus if you were to cool it again or reheat it again in the cold state, so it has to be at least heated once and then cold, and then cooled. In the cold state, it's going to have the most resistant starch. If you reheat it again, it might reduce the starch a little bit, but there is still going to be resistant starch there. And basically, like I said, so these resistant starch calories, we don't really digest them. So we're not getting calories from them, but then they then feed our gut microbiome that produce these short-chain fatty acids that have a lot of beneficial health effects. So really great for our microbiome and great for our metabolic health. Do you have thoughts on resistant starch, Barry?

Barry Conrad

You know, I, as someone who eats a lot of white boiled rice, this is, this question was actually super interesting for me as well to dive into. I mean, you said it so well, you know, Amanda cooked and cooled rice is a solid blood sugar hack, so your skin absorbs more than you probably realize. It's, it's not a perfect sponge, but it's definitely not a shield. And in terms of gut health as well, it helps with blood sugar control, you know? So I mean, I don't have too much more to add to that, but yeah, it definitely changes the structure when you cook it, cool it, and then that starch does change structure, making it hard for your body to break down. So yeah.

Melanie Avalon

something there. It definitely works and definitely supports the metabolic health and my support weight loss. And then as far as things being absorbed into the skin, so basically our skin has a lot of different layers. And our skin is really amazing when you think about it, how it keeps out things, but lets in things it needs like, and so resilient. It's, it's so, so cool. And so for substances to be absorbed into the skin, they have to get through the watermost layer, which is called the stratum corneum. And the, the compound itself and whether or not it's fat soluble or water soluble will affect that. So fat soluble substances do penetrate easier because they can go through the lipid layer. So essential oils, skincare, medications that fat composition can help with absorption compared to water soluble, those don't absorb as easy. That said, if you are exposed to them for a long time, it is possible that absorption can happen. So especially things like chemicals in the pool, like if you're, you're in the pool for a long time, for hours, some of those chemicals can, you know, eventually penetrate the skin. So things like bromine, chlorine, things that you don't want in your body. Yeah, like chlorine and chlorine in particular. There's other things that affect it, like the molecular size, the concentration, like Amanda was mentioning, some things are specifically made to get into your skin. So that's things like transdermal patches. Basically, for me, the way I look at it is your skin can let things into your body. So I would be very, very careful about what I put on my skin and not expose myself to things I don't want in my body anyways. And it's going to be on the outside of your skin. So why would you want things that are, you know, potentially toxic on the outside as well. One reason I think like safe skin care makeup free of endocrine disruptors is just so, so important. I'm obsessed with beauty counter and crunchy and these brands because you want to make sure that you're not letting endocrine disruptors into your body. So Mary, do you have thoughts?

Barry Conrad

I think it's, you look at magnesium sprays, look at like hormone creams, nicotine patches, it proves like our skin definitely absorbs some things. So yeah, Melanie exactly was right. Why would you let things in that aren't safe for us? So you don't want to be like baking or you know, stewing in a pool full of chemicals, getting that into your system. And some ingredients just can just sit on the surface, but others actually enter our bloodstream. So it's pretty important. Very, very important.

Melanie Avalon

It's kind of like all those really scary studies that came out on sunscreen where they would find, you know, once people put on the sunscreen that these really toxic compounds in sunscreen were ending up in people's bloodstreams. Yeah, it's not, it's not good.

Barry Conrad

Not a good situation.

Melanie Avalon

Be careful of what you put on your skin. Shall we go to our next question?

Barry Conrad

Let's do it. So Jody from Facebook asks, please talk about tanning beds. Do you still use them? I guess this is for you, Melody.

Melanie Avalon

I've talked about tanning beds on the show before and this would apply to you as well. I'm curious for the vitamin D production because that's the reason I would use them was we know that vitamin D is so, so important for our health, our immunity, so many things. And so I went through a period of time, especially it was really just during the winter. And it was when I felt like my vitamin D levels were low and I would do blood tests as well for that. But I would go in like a UVB bed, which is the in the tanning beds, it works well because it's the rays, it's like the cheaper ones in the beds because they're the ones that aren't for like the tanning color, but it does more preferentially stimulate vitamin D production. So I would literally go in for like a minute, like a minute in the winter. I haven't done that, I don't think the past two winters maybe. And it's just because I've been so on top of my vitamin D supplementation, my levels have always been pretty good, but you feel it like you going in that bed for like a minute feels so good on the flip side. Again, I'm not doing it for tanning, I'm doing it for vitamin D levels. Do you get your vitamin D levels checked, Barry?

Barry Conrad

I do actually, and this is, I was actually saying this to a friend three days ago and everything is always great except my vitamin D because I don't spend as much time in the sun for reasons of sun damage, but yeah, I could definitely up my vitamin D. What about you?

Melanie Avalon

So I take the vitamin D supplements nightly, and ever since I've been doing that I've been really good on my vitamin D levels. The problem, especially for people with darker skin, you have to have more sun exposure to create that vitamin D in your body, which means more damage to your skin. That's why a lot of people with darker skin are more likely to have vitamin D deficiencies. You already have, because of the melanin in your skin, like a natural barrier to the sun, which is good, but then it also means on the flip side that you have to get more sun exposure, more damage to generate that vitamin D. So I would, yeah, I would really highly recommend for people in general, like testing their vitamin D levels, staying on top of vitamin D supplementation, maybe going this tanning bed route, especially in the winter, you know, if needed. And MD Logic Health, they have a really good vitamin D supplement that I recommend. So you can go to MDLogicHealth.com and use the coupon code I have podcast and that will get you 10% off their vitamin D, which is a really amazing vitamin D with the ingredients and the quality and the purity and the potency. So I definitely, definitely recommend that.

Barry Conrad

What do you think about the, you know, how the world health organization classifies tanning bears as a group one carcinogen and just like the concentrated UV radiation that, that can increase that skin cancer risk as well. So how do you sort of ride that? What are your thoughts on that? Like riding the situation of spending a minute in there and just that, but is that damaging? Do you know what I mean? Or not?

Melanie Avalon

So, 100% UV damage is a carcinogen and a potential for harm. I think you really have to weigh the cost benefit. I would not wear conventional sunscreen that has these toxic compounds in them like we were talking about earlier, so these questions go well together. Because putting those toxins into your body, I think is just not good. So, you could use a natural sunscreen. They usually have zinc oxides in them, so it creates a physical barrier between you and the sun. In general, for anti-aging effects of the sun, I would minimize sun exposure, like I really would. On your body, definitely on your face where you're aging. And when I do the tanning bed for a minute, I cover my face completely, like I put a towel over my face. So, I just get it on my body. Really? Yeah. Because the skin on your face is where we show aging the fastest. And UV is probably the most aging thing. I mean, I get maybe a lot of the ingredients in common skincare makeup are also very aging, so it's hard to know. UV damage is very aging. So, yes, it can create cancer. Also, vitamin D is just so, so important in your body. And I do think, I've talked to some people about this, I do think there's probably a little bit more of a benefit just of the vitamin D hormone created naturally versus from a supplement. It's hard to know. That said, there are so many studies looking at vitamin D supplementation and seeing the beneficial effects that I'm really a fan. And especially you want it with K2, which is what I should have mentioned about that endologic health. It's with the K2 blend that you really want to get the best synergy in order to get that vitamin D into your bones and get the metabolic health from it, the metabolic benefits. So, it's like a loaded question with a loaded answer and that, yes, it's a carcinogen. Yes, we should, I think in general, we should not overexpose our skin to UV damage. I do think though that you can be smart about it and do what I said about like just in the winter for a minute. Yeah, so it's all true. It's like, yes, and.

Barry Conrad

Yeah, I do when to get my son, I usually go earlier in the morning before the peak period or later in the afternoon slash evening with the sun still out, but it's not as harsh to try to get that vitamin D in there, but you won't find me rarely in the sun in the middle of the day. There's just no way. And this is like a work thing or something.

Melanie Avalon

Actually, there's and there's an app. Have you heard of it? It's called dminder. Have you heard of it?

Barry Conrad

No, what is that?

Melanie Avalon

I haven't actually haven't used it because I don't really go out in the sun that much, but it'll tell you put in like your location and it'll tell you exactly when to go outside to get the maximum benefit of getting vitamin D from the sun. Like when you should go outside, basically.

Barry Conrad

What's it called? D-Minder.

Melanie Avalon

Dminder? Yeah, Dminder. So they're little pitches. Wherever you go in the world, Dminder tracks the sun and tells you when you can get vitamin D. The stopwatch interface lets you set your session target by either the amount of D to get or the time, then it will count up or down to your target, applying all the factors and determine how much D you can get, including your skin tone, your age, your weight, and the amount of skin exposed. All your doses of D from the sun or supplements are used to continuously estimate your current health. Yeah. And it was developed with the World Authority on Vitamin D, Dr. Michael Hollick. We will put a link to that in the show notes.

Barry Conrad

That's amazing. It's a reminder, this episode is definitely a reminder for me to get my vitamin D up, for sure.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, when was the last time you said you were low last time?

Barry Conrad

This is maybe a couple of months ago, just before the holidays, I should say, before that.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, I just think it's so, so powerful. And vitamin D, it's people think it's a vitamin, we didn't even say this, it's actually a hormone. And it's just involved in so much when it comes to especially immunity and bone health. I think those are the two like, really big things. But then also, I was mentioning Dr. Stephen Gundry earlier, he talks about the role of vitamin D in the gut microbiome, which is also really huge. So lots of things.

Barry Conrad

It's so interesting though, because I feel like my immunity is generally pretty good, but if I could, if I'm like not getting as much as I could be, because I'm not getting enough vitamin D, then I'm selling myself short big time and for both the bone health as well.

Melanie Avalon

super important, but great question from Jodi. So thank you so much. Thanks Jodi. Okay. Shall we have our hypothetical? Maybe it is hypothetical. Is it hypothetical?

Barry Conrad

Is this simulate or do you not, what do you think of that word is simulated?

Melanie Avalon

our simulated breaking our fasts.

Barry Conrad

Yeah, let's do it. Okay. I'm excited.

Melanie Avalon

All right, yes. It's going to come to me, Berry. It's going to be like 3 a.m. and then the word is going to come into my mind. I'm going to be like, that's the word, our hypothetical. I think it... That's how we say it. Yeah, our simulated hypothetical. I like that. Our simulated hypothetical, breaking the fast. Listeners, this is the time of the show where we'd like to celebrate. Fasting is not just about fasting. It's also about what you eat and your feasting. We should actually, probably when we introduce this segment each time, Berry, we should talk a little bit about that briefly. Just that you, if you only fast, the feeding period is so important for all of the benefits that you're going to get. And actually, even in things like Dr. Balter Longo, who came out with the fasting mimicking diet, his work shows that when people go on five-day fasts or they do this fasting mimicking diet, all the beneficial changes that happen with gene expression and stem cells and all of that happen when you eat. That's when a lot of the benefits come in. So it's really important that you really have your feasting window as well and think about all that muscle that you'll be maintaining, how you're spiking your metabolism. So many benefits. And we just love that fasting lets you really enjoy food still.

Barry Conrad

Because food is life. I love food so much. So good.

Melanie Avalon

Yes. So, okay. So the restaurant I have, I sent you the link. It's called the Pine Creek Cook House. Nice. Let me check this out. Have you been to Aspen?

Barry Conrad

That's all my bucklers. I really want to go, especially during Christmas. I'd love to try to check it out. Have you been?

Melanie Avalon

Yes. So it's where we used to go. Well, my family still goes, but I'm not the biggest traveler. Every spring break, we would go to Aspen growing up. It's such a beautiful, like cool little town. I used to ski. Do you ski?

Barry Conrad

I don't I want to I really want to learn how but I don't I was about to say maybe like no I can't can you are you good

Melanie Avalon

Have you ever tried?

Barry Conrad

You know what, what I can do is I have tried snowboarding and I'm not bad at that because I used to skateboard when I was a kid, so that works.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, that's I feel like that's harder than skiing. I'm I feel like if you're raised with skiing, like if it's like where you go every spring break type thing, which is probably way more common in the US than Australia. We've got that in our favor. It's like the moment when you're young and you decide, am I going to skiing route or am I going to the snowboarding route? Because you're like a little kid and you have to like enroll in school, you know, because they have I don't know if you know this. They have like ski school like when you're a kid. What? Yeah, because I guess this is not a thing in Australia. So yeah, what?

Barry Conrad

So tell me, tell me.

Melanie Avalon

So yeah, you're like, you go to these different mountains and ski places and there's like school, like ski school. But you have to choose if you're doing skiing or snowboarding, and then you're kind of like locked in. I mean, I guess you're not locked in, I guess you can do both. But I went the skiing route is the point.

Barry Conrad

See, you must be pretty good.

Melanie Avalon

Well, no, I mean, I stopped, but I, I would do like blues comfortably because there's like green, blue, and then black. I think I did a black like a couple of times, but that's it. But I kind of stopped because I realize I don't like putting on all those clothes.

Barry Conrad

that's what you mean. What about the actual like experience going down these massive cliffs?

Melanie Avalon

I love the cold, but I don't like all that clothing and getting there is a lot. So when I had the realization, probably circa high school, that I could go in my family to Aspen and not ski, and I could just read books in the lobby, I was like, oh, this is fun. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna shop. I'm gonna shop during the day, read books in the lobby, and get dinner with my family at night. It's gonna be a fun time. And it was so fun.

Barry Conrad

That's actually hilarious.

Melanie Avalon

Speaking of dinner, this is one of my favorite restaurants in the entire world.

Barry Conrad

Wow. Okay. So you've been here.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, it's called the Pine Creek cookouts. It's an Aspen Can I tell you about this experience? So to go there it's a little bit on the outskirts So you have to take a like presumably an Aspen you're staying downtown so it's a bit of a drive you have to get a driver to take you to the point not to the restaurant but to the like the point and then you get to the point and then you get into a sled a reindeer pulling a sled and you like bundle in there with your family and some other strangers They take you up to this cabin restaurant thing that you can only get to buy reindeer pulled sledding situations

Barry Conrad

Wow. It sounds like a Christmas movie or something. It doesn't seem real to me.

Melanie Avalon

Yes. And then the menu is everything I love, although I have a funny story about trying to order dessert there. So did you get the link?

Barry Conrad

I got the link i'm looking at it okay even the listeners like if you looking at this in real time with us you look it up welcome to the pine creek cookouts it's like. The photo on there looks like all cozy snows that looks cabernet this looks so much i love cabins i love snow so this is great.

Melanie Avalon

You would love it. I'm looking at pictures. You can probably, I guess you can ski there too, or like ski walk or whatever these people are doing. Oh, not ski. They're like snow, you know, like snow shoes. They're like... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So the winter dinner menu, I guess to start, there's a rotating soup of the evening and a salad. They don't have like, they can't really make a lot of like substitutions and stuff because they only have like what they have type thing because they're like up there, you know. So, okay. So they have a soup, they have a salad, and then they have actually quite a few starters.

Barry Conrad

This all looks really good from what I'm seeing right now. This is looking like it's going to be hard to choose. I don't know. Actually I do know. I already see a couple of things.

Melanie Avalon

Oh wait, actually, okay, it's a little bit confusing because it says additional sharing items for the table and it's like all these different things, but, so I'm a little bit confused if you, cause some of these look like meals.

Barry Conrad

Like mains, like meals.

Melanie Avalon

So what would you get to start?

Barry Conrad

So, a clear, clear winner for my starter is going to be Ashcroft charcuterie board, because I love charcuterie, the meats, all the cheeses, that situation, and you know what, because we are up there, I'm going to try the soup of the day, because it's going to be light, and then I have to go for the smoked trout dip as well, the chilled smoked trout dip, so three, three things.

Melanie Avalon

Although we don't know if the soup is light. It could be like potato soup.

Barry Conrad

You know what? You're right. We don't know. It could actually be quite heavy, so I'm going to go. I'm still going to try it. I'm going to go for the soup, go for the pinecreek chilled smoked trout dip, which is cold dip, quinoa flax seed crackers, crispy capers, preserved lemon. So good. The Ashcroft charcuterie board, which is daily cured local Colorado meats and a variety of daily local Colorado cheeses, seasonal food jam, pan smeared in almond flour, Farrah Poloff, prosciutto, wrapped asparagus. Oh, wow, this is amazing. So good.

Melanie Avalon

and sauce. What is that word? Minuet.

Barry Conrad

Minyori, do you like how I avoided that last part?

Melanie Avalon

I saw you. I was like, Oh, he didn't read the rest of it.

Barry Conrad

And, and what Barry and, and yeah, it's me.

Melanie Avalon

I see what you're doing there.

Barry Conrad

What would you get?

Melanie Avalon

I think I would just, the charcuterie board, I would want some of those local Colorado meats.

Barry Conrad

And Mel, you probably wouldn't ask, I guess because it's a chakuri word, you wouldn't say like leave anything off that because it's like you could just pick it in any way, right?

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, exactly. I'm trying to think. I'm trying to think realistically, like, would I clarify? I probably would. I probably, I would probably ask. I'd be like, just to clarify, there's no, like, sauces on the meats, right? Then I'll go from there.

Barry Conrad

Melon, did you remember when we did, this is a few episodes back now, but we did the- We role played it? Yes. We might bring that back again at some point, but that was really funny.

Melanie Avalon

I hope this is helpful for people to know if they wanna, basically this shows you can order, if you have no dietary restrictions, you can order like berry. And if you have dietary restrictions, you can learn how to order like me.

Barry Conrad

And this is actually why this segment, other than highlighting how important the feasting window is, which is so important for all the benefits that we need and what happens in our bodies also just to realize to see two examples of I'm Barry and or I'm Melanie in terms of like the way you eat like, you know, Melanie's way more specific and that's amazing. And then I am but more liberal and there's no wrong. It's just whatever works for your body, right, Mel?

Melanie Avalon

Exactly. And I really want to empower people that... Because I think especially if people are trying to follow a certain diet, they think that restaurants are... That they can't eat at restaurants or they're scared about restaurants. I want to empower people that you can find things that work for your restaurants and you can be nice and you can learn how to order to make it be what you want to put in your body. And there's no shame there, there's no guilt. Just be really nice, know what to ask. For me, it's really important to avoid seed oils like I was talking about. Was that in the... That was last episode I think or two episodes ago. Yeah. So it's all it's all very possible to order the way you like. So what would you get for your entree?

Barry Conrad

Ah, this is tough because I need to get this two that I really want.

Melanie Avalon

You can have two.

Barry Conrad

The Colorado lamb shank and the Rocky Mountain elk chop, they both look amazing, that has to happen. And the listeners, so it's grilled elk chop, stilton blue cheese, bread pudding, winter succotash, truffle steak butter, and that slow-raised lamb, rice, celery, root, pull onions, braised juice, huckleberry, mint jam. It sounds incredible, actually. What about you, Melanie?

Melanie Avalon

So what's crazy? Okay, a few things. One, I think we were talking a few episodes ago about elk. The first time I had elk was at this restaurant. Really? Yes. And I had that Rocky Mountain elk chop and it was just so amazing. Like it was so, so good.

Barry Conrad

Can you paint the picture? Is it like big, like what does it look like? How does it come presented? Like, is it a big chop? Is it a small chop?

Melanie Avalon

Well, okay, when I went, was it actually the elk? I got elk, but maybe it wasn't an elk chop because I don't remember it being, are chops always bone in or can you get no bone elk chops or like chops, like pork chop, is it always on the bone?

Barry Conrad

I feel like it's always on the bone, from what I'd, yeah, reckon.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, okay, no. So pork chops can be bone in or boneless. So it's just the area that it is. I don't remember the elk I had, I don't think it was on the bone. So I'm envisioning it was more like a steak. So I'm not sure if it was... That's the first thing I would clarify with them. Is it on the bone or not? Do you like things on the bone or not on the bone?

Barry Conrad

I am of the train of thought, like I don't have any shame eating in public, like eating off the bone and stuff, because I'm South African. So I don't mind if it's in the bone, but what I will say is it has to make sense. So if there's like hardly any meat on that bone, give me the filet. But if it's like a big portion, give me the bone. I love just the feeling of like, feels like primal, like eating off the bone. I love it.

Melanie Avalon

I feel like you get so much just extra flavor. So my favorite cut of steak is a bone in filet. I just, I love a bone in filet. Really? Yes. Well, because you get like, I love the filet because it's so tender, but it's also really lean. And we were talking a few episodes ago about the fat in meat versus not. And I prefer leaner meats. So I love that filets are leaner, but then you get that extra flavor that maybe you're losing some flavor by not having as much fat. You get it from, you get extra flavor from the bone. I just love bone in. I love bone in lean cuts.

Barry Conrad

So if you had a steak, do they call it a sirloin over there or do they call it a New York steak, because I know sometimes it's different.

Melanie Avalon

I think we talked about this, didn't we talk about that? Because here, sirloin is a different cut than fillet. But I think, I feel like we had a whole, am I making this up? I feel like we had a whole conversation where we realized that cuts are called different things for us, which was really confusing. Because it's already confusing. So to add that language barrier, which is not even, it's the same language, but it's different.

Barry Conrad

Do you pick it up and eat it like off the bone or do you cut like around it really cute and nice?

Melanie Avalon

I cut really cute and nice if I'm at a restaurant.

Barry Conrad

Why'd I ask that? I knew that.

Melanie Avalon

Okay. Well, here's the thing. Wait, actually, do you want the real answer? So always in a restaurant, I use a fork and knife. And at home I used to go like primal style, like teeth in no fork and knife. Then I got veneers and we cannot do that with veneers. So.

Barry Conrad

I appreciate the honesty. I love that. I'm all for it. You've told me this, right? Or you've, you know, told me.

Melanie Avalon

I know I've talked about it. I don't know if I've told you. Maybe. Do you have veneers? I don't. No. So fun fact. Veneers were a game changer for me because my diet, okay, well, multiple fun facts here. Highly pigmented foods tend to be really good for you because of the compounds in them. So think what's really highly pigmented that's not artificial. It's things like coffee, blueberries, wine. So all those colors are great for you because they usually indicate there's some sort of polyphenol content, antioxidants, nutrients, also very staining for your teeth. So I was eating a diet of basically like blueberries and wine and meat and yeah, my teeth were not having it. And then I discovered the world of veneers and my life changed. I was like, oh my gosh, I can eat all the things and they don't even change color.

Barry Conrad

So really, so actually, so for real, like, is that a thing where with veneers, you can actually drink more coffee and eat the colored foods and it won't stay in it? Is that a thing?

Melanie Avalon

veneers don't stain yeah so like whatever color you get like because you pick your shade done they don't stain i mean if they're like porcelain veneers i don't know if there are other like other forms that do stain but one of the most like life you know like you do some things in your life and you're like wow this is like life-changing that was life-changing for me

Barry Conrad

When did you get them and are we going off topic?

Melanie Avalon

I've had them a few years, but then I hit the moment where I was like, oh, because for a while I was getting like normal veneers, just like at my normal tooth shade, but they wouldn't stain. And then I realized, oh, I can get veneers that are like white, like Hollywood smile. And that was really exciting. And so I did that.

Barry Conrad

You do have a great smile, by the way.

Melanie Avalon

Thank you. It's not really mine. I mean, it is, but I actually, fun fact, because when I was getting them, they were like, you can give us like a, we can make whatever. So you can show us what you want. And I was like, oh. So I was like, I want Margot Robbie's teeth from Barbie. So like, I have Margot Robbie's teeth. They made my veneers to look like her mouth, like her teeth.

Barry Conrad

That's a good pick. I'm not mad at that.

Melanie Avalon

It's not funny though. It was like, yeah, it was really exciting. So that was, I think it was not this past like Christmas, Thanksgiving time, but the time before that. There you go. And the thing not to stay on this tangent. I promise we're going to come back to the restaurant.

Barry Conrad

The listeners love it. They love it.

Melanie Avalon

The thing that makes me feel better about it, because like I feel bad about it. Like I feel like, oh, I should just have like perfect teeth and everything. But if we look at paleolithic men, like men, they, and women, they struggled in the tooth department. Like cavities, their teeth were falling out. The reason we have, do you know the Mary Conrad? Do you know why we have wisdom teeth? Tell me. We have wisdom teeth because they were extra teeth because it was just like assumed from evolution that you were gonna lose your teeth. So we developed extra teeth to fill in like when we lost our teeth. Isn't that crazy?

Barry Conrad

Okay. I didn't know that. And also on a wisdom- Isn't that mind-blowing? It is. And also on wisdom teeth. I need to get mine out, by the way. Do you have yours out or are they in?

Melanie Avalon

And I to this day have TMJ issues from when I got them out. So yeah proceed with caution

Barry Conrad

No, I need not because they flare up every like out of the blue and they so painful. So I need to just get rid of them.

Melanie Avalon

That's weird. So is that not a normal because like here in the US it's like very normal. You just like take kids with some teeth out like kids here like people here don't help with some teeth because it's just normal that you it's like protocol like is that not protocol there.

Barry Conrad

Yeah. Thanks for Australia. Shaming me again. No, it's, no, it's, it's, I don't think it's protocol here. It's not a thing. It's like you get it out if it's an issue. So I need to get them out, but I'm also trying to find like a window where I can kind of be like out of office kind of thing for like, how long did you take to recover? Oh, well, you wouldn't remember cause you're a baby.

Melanie Avalon

I remember how old I was because my, it was 2012, I came back for, I was at home, my sister was graduating, I got my wisdom teeth out. The next day I looked like a chipmunk. My face, it was like horrible and my parents, to this day, I think I made the wrong decision there, which was my parents made me go to my sister's graduation and it's like at our school so it's like seeing everybody that you know, you know, type thing and I looked like a chipmunk. I was so embarrassed. I was wearing like sunglasses inside. My parents made me go to this day. I'm all about supporting people. I don't think I should have had to go to that graduation because I, it was such a miserable experience like being there. I was like, nobody look at me. But to recover, they did not, they like didn't give me the proper recovery protocol and it was like rough. It was not good. So make sure that you get the right protocol and, but you know what, here's something. I think it would be, I think I would recover better now with all my health stuff that I do because that was before I had had all my like health, like my, cleaned up my diet, doing intermittent fasting, all my biohacking, anti-inflammatory stuff. I think I would recover a lot better now, kind of, yeah, that's what I think.

Barry Conrad

Well there you go how long how long do i need to leave like a week is that a safe amount of time a week.

Melanie Avalon

I literally do not remember how long it was, but if I were to guess, yeah, probably. But the thing is, you also, I feel like your health is really amazing. You do all the things, kind of like when you broke your ankle, right? My ankle. Yeah, and didn't you heal like super fast?

Barry Conrad

I healed faster than normal, yeah.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, so I think if you did it now, you have all that going for you and you could do all the stuff to support it. Like I think the fasting would support it. I think red light therapy, like I feel like Barry Conrad would be pretty good with the

Barry Conrad

watch the space like in the next few episodes I'll report back I would have got them out because I have to do it anyway back to the back to the menu sorry if that was gross for you guys but

Melanie Avalon

I think it's really interesting. Yeah, do you have all four teeth?

Barry Conrad

I do.

Melanie Avalon

and you get pain from it.

Barry Conrad

When I do it's really noticeable and also it's just not great like why would you have it there when bacteria could like this is not this is so gross but like you know it's it's better to have them out so I just need to get them out.

Melanie Avalon

And also see if you can find like a holistic dentist if that's an option.

Barry Conrad

Well, I apparently may need to go under because one of them's, like, more impacted.

Melanie Avalon

That was my next question. I was like, are they impacted?

Barry Conrad

Yeah. So I can't, yeah. It's going to be like under, I think, because it's just, it's kind of right in there.

Melanie Avalon

Keep us updated!

Barry Conrad

It'll be a bit like, hey, I will do a lucky episode when I have a chipmunk face.

Melanie Avalon

I have a request. If you get this done, can we like talk when you are loopy on the, like when you come out?

Barry Conrad

Yeah, deal.

Melanie Avalon

And can we record? Yeah, can we record it?

Barry Conrad

Yeah, that's okay. I'll figure it out. What I'll have to do is probably set up the podcast equipment so I can just stumble inside and just press record because I won't know how to connect anything.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, perfect. Okay, back to Pine Creek cook house. So I would also get the same thing that you picked. I would get the elk and the lamb, I think. Although I also really like the idea of the salmon. So I think I'm going to get the salmon for dessert. So the salmon is pan seared, schoona, bay salmon, gluten-free. Oh, so here's something. The menu says what's gluten-free in parentheses. And I want to empower people that even if the menu says that, so you think, oh, only a certain few things are gluten-free, you can make most things gluten-free by modifications if you talk with the waitstaff. So some empowerment there. But yes, I would get the elk top that you got. I would get it rare. How did you want yours cooked?

Barry Conrad

You know what? Because I've, to be honest, like I obviously know what Alk is, but I haven't had it in so long. So I'm going to go rare. Let's do it.

Melanie Avalon

And then how about the lamb?

Barry Conrad

Medium rare, but Melanie I was gonna actually say why don't why don't we just share one of them and you can that way you can like by the way so if I'm getting the elk chop in lamb shank and you want to get the elk chop and so we can kind of share the salmon and lamb.

Melanie Avalon

And I'm getting the salmon for dessert. Okay, all right. And the salmon comes with wilted spinach, blistered tomatoes, fried capers, lemon butter sauce. So I will get it all on the side. Delicious. What are you gonna get for dessert?

Barry Conrad

I have two choices and I bet you can probably guess them.

Melanie Avalon

I think you want the... Actually, I don't know. Do you want the bourbon pecan pie?

Barry Conrad

Yes, tick, what's the other choice?

Melanie Avalon

Okay. Pressure's on. Well, I know you like vanilla ice cream, but that you probably don't want to waste. You probably don't want it like that. Okay. I'm going to say the pecan pie and the apple crisp.

Barry Conrad

Melanie, my favorite thing ever is chocolate.

Melanie Avalon

Really? And I said vanilla too. Oh, such a fail. I thought you liked vanilla.

Barry Conrad

I feel, okay, I love vanilla ice cream with, remember we did the, what is it? Remember we did this thing where it's chocolate on chocolate, vanilla and vanilla? Remember that thing?

Melanie Avalon

Yes, yes.

Barry Conrad

Bourbon peak, pecan pie.

Melanie Avalon

I will never make this mistake again. Okay. You want the, you want the warm chocolate brownie and the bourbon pecan pie. Yeah. Shall I tell you the funny story though about the dessert when we went there? Tell me. So I think last time I went there, it was around the time I had started my low carb diet, but not, not like paleo or everything I do today, just low carb. And so when I was in that phase, I would always get cheese as dessert, like cheese desserts. And to this day, I will not forget this because we went there and people were ordering desserts. And I was like, can I get cheese for dessert? And they said no. And it was really upsetting to me because I know they had cheese on the menu. I was like, I know you have cheese in the kitchen because there's cheese on other things. So why can I not get like cheese as a dessert? And to this day, it's like, it's like a joke in our family that I was so upset that they would not bring me cheese for dessert.

Barry Conrad

I could just see you sitting there, like really upset, folding your arms, like.

Melanie Avalon

No, but actually, I think that now like that actually doesn't make sense because it's not cheap, like it's an expensive nice place and they have cheese in the kitchen. So I think they should have brought me cheese for dessert. Just saying.

Barry Conrad

I think they should have as well. Like, seriously, Pine Creek Cookhouse, where you at? Like, this is not this. I think it might have been a server that, you know, I feel like it was the manager, they probably would have like been fine. But I think it's just a service like, no, we don't do that. That's not on the menu.

Melanie Avalon

They probably didn't want to deal, which I completely understand and respect, because I was there. But it doesn't matter, because if we ever go now, I don't eat cheese, so now, so it's fine. I'll just get the salmon. All good. Yep. But I do. I do. I highly recommend this restaurant. It's one of my favorites. In the world, I must go back. Well, anything else or shall we wrap this up?

Barry Conrad

Let's wrap it on up.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, listeners, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you would like to submit your own questions, you can directly email questions at ifodcast.com, or you can go to ifpodcast.com and you can submit questions there. The show notes for today's episode will be at ifodcast.com slash episode 416. That will have a full transcript as well as links to everything that we talked about, so definitely check that out. And yeah, I think that's all the things. Anything from you, before we go.

Barry Conrad

Thank you so much for tuning in, happy fasting and feasting and we'll see you next time.

Melanie Avalon

Likewise, I will 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!

Mar 29

Episode 415 – Special Guest Matthew Lederman, Finding The Diet That Works For You, Low Protein Benefits, Whole Foods (The Store And Food!), Reducing Added Oils, Toxins In Animal Products, Plant Based Diets, Finding Calm, Stopping Stress With webe kälm, Parenting Paradigms Shift, And More!

webeKalm.com | webeParents.com | connectiondocs.substack.com

Welcome to Episode 415 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.

SPECIAL GUEST BIO

Matthew Lederman, MD, is a board-certified Internal Medicine Physician and a pioneering thought leader in holistic health. Renowned for his innovative integration of plant-based nutrition, Nonviolent Communication (NVC), trauma-informed care, and lifestyle medicine, Dr. Lederman's work highlights the profound interconnectedness of physical, emotional, and relational well-being.
Dr. Lederman is the co-host of the webe Parents podcast, a platform dedicated to equipping parents with tools and insights to foster emotional connection, resilience, and well-being in their families. His latest book, Wellness to Wonderful, weaves together medical science, psychology, spirituality, and life wisdom to guide individuals toward lasting health, vibrancy, peace, and joy.
He has co-authored six books, including the New York Times Bestseller Forks Over Knives Plan, and was featured in the acclaimed documentary Forks Over Knives. Through these works, he has shared his transformative approach to wellness with audiences around the globe.

In addition to his roles as a clinician, educator, speaker, and corporate advisor, Dr. Lederman has served as Vice President of Medical Affairs at Whole Foods Market, lectured for eCornell, and provided adjunct faculty instruction in medical schools. He also co-created the webe kälm device, designed to promote emotional regulation and soothe the nervous system.

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Books:

The Forks Over Knives Plan: How to Transition to the Life-Saving, Whole-Food, Plant-Based Diet

WELLNESS TO WONDERFUL: 9 Pillars for Living Healthier, Longer, and with Greater Joy

The Whole Foods Diet: The Lifesaving Plan for Health and Longevity

Plus, my listeners can get 25% off webe kälm at ifpodcast.com/webe!

SHOW NOTES

SPONSORS & DISCOUNTS

WEBE KÄLM

Get 25% off webe kälm at ifpodcast.com/webe.

MD LOGIC

Get 10% off MD Logic's Health Marine Collagen with code ifpodcast at ifpodcast.com/collagen.

PELUVA BAREFOOT SHOES: Peluva's barefoot shoes are a zero drop minimalist shoe with a distinctive 5 toe design, to create the most authentic barefoot style experience. Get 15% off with code ifpodcast at peluva.com.

TIMELINE: Get 10% off your order of Mitopure with code ifpodcast at timeline.com/ifpodcast.

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.)

Melanie Avalon

Welcome to Episode 415 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. If you want to burn fat, gain energy, and enhance your health by changing when you eat, not what you eat, with no calorie counting, then this show is for you. I'm Melanie Avalon, biohacker, founder of AvalonX, and author of What, When, Wine. Lose weight and feel great with paleo-style meals, intermittent fasting, and wine. And I'm joined by my co-host, Barry Conrad, actor, singer-songwriter, and creator and host of Banter with B.C. For more on us, check out MelanieAvalon.com and BarryConradOfficial.com. You can submit questions for the show by emailing questions at iapodcast.com or by going to iapodcast.com. We would love to hear from you. Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this show do not constitute medical advice or treatment. So pour yourself a mug of black coffee, a cup of tea, or even a glass of wine if it's that time, and get ready for the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Hi, friends. Welcome back to the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. This is Episode 415, and I am here today with a very, very special guest. I am so excited about today's episode. So the backstory on today's show, I met Dr. Matthew Letterman, I don't even know now, probably a few years ago, I think, because I've had him on the Melanie Adlon biohacking podcast twice. The backstory is I received information about his work, and I was an immediate yes, because I was so familiar with his background and what he does. So he has co-authored six books, including The New York Times bestseller Forks Over Knives Plan, and he was also in the acclaimed documentary Forks Over Knives. He also authored the book The Whole Foods Diet, and he did that with John Mackey, who's the co-founder and former CEO of Whole Foods. And I'd read that book before I explored Forks Over Knives, so I was super familiar. And when his people reached out to me, it was for his new book at the time, which was called Wellness to Wonderful, Nine Pillars for Living Healthier, Longer, and with Greater Joy. So I had him on the show. We talked about that book. That book was incredible. It was such a holistic approach to health. It went into all the things to work on, you know, when it comes to health. So diet and nutrition and sleep, which Matt and I were just talking about before this, as well as a lot of mindset and social things. And I, because when I started reading that book, Wellness to Wonderful, I wasn't anticipating just how much of it was going to be the mental, emotional, social side of things. So I was really interested in that. So that was a great interview. I will put a link to it in the show notes. And also during all of that, I learned about Matt's incredible products called WeBeCalm, which we will definitely talk about today. It's a really cool device that helps you gamify breathing exercises for kids and adults. I actually gave one to my mom for Christmas. And it's a way to just instantly bring some calm into your life. So that's really amazing.

Melanie Avalon

So I had him back on the show for both that, as well as his podcast, the WeBe Parents podcast, which he co-hosts with his wife, Alana, they actually both wrote the Wellness to Wonderful as well. That was a lot. Matt, by the way, he's also a board certified internal medicine physician, a specialist in something called Nonviolent Communication, which I bet we will talk about in today's show. And he's just super savvy, super knowledgeable and so many of these tools and techniques that can really boost people's health. So I knew we had to have him on this show. So Dr. Letterman, Matt, thank you so much for being here.

Matthew Lederman

Wow, what an introduction. I hope I can live up to all that. That was amazing.

Melanie Avalon

No, no, you definitely, definitely will. I've just so enjoyed having you on the shows and really, really appreciate your work. I was thinking about this before we started. I don't think we actually talked and we might have, but in any of my prior interviews with you, I'm really curious, you worked for, what was your position with Whole Foods for like a long time? What was your position there?

Matthew Lederman

Yeah, I was the vice president of medical affairs there.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, that's okay. So that's like a very impressive title. I wasn't even aware that that was a role at Whole Foods. Like what did you do in that role? That's so cool.

Matthew Lederman

Me and Alona, who's my partner at work and in life, worked for them for 10 years. We helped them open medical centers that treated employees with this comprehensive paradigm. There was doctors and more time with patients. There was a more holistic team with health coaches. There was acupuncture, mental health support. And then we partnered, I mean, as nurse practitioners to different level providers. And then we partnered with like-minded healthcare systems that were focusing on optimizing health and wellbeing and minimizing overtreatment and all of the harmful, unnecessary care that happens in a lot of the conventional healthcare systems. And then we would get specialists that also were focused on dealing with the overtreatment problem. A lot of people think the key to getting good specialists is someone that knows about the obscure diagnosis, but more often than not, the bigger problem is finding specialists that don't overtreat, which can only hurt people and doesn't help them. So it was trying to put together a network. We helped them create an insurance plan that incentivized this type of care and put all that together with them.

Melanie Avalon

Wow. Okay. That is so cool. By the over-trading, do you mean specialists where it's like if you have a hammer, everything's a nail, like they see the thing everywhere or actually over-trading once they diagnose it?

Matthew Lederman

Yeah, so there's a lot of things that like blood pressure, it's used blood pressure for an example, they'll give you way too much medication to try and get your number significantly low and make your number look normal. But data shows that if you try to give someone a normal looking blood pressure number with medication, you actually can increase strokes, heart attacks and death. So if your blood pressure is really high, medication is great to get it down as far as decreasing strokes. If it's getting a little bit lower, but getting it to look normal would be considered over treatment because the data shows that it can't help you, it only hurts you. But everybody thinks a normal number means normal health. And if you're getting normal numbers with medication and not die in lifestyle, then that's actually harmful. So that would be an example. There's a screening for cancer, a lot of screenings, there's harms that are not explained. So we inflate the benefit of screening and we under represent the harms from screening so that people can't make an informed decision. So there's two back surgeries, another one way too much happening, using back surgery to treat pain doesn't work. And yet, millions and millions of dollars are spent on doing that to patients who just feel terrible and it doesn't help them.

Melanie Avalon

Wow, statins, would that be one maybe?

Matthew Lederman

Statins for secondary prevention, like if you've had heart attacks or strokes, the data's pretty good. But a lot of people take statins and think, oh, my cholesterol number's down, I'm good, I can eat whatever I want because I'm on the statin. And it doesn't work that way. So just because you have a normal cholesterol number with a statin doesn't mean you have the health of someone who has a normal number because of diet and lifestyle. So they do benefit people, particularly if they've had a heart attack or stroke or something like that before. But it's definitely not, to me it's something you do as an adjunct, not the primary focus of the treatment.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, that actually happened to my friend yesterday. He had a heart attack and he didn't see it coming at all and he had completely normal cholesterol levels.

Matthew Lederman

And that's the thing we'll tell people, we'll say, we don't know what normal is for you. I know what your normal is when I put you on a whole food plant-based diet and some exercise, and after six to 12 weeks, I see what your cholesterol does. Because I've had people who have a cholesterol of 200, and they go down to 180 on these diet and lifestyles, and that's a normal cholesterol for them. I've had people that are 140 total cholesterol, and they get down to 190. So 140, even though for most people they'd say, that's great for this person on the American diet with a 140, they actually needed to be down at 90. So it's an indicator, it's not a definition of health, it's an indicator of how your health is doing. Given the other circumstances though, you need to take those into account.

Melanie Avalon

to clarify that was for the employees at Whole Foods that could engage with it.

Matthew Lederman

Yes, that was for the employees, correct?

Melanie Avalon

That's so cool. Did that continue on after you left?

Matthew Lederman

It was great. It showed a 20% reduction in health care cost, health care spend. And then it was Whole Foods was bought by Amazon and it's just a big, big company. And they were looking into, they were started expanding it. When we left, it was sort of, we showed that the pilots worked and they wanted to expand it. But I was, me and Alona were not as excited about just reproduction. We wanted to be more in the creative side of things and adding to it. And we also wanted to expand into what we call connection medicine. And basically once Amazon came and some other things started changing, we decided to go out and do what we wanted to do, but do it on our own so we didn't have to work within the confines of a big corporation and legal systems and things like that. So now I think Amazon, it's so big, they wanted something that they could create and spread very quickly. And this was more grassroots. So I don't know if they continued it in any capacity, but we left five years ago. So I'm not sure what's happened since then.

Melanie Avalon

Gotcha. Yeah, I'm I'm super curious because I've been a whole foods girl for quite a while and it's been interesting to see especially with the Amazon merger and the change and everything. It's been interesting to see it. It's definitely I appreciate now that I can use all my Amazon benefits and it's actually helped. It seems some prices and things like that. I always wonder what's happening behind the scenes though with everything. So very interesting. Okay, so you hinted at it a lot, which is that there's so much to health beyond just like diet and beyond just, you know, what you see in your blood work and things like that. Before we get more into that, I am super curious. This is the intermittent fasting podcast. What are your thoughts? Because you're you come from a whole food plant based diet approach to to health and wellness. What are your thoughts on intermittent fasting for health?

Matthew Lederman

I think the most important thing is that you eat whole plant foods and you minimize or eliminate the processed foods and that includes extracted added oils, extracted added sweeteners, added sodium as much as possible. And the same thing with animal products. You don't have to be, for a majority of chronic illnesses, you don't have to be vegan, but we eat way too many animal products. And there's a lot of reasons that eating no animal products can be a good thing, but regardless of what you decide to do on that end of your own, people have to eat significantly less animal products. I don't know what your thoughts are, Melanie, on animal products or what your audience, do you have a sense of what your audience's view is on animal products?

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, I was just thinking how I'm excited to be having this conversation because I feel like we heavily, the majority of the guests that come on are often in like the paleo or you know, keto type world. And then my former co-host and my current co-host, we're all very big supporters. So I like to say that I am dietary agnostic. I'm dietary agnostic in that I think people can follow diets that work for them. So some people do do well on vegan. I think a lot of people struggle to get enough protein or certain forms of nutrients that might be higher in animal-based foods. Some people do really well on a more animal-based diet. Some people do well on, you know, a very omnivore type approach. So I think it's about finding the diet that works for you. But then I think when you step back from that, there are some key tenets that apply. So and you probably just said all of them, like whole foods, so, you know, cutting out these processed foods, avoiding these additives, this added, you know, sugar and flavors and added sodium and just all these different additives and preservatives, just not good. And then the third thing is I do think it's really important to focus on protein. So that's why I'm really excited to hear your thoughts on protein because I think people get very confused, especially on this show because we talk all the time about the importance of protein. How do you feel about protein intake?

Matthew Lederman

My view on protein is probably going to upset most of your viewers. So I'm trying to make sure that I say clearly up front is that, you know, what feels best for your body. And when I work with clients, ultimately, that's what I want to do is help them check into their bodies and see what feels good. And then I also want them to isolate the variables. So sometimes they make a conclusion because they have compounding variables or there's confusion. For example, some people who start on a plant-based diet, the calorie density is significantly lower. So they can go from 2000 calories per pound to 500 calories per pound, which is a quarter of the calories per pound of food. And if you try to eat the same portion sizes over a period of days, you'll start to have calorie deficiency and you'll feel lower energy and fatigue and cravings. And then they'll go out and they'll say, it must be the protein. I need animal protein. And then they'll go out and eat a big burger, which is like a calorie bolus. And then they feel better. And they say, see, it was the animal products. And what I have to explain to them is you can eat animal products if you want, but what helped you there was the calorie bolus. And we need to adjust your diet to deal with the calorie deficiency. It's not an animal protein deficiency. And then they can still choose to eat animal products, but I want them to do it for the reasons, for the right reasons, if you will, but that makes sense. So I want to make sure people have information. They take that information can make an informed decision about what works best for them. So with that caveat, I tell people that protein should be the last thing you were, it's the first thing everybody's worried about. For me, it's the last thing. In fact, I'm working on ways to get less protein because I eat a whole food plant-based diet. I'm getting excessive amounts of protein. And when we're talking about protein, what we really care about is the essential amino acids. And I'm, I'm blowing away if because of my diet is full of whole foods, there's no added oils and sugars, which are, those are actually devoid of protein oils and sugars give you calories without any protein. So if your diet has a lot of oil and sugar, you can start to get, it's still probably hard, but you can still, you're definitely getting a significant portion of calories without any protein. I don't have that problem because all my calories come with essential amino acids because I'm getting them from whole plant foods. So the problem with too much protein is that you don't store it. It doesn't, it doesn't magically, you know, get stored in the body. It doesn't, you know, you can't eat protein and all of a sudden gets pushed into your biceps. It's floating around and your body eliminates it. So you'll, and that puts stress on the bones and the kidneys and the liver. And the more protein you have that you don't need, the more your body has to work to eliminate it.

Matthew Lederman

And then I have a whole slideshow that I take people through to show them how they determined what is the minimum safe requirements. And then what they do is they put a buffer in there. So the minimum like different organizations that have recommendations for protein for populations, they put a safety buffer in there because each person's a little bit different, but they put something in the, you know, so they'll double the amount that made that the person who had the biggest protein requirement of the group in a test study, they would double that amount. So that's more than double what most people need. So if you're getting what's quote unquote, the minimum requirement, you're still getting a safety buffer of twice as much as you need. So knowing that even if you're getting the, you're just meeting the minimum requirements, you're going to do fine. The recommendation for populations with these minimum requirements is basically saying, if we make this requirement to a population, almost all of them not going to get into any trouble if they follow that. And that's the answer. Yes, they're all going to do fine. So knowing that if I'm working out more, I'm going to eat more calories because I'm going to be hungrier and because I'm burning more calories. And when I eat more calories, guess what? If they're whole plant foods and not oil or sugar, I'm getting more protein. So if I work harder and expend more energy, I'm going to eat more calories and I'm going to get more protein.

Melanie Avalon

I so appreciate this conversation and I think it's really helpful because what's really important to me in life is to interview and talk to people of all different perspectives because if not, I think we get really siloed and it can be hard to know if we're being biased or cherry picking or whatever it may be. So I really appreciate having this conversation. So the first point you made, I want to communicate that I understand it and I see it go the other way as well. So you made the example of how people, you know, might be needing calories so they eat a burger and then they think that they think it was like the protein that made them feel better but really they just needed the calories. I feel like that happens and then I feel like it also happens on the flip side where people might cut out, maybe they go completely plant-based or vegan and they cut out everything and they feel massively better and so then they think that going that restrictive on plant-based only was what it was but maybe it was cutting out all these other things and then in the future they might need to bring back selectively some animal-based products if they need certain nutrients that they're not able to get enough of. So I feel like it can happen both ways.

Matthew Lederman

What are those nutrients that people are worried about, would you say? Because I think they can, I think people can add some animal products back and still be healthy. But what other than B12, what nutrient would you say that people can only get if they eat animal products?

Melanie Avalon

Well, so the only one that they can quote, I guess only only get would be, like you said, be 12, but then people can have like spirulina.

Matthew Lederman

But just to clarify, B12 comes from bacteria. And the animals get the bacteria and make the B12. And then they accumulate the B12. So animal products are basically like a supplement. It's not like the animals make the B12 either. So to me, I just wanted to add this in about the B12, that it's made by bacteria. And then we can either get that from a supplement that stores this B12, or we could get it from an animal product that stores B12. Or we could, I guess, potentially stop eating really, really clean food and maybe get some B12 that way. Just to clarify, because when I said B12, I just wanted to make it clear that for anyone listening that I'm not saying that they can only get that from animal products or that animal products are producing it.

Melanie Avalon

Right and kind of kind of the same way like meat from animals they ate grass and turn it into meat so similar concept actually.

Matthew Lederman

Right. I just want to make sure vegans don't hear this and say, oh, I could eat lettuce and I'll get my B12. If you're vegan, they're going to get into trouble without a B12 supplement. So just to be careful that, yes, if you're eating animal products, sometimes they even need to supplement B12. Even eating animal products isn't enough for some people. But yeah, you definitely need to supplement B12. You can't get that. Even if you don't wash your lettuce, it's not enough.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, I'll do a shout out for my spirulina because it's super high in B12 and it is vegan. So there is a solution for people.

Matthew Lederman

Who don't want to eat animals or take pills, yeah.

Melanie Avalon

The other nutrients I'd be thinking, I think there's quite a few nutrients that are just easier for people to get and assimilate in the plant-based form. So EPA, DHA, so with their omega-3s, getting them in the plant that like from fish compared to converting it from ALA and plants, some people genetically might not have the best conversion there. And then with a lot of fat, soluble vitamins are easier to get in from animal products. Creatine from animal products and protein, I think if you are going and getting just direct animal meat, like lean protein, you're getting those amino acids in a form that I think will be a lot better for stimulating. I know it's ironic because we're talking about anti-aging and reducing protein for reducing IGF-1 and reducing mTOR and increasing AMPK for longevity. But when you're intentionally in the growth state and wanting to support muscle mass and support building your body, I think a lot of people can assimilate and get that better from animal-based protein, easier for them. And a lot of it depends on your gut microbiome, like how good they are at what they do with plants or not.

Matthew Lederman

Yeah, I mean, people can stay if your goal is to stimulate growth, it's a different goal than if your goal is health. And I think at that point, like you're saying, maybe you want to do if you manipulate the diet, when taking isolated protein powder is going to stimulate IGF one insulin like growth factor, which is going to stimulate growth, you know, getting hormones that are in your animal animal products is going to stimulate growth. So there's different ways we can stimulate growth. But I'm helping people, if you're trying to avoid cancer, stimulation of growth is something you want to avoid as well. So it's just a matter of balancing like, hey, what's your priority, and then helping people meet their needs around that party, because I don't want to come across like, I'm saying this is the right way to do it, and everything else is wrong, it's really important to check in with people, what they want, and what works for them. I just, I just also want to make sure I get people, even if it's another view, like there's some people say, oh, I'm getting older, I can't absorb animal products as well if they're from plants, or I can't absorb protein as well if it's from plants versus animals. That is not my experience. That's not what I see in the data. I know people will talk about creatine, even though that's naturally synthesized in the body from amino acids, arginine, glycine, and methionine, primarily in the liver, kidneys, pancreas. So it's not an essential nutrient. Now, if people for somehow take creatine and they say, wow, my life is amazing, and it's so much better. Like, that's great. I just want to make sure that people who feel great already don't say, oh my God, I need to eat animals, I need to eat creatine, and I need to get more protein, or I'm going to be hurting myself. I think that's what I worry about are the people that are feeling great that are then second guessing themselves. But if on the flip side, you're having a problem, or you somehow you do something and you feel better and it still feels safe enough, you knock yourself out. My worry with animal products is, hey, now it's cholesterol, no fiber, environmental contaminants that are in there that bioaccumulate as they eat up the food chain, and then just the effect of some of the animal products and the more acidic amino acids that tend to be from them with the sulfur-containing amino acids. So I tell people, if you feel better doing this, that's ultimately what you should trust your body. But if you're feeling great and you hear something and it makes you second-guess yourself, then I have a higher bar before I would switch anything.

Melanie Avalon

I so appreciate your communicating everything really clearly. I so appreciate your perspective. I love that you have this perspective, and I think it's really valuable that people hear all different sides of the coin. I really like the central tenet of listening to your body and finding what works for you and being smart about it and seeing what nutrients do you actually need. And we can go more into listening into your body. That's a good segue. But before that, I just have a few other thoughts. I am literally haunted by this protein aging question. Anytime I bring on anybody who remotely might have an idea about it, I ask them. So I've had a lot of people, I don't want to make it like camps, but I've had people with similar viewpoints to you that I've interviewed, so like Dr. Michael Gregor, Neil Bernard, and Walter Longo. And I'm always asking them this question about the trade-off with a high-protein diet and IGF-1, mTOR, aging, and then also this question which you referenced. And I'm curious. It does seem to be pretty accepted that after the age of 60, that people do need to increase their protein intake. But you're saying you've seen some people that don't need to increase as they get older?

Matthew Lederman

Do you see a question you're saying it to people over the age of 60?

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, I think that's the cutoff that they give usually for when people need to increase their protein intake.

Matthew Lederman

Yeah, I don't I don't see that if if somebody I if people are meeting their caloric needs With whole plant foods meaning they're not getting a lot of processed foods I don't I don't know of a Disease some people will say oh their muscles are wasting and they're they start losing muscle mass They lose muscle mass because they're not active because they're not well There's there's some changes that happen just as you age But as far as a majority of the the the damage it will be When they are not as active they're not doing the resistance. They're not doing flexibility training all of which Are required if you don't use it you lose it, but it's not because they're not eating animal products It's now maybe there's this one, you know, i'm not going to say never But I don't think the majority of people as they get older 60 All of a sudden need to either eat animal products or somehow start supplementing protein powders or they need to Push the caloric intake beyond what they feel satisfied with because that's essentially what I would imagine what happened If you're saying that they're not you or experts are saying That when you hit 60 you need more protein Then to me what they're basically saying is don't listen to your hunger signals Even though you're you're good at you need more than that And or you need to start taking some A non-whole food some type of isolated protein powder Or you need to change the concentration of the protein. So instead of eating, you know You gotta gotta pack in all of these beans, let's say and I don't think any of those Are needed or make people healthier, but I do believe there's problems with people as they get older with not being active Not doing the flexibility training not or not doing it correctly or both And have not getting in the sun or getting the vitamin d so there's there's other issues But I would I would put my focus a little bit differently

Melanie Avalon

I agree completely that it could be causation correlation with people getting older and not getting the stimulus they need to, you know, maintain, definitely not grow, but at least maintain that muscle. The other thought would be, I can also see the issues that you mentioned with animal products like contaminants and things like that. I feel like that goes across the board though, like you could have, you know, pesticides and issues and plant-based foods. And then on the flip side, you could choose. So I pretty much just eat, you know, responsibly raised, toxin free for fish. I only eat low mercury fish because I'm very much concerned about heavy metals. So I think that can be navigated and then the cholesterol thing, I feel like that is more

Matthew Lederman

Could I speak to the environmental contaminant thing? Yeah. So the problem with anopox is that there's bioaccumulation. So things like dioxins and PBDEs, and also they accumulate and break down just based on their half-lives. So you can't eliminate them. They can be passed to the baby through the placenta and the milk, but essentially, you have to just wait for it to break down. When an animal, so let's say there's a grain that has so many parts per million of an environmental contaminant, and you eat that grain directly, versus if you eat an animal that had to eat 10 times or 20 times the amount of grain to get to be the big animal, you're basically eating 20 times in a serving of animal products. You're eating 20 times the amount of that environmental contaminant than you would if you just ate the grain directly. So again, I'm not saying people have to eat grains, but if they look up how biomagnification works, that's the problem with animal products. And eating even organic animal products, it's getting passed down from the mom to the kid. And it's just something that it's hard to avoid. And I wish there was a way where that wasn't an issue, but I have not seen any example where you don't have to worry about environmental contaminant, the biomagnification issue.

Melanie Avalon

So there are like measurable levels of these if you find the best of the best sources with organic pasture raised animal products.

Matthew Lederman

Yeah, that doesn't it doesn't matter. And you can look I mean, we'll have to talk offline afterwards. I can show you there's even graphs where they look at this and they know. I mean, milk was one of the biggest as far as dioxin contamination, like it's just because it gets passed down for the mom into the milk. So keep every time it's getting more and more concentrated. So it's just it's just hard to avoid. And that's why you want to eat as low on the food chain as possible, or at least have as much calories as you can tolerate as low on the food chain. Like I said, I'm not against people eating animal products. I just want them to know about all this so they can decide, hey, which one is it worth it? And when is it not?

Melanie Avalon

I'm very concerned with the environmental toxins and especially in the seafood. So hard to get clean, yeah. I had mercury toxicity in the past and that was just from fish and after that I became so aware of it and I think people don't realize, they don't realize that if you have a piece of fish high up on the food chain on your plate, you can't see these toxins. So you can't see just how much can be in there and you don't realize that, oh, if I have a piece of swordfish that could have hundreds of the amount of mercury of like a piece of tilapia that's way lower on the food chain. Like if you look at the charts, it actually can be that much of a difference and that's just mercury. So yeah, it's upsetting.

Matthew Lederman

Yeah, it's really tough, and it just makes the higher up on the food chain these toxins multiply. So the same way smaller fish to bigger fish is the same thing when you're eating a plant to an animal that's eating the plants. So the higher up you eat, it's a cow eats thousands of pounds of contaminated grain and grass over its lifetime, concentrating the pesticides and heavy metals in its meat and its milk. Just like you said, tuna, it eats hundreds of smaller fish that are all filled with mercury, making its flesh one of the most contaminated foods. So you can either choose to eat the small fish, which are going to have less, which unfortunately our oceans are so polluted, even the small fish have it, but at least it's not being concentrated when you eat the fish higher up. So basically plants don't store up the toxins in the same way. So eating the lower on the food chain, the fruit, vegetables, grains, legumes means fewer contaminants. And it's all because there being the pollution from the environment getting into all this stuff. So it's not the animals or the plant's fault. It's just what we have to deal with now.

Melanie Avalon

Could this be mitigated in part, since toxins are preferentially stored in fat, what if people ate very, very lean, you know, organically raised, free-range meat, like very lean, like bison and chicken breast? That might, I feel like that would eliminate a lot of the exposure to the toxins.

Matthew Lederman

Yes, even if someone eats lean, organic, free-range meat, they still accumulate more toxins than someone eating plant-based. It's organic, free-range animal, still eat plants, grains, or smaller animals that have been exposed to the environmental toxins. So that's the challenge, is if whatever they're eating has toxin, then they're going to accumulate it. And since they don't break down very easily, they build up in the animal's body over time, even if the feed is organic. So even lean meat still contains the toxins, but many toxins like dioxins and PCBs store in fat, but they also bind to muscle tissue. So even lean meat is not free from contamination. Mercury in fish is found directly in the muscle tissue, meaning that choosing lean fish doesn't reduce exposure. Poultry containing arsenic used historically in chicken feed, organic standards don't fully protect against environmental contamination. So you just can't get away from it if you're eating things that eat other things. You're just, you're going to be exposed to it, but you can at least minimize by not eating things that eat other things that eat other things. So the little fish still eat the algae that's contaminated. So the little fish are still accumulating, but then the big fish that eat the little fish are accumulating even more, because they already have a level of concentration just from the smaller fish when they eat the algae. So does that make sense? Like the free range organic meat is better. At least it'll have fewer antibiotics and pesticide residues than factory farm meat, but it still concentrates environmental toxins and it doesn't protect against bio magnification, which is just a natural process that happens in the food chain.

Melanie Avalon

It does. I would like to look into this more and look at samplings. I'm curious what this practically looks like, because I understand what you're saying, that it's still in there if we choose the best of the best. I would like to just actually see the numbers of what that practically looks like, just because I don't have that much.

Matthew Lederman

That's a good exercise because then you can make an informed decision about how much you want to eat I mean, we're all getting chemicals. We're all getting stuff from our mind. That's why we want to optimize our immune system It's it's gonna be taking hits every every day from all different, you know from the air we breathe the water we drink So you just try to minimize the hits and you decide what's worth it and certain meals certain dishes certain types of food Really bring a lot of joy and pleasure to people So it's more a matter of understanding all this stuff and then making an informed decision about what works for you

Melanie Avalon

And just for the cholesterol piece, I wouldn't be concerned about dietary cholesterol and animal products raising cholesterol. I would be more for me the saturated fat, which you could get from plants as well.

Matthew Lederman

this is this is a common thing that people say and it's I've learned over the years to not spend a lot of energy trying to convince people like like I'm just like if that's the belief that they feel good about then that's great my read of the data and my read of working with patients that it's they can get saturated fat from eating whole coconut and it will not affect their cholesterol the way it will if they get eating animal products and at a certain point you can keep eating more animal products and it doesn't you know we we saturate pretty quickly as far as the amount of cholesterol that any more than that doesn't matter you know you have it's like saying if you're smoking one pack of cigarettes and then you add a second pack well you've done so much damage from the first pack that adding the second pack it might make things a little worse but you know so so if you so you could do a study that says let's take them from two packs of cigarettes down the one pack of cigarettes and there's not much a difference so therefore cigarettes have no effect on health when in fact if you went from two packs of cigarettes to no cigarettes you would see a big difference so I think you got to look at the studies and when you remove dietary cholesterol it's it's clearly a problem but at the same time there's so much so much of the dietary cholesterol comes with saturated fat too so I think they both have their issues but I really don't like in the end I don't like talking about individual macronutrients when we're trying to direct people's health because nobody sits and eats a bowl of cholesterol or eats a bowl of saturated fat and all these foods have all the different I mean bananas have saturated fat in them so it's not like you're gonna pick one type of the other it's it's to me what foods are health promoting and what or not and which foods feel good when you eat them and what foods don't and you put all that together and find a diet that works for you but I don't I've stopped over the years arguing I just want to make sure people hear that maybe there's more than one opinion out there and if they think if they will feel strongly that cholesterol dietary cholesterol doesn't make their cholesterol grow up great and you know they can do an experiment eat one diet and then try to try a couple of weeks without dietary cholesterol and check your blood cholesterol again and do it in yourself but be really you know strict about it so you get a good study and what I imagine is that people who all they do if all they do is change the dietary cholesterol which again I like is hard you can't just eat a bowl of cholesterol my guess is they're going to see a difference if they go from down to zero cholesterol for a couple of weeks just to test it out so do your own little study

Melanie Avalon

So appropriately enough, I've done almost that. But first I just wanted to comment really quickly. I am the same way. I literally have zero interest in convincing anybody of anything, like zero interest. I just wanna explore and hear different opinions and people make your own decisions. So we're on the same page there. It's interesting for me, because so I have done, I'm really intense with what I eat. Like I pretty much eat, I eat very strict whole foods based diet and it's really just a few similar foods, no additives, meat, fruit, cucumbers, things like that. But point being is what I currently am eating and have eaten for a long time, it's very high animal protein, but it's high lean animal protein and it's tons of fruit. When I do that approach, I have very low cholesterol. So LDL will be in the 40s, total cholesterol hovers around 100. When I make a change, and the only change I make is I get rid of the fruit and I add in lots of like coconut oil or MCT oil, all my cholesterol levels like shoot up, which has been really, really interesting to see.

Matthew Lederman

Yeah, oil will definitely get cholesterol, even oils that have more, if you go from an oil that, whether it's high saturated fat oil or high monounsaturated fat oil, you add a ton of oil to someone who's not having oil, their cholesterol is going to go up.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, so and that's like a plant-based saturated fat, but for me it makes my cholesterol like go really high.

Matthew Lederman

All right. I'm saying is if you're going to test in yourself, test it with a whole food. If you add an oil, I don't care what kind of oil it is, it's going to cause problems. But if you, I would say eat like whole coconut.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, which I don't like, interestingly, like I love all foods and I don't know why.

Matthew Lederman

But I would say do the study with whole foods. So do a study with its high saturated fat that's a whole food, not even coconut milk. Do the whole coconut with the fiber and all the other stuff that comes with it. And compare that to an animal product that's high in dietary cholesterol. And then compare that to a diet that's whole food plant-based without concentrated saturated fat or concentrated cholesterol. And do that experiment for a couple of weeks. Do a before and after. Everything else controlled, if you're interested.

Melanie Avalon

controlled dietary studies are, like you said, so difficult because you can't really isolate one nutrient. No, well, okay, that was fun. So now, it's funny, we get a lot of feedback from listeners and they're always like, I'm so confused because, you know, I hear this one thing and then I hear another and I agree that it can be really confusing, but I like to see it all as benefit. Like it's more information of things that can potentially make you feel better. So do your labs and see how you feel. It sounds like, though, we do have a few overlying, you know, things we believe, which is whole foods based, removing these processed foods, you know, focusing on minimizing the environmental toxins as much as we can.

Matthew Lederman

as low on the food chain as you can, eat as much whole food as you can, which includes not having added oils and added sugars. So whole food is close to its original form as possible. And then, I mean, I don't know where you stand, but I think if you're going to eat animal products, make them count. But again, I don't know where you are on that as far as like, how much do you really need. And then, most importantly, check in with your body. Eat these whole plant foods, add whole animal foods if that's important to you, and then check in with your body. And then, if you're going to do an experiment, really isolate the variable. So if you want to see how you feel with animal products versus, or more versus less, or oil versus no oil, make sure everything else is the same for that two-week period so you can really isolate the variable.

Melanie Avalon

So actually, going to the make it count part, we kind of do overlap indirectly. It's kind of a weavy path to get there, but you were talking about the for the anti-aging benefits, you know, not having this abundance of protein. And it's ironic because on this show, we talked about the importance of protein, or a lot of people eat like a moderate to high protein diet. But by pairing it with fasting, it's actually getting to the same end result where you're not constantly stimulating your body with with mTOR. And I think you can still get the anti-aging benefits. So you're making the protein count by having it in this concentrated eating window. And interestingly, I hadn't thought about this yet, the implications of this, but so I do Matt, I eat a very high protein diet, it's, it's very high protein, but it's in an intermittent fasted pattern every day. So I fast every single day and I just do one meal a day in the evening. And I recently got back and like I said, I'm haunted by this longevity question with this. And I recently interviewed Dr. Matt Dawson, he is the founder of True Diagnostic, which provides an epigenetic age test and they have three of them ones in partnership with Yale ones with Harvard and ones with Duke, I think. They're all epigenetic, they all look at different markers for aging. And he told me in real time when I interviewed him that my results were some of the best he's ever seen with epigenetics showing that I'm aging slowly. So that was really validating to know that I can still have a high protein diet, but by having it in an intermittent fasting and you feel good and feel good, yeah.

Matthew Lederman

You said you feel good. You have you eat one meal a day, you said.

Melanie Avalon

Yes, but it's over a few hours in the evening and it's a lot of fruit, a lot of lean animal protein. Do you publicly share your age? Sorry, there's a funny story there. I wasn't and then CNBC wanted to do an article, like a profile piece on me and they asked if she asked me last minute, she was like, is it okay if we include your age? And I was like, I haven't put that out there publicly. And my background's in acting, which is where you don't say your age and all this stuff. And I was like, so I'd rather not, but if you think it'll benefit the story, I understand. And then she published it and she made it the title, like the title was my age. And so I was like, okay, I guess it's out there. So that's when I was 32. So I'm, oh gosh, I don't even know how old I am, I'm 33.

Matthew Lederman

So, so you're been doing this for a while, you feel really good. You're, you're getting the calories you need. It's not like you're walking around hungry. And I think that's what's most important. Now, we all are trying to do our best to guess what's going to be good for, you know, what do we do now that's going to help us 20 years from now, essentially, or 30 years from now. And it's really tough to know for sure. I mean, you can look at other culture, other populations, and what they ate. That doesn't mean that's what's best. We're just making our best guesses here. And a lot of these studies, they look back and they'll follow people for, for populations for a while, but they don't do this, like, randomized, well, we have this population following this and this, because it's just so hard to do it's so hard to control. So I think the most important thing is that you feel good about what you're doing, you feel good about, you know, you're not stressing out about it. And you're minimizing the stuff that we all clearly agree is crap, all of the processed Twinkies and the cookies and the added sugars. And I don't know what you feel about oil, but I think of added oil, the same as added sugar, that it's an isolated, extracted macronutrient, devoid of all of the things that are naturally in the food. So I don't know if a significant portion of your diet is coming from anything like that, and you don't have to answer, but that's what I'm telling people. I think the most important thing is how you feel. And it sounds like you feel great.

Melanie Avalon

I do. And it was really nice to see that like epigenetically in real time picture of how I'm aging. I'm on the same page as you with oil. So I think I really don't see the reason to add these refined processed oils to things. The only exception is I can see, I mean, there's a lot of really interesting data on olive oil. So I could see if you're having like a little bit of that, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't douse the food in it. I think I don't add oil to my food.

Matthew Lederman

Yeah, I mean, to me, it's again, it's like if you don't need to, then don't. And if you're going to use it, there's like the good better best to me, the good is minimum, you know, you a little bit, the better would be like, maybe you're almost like putting it in a spray bottle and just in. And to me, the best is eat, you know, eat an olive or something, that's the whole food version of it, you know, eat the avocado instead of the avocado oil. So it's not a low fat or fat free diet, it's just a low extracted fat diet.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, oftentimes people will be doing like keto or low carb and say they're not losing weight. And one of the suggestions I'll make is you don't need to add all this fat, like you don't need to be adding all this fat. You can just eat food, like in its real form.

Matthew Lederman

Exactly. See, so we're on the same page there, I think. And there's just, if you're feeling great, that's the bottom line here. Now, what are the challenges, though, when I was in my early 20s? I mean, you could eat anything and feel fine when you're really young. But as you start to get older, your body can't handle that anymore. So, and actually, kids will say they feel better when they clean up their diet. And, and that's, like I said, you do not need to be vegan, but feel great and be healthy. But I think getting rid of the processed foods, everybody would agree with.

Melanie Avalon

I think so. So segue, we keep talking about how there's so much more to it than just diet in your book, like I said, in your books. But most recently, the one I read, which was Wellness to Wonderful, you go on all these other pillars of, like I said, emotional health and mental and social and all of these things. And you have this We Be Calm product, which is incredible. So what role does that play in all of this health picture?

Matthew Lederman

Actually, before we go on, I just want to make sure I realize I didn't answer your question on intermittent fasting. And I just want to say that, again, it's what helps you feel really good. I think it's very important. Fasting in general, I think, is really good for the body. And I think giving your body downtime to do its repair and restoration is really important where it's not trying to metabolize calories. And I personally, for whatever reason, just naturally gravitated a long time ago where I wouldn't eat. I never felt good eating breakfast. So I would eat my first meal, 11.30. I eat my dinner around 5.30. And that's all I eat. So I think I'm naturally doing some long periods of fasting every day. And then getting low. I think we overall eat too many calories. So that's what I like about low calorie density diets. Whole food plant-based diets are naturally low calorie. And oil is the most calorically dense. So someone who's trying to decrease their caloric intake and fast or intermittently or it's adding oil would be the last thing I'd want to do. It's like 4,000 calories per pound. So that's just another plug for trying to get rid of processed or refined oils. But yes, I think giving yourself time is a really good thing. But there's some people that if they feel better, if they eat three meals a day or they sort of snack throughout the day. And I think that's, again, a personal experiment. If you really have terrible cravings, or you're struggling, or your energy is different, and you feel better eating three meals or snacking during the day, I think the bottom line is trust your body, especially if you're doing that with healthy whole foods. But if you're snacking and eating Lucky Charms for breakfast and snacking all day. And well, then I think we have other things to talk about. So bottom line, yes, I think intermittent fasting is great. But I don't think someone who's feeling good and healthy and loving life needs to force themselves to intermittent fast if they're doing really well, unless they want to play around with it and see how they feel. So that makes sense. I don't think the data is so clear that we have to tell people, if you're not doing it, you are in serious trouble. But it might be something that's worth exploring.

Melanie Avalon

I agree completely makes sense and it might come as a surprise to people since I have a show called the Intermittent Fasting Podcast, but I feel the same way that I think it's a tool that works really, really well for a lot of people and it can be a major game changer and some people in the end, it's just not the thing for them. I definitely don't think everybody needs to be doing it, but I do think it can benefit a lot of people. Yeah, absolutely.

Matthew Lederman

And I say try it too, like you have nothing to lose. What's the worst thing? You skip breakfast and see what happens. Like I love that trying and that's how I do everything. I just experiment on myself. I see how I feel. What do I like? What do I not like? And I wish more people, in fact, that could segue into this other stuff. To me, that's one of the biggest things that I have to help people with is connecting to their own bodies and using their internal value system and their internal felt experience to direct what works and what doesn't work. Instead of looking outside and having these external markers of success and health and then trying to live up to those. So it's really retuning our ability to check back in with our body and let their inner wisdom guide them.

Melanie Avalon

Yes, I love this so much. And so practically, what does that look like? And a lot of what you do, and I'm so grateful, I love that you are, you know, creating this education, spreading this awareness, products, books, all the things for people, but you also have or and you also have a big focus on raising the next generation. So, you know, instilling this mindset and helping, you know, being a parent and helping kids. There's so many ways we could go with this, I guess I'll just start with a fairly basic question. When did you launch your we become product?

Matthew Lederman

we become, I love this tool, it was we created it to help people learn how to regulate their nervous system. And we did we count with this idea of probably four or five years ago, I've been thinking about it for a long time. But over the last five years, we started figuring out how to design it and make it work and then put it together and market it. And, and the reason this is so important is that regulating your nervous system has and which basically means turning on the parasympathetics and telling the sympathetic they can take a break. So parasympathetics are natural calming, that's how we can turn on rest and digest and reproduce functions. The sympathetic or your fight flight frees faint when there's a danger or threat. And we don't want to have those on unless you really need them on. And many people struggle to turn on their Paris or to yeah, turn on the parasympathetics and sort of put a brake on the sympathetic. And breathing particularly slow, along the exhalation is one of the best ways to turn on the parasympathetics. And that's when we let's create a device that you can only exhale through slowly, it's not comfortable to try and blow out fast, along with an indicator that holds a ball loft, as long as you're exhaling, so you can try and keep that ball loft for 10 seconds. So then we said, there's a little bit of white noise that comes out for auditory regulation. So you have three different pathways that stimulate parasympathetics, you have the slow exhalation with the tube, you have the feedback device where you have focused attention on the ball, and that's, it's triggered similar pathways as to all the mindfulness practices. Then you have the white noise that comes out the back, the auditory regulation feedback. And you put all those together and you're activating three different parasympathetic, three different pathways to turn on the parasympathetics. And I tell people put that by your nightstand and do five breaths, five exhalations, five repetitions before bed, you can do another set of five if you want, and do it every night. And the key is doing it every night for months. And after that, you start to build this muscle memory, these neural pathways, neural networks that are created that are basically linked from your breath to turning on calm. And then at any point during the day, you can say, Oh, I'm just going to take a weeby breath. And you do that exhalation and your body now trained by this tool that's giving you feedback of what a correct breath, correct weeby breath is. Then if you take that same breath at any time during the day, you now have this strong neural pathway that can immediately turn on calm. That's been super exciting because it works really well for kids and adults. And you can, and you just have to do it before bed every night and you'll see some amazing results.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, I love this so much because there's so much stress in our world and there's a lot of different ways that you can approach it. So, you know, bottom up versus top down and so things like meditation and doing, you know, mental exercises and therapy can be really helpful. And at the same time, you can use devices like this where you can literally, like you said, instantly turn on this parasympathetic state. So well, first of all, demographics wise, so is it mostly kids using it or are you saying for like us adults and parents and such and people in general to use it as well?

Matthew Lederman

Oh, everybody, it's marketed towards children because that was the easiest demographic to target. But my kids and I use it before bed every night. And it's really amazing. My daughter, who's 11, called me from school, hysterically crying. I couldn't even understand her. And I said to her, hey, I'm hearing something's really upsetting you, and I can't understand you. Can you take a weebie breath, and then maybe we'll be able to understand you better? And she immediately, just from even asking her to take the weebie breath, she was able to sort of, I could hear it start to come down a little. And then she stopped, she did the breath, and she was like, ah, so dead. And it was like a switch. And you can't do that if you don't have the training. It's almost like trying to tell somebody to bench some weight, bench press some weight, when they need the strength versus months and months of training, and then they need the strength, and they can do it easily. The key is, even though you know how to breathe, you want to train and give your body that feedback so that you're doing it exactly the way that stimulates the parasympathetics, and that it's a practice. And when you see that tool, the weebie calm device on your nightstand, it takes 30 seconds, 40 seconds, and to do five repetitions, probably actually, if I'm being honest, probably 60 seconds. It takes a minute, but it's still worth it. And you do that every night. It's so amazing. I tell people, just do an experiment. Do it for a couple of months, and then randomly try to take weebie breaths throughout the day, and notice that felt sense in your body.

Melanie Avalon

It's so amazing that like it's a practice, but you don't have to have the cognition to make it work. Like it's going to work if you do it. It's a physical thing that you do, and then it's going to have that effect. And then I love this fact that the brain will then anticipate and the benefits will only grow from there.

Matthew Lederman

Yeah, it's a real, a real strong association by doing every night, you make these all these associations and this neural network just fires and it's like going down a slide and you just slide down the slide at that point because you've created this beautiful neural network.

Melanie Avalon

It's kind of like how even with things like dopamine, we know that when you have an addiction or a habit or something that you do all the time, you actually release those feel good feelings before you even do it. Like once you get into the habit of doing it, it's the thought of it that actually, you know, releases these feel good compounds. So it sounds like the we become can become not that it's like an addiction, but it can become entrained where it immediately will signify to your body these the state to go into.

Matthew Lederman

Yeah, it's a really beautiful thing to watch.

Melanie Avalon

so amazing. And I love that it's so like portable and affordable. Literally, it's like the perfect gift to give to everybody. My mom before, like I said, I gave one to her, because before she'd been using a straw, breathing through a straw. And this makes it so much easier to, like you said, it's multiple thing, it's three different things, not just the breathing. And then you like know what to do, you're not having to like come up with the paradigm that you're fitting into it actually with the thing, like it makes it like easy to follow like step.

Matthew Lederman

Yeah, yeah, when you see the ball and you know you're getting the ball off, that's as hard as you have to blow. And then you exhale until you don't have to anymore, at least the 10 seconds. And it gives you this, it's this form, it's a container around the breath that otherwise it's hard to know exactly if you're doing it correctly, especially for kids, but even for adults. So by using this device, it sort of holds the breath the way you need to do it so that you know you're doing it correctly. And then you just do it every night, 60 seconds. If you want to do another set, it's two minutes. It's not a big investment to be able to have calming at your fingertips.

Melanie Avalon

That's incredible. Can you, this is random. Can you use it for things like cravings or people are experiencing like any sort of feeling that they're experiencing where they want to come back to a state of presence? Like what are other things people could use it for?

Matthew Lederman

Yeah, you can use it any time your body is dysregulated and you want some regulation. Some people with cravings, they are feeling stressed, they are feeling their nervous system is mobilized and chewing and swallowing is one way to trigger the vagus nerve that turns on the parasympathetics. So it makes sense that people like chewing, swallowing, sucking to calm themselves. That's how kids do it. They suck on and pacifiers. So it's not wrong, but it gets in the way of your health when you use food and swallowing and sucking, especially when you're stressed out, you tend to want high calorie density foods. So it's going to get in the way of your health if that's your go-to calming mechanism. So instead, try and calm other ways. And then on top of that, we ask people to connect to what's going on inside. What's going on with their feelings and needs now shifts into nonviolent communication. But what's going on with their feelings and needs that's causing them to mobilize in the first place? And is there something a request we can make of ourselves or other people that can better meet our needs so that we regulate, again, getting out of that fight or flight mode? So it all starts to come together.

Melanie Avalon

That's a whole nother topic that I love that you talk about, which was the nonviolent communication. I was so fascinated by it, reading your book and listening to your podcast, this idea of needs and wants and requests, and there's so much there. It's a whole nother world. But you talk about it a lot on your podcast, the We Be Parents podcast, so people can check that out in your books.

Matthew Lederman

Yeah, the podcast is, the contest is fun because we, it's all focused on bringing connection and that sense of safety, which is really important for kids, their physiology, helping to regulate kids and connect with them. We call it collaborative non-permissive parenting that we teach. And it's all, that's what the podcast is all about, how to bring that into the household. And it's not that, I mean, I'm getting it, getting it right, you know, quote unquote, right, about 50% of the time. And then I know how to clean up the messes that I make. So it's, I mean, it's tough being parents and it's, it's just about doing the best you can and trying to bring these skills into the household, not only for your own wellbeing, but it really contributes to the kids and what the kids learn and bring into their adulthood.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, I was fascinated by this whole approach and there's this idea where you're not forcing kids to do things that they quote, don't want to do, which is a really, at surface level, it's like, oh, well, then kids aren't going to do anything. But once you get a bigger understanding that, you know, everything is driven by wants and needs and what's being met and you can talk to your kids and come to a place with the goal in mind, usually where you can accomplish said goal that is needed by the by everybody. Once you talk through what people actually want and need, and I'm using a lot of words, but it's really, really interesting. And it was a paradigm shift for me for at least what I see of parenting and how parenting is typically done.

Matthew Lederman

Yeah, I think that's very well said and it's you have to shift your paradigm. If you believe that kids are inherently bad and you need to force them and mold them to be good, this isn't going to make sense. But if you believe, as I do, that kids naturally want to contribute to the well-being of others just like adults do, but sometimes they're not connected to that or their own needs. There's other needs of theirs that are preventing them from doing that. So when a kid says no, instead of trying to force them to do what you want anyway, try and care about what needs of theirs are preventing them from saying yes. And that's the beginning of the connection. And then you can collaborate and say, hey, how can we care about that need of yours that's making you want to say no, while also caring about my need, which is behind me asking you to do this thing that you're saying no to. Can we both care about all that together?

Melanie Avalon

I love it so much. It's really definitely a paradigm shift and it's really powerful.

Matthew Lederman

It is. It is. And for some people, they really like the authoritarian parenting style. And like I said, I'm not here to tell everybody what's right or wrong. This is just making life a lot more wonderful for us and a lot of the people we work with. So that's why we do it.

Melanie Avalon

Listeners, I cannot recommend enough getting a Webby device for you, for the people in your life, for your kids. Honestly, this is another little hack I do in my life. I like to stock up on Christmas presents throughout the year for people. So then come Christmas time, I already have all my shopping done. Literally, it is such a game changer. So just stock up on these and you can give them as Christmas presents to so many people. So Matt and the team are so kind. They have a discount for you guys, you can get 25% off. Just go to ifpodcast.com slash Webby, that's W-E-B-E. So ifpodcast.com slash Webby, W-E-B-E. And when you go there, it will bring you to the main page. There's a pop up to get on the email list and that will get you a 25% discount on the product. There's also a little button in the corner that says save 25%. So you can click that as well. So definitely check that out. That will be at ifpodcast.com slash Webby, W-E-B-E. All right. Well, thank you, Matt. I really, really enjoyed that conversation. It was exciting. It was nice because I think in our two prior episodes on the other show, we did more focus on stuff that we got into at the end. So if people were interested in that, definitely check out those other episodes. I really enjoyed talking about the diet stuff with you. That was super fun. And I really appreciate your perspective. The central tenets that you think are important, I really love that you understand that different things work for different people. And I think this conversation will be really valuable for people and exposing them to different paradigms and ideas and helping them really find what works best for them. So thank you for what you're doing.

Matthew Lederman

I appreciate it and I really hope people listening because way back when I remember listening to different shows and I would think that person doesn't agree, I don't, yeah, I would just stop listening. And I think it's really helpful to listen to everything and then just pick what works for you and make that your program versus, you know, you have to agree with somebody 100% or, you know, if they don't agree, you know, throw them away. And maybe there's, you know, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Maybe there's some things you like and other things you don't like. So I really invite the audience and in general, I invite my audiences when I'm talking to just pick what works for you. You know, here's my opinion, you know, Melanie, you have your opinion, but you've ultimately figured out what works for you and that's why you have this opinion. But it's different than probably all the experts that you've talked to. There's some differences in what you do compared to each of those experts. And I think that's the way to be successful.

Melanie Avalon

I agree so much. I actually actively, one of the podcasts I listen to is Rich Roll, he's very vegan. And it's because I actively want to make sure I listen to perspectives that are very different from what I actually eat or overlap, like we talked about as well. Yeah, find what works for you, leave what doesn't work for you. Yeah, this has been amazing. So again, listeners, go to ifodcast.com slash weebie and click that little button in the bottom right hand corner to get 25% off. And yeah, this has been super, super awesome. So thanks, Matt, we'll have to have you on again in the future. There's just so much more we could talk about. So thank you for everything that you're doing. Oh, and oh, by the way, can you give links for people? So how can people follow you? Listen to your podcast, all the things

Matthew Lederman

Yes. So people can find us. Our website is connectiondocs.com. And the calming device and the breathing device is through webeecom.com with a K. W-E-B-E, Caleb.com. And our podcast is webeeparents.com. And then our book Wellness to Wonderful is on Amazon. And you can follow webeecom.com on Instagram and Facebook as well.

Melanie Avalon

Awesome. Awesome. So we will put all of that in the show notes. Again, thank you so much for the conversation and everything that you're doing. And yeah, we'll have to talk again in the future. This was really great.

Matthew Lederman

That's great. Thank you so much, Melanie.

Melanie Avalon

Thanks, Matt. 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. you

Mar 24

Episode 414 – TruDiagnostic, Stubborn Weight Loss, Fasting Releasing Toxins, Epigenetic Testing & Biological Age, Animal Vs Plant Protein, Toxins In Animal Fat, Protein & Aging, and More!

The Melanie Avalon Podcast Episode #61 - Dr. Cate Shanahan

Welcome to Episode 414 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 414 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 414 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon. I'm here with Barry Conrad. Barry, how are you today? And also, how do you feel about palindromes?

Barry Conrad

Hey, everyone. How's it going? I feel great today. And, Melanie, I don't know how I feel about that. I was not expecting you to even ask me that. How do you feel about it?

Melanie Avalon

414 is a palindrome. 414, like palindromes are where there's like mom, like M-O-M, like where it can be read.

Barry Conrad

Yes. Okay. Yeah. I get you. I get you. I feel, I feel pretty good about that. I feel excited, frisky, awesome, stoked.

Melanie Avalon

Fairy contract feels frisky about palindromes.

Barry Conrad

That's not a sound bite that we need to use, but I feel good. I think it's a good, it's a good number. I like the situation.

Melanie Avalon

I have a fun fact about palindromes. My grandfather, he was obsessed with palindromes to the extent that he wrote a book called Refer, which is a palindrome. And all this book is very, this book is just a list of every palindrome. Are you serious? Yeah, it's just lists of words and numbers.

Barry Conrad

I didn't even know or I'm not sure if I even knew that you had another author in your family.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, I think he self published it. I don't know. It's on my shelf. He was a character. Wait, should I grab the book? Hold on. Wait, let me go grab. Let me go grab it. Hold on.

Barry Conrad

This is a really interesting. I had no idea, listeners. So here we go.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, so it's called refer and then the subtitle is what's not really, I guess it's a subtitle. The reference for writing palindromes because, you know, we need that. And then it's just lists. Okay, pick a page number.

Barry Conrad

24.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, so we're in the S's. So the top one on top is actually, I don't know how this works. Oh, these aren't really palindromes on this page. These are words that spell one word one way and one word the other.

Barry Conrad

Okay, give me an example. So what?

Melanie Avalon

Well, the top one, I don't know if sprat is a word, sprat and then tarps. Ah, I get what you mean. Like, or like, okay. The one next to it is straw and warts, stressed and desserts, et cetera. Those aren't palindromes though. Pick another number.

Barry Conrad

Melanie Avalon

That's still in the same section pick a number like

Barry Conrad

Like higher.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah.

Barry Conrad

Okay.

Melanie Avalon

48. 48 is talking about palindromes. It says it is obvious that there are infinitely many numerical palindromes. Some palindromes are prime numbers, like 101, some are not prime, like 202, and then it just keeps going on.

Barry Conrad

You know what I'm gonna keep that in my mind now every time I see one I'm like It's a pelodrome. How do you feel about that and people be like, huh?

Melanie Avalon

Yeah. And then you can have this whole conversation with them as well. You can refer them to my grandfather's book refer.

Barry Conrad

That's hilarious. I might have to do that. Yes. Is this going to be in the show notes or what? Are you going to put this for people to, can people find it?

Melanie Avalon

I wonder if it's on Amazon. Let me find out. I hope so. I think I bought it on Amazon.

Barry Conrad

It's pretty cool that he's got this book.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, here it is. You can buy it on Amazon. That's so cute.

Barry Conrad

That is awesome.

Melanie Avalon

I will put a link to it in the show notes. I will put a link to that and to my new microphone, which is rainbows.

Barry Conrad

When, listen, is when I first heard that Melanie had this mic, I thought like, what is it shooting rainbows out of the mic? Is it a rainbow colored mic? Yeah. So can you tell us what it means? What is it?

Melanie Avalon

Well, have you seen any of my clips on social media where I normally I have like a red mic, it's like very red. So this is the same brand HyperX, but it lights up and it's lighting up with a rainbow that is changing, like changing colors, like rainbowy.

Barry Conrad

How does it make you feel?

Melanie Avalon

I mean, it feels wonderful, honestly, feels like World of Color. It's, I just can't decide if it's distracting or not. But it, okay, you know, when things like very calmly, like, like just oscillate and vibe, like it feels calming, it's that. But what color would you have Barry if you had, because you can program it to be any color. So what color would you have?

Barry Conrad

I would have to go with blue because blue is my favorite color and I feel super chill when I'm when I have blue around me just relaxed calm yeah serene so blues my color all the way.

Melanie Avalon

Well, that's interesting because, you know, blue is energy. What do you mean, energy? It's the wavelength of energy. So like the reason it's like the most high energy wavelength. That's why we have like blue light blocking glasses. That's why there are no blue fruits or plants. There are, did you know that? There are no plants that are actually blue. They're actually shades of purple if you think they're blue. Because blue, the plant absorbs all the blue because it's the energy. So it doesn't reflect it back.

Barry Conrad

I had no idea about this at all because what about flowers or like blue flowers or is that more of a purple? Is that what you're saying?

Melanie Avalon

Oh, I don't. Okay. When I was reading about this, it was talking about fruits. I don't know about flowers.

Barry Conrad

Oh, actually, actually, what about blueberries?

Melanie Avalon

They're actually not like completely blue. They have some, they're actually technically, I think a shade of purple. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, there's no like a hundred. Basically there's not a fruit that just reflects back only blue because it wouldn't have energy.

Barry Conrad

It's amazing idea while mind blown, not pun intended with the other podcasts that we go, but it's true.

Melanie Avalon

So, so now that I've provided completely useless information, how are things in your life?

Barry Conrad

It's not useless. I'm very, I feel very educated right now after living by paladromes and- Paladromes and blue. Blue energy. Things are great. You know what, Melanie? I have something to share with you that is- goodness, excite you so much. And me.

Melanie Avalon

Oh my goodness, I'm so excited.

Barry Conrad

So, you know how you've asked me this before, like, how did you when did you start fasting and what brought you to it? Like, how did you find it? Did you remember? I always was like online, online, which is true, but I didn't know the origin story until a couple of weeks ago. My second brother came over for some trinkets. We had some foods and wine and and I was venting to him. I said, you know, I'm so frustrated because I can't remember the exact moment. He goes, ah, well, I do. Like, remember, you said.

Melanie Avalon

Second brother to the rescue.

Barry Conrad

It was like Hugh Jackman, you know, you read an article when he was training for Wolverine and he said that he did intermittent fasting and you kept going on about it like, I'm going to try this thing Hugh Jackman does, 16A, intermittent fasting. That's the moment I was like, bingo.

Melanie Avalon

Oh my goodness. Let's take a moment for Hugh Jackman right now. That's amazing.

Barry Conrad

I was so excited i was like finally someone had the missing puzzle piece so i finally can answer that now you jackman.

Melanie Avalon

So when he said that, did you like really remember the moment or was it, you had to reconstruct the memory based on like what he was telling you.

Barry Conrad

No i remember the moment when he said that i was like what do you mean i forgot this moment this is that's exactly but he was so chill is like he was like yeah of course it's when you remember the huge action. I dropped the glass that i was holding into the sink is like that's the moment we go.

Melanie Avalon

That's amazing. I feel like I vaguely remember that, not you and that, but like, I remember Hugh Jackman talking about intermittent fasting. Was it during like the X-Men time?

Barry Conrad

It was during the x-men time but also when you started preparing for the the solo films you know wolverine.

Melanie Avalon

Mm-hmm. Yes. Yes. I wonder if he still does it. We should

Barry Conrad

We should ask him, Hugh Jackman, if you ever hear this, do you still do intermittent fasting? Did you do it for the Deadpool Wolverine movie or you kind of pass that now? Let us know.

Melanie Avalon

We would like to know, maybe, wait, have you ever met him?

Barry Conrad

He's one of my, I look up to that guy. I've never met him yet. I met his wife, his ex-wife, but not him. Not yet, yet, keyword.

Melanie Avalon

I'm putting it out there, you're doing a project with him. I'm just putting it out there, manifest that. You guys could do a musical together, a stage musical.

Barry Conrad

acts that actually could happen too because I think he's in New York right now doing a show.

Melanie Avalon

I feel like he probably feel like he's always doing something. He's very inspiring

Barry Conrad

Very inspiring. I love how he pivots between movie, like action movie to musical to Yeah, it's it's super inspiring as an actor for sure. Wow. But there you go, Melanie. That's it.

Melanie Avalon

Thank you for sharing. That's amazing. Okay.

Barry Conrad

What about you? What's happening in your-

Melanie Avalon

world. I'm good. Okay, friends, actually exciting announcement. So if things are on track, which hopefully they will be this Friday, March 28, I should be launching my AvalonX EMF blocking product line with the EMF free headphones air tubes. That's so exciting. So hopefully, FutureUs is having this moment right now and hopefully it's launching. So go to AvalonXEMF.us on Friday. Actually, go there now because you can get on the email list to get updates for the products and the launch special and all the things. But basically, EMFs are classified by the IARC as a group to be carcinogen. And they are not good. They are linked to a lot of health conditions. And when you're putting AirPods in your head, did I say AirPods earlier? I meant air tubes. Oh, dear. When you put AirPods like Bluetooth ones in your head, you're literally just putting all that EMF signal right next to your brain, which is no bueno. So these are headphones that are free of EMF. They actually conduct and convert the sound into analog. So there's nothing digital about how the sound is transmitted to you. Yeah, they're going to come in rose gold and black. Which color would you get, Barry?

Barry Conrad

I would give black for sure.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, no, I was like, are you gonna do like a curve ball? No rose gold for you?

Barry Conrad

Yeah, I don't have anything of rose gold yet, but you know, I'm open to it if I can yeah, maybe I should change

Melanie Avalon

Maybe that's your new color palette.

Barry Conrad

along with some paludromes and some, some blue energy.

Melanie Avalon

calendrobes and blue. So yeah. So again, to listeners, Avalon XEMF.us.

Barry Conrad

Super exciting!

Melanie Avalon

I know. Shall we jump into fasting stuff? Let's do it. So I'm the one who brought a study today to talk about. I actually prepped this berry because you weren't there. But next week, episode 415, I interviewed Dr. Matthew Letterman. He is a really awesome human being. So did you ever watch the Forks Over Knives documentary?

Barry Conrad

I don't think I have seen that. No, tell me about it.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, it's probably like it may be one of the most well-known vegan documentaries. It's very like plant. It's all about like Whole Foods plant-based diet. So he was in that. He co-authored the New York Times bestselling book, The Forks Over Knives Plan or something. It's the book that's about the plan for it. And he actually worked at Whole Foods, wait, they have Whole Foods in Australia, right?

Barry Conrad

We actually don't we have a we haven't stopped we don't we don't that's another moment we have a harris farm which is kind of like if you look at paris farm it's kind of like whole foods the same kind of thing.

Melanie Avalon

Wait a minute. How have we known each other for all these years and I didn't know they don't have whole foods in Australia?

Barry Conrad

They don't? We don't have it here. I know.

Melanie Avalon

I know. But you've been to Whole Foods, right? Like in the US? Yep. And are you like, wow, we need this in Australia.

Barry Conrad

We do need it. I mean, Harris Farms is similar, but not Whole Foods.

Melanie Avalon

It's a chain, Harris Farms. Maybe Whole Foods will acquire it, take over. Okay, I'm just trying to get over how sad I am that you don't have Whole Foods, but Harris Farms is probably, Harris Farm or farms? Are there one farm, two farms?

Barry Conrad

I think it's just like, that's just like the name like the, on the facade, like, you know, the signage Harris farm. It's called Harris farm markets. That's what it's called. Harris farm markets.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, so one farm, multiple markets, Harris Farm markets. Okay. I think Whole Foods is technically Whole Foods market. I don't know. In any case, Dr. Letterman was the for like, a long time, like eight years or something, he was the vice president of medical medical affairs or some sort of he was some sort of medical director. And he basically was in charge of their medical program that they use for their employees that helped with like their health and their wellness and helped reduce insurance costs, because it was all about supporting like health and wellness and a more holistic approach. So he spearheaded that at Whole Foods for a long time. He co authored the Whole Foods diet book with john Mackey, who is the the co founder and former CEO of Whole Foods. And he is the creator of a brand called we be calm, which they make this breathing device for it's where they market it to kids, but it's for adults as well. And it's it kind of gamifies breathing, like slow breathing, where you like breathe into this tube and watch a little air like a little ball rise. And it's to help like instantly calm you down. It's really, really cool. So I'll give listeners a code for that. If they go to if podcast.com slash we be w e be, you can get 25% off go to that link. And then there's a button in the bottom right corner to get 25% off. But that was a lengthy introduction. So the reason I want to talk about it today, and what led to the study that I'm going to talk about is be ready friends, because we talk a lot on this show about the importance of protein and high protein diet and you know, the benefits of animal protein. So Dr. Letterman, he is very much in the plant based world and the vegan world. So we had a very interesting conversation that I think people will find helpful because he brought a different perspective. He thinks most people don't need to worry about protein, he thinks we should, you know, minimize animal protein. So I do not agree with a lot of what he said. But I think it's really helpful to expose yourself to all different viewpoints. Because that keeps you from, you know, being in a silo and being biased and cherry picking. So I'm excited to hear what listeners think about next week's episode, you'll have to listen and let me know what you think too. Yeah, how do you feel about different opinions? And I feel about different opinions like that.

Barry Conrad

I think that I'm on the same page with it being really really helpful and interesting to hear different opinions and also as soon as you said that about the we don't need like he doesn't think we need to focus on protein I had to literally listeners sit back in my chair away from the mike before it. Because I don't agree with that but yeah all four opinions though.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, I don't either. And I did push back on it. And so we debated about it back and forth. One of the arguments he made, but this was about, and this brings me to today's study, this is not about protein per se, but he was saying that these toxic compounds like carcinogens and pollutants in the environment become massively more concentrated in animal products compared to plants. Because as the animal eats, everything concentrates and goes up the food chain. So he was saying eating an animal-based diet exposes you to way more toxins than a plant-based diet. And I have a lot of thoughts about that. One, I think there's a big difference between an organic animal-based diet compared to a conventional plant-based diet. You have to take that into account. He pushed back and said there wasn't much of a difference between organic versus conventional toxins in animal products. And I actually, I researched that and looks like that's an accurate statement. It looks like there's not a huge difference between them because these compounds are so pervasive in the environment. I just think the benefits of animal-based products, especially protein and the nutrients that you can get, and I talk about this in next week's episode. So check it out for instance, like a major teaser for next week. I just think it's so valuable for so many people. The nutrients are more easily assimilated. There's a lot of nutrients that can be hard for people to convert into the correct form. So things like ALA versus DHA and EPA, the omega-3s, what else? Well, vitamin B12 is really only in something like spirulina, shout out, if you want to have that on a vegan diet. There's just a lot of nutrients like choline and creatine and such, which are much more concentrated in animal products. But in any case, I asked him if maybe some of this could be avoided by eating lean animal protein rather than fatty animal protein because toxins tend to accumulate in fat. He kind of gave me that, but he was still kind of not about it. So I went and researched this concept and I found a really, really interesting study about fat accumulation and toxins and what happens when you fast. So that's what I'm going to talk about. But before I move into that, I want to say I really adore Dr. Matthew Letterman. He was amazing and it was such a respectful conversation. And at the end, he was so overwhelmingly abundantly clear that he feels people should find what works for them personally. And that's how I feel as well. So I just want to say that. Yeah. Should I, do you have any thoughts or should I bring up the study?

Barry Conrad

Let's get into the study i'm curious to hear this.

Melanie Avalon

Okay. So I found this study because I was trying to find a study talking about if you eat lean meat compared to fatty meat, would that reduce your toxin exposure? And I couldn't find a study looking just at that, but then I found a study that mentioned it in passing and it was in a broader study that was really, really interesting. So that's what I'm going to talk about. But it is true that eating lean meat compared to fatty meat can really help reduce your exposure to most of those toxins because they do accumulate in fat. The exception would be something like mercury, like heavy metals and fish. Those actually accumulate in the protein, not the fat. So you just can't win. You just can't win. That's why I think it's so important to eat fish that's very low on the food chain. But the study is called adipose tissue as a site of toxin accumulation. It was published, I'll give you the link as well, September 2018 in comprehensive physiology. And some of the takeaways from this study was it was talking about these, they're called POPs. They're persistent organic pollutants. And basically, they're all these different compounds that are so saturated in our environment that they persist. So even though a lot of them have been banned or are not being actively used, they are still there and they tend to accumulate and they are not good for our health. So what's interesting about them is our body, there's a good side and a bad side to this. So in order to protect us from these compounds, because they are so toxic, our body stores them in fat so that they won't hurt us. And while they're in our fat stores, they are inert. So they can't hurt us, although there's a little bit of a caveat I want to talk about, but they can't directly hurt us while they're in the fat. But then the problem happens is when you try to lose weight by weight loss and fasting in particular, it talks about that in the study, that we mobilize these toxins into our bodies, and they can actually hurt us. So it talks about how fast weight loss can be a problem for some people because they released so many of these compounds. And so these compounds are things you might have heard of like BPA or phthalates. There was actually a conference in 2001 at the Stockholm convention and they came up with their Dirty Dozen list, which was 12 key ones. And they have very long names, but some of the other ones you might have heard of are like dioxins, DDT, PCBs, all of these things. What's really interesting is not only does our body store them in fat, and we release them when we lose weight, they actually... One of the theses of this paper was that they contribute to obesity and insulin resistance and diabetes and all the things. And that's because they actually can encourage insulin resistance. I've talked before about things called obesogens, and that's what these are. They're literally these compounds that can make you store and gain weight. And then within the fat cells, they actually make the fat cells more inflammatory and they actually can make the fat more likely... Make it more resistant to weight loss and make it more likely to gain weight from there.

Melanie Avalon

It just goes to speak... I know I talk a lot about the importance of things like safe skincare and makeup and like what you put in your body and the role of toxins. And that's because these compounds literally can affect your metabolic health. They can encourage you to gain weight and make it hard to lose weight. So people often are struggling with weight loss and things and these compounds may be playing a really large role in it. It's not just the food, even though they started this with the food saying that animal products can be higher in these compounds, but we're exposed to them in all different ways. So yeah, do you have thoughts? It's kind of a story, but...

Barry Conrad

It's not a dairy donor. For me, I just think that... Well, actually, I had a question when you first started, which was you said in lean protein. So does that mean, lean animal protein, does it still count if you cut the fat off? For example, like a steak, if you cut the fat off and then prepare it, cook it, grill it, or does it have to come in its actual form just leaner, less fatty? Like how does...

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, no, that's a really great question. So there's a few different things here. So when it comes to fat and meat, there's intramuscular and extra muscular fat. So when you're talking about like cutting off the fat, so that's extra muscular fat that you can cut off, which is great because you cut it off and you're removing those toxic compounds in that fat. But then there's what you're talking about, which is just the actual animal itself needs to be leaner. And that is something else because you can't cut out the fat if the fat is inside of the actual meat. You can cook it out by cooking it more and the fat drains out, but you're not going to remove all of it. So this is actually really interesting where grass-fed versus conventional meat comes into play because you'll notice if you have grass-fed beef, for example, or bison, that it's way leaner than conventional beef and steak. And that's because those animals, because of their lifestyle, they're just leaner and they're less insulin resistant, less obesogenic from how they're raised. So they're not storing as much fat inside of their actual muscle. So you're going to, to the point of the toxins, getting grass-fed meat should reduce your exposure to some of that fat. Or if you look at, for example, like conventional farm-raised salmon versus wild-caught salmon, it's so much fattier, the farm salmon. So, yeah. It's a good question.

Barry Conrad

Yeah, going back to what you said about animal protein versus plant protein, though, I just think it seems like such a clear slam dunk to me, from my opinion, and I could be wrong. But from what I know, we know that, you know, animal proteins, it's a complete protein. It's not, you know, whereas, you know, like plant proteins, like they have fiber and antioxidants. But, I mean, animal proteins, better absorption, it's higher in leucine, more nutrient dense. So, for muscle and strength, you'd think, isn't it clear that animal protein is sort of king? What do you think?

Melanie Avalon

Okay, I have so many thoughts. I really do agree. It is true that you can get the full amino acid profile by combining different plants. I just think if it comes to supporting muscle in your body, the amino acid profile of animal products is just much more ideal for that. It's much more easily assimilated. It's everything that you just said. I think people can struggle to get enough protein on plant-based diets. I understand it works for some people, but I think it can be hard. An argument he was making, and I'm excited to tell you about this. An argument he was making was that some of these amino acids are pro-aging because they really stimulate mTOR and IGF-1, which are growth-promoting signals which relates to aging and an excess of which may correlate to cancer. These are things like leucine in particular, methionine. I agree with that, but I think there's some magic to having intermittent fasting because that's going to reduce those growth signals and then have the growth-promoting protein in your eating window. I feel like you get best of both worlds. I've wondered this for a long time. I've also been haunted by this for a long time because I eat a super high protein diet. I feel like Barry, you're probably one of the only people I know who might eat. I don't know. I feel like I eat more than you, protein-wise.

Barry Conrad

We'll have to have a protein off.

Melanie Avalon

a protein off, but you eat a lot too, like, yeah.

Barry Conrad

A lot of animal protein to clarify.

Melanie Avalon

I've been hoping that the fasting does provide ample mitigation of that growth time when you're having that high protein diet for an anti-aging effect. And I interviewed... Did I tell you this yet? How I interviewed Matt Dawson? Did I tell you this?

Barry Conrad

refresh my memory, maybe you did.

Melanie Avalon

So he let me see what episode it was. So he was episode 412. He is the founder or co founder of wild health.com, which they provide this, like this full lab work, genetic analysis platform where they really test what you need to be testing. Then you work with their providers to figure out what you need to do with your diet and lifestyle. And they run your, they sequence your DNA and you get this massive report. That's like 50 pages talking about your genes and how they affect your diet, your sleep, your lifestyle. It is fascinating. I absolutely love it. I want to do that. Yeah. It was, oh, I can, yeah. Let me talk to him and see if we can get you set up on it. So I can't recommend it enough. And I was excited because it really did match what I said. So like, or what I experienced as far as like what it was saying, like it was saying that I'm, um, you know, like a night owl and oh, that like when it comes to neurotransmitters that I'm very, I break down dopamine slowly. So I'm very like dopamine driven, which is kind of how I feel. I'm always like high dopamine. And then they helped identify that I knew I had methylation issues, but they put, they had me go on like a methyl folate supplement to help with my homocysteine. So that was exciting. So I definitely recommend it. People can go to wild health.com slash Melanie Avalon and use the code Melanie Avalon. That will get you 20% off, but he's also the like founder or CEO. He's the head honcho at another company called true diagnostic.

Barry Conrad

I feel like maybe you did tell me about him because I remember some of this, yeah. That sounds awesome, though, what you just said about, you know, getting that 50 pages worth of data. That's awesome.

Melanie Avalon

It's so, so cool. I really love it. And it helps you, you know, kind of figure out what diet might work for you. But the long windy road is, he's also at this company called True Diagnostic, and they provide, this is so exciting, three epigenetic age tests for your biological age, which for listeners, that's basically what is your age on the inside. So you have your chronological age, and then you have your biological age. He looked at my results. So there's three tests on it. Let me see what they're called. So there's three tests. One is the it's called the Omic age, or Omic M age, and it was developed with Harvard. Then there's the Dunedin pace, which was made with Duke and Columbia, and then the symphony age from Yale. So I got my results back. And he told me, he told me my results were some of the best he's ever seen for epigenetic aging. And this is the guy who runs the company.

Barry Conrad

That's massive. What did he say? So what can you share some of like the comparison?

Melanie Avalon

I'll share with my results, but the reason it was really exciting was I've been haunted by this idea like, is eating this really high protein diet aging me faster, you know, or is it a problem? But according to this results, I'm doing, I'm aging really slowly. So the Omik age, that's the one with, who did I say that was with, with Harvard. So at the time I took the test, I was 33.53. The result, I was 10.64 years younger by that, which was, so I was 22.89. And then the, the dune in pace of aging test, which he said, he said this one is really telling for how are you actually aging in the moment. Like the other one is kind of like, what is, the other one's like, what is your age, your biological age now? But this one actually looks at like, how are you aging, like the rate of aging. And I was 0.67. So basically for every year of aging, I'm aging at a rate of 0.67. And that's the one he said he was like really impressed with. And then the symphony.

Barry Conrad

Almost half, you know, that's awesome.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, almost. And then the symphony age, that actually looks at 11 distinct organ systems. And it tells you, in each organ system, are you aging slower or faster? In nine of them, I was aging slower. So I was aging slower in systems, heart, inflammation, metabolic, brain, musculoskeletal, kidneys, liver, lungs, and blood. And then I was aging slightly faster in immune and hormones. But he did say that a lot of these can fluctuate from day to day. So point being is, I'm sorry, this is so long. I feel like I've been talking for the entire episode.

Barry Conrad

No, this is super interesting.

Melanie Avalon

So listeners will have a code for you. So if you go to Melanie Avalon.com slash true diagnostic, and that's spelled TRU for true, so Melanie Avalon.com slash true diagnostic. T R U D I A G N O S T I C. You can get 10% off with the code Melanie Avalon. But yeah, the point is I've been, I think what this really says, and I realize it's an N of one, like I am, it's only me as an example, but it does to me clearly show that it is possible to eat exuberant amounts of protein and not be aging faster from it, given the overall context. So, you know, the intermittent fasting pattern, because it can't, it, I mean, it literally does mean that because it does mean that at the very least eating high, high protein will not always 100% of the time make you age faster because I'm literally eating a ton and I'm aging slower. And I think that's due to the fasting. I mean, it has to be, because if not, I should be.

Barry Conrad

changing faster. That's amazing, actually. I want to do that as well. Can we do that in Australia? Or does that have to be in America for that?

Melanie Avalon

Probably not, I can find out.

Barry Conrad

I'll wait till I'm there.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, I'll find out it might be and same with the wild health might be a little bit difficult because It's like they have to order blood tests and stuff for you. This one though was a saliva test. So maybe I'll have to find out you would love it

Barry Conrad

Yeah, in any case, Mel, like you're right, what you're saying, it backs up what we both really believe about animal protein and eating high protein diet, you know, and it's amazing to hear those results. It's science. So how can you... Yeah, that's awesome.

Melanie Avalon

It was so exciting because it's the information I've been needing for a long time to feel, I don't know, to feel not quite as worried about my high protein diet. I really think the fasting is doing something magical. And something else I want to say, all these studies on high protein diets and aging, especially if they're causation correlation, if it's completely just epidemiological data, like they're looking at people on high protein diets, most people on high protein diets are eating a lot of food in general. Like it's the rare subset. It's like bodybuilders and people who are eating like a high protein, but like a low calorie diet. Like that's pretty rare. So it's hard to know how much of it is the protein and how much of it is just the diet in general, like the calorie load of the diet in general and like eating constantly.

Barry Conrad

It's my brain's buzzing. I'm so excited to hear this news because it's basically just confirmation. Also, did you, did you really, were you really feeling like that? Like feeling like, oh, is this good that I'm eating this much protein?

Melanie Avalon

Oh, 100%. I asked this question. If you go through my biohacking one, my biohacking podcast, I ask everybody who I think might have information about this, I ask them their thoughts on the trade-off between high protein diets and longevity. So I'm pretty sure I asked David Sinclair and Valter Longo and even people on the high protein side of things like Gabrielle Lyon. Yeah, I'm haunted by this question.

Barry Conrad

What do they all say like on average like all those guests like to they all support the high protein or do they cut is it more abstract like what they say about it.

Melanie Avalon

It pretty much depends what camp they're in. So I interviewed Dr. Michael Greger end of last year, and he's one of the biggest vegan people out there. And he made the case that he thinks protein is the most aging thing, specifically the amino acid methionine. According to him, the most aging thing you can do is eat a high methionine diet. So yeah, he was team low protein. Walter Longo, who is also team low protein, I asked him this question. I remember I actually asked him. So he's the one who created the fasting mimicking diet. He's at the University of Southern California. We've had him on this show, and I've had him on my other show once or twice. I'm actually trying to book him again for his new book, which is on cancer. I asked him specifically. I was like, do you think maybe if I'm eating a high protein diet, but in a one meal a day window every day, and then fasting all day, is that mitigating the effects? And he said it's possible, but we just don't know. Basically, why risk it? What's his answer? But then people like Dr. Gabrielle Lyon will make the case that supporting muscle is of most importance for longevity. So you get all different answers. But yes, to answer your question, I am very haunted by this question.

Barry Conrad

Well, hopefully you less wanted after getting those results.

Melanie Avalon

I am. I felt intuitively like I don't feel like I'm aging from it. It feels very supportive of my metabolic health. And then the fasting every day just intuitively feels good. Like I don't feel like I'm aging faster.

Barry Conrad

I 100% agree with you 100% and same with you.

Melanie Avalon

You look amazing. You look like a baby.

Barry Conrad

you look amazing too. Hopefully a big baby not like an actual

Melanie Avalon

A big baby, no, not an actual baby. It's like, what's that movie, Tuck Everlasting? Like, don't age.

Barry Conrad

Aye, yeah, yeah

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, I don't know if you ever saw that I saw that like forever

Barry Conrad

I can't even tell, like, you're one of those people where looking at you, you just can't tell your age, you know what I mean?

Melanie Avalon

Mm-hmm. Like you can't really pinpoint it

Barry Conrad

Like he should be in Twilight.

Melanie Avalon

Yes, you too. Let's make a movie. Let's cast ourselves.

Barry Conrad

I like how there was a ding when you said that in the background.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, my goodness. So that was a lot.

Barry Conrad

No, it was a lot in a good way.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, should we answer a listener question? Any other thoughts?

Barry Conrad

No, I'm very, very happy to hear what you just shared because I'm so big on protein too, so it's encouraging. Let's get into some questions.

Melanie Avalon

Yes. Okay. All right. So we have a question from Nydia, and this actually relates a little bit to some of the things we talked about, but this was on Facebook. And friends, you can join our Facebook group, IF Biohackers, intermittent fasting, plus real foods, plus life, and ask questions in there for us, all the things. So Nydia says, why after almost four years, I can't seem to get fat adapted. I do clean fast since I started to fast. I do 19-6 most of the time. I close my window with no sweets, so my glucose levels won't be higher. I lost weight, then gained all of it back, and some more. I'm 50 years old. I weigh 170 and 5-3, so yes, I'm obese, L-O-L. She said L-O-L. I didn't add that in. She said it. So what are your thoughts, Yuri?

Barry Conrad

Well, Nydia, how's it going? I hope you're having a good week. First off, massive, massive respect for sticking with IF for four years. That's a long time and it's a real commitment, which is great. I know how frustrating it could be, you know, to feel like you're doing everything right, but not really getting the results you expected. But let me tell you that your, your body isn't, it's not working against you. Your, it sounds like from what you're saying that something's out of sync there, but we can, we can figure it out. So when people talk about quote unquote fat adapted, it means like their body has shifted into like a fat burning mode, which means using stored fat for energy instead of running on carbs. And based on what you're saying, you are clean fasting, doing a solid 19, six situation and keeping your sugar in check, which is good. So you're ahead of the game there. But if your body is holding on to the weight or even gaining, that's a big clue that something needs tweaking here. So the first thing I'd look at is drum roll protein, protein intake, because it's, it's a huge, it's a huge thing, especially at 50 and as we get older, we naturally lose muscle and that can slow our metabolism down. We name checked over four, but for example, Dr. Gabrielle lion, who's the physician and expert in all things muscle. You know, she says that after the age of 30, we can lose approximately like three to 8% of muscle mass per decade. That's significant. So with that rate, even accelerating after age 60, we need more protein. So if you're not getting enough protein to support your muscle, your body isn't going to burn fat as efficiently. And that's just the reality. So I'll be real. A lot of people think they're eating enough protein and a lot of my friends and family say, yeah, I had a steak for dinner. I had some chicken for lunch. I had my protein, but that's actually not having enough. When you actually track for a day or two, you'll find that you're way under like a lot of people do. So a good rule rule of thumb here is to aim for at least a gram of protein per pound of body weight and don't just guess it though, like actually track it for a couple of days and see where you're at, that might surprise you. Next up, are you eating enough overall? So this might kind of sound weird, but if you're under eating, your body can go into a kind of survival mode where it actually will hold onto the fat instead of burning it, which is not what we want. So this happens when we fast too aggressively or we don't fully refuel in our eating window. So eat enough on the flip side of that. It's easy to overeat without realizing, right? Especially if your meals are packed with like cheeses or, you know, quote unquote, health foods in the health food aisle, which are calorie dense.

Barry Conrad

So tracking your intake for a few days, it's going to help. Then we have to talk about hormones. I'm going to tread lightly here. Melanie, you can jump in if you need here, but because this stage of life, from my understanding of it, things like insulin, estrogen, cortisol, and thyroid function, it all plays a huge role in the way we lose weight, lose fat. So if your insulin sensitivity has changed or your estrogen levels are shifting, your body might store the fat more easily, especially around your your midsection. And we can't forget about cortisol because if stress levels are high, that's going to spike cravings and slow fat loss and even like really mess up your sleep. So if you haven't had your hormones checked in a while, this could be, could be a missing piece of it. Sometimes even simple shifts in meal timing or food choices are going to help to bring that back into balance. And speaking of sleep, like, and I'm preaching to myself here, it matters so much more than we think, because if you're not getting the deep quality sleep, your body doesn't fully recover, your hunger hormones get out of whack and your metabolism is going to slow. So if you're not winding down probably before bed nadir, I definitely think it's worth paying attention to. Bottom line, I don't think this is any kind of failure or nothing's broken. It's just, I think there's just some tweaks you can make here. And honestly, the fact that you stuck with this for four years proves you have the discipline, the mindset and the patience to figure this out. You don't need to overall everything. It's just fine tune what's not working. You've already done the hard part by staying consistent. And so I reckon you're much closer than you think you are. You got this, Melanie, what do you reckon?

Melanie Avalon

That was so wonderful. That was amazing. Thank you so much. I agree with everything you said. I'll throw in some other things that you could think about or consider. So first of all, I love the protein, I echo all of that back. So I think we've made it really clear how important that is. And one thing you could try. So you say that you you close your window with no sweet so your glucose won't be higher. If you haven't done a round of wearing a CGM, I would highly recommend that. So it's a continuous glucose monitor. It's a little sensor that you put on your arm and it monitors your blood sugar levels 24 seven. So you'll get a good picture of how your blood sugar is actually responding all throughout the day. And I think that will provide a really helpful picture of what might be going on. So you could try Nutrisense. So for that, go to Nutrisense.io slash I have podcasts, that's n u t r i s e n s e.com slash I have podcast and use you can use the code I have podcast that will get you a discount. I think it's $30. But it will definitely get you a discount and one free month of nutritionist support. So you could try that. And then you can also try a lumen device that might be something to try. I love lumen. It's a device which measures the level of carbon dioxide in your breath to actually tell you if you're burning carbs or fat, and then helps you work you through to get more into the fat burning zone more often. It's a really, really cool metabolic device. It's actually the same science when they do these studies in lab controlled ward studies where they try to see how people are burning carbs or fat, it's actually using that science, which is so cool. So if you want to discount on that, you can go to Melanie Avalon comm slash lumen l u m e n and use the coupon code Melanie Avalon and that will give you a discount there. So definitely try that or definitely consider trying that. And then I recently interviewed for the second time I interviewed her recently, this episode will be airing April 11. So check it out when it airs. It's with Dr. Kate Shanahan, although you can actually listen to I interviewed her a few years ago. So you can listen to that old one in the meantime as well. And that's on the Melanie Avalon biohacking podcast. So Dr. Shanahan, she wrote Deep Nutrition, which is an incredible book. That's how I was exposed to her work. But then she more recently wrote The Fat Burn Fix. And then her newest book is called Dark Calories. And the subtitle is how vegetable oils destroy our health and how we can get it back. She is a huge proponent of the idea that seed oils are what are causing so much of our metabolic health issues today. She does take it to the utmost extreme, like this is the cause of like all the problems. I do think there's something there though, I personally have been on a seed oil free diet for years and years.

Melanie Avalon

I've been on a quote PUFA depletion diet. So basically, PUFA is the poly unsaturated fatty acids, things like omega three is omega sixes and they're very high in seed oils. And these, these fats, they're not meant to be energy, they're more like a, they have health benefits for our body, but they're not meant to be burned by the mitochondria as ongoing energy. And when they are, they're very inflammatory. And she makes a very comprehensive scientific case for the fact that these are creating insulin resistance, metabolic health issues and are and are like she thinks it's like the reason people get into stubborn weight situations like Nydia is experiencing. So you could definitely I don't you don't mention and I think this is huge. You don't mention what you're eating besides not eating sweets at night. There is so much potential that can happen when you clean up. I don't like the word cleanup. But when you change actually what you're eating, so change to eating just whole foods, removing those seed oils, removing processed foods, that can have a massive effect on your metabolic health and your weight loss. So that's definitely something to consider. And then also, like I was talking about earlier, if we have these toxins stored in our fat tissue, especially if you're obese, you probably have a lot of toxins stored in your fat tissue, that might be making it harder for you to lose weight. It is what it is. It's not meant to be scary or bad. It just it's knowledge to know that that might be an issue for you and that maybe you need to lose weight slowly and as much as you can reduce your incoming exposure to these environmental toxins through your diet choices, your skincare and makeup, all the things. So and then I will just quickly say, you know, Barry's comment about hormones. So so huge hormones can be a big reason that we, you know, can not easily lose weight. So Anything you do to optimize your diet with like the food choices and your health and your lifestyle and your sleep, those are all going to help with hormones, kind of just to echo what Barry was saying. So you've got this, there's a lot of things you can try, keep tweaking and you can always write back in, keep us updated. Yeah, let us know. So, okay, Barry, shall we hypothet... or what's the word, hypothetically? No, no, no. What's the word? Hypothetically break our fast? Not hypothetically. Hypothetically. Hypothetically.

Barry Conrad

So we virtually, yeah, I guess hypothetically, I guess so, right?

Melanie Avalon

And it's not hypothetically. What's the word for it's like you're not actually doing it, but you're like doing it in your mind?

Barry Conrad

We mentally break up, so we imaginatively break up us.

Melanie Avalon

Should we that our vast let's do it. Okay, I'm so ready. Awesome. Do you have a restaurant for us to talk about?

Barry Conrad

I have a restaurant today that I'm really excited about.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, I'm excited too.

Barry Conrad

It's called Kaya wine bar, and it's in my favorite city in the whole world. You can guess it, Mel.

Melanie Avalon

what your favorite city in the whole world? Wait, is it in, what? Is it in, I should know this, I'm embarrassed.

Barry Conrad

It's in the States.

Melanie Avalon

It is in the U.S.? Okay. Is it New York?

Barry Conrad

Yes, you got it. I was going to say that. And the other reason why it's one of my favorite, one of my favorite restaurants to share is because it's South African, which I am. So Kaya wine bar, it's like nestled in Manhattan's Upper East Side. It's a celebrated South African haven founded in 2011 by Suzanne Haupt of Leish, a native of South Africa's Free State province. Kaya means home. So that's the vibe we're sitting here. The Michelin guide highlighted it as like a South African gem in the heart of Manhattan. It's been recognized as like one of New York's essential places to eat by eater. And the New Yorker also featured Kaya noting its unique position as the city's sole South African restaurant. So I'm so ready to go. And Melanie, it offers a diverse array of South African dishes like elk tata, lamb burgers and traditional boba tea. Do you know what elk is?

Melanie Avalon

Do I know what elk is? Do I not know what elk is? Do people not know what elk is? I mean, some people don't. Wait, really? I love elk. It's my favorite. It's so good. It might be my favorite.

Barry Conrad

and get this as well. It has a selection of over 50 South African wines, which I knew you'd like. So, elk and wine.

Melanie Avalon

Nice. Okay. Yes, because the purpose of this is we want to emphasize how much we love food and fasting is not just about fasting, it's about what you're eating as well. And it's about breaking the fast.

Barry Conrad

I'll just send you the link.

Melanie Avalon

they have oysters i will not be getting those.

Barry Conrad

Yeah, why not?

Melanie Avalon

Mm-hmm. I'm done.

Barry Conrad

OK, here we go.

Melanie Avalon

No, I am going to have them with you one time and then I'm officially done.

Barry Conrad

Maybe more than one time if you actually see the light and see how good they are.

Melanie Avalon

Mm hmm. They have normal oysters and roasted oysters. Sure. For the sliders and snack. Okay, wait. So, okay. So there's sliders and snacks. There's a taco shop. There's a lot of stuff. Okay. Then there's like the, wait, so what does this mean? Is com com? What is that word? Combuis entree?

Barry Conrad

Okay, so it basically means like the kitchen, like a nautical term for cooking placed aboard a ship. So here we go. This is like the kitchen time to eat. So it's like the main course situation. Awesome.

Melanie Avalon

Well, for my starter, I would get the lamb skewers, which come with lamb skewers, apricot and onions, and a Pinatas reduction. So I would get them rare, completely plain, and can they put everything on the side.

Barry Conrad

Just the one, just the one thing.

Melanie Avalon

This is the starter. Oh, um, I think so. If you get some bacon, I might taste it. Wait, what are, what are drummets like duck drummets?

Barry Conrad

Jomet's a kind of like, you know, drumsticks, like, you know, like, uh, do you call it drumsticks in?

Melanie Avalon

Oh yeah, that's cool. Okay, I'll have those as well also with the sticky mango chutney sauce on the side, please.

Barry Conrad

And the mango chut- Honestly, Melanie, Mrs. Ball's chutney in South Africa is a staple and it'll change your life. It's so good. It's so good. That mango chutney.

Melanie Avalon

That's like a thing that's known there.

Barry Conrad

It's definitely a thing.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, those are my choices, how do you feel? What would you get for the starter?

Barry Conrad

How do I feel? First of all, I feel disappointed that you didn't choose oysters, but I'm gonna go.

Melanie Avalon

You can get the oysters.

Barry Conrad

I'm going to get roasted oysters and the regular oysters.

Melanie Avalon

You're getting both. You're getting roasted and the regular.

Barry Conrad

Why are you yelling?

Melanie Avalon

I'm just clarifying. There's going to be a lot of oysters.

Barry Conrad

Yeah, and the roasted oysters, listen, it's caramelized shallots comes with caramelized shallots, smoked cheddar and breadcrumbs. Then I'm also going to get the lamb sosotis, which is the lamb skewers that Melanie got and the, the ian tflerikis, which is the drumettes. So I'll get the same of those two. And then I think I'm also going to get the duck a spice chicken with onion, marmalade and caya aioli. So that's like four, four trinkets, a little something, something, nothing too crazy.

Melanie Avalon

Nice. Are we going to double up on the things or share it? Like the ones that are overlapping? I guess. Let's share it. We could, but then also, how do you have your lamp code?

Barry Conrad

Well, the elk, for example, which we haven't got into yet, it has to be on the, more on the rare side, it's to stay tender, but lamb, medium rare rare, I could do, I could do either.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, it sounds good. I like this menu. I really like the different, the diverse representation of animal related foods.

Barry Conrad

I knew it. So Africa is like animal protein heaven. You love it there.

Melanie Avalon

Oh man, I bet I would.

Barry Conrad

So what about a main situation for you? What are you thinking?

Melanie Avalon

So I'm not going to go the taco route, I don't think, unless they do it without taco shells. Actually, what if I, could I request just like all the meat? Because at the taco shop pick three, could they just give me the meat, like just give me the pork, the shrimp, the steak? That's too confusing. I'm going to go the entrees. Okay. I will get, I'm so excited about this el carpaccio. This is so exciting. And I love that it's an entree, like a main thing. It must be really big. Yeah. Yes. Oh, yes. I'm excited.

Barry Conrad

And also just to let you know as well, like in South Africa, portions, we throw down. Like we can, it's big.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, like America, like the U.S.

Barry Conrad

Maybe not quite as big, but it's on the bigger side.

Melanie Avalon

Okay. Well, I'm really excited about this el carpaccio situation.

Barry Conrad

What about the, what about the commasals, which is peri peri dry scallops. You didn't like that. The look of that.

Melanie Avalon

So I don't like to get scallops when I'm out because I, I have them all the time at home and I eat pounds and pounds with them at home. There's no way on earth. If I order them out, it's going to be enough. It's going to be like a scallop. But wait, where is it? What's it called?

Barry Conrad

the camossels that's so like that's it's just above boboti come on

Melanie Avalon

Well, I do like, okay, let's get those two. I changed my mind.

Barry Conrad

I'm going to go, my eyes went straight to the Gatsby and this is, okay, so listen, I'm from Cape Town originally, so that's, the Gatsby is sort of like this big roll. If you can imagine like a, a French stick, but wider and bigger, and they fill it with like all kinds, like any feelings that you want, like chicken or whatever kind of animal protein and fries, sometimes it's just delicious. So I'm going to do the Gatsby, and this is described as, Portuguese roll stuffed with garam masala pulled chicken, pepper dews, cayenne pickled curvy cucumbers, mayo and fries. So I'm going to have that, the El Capachio that Mel had, and also I have to go for, just because it's the wild, some peon mac and cheese, got to do it. So I'm really going in here.

Melanie Avalon

I will look at your mac and cheese and appreciate it vicariously through you. I'm excited you're ordering it because I like looking at mac and cheese.

Barry Conrad

Would you try some? Or no?

Melanie Avalon

No, boy. Oh, no, it's not good. It wipes me out. I know. So I know like what food, Barry and I talk about this a lot. Like I know what food makes me feel good inside and out and some don't. So I'd rather not have them. Like I'm like a happier person not having it, but I still appreciate it vicariously through other people. And then I eat the food that I like, I might as well, if I'm going to love what I'm eating anyways, I might as well eat the food I love that's also not going to make me feel bad, you know?

Barry Conrad

It's a good call, you know, kind of be mad at that. Personal.

Melanie Avalon

like my personal constitution. Yeah, I had another thought about it. I don't remember. Oh, the El Carpacho. I'm excited because I do like mustard and it comes with her, it says with my mother's mustard is what it says, and a peppery arugula salad. So I might bury, I might actually have some of the accompanying sauce, the mustard.

Barry Conrad

That's awesome. Because usually, listen as you already know this, but Melanie would be like, I'll get everything, but I'll have like, you know, all the additives on the side. You know?

Melanie Avalon

There we go. That's awesome. Yep. I would just have it not at all, but I want them to feel like, I feel like it makes the chef happy if I at least get it on the side. And then other people might want to try it. So everybody wins.

Barry Conrad

Everybody wins.

Melanie Avalon

So what would you get for dessert? Is there a dessert list on here?

Barry Conrad

Yep. Scroll on down and you're going to see all kinds of other things there that you're going to that I need to point out to you like Bill Tong. Do you know what Bill Tong is, Melanie? Yes, we do.

Melanie Avalon

talked about this. Where is it on here?

Barry Conrad

So good at the meats.

Melanie Avalon

Wait a second, is this a whole other menu? Oh, is this just like meat? Oh my goodness, I miss this part of the menu. Okay, well this is great because this will be my dessert.

Barry Conrad

I knew you'd like that.

Melanie Avalon

Yes, I'll try the Biltong.

Barry Conrad

Do you want to go first?

Melanie Avalon

They put emojis, oh my gosh, they put emojis in their descriptions. I'm so not not like an actual emoji, but like a smiley face. I'm so a fan of this place. I don't think I've ever seen that in a minute. I don't know if I have never seen that in a menu. I don't think have you.

Barry Conrad

No, I haven't actually. It's actually a good point.

Melanie Avalon

Wow. I love it. Okay. Because it says South African biltong. And then underneath it says one fourth pound naturally dried beef jerky, but way better. Smiley face. Wow. That's funny. I think I would get for dessert the prosciutto. Maybe the, I don't know, what is car, Carpicola? Goose. Goose? Oh yeah. Let's try that. Yeah. Some of the meats. I would just be like, bring me a lot of meats.

Barry Conrad

Even their wineries there, you're just going to have to go to South Africa because it's just like the meat is so good to produce and the wine is so good, I'm getting excited. Is that it? Are you getting nothing else for dessert?

Melanie Avalon

And then maybe I'll repeat something like whatever I like to the moat. Okay, so when we're having the appetizers, whatever I like really like, I'll tell them to save some for dessert for me at the end and I'll have it again. So be it the duck or the lamb or I have to decide though when we're actually trying it.

Barry Conrad

Okay, for dessert for me, definitely getting the biltong, definitely getting the drouvours, which basically is dry sausage, it means that. But it's really delicious, so I'll get those two and then I'll migrate to the peppermint crisp tarte, which is like a peppermint crisp tarte, it's really, really good. And then I'll have the malva pudding, which is basically a South African delicacy, it's sticky day, sticky cake with homemade vanilla custard, so I'll get those two and the meats.

Melanie Avalon

It all sounds really good. It sounds like you feel like you're at home, which is appropriate because it's about home.

Barry Conrad

What about Vino?

Melanie Avalon

So I can't answer on the fly because I would have to look up every single one and find the organic ones and then I'd have to look at the alcohol and find the low alcohol. But if I had to guess, I really, it's really hard to know. But as far as like varietals that I'm intrigued by that I really like, I love Grenache Noir. I'm really excited by the look of that one. They are organic. So the Grenache Noir, the Foundry, that's just the first one that spoke to me and I looked it up. It looks like it's 13.5% alcohol. I try to get 13% or less, but it is organic. So I'm just gonna, just because I don't have time to look through all of them, I'm gonna go with that one for now. That one looks good.

Barry Conrad

Yeah, I'm going to go for, you know, I usually go for Pinot Grigio, but we're in South Africa and there's lots of meat here. So I'm going to go for the Pinotage, which is, I've actually had that. It's delicious.

Melanie Avalon

That's what I'm looking up right now, because it's like South African wine, like they're known for pinotage.

Barry Conrad

It's really good.

Melanie Avalon

Perfect. Awesome. Well, great restaurant find. And I forgot, you said you have been here or have not been here.

Barry Conrad

I haven't been to this restaurant, but I'm going next time and I'm in New York. It's happening because I didn't know it existed until yeah.

Melanie Avalon

That's so exciting. You must send pictures and upload them to our Instagram.

Barry Conrad

I'll do it. I have to do it.

Melanie Avalon

Awesome. Okay, well, this was so, so fun for listeners. We hope you had as much fun as we did. If you would like to submit questions for the show, you can directly email questions at iapodcast.com. You can also go to iapodcast.com and submit questions there. And you can get the show notes, which there are a lot of notes in the show notes, a lot of blinks of things we talked about, all the things. Those will be at iapodcast.com slash episode 414, which is a palindrome. And you can follow us on Instagram. I am Melanie Avalon. Barry is Barry underscore Conrad, and we are iapodcast. So anything from you, Barry, before we go?

Barry Conrad

Hope you all have an amazing week. Thank you for listening. Keep your questions coming and happy fasting and feasting from me.

Melanie Avalon

Awesome! I will talk to you next week!

Barry Conrad

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!

Mar 16

Episode 413 – OMAD Definitions, Flight Attendants & Traveling, Fasting For Metabolism & The Immune System, Lumen Vs Continuous Glucose Monitors, Breaking Plateaus & Burning Fat, And More!

Intermittent fasting influences immunity and metabolism

Welcome to Episode 413 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

SPONSORS & DISCOUNTS

MAUI NUI

PIQUE FASTING TEAS

LMNT

LINKS

Featured Restaurant: Blue Bayo

STUDIES

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.)

Melanie Avalon

Welcome to episode 413 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 Avalon X 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 everybody and welcome. This is episode number 413 of the intermittent fasting podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon. I'm here with Barry Conrad. Barry, how are you today?

Barry Conrad

Hey, everyone. How's it going? I am doing great today. I'm having a really, really good day productive. Feeling good. How are you feeling, Mel? I'm feeling good.

Melanie Avalon

I'm feeling really good too. I'm really excited because I know I keep talking about it, but we're finalizing the design. And by the time this airs, it might even be out, but we're finalizing the design of my coffee line bags. And I love creative design. Like, do you like creative design?

Barry Conrad

I actually do as well, I really do, I'm working on something, some level which I'll share at a later date, so I'm totally in the zone with you, I get it.

Melanie Avalon

We've had so many work calls about it and people keep making comments about once we get through the bag design and like, you know, like, you know, how it's like, so they're all like dreading the design process. I'm like, this is like the best part. I love it. It's so fun. Honestly, it probably will be out by this time. This comes out because this will be in March, but either sign up for updates or get my glow coffee because it is going to be a coffee that basically has the highest CGA content possible in coffee and CGA is the primary antioxidant in coffee. So for all of the health benefits of coffee, this is the coffee that you want. So we source beans to be high in CGA content and then we specifically roast it to be high in that content. And then we test it for purity. It's free of toxins free of mold that uses organic beans. And I just found out more about the actual farms the coffee comes from and it's led by all women. They're very supportive of the environment and like the goodness of both the environment and people and humans. And it's just so, so incredible. And the coffee tastes amazing. So I'm, I'm excited go coffee, but I'm just so happy because the colors that we're doing on the bag are just beautiful, like glowing.

Barry Conrad

Can you say what colors they are? Do you want it to be a surprise?

Melanie Avalon

Well, I really honestly do think it will be out by the time this comes out. Either way, though, yeah, I'm happy to say it's like it's like it's an ombre effect. So the top is yellow, then it goes to orange and then to like magenta and then to brown. It's just I think it's stunning.

Barry Conrad

And you know what, Mel, I'm ordering some.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, yes. Well, actually, I think Barry, I'm going to have to send it to you in Australia because I don't think we'll be shipping to Australia. Oh, really? I doubt it. I'll be sending you some, though.

Barry Conrad

Okay, well, I'm all for that because I love my coffee. So let's go.

Melanie Avalon

I know. I can't wait to get your thoughts on it.

Barry Conrad

I'll tell you my honest opinion.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, no. Yeah, please do. Please do. Do you know, have I told you what I do with coffee topically? Like, not drinking it? Have I told you what I do?

Barry Conrad

No, you know, this is a first what would you do?

Melanie Avalon

Okay, so every time I wash my face, like after a shower or after a sauna and then I take a shower or in the morning, I splash my face with coffee.

Barry Conrad

Why? Don't try to get the visuals so that you have a bowl of cold coffee on the sink. How does it work?

Melanie Avalon

So, okay, so basically I actually, okay, it's a little bit ironic that I'm creating a coffee line because I don't, I love coffee, but I don't, I don't drink a ton. I'm not a, I used to, I went through phases, but now I just have like a little bit every morning, but I have to have it, but it's like a little bit. So basically I cold brew coffee, I keep it in my fridge and then I just like have a little bit every morning and I also use it for my face. So I wash my face and then I like pour some coffee into my hands and I just splash it on my face kind of like a toner. And the reason I do this is because way in the past I was using some products and they were like features like coffee bean and caffeine. And I was like, wait, what if I just put coffee straight on my face? I love it because it tightens my skin. I feel like some of the caffeine gets into me. Like I feel like it wakes me up. The antioxidants are there in coffee. So wow. Yeah, it really makes my skin glow, which is perfect because glow coffee is what I'm making. I didn't plan that.

Barry Conrad

Are you gonna, are you gonna do like a blog about it when glow coffee is out, which is probably now you're gonna say, by the way, here's a hack. You can put this in your face and da da da da.

Melanie Avalon

Oh my goodness, thank you for asking, can I actually get your, okay, Barry, this conversation we're having right now is probably going to affect the glow coffee bag. So this is a lot of responsibility on your shoulders right now. Are you ready? Take this very seriously. So we're coming up with on the back, the instructions, like how to use, you know, like how to brew. And I was thinking, because I want to have my name, I want to be associated with it, but I don't want to, I don't, I don't want to be it. Like I don't want it to be like Melanie Avalon's glow coffee, but I do want people to know that it's my brand because then they'll associate with my standards and you know, everything that I'm about. So I was thinking, what if I have like under the, like by the instructions or somewhere, I have like Melanie Avalon's, like how Melanie Avalon brews her, like does glow, like, like basically like what I do. And then it could be like instructions for how to cold brew. And then it could be something about how to put it on your face.

Barry Conrad

I think that's a really good idea. I think not having it on the front, but having it on the back where all the instructions and things are, having those tips there and then underneath how Melanie Evelyn does it, and then in brackets, founder or creator. I think that's a really smart way to still have you there. Some people know it's yours, but it's not like Glow by Melanie Evelyn. Do you know what I mean?

Melanie Avalon

Yes. Would you put in like, so basically like the basic instructions and I can make it all look nice on the template, but like the basic instructions, but then like Melanie's, you know, thing and it's like how to cold brew and then the how to like splash it on your face.

Barry Conrad

I think it personalizes what you created. I think it's a really good idea.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, I really want to do it. I just got to, I got to work with like chat GPT and help it help me figure out how to like put this on the bed, you know, like what to say exactly. But

Barry Conrad

Because I'm guessing you don't want it to be like, because how big is the the package like the bag? Is it like a one kg bag? Is it like a 500 grams bag? It is 12 ounces. Do you know how this always gets me? What is the equivalent? Do you know that in grams? Hold it, I'll find out.

Melanie Avalon

Barry, making me do the hard work here.

Barry Conrad

Hold on, 12 ounces is how many grams.

Melanie Avalon

It is 340 grams.

Barry Conrad

You beat me to it, my internet's slower. All right, that's good. That's a good bag. Good size. I think it's just like normal size, right? The reason why I asked that was, I guess it depends how much you want, how much info you want to put, how much copy you want in the back of the packaging. Right? That's a great idea.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, it can fit a lot of stuff. What I'm actually figuring out right now, if people are curious about the production process, I'm curious. I'm trying to figure out if our bags are going to have side panels or not, because if so, then I will have even more real estate to put stuff on. Yeah, so go coffee.

Barry Conrad

Super exciting and that's such a good idea, that's my vote, put it on there.

Melanie Avalon

it on? Okay, I'm doing it. That's you. So when it comes out and you see it, be like, that was me.

Barry Conrad

That was me, everyone.

Melanie Avalon

So, what is new in your world?

Barry Conrad

You know what? I've actually started taking Salsa classes again.

Melanie Avalon

salsa classes, again, wait, you just like hit me with two big things, salsa classes and again.

Barry Conrad

Yeah, so listen, this might seem random, but last year, I did a show called In the Heights, Lin-Manuel Miranda, one of the shows and in the preparation, well, actually, it wasn't preparation, I was I wanted to learn salsa anyway. And then I booked the show whilst doing classes like every every Monday, I go it's like local and it's it's such a good workout. It's such a sexy fun dance to do and I'd stopped doing it because the show did most of the work for me and once I was doing that, but now that's, you know, we're well and truly into the year, I am picking it up again, got to do it. So I've started doing salsa again. And it's every every, do you know how to salsa?

Melanie Avalon

Well, first of all, I just want to say if you lived in Atlanta, I would do salsa classes with you.

Barry Conrad

Would you really? Uh-huh. Are you just saying that because like, you know, would you be like, okay.

Melanie Avalon

I'm serious. Sign me up. What do you wear? Can you wear anything?

Barry Conrad

Have you done it before now how funny that that's like one of the first question listeners are you surprised that she's like what do you wear can you wear anything.

Melanie Avalon

Well, I need to know what I can wear.

Barry Conrad

You can wear one of your awesome dresses that you wear and you can wear that if you want because I mean it's it's that kind of thing or some people just wear like active wear gym clothes it just depends it's wear whatever you like but there's salsa shoes that you can buy like the specific heels which I feel like you'd you'd like that that's a Melanie thing and then there's there we have like a social so like every few weeks is like a salsa social where like a whole bunch of people from the school we just like dance and like this food and it's like you know more just to hang which it's which is so good it's like dating but you're not really dating but you just like dancing with random strangers like going from one person to the next person to the next person you'd like that it's really fun.

Melanie Avalon

There's, well, she's my friend too, but Stephanie Rupper and Noelle Tarr, they have the Wellhead Women podcast, showed up, and Stephanie was always doing dancing and talking about it. I think it was salsa, and it just sounded like such a culture, and once you know how to do it, they just go salsa dancing, and like you just said, you dance with all these other partners, and it just sounds really cool.

Barry Conrad

It's really, it's so cool and it just feels, I don't know. It's just, it's hard to explain, it's a lot of fun. You have to kind of just put yourself out there, be willing to look foolish, and everyone's just learning at the same time, but man, I've always wanted to do it, and I'm so glad that I've finally bit the bullet and I'm back at Salsa class, so that's an update of mine.

Melanie Avalon

can you drink while learning? I feel like I'm a better dancer when I have some drinks on me. Or do you have to be like memorizing things? But it's muscle memory, right? It's like body memory.

Barry Conrad

Well, I mean, technically, you could probably come to the class having had a few beverages, but you can't, it's like a dad's studio. So you can't like have a bottle open and, you know, I could just picture you waltzing around, hold on guys, just having a drink.

Melanie Avalon

Like just wait for me. I'm going to open a salsa studio and we're going to, it's going to be called what I'm I have nothing. I'm just trying to come up with like some great like salsa wine pun. Oh, oh wait that wait salsa, like, like chips and salsa, salsa and what choose salsa, wine and salsa, wine and salsa.

Barry Conrad

That's a good name.

Melanie Avalon

it took care of itself. The puns took care of themselves. To answer your question, I took ballroom dancing classes and okay, wait, wait, let's go back farther than that. I did cotillion when I was little. Do you have cotillion in Australia? What is that? Oh.

Barry Conrad

the reaction. I'm not sure if that's bad or good.

Melanie Avalon

might have it. You might just call it something else. It's like at country clubs and it's like you're like a little kid and they teach you manners and how to set a table and how to ballroom dance. And it was really stressful because I have this memory of being, how old was I? It's like fourth grade, fifth grade. I had this memory of being there. And this is the fourth grade. Boys are like, you're not really into boys. And to learn to dance, they made us do this exercise, which I don't think they should be doing to fourth graders and third graders. We had a snowball, like a snowball, like a fake snowball. You know, like those fake snowballs made of like cotton. Okay. So like the size, it was like the size of like a baseball, but like soft. And we had to hold it between our heads. Like with the boy, that's like so close to their face. And you have to hold it there. It was like a lot to take in.

Barry Conrad

Did you like that?

Melanie Avalon

No, I did not like it. Do you like Italian or holding the ball with a boy?

Barry Conrad

We're both maybe the first questions the ball and then the second is cotillion.

Melanie Avalon

Ball with the boy, no, cotillion, meh. I liked learning how to, you had to like memorize how to set a table. I liked it, yeah, it was fun. Yeah, so that was my first dancing experience and then I did ballroom dancing for a little bit in college and peace out.

Barry Conrad

Wow, so basically we could go dancing when I'm in Atlanta.

Melanie Avalon

Basically not. No, it's it's funny. What up because I don't really oh and I and I used to I did a little bit of swing Dancing lessons. I don't think it retained any of it. I need to take lessons

Barry Conrad

There's one way to find out when I'm in Atlanta next, let's just go out like a spot and then just hit the floor. Do you know how to swing dance? I don't, but I could probably learn. I'm a quick study.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, you should come here and we'll take swing dancing lessons and salsa dancing lessons.

Barry Conrad

Deal and speaking of Italian does that cover like this is the color you use you know that are as well as the table setting cuz i'm i'm going through that again just trying to we learn the etiquette you know because it's different in different places yeah.

Melanie Avalon

Yes, they don't have this in Australia, this thing I just described to you.

Barry Conrad

They probably do, so I'm not going to quote and say they don't, so don't get at me, everyone. They probably do, but maybe it's called something else. I'll just say that.

Melanie Avalon

That's cool that you're trying to relearn the way you're trying to learn it for like Australia or like what are you trying to learn exactly?

Barry Conrad

I love to travel, so I just want to be versed in that so that when I go to different places, I'm not being disrespectful, you know, to the, you know, I mean, table manners.

Melanie Avalon

trying to learn all countries or like places you might go.

Barry Conrad

Places are my go.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, that's cool. Apparently there's a lot of rules, speaking of fasting and food and such, about like some like whether or not to finish all the food or not. Like some places it's like an insult if you eat all of it. Some places it's an insult if you don't eat all of it. Like you just can't win. Like my takeaway is everybody's offended by everything.

Barry Conrad

I've got some friends who are Samoan, and in their culture, it's a sign of respect to have more. I remember going over to a Sunday lunch with some of my friends, and the mother was like, Barry, have some more. But my plate was already like, picture this, like a heaped, like a mountain, a mountainous, massive plate. She's like, have some more, have some more, because it's offensive if you don't keep eating.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, some places it's like you can't if you say no, it's offensive, but then some places if you eat everything, it's offensive because it means they didn't give you enough.

Barry Conrad

That's not really my style but i can i can respect that when i'm there.

Melanie Avalon

my style is I do like the idea of I like the idea of like dressing up and like having respect and like you I like the idea of like the cutlery being in a certain order and play settings I think it's great I think when it comes to actual food though people should be able to eat whatever they want

Barry Conrad

Obviously. Or not eat whatever they want as well. Yes, yes. Speaking of meals, before we go any further, actually, a couple of episodes ago, listeners, you may remember we talked about, you know, what is one meal a day, like, you know, we revisited the great... The great one meal a day debate? Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I stay right there because I actually did a poll on... We did a poll on the Instagram, and I'm gonna let you know, which is really interesting.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, so friends, follow us on Instagram at if podcast to engage with the polls.

Barry Conrad

engage in the polls. I love a poll. So here we go. So these are the options, Melanie. Okay, so you've got to eat the meal within one hour max. That's one. The second one is it can be spread across two to four hours. And the third one is just eating once a day in brackets timing doesn't matter. Which one do you think had the most votes out of those three?

Melanie Avalon

Wait, so did you include though, we need to do it and include like where it's okay if you eat and then stop and then eat again.

Barry Conrad

Might have to do that again.

Melanie Avalon

Because that's like the crux of the debate. Wait, so what options did you put?

Barry Conrad

You've got to eat the meal within one hour max. The second one is it can be spread across two to four hours. And the third one's just eating once a day. Timing doesn't matter, which is quite ambiguous.

Melanie Avalon

And the question was,

Barry Conrad

In the latest episode, we revisit the great one meal a day debate. We're curious what's your definition of one meal a day.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, I would say that it doesn't matter the timing.

Barry Conrad

Okay, so 62% of the followers said it can be spread across two to four hours. 10% said you've got to eat it within an hour, and 29% guessed your one, which is just eating it once a day. Timing doesn't matter. How interesting is that?

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, that is interesting. I would have done the same, but just switched the first two.

Barry Conrad

So there you go. So that's what people are at the moment. How about you? I think probably the second one, probably not within just one hour, because, you know,

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, no, me neither.

Barry Conrad

And eating once a day timing doesn't matter. That could be like spread across like eight hours. I don't know. Like eating once a day. You know what I mean?

Melanie Avalon

That's how I define it though, honestly. I, yeah, I didn't think about that, that you could be taking into account, like a long, a really long window.

Barry Conrad

But in any case, I think listeners definitely, if you don't follow us at our podcast on Instagram, please do, and there'll be lots more interactive polls for you to weigh in on what you think about all these conversations.

Melanie Avalon

Can you post if you have a snack and then stop and then eat, is that one meal a day?

Barry Conrad

You know what? I'm going to. I'll do it. I'll do part two if you, so what is it? If you start.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, like the great one meal a day debate part two. If you have a snack slash appetizer, then have a break, then eat your main meal. Is that still one meal a day?

Barry Conrad

Okay. We'll share those results first and then I'll put up the top part too. If you have a snack slash appetizer, then a break, then eat your main meal. Is that still one meal a day?

Melanie Avalon

Love it!

Barry Conrad

It's so good just to hear what people's different perspectives are, don't you think?

Melanie Avalon

Yes. Okay. So, Barry, do you have a study to start us off with?

Barry Conrad

I actually do. This study is called intermittent fasting influences immunity and metabolism. It's from Science Direct. All right, so let's just dive in. This title, intermittent fasting influences immunity and metabolism, we've all heard about IF as if you're new to the podcast, maybe you haven't, this is your first time. But a lot of people have heard of IF in the context of weight loss, but there's a lot more going on beneath the surface. One of the key things this study reveals is how intermittent fasting can improve something called the metabolic flexibility. So I know that term, it sort of sounds technical, but it's actually pretty straightforward. Essentially, metabolic flexibility is your body's ability to switch between different energy sources, like whether that's carbs or fat, and depending on what's available. And for people dealing with obesity, this is like a game changer, because their bodies often get stuck using just one type of fuel, usually carbs, which makes it pretty hard to burn fat efficiently. So it's like trying to drive a car with the handbrake on, you're not really going to go anywhere quick, but fasting helps to break that cycle. So in a way, fasting helps your body get back into that groove, using the fuel properly. But here's where it gets even better in the study, it shows that intermittent fasting can reduce inflammation, which is a big, huge problem for people with obesity, especially. And I'm sure that you've heard of inflammation. But what's important here is chronic low grade inflammation, which is also known as metaflamation. This kind of inflammation like messes with your insulin. What was the word that it used?

Melanie Avalon

Interesting, I've not heard that before.

Barry Conrad

And basically, this kind of inflammation messes with your insulin signaling and metabolism, which makes it way harder for your body to process your food and to use it for energy. But then when you fast, your body actually calms that inflammation down, allowing your metabolism to function better. It's like sort of hitting the reset button and clearing away all that stuff that's been slowing you down. But Melanie, this is the part that really blew me away because it went on to say that intermittent fasting can improve gut health. I know we were talking about that last week. And you know how much I'm into gut health as well lately? It turns out that fasting can actually help reset the balance of gut bacteria. And that is huge because gut health is linked to so many aspects of our health overall. So like a balanced gut microbiome listeners, it helps reduce inflammation and supports our immune system basically. So while our metabolism is getting like a boost from fasting, our gut health is also improving at the same time, creating like a ripple effect of benefits, like a domino effect of health. Like when one thing gets better, everything else can follow suit. But here is the kicker. Like intermittent fasting can improve your blood sugar regulation and insulin sensitivity even without dramatic weight loss. And that is really key about this study because it's basically saying even if we're not seeing massive changes on the scale, and I know a lot of people do come to IF4 weight loss first, but just to know that even if you're not seeing huge changes on the scale, your body still improves how it handles sugar and insulin. And that's so massive when it comes to preventing metabolic diseases like type 2 diabetes or whatnot. So even if the weight's not falling off right away, everyone, fasting is making a huge impact on your body's ability to manage sugar and to manage insulin levels, which can have long-term health benefits. So long story short, when you really think about it, IF is it's not just about the weight or focusing on the number and the scale. It's about the body being more efficient overall. It's about reducing that inflammation, improving your metabolism, supporting our gut health, and giving your immune system a boost. So friends, whether your goal is to lose weight or just to optimize your health like intermittent fasting, based on the study, offers a whole range of powerful benefits to help you function at your best. That's my takeaway from the study. So yeah.

Melanie Avalon

Oh my goodness, good find, that's an awesome study, it literally touches on all the things. It's so cool, we know inflammation is so involved in all of these disease processes. It's really interesting how just the absence of doing something, so just like letting the body rest and being in the facet state, because I think with the immune system we often think it's about whether or not we're exposed to sickness and whether or not there's disease and how are the immune cells functioning, but just by fasting and stopping having these inflammatory inputs, the body can pull it together, you know? It can take care of itself. That's so cool about how it can help reset the gut microbiome, that's cool.

Barry Conrad

It's so cool. And I think, you know, like we know this, but a lot of people that don't know by intermittent fasting might not know that take away of, you know, even when there's not massive changes on the scale, like a lot is happening. That's like, you know, a huge thing to remember. There's a lot happening within the body about handling the sugar and insulin. And that's really key. Long term. We're thinking about the long game people. We're not thinking about two weeks or a month, you know, so massive win. I have.

Melanie Avalon

Immunity and metabolism, those are like the two, I don't know, if you had a list of all the things you really want to affect in your body, your metabolism, you know, creating your energy, burning fat, and then immunity, your actual state of health.

Barry Conrad

And do you remember when people used to say, the trainer thought it was really popular where they'd be like, ah, you need to have six meals a day to keep your metabolism spiked. Yeah. It's just not true. At all.

Melanie Avalon

That is definitely a myth. Basically, yes, you do, quote, burn more because there's a thermogenic effect to food, but you burn more calories at that meal, but then you took in more. It doesn't make up for the calories that are burned from eating are a percentage of what you ate, but you still ate all that food. And the metabolism doesn't undo it. It's just no with the fasted state. It really doesn't, like you just talked about with this study, it really does support a state of metabolic health and metabolism and using fuel substrates appropriately and not getting locked into this sugar mode where you're just waiting for your next sugar meal, which is a limited, we have limited sugar glucose stores. So then we're just like waiting for our next snack rather than tapping into body fat.

Barry Conrad

You know what? One of the biggest misconceptions that I've heard from people coming to me who know that I do intermittent fasting is you're really damaging your metabolism. You're slowing it down by not eating. Why do you do that? Why wouldn't you just keep eating? It's healthier to keep eating throughout the day. It's interesting trying to get into it with people if it's a general conversation because they've already made a lot of people make their minds up about it's the same thing breakfast is the most important meal of the day. So getting those three square meals in there and it's just not the case with IF. What do you think, Mel?

Melanie Avalon

Well, the breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Did you and I talk about this on the show? Or is that when Vanessa was here? About that came from, that was literally created by the breakfast cereal industry. Kellogg's. Like, yes, yes. So there are these ideas that are just saturated in society and it's really, really hard to have a paradigm shift with things. And especially when it's things that people think is just common knowledge. Like eat constantly to fuel your metabolism. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

Barry Conrad

So basically yeah is proving that wrong and i think as well it's you tell me what you think no but i just tried to live by example and if you do it long enough and it's quote unquote sticking people usually come around saying okay okay time but this thing. For real what is this i think you've been doing it for a while now and it's working so yeah.

Melanie Avalon

You know? Exactly. It's ironic because I'm talking about it all the time on this show and in my social media and things like that, but in real life, I really just want people to do whatever they want to do. I never try to convince people of things. I have zero, zero energy or interest in that. So I just do me and I'll answer questions if people have questions, but I don't try to convince people of anything.

Barry Conrad

Convert people yeah

Melanie Avalon

or yeah, or convert. Awesome. Well, thank you. We will put a link to that study in the show notes and the show notes will be at ifodcast.com slash episode 413. Okay. Shall we jump into some listener questions?

Barry Conrad

I think we should. So Benoit on Facebook asks, let's say I have a couple hundred bucks to spend on my health. Should I go Lumen or CGM? I have no major health issues aside from being overweight. I've been doing IF for 14 months, 22 to protocol, evening meal, 7-7 and occasional ADF. Choosing healthy foods, home cooked, grew lots of veggies in our home, garden the summer, etc. The objective is to better understand my metabolism so I can tweak my food choices to improve my weight loss and break plateaus more easily.

Melanie Avalon

All right, Benoit, thank you for your question and it works well with what we just talked about with metabolism and everything with fasting. So, lumen versus a CGM. I will, well, first of all, tell you what those are. So, a CGM is a continuous glucose monitor. Have you worn one of these, Barry?

Barry Conrad

I actually haven't worn one of these. You recommend it? You would love it.

Melanie Avalon

it. You would love it. So it is a so it's a a sensor that you put onto your arm and it measures your blood glucose levels 24 seven. It sinks to an app and you can see how your blood sugar is responding to everything to what you eat to how you fast your exercise to your sleep your stress. It is so enlightening because you will actually see like it's very powerful to eat a food and see what it's doing to your blood sugar like actually see. I honestly think if everybody wore a cgm at some point like in like in the US for example that it would just change the metabolic health of the country it's it's that helpful. The one I love I love Nutrisense so listeners can go to Nutrisense.com slash if podcast and use the code I have podcasts that will get you a discount and one free month of nutritionist support so Nutrisense.com slash I have podcast with the code I have podcast so that's a continuous glucose monitor. It actually technically measures the interstitial fluid around your cells which blood sugar seeps into so there's slight a slight delay like when you when you get the number that is actually probably what your blood sugar was like 10 minutes prior but it's a pretty accurate gauge and then a lumen is a a device which actually measures the levels of co2 in your breath to tell you if you are burning fat or carbs like literally what are you burning which is so cool depending on whether or not you're burning carbs or fat it changes the co2 ratios in your in your breath.

Melanie Avalon

Its purpose and I should go back to what a cgm's purpose is but its purpose is to help you achieve metabolic flexibility help you learn to what Barry was talking about earlier with metabolic flexibility help you learn how to you know burn carbs when you want burn fat when you want and you know switch back and forth burn more fat and the app that it comes with uses you know AI to analyze what's happening to make recommendations to adjust your food and your fasting to help you burn fat more also with with the cgm with Nutrisense they also have like I said you know nutritionist support and things like that so that you can really optimize your blood sugar levels so for Benoit both of these are going to be incredible for you I would do with weight loss being your goal so how are these both going to affect weight loss and plateaus the cgm is going to really open your eyes to the food choices that you're making so you can see are you locking yourself into a high blood sugar state because if you're in a high blood blood sugar state all the time you're not going to be burning fat so it's really going to help you see how is your food affecting you you know how's your fasting affecting you so that you can make better choices to regulate your blood sugar levels and burn fat the lumen it's also going to help you learn how to burn more fat because it's going to show you again with your fasting and your food choices are you actually getting into fat burning mode and then it's going to also make suggestions and recommendations to you know help you get there so I want to say both like honestly I would do a cgm at least once to get a picture of everything and then ongoing to really move towards you know weight loss I think a lumen would be great that I know I like kind of took the easy way out by saying both of them but that's how they're going to function essentially do you have thoughts Barry?

Barry Conrad

Well, I think, as Melanie said, it's super interesting that you're able to track your blood glucose levels in real time. And I think that is really helpful to see how different foods affect your blood sugar, which is key for weight loss as well. So in my thoughts would be, if your goal is to break a plateau and improve weight loss, CGM is going to be helpful because of those insights. But if you're more interested in understanding how your body shifts between the carbs and fat, lumen's great. But I mean, again, it's both a solid. Both are solid tools. But yeah.

Melanie Avalon

Ironically, I might, okay, they're both going to help so much that the thing is with Lumen is it's going to be an ongoing journey with the CGM. It's a two week thing. It'll open your eyes. You'll see all these things. You'll learn a lot of information and you'll be empowered to make better choices to move towards weight loss. Lumen you can keep using for like, I mean, the rest of your life and it's actually going to, it's going to guide you to weight loss. So again, I want to say both because they're just so powerful. The goal of Lumen is more geared towards weight loss, if that makes sense. Awesome.

Barry Conrad

Well, it's a weird win then for you, Benoit. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon

So you can get 10% off with the code Melanie Avalon. I'm going to put both codes because I'm always, I'm not sure if this one still works. You can try to get $100 off with the code IF Podcast at lumen.me. I don't know if that one's active, so you probably will need to try my code, which will be Melanie Avalon.com slash lumen and use the coupon code Melanie Avalon and that should give you a discount as well. Okay, shall we move on to our next question? Let's move on. Let's do it. Okay, so our next question is from Dawn and this is from Facebook as well. So listeners join our Facebook group. It's called IF Biohackers, Intermittent Fasting plus Real Foods plus Life. You can ask questions in there. We're both members in there, even though Barry just joined.

Barry Conrad

Don't bloke my spotlight.

Melanie Avalon

I like that. It's a great place to be. Don't let.

Barry Conrad

Blow up my spot, I've just joined.

Melanie Avalon

Is that an Australian phrase, blow out your spot?

Barry Conrad

blow up my spot.

Melanie Avalon

Blow up your spot.

Barry Conrad

Do you say that over there?

Melanie Avalon

No. What does that mean? Blow up your spot?

Barry Conrad

It's like put me on blast kind of thing.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, I love how there's all these little like, little things, you know, blow up your spot.

Barry Conrad

So if I said something like, and listeners Melanie said this, but Barry, don't blow up my spot. That was not for everyone.

Melanie Avalon

don't blow up my spot. Okay. So this question, this question is from Dawn and she says, I'm a long haul flight attendant and struggle to cope with fasting and long days and time zone changes. Any advice would be gratefully received XX. And we've talked about this a lot on the show, but we haven't talked about it since Barry's been here. And I don't think Barry, you are so much more skilled at traveling. I am so curious how you adjust your fasting and food and such when you're traveling.

Barry Conrad

Yeah, I do fly a lot. And, hey, Dawn, thank you for the question. We appreciate you having a go and asking. Being on those long-haul flights and being a flight attendant dealing with the time zone changes, it's definitely going to make... It can make fasting a bit trickier, but it's doable. It's going to be doable with the right strategy. So my thoughts, I'd suggest starting with a flexible fasting window that works best for your schedule. So for example, on a flight day, it might be easier to do a shorter fasting window, especially if you're already dealing with things like jet lag and long hours, because that can really be tough even as a traveler. So you can adjust based on how you're feeling and then on the ground. So just say you're flying from the US to London, for example. Once you get on the ground, then you could go on for that longer fasting window when you have more control over your schedule and your body's rhythms. I'm going to say here, hydration is key, speaking from experience. So really make sure you're drinking plenty of water, especially on those long flights. And I'd even consider adding electrolytes to your water just to keep it balanced and to avoid that drained feeling. And you can just get off a plane feeling like you've been hit by a train. So you don't want that feeling. Another thing to consider is like your meal timing. So if you're in a different time zone, it's about gradually shifting your eating window to match the new time zone. That's what I find is helpful because that way, you're easing into the rhythm rather than forcing your body into a new pattern all at once, just because this is what my protocol is. So I need to just stick to it. It's about listening to your body, easing into the rhythm. And then I would say, last but not least, probably focus on nutrient dense, easy to carry meals. Because as you know, more than anyone being a flight attendant, the meals on planes is often just not nutrient dense. So making sure you have protein, healthy fats, some carbs in there, stuff like nuts, seeds, some protein bars, good quality protein bars, keeping it simple, but satisfying enough to fuel your body properly. And with a bit of tweaking, dawn and listening to your body, you'll find a rhythm that works. But don't be out on yourself. I mean, it's about, as we say as well, it's about consistency, not being perfect about it. And keep doing what you're doing. You'll figure it out. You got this. Melanie, what do you think?

Melanie Avalon

So I love the flexibility. I love not being hard on yourself. And to be using it to a point, this is interesting because we actually have opposite advice here.

Barry Conrad

Okay, there we go.

Melanie Avalon

So another approach. So that's one approach where you ease into it gradually with time zone changes. And I'm coming from this more from just like traveling for a day. So this is a little bit different than constantly changing time zones because of being a flight attendant, which I could not be a flight attendant. Could you be a flight attendant?

Barry Conrad

I think on paper it sounds really fun, but I think my body would just be messed up. My internal clock and everything. Yeah. I don't know. Probably not.

Melanie Avalon

I cannot. There have been studies on jet lag and actually using fasting to deal with jet lag. And the approach that you do is you fast longer. So basically, you go into the travel, you approach the travel situation, you have your like normal meals, and then you go into the travel, you fast, you fast through the traveling. And then what's really important, you continue to fast in the new location. And what's important is that you eat a meal in sync with the new location's time. So that's what I mean by it's the opposite, you don't go based on what you were doing or like ease in, you literally just immediately adapt the new culture. If you've been consistently doing a fasting window, where your there's something called zeitgeibers, which are essentially environmental cues that signal that affect your circadian rhythm. So our circadian rhythm, our sleep-wake cycle is severely influenced by our environment. So light exposure, eating exposure, even social cues can affect it. And so eating is so intensely connected to our circadian rhythm. If you are fasting, and in general, fasting and eating on a consistent basis, then your body associates different times of the day with different meals. So for example, I always eat one meal a day dinner, and then I go to bed after. So when I have my one meal a day, it signals to my body like this is evening and we're going to bed. And so the way I can use that as a hack for traveling is when I'm traveling somewhere, I just do my normal fasting, my normal everything, and then I eat dinner in the time zone of the new location. So if that requires fasting more, or I think it would always, I'm trying to think if it could ever require eating earlier.

Barry Conrad

Thank you.

Melanie Avalon

Probably not.

Barry Conrad

Because what if there's a time like it's usually like a time zone change when what not and then what if it's maybe like 1 p.m.

Melanie Avalon

Well, like one hour time zone change. Yeah.

Barry Conrad

OK, yeah.

Melanie Avalon

Well, yeah, yeah, so because basically the flight would have to account because because if you're flying from like you're flying from Atlanta to LA and let's say it's like a four-hour flight So you've you went four hours, but then you jumped back three hours. Oh wait No doubt that would be massively expanding it. Oh, sorry. That's like the opposite. You have to go the other direction You have to go when it's like speeding ahead, but there's nowhere I can fly. Okay, so reverse So from LA to Atlanta, I'm like thinking of myself in Atlanta. I can't fly because it's like the ocean. Okay, so if I'm in LA And I fly from LA to Atlanta It takes like four hours, but then okay, that's where but that's where it would um jump forward So it'd be super late when I get there I don't know. This is too much math and too much time zone for me to figure out the point is if I Eat my one meal a day in the new time zone In alignment with that new time zone then I can pretty much Like just immediately adopt that new time zone So like when I flew not this past thanksgiving, but prior to that I went to London London for just like a day

Barry Conrad

I still can't get over that.

Melanie Avalon

And you know what, Barry? I didn't really have barely any jet lag at all because what I did was I flew to London. I got there. So I left for London in the evening here. I was on the plane. I might have slept a little bit. I'm not sure. I got to London in the morning or after morning or early afternoon. And then I just didn't eat until dinner. And so then at dinner, I ate my meal. And then it was like, time to go to bed. And that pretty much synced me up with like the eating schedule. And then the next day I went to the Thanksgiving thing. And then I flew home the day after that. So that works that I mean, that works really well. I mean, I guess it depends on what dietary pattern you're doing. But it works really well for like one meal a day before dinner. So what I was thinking when I first read her question was if she is the type that because here's the thing. So for Dawn, Dawn is going to quote be awake every day and sleep every day, but it might be changing crazily hours because of the flight. But it's still a pattern of like being awake, going to bed, being awake, going to bed. So if Dawn if depending on what works for you, but if a one meal a day type situation works for you, you could for example, always eat before you go to bed. So then you would like just you wouldn't even like think about it, you would just like do your traveling, do your life and then eat your one meal a day for dinner. Remember, it doesn't have to be right for bed, but have your one meal a day for dinner and then go to bed and you I think not a flight attendant. So it might be more complicated than that. I don't really know how your schedules work. But I think you could do that. Like I think you could do that ongoing. So you would never be eating during a flight or anything. You would just unless you're sleeping, I guess if you're sleeping on the flight for your like sleep, sleep, but I don't see I need to know more about flight attendants. I don't understand like, I don't know if did you say international or not.

Barry Conrad

Yeah, well, long haul to me is international, because to me, like, when people say long haul, it means, like, they go, they're leaving the country, they're not going to, like, interstate, which is like, you know, four hours, five hours, or, you know, long haul flats. So that's, you know, it's changing time zones. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon

long days and time zone changes. So I mean, again, I don't know a lot about flight attendantness. So maybe this is being like, do this. And it's like, not even remotely possible. But I would consider trying up an approach like that where you, your pattern is that you, when you get to your city, you eat, it would change so much based on where you're going.

Barry Conrad

It would change so much.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, okay, if I was a flight attendant, I would probably do that.

Barry Conrad

Well, Melody, you're a very unique person. You're just like, this is what I'm doing. I'm flying for one day. I'm sticking to this protocol. This is it.

Melanie Avalon

I do think though, there could be a map. I think you could find a system that works for you where you are using meals and this like Zeitgeiber approach. Say that again, Zeit. Zeitgeiber.

Barry Conrad

I've never heard that word before.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, it's Z-E-I-T-G-E-B-E-R. The definition is a rhythmically occurring natural phenomenon which acts as a cue and the regulation of the body circadian rhythm. Isn't that amazing? That's amazing, actually. Again, it's like something in your environment. So something you're doing or exposed to that affects your circadian rhythm. So I think you could, I really think you could use fasting and eating to create like a zeitgeiber for your circadian rhythm to help with the jet lag and stuff.

Barry Conrad

We hope that's helpful, Dawn, a couple of different, different thoughts there, but you know, I feel I'm confident that you're going to figure it out.

Melanie Avalon

Me too.

Barry Conrad

But please keep us updated, let us know.

Melanie Avalon

us know. Shall we end with our restaurant? Time to break our fast? Do it. So speaking of food, we are all about eating around here. And we love breaking our fast, and our heads and our minds and in real life. Okay, so Barry, the restaurant I chose, which have have you been to Disneyland or Disney World? Wait, wait, have you been to Disney? Wait, wait, I know we've talked about this.

Barry Conrad

Disney okay i've been to the one in florida that is because the world of the world of it is new world and you have been to the international i've also been to disneyland i've been to both. I have been to both yeah the California.

Melanie Avalon

Have you been to any international ones? No. I have. Are you impressed?

Barry Conrad

Yeah, there's also like a lot of kids around. Did I surprise you? You did surprise me and this is not what I was expecting, a Disneyland restaurant.

Melanie Avalon

I have been to Disneyland, Disney World, Disney Land,

Barry Conrad

Disney Places, Disneyland, Disney World, Disneyville.

Melanie Avalon

I think it's Disneyland. I have been to Disneyland Paris.

Barry Conrad

Wow, what's that like compared to the ones in the US?

Melanie Avalon

It was lovely. It was interesting because the Main Street had much more of a covered experience. I feel like there was indoor walkways because of the rain and such, but it rains in Florida. Main Street was a little bit different. Oh, I felt so validated. They had their version of Space Mountain. This is when I was young and resilient. I wrote it and it was literally the most painful experience of my life. I got off and I was like, that was horrible. I'm never doing that again. Then I talked to a friend who also went and she said that she was recovering from that ride for days. So it's not just me. They need to get rid of their Space Mountain. It's horrible. But yes, Disneyland, I went to USC in LA. I used to go to Disneyland all the time. My favorite restaurant in Disneyland slash California Adventure is the Blue Bayou restaurant. Last week we had a New Orleans restaurant. Have you been to the Blue Bayou restaurant?

Barry Conrad

I have not been but blue is my favorite color so i'm sure it's gonna be really good tell me about it.

Melanie Avalon

It is, you know, Pirates of the Caribbean. Yeah. So in Disneyland, there's a restaurant like in the ride. Like when you what? Yeah. So like the beginning of the ride, when you're like in the bayou of the Pirates of the Caribbean before you go into the Caribbean or Caribbean, it goes by there's like a indoor restaurant that looks like you're in New Orleans, like outside at night. I am all about restaurants that make it look like you're outside, but indoors at night, all about it kind of like the Mexican restaurant and Epcot. So yeah, Blue Bayou restaurant, it's my and it's like a fine dining, steakhouse, New Orleans, steakhouse type experience. It's wonderful. I love it. It's a vibe.

Barry Conrad

highly wreck. Okay, cool. You know what, all these restaurants, we've got to check them out. IRL for sure.

Melanie Avalon

I know. I know. So let us look at dinner. Okay. So right now they have a, okay, they have like a set. I'm confused. They have a set price meal. Oh, that's a question for you. How do you feel about set price meals?

Barry Conrad

Okay, so sometimes, and I don't know if you feel the same way, when you're out with like a big group of people, sometimes I get invites for, hey, we're going to this restaurant, they have like a set menu for X amount of dollars, and it's just easy, then I'm happy to try it. But if I don't love what's on the set menu, I'll just order a la carte. What about you?

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, I don't like set price menus

Barry Conrad

You don't? Actually, why am I asking you that? Because I know that you want to change it, yeah.

Melanie Avalon

unless it's like the perfect set price menu like everything I would order, which I have never seen that in my life. And normally they're not like about substitutions, you know, it's so yeah, usually stay away from especially on like Valentine's Day, I feel like all the restaurants turn into set price menus and I'll just be like, nope, nope, I got to have my freedom of choice.

Barry Conrad

I agree. I mean, I get what I get. They're trying to like, you know, it's easy for them to like, you know, quantify, we're going to make this amount of money. These people buy it. But it's not, it's not ideal for people like us who want to have what we want to have.

Melanie Avalon

Exactly. And having been a fine dining server for like five years and being on the flip side, I know why they're doing those set price menus. Like they, yeah, like you just said, it makes it seem like, oh, I get so much and like, it's like happy and I pay, but no, it's because they can like make, it's like easy. They can like, they can make more money and they it's like all set up and they just like turn it out. Maybe they're not all like that, but I like a la carte is the point. So we're not going to do take away. Barry and I will not be doing the Mardi Gras celebration meal.

Barry Conrad

No. And also it doesn't seem like there's, I don't know, I'm going to skip past that. We love Disneyland. I'm not, we're not hating on it. We're just saying we're going to do, we're going to do a la carte. So let's do that.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, so then they're using the word that you like. What would you get for your starter?

Barry Conrad

Finally, someone's using the correct terminology. Oh, no. We say starters because it's very confusing listeners. You've probably heard us talking about what is an entree? What is the main meal? What is the starters? What's the appetizer? It's so different everywhere.

Melanie Avalon

I forget every single time, and for you an entree is, wait, an entree is an appetizer?

Barry Conrad

Yeah, like a starter kind of thing.

Melanie Avalon

And entree is a starter. That is so confusing. Who came up with that?

Barry Conrad

somebody awesome.

Melanie Avalon

We should we should research like what is the original.

Barry Conrad

I feel like if we did that then Melanie will be like Seabury I told you this is the right way to do it.

Melanie Avalon

No, but no, here's the thing. Well, a a I don't put I don't I wouldn't put it in your face like that, but B

Barry Conrad

You blow up my spot, you would.

Melanie Avalon

I would not blow up your spot. B, the US is like, we're very new, relatively speaking. So if it's ever like the original, it's probably more likely that it's not us. You know, like that's in your favor. OK. Like the US is a relatively new country compared to the rest of the world.

Barry Conrad

Of course.

Melanie Avalon

So I feel like it's unlikely that we originated things.

Barry Conrad

The terms for menu.

Melanie Avalon

Except for the Constitution. Oh my gosh. OK, so starters, what would you get?

Barry Conrad

Okay, so I'm looking at the dinner menu, and I already know I'm going to go the chicken gumbo and the brioche because a bit of bread there is going to be good, and the chicken gumbo has tassel, ham, and dulce sausage and peppers with stew.

Melanie Avalon

I knew you were going to pronounce it that way. I was waiting.

Barry Conrad

Okay, it's wrong. So tell me again, Melanie, because listen, if you listen to last week's episode, I got a word wrong too. But anyway, maybe that got taken out.

Melanie Avalon

Wait, what was last week's episode?

Barry Conrad

I'm not going to say it because of someone's name. I don't want to offend anyone, but how do you say it?

Melanie Avalon

Melody? Well, now I'm on the spot. Oh, wait, putting me on the spot. I think it's, isn't it, andouille, andouille? I don't think there's an, I don't think you pronounce the L.

Barry Conrad

We're keeping it in the edit is please be not because we want because that way we can have it out there is this how you say it is the size.

Melanie Avalon

I'm pretty sure the L is not like an L.

Barry Conrad

Okay, stand corrected, and I'll put it to the I have podcast followers. Okay, I'll get the chicken gumbo and the rosemary and sea salt brioche, which is butter and seasonal jam, comes with butter and seasonal jam, the bread. What about you? Awesome.

Melanie Avalon

I think I'm gonna tap out of this round.

Barry Conrad

You don't want to take anything from the other sections to substitute. You just want to move on to the.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, yeah, I think I don't think they I don't see other options really like the kids meal. Maybe I get like

Barry Conrad

is roasted chicken, which you could have planned.

Melanie Avalon

No, because I was named Shrimp. Oh my gosh, wait, this is what I'm doing here. And we're like, okay, I'm going to be like, okay, because you want me to do it in character, right? So this is what I'm going to say.

Barry Conrad

Yeah, here we go. Okay, so I'll be the server. Here we go. Hi, you ready to order?

Melanie Avalon

Yes. Okay. And then you're going to order, like Barry's going to order. What would you like? So for the starter, okay. I completely understand if you can't do this. It is literally no problem at all. I see that you have sauteed shrimp on the kids menu. Is there any possibility I could get, it doesn't have to be like a fancy shrimp cocktail type thing, but can I get just like shrimp, like in the cocktail type vibe as my appetizer? Again, zero worries if you can't do that, but I would love like shrimp as an appetizer. Is that possible? We can.

Barry Conrad

definitely accommodate that for you Madam, so we'll make sure that's taken care of.

Melanie Avalon

Thank you so, so much. And nothing complicated, like no sauces or anything, or like you can put that on the side if you want. Thank you. Like, thank you. You're the best.

Barry Conrad

not to worry thank you there we go you did it how was that that was really really polite really good really easy not a big deal

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, okay. We got our starters and nice job with the waiter.

Barry Conrad

I don't know what kind of way to get out to that. It was a change three times, what I was saying. Uh, entrees, I would get a, oh, wow. Definitely two of them.

Melanie Avalon

And you've got, you've got two options. You've got entrees and there's a whole, there's a plant-based section as well. There is. Which I find it difficult to get enough protein and plant-based options.

Barry Conrad

So, listeners, as you may have caught and done already, I love my protein. So I'm not gonna say I don't do plant-based because I think there's a lot of nutritional value in it. I love it, but I'm going to stick with the animal protein heavy entrees. So I'm gonna go with the prime rib and the roasted chicken. So the prime rib comes with mashed potatoes, roasted veggies, horseradish cream, and peppercorn demi glaze. And the roasted chicken is, as Melanie Avelin would say, andouille sausage, sounds really funny. Shrimp, Creole rice, and Creole, that sounds really good. Creole sauce, that sounds like it's gonna slap. It's really good.

Melanie Avalon

It is Andouille. It's Ann Andouille. Oh, one is a...

Barry Conrad

put it on the poll, but that's okay. You've already corrected me.

Melanie Avalon

validated by Google.

Barry Conrad

Okay, validated. And do we did you do the thing where they say it?

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, and Dewey and Dewey the little mouth is like was moving. Okay

Barry Conrad

So those two for me.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, the chicken and the prime rib. Okay, this is okay, this is great because I love there's not it's kind of a limited menu. There are four options. I love all of them. Also, I love that we both just get two entrees. So I am going to get two entrees right now. And then I'm going to reserve one for dessert since the appetizers were like a little suspect. I will get the oh wait but I don't want hmm was this difficult actually? Can I have a bite of your prime rib? Yes. How are you getting it prepared?

Barry Conrad

Well, all okay, just rule of thumb for Barry Conrad's rule of thumb for any red meat is going to be medium rare for me. It's just my vibe.

Melanie Avalon

So I think I am going to get the, okay, I know I've got it. I'm going to get the filet mignon. It comes with mashed potatoes, spinach, mushrooms, and crispy shallots. I'm going to ask if I can get it with just steamed spinach. Do you need a reenactment to, or? Yeah, I'll do it. It's like, actually, I'm going to order everything right now. So I'm ready. And your desserts? Are you ready to?

Barry Conrad

to order your entrees.

Melanie Avalon

Yes. Thank you so much. Okay, so I'm actually going to get two entrees. May I please have the filet mignon? And can I get it completely plain? So like no, no oil, no sauce, just like completely plain, and I will have it blue, like as rare as possible. And for the sides, can you just mix all the sides and I'll just, the spinach, can I get just steamed spinach with the filet?

Barry Conrad

And again, I'll speak to the kitchen, but I'm sure that should be fine.

Melanie Avalon

Awesome, thank you so, so much. And then similar vibe, I'm also gonna get the market. Oh wait, what is the market fish today?

Barry Conrad

It's a snapper.

Melanie Avalon

Okay.

Barry Conrad

Can out-broke character!

Melanie Avalon

Hmm. No, no, no, no, that's still in character. That's how I would have. Okay, so we're not okay. So basically for listeners, I'm very concerned. This is how this is educational. I'm very concerned with mercury content. So for market fish, I would only get the fish if it were a salmon or a tilapia or cod, maybe. Otherwise, or a trout, a farm trout. Otherwise, probably not. And I would Google the fish and I would look up the the mercury levels, but usually fish is a little bit problematic with mercury.

Barry Conrad

So, it still stands. If it was snapper, would you pivot to another choice or would you just stick with the...

Melanie Avalon

Yeah. So if it was snapper, I would not get that. And I would, I would say, okay. Yeah. So thank you. So I will actually, I'll just get the filet. Are you sure you just want the filet? Yes. And also heads up, I'm probably going to get another filet for dessert. So can you, can you have the kitchen reserve one? And also for dessert, if I get it for dessert, they don't like, I literally, they don't have to like cook it long. They don't have to like hold the, it's not going to be like a long thing. They can just like really, really quickly sear it basically. You can even bring it raw. It's fine. I'll do that too. If you want.

Barry Conrad

So you want us to understand, you want a filet for dessert as well.

Melanie Avalon

So basically, I'm having a filet right now in the way that you so amazingly, kindly accepted. And then I'm probably going to order a second one when we order dessert, but it's not... I promise you, you don't have to cook it long, you don't have to keep the kitchen going. You can just literally put it on the thing for a second. A second. Just sear it.

Barry Conrad

You sure? For dessert? You don't want to try one of our cakes or sundaes? Very popular.

Melanie Avalon

Barry will be having that for sure. So we'll have it. It's going to be great.

Barry Conrad

I'll have it Did you like that off mic moment

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, I love yeah. That was so immersive. I felt like I was like there.

Barry Conrad

Don't worry. I'll just it's fine. Like she does this all the time. I'll have it. Thanks. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, we're good. We're yeah. So if that's possible, that'd be amazing. Yeah, perfect. Thank you so much. And I really appreciate it. Like, thank you. Thank you so much. And also no rush like we're like super chill. You don't have to stress about us or anything like we're just happy to be here. So thank you.

Barry Conrad

You're welcome.

Melanie Avalon

How was that? That was good. That felt... Oscar nomination? That was actually really funny. That was amazing when you did it, okay, when you did it, like, oh, that's brilliant.

Barry Conrad

But try to create an experience for the listeners here. There we go. That's so funny.

Melanie Avalon

Should we do it in character every time? That'd be really fun. We should do it in character every time and I'll be the server for you.

Barry Conrad

Actually, that's really funny and that way we get to use our acting. Let's do it.

Melanie Avalon

Yes, and I can be like the way I used to be a server because I was like a lot. I was a lot.

Barry Conrad

Okay, let's do it. That's so fun. Yes.

Melanie Avalon

Okay. Listeners.

Barry Conrad

You're getting a performance, you're getting fasting, you're getting science, you're getting everything.

Melanie Avalon

This is all the things you wait. So question though, cause that was the first time doing that. So how do you feel like about if I do this?

Barry Conrad

No, I'm all about it.

Melanie Avalon

You just gotta be nice, you know?

Barry Conrad

You can use have to ask in a way that's respectful i don't think it's only a big deal when people you know get snobby or entitled but if you just ask politely you can't really go wrong.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah. Yeah. And I find most restaurants are very accommodating. Can't even tell you how many birthday, like birthday steaks with candles I've had. Two of those.

Barry Conrad

Okay, that's hilarious.

Melanie Avalon

They do that. That's happened twice, and they bring out a candle every time. They think they're really smart, but I'm like, no. It is smart, and it's really cute. I'm just saying people do it, though.

Barry Conrad

You should post a photo of that sometime because it's so funny, like it's just unusual.

Melanie Avalon

I will share my last birthday in November. They did that. So I will share it. Actually, no, no, no, that's not true. Last birthday, what? Wait. Oh, last birthday, I actually just went to a bar with friends. Birthday before that, they brought out a steak with candles. That's hilarious. So dessert time. I already pre-ordered my dessert. What are you getting?

Barry Conrad

I'm going to get, because the petite sundae, why do you think I saw it? I don't like the petite pot when it comes to any kind of food, so. I'm going to have three petite sundaes. I'll get two, I'll say to them, like we're not doing it now, but I'll say I'll get two petite sundaes, one for myself, one for Melanie, and then I'm going to eat it.

Melanie Avalon

No, you know what? I will take one for the team. I'll order one for you. I'll order a petite.

Barry Conrad

And then I'll order the brown butter banana upside down cake, which is soaked in bananas, a foster sauce garnished with candied walnuts. Okay. Here's another one of these. Okay. Okay. You have to read it out. What is it?

Melanie Avalon

tulle, I think it pronounced the L there, fleur, delise, I think those Ls get pronounced, and vanilla.

Barry Conrad

All fleur de lis, de lis, and vanilla ice cream. You'll see if you look at the menu, listen as it's, I cannot, I failed French. There we go. Yeah, so that's that. But yeah, those two desserts, well, three desserts is gonna have to do me because one petite sundae is not gonna do. Two petite sundaes and a brown butter banana upside down cake could do.

Melanie Avalon

they're gonna be so confused because I will have ordered all this like really crazy stuff and then I'm like oh and I'll have a petite sundae no modifications just as is

Barry Conrad

You know, it's the actual truth is I would probably just order two and they'd be like, Oh, one.

Melanie Avalon

for. Well, I already have the state coming, so.

Barry Conrad

No, it's both of me. And I'll also get the, yeah, I'll just say it. Oh, there's also beverages, so you're up. What would you like to drink?

Melanie Avalon

So the thing about Disney is I don't feel good at all about their choices of the champagne. I don't like champagne.

Barry Conrad

Sparkling wine.

Melanie Avalon

I think this is I have to look at the by the bottle list, which hopefully they have. I don't know if they do have because it's Disney. Because they only have a few options for wine and it's not looking good. It's all California. That's what I've noticed because I've I for fun, I sort of maybe read the Disney food blog where they like review restaurants at Disney and the food at Disney because I just love Disney and I love like reading about all the places and all the food. And I the thing I've noticed is that they tend to feature a lot of California wine.

Barry Conrad

But don't you see, you know my favorite white wine is Pinot Grigio.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, they have Frank family chardonnay, which is organic not idea

Barry Conrad

What about the Italian Pinagugio?

Melanie Avalon

Oh, the Italian Pinot Grigio? I could look that up. I'm on the struggle bus, though, with the wine, but what would you get?

Barry Conrad

Okay, so always for me, 90% of the time, I'll always get Pinot Grigio with something else. So Pinot Grigio, I probably love that for the table and then I'm gonna go because I also love my margaritas. I'm gonna try the Milograno melon margarita. I'll try it. Yeah. Oh, hey. So you're not gonna have anything to drink. You're gonna have water or there's like non-alcoholic.

Melanie Avalon

So here's the thing, if we were going to this restaurant, I would have dealt with this issue. I would look up every single wine. So for listeners I drink when I'm out, I try to find low alcohol, organic, low sugar European wines, hopefully on the menu. I would have looked at the menu, probably not found that many options. I would have inquired if they have a bottle list, which they probably don't. So then I would inquire, oh, you know what? At Disney, you probably can't bring in wine because you can't bring wine into the park.

Barry Conrad

Probably not, no. I'm guessing.

Melanie Avalon

We would implement plan C.

Barry Conrad

Have a drink beforehand, before going, or after, or what?

Melanie Avalon

Yes, actually, I can't even I don't know. No, it would be okay, I'm not I don't do that. This is like me just saying like, this could happen in a story somewhere. I'm not saying I do this, but I might depending if I pre researched and I knew the situation, I might like, you know, make sure I have my organic wine with me like with my person somehow, because of my means, and then I would order a wine.

Barry Conrad

And then I'll quickly swig it and then you can throw it in there.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, which a rue situation? Yeah.

Barry Conrad

That's so funny.

Melanie Avalon

Because my health comes first.

Barry Conrad

It's like spy vibes.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, I'm actually very good at this such a real situation.

Barry Conrad

I'd love to see that actually, see you do it. Yeah, that was fun. Do you want to go? That was very eventful, eventful ordering experience, restaurant experience.

Melanie Avalon

So friends, let us know your favorite restaurants and how you break your fast and how you deal and order and all the things. Are you a berry or are you a Melanie? Like where are you on the berry Melanie spectrum?

Barry Conrad

That's that's actually a really good question. That's good. Yeah

Melanie Avalon

So, well, this was so, so amazing. So listeners, you can submit your own questions for the show. Just email questions at ifepodcast.com or you can go to ifepodcast.com and you can submit questions there. These show notes will be at ifepodcast.com slash episode 413. They will have a full transcript and they will have links to everything that we talked about. So definitely check that out. And you can follow us on Instagram. I am Melanie Avalon. Barry is Barry underscore Conrad. And we are, I have podcast. I think that is all the things. Anything from you before we go?

Barry Conrad

Listeners, thank you so much for tuning in. Have an awesome rest of your day or night and we'll catch you next week. Awesome.

Melanie Avalon

I will talk to you next week.

Barry Conrad

See you later.

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.

Mar 10

Episode 412 – Special Guest Dr. Matt Dawson, Wild Health, Finding YOUR Perfect Diet, Blood, Genetic, & Epigenetic Testing, Optimizing Biological Age, Interpreting Lab Results, AI & The Future Of Healthcare, And More!

Wild Health Website | TruDiagnostic Website

Welcome to Episode 412 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

SPECIAL GUEST

Dr. Matt Dawson is the CEO and Co-Founder of Wild Health, a genomics based precision medicine company. He is also CEO of TruDiagnostic, a deep science epigenetics company focused on human longevity testing. Dr. Dawson has published dozens of research articles, authored two textbooks, and written over 100 book chapters. He has won national awards in education and innovation and given talks in over 20 countries. He has a passion for not only human performance and longevity, but also bringing cutting edge research and science to market so that individuals can actually benefit from them. As such, he has founded 6 companies in the last decade, all of which are still in operation. Three of these have been acquired. His passion for human performance started in high school when he paired it with suboptimal natural athletic abilities to earn college scholarship offers in two different sports. His passion for longevity comes from a desire to be around as long as possible for his 4 children, wife, and future great grandchildren. He lives with that current family and two dogs in the woods of Kentucky.

Dr. Matthew Dawson attended medical school at The University of Kentucky before completing his residency in emergency medicine at The University of Utah, where he served as both chief resident and fellow. He has practiced medicine and was an associate professor at the University of Kentucky for 7 years, with an acute interest in functional medicine and, later, genomics. Dr. Dawson’s obsession with performance optimization began well before medical school. In high school, he would implement any fitness or nutrition technique that’d give him ‘an edge’ in athletics, resulting in college scholarship offers in two sports. Dr. Dawson carried this obsession with him through medical school and into his profession as a physician, earning numerous national awards for education, innovation, and leadership on account of his research and approach to health care.

‍Dr. Dawson crystallized this approach to providing patients with true health care, rather than sick care, by building Wild Health – a Precision Medicine service providing personalized, genetics-based care to help patients achieve optimal wellbeing. In that, Dr. Dawson has also trained thousands of physicians in Precision Medicine through online education, and has lectured in over twenty countries around the world. Dr. Dawson also co-hosts the Wild Health Podcast, a tool for teaching thousands about personalized, genetics-based Precision Medicine. His passion to help patients maximize their health span and perform at their absolute best considers all aspects of health: mental, physical, and spiritual.

Wild Health IG | Wild Health LinkedIn

SPONSORS & DISCOUNTS

WILD HEALTH: Get 20% off with code melanieavalon at wildhealth.com/melanieavalon.

TRUDIAGNOSTIC: Get 10% off at melanieavalon.com/trudiagnostic.

ONESKIN

MD LOGIC

Get 10% off MD Logic's Health Marine Collagen with code ifpodcast at ifpodcast.com/collagen.

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.)

Melanie Avalon

Welcome to Episode 412 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 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. Welcome back, friends, to the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. This is Episode 412. I'm Melanie Avalon, and I'm here today with a very, very special guest. So the backstory on today's conversation, a while ago now, I got reached out to by a company called Wild Health. And they're doing very cool things when it comes to monitoring everything in your body that you need to be monitoring to actually take charge of your health right now, to take charge of your aging and longevity, all the things. I was really intrigued by their service because I know it can be really confusing, I think, for a lot of people to really navigate what's going on in their body. And there's so many different markers to look at. There's blood, there's genetics, there's just so many things. And what I really loved about Wild Health is it's a platform that encompasses all of that and analyzes things for you and makes things very implementable and approachable. So it looks at your blood work, it looks at your DNA, your genetic tendencies, it even looks at your biological age. And we'll dive into what that actually means. What's really cool is it's really easy to do to take the test, all the things. And then you have the portal, you have your results, you get this really comprehensive, like 50-page report that I was reading last night, again, and was fascinated by. And you actually get to work with coaches and practitioners in the portal to help make sense of everything. So I think the service is going to be so helpful for so many people. And I have so many questions as well as my own personal experience to share. So I'm here with the CEO and co-founder, Dr. Matt Dawson. Dr. Dawson, thank you so much for being here.

Dr. Matthew Dawson

Thanks for having me. You get such a great description of what we do. You nailed it.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, thank you. I really like because I feel like there are a lot of different companies trying to do what you're doing. And I like I said, I was very, very impressed with just the whole system and everything that I learned personally and and where the focuses are. But to introduce yourself a little bit to listeners. Can you tell listeners a little bit about your personal story? I know you attended medical school at the University of Kentucky and you did your residency in emergency medicine at the University of Utah. And you've published a lot when it comes to textbooks and articles and things like that. But what led you to what you're doing today with this wild health service?

Dr. Matthew Dawson

Sure. Yeah. So you're right. So I went to kind of traditional medicine route at first, and it was around six years ago. I was working at an academic center. I was teaching med students and residents and writing and publishing and doing all that. I started noticing all of the science emerging around genomics and personalized medicine. And it looked to me like for the first time that we could really personalize almost everything down to the level of someone's DNA. Like we've known for a while that you can look and see what medications will or won't work, what someone's likely to have side effects from. But it looked like you could even personalize diet, exercise, sleep, supplements, all of these other things. I kind of started diving into that, went down a rabbit hole when it comes to that. My co-founder at Wild Health, Mike Malin, he's also a physician. We sequenced our DNA. We started looking into it. And around that time, he had a difficult medical issue. He found out that his lipids were through the roof, like a really dangerous level, like cause a heart attack level. So he saw his doctor. His doctor told him to do a specific diet that works for most people, but Mike's not most people. He's Mike, and he got worse on this diet. So his doctor then wanted to put him on a statin, which is fine. It helps most people. But Mike had a bunch of side effects for him. I had muscle breakdown, myopathy. And when we looked at his genetics, we saw that, oh, wow, it looks like his genetics needs to be on almost the exact opposite diet of what his doctor had put him on. And he had a very specific gene variation that made him almost guaranteed to get that muscle breakdown of myopathy. And we were kind of angry at first, but then we just realized, well, medicine is always 15 to 20 years behind. And while the science is out there, no one is doing this. And we couldn't really tolerate that. We left our universities. We started doing it for friends and family, and just started having really remarkable results when we started personalizing people's treatment and recommendations to their DNA.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, I love this so much. And like I said, I was reading my report last night and it was, I guess, validating. It was nice to read some of the different sections and just see how much it aligned with me personally. So for example, in the sleep analysis, it was telling me that I have a genetic tendency to be a night owl, which is so true. In the food sections, it was telling me that I might have increased gluten and wheat sensitivity. Oh, in the mental section, there was one about how I tend to be dopamine driven, which is literally what I say about myself all the time that I feel like I keep a lot of dopamine around in my brain. So, okay, I have so many questions here. So these genetic tendencies that we have, how do you approach, because you just mentioned that, you looked at his data and you realized that he wasn't on the appropriate diet and all of these things. It mentions on wild health that there are, is it over 70,000 different SNPs? And maybe you can define what a SNP is. How do you decide which ones to look at? How to interpret them? And also, how do we know it's accurate? Because I noticed, for example, in the section that talks about your APOE, or was it the APOB? One of them, it was saying that it's actually, I think it's probably the APOE, one, that it's hard with accuracy to actually test that. So how do we know that what we're testing is accurate? How do you know what to test? And how do you know how to interpret it? Lots of questions.

Dr. Matthew Dawson

Yeah, no great questions. And yeah, it's about 700,000 specific SNPs that we test, and a SNP is a single nucleotide polymorphism. So it just means that it's a slight variation, and it just puts you at increased or decreased risk for something. So APOE is a good example of one of those. So if you have an APOE4 gene, then you're about 200 to 300% more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease. And if you have two of those, if you have an APOE4, you're about 11 times more likely. So someone is at more risk. Now, your DNA is not your destiny. We've heard this term DNA is destiny. It's not. It's only about 20% of your health outcome. And that APOE4 is a great example of that. So one of the first patients that we saw was my mother. My grandmother had passed away of dementia of this disease, and I was worried that my mother would have this gene, and sure enough, she did. But what I told her at the time is I said, mom, this is good news, because we know about this now, and we know what to do about it. And when we put her on the program, personalizing her diet, her sleep, her exercise, in three months, she lost 40 pounds, reversed her insulin resistance, told me she felt 20 years younger, and I think that we will prevent, or at least delay by 10 to 20 years, her getting that disease. So we find these differences in our genes, and we do something about them. You ask about diet. So another example of that is actually, I told about Mike and his diet. One of this was kind of an aha moment for both of us when we look at our genes. It looked like when we looked at our genes that he and I needed to be on pretty much the opposite diets. So he had all of these sensitivities to saturated fats, where I had none of those. And I had all these sensitivities to carbohydrates. And so it looked like I almost would do really well on a ketogenic animal-heavy diet, and he would do well on almost a vegan diet. And so we tested this. We would eat the exact same thing for two weeks, do the same workouts, draw our blood. And we were eating his diet. He destroyed me in the workouts. It was much better. His lab looked great. He felt great. When we switched to my diet, I would beat him in the same workouts. I felt great. He felt horrible. His labs were bad. Mine were good. And we're like, wow, this is why it's like religious wars when people talk about diet, like people they're keto or they're vegetarian or vegan or omnivore or carnivore or Mediterranean. It's because people find the perfect diet for themselves, and they assume it's perfect for everybody else. But we're not like that. We're very bio-individual, and personalizing all of these things makes a big difference in how we feel and perform and the diseases that we get.

Melanie Avalon

It's so interesting and I think it is so relevant to so many listeners on this show because we get so many questions about people having that very debate that you just talked about. Do I do lower carb? Do I do lower fat? I think it can be really confusing and of course you can do trial and error and try it yourself but having this lens of looking at through your DNA can just be so, so helpful. And what I found really interesting is cause I really gravitate towards an animal based diet. A lot of my genetic SNPs really did seem to line up with that. So for example, I saw that I have difficulty converting a lot of the plant based sources of vitamins into their usable form in my body and so I would benefit from having an animal based diet there with those different nutrients. How do you handle potentially conflicting genetic information that may pop up? So for example, my general recommendations in my report were that I tolerate saturated fat well, that I tend to tolerate carbs like okay, like in the middle. In general I was getting like low carb recommendations but then also at the same time some of the SNPs indicated that I'd be better on a high carb low fat approach. So how do you handle that when people have SNPs that seem to be conflicting?

Dr. Matthew Dawson

Yeah. So you said something important earlier. I want to go back to you said, it seems like a lot of people are trying to do this. And I think it's important to use that word, because one of the things we realized very early is it's not easy. Like, this is very complex. So, I mean, we, we've spent over $50 million on the platform to do this. And so it we use, we built this on an AI platform that takes into account, not just all your genetics, but also the blood work and a lot of other information as well. So like, you'll get kind of the general recommendations that will pop up and populate in there based on all the different SNPs. But then we also, the last step is actually running this through a physician and a health coach filter as well. That's where we give the final recommendation to kind of edit things. And but what the AI engine does is it kind of pulls together all the different stuff to make specific recommendations. I mentioned earlier, I'll give you a good example from food. With food, we don't really actually usually talk in terms of the big macro diets, the big macro categories, like vegan, omnivore, keto, things like that. We talk in specific foods, like what are potentially super foods versus kryptonite foods. So like for my mother, a couple of the steps that you mentioned, so there's a fads too, that means she needs more of the active form of omega three from animals. She also has a collagen 5A1 snip, which means she needs more collagen protein and a VDR snip, meaning she probably needs more vitamin D, a BCMO, meaning she needs more vitamin A. So when you put those together, the algorithm said, okay, for you, the world's perfect food looks like it's probably a sardine. It has a really clean source of omega three. It has a collagen protein in the skin and the bones. It has vitamin A and vitamin D in the organs because it's a whole animal. And so it kind of put all of that together. And then for kryptonite foods, you mentioned you had some sensitivities to wheat and gluten. She had that as well. So that's an SH2B3 gene, but she also had an MCM6. So it meant dairy is inflammatory for her. So identifying kind of the super foods and kryptonite foods, we think is a better way to go about talking about food than kind of the bigger categories itself. But at the same time, if you're seeing the doctor and the health coach and you're talking through some of these things now for you, if it looks like, well, you have some genes that mean you need more, that you'll be fine with, with fats and animal, animal fats and some where you need more complex carbohydrates. Well, then we're going to look at your lab tests. So for example, if your ApoB, your kind of most atherogenic cholesterol particle is through the roof, that may give us a little bit of pause on the animal proteins. But if your hemoglobin A1c is really high and you have a lot of insulin sensitivity, that may give us some pause towards the carbohydrates. So we would tailor the recommendations based not just on the genetics, but the lab tests as well.

Dr. Matthew Dawson

And then what also are your goals around activity and exercise and things like that. So it's a complex picture that we use the AI engine to make most of the recommendations. And then we add on the kind of doctor and health coach, their kind of final look and talking to the patient as well.

Melanie Avalon

I love that so much. Yeah, because I think, well, first of all, I want to say you did a really good job with the report of having it be very comprehensive. Like there's so much information, but also it is very approachable. It's very readable. So I really appreciate that aspect. And I really liked that. So basically AI can, you know, analyze and generate all of these findings, but then having that conversation with a real human being who can walk you through it. And, and that's what I remember when I met with my health coach, she was very knowledgeable and helpful in saying like, this is what this actually means. Like she was saying, like, you know, I know there's like a lot of data here, but here's what we're actually looking at. And then like you just said, when we actually look at your blood work, what do we see and what changes should we make? And I actually made a very practical, implementable change immediately after having this conversation. And that was that, cause I'm looking right now at my, like the summary at the very end. And it looks at like your lipids, your methylation, your vitamins and micronutrients, your hormones, your inflammation and your insulin resistance slash, slash metabolism. The one category that's like all red is my methylation category, which I have known. I've, I've known, I, I struggled with that in the past, but it was nice because talking to her, she was like, okay, like what, you know, what you need to do is you really need to be on a methyl folate supplement here. It's also interesting because, you know, based on the whole context of that, which it talks about in the report, apparently there are different ways that you could go about addressing it based on the whole comprehensive picture. But what she was saying with me was to get on that and now, and I've been on that and I've seen a big difference. So, so thank you. That was like a very like practical change that I made.

Dr. Matthew Dawson

And I'll make one point about that, about the provider and things, too. This is called precision medicine. I like to remind people it's precision medicine, not perfect medicine. So our recommendations as a physician or a health coach or a provider is only as good as the amount of data we have. So the fact that we have an incredible amount of data about your genes, all the biomarkers, scientific data, all of this, means we're going to be able to give much better recommendations, but we still need to follow that over time and make sure that what we're recommending is actually working. So I think the relationship part of this is really important, too, having that relationship with a physician health coach that can interpret, like you were mentioning. And like things I mentioned earlier, like from my mother, they identified that sardines was the world's perfect food. Well, the perfect food and perfect diet for you is the one that you're going to be able to follow as well. If she had said, that's disgusting, I'm not going to eat sardines, well, then we would have just found other ways to kind of plug those holes and give her that extra support that she needs. So it is definitely, the AI platform is very powerful, but having that human with it and following someone over time, because humans are complex, is a very important part of the process.

Melanie Avalon

with the evolution of AI, is it continuously updated? And do you ever have to retest your genes ever, or is that technology pretty much done like you've done the testing, and now AI can just adapt to interpreting it?

Dr. Matthew Dawson

Yeah. So you would not have to retest your genetics. The AI itself, though, is getting better and is making the recommendations better and better over time. So when I say AI, though, I specifically think about two different things. So to be able to build all these recommendations, we need machine learning. A human's brain isn't, it's not the right tool to look at a million different variables and make recommendations. So you need machine learning for that. So that's what the platform is built on initially. However, the other thing that I mean when I say AI is large language models. So this has been a real game changer. So we took all of our, all of our IP, all the recommendation engine and all of that and put it on a large language model so that we could interact with it better. So for example, I have this app that we built on my phone, and I can actually interact with it. I can ask like I was giving a talk at an event in DC a few months ago, and I said to it, I said, Hey, I'm giving a talk. I'm in DC. I'm saying it's the Omni in DC. What should I have for lunch? And it gave me a specific meal at a restaurant point one miles away. That was based on it knows my genetics and I was on my lab work and who I slept that night, it knew that I lifted weights and went for a run that day, gave me the perfect meal at the perfect time there. So really cool stuff. And it can also it just pushes information like a few months ago, I got a notification from the LLM has all the status said, Hey, you are about you're overtraining, you're gonna get injured or sick. So I chatted back with it and said, Well, how do you know that? And it showed me all my HRV data, my resting heart rate trends, and I thought, Oh, yeah, I've been traveling and working out just as hard not sleeping. Well, historically, I would have just pushed through that and gotten sick or injured. But I saw this and then I said, Well, give me a program to recover over the next two weeks. And it knows my goals. At the time I was training to climb this mountain in Ecuador, and trying to improve my pickleball game. Those are my only only two goals. So it gave me recommendations personalized to me for those goals and to recover and follow that. So the LLMs are a real game changer and being able to interact with your with your data. Now that app itself, unfortunately, is not on the market. It actually was so good, we ended up taking it down because we were worried from a regulatory standpoint, it'd be seen as a practicing medicine. But we built it into our product where now, if you ask a question of your doctor and health coach, the LLM intercepts it, it gives them a suggested response because it knows everything about you. And the doctor hasn't memorized your 700,000 genes probably. And then the provider can kind of modify it or just use it or reject it and give a new answer. But we found when we first implemented that, the providers only use it about 20% of the time. But now it's over 90% of the time because the answers are phenomenal. Like they're just really good, much better than a than a regular person would give an answer.

Melanie Avalon

Do you think AI will ever completely take the place of humans?

Dr. Matthew Dawson

Yeah, great question. So there's a couple different ways to think about that. Like if you asked me the question, is AI better at making medical diagnosis than doctors? There's no question. It's just much better. Like there's lots of data on that. There's also data comparing like Chad GPT to physicians and blinded. Well, because people said, well, okay, it's better making diagnosis, but the people are more empathetic. So then they tested that and when people were blinded chatting with a doctor, Chad GPT, they actually rated Chad GPT more empathetic too.

Melanie Avalon

Oh my goodness. I believe that.

Dr. Matthew Dawson

So if you were to tell me your options are a doctor or AI, I take the AI every day, like I just do, and I am a physician. I don't actually think that's the decision though, just like when, let's think about chess. It took a long time before Big Blue, which is an AI machine from IBM, beat the world's best chess player. But the best chess player in the world now isn't a machine or a human, it's this combination. It's kind of a centaur. So what you want is a physician you really trust who stays super up to date and who is using the AI. Like you want the combination of the two is what I think the best medical care is now and in the future.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, I'm really interested by it. I did an episode recently on AI. The whole book was actually about the future of health care in regards to like technology and AI and stuff. And he was saying that the reason the synergy of humans and AI can surpass just AI is that AI doesn't have the ability to, I guess at least right now, to think outside of its own rule system. And sometimes you need to think outside of... You need to not break the rules, but you need to be able to think outside the box in that regard.

Dr. Matthew Dawson

Yeah, I go really deep on this, especially the last couple weeks has been a crazy time in AI. And I would say, I don't know if I, I think you actually could train the AI to be much better at humans and we have that thinking out of the box and being creative. So I'm not I'm not sure if that's the separator. Maybe it is. I can give you another example, though, where them working together is really important. We had a patient who was young, like in the early 40s, executive came to us very healthy, no medical problems, just wanted to optimize probably like the 95th percentile already wanted to go to the 99th percentile. So great. We ran all of the stuff. And we got an alert from the AI from the large language model that said, Hey, notice some things like in his genetics and labs and things like this guy needs a deeper dive on cardiovascular health. So I as a physician or clinician, like no one would have said that this guy's perfectly healthy, young, we would have not got a clearly scan, which is an AI guy to CT angiogram for him, we would not have done that for him. It just didn't make sense. And from a textbook, but the AI picked it up. However, then actually having him do that, I don't know if he would have actually gone through the trouble of doing it, because he felt fine if just the AI was telling him, but he trusted us as a clinician. So it was kind of that combination of the AI finding it and then and then him trusting the human. And in fact, he got the scan, we got an emergency call from the radiologist who said he needs to go to the cath lab immediately he had like a 90% lesion and his LED, which is called the widow maker artery. And if he hadn't had this done, he probably would have died of a massive heart attack in the next year or two. And this was an example of the AI and the human either one of them alone, like would have been probably been a little deficient wouldn't have gotten this outcome. And now, I mean, this guy who he had two teenage daughters, and he's going to be with them hopefully for 40 more years instead of one to two years. So that's, that's just the example that pops to my mind when I think about humans and AI kind of working together to really deliver the next level of of medical care.

Melanie Avalon

Wow, yeah, I love that. Do you think there will be any, since AI has this super power to be able to analyze all this data, do you think it will come up with any really surprising findings or change our opinions on what we've historically thought about different medical conditions, treating them, like things like that? Paradigm shifts, basically.

Dr. Matthew Dawson

100%. And that's kind of why other guys, that's kind of why I push back on his thinking outside the box. Because when I look at this, like, AI, and people could argue about this word, I see AI is much more creative than humans already. And I wouldn't even say that a year ago, it's just progressing so quickly. Like, when you watch the emerging things that come out, or its ability to put things together, like creativity is really about pulling together kind of disparate things from different places to come up with new and novel ideas. They're really it's, it's fusing different different areas. And AI is amazing at that. So I yeah, I think AI, it's already in drug discovery, so many other areas, it's making a tremendous difference and really changing the care, we see it all the time and the recommendations that it makes, and the things that it comes up with, it's, it's very creative, and is definitely going to be showing us new ways to deal with things.

Melanie Avalon

Actually to that point, because so last night, so like I said, I did this a while ago, I read my report then last night, I went in and downloaded my report again, when it's generating the report, is it updating it when you go in?

Dr. Matthew Dawson

So, I don't think it is if you don't have new data, and I say I don't think it is because if it was like a year or two ago, then I think you would get a new report because there's been updates. But when you would get a new report is one, if there are updates pushed in the system or two, when you're feeding it more data. So if you had just had a new lab test, for example, then there would be a new report. But if there's no new data, then it would be the same report and recommendations.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, gotcha. One other question there. Oh, so when people are reading their results, when it's talking about these different SNPs, these, you know, genetics that people have, it'll say that you might have an increased or reduced risk of XYZ, you know, whatever condition or thing it's talking about in that section. How should we interpret that word risk? Especially if we don't know what the normal risk is for something. Yeah, how do we know the severity of what this means with this word risk? And is it like absolute or relative? Like, what's going on?

Dr. Matthew Dawson

there? That's a great question, and we could actually try to build that into the report and say it increases your risk by X amount, which means this, so therefore this. That would turn it into hundreds of pages, so that's part of where the human comes in, and that's why it's important to have a doctor and health coach, because if you have a PEMT SNP or some other SNP that says, oh, based on this, you have this increased risk of blood cancers or something like that, that can sound scary, but if you have the physician or the provider who has a context around that, it's like, okay, yeah, that means your risk of blood cancer goes from 0.5% to 0.6%, then that's like a one in a thousand increased risk that you got, so it's not a really big number, or even if it's a 1% for a 2%, that can sound scary, because you think, oh, my risk has doubled. Well, it's doubled from a relative risk standpoint, but still, from going from 1% to 2%, that's a 1% absolute, so it's a 1 in a hundred risk, so it's not really much to be worried about, like the stress from you thinking about that and constantly trying to do something about it is probably worse than having it, so it is important to have someone who can give you that context with these, quote, unquote, risks as well.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, awesome. Yeah, I did notice in the report that it was with one of the cancer related things that it actually gave me a little bit more data more in the language that you're using. And I had a feeling it was because for what the reason you just said, because you want it to be clear, like what it actually means practically. Okay, on the blood side testing side of things, so for listeners, so when you do this program, you get the genetic information, which that was a saliva test, right? The genetics. That's right. And then you also do a blood test and get a lot of biomarkers. How did you decide which biomarkers to include on the blood test and how did you decide the ranges?

Dr. Matthew Dawson

We basically said, okay, in the first assessment of someone, we want a lot. We kind of want as much information as we can reasonably get that doesn't kind of break the bank for them. So it's a large amount of tests initially. On follow-up testing, we try to get more targeted and specific, like what did we find? What are the risks? What are the things that we need to follow? So it's normally smaller tests. So we really picked, I think there's around 50-something biomarkers we start with, and we just think those are the ones that are most impactful. Now, there are others we could add. So if we do the testing and we're talking and we find that someone has elevated inflammatory markers and we just can't figure out exactly why, then we may add a lot more things. We may add some food sensitivity testing or some other toxin testing. If we're talking to someone and it sounds like hormones are an issue, we may do more advanced hormone testing. So the initial set is designed to give us the most bang for our buck, the most information without breaking the bank, and then we get very targeted from there when picking the lab test. And oh, you mentioned reference ranges. Yeah, so there are certainly classic reference ranges, and we'll use those for a lot of the tests, but others we try to use ranges that we consider more optimal for. There's an example, you mentioned methylation status. So homocysteine, I think a standard lab panels, they'll say it's normal if it's under 14. Well, we want you to be kind of under 10. Vitamin D, you may on some lab reports not get a quote unquote deficient number unless you're under 20. We want you definitely to be above 30 and optimally to be around 50 or more. So we do modify some to be more optimal range than just non-diseased.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, one of the personal findings I had, this was really interesting to me because this has been my theory for like a decade. And then getting my information back, I was like, okay, maybe, maybe this is correct, which is that, and this is again, this is showing how you look at the blood and the genetics. I always have high B12, like always, I test high for it. And so I tested high on this one for the blood work as well. But it said in my genetic analysis that I have a SNP which makes it hard for B12 to get into my cells. And so when I was talking with the practitioner to reviewing everything, I was like, oh, could this maybe be why it's always high for me because it's not getting into my cells, it's just like staying in my bloodstream. She agreed with me on that. So I thought that was really, really interesting. Another question, so the biological age test that people take. So what is the role of that? What is the difference between biological age and chronological age?

Dr. Matthew Dawson

Sure. Yeah. So, chronologically, it's just pretty easy. That's how many years you've been alive. Most people know that. If you don't, you can look at your driver's license and there it is. The biology age is different. So, first off, age is the number one risk factor for almost every chronic disease. But we all know people who may be 40, but they look and feel and perform like a 30-year-old or a 50-year-old. So, that's more of a biologic age. What is your risk of getting diseases? Morbidity. And what is your risk of dying? Mortality. And traditionally, for years, there's been multiple of these biologic age tests that are out there. Most of them are not good. They're kind of junk. They're not validated. They may just be based on some random algorithm. But are they really telling you what you want to know, which is, am I increasing or decreasing risk of dying? And am I increasing or decreasing risk of getting disease? That's what we really want to know. That's kind of a true biologic age. At Wild Health, we use a company called True Diagnostic for that. Now, True Diagnostic is just to call out a conflict here. I am CEO of True Diagnostic as well. So, we were using True Diagnostic for years before I came in and started working with True Diagnostic. The reason why I like True Diagnostic is because of one specific test they have that I have used for years I really like, which is called the PACE test. So, I don't actually care that much if we get your biologic age back. And let's say you're chronologically 40, but your biologic age tells me you're 36 versus 44. I'm just going to try to optimize you either way. And if it tells me you're 44, biologically, and let's say that we believe that result, well, are you doing everything perfect now and you just had a really rough go of it in your 20s and 30s? Or is it reflecting something that's going on right now? That's unclear to me as well. What I like about the PACE test, this is a test about by Duke, it tells you what is your rate of aging right now. So, it's information right now. And what's great about it is it is very sensitive to change. Meaning, for example, if you get pregnant, that's a physiologic stress and your rate of aging goes up about 20 percent, but then it comes back down to normal when you deliver the baby. Same thing happens if you get COVID, have hip surgery, get a car accident, your rate of aging goes up, but it comes back down when you recover. What this allows me to do as a clinician is to do end-of-one experiments to figure out what is going to reduce your rate of aging. So, Stanford did a great study. Actually, it's not a great study. There are a lot of problems with the study, but the interesting thing about the study was there's this twin study where they move people back and forth between a vegan and an omnivore diet. And then they measured lots of things, but one of the things they measured was this PACE of aging. And they found that in eight weeks, changing your diet, you can have an effect on your rate of aging.

Dr. Matthew Dawson

So, we could change someone's diet and see how it affects the rate of aging. Or if someone says, I want to go to Panama and get IV stem cells. Well, that's expensive. If you're going to invest $40,000, it would be good to have an objective measure of something like rate of aging that we could look at and see if it affects that. Or if you're going to try a wrap of ice in or some other supplement stacks or other things. It's nice to have an integrator of all your health, like rate of aging to follow over time and try to push down as low as possible.

Melanie Avalon

okay, I am loving this part of the conversation so much. I mean, I've been loving the whole thing, but I'm really loving this. And I just pulled up my report as well. So mine was 10.64 years younger was my biological age, which it says puts me in the top 16% of the population. For that pace that you were talking about, mine was 0.67.

Dr. Matthew Dawson

That's that's incredible. Yeah. So the way the pace works is if you get a score of this one point zero, that means you're aging at the normal rate for someone your age and sex. If it's one point two, you're aging 20 percent faster. If it's point eight, you're you're aging 20 percent slower. So point six seven is remarkable. That means you're aging at two thirds normal rates. That means for for over 30 years, you're only going to age 20. You'll be 10 years younger than you should be in 30 years from now. So that is that is definitely one of the lowest ones I've seen. That's really incredible. It just means that you're you're doing a lot of things right. Like you're killing it. That's a really impressive pace score.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, wow. Okay. I'm really excited. And you said this was based on.

Dr. Matthew Dawson

Yeah, this is developed by Duke. They have a really large cohort called the Dunedin cohort is a large group of people out of New Zealand that were followed for decades. And they followed them and watched how they aged, what diseases they got and things. And then they drew longitudinal blood samples over time. And then from that, they could derive and figure out what is your pace of aging based on different epigenetic markers. So this is epigenetics. So we sequence someone's DNA once, that's your genetics, that never changes. But I mentioned earlier, genetics is 20% of your health outcome. The other 80% are epigenetics, what you do, what you eat, your stress levels, how you sleep. And so you're doing all of that right, it seems like. And so the way we measure this pace is we look at gene expression, epigenetics. So it looks at about a million gene sites and tells how much each one is turned up or turned down, how much you're expressing those good or bad genes. And you turn them up and down by changing different lifestyle factors. And so from that, then they can derive what is your pace of aging. So that's how it is from that Duke study specifically, but that's a remarkable pace, that's great.

Melanie Avalon

Awesome. And for listeners, when you get your report, it breaks it down into all these different organ systems, so 11 different systems, and it shows you are you aging, you know, slower or the same or faster in each one. So it's like heart, inflammation, metabolic brain, musculoskeletal, kidneys, liver, lungs, blood, immune hormones.

Dr. Matthew Dawson

Yeah, and to be specific not only about that, so technically on the report, the trade report, you're going to get three different clocks. So Harvard developed a clock on the Olmec M.H. And that is probably the one where you said you're 10 years younger. That's the best predictor of kind of mortality, like your risk of dying. So you have a much lower risk of dying than someone your age. The other one you mentioned with the Oregon systems, that's from Yale. So Yale developed that one. It's called the symphony age. That's right. And because we age in a heterogeneous manner, like if someone drinks odd alcohol, their liver is going to age more quickly. If they're smoking, their lungs are going to age more quickly. So that's a nice one to figure out kind of maybe what is your weakest link. And then the pace one is from Duke. So three very different epigenetic clocks there.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, and so they should in theory align or do they often not?

Dr. Matthew Dawson

Well, they're giving you different information. So, yours are pretty aligned. Like, you're only getting ages 10 years younger and your pace is 0.67. Both of those are remarkable. I don't see your symphony age, but most of your organ systems are probably going to be lower as well. Maybe not all of them. So, they do line up in general, but they're measuring three different things. So, they're really telling you different information. And I will say for any of your listeners that do this, like, don't be disappointed when your results aren't like Melanie's. That's a phenomenal result you've got.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, wow. Yeah, for the symphony, they're all aging slowly except for immune and hormones. Very interesting.

Dr. Matthew Dawson

And things change over time too, so it could be that when you repeat the test, there could just be a certain reason at that time that those may be a little off as well.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, this is so interesting to me. Two quick questions. One, because you're mentioning this, well, first of all, I love this idea about how one of them, like the pace is looking at like your pace of aging. That is so, so cool. Practically, it seems like a person could be aging slower. And then like you were saying, that means when you live chronologically this amount of time, but you're only going to quote age this other amount of time. And at the same time, it seems like there's a limit to how long we can live. Basically, my question is, do people age at different rates, but then is there still like this final timeline that once you hit it, you hit it?

Dr. Matthew Dawson

What I'll say to you is, so far, no one has ever not died necessarily that we have on record. That we're aware of. Yeah, so where is that limit? People argue over that all the time, like, is there an intrinsic limit? Is it 120? Like, where is it? I don't know. And as science progresses, like, we're going to get better and better. People are living longer and longer. But yes, it's really about slowing the rate of aging. And the other thing about the slowing rate of aging, it's not just about living longer. You're just going to feel better and perform better. So it's not even like how much time we're adding to your life by slowing the rate of aging. But I mean, when you're 60, it'd be great if you feel and perform like you're 50 or 40. And when you're 80, like, you feel like you're 60. So it's really about optimizing your health now and how you feel later, too, is that the rate of aging, that's the big thing. Because most of us don't actually die of old age. We die of cardiovascular disease, dementia, cancer. These are the big killers. So while health, we're trying to slow down your rate of aging and optimize and make you feel as good as we can now. But we're also really aggressively screening for and trying to prevent those big things as well at the same time, because that's really what's going to lead to a shorter life for most of us.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, I have sort of a nuanced question. I hope I can articulate it. Let's say a person gets a test, like does this test, does the true diagnostics and gets all this aging information. So they have the potential to make lifestyle changes that will change the epigenetics. And if they are to retest, you know, in the future, hopefully they would see a beneficial change in that they're now aging slower based on these lifestyle changes that change their epigenetics. Is aging itself still a factor going against us? And what I mean by that is, even if they make these beneficial changes, if they test a year from now, does that year of aging, is that always going to be kind of a negative in affecting their rate of aging?

Dr. Matthew Dawson

If someone, if two people, let's say two people are doing the exact same things, they have the same genetics and everything else, if one of them is chronologically a year older, they're just going to have higher risk factors. So, it just is a risk factor in and of itself. Now, I think you were kind of asking the question like could maybe, and you tell me if this is a question, what was the question maybe like can you like reverse your biologic age and kind of be younger over time as well? Was that the kind of

Melanie Avalon

Okay, I think this is the reason I thought about it, because I was like, okay, I feel good about my results right now, so if I retest in a year and I haven't changed anything, but I've aged a year, is that going to slightly make my results not as good?

Dr. Matthew Dawson

Right, so if you're not changing anything, you test in a year, you're in the same position, your rate of aging should, so what would most likely happen is your rate of aging.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, does aging affect the rate of aging?

Dr. Matthew Dawson

Yeah no it doesn't so okay now i got you yeah so your rate of aging if you're not doing anything anymore in poorly or any better should stay the same so the rate of should change so what you see for example you have that call your rate aging is say point six seven. And then in the three years you retest your rating still point six seven but your biologic age the one where you got a number that probably is only gonna go by two years instead of the three years. So that's that's the what you can see from that.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, gotcha. I've had David Sinclair on the show a few times and he has, you know, he came out with a book and his whole hypothesis was aging is a disease. Do you think aging is a disease?

Dr. Matthew Dawson

So, I think it's semantics, and what I mean by that is if we want to get, like, funding from NIH and places like that, it makes sense to call aging a disease. At the same time, aging is unnatural. Everyone ages, so is that does everyone have a disease here? So it really kind of depends on what you're trying to do with the word, like does it lose its meaning if you say aging? Now I've heard some people, like the argument, which is an interesting one, that disease, to kind of flip this around, disease is just aging of certain organs. So it's another way to look at it. When we have dementia, that's just aging of the brain in an accelerated fashion, or cardiovascular disease, aging of the heart. So is aging a disease? I think, honestly, the answer to that is it's a semantic question, and it's around words. If it's helpful for us to think of it as a disease so that we actually get more funding to treat it, then that's great. Because if we were to able to spend money on reducing the rate of aging of people, that would be way more effective than all the research that's going into individual diseases because aging is the number one risk factor for pretty much every chronic disease.

Melanie Avalon

That's pretty much the argument or the thoughts I subscribe to as well. Okay. I could ask you a million more questions, but I will stop myself. So listeners, I think you can see just how incredible this wild health platform is. So to recap, when you do this, you get all of this. So you get that genetic test where you're getting your risks for health based on your genetic DNA, you're getting that blood work, so a picture of what's happening right now and looking at it through these idealized ranges. And then also this biological age test where you're looking at epigenetics and looking at your rate of aging and things like that. And you get to work with a practitioner to help make sense of everything. But it's really an incredible platform. I'm so, so excited about it. Yeah, when listeners sign up and do this, how often do you recommend they do retesting? What will it look like practically for listeners to do this service?

Dr. Matthew Dawson

Yeah, so what happens if someone signs up, they get DNA tests comes to their house, the blood work is just we just put an order in and you get that done. A lot of the testing is done at your house where we arrange it. You have the meeting with a physician health coach and then kind of the cadence from there, the retesting depends on what's going on and what we find. Sometimes we may repeat testing pretty quickly based on what we see or sometimes maybe it's not until another three or six months. It kind of depends on what we identify are the main issues and what we want to work on. Some things take a while to change, other things change pretty quickly. So after the initial all the testing and the meetings with the providers, it's a pretty individualized and personalized program from there just based on what you need.

Melanie Avalon

Awesome. Awesome. So friends, listeners, I really cannot recommend this enough and we have an awesome offer for you guys. So thank you so much for that. You can get 20% off a wild health membership when you use the code Melanie Avalon and that will be at wildhealth.com slash Melanie Avalon. So definitely check that out. This is, this has been so amazing. What are you most excited about with the future of all of this?

Dr. Matthew Dawson

Yeah, it's very clear to me. It's epigenetics. So, the pace of aging and all that, that comes from epigenetics, but there's so much more we can do. There's a true diagnostic. We just did this big study with Harvard where we found that we could actually predict and report on hundreds, if not thousands, of biomarkers just with an epigenetic test. So, you get so much data at much lower cost. So, there's a new product called TrueHealth that True Diagnostic has reported on about 130 biomarkers with the same just few drops of blood that the TrueAge test uses as well. So, in the future, in the next few years, we'll be able to give tens of thousands of dollars worth of data and biomarkers for hundreds of dollars. So, just the amount of data that we have to optimize our self-worth and to prevent disease and predict diseases is going up exponentially.

Melanie Avalon

Amazing. How often do you take your blood work?

Dr. Matthew Dawson

I go overboard with it. I'm probably once a month testing, but I'm always doing different experiments and I want the data. So I'm testing a lot. I don't really recommend that often to anybody else. It's a lot.

Melanie Avalon

That's amazing. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Dawson. This has been incredible. Again, listeners go to wildhealth.com slash Melanie Avalon, use the coupon code Melanie Avalon to get 20% off. Yeah, this has been so incredible and exciting. Thank you so much for all you're doing. It's changing so many lives. I really appreciate it.

Dr. Matthew Dawson

Thank you, Millie. It was a lot of fun. You asked great questions, so thanks so much for having me on.

Melanie Avalon

Thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of your day. 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.

Mar 03

Episode 411 – The Great Oyster Debate, Calorie Restriction Vs. IF Vs. Keto Vs. Mediterranean Diet For Longevity, Resistance Training And Fasting, Protein Intake, Fasting With Kidney Disease, Men Vs. Women Fat Burning, And More!