Apr 24

Episode 262: Linguistics, ADHD Stimulants, Medication, CGM, Prediabetes, Berberine, Metabolism, Stress Related Weight Gain, Birth Control, And More!

Intermittent Fasting

Welcome to Episode 262 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine and Gin Stephens, author of Delay, Don't Deny: Living An Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle

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

BUTCHERBOX: Grass-Fed Beef, Organic Chicken, Heritage Pork, Wild-Caught Seafood: Nutrient-Rich, Raised Sustainably The Way Nature Intended, And Shipped Straight To Your Door! For A Limited Time Go To Butcherbox.com/ifpodcast And Get Free Ground Beef For LIFE!!

BLUBlox: Overexposure To Blue Light In Our Modern Environments Can Lead To Increased Anxiety, Stress, Headaches, And Other Health Conditions. Even A Tiny Exposure To Artificial Light Can Completely Offset Your Circadian Rhythm! Unlike Many “Blue Light Blocking” Glasses On The Market, BLUBlox Provides Glasses That Block The Exact Blue Wavelengths You Need To Regulate Sleep, Reduce Anxiety, And Much More! They Also Provide Different Types Of Glasses For The Time Of Day, Season, And Your Personal Electronic And Light Exposure! Plus, For Every BLUblox Purchase, They Donate A Pair Of Glasses To Someone In Need! Go To blublox.com And Use The Code ifpodcast For 15% Off!

FEALS: Feals Makes CBD Oil Which Satisfies ALL Of Melanie's Stringent Criteria: It's Premium, Full Spectrum, Organic, Tested, Pure CBD In MCT Oil! It's Delivered Directly To Your Doorstep. CBD Supports The Body's Natural Cannabinoid System, And Can Address An Array Of Issues, From Sleep To Stress To Chronic Pain, And More! Go To feals.com/ifpodcast To Become A Member And Get 50% Off Your First Order, With Free Shipping!

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

SHOW NOTES

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

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

Listener Q&A: Sarah - The way you say words

How Y’all, Youse and You Guys Talk

BLUBlox: Go To blublox.com And Use The Code ifpodcast For 15% Off!

Listener Q&A: Rebecca - ADHD meds and elevated blood glucose levels

Methylphenidate has mild hyperglycemic and hypokalemia effects and increases leukocyte and neutrophil counts

The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #128 - Dr. Michael Platt

Adrenaline Dominance: A Revolutionary Approach To Wellness

The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #48 - Dr. Daniel Amen

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

Listener Q&A: Kristi - Weight Gain

PANDEMIC? WHAT'S AN INTERMITTENT FASTER TO DO?

Listener Q&A: Rosie - Those little pills

White Birch Professional Teeth Whitening Serum - Activated White Charcoal

TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Welcome to Episode 262 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. If you want to burn fat, gain energy, and enhance your health by changing when you eat, not what you eat with no calorie counting, then this show is for you. I'm Melanie Avalon, author of What When Wine: Lose Weight and Feel Great with Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, and Wine. And I'm here with my cohost, Gin Stephens, author of Fast. Feast. Repeat.: The Comprehensive Guide to Delay, Don't Deny Intermittent Fasting. For more on us, check out ifpodcast.com, melanieavalon.com, and ginstephens.com. Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this podcast do not constitute medical advice or treatment. So, pour yourself a cup of black coffee, a mug of tea, or even a glass of wine if it's that time, and get ready for The Intermittent Fasting Podcast.

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

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: Hi, everybody and welcome. This is Episode number 262 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon and I'm here with Gin Stephens.

Gin Stephens: Hi, everybody.

Melanie Avalon: How are you today, Gin?

Gin Stephens: I'm doing great. It is a beautiful day and I'm loving it.

Melanie Avalon: I haven't been outside yet.

Gin Stephens: Oh, [laughs] It's sunny, and warm, and just the perfect spring day. So, it made me so happy to be out there. If you can walk barefoot outside on the driveway, that's my happiness.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, yeah. I'm getting flashbacks to childhood. Yes. Do you put a wreath on your door?

Gin Stephens: Only at Christmas. 

Melanie Avalon: Okay. I have discovered the wonderful world of wreaths on Etsy. 

Gin Stephens: Oh, that's fine. 

Melanie Avalon: Do you ever shop on Etsy? 

Gin Stephens: Sometimes, when I need a special pillow, for example. I found this fabric that I loved and I had the name of it. I went to Etsy and sure enough, there was someone selling pillows made out of that fabric for a lot less than I could hire someone to make them. I could make pillows myself, but I no longer have a sewing machine. When we moved the last time, mine didn't make the cut. I'm at the point I'd rather just pay someone to do it for me, but I got pillows on Etsy. I love Etsy.

Melanie Avalon: If you want something very specific, you can find it. I found this amazing. Actually, it might have been a few different companies, but I found one girl that makes handmade wreaths. So, I made Disney-inspired ones for all the seasons. 

Gin Stephens: Well, that's really fun. I think I've seen them on Instagram. I know I have seen them on Instagram. [giggles] I have seen your wreaths on Instagram. [laughs] 

Melanie Avalon: I think I've posted all of them except the summer one. Oh, it's exciting.

Gin Stephens: You love the summer one? 

Melanie Avalon: It's really pretty. Yeah. 

Gin Stephens: What makes it super exciting in Melanie's world? 

Melanie Avalon: Have you been to Disneyland? 

Gin Stephens: Never Disneyland. Only Disney World.

Melanie Avalon: Okay. Have you heard of World of Color? 

Gin Stephens: No. 

Melanie Avalon: Are you familiar with the setup of Disneyland?

Gin Stephens: No. I know it's a lot smaller than Disney World. You've been to Disney World, I imagine. 

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I love Disney World.

Gin Stephens: I just know it's smaller. That's all I know about it. It's smaller and it's the original. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, so, it's two parks. It's Disneyland and California Adventure. The weird thing about Disneyland, though, is if you've grown up going to Disney World and going to Magic Kingdom, Disneyland is like the same thing. Some of the stuff is the exact same, but then, some of the stuff is slightly different. So, it's like when you're in your dream and something's just off.

Gin Stephens: It's just how here and when I was a teacher, Columbia County where I taught had one elementary school plan that they built for several years, like, every elementary school had that same plan, but they were all slightly different. Where a hallway was they decided, "Oh, that was not a good place for a hallway." They closed it or whatever. You felt it was the same as model as like my elementary school. So, I'd always felt slightly lost. Yeah, I get it. 

Melanie Avalon: That's it. It's weird, because you're like, "This is right, but not."

Gin Stephens: Yeah. Well, the house I'm moving into, the whole little neighborhood has exactly the same house plan built over and over, but with different colors. So, I bet when I start meeting people and getting to know them, it's going to feel wacky.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, wow. Oh, that's interesting. 

Gin Stephens: Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. The other park is called California Adventure. This comparison is not going to make any sense to you, because you haven't seen it. But there's this show called a World of Color and it is the most magical thing. It's water, and color and they project Disney clips and play music, but the color is the most. It's like the experience of color incarnate in magical fountains of overwhelming epicness. That is what I tried to embrace in my summer wreath.

Gin Stephens: Well, that sounds really pretty. I can't wait to see it. When do you put it out, like, June? 

Melanie Avalon: I decided I'd put everything out on the day the season started. 

Gin Stephens: Yeah, that makes sense. 

Melanie Avalon: So, I think I learned this year when the season started.

Gin Stephens: It's not always the same number day. Did you know that? 

Melanie Avalon: What? [laughs] Wait, explain.

Gin Stephens: It's astronomical. It has to do with the position of the Sun and length of the day. I think it can be very one way or another. 

Melanie Avalon: Oh, man. Okay. I was also reflecting on this morning time. Because I was thinking about how we both show up at the time to start this podcast. In theory, when did they decide time? Could it have been different?

Gin Stephens: I guess. They could have divided it differently. Yeah. 

Melanie Avalon: When did they decide noon? 

Gin Stephens: Well, technically, when the Sun is directly overhead, they call that noon. I mean, it does. But it's based on a certain time of the year, I don't know. I just looked up spring, the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere can either be March 19th, March 20th, or March 21st. It has to do with when it's the equinox, which is when at whatever point they used to just-- See, I'm telling you what, teaching elementary school just absolutely lets you know a lot of these things. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: It never came up when they decided noon?

Gin Stephens: When they decided? I know it's based on when the Sun is directly overhead at whatever time of the year that is. I don't know. I can't remember.

Melanie Avalon: It must have been some day, though, because every day would be slightly different, I assume.

Gin Stephens: It's when they came up with clocks. Once they came up with clocks and they were able to keep the time, of course, they were not accurate. But it was all rough estimate. Until we got to the modern era, there was no conformity, if that makes sense. It varied. 

Melanie Avalon: Oh, the clocks all around? 

Gin Stephens: There was no like-- Here's the time it is everywhere in the world at this exact moment. Before we got to the point where we could communicate from place to place, it's possible every place had a different noon.

Melanie Avalon: Before the advent of railways in the 1800s.

Gin Stephens: See, I just know so many random things.

Melanie Avalon: All time was local. Noon was simply when the Sun was directly overhead wherever you were in what is called solar time.

Gin Stephens: Right. In that one, I just said I didn't know it was the railroad, but that makes sense. I knew there was a reason everyone suddenly synchronized, it makes total sense that it was the railroad. Yeah, time was pretty much like local. And then, they decided this is where it's this-- Whatever that was, that's when they decided, here's what we're going to call noon based on this and then, everybody just went along.

Melanie Avalon: Before that, when you traveled to another town, you would simply change your watch. I learned something else that was determined by railroads that relates to diet.

Gin Stephens: What's that? 

Melanie Avalon: It's one of the main reasons we eat muscle meat and not the organs and different parts of the animal. Had to do with shipping and how they kept it cold.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, convenience. That makes sense. A lot of things are convenience related, aren't they? 

Melanie Avalon: Yep. 

Gin Stephens: But it's easiest to do. Very interesting. See, I just refined my knowledge a little bit more and you learned some new things. 

Melanie Avalon: I know. So much to learn.

Gin Stephens: There really is. You realize the things that you don't know, when you start learning them, you're like, "How did I never knew that?"

Melanie Avalon: It's a little bit stressful to think about, because you could pick any one topic and you could probably, literally just study that topic for your entire life.

Gin Stephens: Well, that's what people do. Experts in fields.

Melanie Avalon: You could study leaves and just study leaves. 

Gin Stephens: Yeah, Chad studies organic and heterocyclic chemistry. Most people are probably like, "I've never even heard of heterocyclic chemistry."

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. So, never be bored, always something to learn. Anything else new or shall we jump into everything for today? 

Gin Stephens: Yeah, let's get started. 

Melanie Avalon: Well, actually, our first question relates to all of this a little bit and it's not a fasting related question, but we got a really fun email from a listener, because Gin and I will often go on tangents about how we say words the same or differently. Sara emailed us and said, the subject was: "the way you say words. She said, "Hi. Okay, you guys keep talking about the different way you say words. So, have you ever taken the New York Times dialect quiz? It's so fun. You should take it together before or after podcasting, or with friends, because it's fun to see the differences." We both took this. What I thought was so interesting is, Gin, when you were taking it and it shows you all of those words, I immediately picked out my answer and a lot of other words I had never even heard of.

Gin Stephens: I had heard of a lot of them. There weren't very many that were unfamiliar to me, but it was very easy to know which one to choose, which is interesting, because I did grow up in the mountains of Virginia. I wondered how that would impact my results, but it was really funny what it said. It pinpointed me as being from Augusta Richmond County, which is where I was born and where I live right now. But I didn't live here all the time. I was always here, my dad was always here, but my parents got divorced when I was little, and I moved to Virginia, and so, I went to all of elementary school through high school there, went to college in North Carolina, and then, came back here after college, and have been in this area. But I knew, Augusta Richmond County. I was like, "This is bizarre." 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, we actually both got Augusta, which is--

Gin Stephens: Yeah, that's funny.

Melanie Avalon: You got Augusta, Montgomery, and Huntsville. Oh, no, no, no, no, that's me. That's me. I got I Augusta, Huntsville, and Montgomery, you got Augusta, Columbus, and Jackson.

Gin Stephens: Yeah. But the fact that it pulled out Augusta, I did this in my community in the Delay, Don't Deny Community. If anybody's looking for that community, by the way, ginstephens.com/community. That gets you there. But we did it there and it was so interesting to hear people what they got. They come up with their little place. It was fun to do it as a community. 

Melanie Avalon: You did it after receiving this email? 

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I just popped it up, because we like fun things in the Delay, Don’t Deny Community. I popped it in and said, "What do you all get?" People liked sharing what they got. I shared the link there. The people from Canada, they were like, "Well--" It gave them, like, they're closest to US. One person from Canada got, I don't know, somewhere in Washington State, because that's the closest. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. I'm glad that-- Sara, thank you for sharing it. It was fun to do, and fun to share with the community, and apparently, we say things pretty similarly, Melanie.

Melanie Avalon: I know. It was weird for me, because I grew up in Atlanta, and then Memphis, and then LA. I didn't get anything by there. Yeah, Augusta is the closest. So, for listeners, we'll put a link in the show notes.

Gin Stephens: I feel Atlanta is right in the middle of all of that.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. 

Gin Stephens: But it's funny that both of us got Augusta and you didn't get Atlanta or neither of us got Atlanta. I think Atlanta says, things all weird. Sorry, Atlanta. [laughs] That's what all I can come up with. Or, Atlanta is also maybe more of a mixture of people from all over. It's very metropolitan. I wonder what the Atlanta dialect would be. Now, I'm curious, because I know there's people in Atlanta from really everywhere.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, that's true. Actually, my Huntsville is it's close-ish to Memphis.

Gin Stephens: I'm surprised I didn't get any Virginia in there. 

Melanie Avalon: I'm surprised I didn't get Memphis. 

Gin Stephens: Yeah. It's funny. Because some of those words-- There was a couple times, I was like, "Between a couple--" I'm like, "Well, I know what I probably should say based on where I live," but I actually say these other words, I'm going to pick it and I did. I always picked what I really said.

Melanie Avalon: It was fun to see words that had never occurred to me that it was a thing. The question like, "Do you say icing or frosting?" All the options for that, what did you put for that? 

Gin Stephens: I think I put either as right.

Melanie Avalon: Me, too. It never occurred to me that they were different. [laughs] 

Gin Stephens: I wish they'd had dressing and stuffing. 

Melanie Avalon: Oh, that would have been a good one.

Gin Stephens: That wasn't there, which do you say?

Melanie Avalon: I would say both. If I could do a sliding scale, it would lean more towards stuffing, but I don't mind either.

Gin Stephens: See, we totally say dressing, because we don't stuff it. In our family, we don't stuff the bird. We don't stuff it in the bird. We've had big debates around the Thanksgiving table about y'all better not call this stuffing, [laughs] because stuffing is stuffed in, dressing is on the side. If I bake a turkey, I stuff it with chopped up onions, and garlic, and aromatics to flavor the bird, but we don't take-- I actually then take that out and make gravy out of it whatever was in there while I cooked goes into the gravy to flavor the gravy. I make some really good gravy, but the dressing is cooked on the side and a casserole dish.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, that's the way it's always been for us. What did you say for fireflies and lightning bugs?

Gin Stephens: We say lightning bugs. 

Melanie Avalon: Okay. I said fireflies and lightning bugs. It's just interesting, because for listeners, when you take it for these answers, there'll be 10 options. Some of them I had never--

Gin Stephens: Which is why it's so odd that we both got Augusta. 

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm.

Gin Stephens: The people in the community got so many different things. It's clearly not everyone gets Augusta. We're like, I got the exact town in California where I live. So, fascinating. Yeah. 

Melanie Avalon: And when you get your results, it's also really a little bit interactive. You can see all these different versions of your results.

Gin Stephens: Oh, and it shows you what you're not like. I'm super not like what was in Michigan or something.

Melanie Avalon: I was not like Milwaukee, Grand Rapids, and Detroit.

Gin Stephens: Yes. Oh, I am not like Minneapolis, St. Paul, Detroit, oh, and Seattle. That's where I was the most different. I was the most different Seattle, Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Detroit. 

Melanie Avalon: I was laughing out loud with some of them. I don't know what will I do, know why, because there'll be the question and there'll be all the answers, and then, one of them would just say, "I have no word for this." That was me for some of them. Oh, good times. So, listeners, we'll put a link to this in the show notes.

Gin Stephens: And have fun with it, make your whole family take it and see if y'all get the same thing, that would be fun.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I'm going to email this to-- or text this to my family after this.

Gin Stephens: That will be interesting. 

Melanie Avalon: Okay.

Gin Stephens: So fun. 

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Melanie Avalon: Shall we jump into some fasting related questions?

Gin Stephens: Absolutely. We have a question from Rebecca and the subject is: "ADHD meds and elevated blood glucose levels." She says, "Hi, Gin and Melanie, I was formally diagnosed with ADHD last year and I was prescribed a well-known stimulant medication after some discussions with my doctor. I've been taking the medication only on weekdays for about five to six months and have seen huge improvements in my quality of life and mental health. I am 29 years old, have a late-night eating window of four to five hours usually starting to eat anywhere between 6 PM to 8 PM. Eat mainly Whole Foods cooked at home, beets, fruits, veggies, grains, etc., but do enjoy an occasional restaurant meal some weekends or a dessert here and there. I have been clean fasting since November of 2019, lost 69 pounds, and have kept it off. Yay. I'm also relatively active. I stand all day at my standing desk, move around frequently, and then, go for about a three to four mile walk with my dog every day after work before I eat my first meal. 

Last year before the ADHD meds, I used my NutriSense CGM, thank you for the rec, Melanie, for three months and learned so, so much about my body. I got the itch to do it again and so, I ordered more, popped one of those bad boys on, and was shocked to see how different my levels were from last year. I'm now on my third CGM this time around and I've seen consistent numbers or patterns in all three CGMs, so, I know it isn't just a fluke. Before my fasting blood glucose levels in the morning were averaging in the low 100s to 90s, and then, throughout the day, as I got deeper into my fast, they would steadily drop into the 80s, and then, sometimes into the 70s. Then, when I ate, my glucose levels would usually go to 110 to 130 and would almost always stay under 140. If I did have a larger glucose spike, I would recover relatively quickly. Now, it is completely different. Even though, I clean fast all day, my glucose levels almost never get below 100. I wake up and my glucose levels are usually around 120 to 130, then, I take the medication, and my glucose levels go up to 130 to 140 or even higher, and stay up there for about five hours, and then, will finally start to decrease. But even in the descent, it never gets below a 100, usually not even below 115 until I go for my daily walk. 

After my walk, my levels will drop to around 100 or in the high 90s if I'm lucky. Then, when I eat, my glucose levels spike like crazy, almost always at least to 150 or 160, or sometimes higher if I eat anything even remotely higher carb, and then, will stay mostly high throughout the night while I sleep. Sleep average is around 135, but will oscillate above and below this number throughout the night. I've tried to eat right before my daily walk, so that the exercise helps to blunt the glucose spike of my first meal. But if I do this, one, I am forcing myself to eat when I'm not hungry and two, my blood glucose levels never get below 110, because I'm not exercising fasted. Any thoughts on this? What is better? Blunting the spike with a walk, but never getting below 110 or taking a walk getting my glucose levels down and then, eating and having a larger spike? 

On the weekends, when I don't take the medication, I thought that my levels would go back to the way they were before but they don't. They are still about the same as during the week, but maybe slightly better. I assume this means that the stimulants are still affecting my glucose levels, even after two days of not taking them. Naturally, I was stunned and slightly scared about what I was seeing. So, I googled it. And apparently, stimulant medications are known to raise blood glucose levels. I'm so surprised that I've never heard this or that it isn't more widely discussed, especially because the effects, at least in my case are quite significant. Why did these stimulant medications cause the higher blood glucose levels throughout the day during my fast and then, the more exaggerated spikes when I eat my meals? What is the mechanism behind this? Is it the same mechanism behind what raises our blood glucose when we eat or is it different? What does this mean for insulin? Are my insulin levels raised this entire time, too? What are the possible implications? Is this something that could result in diabetes? Do these numbers mean I'm potentially pre-diabetic? 

The medicine truly has made a massively positive impact on my life, but I also don't know how these higher glucose levels will affect my health long term. Any helpful info or advice you can provide would be greatly appreciated. I'm hoping that this discussion will make other people with ADHD aware of this critically underdiscussed issue. By the way, I do plan to talk to my doctor about this, but don't necessarily have high hopes, since neither my primary care physician or my psychiatrist said anything about the topic when I started the meds. Thank you both so much for everything you do. You have no idea how much you have impacted my life. red heart, Rebecca." 

Melanie, this was so interesting and I think it shows just how much goes on in our bodies, but before people had CGMs, people had no idea. 

Melanie Avalon: I know. 

Gin Stephens: This is what this is showing me. It's showing me that this has probably been going on for so many people, but people just don't know, because they don't see the data, but Rebecca has the data. 

Melanie Avalon: That is such a good point. Yeah, for listeners, we talk about CGMs a lot, but they are continuous glucose monitors, and you put them on your arm, and they measure the interstitial fluid of your cells, and give you essentially 24/7 view of your blood sugar levels. Like Gin just said, they can be really eye opening, because you can realize things that you had no idea, or affecting you, or that your blood sugar levels are reacting to diet, or lifestyle, or exercise and you don't even know. What's so interesting is, the difference between hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia, I feel people can more often become aware of hypoglycemia, because you can get really symptomatic from that.

Gin Stephens: You feel it. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. But hyperglycemia not necessarily. Rebecca, thank you so much for your question. I thought I knew what was going on here, and then, I googled it, and it was what I thought. With stimulant medications, well, it's interesting, because some studies actually find that stimulant medications reduce blood sugar, but a lot show that they can increase blood sugar, which is what you're experiencing. I'll put a link into the show notes to one interesting study. That's a really long title. It's methylphenidate has mild hyperglycaemic and hypokalemia effects, and increases leukocyte and neutrophil counts. Rebecca actually told us the medication she's takin. I'm not going to comment on what she's taking specifically, but there are a few different types of stimulant medications, and they likely have a similar effect in this regard. 

As stimulants they activate our body's stress response, our sympathetic nervous system. They can encourage the release of cortisol, and epinephrine, and norepinephrine. And that signaling to the body can encourage the body to release glucose from the liver, because it interprets the situation is needing fuel, so, like the fight or flight response. Some people, who are on these medications, it basically just creates a situation, where your liver is consistently keeping your blood sugar levels higher. The study I just mentioned, and then, it also summarized a few other studies, and it found that in general, there's around 22% increase in blood glucose levels for people on specifically methylphenidate, which is Ritalin, I think. So, yes, that is probably what is happening. To answer your questions, what is the mechanism? It's the liver releasing glucose. Is it the same mechanism behind what raises our blood glucose when we eat or is it different? It's different in that when we eat, we can immediately get a blood glucose spike from what we just ate rather than what was already stored in the liver and/or gluconeogenesis. The liver creating new glucose, because it needs it. When you're eating, it can be coming from what you ate, actually, in addition to the liver. So, it's a little bit different. 

What does this mean for insulin, are my insulin levels raised this entire time, too? Quite possibly. You might want to actually get a fasted insulin test, because our pancreas can respond to high blood sugar levels and pump out insulin to try to reduce them. It is possible that you are releasing insulin to try to bring down those levels, but your liver just keeps pumping out glucose. That actually is not good and that's why there's a transition from being nondiabetic to prediabetic to diabetic as you are transitioning, as your body is constantly experiencing these higher blood sugar levels, your pancreas is working to keep them down with insulin, but if you just keep on that train, it can just get worse and worse, and so, you can end up diabetic. Is this something that could result in diabetes, do these numbers mean I'm potentially prediabetic? Technically, by the levels, yes, you are prediabetic because a fasting blood sugar level of 99 or less is considered normal. Prediabetic is 100 to 125. You definitely fall within that range. Over 126 or higher indicates you have diabetes and she said that, what is it during the day? Is it above--? Now, when she wakes up, the glucose levels are usually around 120 to 130 and then, they go up to 130 or 140. Actually, your levels right now are diabetic levels. I would not take this lightly. I'm not trying to scare you. This is empowering reframe. This is very empowering that you've done the CGMs and you've realized this. I would probably find an endocrinologist to look into this more. Also, maybe, okay, I'm not a doctor. I'm not saying change your medication. I would speak with your doctor though and maybe see if he can reduce your medication. I don't know what dosage you're on. Maybe that's a possibility. 

Something I will say and I feel I might get negative feedback for this, but I had Dr. Michael Platt on the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast and he has a book called Adrenaline Dominance. He talks a lot about this, and he's a big fan of progesterone, and his go to method, he has helped a lot of people with ADHD actually through progesterone supplementation. I'm not saying to quit your meds and do progesterone, but I'm just saying, because if this continues the way you are right now, this is not a good thing. Maybe looking into alternatives, I know that the medication is really helping you and so that's amazing. But maybe if you can work with your doctor to get on the lower dose, or maybe try a different one, and/or find some other options that might work. In the meantime, other things that you could do to help with this-- Her situation is that, when she exercises fasted, it brings it down. But then, she eats, and it spikes, and so, she's saying, "Could she eat and then exercise after to reduce that spike?" I would not eat to lower your blood sugar. I would not make that the goal of eating. Actually, Marty Kendall, his whole thing, is it data driven fasting? Oh, which speaking of tangent, if I may. He randomly DMed me this week and was like, "You've got to have Mark--" Is it Schatzker, The Dorito Effect?

Gin Stephens: Oh, yeah, he's great. I love that book. Have you read the book?

Melanie Avalon: No, but you had mentioned it, and then people keep mentioning it, and then I actually saw a friend, and he mentioned it, and then I came home, and Marty Kendall was like, "You need to interview this guy."

Gin Stephens: There's the universe telling you. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: I actually had an email from him this morning. I haven't read it yet, because I emailed him last night, but I think he is coming on. So, that'll be exciting. Marty Kendall's thing and actually, Cynthia Thurlow in her new book, Intermittent Fasting Transformation also talks about this. They are a huge, huge proponent of measuring your blood sugar levels before eating and not eating until your blood sugar levels are low. It's actually the opposite of what you are proposing, because you're proposing eating to lower them or eating to lower them and exercising after. Maybe you aren't proposing to actually eat to lower them, but you're going to move your exercise to afterwards. But they are a huge proponent of not eating when your levels are high. I would say, again, this is all just my thoughts and opinions, but I would exercise before and after. I would not switch. I would do as much as you can to help mitigate this. Definitely keep wearing a CGM and this might be something where I would really, really-- I know you're eating Whole Foods and it sounds like a really "healthy diet" and all of that stuff. But I would play around with that because you do notice you said that when you have a higher carb meal, it spikes even higher. This might be a situation, where low carb might be something that you might want to consider and see how you react with low carb. 

And then, also, I would really suggest something like berberine, an herb that rivals metformin in the clinical literature. You could also do metformin, I suppose. Metformin, the pharmaceutical and berberine, the herb have very impressive effects on lowering blood sugar levels. Berberine is debated on how it does it, there's a lot of potential mechanisms. It's possible that it actually discourages the liver from engaging in that process I mentioned from releasing the liver or from gluconeogenesis creating new glucose and/or, probably and it seems to encourage or stimulate AMPK, which is normally or stimulated in the fasted state, and helps the body take up blood sugar, and burn body fat. It creates a state of the body thinking there's like a fuel deficiency, which is a little bit ironic, because the stress hormones that I was talking about also are similar, because the body thinks it needs energy and it's releasing blood sugar. But something like berberine or metformin is going to have a different effect. It's actually going to help lower blood sugar. So, that was a lot-- 

Oh, also the half-life of the stimulants can be around nine to 14 hours and potentially, 72 hours to be cleared. Like you picked up on, that's likely why you're still having issues over the weekend, because it's still in your system. I would not take this lightly. I would talk to your doctor, find an endocrinologist, wear CGM, and play with your dietary choices, try low carb, try berberine, and move around, exercise more. Cryotherapy might also help that can help lower blood sugar levels. Yeah, Gin, thoughts? 

Gin Stephens: But I don't know how to add very much to that. [giggles] But what I would like to say is, this just really illustrates how things that we put in our body, this medication changes how our bodies function and what happens. Thank goodness for CGMs pointing out what's happening in her body. She now has the knowledge, and can address it, and talk to her doctors about what would be right for her if there might be another medication option that could give her the same mental health benefits that she's looking for, and not the negative effects that she's seeing. Knowledge is power. Again, it's just fascinating to think about how many people are taking so many medications and they're additive they add up. You take one, and then it gives you another issue related to that medication, and then you have to take something else to counteract that, and then you take something else, and it just grows and grows, which is why I think most people in America are taking multiple medications. I can remember, even before I was an intermittent faster, I had fibroids, and I had to have them surgically removed, and this is in maybe 2013, and I was obese. But I went to the pre-op treatment, or the pre-op appointment and they're like, "All right, what medications are you on?" I'm like, "None." [laughs] And they were like, "What?" 

Somebody's coming in and especially someone obese like me having surgery, but was on zero medications. Every person kept asking me, "Are you sure?" I'm like, "Yeah, I promise you. I'm not on any." But the way that they reacted to me being on no medications in my 40s was eye opening. We're not meant to just need a lot of medications and I'm not saying anything about her not needing it for ADHD, clearly. I'm not saying she shouldn't take it, but it's just interesting. Like you mentioned, there might be a natural approach that could help our brain. With Will, I talked about in Clean(ish), cleaning up his diet. We kept him off medications. I'm sure he would have been diagnosed with all sorts of things had we not changed his diet. We took out artificial flavors, artificial colors, preservatives. Again, that's nothing to do with Rebecca's situation. The brain is complicated. You had Dr. Amen on your show before? I love Dr. Amen and the work that he does. I actually first saw him speak in person. It was a Brain-Based Learning Conference in 2006 in San Diego and I was fortunate enough to get to go there. My elementary school sent four of us to this conference and he had a session on the brain and ADHD, and all the different ways the brain can look different types of ADHD presentations. It was just fascinating, and I bought his book, and then I got his book about the brain and weight loss. Fascinating.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I really, really love his book. He does the brain SPECT scans. I actually got one at his clinic here in Atlanta, which was really cool. But yeah, and I was just googling the stats. This one study from 2018 said that-- This is a government study. It said that 6.6% of US adults use prescription stimulants in 2017. Yeah, just to bring it full circle. I bet so many people are experiencing this and they just wouldn't know.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, if that many people are taking stimulants? Wow. What was the percent you said?

Melanie Avalon: The one I was just looking at said 6.6% of Americans in 2017 had used stimulant medication. I don't know if that's-- The first thing that comes up says that prescription stimulants 2.9 million people that's for 2020. Regardless, it's not a small number. This is something, though, that I think, Rebecca, we're happy that you found this out, I would definitely look into all of those things that I was talking about. And let us know, let us know. 

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

Gin Stephens: Yes. 

Melanie Avalon: We have a question from Christie and the subject is: "weight gain" and Christie says, "Hi, there. I have been doing IF for short while, probably about seven months. I was doing the Dr. Bernstein diet as well from January until March and lost about 14 pounds." Do you know what is the Dr. Bernstein diet? Do you know, Gin? 

Gin Stephens: I don't really know. 

Melanie Avalon: I just looked it up and it is a low-carb diet. Appropriately enough, it says an engineer by training Bernstein pioneered blood glucose self-monitoring and the tight control of blood sugar that is now accepted as the standard treatment of diabetes. She says, "I was doing the Dr. Bernstein diet as well from January until March and lost about 14 pounds. I normally work out five mornings a week at Orangetheory fitness. Since COVID hit, I have gained so much weight. All the weight I have lost and probably another five pounds despite being more strict with my eating window. I used to be 16:8, but now, my fasting hours are 17 and a half to 18 hours. I usually open my window around 12:30 and close it at 6:30. I still work out five days a week with at-home workouts, but they are not as good. I know for a fact, I'm not eating as clean as I should, but I do still eat relatively healthy with lots of vegetables and fruits. With that said, I do have a sweet tooth. I'm wondering if my body is reacting to having gone from such a restricted diet to now, basically, eating what I want. Have I messed up my metabolism? If so, how can I restart it? I am a 42-year-old mother of two, who is a teacher consultant and under a lot of stress right now trying to get materials out to our amazing educators in our district. I'm feeling so gross, I need to get this figured out, help. Thanks so much," Christie.

Gin Stephens: All right, well, we look this one up and it turns out this one came in April of 2020. This was the height of when we were all in that pandemic stress. There was so much stress related weight gain going on during that particular window of time and I was still on Facebook, I was in the Facebook groups. What Christie wrote in right here, we were getting posts in the groups every single day that were exactly like this. It was, "Help, I've been doing fasting, it's been working, all of a sudden, I'm gaining weight, encouraged me at the time." I was like, "I got to write a blog post about this and talk about it." If you go to ginstephens.com, The Blog Directory, I actually released a blog post at that time that talked about the effect that stress can have on weight. Basically, you can gain weight based on being super stressed, your body's like, "Okay, we're going to have to pack on some pounds, because something really terrible is going on." I talk about more of it in the blog post. You can take a look there. But all this to say, it is completely normal to find that if you're going through something exceptionally stressful, weight gain is likely to come along with that. 

Now, with Christie, I would say, part of it is that physiological part that I talked about where your body starts storing more based on the stress response, but the other part is and I'm reading between the lines of Christie's post that she has changed up what she's eating and says, she's not eating as clean as she should, and having a sweet tooth, and she's basically eating whatever she wants. I found that to be true for me during the early days of the pandemic as well. I was having cocktail hour every day and baking more, and I have a little window creep, and my honesty pants started to get a little tight. I pulled out a fasting app and went back to that. I'm like, "I need a little bit more structure. I need to stop this one to creep in. I need to just nip that in the bud. And also, I do not need to be baking cinnamon rolls, and Irish soda bread, and cookies all the time." I knew that that was not helping my body, so, I stopped doing all that. Now, am I still going to eat cinnamon rolls here and there? Yeah. But I didn't need to have something new coming on every day. Basically, I went back to how I had been eating, my honesty pants fit again, that's how it worked out, and I didn't need to keep using the app. 

Even though, the pandemic stress of April 2020 is behind us, there's still a lot of stress in the world going on. There's always something new, especially, if you're watching the news, something new to be stressed out about. It's almost we're in this constant state of fight or flight. If you are like Christie, finding that you're more stressed and suddenly, you're having a different weight gain than you had before, number one, examine your window, examine if you've really changed what you're eating. And if so, be really honest with yourself and you may need to make some tweaks there. But also understand, you may need to do some mindful things to get your stress levels down. You need to take some time for yourself easier said than done. If you've got family, small kids, job with lots of responsibilities, but you need to carve out some time for self-care, whatever that looks like for you. Even if it's getting up a little earlier and having meditation, or yoga, or prayer, or taking a walk around the block, or whatever feels like self-care to you, so that you can let your body know, "Ah, I'm going to be okay." Because that makes a huge difference.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I think that's great. Actually, it loops in a little bit to Rebecca's question just as far as their physiological responses to our bodies being in a perceived stress state. Rebecca's question, it was taking a stimulant medication that was telling her body to be in fight or flight mode with the COVID situation and stress from life, it can have that same effect. Actually, that was something I forgot to mention answering Rebecca's question was, one of the studies was looking at why there is this increase in hyperglycemia. So, blood sugar from the stimulant medications. It theorized that it might be unique to the individual and their own stress response.

Gin Stephens: There's that bio individuality, again. Some people drop weight when they're really stressed. It's very, very, very, very different from person to person, but I was choosing soothing foods. Like I said, the cinnamon rolls and stuff, because your body drives you to that. It's like, "Are you gaining weight, because you're eating for or are you eating more because of the stress?" But whatever it is, it's a very natural biological response driving you to eat those foods.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, exactly. Oh, this might help explain, because it can seem confusing, because the fasted state is in theory, it's releasing adrenaline, and it can release cortisol, and it can also be that state of needing fuel. How is that different from these other manifestations where we don't get health benefits? The context is just so important. Cortisol, for example, when we release cortisol fasted, it can actually help our body free up fat stores and release glucose to burn. But it can have a beneficial effect in burning through our bodies stored energy, but if we have high cortisol and then, we eat, it actually encourages fat storage. So, people often say, high cortisol levels create, or lead to fat gain, or weight gain, but it's always context dependent.

Gin Stephens: Right. That's great, because we hear that all the time from people like, "Yeah, but fasting's going to raise my cortisol. I'm going to gain a lot of weight."

Melanie Avalon: The key is, actually, I'm interviewing this week, Thomas DeLauer and he talks about this a lot in his book. But basically, cortisol while fasted can be a great thing, because it will help you burn body fat. Cortisol, while eating is not a good thing. He talks about the importance of when you're breaking your fast, making sure that your cortisol levels are reduced. You can do that by mindfulness practices like Gin was talking about, meditation, breathing, but he also talks about supplements like magnesium or even salt can help reduce cortisol. So, yes, it's all very important to take all the context into account. And also, Gin touched on this and it was something I was going to touch on, too, and I thought you did a nice job of this, Gin, but Christie definitely is giving-- Again, this was a while ago. Maybe it's resolved. I'd love to hear how it has gone for you Christie. I feel it's possible that there are things that you might be aware that you're turning to food more for stress relief rather than nourishment. I don't know. I was looking at how she says, I'm feeling so gross and that feeling of grossness from food that can often come from turning to foods that would make you feel gross, if that makes sense. I think language can be very revealing. I just really. I think it'd be hard to feel gross from food if it's eating purely just for nourishment, if that makes sense. Do you have any thoughts?

Gin Stephens: I would love to hear about how Christie's doing now. Again, that period of time, the panicked Facebook posts were coming in left and right. That's why I wrote that blog post just because people who had been maintaining for a long time, suddenly were gaining. They're like, "Is intermittent fasting stopped working?" I'm like, "That's not what happens." Intermittent fasting doesn't stop working. It's always "working behind the scenes," but it's not like a magic bullet when other things are starting to go out of whack.

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm. Exactly.

Gin Stephens: All right. We have a question from Rosie and the subject is: "those little pills." "Hi, Gin, hi, Melanie. My name is Rosie and I live in London. I have recently begun my IF lifestyle and so found your fabulous podcast, I have binged up to Episode 45 in the last week and I am loving it. I started with a 16:8 window, but over the last three weeks, it has naturally shrunk to a 19:5. I'm interested to see how this changes when I am no longer furloughed from work. Anyway, to my question, how does IF work with contraceptive pills? I have recently changed back to pills from the contraceptive implant due to the lockdown. I can't get it replaced. So, needs must." That's a very British way of saying it. [laughs] "Should I be taking the pills during my window, are they okay to pop in the morning as I do my makeup, my old routine. I know some can spike hunger in a big way and I'm worried that I'm going to disrupt myself massively. Thank you so much for taking the time to do the research required to check this out and forgiving me a new lease on my eating life," Rosie.

Melanie Avalon: And then, she followed up to say, "I can confirm that my pill is making me hungrier and more sleepy, which is annoying as it is making IF so much harder. I know I am in adjustments. So, hopefully a month down the line, it will be much easier." But yes. To answer the question, you can take your birth control pills fasted or not. I would just suggest, which is sounds like what Rosie is doing. If I mean, obviously go by the, what's the word? What it says to do on the bottle? The prescribed method of taking it, I would just experiment to find when taking it works the most seamlessly with your fasting. Because this ties into the whole theme of today's episode that these things are going to have profound effects on our body's physiology. So, we have to work with that and adjust accordingly. Any thoughts about that, Gin? 

Gin Stephens: Yeah, just honestly, take it when it works for you. If you take it and you feel fine, that's fine. But if you take it, and then you're starving, and you feel shaky and nauseous, then change it. Take it at a different time based on how you feel. Now, she has more to her question. She said, "I was just wondering, I am mainlining black coffee, and I'm getting worried about coffee breath, and staining on my teeth. Any hints and tips? My peppermint oil is in the post. I mentioned the charcoal tooth powders to my other half and he was appalled and basically forbid me from putting black powder in his shiny white bathroom. I am incredibly clumsy and messy, so I can see his point. Thanks, again, and thank you so much for all your super advice. I am now on Episode 54, and I am both excited to catch up and sad that I'll only get one episode a week. Ha, ha."

Melanie Avalon: Okay. Thank you for your question, Rosie. Yes, that black charcoal powder, there's like-- I don't know. I think there's two things that I've experimented with it just get everywhere and that would be activated charcoal powder. Spirulina and chlorella just is not easy. There are alternatives. I actually really, really I've been using-- I'll put a link to in the show notes. It's White Birch Professional Teeth Whitening Serum. It's something that you brush your teeth with. I really like that. Also, on Amazon, there are a lot of the professional at home teeth whitening kits and it's where you put this gel. Normally, it's a peroxide type gel in a tray, and you put in this light thing in your mouth, and those actually work really, really well. Because I know the dentists, they can charge a ton of money to basically give you the same thing. I found a lot on Amazon that work really well. But there is the potential for sensitivity, so you might want to take that into account. I like to do oil pulling every morning. I really, really like that. That's where you swish around in oil like coconut oil. Some people use other things. I actually use MCT oil for about 20 minutes. I found that really, really helpful. Some of the toothpastes have whitening things for them. But yes, this is definitely something that happens. Gin, do you have advice?

Gin Stephens: Well, no. As far as the coffee breaths, she's got peppermint oil. Well, I think we're good to go. But yeah, I was the same way about the charcoal. I was making a giant mess. I'm like, "Okay, no." 

Melanie Avalon: It gets everywhere. 

Gin Stephens: That's just so funny. It gave me a little flashback of remembering it like, "Yep."

Melanie Avalon: But there are some toothpastes that have-- The serum that I mentioned has white charcoal in it and then, there are some toothpastes that are made with charcoal and so that--

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I've seen that. Well, you have your teeth all black, it's crazy.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, I know. I know. My problem used to be I use to get major stains from fruit, from the blueberries. Very, very bad. So, okay. That'd be something that you would think, this will be something if somebody could invent something that fix this problem with coffee stains. Think about how well that would. So, you think there would be something.

Gin Stephens: There are a lot of products out there that are targeted to coffee stains.

Melanie Avalon: Something preventative that somehow allows you to minimize coffee stain, like, when you're using straws, but you can't use straws with coffee. I just wonder if there's something out there that could-- I don't know. I'm going to think about it. All right. So, this has been absolutely wonderful. A few things for listeners before we go. If you'd like to submit your own questions for the show, you can directly email questions@ifpodcast.com or you can go to ifpodcast.com and you can submit questions there. You can get all the stuff that we like at ifpodcast.com/stuffwelike. The show notes will be at ifpodcast.com/episode262 and you can follow us on Instagram. I am @melanieavalon, Gin is @ginstephens. I think that is all the things. Anything from you, Gin, before we go? 

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

Melanie Avalon: All right. Well, this was wonderful and I will talk to you next week. 

Gin Stephens: All right, bye.

Melanie Avalon: Bye.

Thank you so much for listening to the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Please remember, everything we discussed on this show does not constitute medical advice. We're not doctors. If you enjoyed the show, please consider writing your review on iTunes. We couldn't do this without our amazing team. Administration by Sharon Merriman, editing by Podcast Doctors, show notes and artwork by Brianna Joyner, transcripts by SpeechDocs, theme music by Leland Cox. See you next week.

STUFF WE LIKE

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

More on Gin: GinStephens.com

Theme Music Composed By Leland Cox: LelandCox.com

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

 

 

Apr 17

Episode 261: Weight Watchers, Calorie Counting, Feeling Cold During Fasting, Food Induced Thermogenesis, Arthritis Pain, Dental Health, Oral Microbiome, And More!

Intermittent Fasting

Welcome to Episode 261 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine and Gin Stephens, author of Delay, Don't Deny: Living An Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle

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

LMNT: For Fasting Or Low-Carb Diets Electrolytes Are Key For Relieving Hunger, Cramps, Headaches, Tiredness, And Dizziness. With No Sugar, Artificial Ingredients, Coloring, And Only 2 Grams Of Carbs Per Packet, Try LMNT For Complete And Total Hydration. For A Limited Time Go To drinklmnt.com/ifpodcast To Get A Sample Pack For Only The Price Of Shipping!!

AVALONX SERRAPEPTASE: A Proteolytic Enzyme Which May Help Clear Sinuses And Brain Fog, Reduce Allergies, Support A Healthy Inflammatory State, Enhance Wound Healing, Break Down Fatty Deposits And Amyloid Plaque, Supercharge Your Fast, And More!  AvalonX Supplements Are Free Of Toxic Fillers And Common Allergens (Including Wheat, Rice, Gluten, Dairy, Shellfish, Nuts, Soy, Eggs, And Yeast), Tested To Be Free Of Heavy Metals And Mold, And Triple Tested For Purity And Potency. Order At AvalonX.us, And Get On The Email List To Stay Up To Date With All The Special Offers And News About Melanie's New Supplements At melanieavalon.com/avalonx!

JOOVV: Like Intermittent Fasting, Red Light Therapy Can Benefit The Body On So Many Levels! It Literally Works On The Mitochondrial Level To Help Your Cells Generate More Energy! Red Light Can Help You Burn Fat (Including Targeted Fat Burning And Stubborn Fat!), Contour Your Body, Reduce Fine Lines And Wrinkles, Produce Collagen For Epic Skin, Support Muscle Recovery, Reduce Joint Pain And Inflammation, Combat Fatigue, Help You Sleep Better, Improve Mood, And So Much More!! These Devices Are Literally LIFE CHANGING!! For A Limited Time Go To joovv.com/ifpodcast And Use The Code IFPODCAST For An Exclusive Discount!

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

SHOW NOTES

LMNT: For A Limited Time Go To drinklmnt.com/ifpodcast To Get A Sample Pack For Only The Price Of Shipping!! Learn All About Electrolytes In Episode 237 - Our Interview With Robb Wolf!

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

The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #122 - R Blank

Go To shieldyourbody.com And Use The Code MelanieAvalon For 15% Off Site Wide!

AVALONX: Order At AvalonX.Us, And Get On The Email List To Stay Up To Date With All The Special Offers And News About Melanie's New Supplements At melanieavalon.com/avalonx!

Listener Q&A: Detra - Weight Watchers?

Listener Q&A: Tyloria - Why do I get so cold during IF

Lower core body temperature and greater body fat are components of a human thrifty phenotype

Core body temperature, energy expenditure, and epinephrine during fasting, eucaloric feeding, and overfeeding in healthy adult men: evidence for a ceiling effect for human thermogenic response to diet 

Go to Melanieavalon.Com/Bristle to get, 15% Off with the code melanieavalon!

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

Listener Q&A: Sherri - Fasting length

TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Welcome to Episode 261 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. If you want to burn fat, gain energy, and enhance your health by changing when you eat, not what you eat with no calorie counting, then this show is for you. I'm Melanie Avalon, author of What When Wine: Lose Weight and Feel Great with Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, and Wine. And I'm here with my cohost, Gin Stephens, author of Fast. Feast. Repeat.: The Comprehensive Guide to Delay, Don't Deny Intermittent Fasting. For more on us, check out ifpodcast.com, melanieavalon.com, and ginstephens.com. Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this podcast do not constitute medical advice or treatment. So, pour yourself a cup of black coffee, a mug of tea, or even a glass of wine, if it's that time, and get ready for The Intermittent Fasting Podcast.

Hi, friends. I'm about to tell you how you can get free electrolyte supplements, some of which are clean, fast approved, all developed by none other than Robb Wolf. Have you been struggling to feel good with low carb, paleo, keto, or fasting? Have you heard of something called the keto flu? Here's the thing. The keto flu is not actually a condition. Nope. Keto flu just refers to a bundle of symptoms. Headaches, fatigue, muscle cramps, and insomnia that people experience in the early stages of keto dieting. Here's what's going on. 

When you eat a low-carb diet, your insulin levels drop. Low insulin, in turn lowers the production of the hormone aldosterone. Now aldosterone is made in the kidneys and it helps you retain sodium. Low aldosterone on a keto diet makes you lose sodium at a rapid rate. Even if you are consciously consuming electrolytes, you might not be getting enough. In particular, you need electrolytes, especially sodium and potassium in order for nerve impulses to properly fire. Robb Wolf, who as you guys know is my hero in the holistic health world worked with the guys at Ketogains to get the exact formulation for electrolyte supplements to formulate LMNT Recharge, so you can maintain ketosis and feel your best. LMNT recharge has no sugar, no coloring, no artificial ingredients, no junk. They're used by three Navy SEALs teams, they are the official hydration partner to Team USA weightlifting, they're used by multiple NFL teams, and so much more. Guess what? We worked out an exclusive deal for The Intermittent Fasting Podcast listeners only. Guys, this is huge. They weren't going to do a deal, I begged them, here we are. 

You can get a free LMNT sampler pack. We're not talking a discount, we're talking free. Completely free. You only pay $5 for shipping. If you don't love it, they will even refund you the $5 for shipping. I'm not kidding. The sample pack includes eight packets of LMNT, two Citrus, two Raspberry, two Orange, and two Raw Unflavored. The Raw Unflavored ones are the ones that are safe for your clean fast and the other ones you can have in your eating window. Word on the street is the Citrus flavor makes an amazing Margarita, by the way. 

I am loving LMNT and I think you guys will too. Again, this is completely free. You have nothing to lose. Just go to drinklmnt.com/ifpodcast. That's D-R-I-N-K-L-M-N-T dotcom forward slash I-F-P-O-D-C-A-S-T. I'll put all this information in the show notes.

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: Hi, everybody and welcome. This is Episode number 261 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon and I'm here with Gin Stephens.

Gin Stephens: Hi, everybody. 

Melanie Avalon: How are you today, Gin? 

Gin Stephens: I am fantastic. I've got some very exciting news.

Melanie Avalon: I think I know what it is and I'm excited to hear. 

Gin Stephens: We are moving.

Melanie Avalon: Again? [laughs] 

Gin Stephens: Well, look, it's been over two years since we moved. It feels like we just moved. But by the time we get moved, it will have been over two and a half years in this house. [sighs] We only made eight-tenths of a mile. We're moving out of town, we're moving to South Carolina, and we're moving to the beach, and I am so excited. We found a house this week, and we're under contract, and now, we just need to sell our house, and move, and we're downsizing this time for real, which is thrilling.

Melanie Avalon: Because last time you were, too. 

Gin Stephens: Well, I wanted to downsize last time, but I couldn't find the right house to downsize into. We upsized. We ended up in a 4,900 square foot house. Okay, nobody judge, but [laughs] now that we've been here. Going to the beach and being in our little tiny cottage, that's 900 and something square feet, I've realized how little I really need. The house we're buying is 2,700 square feet. It's 2,200 square feet smaller. So, not quite half the size, but similar. Almost half. But just slightly more than half is what I'm trying to say. I am getting rid of so many things. Here's a tip for our listeners, who probably all know this already if they're like me, but have an estate sale, get an estate sale company to do your moving sale. They sell everything that you don't want to take.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, wow. 

Gin Stephens: Yeah, it's fantastic. I don't have to-- Anything, I don't want to take, literally, anything. I just don't pack it and then, I leave.

Melanie Avalon: Whoa. 

Gin Stephens: And then, they're doing an estate sale with everything else that I don't take. 

Melanie Avalon: That's so cool. Wait, wait, so wait. So, you just pack and leave, and then leave, and then they do everything? 

Gin Stephens: Yeah. We arrange it around the closing of the house and we're tentatively on the schedule, because we don't have a closing set yet, but yeah.

Melanie Avalon: So, what about the stuff you leave that's not sellable. They toss it? 

Gin Stephens: The company that we are using, they're just a local Augusta company that does a couple of these every month and they have a contract with someone, who buys them out at the end anything that doesn't sell, and they tell them how much the buyout is going to be. So, it's like, "All right, we got this much leftover, you're going to give us this much money for it," and the people say, "Okay." They don't like donate or anything. I know another company that we talked, too. They just donate what isn't sold and I'm like, "Well, I don't. It depends on how much that would be." But this company, they have that relationship with the company that does the buyout, and they always buy it out, and they don't argue about the price. They just pay what they say, because it's good stuff. 

Melanie Avalon: Hmm. Why did my family not do that? Oh, wait, wait, so wait. Okay, I know so little about moving. How does it affect the next person moving into your house?

Gin Stephens: Not at all. They just move in after the sale. 

Melanie Avalon: Wow. Why didn't my mother not do this? 

Gin Stephens: Maybe she didn't think about it, because I've always thought of estate sales as being like, when somebody dies, you have an estate sale. But someone in our neighborhood just a matter of note some point last year, had an estate sale. It was a giant house that's a really old house and it was like this mansion amazing house from, I don't know, hundred years old, beautiful house. They were having an estate sale and I was like, "I just want to see that house." [laughs] So, we went to the estate sale. They're actually moving to the lake. So, they were downsizing and I'm like, "Oh, my gosh, I didn't even know people did that." 

Melanie Avalon: That's a very helpful tip for moving people. 

Gin Stephens: Yeah. It's very exciting and we don't need so many of the things. I'm not going to have a formal dining room and I'm not going to have-- It's just not going to be any formal spaces. Just very casual, beachy living. We'll need to get some new stuff, because not everything we have is going to travel. But we're taking stuff out of the den, and stuff out of the master bedroom, and then our personal items. Today, I packed the books I want to take with me. You can't even tell that I packed them, because the library, and the bookshelves, and the halls are still fully stocked with books.

Melanie Avalon: Wow. Well, that's exciting. 

Gin Stephens: It is exciting. Anyway, so many changes. Chad's retiring, Will's coming with us. So, it's going to be nice. I have a room, that's going to be my podcast studio and my office. It's on the third floor of the house and it's the only room up on the third floor. And it's just going to be for me up there. I can't wait. 

Melanie Avalon: Isn't an attic? 

Gin Stephens: It's not an attic. There's attics on either side of it. It's in the little peak of the roof and I guess, they could have turned it into an attic, but instead, they turned it into a bedroom with a bathroom, and then you have attic access and a closet in there.

Melanie Avalon: Very cool. Well, keep us updated. That's exciting.

Gin Stephens: It's very exciting. I can't believe it's happening. Anyway, hopefully, send positive thoughts for sale. Masters week as we're recording this in a couple of weeks. Obviously, before it comes out, but Masters week is here in Augusta and how sales usually take off right after Masters, because people in Augusta don't really think about moving till after Masters because they rent. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.

Gin Stephens: Like all my neighbors. The neighbor across the street, who is now mowing. If anyone can hear mowing, they didn't rent, but we didn't rent, but everybody else on all the sides of us. A lot of the neighbors rent. We have a golfer staying next door.

Melanie Avalon: A famous golfer? 

Gin Stephens: Yes. 

Melanie Avalon: Nice. 

Gin Stephens: I cannot reveal who it is, [laughs] but it's funny all week in Augusta. You see a lot of Mercedes Benz driving around, because a lot of people come to town, businessmen come, and it's just a different kind of week. 

Melanie Avalon: Very cool. 

Gin Stephens: So, what's up with you?

Melanie Avalon: Well, I have a very exciting announcement. I think I announced this on the last episode, but I was fuzzy on the details. Now, I have all the details and this is perfect timing, because this ends tomorrow, if you're listening on the day that this episode comes out. We officially launched subscriptions for my serrapeptase supplement. I've all the details. It's very exciting. It's the biggest discount we have had yet on the serrapeptase. You get it 25% off, and not only do you get it 25% off, you get 25% off for life, because that's how it works. It actually not only do you save money, but it saves on time, and it helps support sustainability of the planet, which is super exciting to me. That's because the way we set it up is you get three bottles every four months. It saves on shipping, and emissions, and all of that stuff. You can pause or cancel at any time. There's literally nothing to worry about. My partner originally had it set up that you had to at least wait one or two cycles, I think before canceling, but I was like, "No, no, no, I want to have it pause or cancel anytime." Yeah, there's really nothing to lose. So, I'm really excited. 

Oh, by ending tomorrow, so, we'll have the subscriptions as an option ongoing and the subscriptions will always be discounted, but it's not going to be 25%. If you want that, sign up right now. You do get that 25% for life unless you-- If you cancel and then rejoin, then you'll rejoin a whatever the current discount is, which will not be 25%. Yeah, that's my big announcement. Just for listeners who are not familiar, although I feel you're probably overwhelmingly familiar by now, but serrapeptase is a proteolytic enzyme created by the Japanese silkworm. You take it in the fasted state. It's very fasting friendly and it helps break down problematic proteins in your body. It can really help anything where your body is reacting to proteins. So, that's why it can be really good for allergies, clearing sinuses, brain fog, scar tissue, reducing it. There have been studies showing it can help reduce cholesterol, and break down amyloid plaque, and help with wound healing, and it's just really, really all the things. So, that's the thing. 

I know people are eagerly awaiting my magnesium and that will be the next big thing and it's not that far away. We're in the very final process right now of locking down everything. My last baby teaser, which I can talk about more in the future, but I'm really moving forward with the EMF blocking product I want to make where you can put your phone on your nightstand at night and still receive calls. You don't have to put in airplane mode, but you will be protected from the EMF coming from that. Because so many people sleep with their phones. I'm very wary and concerned about our exposure to EMFs in general. But if I were to think about everything, I think probably the most problematic daily or nightly thing that people are experiencing is at night when they're sleeping with their phone right by their heads. So, I'm very, very excited. So, it's all the things, all my little entrepreneur stuff.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I really think that our house, I think I've talked about this before. The master bedroom is right next to where all the electrical comes in. I won't tell that to anyone looking at the house. Hey, everyone, check out where the electricity comes into the house right by the--, no, anyway. It's just something I never would have thought of before. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.

Gin Stephens: But it's right by the master.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. Even with me, the electrical panel for my apartment is in my bedroom. I purposely set up my bed. It's on the opposite side of the room, but still, I think it can have a huge impact on a lot of people and they might not even realize.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, that's probably true. And now, I'm like, "Where's it coming into the new house?" [laughs] I may have to look, plug and see where that is. I think all the lines are buried in this house, so that should help a lot and it definitely won't be by the master, because it's a raised house, the bottom floor, it's garage, and then there's a lower level living down there, but the master bedroom is up. The main living level is really the second floor. That's where the kitchen, and the living room, and the master, they're right in the middle.

Melanie Avalon: Nice. Actually, there's something you might want to get for your house. I don't think you do. You don't use any grounding mats or anything like that, do you? 

Gin Stephens: I do not. I just walk on the beach a lot. 

Melanie Avalon: Okay. Oh, yeah, I don't have that. That's amazing. 

Gin Stephens: Walk outside barefoot whenever I can.

Melanie Avalon: The reason I was asking was R Blank, who I had on the show runs the company Shield Your Body and he makes EMF-blocking products, and he just created a product. A lot of people use grounding products and they actually feel it's making them worse. Grounding mats, and grounding canopies, and stuff like that. It's a few different things. He has a whole pamphlet about it. But it can actually be made worse based on how it's plugged in and what is actually feeding it. It can make things worse. He has made this thing that fixes all of that, so that you can use grounding products and not get the negative effects. I can put a link in the show notes to that. I think I have a coupon, too. So, I'll put a link in the show notes. 

Hi, friends. I am so thrilled that the moment you guys have been waiting for, for so long is finally here. My serrapeptase supplement is available. After realizing the sketchiness, and problematic fillers, and questionable ingredients, and quality in the supplement industry, I finally took it upon myself to just make my own supplement line, so that I can truly feel good about what I'm putting in my body and you guys can as well. Oh, my goodness, have I learned a lot and I can confidently say that my supplements are honestly the best on the market. I plan to make my own versions of everything I am currently taking, because I only want to take the best of the best. I and my partner, MD Logic relentlessly search to find the highest quality sources, and then we test those ingredients multiple times for purity and potency, and to make sure that they are free from heavy metals and mold, which you guys know is so, so important. I have suffered from toxicity from both of those things. So, testing is key. 

AvalonX supplements are free of all common allergens like wheat, gluten, eggs, soy, dairy, shellfish, nuts, even rice, which is very, very common in a lot of supplements. Check for that. They also come in glass bottles and are vegan. For my first supplement serrapeptase, we created a special process that requires small batches to make, that uses only a small amount of MCTs as the lubricant and filler. None of the other serrapeptases on the market are doing this. That was actually one of the biggest things to tackle, because most of the serrapeptase on the market has problematic fillers and suspicious enteric coatings, which likely contain plastics and other potentially toxic compounds you don't want in your body. We use a special delay release capsule that ensures the serrapeptase reaches your small intestine, so that it can be absorbed into your body. What is serrapeptase? It's a proteolytic enzyme created by the Japanese silkworm. When you take it in the fasted state, it actually breaks down problematic proteins in your body. So, it can really help anything, where your body is reacting to problematic proteins. That's why it can radically help with allergies, it clears my sinuses like none other. And it can clear brain fog, studies have shown it may help reduce inflammation, enhance wound healing, help with pain, even reduce cholesterol, and break down amyloid plaque. 

Basically, it's the coolest supplement ever and it is an awesome way to really amplify your fast. I take it every single day. We also recently launched subscriptions, so that you can get a big discount on my supplements, as well as help, support, sustainability by reducing emissions from shipping. And my next supplement is coming soon. That is magnesium. Get excited. If you want to get the latest information, specials, news about new supplements, and stay up to date on everything, AvalonX. Definitely get on my email list. That's at avalonx.us/emaillist. When you join that list, check for the welcome email to make sure it doesn't go to spam. And you can shop, of course, at avalonx.us. Again, that is avalonx.us. AVALONX dot US, avalonx.us. And I'll put all this information in the show notes. All right, now, back to the show. 

Melanie Avalon: So, shall we jump into everything for today?

Gin Stephens: Yep, let's get started.

Melanie Avalon: To start things off, we have a question from Ditra and the subject is: "Weight Watchers?" And Ditra says, "Hello, my name is D." Oh, it's D. "My name is D, and I've read two of Gin's books, and I've been intermittent fasting for two months, and feel great. I'm not weighing myself or counting calories, just judging the progress on how much healthier I'm feeling. I know you state over and over not to calorie count, but a friend asked the other day if I could use Weight Watcher points with my food window to make sure I'm staying within a healthy range. And I tried to look it up, but I couldn't find a whole lot of info on how that would work to fuse them together or even if I should. So, that's my question. Are there people who do both to increase weight loss or is that something you would discourage, because it's tantamount to counting calories? Thanks so much for the podcast." Tantamount, I need to integrate that into my vocabulary. That is an excellent word.

Gin Stephens: It is a nice word. [laughs] Well, D, thank you so much for the question. I'm glad to hear that you're feeling great after two months of intermittent fasting. You asked, "Are there people who do both?" I'm certain there are, because there are people, who count calories with fasting, there are people, who count macros with fasting. Personally, I would encourage you not to just because whenever we have these external measures of how much we are "allowed to eat" that teaches us to disregard our body's hunger and satiety signals. Let me talk about how it causes you to disregard both of them. I've never actually done Weight Watchers. I've definitely done calorie counting. But Weight Watchers is similar. You've got points, and you have a point budget for the day, and you can have, like, I don't even know how many points it would be, but let's say the answer was 22. I don't know. 22 points. You're encouraged to eat no more than 22 points. For me, I'm going to relate it to when I was calorie counting. 

Let's say I was trying to do a 1,200 calorie a day diet and I'm counting my calories or whatever. When I was counting calories, first of all, it led me to a lot of processed foods just because those were easier to count. I'm not sure if the same is for Weight Watchers as well, because I know certain things are zero points and those are things they want to encourage you to eat like fruits and vegetables. But I know that it steered me towards more processed foods than I would normally have eaten just because there's so much more easy to count. Also, I would eat something just because I had calories leftover. Even if I wasn't hungry, I'd be like, "Well, I've only had X number of calories today. I'm going to eat something else, because I can." That taught me to override any feeling of I've had enough just because I had calories leftover. With points, I know a lot of people are like, "Hey, I have points leftover. So, I'm going to eat something else." Again, the goal is really to reconnect with your body's hunger and satiety signals within your eating window. If you're still hungry, you're going to eat more. You're not going to say, "Well, I'm still hungry today, but I've already eaten all my points. I better not eat anything else." If you're still hungry, we want you to eat more, because our needs are not the same from day to day. 

Somebody today in my community was talking about they had been on a 5K this morning. And they ran a 5K, and they were done with the 5K, and then they were really hungry. They decided to open their window earlier and have a longer eating window. That's what she's doing. She's listening to her body, she's hungrier, she's eating more. She's going to have a longer window. I would really encourage you to give up all those artificial ways of managing what you're eating and really listen to your body. Look back, I imagine you've got Fast. Feast. Repeat. If you've read two of my books, that's probably one of them. Going back to the chapter on calorie counting, and every time I use the word calorie, insert the words Weight Watchers points and really think about how you want to teach your body to let you know when you've had enough instead of relying on an external counting mechanism of any type. Because that's really the goal. Animals in the wild do not count calories and they know when they've had enough. So, what do you have to say, Melanie?

Melanie Avalon: I think that is excellent. I'm glad you pointed that out that never occurred to me, the thing about how it would actually encourage you to eat more, because you can fill out your points.

Gin Stephens: Oh, that was me. If I had done Weight Watchers, I would have been the person eating all the zero-point stuff nonstop. I would just be eating zero-point stuff all the time and then, I would have 22 points of ice cream or something that would probably be the way I would try to game the system. 

Melanie Avalon: That's so funny. 

Gin Stephens: If there's going to be a number limit, I'm going to game it. 

Melanie Avalon: It's really interesting. I have not done Weight Watchers. It's so funny. I had a friend growing up in middle school and high school and she was always doing Weight Watchers. I remember, she would show us the food list. I wonder if this is still on there. It had things on the list that, I mean, this could be wrong. I feel it had stingray or something. It had all of these-- [crosstalk] 

Gin Stephens: That might be a really old list. My mother did it back in the day in the 70s, 80s, and she had this old Weight Watchers book, and it did have crazy stuff in there. 

Melanie Avalon: I remember she would show us we were like, "What?"

Gin Stephens: Yeah. I think they've modernized their lists and they have a million different plans, and lists, and programs. They keep reinventing it. 

Melanie Avalon: That's what I was actually just going to talk about, because I'm looking at their website right now and I'm wondering when they introduced this. I was trying to figure out when, but I couldn't quite figure out. Because they have introducing new zero-point foods. What's really interesting about zero-point foods, it says that it's personalized to you, so you'll get a different list. But the list, I find this so interesting. The list of zero-point foods includes something within these non-starchy veggies, potatoes and starchy veggies, fruits, low fat or fat free yogurt and cottage cheese, brown rice, and whole grains, avocados, fish and shellfish, oats and oatmeal, poultry, whole wheat pasta, noodles, tofu, tempeh, corn, popcorn, beans, peas, lentils, eggs.

Gin Stephens: Do you know how much food I would eat? I'd be like, "I had zero points today" and it would have been 5,000 calories or something. [laughs] 

Melanie Avalon: I don't understand. It's funny, because it's basically all Whole Foods.

Gin Stephens: Well, whole foods are good. Whole Foods are really, really good.

Melanie Avalon: I wonder how this works. You get unlimited of that and then, you get also your points of other stuff. How does that work? 

Gin Stephens: Say the zero, the zero points would be tripping me up. I'd be like, "Everything I ate was zero points." Like I said, I'm going to have 22 points of pizza. [laughs] I think I always knew I would do it wrong. That's why I didn't even try it.

Melanie Avalon: But what's really interesting though is, in theory, you could combine fasting with Weight Watchers, the zero points system only, and then, it basically would be fat. It would just be eating unlimited of Whole Foods, which is what fasting is.

Gin Stephens: Well, the goal is, we want you to eat foods that are delicious, nutritious, and satisfy you. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, which is what this list is. 

Gin Stephens: And stop when you've had enough. [laughs] Although, I wouldn't be having any fat free dairy. No.

Melanie Avalon: I do not mean to say fasting is eating nutritious Whole Foods. I meant an approach that would work for a lot of people with intermittent fasting is to eat "unlimited," because it's to satiety ideally and from my perspective from Whole Foods, which is what the zero-point list is. So, yes, I think we're team not combining.

Gin Stephens: You can't if you want to. I know people have. But I know there're people who count calories in their window, there're people who follow diets in their window. But the goal is to get away from that. The freedom of intermittent fasting is adjust your window until you find a window that gives you weight loss and you don't have to worry about what and how much you're eating. When you get your window dialed in, you're going to have something that really works for your body without having to do all that counting.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, and I would actually also suggest, so, I don't really suggest calorie counting combining it with fasting in general. The exception might be, if you've been doing fasting for a while and you've plateaued, I think something that might could work for people is not calorie counting every meal, because then you're just basically doing calorie restriction. But instead of doing straight up ADF, I think something that could work would be every other day or a few days per week, calorie counting the meal rather than every single day. Because then you're sending your body that signal in general, the feasting signal, but then having being a little bit sneaky and having a few days in there, where it's lower calories, I think that might could work for some people.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, that's the down day option of ADF, the 500-calorie down day.

Melanie Avalon: I guess, to clarify was saying like, you could do it and not necessarily make it 500 calories. You could make it thousand or maybe not go to the extreme of ADF of the down-day approach. 

Gin Stephens: Yeah, and if you do have a down day with 500 calories, the next day needs to be an up day. Remember that everybody. It needs to be at least two meals and it needs to be probably eight hours or more. I wouldn't try to restrict on a day after a down day. 

Melanie Avalon: Yes. Agreed. 

Gin Stephens: All right, we have a question from Tyloria and the subject is: "Why do I get so cold during IF?" She says, "I've been doing IF since December and I've lost 14 pounds, three inches in my waist, two inches in my hips, and two inches in my bust. My endocrinologist recommended IF to me. When I saw her last week, I was shocked at how much weight I had lost. My A1c went from 7.3 to 6.7. My current weight is 203 and I'm looking forward to being under 200 pounds for the first time in 20 years. That being said, I have had a new experience. I get extremely cold, especially at night. I'm so cold that it's uncomfortable for me. I live in Mobile, Alabama, where the average temperature is 70 degrees plus and humidity averages 70% to 90%. But lately, in the evenings around bedtime, I'm so cold. I have to put on my heater and socks. I have a small heater under my desk at work that I keep running all day. I have read a few things online that talk about your body heat being diverted from your extremities during the digestive process. I have also read that this indicates fat burning or even ketosis. I have also read that it may be low iron or low blood pressure. When I started this, I listened to a few podcasts by Dr. Andrew Huberman. I think he mentioned your book Fast. Feast. Repeat."

Melanie Avalon: Okay, pause. Do we know if this is a true statement? 

Gin Stephens: I don't know if that's true. But if it is that is.

Melanie Avalon: Can we find out? 

Gin Stephens: I don't know. 

Melanie Avalon: I read that and my jaw dropped.

Gin Stephens: Well, if it's true, I'm amazed. So, I hope it's true.

Melanie Avalon: Okay. For listeners, I'm sure there's people-- He has the number one health podcast normally. I'm such a fan of him. Listeners, if you listen to his show, I'm such a fan. I don't actually actively listen to his show. I'm more listen to him on other people's shows. Listeners, if you listen to his show and you've heard this episode, can you let us know? 

Gin Stephens: That would be amazing. 

Melanie Avalon: I would love to listen to that and hear what he says.

Gin Stephens: I bet he didn't. I bet he recommended something else. But it's good it's possible. Anyway, I love that the book was life changing.

Melanie Avalon: I am friends with his agent. I want to ask him. He's crazy. Okay. Well, if anybody knows, let us know.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, that would be really mind blowing to me, so anyhow. I also love her endocrinologist recommended IF. That makes me so happy that doctors are recommending IF. Anyway, we go back to the question. She says, "When I read your book, it was life changing for me. That being said, I trust your opinion and your research. You covered every possible scenario, but I don't recall info on this topic." Actually, it's there in the Frequently Asked Questions section. But that's way in the back. I could see how somebody could miss it, but it is there. She says, "My brain is analytical. If I understand the science behind what's happening to my body, it makes sense to me. I would greatly appreciate any insight you could provide. I do subscribe to your podcast" and she also says, "Can you all let me know when this question will be answered? Thank you." I'll answer that. The answer's no. You just have to keep listening.

Melanie Avalon: We're answering it now. 

Gin Stephens: Yeah, today. 

Melanie Avalon: All right. Tyloria, so thank you for your question. Okay. I did a bit of research on this, which I'd actually talked about this. Now, I'm curious. I think I talked about this in What When Wine as well and I want to revisit what I say in there. I think in there, I talked about the blood flow aspect to the extremities, as well as the correlation to longevity of low body temperatures. That said, I did some more recent updated research and this was very interesting. I found two fun studies that I read through. One is called lower core body temperature and greater body fat are components of a human thrifty phenotype, and the other is core body temperature, energy expenditure, and epinephrine during fasting, eucaloric feeding and overfeeding in healthy adult men, evidence for a ceiling effect for human, thermogenic response to diet. Okay, let's go through this. So, question, Gin. What percent of our basal metabolic rate do you think contributes to maintaining our body temperature? I did not know this.

Gin Stephens: Huh. That's interesting. I don't know. I'm just going to guess 15%.

Melanie Avalon: That's what I would have guessed. It's 50. 

Gin Stephens: Really? So, you would have said more 15 as well? That's amazing. 

Melanie Avalon: About half of our daily metabolism is just maintaining our body temperature. That's a really interesting concept to think about. The way it relates to all of this is, yes, people, while fasting often get colder and I think the primary reason for this isn't so much-- Well, it depends how you look at it. It's like a glass half empty, glass half full. Is it that you're getting colder or is it that eating makes you warmer? Because across the board, when people eat, there is something called diet-induced thermogenesis, which is basically heat production from the eating process. People's core body temperature consistently tends to elevate when we eat. If you are eating throughout the day, you are presumably going to have a higher resting body temperature than when you're in the fasted state. What's really interesting about one of these studies was talking about was and I'm going to preface it by saying other studies have not found this. There're conflicting findings. But one of these did find that, there're two phenotypes like the thrifty phenotype. That's like their body is less likely to lose weight, more likely to gain weight. It's trying to protect you from future starvation, and then they have the spendthrift phenotype, which is more laissez faire and more easily burns calories and loses weight. Between these two metabolic states, the thrifty phenotype people tend to get colder while fasting, and then, interestingly, when they eat, they don't get as warm. So, their bodies-- [crosstalk] 

Gin Stephens: You said that's the thrifty phenotype doesn't get as warm? Because I get so hot after eating. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. And do you get cold while fasting a lot? 

Gin Stephens: Yes, but not crazy cold. 

Melanie Avalon: But not crazy cold. The spendthrift phenotype, they're the ones that are more likely to not get overweight. They get hotter after eating. That all said, there's another little caveat to this and it's that, if you are the type that like your basal metabolic temperature is already at the ceiling, which is 37 degrees Celsius, what is that in Fahrenheit? If your normal basal body temperature is considered the ceiling of normal basal body temperature, which is 37 degrees Celsius or 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, then, you actually, probably won't get that much hotter from eating. Because they call it a ceiling effect. All of that is to say that it's nuanced and complicated, but if you are the type and it sounds like Tyloria might be this type, because she's struggled with being overweight. If you are the type of person that is their body more naturally gravitates towards becoming overweight, it's possible that you're in this thrifty phenotype. What's interesting is it means that you are probably going to get colder while fasting and then, when you eat you'll get hotter, because there's a higher potential for you to get hotter, because you're not hitting that ceiling. So, it even further exacerbates feeling colder. I don't know if I'm explaining that correctly. Because if you're constantly just running at a higher body temperature, you're not going to experience that big difference between fasting and eating, like, you would if you're this other phenotype. 

As far as the reasoning for it, like, why is that happening, the study I was looking at was saying it could be due to a lot of things. It could be genetics. It could be sympathetic nervous system response. I was looking at another study and for example, epinephrine is a hormone that is often released in fasting. It's one of our stress hormones, but it has a lot of benefits like keeping us alert and releasing fat stores. So, people who naturally have higher epinephrine levels tend to run at a higher body temperature. So, that could be a factor. Prior weight loss attempts, so, your history could actually affect how your body responds with its body temperature. I didn't read the link studies for that, but I'm going to assume. Don't quote me on this, but I'm going to assume that you've dieted in the past that your body might become more "thrifty." Differing levels of physical fitness or individual hormonal responses, also, something like brown adipose tissue could be a factor. People, who have higher amounts of brown adipose fat, they'll actually be warmer when fasting or when cold, because one of the purposes of that fat is actually to generate heat. 

All of that to say is that, yes, it is completely normal to have a lower body temperature while fasting. It's very different between individuals and it's possible that as you evolve in your body weight and are making beneficial changes, it's possible that it could change, because especially, with something like brown adipose tissue, for example, that's something that we know we can actually increase with cold exposure. It's one of the reasons I do cryotherapy every single day. If you were to build that up, that would help your response. So, that was all over the place. Oh, and lastly, I think some people if they are doing fasting and it's too restrictive for their body, I can see how it might negatively affect their thyroid and they might feel colder from that. That's something definitely to keep in mind. You might want to monitor your thyroid levels. But all of that to say and I said this at the very beginning, but a lower body temperature actually is correlated to longevity. So, maybe, you can reframe it as having some longevity spiking potential. 

Gin Stephens: Yep, that's very true. We talked so much about not wanting to slower metabolisms, but actually a slower metabolism is linked to longevity. [laughs] Basically, once you get to your happy weight and you right now, I don't care what my metabolism is, because I'm eating in a point that allows me to maintain. 

Melanie Avalon: What was in your book about it? 

Gin Stephens: Well, I kept it simple. It was in the Frequently Asked Questions section and it's one paragraph. On page 307, I talked about the two just big generalities. First of all, digesting food creates a lot of heat, which keeps us warm and toasty. And also, when we're fasting, just like Tyloria said that when we're fasting, our bodies direct blood flow to our fat stores and away from our extremities to mobilize fat for fuel. So, having less blood flow to the extremities can make us feel cold.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, now, I'm just looking at what I said in my book as well and it also was very short. I said, "You shouldn't feel uncomfortably cold while fasting though, I've personally become a colder person in body not spirit." Since losing body fat from IF, I said, "If IF makes you a little chilly, make sure you're eating enough in your fasting window as unintentional undereating may or may not cause issues."

Gin Stephens: You didn't say fasting window there, did you? 

Melanie Avalon: Oh, sorry.

Gin Stephens: [laughs] I was like, "Oh, did we just find a typo in your book?" Did you say fasting window?

Melanie Avalon: Yes, I did.

Gin Stephens: Uh-oh. Typos are everywhere. 

Melanie Avalon: Oh, my goodness. 

Gin Stephens: Ain't that funny? You never noticed it, never would have. Yeah. Do not eat more in your fasting window everybody. [laughs] 

Melanie Avalon: That's amazing. Well, so, if you read that, that's not what that supposed to say. I said to combat cold consider eating more, fasting less, or eating thermogenic foods such as coconut oil. Oh, no, I said, if you can't seem to fix your inner thermostat, consider getting your thyroid checked. I will say what I eat C8 MCT and add that to my food, I get so hot and it lasts throughout the next day. That might be something to consider trying. When I listened to your audiobook, Gin, I only heard one thing. Do you know what it was? I guess, you would want to know, because you would--

Gin Stephens: No.

Melanie Avalon: The MTHFR.

Gin Stephens: Oh, did I say it wrong? 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, it was the wrong order of the letters. 

Gin Stephens: Oh, that's so funny. That was just a tongue twisted. I'm sure just my mouth saying it wrong.

Melanie Avalon: What's funny about it is, because I was thinking about it and I was thinking like, do you talk about MTHFR much? 

Gin Stephens: No. 

Melanie Avalon: That's what I was thinking. I was like, "So, people who don't have MTHFR or have never looked into it, they wouldn't think about the order of the letters." 

Gin Stephens: It's funny that the director didn't notice that I said it wrong. I'm sure I didn't have it wrong in the book.

Melanie Avalon: I doubt you did.

Gin Stephens: I just said it wrong. Yeah, it is. So, you know. You've read audiobooks before. It is so hard to read audiobook. 

Melanie Avalon: The reason I was thinking about it was, I was like, the only people who are going to notice it are people who have MTHFR. Because we say MTHFR is like a--

Gin Stephens: Was that in Clean(ish) or Fast. Feast, Repeat.? 

Melanie Avalon: Clean(ish)

Gin Stephens:  I was like, I don't think I mentioned it in. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I didn't hear anything in Fast. Feast, Repeat. Oh, it's so-- 

Gin Stephens: Oh, well. Well, I can't even find it. I don't even know where I was looking in the index here of Clean(ish). I don't even know where it is. [laughs] But yeah, I know I have it in there. I do know what it is, but who knows. I was also sick while I was recording that. [laughs] 

Melanie Avalon: I know. I can't believe you did that. 

Gin Stephens: It's amazing that any of it is coherent to tell you the truth. I had a fever.

Melanie Avalon: It's a lot. I can't believe you recorded the entire audiobook for both. That's a lot.

Gin Stephens: For both of them, oh, I know, I know. I feel I had to, because everybody knows my voice or well, okay, not everybody, but a lot of people who know my voice would be listening, give their podcast listeners, they are more likely to want the audiobook. So, I had to do it, but I was happy to do it. I was mainly happy when I was finished it. I'm so glad I did it. I am not complaining.

Melanie Avalon: I've shared the story before, but my publisher made me audition and then they wouldn't even let me do the whole thing, which looking back is just so surreal to me, because I feel I should have narrated it. 

Gin Stephens: You totally should have. 

Melanie Avalon: It doesn't make much sense. 

Gin Stephens: I made him put it in my contract, because I remembered that from you. 

Melanie Avalon: Oh, really? Nice, nice. Yeah. 

Gin Stephens: Because I was like, "[unintelligible [00:45:14] going in the contract."

Melanie Avalon: I know it's a thing, though, because I just interviewed Bill Schindler recently and he said, they made him audition for him as well. 

Gin Stephens: Really? 

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm. 

Gin Stephens: Oh, my gosh. I guess, it might also just depend on the publisher and who the team is. But it never even was a question, because I think like I said, they know that I have such a big podcast audience with this one and the other one that people would expect to hear me. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. Who was your audiobook publisher? Was it also--?

Gin Stephens: Macmillan.

Melanie Avalon: Okay.

Gin Stephens: Macmillan Audio. They are amazing. Such a good team. So, fabulous to work with.

Melanie Avalon: I wonder if, because my audiobook publisher, it was not my publisher publisher. It was Tantor Audio.

Gin Stephens: Okay.

Melanie Avalon: Which is a really big audio publisher. I think maybe if my audiobook publisher had been my publisher, I feel it would have gone differently. But it's like they were not outsourcing it, but they handed it off to this really big publisher. So, then, they were just looking at me objectively and we're like, "You got to audition."

Gin Stephens: Yeah, because your main publishing house was not one of the big giant ones, is it?

Melanie Avalon: It was an imprint at one of the big ones, but it wasn't. But they didn't have like a--

Gin Stephens: They don't do it there. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Gin Stephens: Okay, okay. Yeah, I guess, I'm just lucky that they have Macmillan Audio right in there. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, exactly. 

Gin Stephens: It's quite a process. The amount of time that it takes to record an audiobook is crazy. But I am surprised nobody noticed. I said it wrong. Because the team that was with me recording Clean(ish) was amazing. They'd be like, "You said that a little weird. Would you read that, again?"

Melanie Avalon: I'm guessing none of them have MTHFR issues. 

Gin Stephens: No. 

Melanie Avalon: Like I said, that's all I was thinking you're only going to notice it if you're a person that has gone down the MTHFR rabbit hole, because you use the word colloquially as like a phrase compared to just looking at letters, but fun times.

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Melanie Avalon: We have a question from Sherry. The subject is: "Fasting link.' Sherry says, "Hi, Gin and Melanie, I'm a faithful listener to this podcast and the ones you each do separately. You guys are so knowledgeable and helpful. I have been intermittent fasting for over a year with a four-hour eating window. I am experiencing so many benefits that this is definitely my life. I know everyone must find their own path, but I was wondering about information on how long someone should fast for to reduce arthritis, pain, skin health, and dental health. Gin, on your podcast, Intermittent Fasting Stories, your guest said, she had to fast for so many hours to not have pain. I was wondering if you guys were familiar with this, I adore you guys and you have both found your calling. Thanks in advance. Intermittent faster for life." 

Gin Stephens: Well, thank you, Sherry. I think Melanie and I would agree that we do believe we found our calling and we love it. We love the work that we're doing. I know we both do. I'm speaking for you, Melanie, but I knew that was the answer. 

Melanie Avalon: That is correct. 

Gin Stephens: Here's the thing about that question, Sherry. I have heard from so many people that they have had reduced arthritis pain, or their skin has gotten better, or their dental health has improved. But intermittent fasting doesn't always "fix" those things for everybody. It really just depends on why you have the pain, or what what's happening with your skin, or what's going on with your dental health. Intermittent fasting addresses inflammation, for example. Anything that's related to increased inflammation, if you do intermittent fasting, you can expect you'll likely see benefits there. But from what I understand not all arthritis is strictly just because of inflammation. I think there's other things like your joints can be damaged. It might not make any difference at all depending on the root cause of why you're having that pain. The same thing with skin. Someone in our community yesterday was talking about she's like, "I've been doing intermittent fasting and my acne is terrible. It's just not getting any better." I asked her, I said, "Did your acne get worse after fasting or has this always been a problem?" She said, "No, it's always been a problem." I said, "Well, then, unfortunately, it just seems like whatever is the cause of your acne is not something that intermittent fasting is correcting." So, that doesn't mean that someone else won't have an improvement with acne, thanks to intermittent fasting. It's really just a matter of what your root cause might be. 

Perhaps, you're having arthritis pain or issues with your skin due to something you're eating, that's not working well for your body. Intermittent fasting isn't going to correct that to the fullest. If you're eating something that doesn't agree with your body, the best thing to do would be to take that out. You'd have to do an elimination approach to try to figure out what that might be. Dental health, again, that's also really, really complex. I've definitely heard from people on the podcast, who have an improved dental checkup after doing fasting, because you're not eating all hours of the day anymore. But I still had to have crowns and dental work done. It's like when you're doing intermittent fasting, you know it's doing great things in your body, but it isn't going to necessarily correct every issue that you have had, unfortunately. So, we can't say here's how many hours to fast not have pain, because fasting might not have anything to do with your pain as far as the underlying cause it might not correct that underlying cause. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I thought that was a great answer. It's so, so individual. I will say, I'll just speak briefly to each of them. The skin health and Gin just touched on this. My experience with fasting is that, it really, really helps my skin. I will say though, if you are having skin issues, I would really, really look at what you're eating, because I think that often really can affect our skin. I know for me, historically, even, I went through a period where I was really struggling with psoriasis, and I just could not figure it out, and I ended up figuring it out, and it was something I was eating. It was lettuce. 

Gin Stephens: What? This is while you're doing fasting? 

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm.

Gin Stephens: Lettuce?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. The reason I figured it out was it was happening on my fingers, mostly. But it was also happening on my face. But I put [unintelligible [00:54:41] together that I was chopping lettuce every night, so it's where I was touching it, and then it was also manifesting my face. When I cut out lettuce, it all went away. 

Gin Stephens: I wonder if it's something that they had sprayed on it? 

Melanie Avalon: I've been wondering about that and I'm trying to remember, because this was a while ago and I'm trying to remember if I was just eating organic or if I was eating conventional as well. But I really feel for people, who struggle with psoriasis and conditions like that, well, also acne because I had acne growing up as well. I identify with you if you have skin issues, because you can feel just so helpless, because you just don't know how to make it go away. I remember when I had the psoriasis on my fingers, I was like, because this is when I was doing a lot of acting. I was always looking at casting calls and I would see casting calls [unintelligible [00:55:31] models, and I was like, "I can never apply for that, because I have psoriasis on my hands." I will say, looking at what you're eating can be huge. Especially, things like acne, I do wonder, if I could go back to growing up when I had really bad acne, because I ended up doing Accutane, which did fix my acne problem, but I do wonder going back if I had just done dietary changes that would have actually resolved the acne.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, well, I refused my boys wanted to take Accutane, because they had friends doing it. I'm like, "Nope, we're not doing that."

Melanie Avalon: Oh, yeah. And boys, it's even worse, the side effects.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, we didn't do it, but it all resolved. But I had zits here and there. What bad didn't have what you would consider acne, it wasn't-- Both my boys did. It comes from Chad's side of the family and it was hard for them. It's definitely a struggle.

Melanie Avalon: My experience, too. Have I shared this on the story before like they put me on birth control first? 

Gin Stephens: I think you might have. 

Melanie Avalon: I had to be on birth control in order to get on the Accutane, because it's part of the Accut--. I don't know if it goes this way now. I don't know if it's changed. 

Gin Stephens: It leads to birth defects. Big time. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. At the time, I'm really curious if they still do this. You have to do this whole thing. Accutane as the company has this whole-- You have to get a workbook. You have to take online quizzes, you had to be on birth control, you had to do all of this stuff. Yeah, I think I've shared this before, but basically, I had to go on birth control for certain amount of time, a long time, like a month or something. We went in to actually get Accutane, because I qualify now, because I've been on birth control for so long. The dermatologist was like, "Oh, well, I think the birth control is making enough of a difference. So, I'm not going to prescribe it." I just started bawling in the room and it's really frustrating to look back, because I shouldn't have been on birth control when I was 16. I don't know. All of that to say, oh, that's also when I realized when I went on birth control, I didn't change anything that I can see in my diet. But if you look at my pictures in high school, I probably gained-- Again, I was never overweight, but I definitely gained probably, a substantial amount in a very short amount of time and I really think that that was the birth control. 

Gin Stephens: But I also wondered since you did it for a month and then you started the Accutane, I wonder if the Accutane affected your gut somehow. 

Melanie Avalon: Mm, yeah, that's a good question. Yeah. 

Gin Stephens: Because you didn't do the birth control by itself very long.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. Well, did I stay on it?

Gin Stephens: On the birth control or the Accutane? I feel they would make you take them both at the same time.

Melanie Avalon: Well, what ended up happening was, we gone to that one dermatologist and when she said, no, and I was crying, and we went home, we knew another dermatologist that was out of our network. The reason we gone to her was she was in network. We knew our friend's dermatologist would prescribe it without birth control. So, we went to her. She just trusted that you were not sexually active--

Gin Stephens: On our system. 

Melanie Avalon: All of that to say, what I have learned from my journey and my experience is that, the food that you're eating has a major effect on your skin health. Also, if you want to support skin health in general, red-light therapy can be super amazing. Oh, we should have talked about this earlier because I think Joovv is actually sponsoring today's episode. 

Gin Stephens: Oh, that's funny. 

Melanie Avalon: I know. I did not even realize that. So, listen to the spot for Joovv, because their red-light therapy devices are amazing. I think our link is joovv.com/ifpodcast and I think IF PODCAST gets you a code. That's something I would use daily for skin health. I do personally. And then, I just want to talk really briefly to the other things, which was the arthritis. Yes, I'm glad Gin talked about that, that there can be a lot of causes for that. I will do a plug for my serrapeptase, because there actually is clinical studies on it reducing arthritis pain. So, that might be something that you could use to amplify your fast and maybe help with that. And then, dental health, I'm so excited about this. I connected with a company called Bristle, recently. I will find out if I can-- I think I'm going to have a code for them, but they actually do an oral microbiome test which is so exciting. Have you done one of those, Gin or have you--?

Gin Stephens: I have not done an oral microbiome test. I actually have an oral hygiene company that sponsors Intermittent Fasting Stories and they are big in the oral microbiome as far as like, "You don't want to kill your oral microbiome." I was like, "I had no idea." "All the mouthwashes that you use and swish around, you're killing the good guys, too." I was like, "Mind blown, I never thought of that." [laughs] So, I switched to my toothpaste. Lumineux is the brand name.

Melanie Avalon: I've been thinking about that for a really, really long time and it's really interesting, because it's how the gut microbiome was a new frontier, and it's only relatively pretty recent that exploration of the gut microbiome has become so exploded.

Gin Stephens: Once they could sequence what was in there and figure it out, they used to didn't know.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. But I think the next wave will be the oral microbiome. There're actually new theories that a lot of gut issues and such might actually, the root cause might not always be completely in the gut. It could be your oral microbiome. 

Gin Stephens: Well, the whole thing is really from mouth to hiney, [laughs] is just a tube that just goes through straight through you. So, and everything along the way from mouth to backside.

Melanie Avalon: I'm actually just got an email today saying that my results were received. It was super easy to do. You just spit saliva into this little tube thing and send it back. 

Gin Stephens: That does sound interesting. 

Melanie Avalon: If you want to try it, I can connect you with them. I'm sure they would send you one.

Gin Stephens: I actually heard someone talk about your digestive system is actually being on the outside of your body. Have you heard that? 

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm.

Gin Stephens: Yeah. You're like, "Wait a minute." [laughs] Because you're putting stuff. It's all and obviously, stuff goes in and out through, but stuff goes in and out through your skin as well. Just the same way.

Melanie Avalon: If you think about it--

Gin Stephens: You're like a hose pipe, a tube.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, like, if you have a box and then you put a tube from one side of the box to the other side of the box, into the box, a hollow tube.

Gin Stephens: The interior of it is not in the box. It goes through the box. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.

Gin Stephens: Our digestive system goes through us and stuff goes in and out of it into our bodies. Just like I said, stuff goes in and out of our skin. I know that was mind blowing. I'm like, "What?"

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I've been pondering that concept. I have not received my discount code from them yet, but I'll put it in the show notes, and I will try to make it MELANIEAVALON. If you go to bristlehealth.com, so, that's B-R-I-S-T-L-E-H-E-A-L-T-H dotcom, that's where you can get that system. Again, I don't have the code yet, but I'm going to email them right after this and I will try to make the code MELANIEAVALON. But you can check the show notes to confirm that and the show notes will be at ifpodcast.com/episode261. Okay, so, that was wonderful. A few other things for listeners before we go. If you'd like to submit your own questions for the show, you can directly email questions@ifpodcast.com or you can go to ifpodcast.com and you can submit questions there. You can follow us on Instagram. I am @melanieavalon, Gin is @ginstephens, and yes, you can get all these stuff that we like at ifpodcast.com/stuffwelike. 

Gin Stephens: Awesome. 

Melanie Avalon: Okay, I think that is all the things. Anything from you, Gin before we go?

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

Melanie Avalon: Okey-dokey. Well, this was wonderful and I will talk to you next week. 

Gin Stephens: All right, bye. 

Melanie Avalon: Bye. 

Thank you so much for listening to the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Please remember, everything we discussed on this show does not constitute medical advice. We're not doctors. If you enjoyed the show, please consider writing your review on iTunes. We couldn't do this without our amazing team. Administration by Sharon Merriman, editing by Podcast Doctors, show notes and artwork by Brianna Joyner, transcripts by SpeechDocs, theme music by Leland Cox. See you next week.

STUFF WE LIKE

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

More on Gin: GinStephens.com

Theme Music Composed By Leland Cox: LelandCox.com

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

 

 

Apr 10

Episode 260: Dairy, BCAAs, Dry Mouth, Specific Carbohydrate Diet, Kids Appetites, Natural Flavors, SIBO, Probiotics, And More!

Intermittent Fasting

Welcome to Episode 260 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine and Gin Stephens, author of Delay, Don't Deny: Living An Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle

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

BUTCHERBOX: Grass-Fed Beef, Organic Chicken, Heritage Pork, Wild-Caught Seafood: Nutrient-Rich, Raised Sustainably The Way Nature Intended, And Shipped Straight To Your Door! For A Limited Time Go To Butcherbox.com/ifpodcast And Get Free Ground Beef For LIFE!!

BEAUTY AND THE BROTH: Support Your Health With Delicious USDA Organic Beauty & The Broth Bone Broth! It's Shelf Stable With No Preservatives, And No Salt Added. Choose Grass Fed, Grass Finished Beef, Or Free Range, Antibiotic And Hormone-Free Chicken, or Their NEW Organic Vegan Mushroom Broth Concentrate! The Concentrated Packets Are 8x Stronger Than Any Cup Of Broth: Simply Reconstitute With 8 Ounces Of Hot Water. They’re Convenient To Take Anywhere On The Go, Especially Travel! Go To melanieavalon.com/broth To Get 15% Off Any Order With The Code MelanieAvalon!

FEALS: Feals makes CBD oil which satisfies ALL of Melanie's stringent criteria: it's premium, full spectrum, organic, tested, pure CBD in MCT oil! It's delivered directly to your doorstep. CBD supports the body's natural cannabinoid system, and can address an array of issues, from sleep to stress to chronic pain, and more! Go To feals.com/ifpodcast To Become A Member And Get 50% Off Your First Order, With Free Shipping!

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

SHOW NOTES

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

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

BEAUTY AND THE BROTH: Go To melanieavalon.com/broth To Get 15% Off Any Order With The Code MelanieAvalon!

Listener Q&A: Celia - consistency of fasting schedule

Listener Q&A: Stephanie - Dry Mouth

The SCD Specific Carbohydrate Diet Podcast

Listener Q&A: Renee - Juice plus capsules

Listener Q&A: sally - Children and fasting

The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #119 - Robb Wolf

Episode 237: Our Taste For Sodium, Electrolytes, Low Carb Diets, Hydration & pH Balance, Fatigue & Muscle Cramps, Thermoregulation, Exercise, Sauna, Need Vs. Optimization, And More!

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

Listener Q&A: amy - Gut!

Healthy Gut, Healthy You: The Personalized Plan to Transform Your Health from the Inside Out

The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #19 - Dr. Michael Ruscio

Gut-microbiota-targeted diets modulate human immune status

ATRANTIL: Use The Link Lovemytummy.com/ifp With The Code IFP, To Get 10% Off!

The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #9 - Dr. Ken Brown

TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Welcome to Episode 260 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. If you want to burn fat, gain energy, and enhance your health by changing when you eat, not what you eat with no calorie counting, then this show is for you. I'm Melanie Avalon, author of What When Wine: Lose Weight and Feel Great with Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, and Wine. And I'm here with my cohost, Gin Stephens, author of Fast. Feast. Repeat.: The Comprehensive Guide to Delay, Don't Deny Intermittent Fasting. For more on us, check out ifpodcast.com, melanieavalon.com, and ginstephens.com. Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this podcast do not constitute medical advice or treatment. So, pour yourself a cup of black coffee, a mug of tea, or even a glass of wine, if it's that time, and get ready for The Intermittent Fasting Podcast.

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

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

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: Hi, everybody and welcome. This is Episode number 260 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon and I'm here with Gin Stephens.

Gin Stephens: Hi, everybody.

Melanie Avalon: How are you today, Gin?

Gin Stephens: I am doing great. I just had a great trip last week to Little Rock, Arkansas. So, shoutout to everyone, who got to meet all. I was there. It was an intermittent fasting trip and I loved it.

Melanie Avalon: So, what was it for exactly?

Gin Stephens: Lisa Fischer is just somebody who is amazing. She was on the radio for years in Little Rock, Arkansas. She was a radio talk show host. She discovered intermittent fasting. Actually, funny story. Her son started listening to our podcast years ago, I swear likw 2017 and was like, "Hey, mom. You should try this. I listen to this. These two ladies, you should try this intermittent fasting." And she started doing it, and loved it, started talking about it on the radio. Basically, Little Rock has a great intermittent fasting community, thanks to her. She wanted to have me come out in 2020 when Fast. Feast. Repeat. came out. But obviously, [laughs] there was no traveling. Things are opened back up and she's like, "Let's finally do it." We did. We had a Topo Chico and coffee party in the morning with a bunch of people there, and we recorded a podcast love. She's also a podcaster. Then, we had an event at a restaurant in town that was just amazing, and people came, and I got to meet so many amazing people, and then, we had an event at somebody's home, beautiful home. I stayed with somebody, who is just fantastic.  One of those beautiful houses I've ever been in in my life. They are like, "Hey, you want to come stay with someone you've never met? I'm like, "Count me in." But it was great. There was an event for the medical community to come to. There were doctors there, and all sorts of different practitioners, and we taught intermittent fasting. It was a very long day, but I loved it. As I said, I met so many fabulous people, and intermittent fasting is changing lives, I know we hear it from the questions that we get. But it's amazing to see real people, and connect with them, and that's my favorite thing. It's been a while since I've been able to do that. We had the cruises in 2018 and 2019, and I love nothing more than meeting intermittent fasters, and hearing how intermittent fasting has changed their life. 

Melanie Avalon: How many people were there?

Gin Stephens: 25 to 50 at each event. They were small. We talked about how to open it up and what to do. I wanted to keep it small. I would have the ability to connect with everybody versus having it be huge and me giving a talk. That's not what I wanted to do. Instead, I got to meet everyone, and talk to them, and we had a meet and greet kind of a vibe. 

Melanie Avalon: Did you drive? 

Gin Stephens: No, I took a plane. Little Rock's a long way.

Melanie Avalon: I'm really bad with evaluating distances in the South. Even though, I used to live, I lived in Memphis, which is not that far I don't think from Little Rock.

Gin Stephens: Memphis is all the way on the edge of Tennessee. Even though, Atlanta is close to Tennessee, Tennessee is long. 

Melanie Avalon: Oh, yeah. Because it's two hours from Little Rock. 

Gin Stephens: Right. It would be a very long drive I think to drive to Little Rock. 

Melanie Avalon: Oh, yeah, definitely from--

Gin Stephens: From Augusta. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: I was just trying to remember when I was in Memphis.

Gin Stephens: It's right above Louisiana, Arkansas is. It's pretty far over there. 

Melanie Avalon: Well, that's fun. 

Gin Stephens: It was so much fun and Little Rock is an amazing town.

Melanie Avalon: I've heard that. I haven't been, but I've heard it's really--

Gin Stephens: I had never been there. Now, I'm really spoiled, because this was such a great event that [laughs] people are like, "Would you come to my town?" I'm like, "Well, I don't know if anybody can compete with Lisa Fischer and her friend, Becky," because it was just flawless. Everything was just amazing. 

Melanie Avalon: When did you get back? 

Gin Stephens: I got back on Wednesday. I do not love traveling, though. 

Melanie Avalon: Oh, really? 

Gin Stephens: No. 

Melanie Avalon: Oh, I thought you're fine with it.

Gin Stephens: I don't love being on a plane, or traveling, or being in the airport. I am fine with it, but I don't love it. 

Melanie Avalon: You know what's really funny. I used to love it. Can you believe that?

Gin Stephens: Well, I think I used to love it, too. Back when I was a kid, I used to fly. My dad was here in Augusta and my mother was in Virginia. It was very frequently. When I was 12 and over, I'd be a 12-year-old, they threw me on the plane, maybe even younger than that and I would fly from Augusta and usually would have a layover in Charlotte or something for several hours, and I would entertain myself. I was fine. They would put the little wings on you if you were a kid. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. Would a flight attendant go with you?

Gin Stephens: I don't think that happened very frequently. I think there were only a few times that I was that young that the flight attendant would look out for me. Other than that, I was pretty fun. But yeah, I flew a lot by myself. That was back in the day when you could smoke on a plane. I wasn't smoking. I was a kid. But there were the no smoking sign, the no smoking section.

Melanie Avalon: Wow. Things have changed. 

Gin Stephens: They really have. But it was such a good event and I loved it. I don't know. Arkansians, I don't know how to say it. I think that's wrong. Anyone from Arkansas [laughs] is listening, I loved being there. So, anyone that I met, thank you for such a fabulous event. 

Melanie Avalon: Awesome. 

Gin Stephens: Anything new with you?

Melanie Avalon: I have two really quick fasting things and then, one other thing. I hosted my first IG Live.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I caught a glimpse of that. I didn't watch the whole thing, but somebody was like, "Oh, Melanie's on Instagram Live." I popped in, and saw you and Cynthia talking, and I was like, "Oh, there they are." It was so great to see all together.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, it was really fun. I didn't even realize until she commented in the Facebook group yesterday that we went an hour and a half, which is a really long time.

Gin Stephens: Because you're just talking, right? Just time flies when you're talking to a friend.

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm. So, that was really fun. I just felt so awkward at the beginning, because she hadn't joined for a few minutes and I was just there. I was like, "I don't know what to do." So, idealize her.

Gin Stephens: But could you see her the whole time you were talking? 

Melanie Avalon: Yes. Once she's there.

Gin Stephens: That's good. What I really don't like is doing some Instagram Live or it's just me looking at the camera. I'm was like, I'm talking at nothing. I don't like that at all. I feel awkward definitely. So, that's how it was. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, right in the beginning, that's how it was and I was like, "This is so awkward. What do I do?" I was like, "Somebody, please ask me a question." But then, people started asking questions. So, then, I was good.

Gin Stephens: That's good. And I'm a bad multitasker. I'm not good at reading questions that people are asking and answering them. I'm not good at that. 

Melanie Avalon: Oh, yeah. No, to that point, because it's similar to an interview. But normally, in my interviews, it's just audio. I have my notes. I'm just focusing on the conversation. But with the IG Live, well, it's on video, which I don't like, because I'm super aware of all of that. And then, I had my preps questions, but then, the live questions are coming in. It adds another layer to interviewing.

Gin Stephens: It does. It's really hard to see it, because people are also typing random stuff. You don't know what to pay attention to. It's really hard to multitask, and ask good questions, and listen. I don't like it. I don't want it. People are like, "Would you like to do some Instagram Lives when Clean(ish) is coming out?" I'm like, "No, I do not."

Melanie Avalon: If you're being interviewed, it's fine. Because you're just on the receiving end. I was like, "This is a skill. This is a whole another layer of interviewing."

Gin Stephens: Oh, it has a total skill. Yep. At the point in my life where I'm okay with saying, "That's not my skill. [laughs] I'm not even going to try it, because I already know." I've done enough of those kinds of things to know. There's a lot of things I'm good at. I'll just stick to those. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, so, there was that second intermittent fasting thing. I've started reading Thomas DeLauer's intermittent fasting book, because he's going to come on the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast. I've only read the first third, which is just about the health benefits. But I just got to the section about how to do intermittent fasting. It's just always really interesting. Again, I just started it. So, I don't know his whole approach, but it's just always interesting to see people's ideas. 

Gin Stephens: That's true. I, of course, hear all of them from people who are like, "I was reading blah, blah, blah and it said this, or I watched this video and it said that." Because we get a lot of beginners. I don't know if y'all have a lot of beginners in your Facebook groups. 

Melanie Avalon: Some.

Gin Stephens: That was the whole thing about Facebook for me is, it was a lot of beginners all the time popping in. Yeah, but I saw this video, and it said to do this, and then, we were like, "Yeah, but that's not what we do." They're like, "Well, I'm going to do whatever I want to do." I'm like, "Well, yes. But just we're not going to do that here, that sort of thing." That made it really difficult, because there are a lot of conflicting opinions. Today, someone in my community was talking to a friend of hers, and she was conveying to us the frustrating conversations she had, where they were talking about coffee and her friend somehow had the idea that creamer broke a fast, but cream did not. I'm like, "Okay, that's interesting." [laughs] Yes, the baby cow. If he's fasting when he's drinking his mama's milk, the answer is no. [laughs] She probably saw a video that someone's like, "Creamer breaks fast, but cream is fine. Go figure."

Melanie Avalon: What do you think is the most fasting breaker thing that people sometimes wonder if they can have?

Gin Stephens: Well, honestly, I do think it's probably dairy. Because dairy is, it is nature's perfect food for growing a baby and it is definitely not fasting. Anything dairy, I feel that's the food that mammals eat during the period of time where they're growing the most. That's how nature designed it, right? We need rapid growth. Have some dairy. I don't know. It just doesn't seem fasting at all to me. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, that's a really good one. The one I was thinking was one people post about my group a lot, which is BCAAs, branched-chain amino acids. Amino acids are going to very quickly stop autophagy.

Gin Stephens: Well, it's all a matter of-- I got broke down on Fast. Feast. Repeat., what are your goals, why are you fasting, why did you choose fasting instead of a low-calorie diet? That's what you have to keep in mind. I'm not against if somebody would rather just say, "You know what, I'm not going to fast. I'm going to do a low-calorie diet. I like that better." Then, do your low-calorie diet. There're more ways to lose weight than fasting. But if you want to do fasting, why are you doing fasting? You're doing fasting for autophagy, you're doing it for the metabolic benefits, you're doing it, so you can tap into stored fat. Why do you want to do anything that's going to keep you from doing those things? Just take the clean fast challenge, and try it, and see.

Melanie Avalon: I think when this comes out, it will have either just ended yesterday or I might actually push it to end today, because of when this airs. We should have, again, this is in the future, I think we will have launched a subscription service for my serrapeptase supplement and it's amazing for a few reasons. What was going to end today was the brief enrollment period, where you could get it at an incredible discount, which is 25% off. And basically, the way it works is you get three bottles and subject to change, but I think it's three bottles every four months. And so, that saves on shipping, it's more sustainable, and then, you get that massive 25% discount, if you signed up in the enrollment window. You would have known about the enrollment window or you do know about it if you're on my email list for my supplements, which is melanieavalon.com/avalonx. But for those of you who have been loving the serrapeptase, which I've been getting so many incredible testimonials about and so many people asking-- It's funny, just recently, probably three or four times within a week, people asked me like, whether upcoming sales or was there a way to save money on ordering. If that's you, this is the solution. Then, the great thing about it is, if you need more than that, of course, you can just order bottles a la carte, but it's a nice way to just have your stock ready, saving money, all the things. So, that's really exciting. 

Again, I think it was supposed to end on the 10th, but I think right after this, I'll talk to my partner and see if we can extend it to the 11th, which should be today. The other announcement is that, my magnesium is moving forward. There will be more information about that soon. But it's going to be a full spectrum. Well, not full, because I realized there's a lot of magnesium. It's more than I thought, but it's going to be eight types of magnesium, including three and eight, which can cross the blood brain barrier, and free of toxic fillers, and a glass bottle free of allergens tested for heavy metals and mold, and it will have activated forms of B6 and manganese to help with absorption. If you guys are looking for an amazing magnesium supplement, that is coming soon. It's going to be called Magnesium Spectrum 8.

Gin Stephens: Awesome. You're right about being so many forms that we just don't even realize. When I was writing Clean(ish), Chad and I had, I don’t know, a fight about mercury. I was talking to him about-- Remember that? We were talking about mercury and he's like, "You need to specify the blah, blah, blah." I'm like, "Nobody knows, nobody cares." They just say mercury. Everything you read, it just says mercury, He's like, "I know. I care or whatever." [laughs] I was like, it wouldn't make sense for me to dig in so much more just on that one topic. I've got a 400 and something page book already. I can't go down every rabbit hole. But he strongly disagreed with my decision not to go farther and specify the type of mercury. That just resonated with me. Trust me, trust me, you just say mercury and fish, and that's all you need to say. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I think the people who have gone really down the rabbit holes like me with mercury toxicity, there's three, I think main forms. That's so funny. There's a lot. There's a lot of stuff.

Gin Stephens: You just need to know. Be careful with fish. It's a kind of mercury. Pick the kind of fish that doesn't have any of the kinds.

Melanie Avalon: There's one that's environmental. 

Gin Stephens: Oh, don't ask me. I don't eat fish. [laughs] For all of you that eat fish, you're going to have to look into this a little more than I do, because I literally don't eat fish. I've told you that.

Melanie Avalon: Because I think there's like a mercury in the environment and then, when the fish eat it, it becomes a different form. The implications for the human is, I don't know if we metabolize them differently. They have different potential effects.

Gin Stephens: Anyway, there're a lot of types of stuff. That's the moral of the story.

Melanie Avalon: Yes. So, I will give the link though for to get the serrapeptase, the subscription, and the magnesium when it comes out is avalonx.us. 

Hi, friends. I'm about to tell you how you can get 15% off of my favorite bone broth, which is an incredible way to open your eating window. Also, for all of you, vegetarians and vegans, stay tuned, because there's something for you, too. I've been talking about the incredible health effects of bone broth for years. Bone broth is so nourishing for our body. It's rich in collagen, which can really support your gut health, your skin, curb cravings, boost your energy, and your immunity, but there are a lot of brands out there, a lot of them have ingredients that I don't like, and making it yourself can also be very time consuming. That's why I am thrilled about Beauty & the Broth. Beauty & the Broth was created by Melissa Bolona. She's an incredible actress and entrepreneur. I've had her on the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast. I'll put a link to that in the show notes. But Melissa started Beauty & the Broth, after she realized the profound effect that bone broth was having on her own health, specifically, gut issues and its ability to give her radiant skin perfect for the camera. She found Beauty & the Broth, which hit everything I could want in bone broth. It uses 100% whole organic ingredients. Yes, it is certified USDA organic. It is one of the only few bone broth companies in the entire US that has a USDA certification for organic bone broth. It has no artificial flavors, no preservatives, no phthalates, no sugar, and something that I love, no salt.

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If you've been looking to finally jump on the bone broth train, do it now and do it with Beauty & the Broth. And Melissa has an amazing offer just for our listeners. You can go to thebeautyandthebroth.com or melanieavalon.com/broth and use the coupon code, MELANIEAVALON to get 15% off. That's thebeautyandthebroth.com with the coupon code, MELANIEAVALON for 15% off. All of the listeners, who have tried it ever since I aired my episode with Melissa have talked about how much they love it. It is so delicious. You guys will definitely love it. So, definitely check that out. And by the way, bone broth does break your fast. This is something that you want to have in your eating window. In fact, it's an amazing way to open your eating window, because when you're in that fasted state, when you take in bone broth as the first thing, all of those rich nutrients and collagen go straight to your gut, help heal your gut, help with leaky gut, help digestive issues. And again, you can go to thebeautyandthebroth.com and use the coupon code, MELANIEAVALON for 15% off. I'll put all this information in the show notes. All right, now, back to the show.

Melanie Avalon: All righty, shall we jump into everything for today?

Gin Stephens: Absolutely. 

Melanie Avalon: All right. To start things off, we have a question from Celia and the subject-- Oh, she goes by Cel and the subject is: "Consistency of fasting schedule." And Cel says, "Hi, Melanie and Gin, I am a longtime listener and IF-er. Although, I just realized I might have cut it off and it's possible that it was Sicilia or Celia, regardless.

Gin Stephens: Or, maybe you did pronounce it Cel, C-E-L. I don't know. I'll just say Celia.

Melanie Avalon: So, Celia, she says, "I am a longtime listener and IF-er. I love and truly believe in the benefits of the IF lifestyle. Recently, my schedule changed and I find that my fasting times are not as consistent as they used to be. I used to do 16:8 every day. Now, I'm able to range from 15 to 20 hours of fasting with every day being different. But most days are at least 16 plus hours and that would be a fasting." She says, "Will this be beneficial to my weight loss or is it better to stick to one schedule? Thanks in advance and thanks for wonderful podcast."

Gin Stephens: Well, that is a great question, Celia. It's really hard for us to say what plan will give you the weight loss that you need. For example, you said you used to do 16:8 every day. That was not a weight loss approach for me. If I were to ask somebody, will 16:8 work for me for weight loss and they were somebody that it did work for, they would say yes. But then, when I did it, the answer was no or vice versa. If you asked me, will 16:8 work for weight loss. If I only based it on my experiences, I would say no, whereas there are people who lose weight on 16:8. So, I just want to toss that out there. I was just not one of them being a volume eater and 16 hours was not enough. Average time for fasting, plus an eight-hour window was just too much eating for me. 

Now, that being said, it sounds you're having to move your window around to different times of the day, meaning that your fast is sometimes shorter and sometimes longer. I would like to encourage you to do what worked for me when I was in weight loss mode. I didn't track my fasting hours. I tracked my eating window. We know every day has 24 hours in it. We know that. As long as I stuck to an eating window of five hours or less, no matter how I shifted it around five hours or less for my eating window, my fast averaged 19 hours or more. Because if one day, my window was shifted this direction and I had only fasted for 15 hours, but I kept it to five hours or less, then the next day, if I shifted it to later in the day, I would have had a longer fast, if that makes sense. Just think about it. It's your window is this little sliding thing that slides earlier, it slides later. But the boundary on the window will mean your average fast will be whatever the difference is. If your average window was six hours, your average fast would be 18. 

Average, of course, you might have a 16 one day and a 20 the next that averages to 18. See if that helps you. I'm a big believer in switching things up being beneficial to our body. I don't think it would hurt you to switch your window around if you need to as long as you have those boundaries somewhere. For some people, the boundary is the fast must always be X amount of time and that's the boundary that works for you. For me, it was the boundary on the eating window that made a huge difference.

Melanie Avalon: That's actually a really good visual. If you visualized the sliding bar thing, if you visualized a lot of bars and there's just a sliding bar on each day.

Gin Stephens: That's my elementary teacher coming out. I'm really good at explaining things, so that kids go, "Oh, yeah." [laughs] One time I taught time. I don't know, elapsed time. My principal was in there. She's like, "That's the best explanation of elapsed time I've ever seen." I'm like, "Well, good."

Melanie Avalon: Nice. I agree. 

Gin Stephens: Awesome. By the way, elapsed time is hard to teach to children. Just FYI. 

Melanie Avalon: Wait. So, what is elapsed time?

Gin Stephens: It's the amount of time that passed from one thing to another and it was really, really tricky. Because of the way we do our time with noon and then, it goes to one again. If you ask a third grader, you get to school at 8:30 in the morning, you leave at 3:30 in the afternoon, how long were you there? 

Melanie Avalon: That's elapsed time? 

Gin Stephens: Yeah, that's tricky. Elapsed time is time between one event and the next. And that's harder than you think.

Melanie Avalon: Why is it hard?

Gin Stephens: You can't just do a simple math. You have to think, well, from 8:30 until noon, and then, from noon to 3:30. You have to think about the amount of time in between.

Melanie Avalon: Like nine, 10, 11, 12, one, two, three counting that number?

Gin Stephens: Right. And that was an easy example. It gets harder if we're talking about something how much time is between 9:45 and 1:15. 

Melanie Avalon: All right, and then, you're adding like-- Yeah. Or, 9:42 to 1:04. So, you're adding the four and the--

Gin Stephens: Correct. You can't just do a simple math equation of subtraction, because we've got an hour there. Because we don't do our time in 24 hour, we don't say it's 13 o' clock. [laughs] 

Melanie Avalon: Two people in their head do that differently, you think?

Gin Stephens: Oh, yeah. There's lots of ways to do it. 

Melanie Avalon: Oh, that's so interesting, because I just do it the way I do it. It never occurred to me.

Gin Stephens: That other people would do it differently. Yeah. 

Melanie Avalon: If it's 9:42 to 1:12, I add the amount from 9:42 to 10 and they add the amount from 1:00 to 1:12, and then, I add the hours in between.

Gin Stephens: That makes sense. Yep. 

Melanie Avalon: I like math. 

Gin Stephens: I like math, too, and I like teaching kids' ways of thinking about it as they understand what's happening. That was one of my gifts and strengths. So, anyway.

Melanie Avalon: Well, I think you answered that really well. 

Gin Stephens: All right. Well, ready to go on to the next question? 

Melanie Avalon: Yes.

Gin Stephens: This is from Stephanie and the subject is: "Dry mouth." She says, "Hello, I've just discovered your books and I'm super interested to IF. I have one concern about clean fasting. I have severe dry mouth issues due to medications. I use Biotene mouthwash at night, plus, I frequently squirt Biotene moisturizing spray into my mouth during the day. I also put a XyliMelts on my gums every night before going to sleep, so that the dry mouth symptoms won't wake me up. During the past week, I have experimented with using these products less frequently to see how I do. My thought was to eventually eliminate them altogether, so that I can try clean fasting. I have concluded that the dry mouth symptoms are too miserable to leave untreated, as well as bad for dental health. I don't think these symptoms would lessen over time if I quit using dry mouth products is they are known side effects of my medications. These are essential meds, all the other meds of this type cause dry mouth as well, and my taking them is non-negotiable. Can you suggest any alternative dry mouth products that do not have any artificial sweeteners or anything I could make myself? I've been searching online and cannot come up with anything. Thank you so much. I very much want to try IF and especially, the clean fasting. Sincerely, Stephanie."

Melanie Avalon: All right, Stephanie. Thank you so much for your question. When we first got this question, I was doing a lot of research on it really hoping to find the magical answer and was not finding much. And then, actually, interestingly, I met a woman, her name is Lee Bernstein and she hosts a podcast, The SCD, Specific Carbohydrate Diet Podcast.

Gin Stephens: I know Lee.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, you do? 

Gin Stephens: I actually helped her get started on her podcast. 

Melanie Avalon: Oh, really? 

Gin Stephens: Yeah. She's an intermittent faster from my community and I'd been on her podcast. But she was like, "How do I start a podcast?" So, we talked on the phone and I helped her.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, nice. 

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I love her. 

Melanie Avalon: Do you know her Barney story?

Gin Stephens: I don't know a Barney story. Uh-huh.

Melanie Avalon: She wrote the Barney song like the I love you, you love me.

Gin Stephens: I did not know that. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. So, she said that she wrote it for some teacher-- I don't know if it was a book, a teacher book. I'd have to ask her again. She wrote it for something, some project and then, somehow it ended up in Barney. One day, I think it was one of her kids, they said, "Mom, they're playing your song on the show." She was like, "That's my song." So, it's a little fun claim to fame. I actually, really recommend her podcast for anybody who is interested in the specific carbohydrate diet. I historically was very interested in it, especially, when I was trying to find the diet that best worked for my GI issues. Actually, it was one of the initial inspirations for my Food Sense Guide app that I have now, because I originally wanted to make a guide that compared a lot of the diets. The SCD diet, the FODMAP diet, Dr. Pimentel Cedars-Sinai diet, and then, there was this low-fermentation diet. But then, I realized with legalities, I couldn't really go that route. So, that's how it manifested instead to what it is today, which is food sensitivity compounds. Regardless, if you're interested in the SCD diet, definitely check out that podcast. 

The SCD diet is basically a diet, the mentality surrounding it is that for carbs, you eat specific carbs, so you eat monosaccharides, because the idea is that those are much more easily absorbed. You don't get potentially the GI issues that might come if you struggle to break down more complex or disaccharide carbs. In any case, I was doing a call with her, and she said she really struggles with dry mouth, and I was asking her, because I was like, "We have a listener, who has a question about this. So, what do you recommend?" I felt a little bit better, because I hadn't found an answer and she didn't have that much of an answer. She said that-- This is external, but she actually was talking about Beautycounter, their lip glosses that she uses externally, and she says, it's the first thing she's found ever that helps her symptoms externally, which was pretty amazing that she doesn't react to. She said, internally that putting coconut oil-- This will not be during your fast, but she was saying at night soothing with tea with coconut oil in it is really, really soothing and can have a lasting effect. But she didn't have any suggestions for during the fast and everything I found wouldn't really work. 

For what you're doing at night, so, putting the XyliMelts on your gums each night before going to sleep, I don't want to make an assumption. But since most people are eating a little bit later rather than doing a breakfast only window, I would honestly just keep going with what you're doing at night and then, for during the day, I know you say that you really need it and that it probably won't get better without it. But I mean, so unhelpful, because my suggestion is to try it without it and see if you can do a lot in your eating window that will have a lasting effect. But I'm sure that since you've struggled with this that you've tried a lot of things. If you want to get to more clean fasting, I would do as much as you can in your eating window with addressing the symptoms, and then, still do the thing at night, and then, try to not do it during the day. I feel that was not too helpful. Gin, do you have thoughts?

Gin Stephens: Yeah, and this is just one of those situations, where sometimes we don't have an ideal situation. If you have to take these essential medications, and it gives you dry mouth, and the dry mouth is miserable, and then, the only alternative is something that breaks a fast, then, you have to do what you have to do. I am 100% on team clean fast, except when you have a medical situation like yours, and it's miserable to not use it, and you're just going to have to recognize a few things. Number one, it might make it really harder for you to fast. Just keep that in mind. You may have to figure out "Okay, maybe I can't have a 16-hour clean fast, but maybe you can fast clean for 12 hours, and then, just do the very best you can to stretch out as many clean fasting hours as you can. This is not a reason for someone else who's listening to say, "Ooh, I'm going to put artificial sweetener in my coffee, because Gin said it. No. [laughs] This is just one of those very special circumstances, where you have to choose the lesser of the evils. It's not an ideal situation no matter what. I'm sorry that you're suffering from that, but you've got to be able to live a good quality of life with your dry mouth. I don't have a better suggestion for how to combat dry mouth, because I don't know of any and I don't suffer from it. I can't say, "Oh, I just try to--" No, I know it's miserable and you can't deal with it. It's not good for your mouth. So, sometimes, when we have a choice between this or that, you choose the lesser of the two evils and pick the one that you can live with.

Melanie Avalon: I think that's very insightful. It's interesting. When I got the question, I was like, "Oh, I'm sure I'll find something," but I didn't. I think she probably would have found it as well.

Gin Stephens: I think so, too, because she knows all about it.

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm. We feel free, Stephanie. Let us know, though if you do find something that works. We have a question from Renee. The subject is: "Juice Plus capsules and Renee says, "Hi, I've just read your book, Fast. Feast. Repeat. I have started 28 days of clean IF. My question is, can I take Juice Plus capsules in the morning without breaking my fast? I've included the labels below. I appreciate your help. So, looking at the label."

Gin Stephens: I do not even need to look at the label to answer this question. [laughs] We've gotten this question before. So, I'm familiar with this product. 

Melanie Avalon: You've gotten it before in the groups?

Gin Stephens: Oh, millions of times. Oh, yeah, oh, yeah.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. What is it? It's like fruits and vegetables? 

Gin Stephens: Well, here's the thing. We want to avoid anything food like during the fast and Juice Plus markets, they are products as being amazingly food like. They themselves tell you how food like they are. So, keep that in your eating window with the rest of your food.

Melanie Avalon: Yes, definitely, definitely, definitely.

Gin Stephens: Any supplement that is very, very food like is not going to be a great thing to have during the fast. Just put that in your eating window and you can get all the benefits from that product that you want just in your eating window. That's where all the nutrients come into our day in our eating window.

Melanie Avalon: Perfect. All right now we have a question from Sally. Subject is: "Children and fasting." And Sally says, "Hello, Mel and Gin. I have always been a breakfast girl, but I have gradually decreased what I eat at breakfast and I have started the 16:8 fast the last two days and I'm loving it. I pretty much forced my kids to have breakfast every day and now, I'm thinking that maybe that's not the best idea. Our kids naturally conditioned to do the fast and then, we push our three-meal-a-day beliefs on them. Should I be making them have breakfast? Sorry, if you've already answered this. I am only on Episode 7 of your podcast, which I am loving. Sally." We have answered this before, but it's been a while. So, I thought we would bring it back. And she has another question. She also says, "Does toothpaste break your fast?" Oh, she's from Australia.

Gin Stephens: All right, well, Sally, brushing your teeth is something that's very brief. Just brush and go about your day. It's very different from if you're having a diet soda that you're having for a long period of time. Because you rarely would have one sip of diet soda and that's it for the whole day. People drink it over a period of time. In fact, I remember back when I was having all those diety drinks, I was sipping on one nonstop, morning till evening. I was always having something that broke a fast. Anyway, toothpaste is brief. Your brush, you go on, brush couple times a day, that's it. So, please, brush your teeth. Now, as far as the kids go, we really just do everything we can. It seems like to get them to not listen to their natural hunger and satiety signals, when you think about the way we raise them in today's society. We say, "Oh, go ahead and eat this." We have the regular meal times. We say, "Clean your plate, go ahead and eat more." If they tell you, you are full, "We are like eat three more bites for mama." I mean, I remember saying that. It didn't seem enough to me, but he was full, but I was trying to get him to eat more. 

It's no wonder that by the time we grow up, we have lost complete touch with our hunger and satiety signals we've been trained to eat, I guess, Pavlov's dogs, right? We eat on cue, we eat when it's time to eat, eat because we're told to eat. I really do think that we offer food to kids at different times and then, see if they're like, "No, thank you," then, we don't force them to eat. I think that even comes to breakfast. Offer them breakfast, if they eat it or not. If you're having to force them to eat something, I think that's never a winning strategy. Now, on the flipside, I would never say, "All right, kids are fasting," because that's a whole different thing. You might think what's the difference, if they're not eating breakfast, they're "fasting." Well, we call it break fast, because everybody breaks their fast. But don't tell children, they're doing an intermittent fasting approach or make a big deal out of it. Because maybe on Tuesday, they're not hungry for breakfast, but they wake up hungry on Wednesday and they want it. That's what you want to teach your kids. "Are you hungry right now?" If the answer is yes, then, let's go ahead and have something to eat. If you're not hungry right now, then let me know when you are hungry kind of a thing. I know you're like, "Well, this is when we're eating." That's sticky. But I know that so many of us have just grown-up eating, because it was time to eat, and that was the only reason, and that hasn't really served us very well.

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm. This is not the same thing. This is about the eating portion of it. But I did think that was something a really, really valuable section of your book, Clean(ish) was your whole section about working with your kids. When you're making changes in your dietary choices and I liked what you're saying about how we like to just not blame the kids, but just say, oh, they're picky eaters, when really it's probably a manifestation of-- They don't have to be picky eaters.

Gin Stephens: They don't. Children are not naturally picky eaters in the world. And then, parents will sometimes say, "Yeah, but my child has sensory disorders." I'm like, "Well, that's a different thing." If your child has a diagnosed disorder that causes sensory problems and they can't eat things that are crunchy, for example, that's a whole different can of worms or if your child is autistic, whatever issues. I also think that those issues are not our natural state of being. We have to think, why are so many children having these issues now? That's not normal or natural. Again, it goes to our chemical world, changing our kids and their gut microbiomes for example. So, it's really a giant can of worms [laughs] and in some parts of the world, they eat those worms, but our kids are like, "No." [laughs] 

Melanie Avalon: Speaking of worms, Monday is when I interview Bill Schindler that Eat Like a Human, the one where he talks about like insect protein and all of these crazy things. I'm super excited. Do you remember, because Gin, you mentioned this stat in your book and I've read it a lot of other places, too. How many times you have to introduce a food to a kid before they might--?

Gin Stephens: I can't remember the number off the top of my head. It's an average number. It is a lot of times.

Melanie Avalon: It's like a dozen or something. It's around there. 

Gin Stephens: The first time I gave Cal carrots and he didn't like carrots. I'm like, "Cal didn’t like carrots." I didn't know any better. You just keep offering it. Eventually, they'll like the carrots.

Melanie Avalon: So, I just looked it up briefly. This one research site says, at least 12 times maybe up to 30 times.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, and my kids were above average. So, they probably would have needed 30. [laughs] Joking, but you know.

Melanie Avalon: I do want to comment on the toothpaste really quickly, because I know we've talked about a lot of different toothpastes that we've used over the years. The one I use right now, I actually really, really like and it has no sweetness to it at all. It is Weleda Salt toothpaste. I get it at Whole Foods. I'm looking at the EWG rating for it right now, the Environmental Working Group, and this is the 2016 formulations. I'd have to double check and make sure it's the same formulation. Oh, and to clarify, the Environmental Working Group also something that Gin talks about in her book, Clean(ish), which we will put a link to in the show notes. It's an organization, where they rate the potential toxicity a lot of chemicals, and ingredients, and things pervasive in our food, in our cosmetics, in our environment, and they give ratings, and you can see what products are rated, and you can also see the breakdown of why it's rated, because normally, the number-- or the number is an average of all of the ingredients. 

Gin Stephens: Can I pop in real quick comment about that? If you're using the app, it gives you less information than if you're on their website. Just FYI. If people are ever looking at the app and they're confused by the number, go to their website, because they're more in depth on their website. 

Melanie Avalon: Okay, that's really good to know. They also have their specific, what is it skin deep database specific to cosmetics? Looking at the salt toothpaste, for example, so, it has a three, which is fair, but the reason it has a three, all of the ingredients are actually ones and two, except there are two ingredients that are fours, which is not as good. But those ingredients, one of them is peppermint oil, and the reason it's a four is because people can have allergies to it. I know I'm good with peppermint oil. So, I'm not concerned about that. And then, the other four is unspecified flavor, which as we know that can be really anything, but on the label, it says that it's from natural essential oils. I personally feel completely fine with this formulation. The reason I'm mentioning it is because it has no sweet taste. It's very salty and a little bit of pepperminty. It's actually very strong on the peppermint front. It's a really good one. If you do want to toothpaste that doesn't have any sweetness to it, which are really hard to find. 

Gin Stephens: Oh, yeah, they are. I just like, "No big deal. I don't even try."

Melanie Avalon: Honestly, this may be one of the only ones-- The amount of hours probably that I've spent in the Whole Foods toothpaste section like looking at every single one, it's really hard to find ones without sweetness.

Gin Stephens: it really is. That was a really good tip you just gave about. Really digging into the rating and figuring out why it gets the number, it gets instead of just using it as like, "Oh, that's whatever. I can't use that." That's the whole point of being educated and say, "Well, why is this rated the way it's rated?" And knowing what is your personal definition of clean(ish), what you would or would not tolerate in your product is different than what I would or would not tolerate in my product.

Melanie Avalon: Actually, to that point, I recently had a listener reach out about LMNT, the electrolyte supplement that we talked about a lot on the show. They have a raw unflavored version, but then they have a lot of flavors. The way it's listed on the packet is natural flavors. This person was very concerned, because they had watched this YouTube video about natural flavors and how toxic they are or how they are something that you should avoid at all costs, which in general, I definitely agree with.

Gin Stephens: Because they can hide anything under those names. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, exactly. She sent me the video and I was like, "Yes, this is quite often a problem. Natural flavors can really be anything." I was like, "That's why it's really important to trust and find out what is in the flavors." I was telling her how-- When we interviewed Robb, I don't know if I asked him about the natural flavors on this show or on the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast. Because I had an electrolyte episode with him on both shows. But in one of the episodes, I'll just put a link in the show notes to both. I asked him about the natural flavors and he was able to tell me literally what it comes from. I really trust Robb. What was funny was, I told her all this, but she couldn't really see that perspective, because watching this YouTube video that made it sound all bad all the time.

Gin Stephens: Oh, yeah. Natural flavor could be just fine or it could be something really terrible. They didn't have to tell you, because they just call it natural flavors. That's the thing. That's where you're like--

Melanie Avalon: We need nuance. 

Gin Stephens: Yeah, you just don't know what it is. If I don't know what it is, I'm suspicious of what it might be. But if you have talked to the creator and he tells you what it is, then, it's okay.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, exactly. I was like, "How do I explain that--? I was saying what we just said that it really is context dependent. But it goes back to what we were saying in the beginning of the show. I think you were saying about people hear ideas, very black and white intense ideas, and then, it can be hard to have nuance surrounding everything. So, I just encourage doing your research and diving in deep. 

Gin Stephens: Absolutely. 

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

Gin Stephens: All right, this is from Amy and the subject is: "gut!!" which I just love that subject. [laughs] All right, she says, "Hi, ladies. Love your podcast. I've been doing IF off and on for about six months. I've been doing it correctly with the clean fast and the whole works for three months and I feel great. I don't have a lot of weight to lose, but the science is fascinating and I learned so much with Gin's book, Fast. Feast. Repeat. So good." Thank you so much, Amy. "I have lost about five to eight pounds and my clothes continue to feel better on me. I like Gin do not weigh myself anymore. I don't care about the number. However, just to give you an idea, I'm 5'1" and I think I'm around 130. That sounds high to some people, but I feel good here. My life has been nothing, but diet after diet and I've been as high as 155." So, 130 feels great. "Anyway, my question is for Melanie. I could listen to you all day long about SIBO and gut bacteria. I have a huge, long history of digestive issues. I have been diagnosed with SIBO, lactose intolerance, and fructose malabsorption through breath testing, I feel much better following a low FODMAP diet and either taking lactase before I eat dairy or just eliminating it altogether. Okay. Now my question is, my doctor has told me not to take probiotics because I have too much bacteria in my small intestine and by the way, we have tried to treat it multiple times with various antibiotics, but it never really goes away. Natural probiotics such as apple cider vinegar, kombucha, sauerkraut, etc., make my gut worse as in terrible gas and diarrhea. I am typically more on the constipated side. I'm wondering if you have the same issues and why, when something is supposed to help feed good bacteria and I'm having the opposite effect. Do you have these issues with your SIBO problems? Side note, IF has helped tremendously with the gas and bloating if I do happen to eat too much of something I'm not supposed to. I assume because I don't have food breaking down in my gut constantly. It does not seem like rocket science, so, I don't know why this has taken me so long to figure out and why all of the digestive doctors and nutritionists I have seen through the years never mentioned that maybe I should give my digestion a break during the day, so, the gases don't build up so much. Anyway, I appreciate any thoughts on why I can't handle certain natural probiotics. Thanks, Amy."

Melanie Avalon: Awesome, Amy. Thank you so much for your question and yes, I definitely relate to all of this. Okay, so, there is a lot here. First of all about the fasting, and giving your gut a break, and the beneficial effects. Yes, that's one of my favorite benefits of intermittent fasting for sure. There's a lot of reasons for that. Like Amy mentioned, giving your gut a break. Your migrating motor complex, which is the natural intestinal movements of your GI tract, so, they actually happen on a clock. When you're fasted, it allows those movements to happen and actually move things through, and Amy said, "Keep things from building up." And also, it's thought that fasting selectively helps support good bacteria while helping bad bacteria die off, which is really, really nice. Thomas DeLauer, reading his book, I just read this section last night and he was saying, I never thought about it this way. He was saying that the bad bacteria tend to replicate a lot faster. They need to be basically fed. The fasting helps prune them out a bit. I know that fasting has been shown to boost-- Who is it who talks about this? I think it's Dr. Gundry talks about this all the time. Akkermansia, which is a beneficial gut bacteria and it goes up and fasting. Yeah, so, fasting can be great for the gut microbiome. 

As far as the SIBO, which is small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, basically, it's a condition where there is an excess of bacteria, potentially, good and bad in the small intestine, which is supposed to be relatively sterile compared to the large intestine, which is our colon. And sidenote. It's thought historically that that is "bad bacteria" coming up from your large intestine. But I was listening to a podcast recently with Dr. Ruscio, who we've had on the show and I actually, I really suggest his book, Healthy Gut, Healthy You to help tackle a lot of this. He works with low FODMAP diets and he addresses all of this. We can put a link to both our interview with him as well as his book in the show notes. But recently, they've started doing research and wondering if small intestinal bacterial overgrowth is actually created more from top down. Bacteria from your mouth going down, rather than up from the large intestine, which is very interesting concept. But in any case, so, just a quick clarification about your terminology, because you're talking about probiotics but then you say, I'm wondering when something is supposed to help feed good bacteria, am I having the opposite effect? 

Probiotics don't feed gut bacteria. Probiotics are actually bacteria. Prebiotics are the substrates that would feed bacteria. That's a lot of types of foods. When you're mentioning natural probiotics such as apple cider vinegar-- Okay, so, apple cider vinegar, if it's natural, not pasteurized with, they call it with the mother that would have probiotics in it. Kombucha probiotic, sauerkraut-- Okay, so, these are all probiotic foods. A few different things going on here. One, a lot of people with SIBO need to clear out some of that bacteria before they're bringing in the bacteria and sometimes, it can just exacerbate conditions. Some people do great. Some people probiotics and probiotic foods really, really help. Other people, not so much. It's so individual and I wish there was one answer, but there's not. Just like there's not one diet for everybody. If you are experimenting with these foods, I'd recommend, I don't know how much of them you're eating. If you want to try them, I would try very, very minimal amounts and see if that helps. It's actually thought-- This is interesting. A few things about these foods. If they are completely unpasteurized, it is possible that you're getting live probiotics from it. But the benefits actually might be more from the signaling from them. 

A few for things. Basically, they might even have an antibiotic effect, which is really interesting. And then, also Dr. Gundry talks about this in his new book, Unlocking the Keto Code. But these foods actually can create short chain fatty acids when they're metabolized and that can actually have a beneficial effect on the gut. It might not even be the actual bacteria themselves in this that it's having the effect. Another thing that speaks to this is, there have been studies on probiotic supplements that are dead. So, they're not even alive and they have beneficial effects. The thinking is that, it's more the body's response to the probiotics maybe not so much even the probiotics themselves. All that said, if it's making things worse for you, I would not keep doing it. I would focus more on the foundational diet. It sounds this low FODMAP diet is working for you and the lack tastes before dairy. I would focus on that. If you want to experiment with these foods, like I said, try just a tiny bit, and maybe write it out, and see if it helps. That's something to consider. Also, something else, there was a very fascinating study pretty recently. I might have talked about on the show. Okay, so this is going to sound a little bit contradictory to what I just said. 

But there was a 2021 study published in Cell fascinating. It's called gut microbiota targeted diets modulate human immune status. They actually compared a high-fermented food diet to a high-fiber diet for the effects on the gut microbiome as well as inflammatory markers and they found the-- This is why I'm saying. This is a little bit contradictory. They found that the high-fermented food diet was substantially better than the high-fiber diet, because it seems seemingly the fiber diet just exacerbated symptoms. The point of all that is, I think you touched on this. I think you've figured a little bit of this out, because you're doing the low FODMAP diet. So, that's probably a reason that that is benefiting you so well. But I think the point of all this to bring everything together is that, you really have to find what works for you and things are different for different people. Because what that study, for example, people often say, "Oh, eat tons of fiber to fix your gut." But it might be more individual. I think one of the nuances of that study was it actually depended on people's baseline gut microbiome state as to what effects the dietary approaches had. So, I'm going to stop, but I just wanted to encourage you-- I would not feel you have to be doing these foods. You could also try, because you're talking about probiotics from foods. You could also try probiotic supplements and see how those help. You might find that those work. A lot of people really like BiOptimizers, P3-OM. I've found that one really beneficial. I've also experimented with Bifidobacterium-specific probiotics. So, if you do go that route, those will probably be more beneficial than the lactobacillus ones, especially, if you have trouble with dairy. But yes, that was all over the place. Gin, do you have thoughts?

Gin Stephens: Because it's so complicated and it's not easy. If we're starting from a healthy gut, then, we should be able to tolerate so many foods, especially, these probiotic foods, and these fiber foods, and these healthy foods. A healthy gut does great with those foods. But as I talk about in Clean(ish), for example, Will, my son that's 22 now, I'm pretty sure he was not born with a healthy gut based on the way I ate when I was pregnant, and probably, my own gut microbiome, eating a lot of ultra-processed foods. He was a baby, he had thrush. I think he had a really terrible gut and that led to a lot of his issues. In the modern world, we're not always starting with a healthy gut. So, there's the issue. Things that would have been fine are no longer fine. I actually thought it was very interesting. Something that really stuck in my mind while researching for Clean(ish), the whole idea of fiber, exacerbating gut issues, and it just came in my mind when Melanie was talking. People were like, "Well, fiber destroys your gut. Every time I eat it, it's terrible. Fiber must be bad." But really, you got to go back several steps. 

Let's say, you have a traditional standard American diet, the SAD diet, and you're eating a lot of ultra-processed foods or mostly ultra-processed foods, your gut bacteria might actually eat your gut lining, because they don't have enough fiber to work on. Now, they're eating your gut lining. Now, you've got leaky gut. Now you're like, "I'm going to eat healthier, I'm going to add all these good fiber foods, because I'm upping my eating healthy." Then, you eat those foods and your gut is damaged from all the years of poor eating habits. And now, you can't handle fiber because your gut lining is compromised. Now, you have leaky gut and fiber exacerbates the problem. That book that you mentioned by Dr. Ruscio, I loved when I read it. It was years ago, but he talks about that we can heal. Whatever state you're in right now, don't assume that that is the state of your gut forever. I love that he talks about that you can heal your gut. I would focus on that. In the meantime, though, you do have to work with the gut and the body you have now. If something exacerbates your problems, you got to figure out, is it worth it, is this going to help me get better, or is this just making things worse? Really, ideally, in a perfect world, we would have a gastroenterologist, who understood all the ins and outs literally, and could guide you through rebuilding your gut microbiome, and having things be healthy, and working as intended with a strong gut lining, and a great gut microbiome habitat just in general.

Melanie Avalon: Exactly. Yeah. What I really love about Dr. Rucsio, because he has a podcast you could check out. He's always reading all of the latest research, and he has a very nuanced approach, and everything Gin just said, he really understands that it's very individual and you have to find the path that works for you. I think with the fiber, also, what Gin was saying, it might be a process to getting to a place, where you can have more of it and it might be a slow journey. So, I think we shouldn't be hard on ourselves if we can't eat a wallop of fiber.

Gin Stephens: Absolutely. And that doesn't mean the fiber is bad. It just means that your body isn't processing it correctly, why?

Melanie Avalon: Exactly. Oh, I did run into on one resource, because she said, she struggles with constipation. So, I love Atrantil. Did we have Ken Brown on this show? We did, right?

Gin Stephens: I think we did. I know we had Atrantil on here. Yeah. I did remember his name, but I know we did. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: And he was one of my first guests as well on the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast. Wow, that seems so long ago.

Gin Stephens: It really does. We've been doing this show for five years. 

Melanie Avalon: That's crazy. Wow. Atrantil, it was developed by Dr. Ken Brown, he's a gastroenterologist. It's all natural polyphenols and a few other compounds. It can be really a game changer for bloating and constipation in particular. I love it. I love, love, love it. If you go to lovemytummy.com/ifp and use the coupon code, IFP, that will get you 10% off at checkout. I will say, because I think you can order on Amazon as well, but ordering from their website, they actually do have really fast shipping. It's pretty comparable to Amazon. It's really hard for companies to compete with shipping with Amazon.

Gin Stephens: I know. It really, really is. I think they take a loss on it. Honestly, I think Amazon takes a loss to get your business.

Melanie Avalon: Well. In any case, hopefully that was helpful. A few things for listeners before we go. If you would like to submit your own questions for the show, you can directly email questions@ifpodcast.com or you can go to ifpodcast.com and you can submit questions there. The show notes will have a full transcript as well as links to everything that we talked about. So, definitely check that out. They will be at ifpodcast.com/episode260. And then, you can follow us on Instagram. I am @melanieavalon and Gin is @ginstephens and I think that is everything. So, anything from you, Gin, before we go?

Gin Stephens: Nope, I'll just see you next week.

Melanie Avalon: Okey-dokey. Bye. 

Gin Stephens: Bye. 

Melanie Avalon: Thank you so much for listening to the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Please remember, everything we discussed on this show does not constitute medical advice. We're not doctors. If you enjoyed the show, please consider writing your review on iTunes. We couldn't do this without our amazing team. Administration by Sharon Merriman, editing by Podcast Doctors, show notes and artwork by Brianna Joyner, transcripts by SpeechDocs, theme music by Leland Cox. See you next week.

STUFF WE LIKE

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

More on Gin: GinStephens.com

Theme Music Composed By Leland Cox: LelandCox.com

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

 

 

Apr 03

Episode 259: Bariatric Surgery, Neurodegeneration Disease, High Cortisol, High Blood Pressure, Eating After A Workout, Protein Intake, Bloating, And More!

Intermittent Fasting

Welcome to Episode 259 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine and Gin Stephens, author of Delay, Don't Deny: Living An Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle

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

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SHOW NOTES

LMNT: For A Limited Time Go To drinklmnt.com/ifpodcast To Get A Sample Pack For Only The Price Of Shipping!! Learn All About Electrolytes In Episode 237 - Our Interview With Robb Wolf!

BEAUTYCOUNTER: Keep Your Fast Clean Inside And Out With Safe Skincare! Shop With Us At MelanieAvalon.com/beautycounter, And Something Magical Might Happen After Your First Order! Find Your Perfect Beautycounter Products With Melanie's Quiz: melanieavalon.com/beautycounterquiz
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AUDIBLE: Go To Audible.com/IFPODCAST Or Text IFPODCAST To 500500 For A 30 Day Free Trial, Including A Free Audiobook! 

Listener Q&A: Marilyn - IF and bariatric surgery

The Intermittent Fasting Revolution: The Science of Optimizing Health and Enhancing Performance (Mark Mattson)

IF Stories Episode 37: Lori LaMantia

The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #115 - Valter Longo, Ph.D.

Listener Q&A: Leigh Anne - Cortisol and High blood pressure

IF Stories Episode 61: Gagan Behl

Effect of intermittent fasting and chronotherapy on blood pressure control in hypertensive patients during Ramadan 

Blood Pressure Changes in 1610 Subjects With and Without Antihypertensive Medication During Long‐Term Fasting 

Effects of Ramadan fasting on anthropometric measures, blood pressure, and lipid profile among hypertensive patients in the Kurdistan region of Iraq 

Effects of Intermittent Compared With Continuous Energy Restriction on Blood Pressure Control in Overweight and Obese Patients With Hypertension 

GREEN CHEF: Go To greenchef.com/ifpodcast130 And Use Code IFPODCAST130 To Get $130 Off Including Free Shipping!

Listener Q&A: Maryka - Eating After A Strenuous Workout?

TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Welcome to Episode 259 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. If you want to burn fat, gain energy, and enhance your health by changing when you eat, not what you eat with no calorie counting, then this show is for you. I'm Melanie Avalon, author of What When Wine: Lose Weight and Feel Great with Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, and Wine. And I'm here with my cohost, Gin Stephens, author of Fast. Feast. Repeat.: The Comprehensive Guide to Delay, Don't Deny Intermittent Fasting. For more on us, check out ifpodcast.com, melanieavalon.com, and ginstephens.com. Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this podcast do not constitute medical advice or treatment. So, pour yourself a cup of black coffee, a mug of tea, or even a glass of wine, if it's that time, and get ready for The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. 

Hi, friends. I'm about to tell you how you can get free electrolyte supplements, some of which are clean, fast approved, all developed by none other than Robb Wolf. Have you been struggling to feel good with low carb, paleo, keto, or fasting? Have you heard of something called the keto flu? Here's the thing. The keto flu is not actually a condition. Nope. Keto flu just refers to a bundle of symptoms. Headaches, fatigue, muscle cramps, and insomnia that people experience in the early stages of keto dieting. Here's what's going on. 

When you eat a low-carb diet, your insulin levels drop. Low insulin in turn lowers the production of the hormone aldosterone. Now aldosterone is made in the kidneys and it helps you retain sodium. Low aldosterone on a keto diet makes you lose sodium at a rapid rate. Even if you are consciously consuming electrolytes, you might not be getting enough. In particular, you need electrolytes, especially sodium and potassium in order for nerve impulses to properly fire. Robb Wolf, who as you guys know is my hero in the holistic health world worked with the guys at Ketogains to get the exact formulation for electrolyte supplements to formulate LMNT Recharge, so you can maintain ketosis and feel your best. LMNT recharge has no sugar, no coloring, no artificial ingredients, no junk. They're used by three Navy SEALs teams, they are the official hydration partner to Team USA weightlifting, they're used by multiple NFL teams, and so much more. Guess what? We worked out an exclusive deal for The Intermittent Fasting Podcast listeners only. Guys, this is huge. They weren't going to do a deal, I begged them, here we are. 

You can get a free LMNT sampler pack. We're not talking a discount, we're talking free. Completely free. You only pay $5 for shipping. If you don't love it, they will even refund you the $5 for shipping. I'm not kidding. The sampler pack includes eight packets of LMNT, two Citrus, two Raspberry, two Orange, and two Raw Unflavored. The Raw Unflavored ones are the ones that are safe for your clean fast and the other ones you can have in your eating window. Word on the street is the Citrus flavor makes an amazing margarita, by the way. 

I am loving LMNT and I think you guys will too. Again, this is completely free. You have nothing to lose. Just go to drinklmnt.com/ifpodcast. That's D-R-I-N-K-L-M-N-T dotcom forward slash IFPODCAST. I'll put all this information in the show notes. 

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: Hi, everybody and welcome. This is Episode number 259 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon and I'm here with Gin Stephens.

Gin Stephens: Hi everybody.

Melanie Avalon: How are you today, Gin?

Gin Stephens: Freezing.

Melanie Avalon: I know. It's amazing.

Gin Stephens: It's not amazing. Anyway, I will say that we just had the time change. We're recording this a few weeks before it comes out. It's my favorite time change. This is the one I like.

Melanie Avalon: Wait, that blows my mind. I know you like earlier, but do you like losing an hour of sleep?

Gin Stephens: I don't lose "lose an hour of sleep." You lose one hour of your life, but to me, I didn't lose any sleep. What happens is, the time I naturally want to go to bed and the time I naturally wake up are more socially acceptable with this version of time. This morning I woke up and instead of looking at the clock and it was 5 AM, and I'm like, "Man, it's too early to get up." I looked at the clock and it was 6 AM and I'm like, "Awesome. Time to get up."

Melanie Avalon: That concept didn't occur to me. There would be a way to not lose sleep.

Gin Stephens: Because I just wake up naturally. I don't ever wake up-- At night, the whole winter time, whatever-- I can never remember, which is daylight savings, which is the other. I always have to look it up, which is standard, which is anyway. But the winter version of it, I'm ready to go to bed at 8:30 at night every single night. But when the time changes, suddenly, that's 9:30 and it's okay to go to bed at 9:30, if you want to, but 8:30 feels crazy. I can no longer adjust. I naturally want to go to bed at the same time year-round, but in the winter, I want to go to bed at 8:30 and I wake up at five. In the summer, it's okay to go to bed at 9:30 and wake up at 6. It's exactly the same. I like what the clock says better.

Melanie Avalon: I think the reason, because this actually, honestly did not occur to me. Because I know there are people that are like you. But the reason I think it didn't occur to me was, there's all those articles out there about how this time change has such a negative effect on people's health. So, I just assumed it was applying. I assumed even people who get up early were losing-- felt like they were losing an hour of sleep, but that's interesting.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I just wake up naturally. Now, it was different when I had to set an alarm clock and wake up to go to work. I had to set my alarm clock for 5:30 to get up. You can see how that would be different. Today, I naturally woke up at 6 AM, new time. Had I had to set an alarm for 5:30? It would have been 30 minutes before I naturally woke up. But I really very much have-- Just like you get in touch with your hunger and satiety cues, I am very much in touch with my I-need-to-go-to-bed-now [laughs] cues and I wake up naturally. So, it's really hard for me to wake up and it's 5 AM and I'm like, "It's just too early to get up," but I'm awake. But it's okay that it's six. Anyway, this is the one that fits with my natural rhythm better.

Melanie Avalon: I cannot honestly remember the last time I ever went to bed and the reason was because "Oh, I need to go to bed now." It is always me. I've set in place all the programs that make my body fall asleep, but it's never like, "Oh, I need to go to bed."

Gin Stephens: My body tells me every night that I need to go to bed. It's sometimes it's hard, because I'll be like, "I got to go to bed now" and Chad's like, "What? It's Saturday night." I'm like, "I don't care. I don't care what night it is." [laughs] 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, that's my dad. 

Gin Stephens: Yeah. But I've really always been like that looking back to college. I would always be the one who's like, "I'm going back to the dorm now or whatever." [laughs] It was just always me. 

Melanie Avalon: Wow. I remember last time I said I was going to do a poll in the Facebook group. 

Gin Stephens: I do remember that. What was it about? I forgot. 

Melanie Avalon: That's a funny thing. Then I sat down, I was like, "I'm going to do the poll" and I was like, "Wait, what was the poll?" [giggles] 

Gin Stephens: I do remember. You were going to, but what it was about? No.

Melanie Avalon: At first, I thought it was early versus late night eating. Then I was like, "No, it's not that." Then I thought it was like a one meal a day and I was like, "No, it's not that." But I think I remembered what it was, which was, "how did people's coffee intake changed based on fasting?" I asked my group, "How did starting fasting affect your coffee intake type, amount, etc.?" I added originally seven or eight options and then people added other options, but the most common response, do you want to guess? I'll give you the vibe. The types of options I gave were more coffee before fasting, more coffee after fasting, switching to black coffee, having more coffee in the beginning of fasting, and then last, basically, I just came up with all the different options. What response would you come up with as the most common for people's coffee intake?

Gin Stephens: I bet people would probably say that they drink more coffee now.

Melanie Avalon: Or, also similar amounts as an option, too.

Gin Stephens: I bet they would say, they drink more coffee, now. I'm not sure if that's true, because people-- I just remember walking around my elementary school as a teacher and every single person that I passed had a coffee tumbler in their hand all the time, literally, all the time. People had something in their hand. That was coffee in there. But I bet people said they drink more now.

Melanie Avalon: The number one vote with 186 people was, "I drank similar amounts of coffee before fasting, but switched to black coffee for fasting."

Gin Stephens: Well, okay, that's what I would say is true for me. People don't always say like, they might have a perception that it's different. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. 

Gin Stephens: Well, good. That's what happened for me as well. Similar, it's just black now. 

Melanie Avalon: The second one with 92, so half of the amount as the first one was, "I drink more coffee after fasting." 

Gin Stephens: Well, that's what I thought more people would pick. I'm not certain that it's true, because like I said, people always like-- This is when I was teaching and the people were not walking around with black coffee. They're walking around with their hot milkshakes. But I would think people might think they're drinking more than they used to.

Melanie Avalon: The next one 57 votes was similar to the first one, but without the black coffee. So, it was, "I drink similar amounts of black coffee before and after fasting," 20 votes, "I went cold turkey and switched to black coffee with fasting." That's a nuanced answer that doesn't really apply. 

Gin Stephens: Yeah, it doesn't tell us whether it's more or less. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. This is one I did. 15 votes, "I drank more coffee in the beginning of fasting, but now drink less coffee than I did before fasting." I think that's what we were talking about last time. 

Gin Stephens: Yeah, that's what you said. You did, yeah. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. Then it drops down, the next one is, "I gradually weaned myself off of cream and sweetener with fasting," which was 11 people. Then it just goes into really random miscellaneous things. But there're a lot of comments to about people talking about their coffee habits. People like discussing their coffee habits and fasting.

Gin Stephens: Oh, trust me, look, I ran those Facebook groups for so long. Coffee, it's like the hot button issue, no pun intended. People are really, really protective of what they think is how they have to have their coffee. I used to be, too. I had a period of mourning and like, "I'm just going to have to drink zero coffee rather than switch to black." But then I realized I enjoy the ritual of-- Right now, I'm drinking hot water, because it's so freezing and it's in the afternoon. But I love my hot coffee, I like the smell of it, I like brewing it. Yeah, I just enjoy coffee. So, black coffee, luckily, I adjusted pretty quickly. 

Melanie Avalon: Yep. I was that the vote about. "I gradually weaned myself." I did not go cold turkey. I don't think.

Gin Stephens: After I read The Obesity Code and I understood the cephalic phase insulin response, keep in mind, I'd already lost almost all the weight. I lost the amount of weight I thought I wanted to lose at that point. I was at what I thought was my goal, but didn't understand the cephalic phase insulin response. Then The Obesity Code came out, and I read it, and I'm like, "Oh, gosh, I'm shooting myself in the foot with vanilla creme stevia, and cinnamon, and sometimes, lattes that I'm having and thinking I'm fasting." Once I really believe something is true like that, you have to read The Obesity Code and understanding the role of insulin, it explained why I was so hungry, and it didn't make any sense to wean myself off. I knew I needed to stop.

Melanie Avalon: Totally, make sense and sounds like a lot of people easily switch.

Gin Stephens: And it made a huge difference. I used to white knuckle it to my eating window every day. Because I was so desperate to lose the weight, then I lost 75 pounds, even though, I wasn't fasting clean, so, I didn't know anything about that, yet. [giggles] But it was worth the white knuckling just to finally be at a goal weight, but it was still white knuckling. If I had not figured out the clean fast, would I be sitting here today, seven years later after hitting my initial goal still actually wearing smaller jeans than when I hit my initial goal. By the way, two days from now, as of the date we're recording, this is my anniversary of hitting my goals. Seven years. Yep. 

Melanie Avalon: Happy anniversary. 

Gin Stephens: I know. This is the first time in my adult life, actually, it's the first time my entire life if you go back to childhood and beyond that I've ever worn the same clothes for seven years in a row. Not had to get bigger clothes. When I was a kid, I was constantly having to get bigger clothes because I was growing like children do. But this is the first time, seven years, I've not ever had to get clothes, because I needed bigger clothes. It is the first time in my entire 52 years of life that I've gone seven years without needing bigger clothes.

Melanie Avalon: I'm just thinking about this now. I guess, I've worn the same clothes since I really switched to a low-carb diet 10 years ago.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, it's pretty amazing, because I was a yo-yoer all those years and it's funny. Now, that I am the same size all the time, it's funny to watch people who have never struggled with their weight and looking at our wardrobes. I used to always have to buy new clothes, because I was a totally different size. Maybe I was gaining weight, maybe I was losing weight. Every time the weather changed, I needed new clothes, because I was a different size than I was the year before. I was constantly needing different clothes, because I was always up or down, up or down. Looking at people who are maybe naturally slim, for example, I think I have several friends, who are naturally slim and they've always been the same size. Sometimes, you look at their outfits and you're like, "Okay, it's time to get rid of that one, time to retire it, because it's out of style." I am finally one of those people, who has to go through my closet and say, "All right, what's out of style and get rid of those clothes?'

Melanie Avalon: My clothes never go out of style, because I basically just wear black dresses and they don't ever really go out of style. So, I'm good.

Gin Stephens: Well, black dresses do change. You're still young. Just wait. They do. 

Melanie Avalon: I don't know. Like a classy black dress. 

Gin Stephens: I look back at some black dresses I've worn over my 52 years of life, even my adulthood and there are definitely some of them that are not in style anymore. But maybe you're just getting 100% classic ones that will never go out of style. 

Melanie Avalon: I always wear the classy black-- the cocktail black dress. I don't like sleeve, so it never has sleeves. There's not much that could be crazy. 

Gin Stephens: Fabrics change, and the cuts change, and the hem length changes, things like that do change. Fabric really changes.

Melanie Avalon: I always wear a cocktail length, usually. Unless, the concept of a black cocktail dress goes out of style, I think I'm good. 

Gin Stephens: All right, well, that's really unusual. [laughs] There are some clothes that are classic. When I was in Arizona in October, I pulled out a dress that I had from, I don't know 20 years ago, and it was classic. It was a very classic cut. It was a navy-blue dress, very classic cut. But very few things in my closet I think would last like that. 

Melanie Avalon: The majority of my closet would.

Gin Stephens: Sometimes, you don't even care. Because for example, once my feet discovered how much they loved Uggs in the wintertime, I'm going to wear those forever because they're just so comfortable. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I think that's the way I am. I feel I have my style that's me. So, it doesn't really matter. It's like not a crazy style. 

Gin Stephens: I'm for the most part like that, but things like shirts, it's mainly shirts that change.

Melanie Avalon: I don't really wear shirts.

Gin Stephens: I do. Sheri, my friend that records Life Lessons with me, she's so funny. She told the story of-- The first time she came to my house, we were getting ready to go on a cruise. I guess, we're going to go together from my house, but she drove to my house, and I was getting ready to cook dinner, and I said, "I need to change my shirt to cook in," and I took off one blouse, and put on a different blouse. She describes it as a blouse. That's just the way I dress up. [laughs] I changed back as-- whatever blouse I was wearing the sleeves probably were too going to get in the way, so I changed from one blouse to a different blouse, and she laughed, and I just thought that story was funny. I wear jeans pretty much every day. Unless it's summertime and then I'll wear shorts.

Melanie Avalon: I haven't really contemplated this recently about, I don't really wear shirts. I have a lot of shirts, but--

Gin Stephens: You just wear dresses. 

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm.

Gin Stephens: I basically have stopped wearing dresses, unless it's really a funeral. I just had to go to a funeral last month, and it was cold day, and I did not have a dress that you would want to wear in the cold, cold weather, so I wore pants. But everybody else had on pants. So, I'm like, "Well, okay."

Melanie Avalon: Not to be a sad topic, but a funeral I went to recently, we were actually discussing that how the attire for funerals has changed. It's appropriate. Now, you can wear pants.

Gin Stephens: Everybody had on pants, like, every woman there and the men, too, had on pants. Yeah, at first, I was like, "Gosh, I don't know. I don't know if I've ever worn pants to a funeral," but I didn't have a wintery dress.

Melanie Avalon: I just wore a non-wintry dress with a jacket. 

Gin Stephens: All of my non-wintry dresses are clearly summer dresses.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.

Gin Stephens: The fabric, or the pattern, or whatever. Anyway, good times. [laughs] Not the funeral, but you know what I mean? Talking about clothing. Funeral was not good times.

Melanie Avalon: I could talk about clothing for the entire show. Can I make an announcement? 

Gin Stephens: Sure. 

Melanie Avalon: I keep talking about how we're making our next AvalonX supplement, which is magnesium, and I finally signed off on the final spec sheet. It is moving forward. I wanted to give listeners more concrete details, because I know I've been a little bit vague about everything. It is eight forms of magnesium. Eight, because there are multiple types of magnesium. One of the special forms in there that I'm really excited about is magnesium three and eight. That's actually the only form of magnesium that can cross the blood brain barrier. Magnesium has a lot of benefits. It's involved in over 300 enzymatic processes in the body. It's really, really crucial for energy production and just so many things that our body does. It's really great for motility and bowel movements, which I love it for. But it's also really great for sleep and stress. If you in particular like that aspect of it, the three and eight, its effects on the brain is very calming. If people are currently taking a magnesium supplement and finding that it helps them wind down or helps them sleep, this should help even more so, then whatever they're currently taking, but it's not going to knock you out. If you take it during the day, it's not it makes you fall asleep. It just has a calming effect on the brain. 

Then it has no potentially toxic fillers or anything like that. It just has a tiny bit of organic MCT as the lubricant. It has an activated form as two cofactors to help with the absorption of magnesium, so that's B6 and manganese, and it actually has the activated form of B6, because especially, for people, who have like methylation issues and stuff, you really need that activated form. That activated form is called pyridoxal-5-phosphate. Then, it also has the most absorbable form of manganese, so that's manganese bisglycinate chelate. The capsule is just from natural forms of basically a type of fiber and I actually just got the details about this, because I wanted to know specifically what it was made from. It comes from a tree pulp, and it is in a glass bottle, and it's tested for heavy metals, and mold, and purity, and potency, and it is just friends, it is going to be the best magnesium on the market. We might change the name, but right now, we're calling it AvalonX Magnesium Spectrum. If you would like more information about that, definitely get on my supplement email list that's at melanieavalon.com/avalonx and then you can actually currently buy my serrapeptase, if you don't have it yet at avalonx.us, and that's also the website where the magnesium will be. I'm not exactly sure when we're releasing. I'm hoping April, but we shall see. This episode comes out probably in April.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, it does. It's April 4th. It comes out on my dad's birthday. 

Melanie Avalon: Oh, happy birthday to your dad.

Gin Stephens: My dad was born on 4-4-44, which is very easy to remember. [laughs] Isn't that cool? 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.

Gin Stephens: So, happy birthday, dad, when this comes out. 

Melanie Avalon: Happy birthday. I will have to send you Gin [giggles] once I have it, a bottle.

Gin Stephens: Oh, please do. I'll try it. If it's better, if I can tell the difference, I will definitely switch. All that research you are doing, I trust it with supplements. We were just having this conversation in my community today about supplements and how you just have to be so careful, because so many things are not regulated very well. You just read Clean(ish) recently, and I talked about this in Clean(ish) about how a lot of supplements, for example, products targeted to men might actually have actual Viagra in there [laughs] you know that coming out of a lab somewhere and that's not what it says it is. You just have to be careful. You just don't know. I am now at the point that literally I only buy supplements if I know the person who runs that company. Isn't that funny? 

Melanie Avalon: Oh, that's interesting. 

Gin Stephens: If that's true for you, too, they right?

Melanie Avalon: No. I [laughs] 

Gin Stephens: It's true for me. I only buy supplements if I have met the person, who runs the company.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I basically trust BiOptimizers.

Gin Stephens: I've met Wade face-to-face now.

Melanie Avalon: The only slight caveat with BiOptimizers and this is a reason I wanted to make my own versions of things is, I completely trust them, but they do have some ingredients that I'm just so intense that I wanted to take it one step further.

Gin Stephens: I'm not Melanie intense. I'm perfectly Wade intense. [laughs] 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, in general, I trust BiOptimizers, I trust Pure Encapsulations. I say all of this with the right to change my mind in the future, but Pure Encapsulations and I trust Thorne. The Thorne website has been very helpful for when I was formulating and trying to look at different ingredients. They have a lot of literature on their website about ingredients.

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Melanie Avalon: So, shall we jump into some things for today?

Gin Stephens: Yep, let's get started. 

Melanie Avalon: All right. To start things off, we have a question from Marilyn and the subject is: "IF and bariatric surgery." Marilyn says, "Hi, ladies. Love, love, love your podcasts and all that it's taught me about IF. I've been IF-ing for about three months and I've had great success with weight loss about 20 pounds in that time. I'm making my way through the podcast, but I haven't yet heard you address the issue of weight loss surgery with regard to how much someone can eat at one time and how that affects IF. In my experience, I can fast just fine. But because I cannot eat very much at a time, I cannot consume many calories in a shortish eating window. I've experimented with 18:6, I didn't lose much weight. 20:4, I had decent weight loss, and one meal a day, again, decent weight loss, and 42-hour fasts, very good weight loss. Having said all of that my primary goal no longer is weight loss, but autophagy. I'm a 57-year-old postmenopausal woman, whose parents both suffer from neurodegenerative diseases." She says, her dad has Parkinson's and her mom has Alzheimer's. An autophagy is a process believed to be highly protective against neurological degeneration. 

The question is, "Is daily IF enough to induce significant benefits of autophagy? Scientific literature that I read indicates autophagy is maximized more in the 36 to 72-hour range. Because of my smaller stomach, I had gastric sleeve surgery May of 2019. I cannot eat more than approximately one cup of food at a time and then it takes a couple of hours before I can eat more. I'm concerned about under eating in the longer fast scenarios and creating more of a calorie restriction situation, rather than attaining the benefits I want from fasting, which is a neurological support. Does that make sense? Whatever insight you can provide would be most appreciated. Keep up the good work and thank you for all that you do." 

Gin Stephens: All right, great questions, Marilyn. Thank you for sending them in. The best resource that I know of for what should we do if we want to prevent neurodegenerative diseases is Dr. Mark Mattson. He is currently adjunct professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins and he was the Chief of the Laboratory of Neurosciences at the National Institute on Aging. I think he's probably the number one expert in the entire world when it comes to fasting and how it's neuroprotective. Seriously, I think he is. Guess what he does? He has a daily eating window and he's been doing that since the 1980s. He doesn't do 36-to-72-hour fasts. If the number one expert on neuroscience and fasting has a daily eating window, that's pretty good for me to realize that I don't need to think that I have to do more. That's just the way I look at it. You know what? I'll have what he's having, right? [laughs] So, you may want to read his latest book. It came out it and it was his first book. He also has written a lot of journal articles. But his book is called The Intermittent Fasting Revolution: The Science of Optimizing Health and Enhancing Performance. It really reads like a journal article, because that's his background. He's written for medical journals his entire career. 

If you really want to dig into the science, that's where I would start that whole. That whole where you talk about autophagy being "maximized between 36 to 72 hours," you just have to think about the source and what they're actually doing. For example, let's talk about a human. A lot of the research on autophagy is not in humans, but let's talk about humans. Let's imagine you're a human, who doesn't fast at all. That person still has autophagy. But we're trying to maximize our autophagy or have increased autophagy. But if someone has no metabolic flexibility, they might need to fast for 36 to 72 hours before they experience increased autophagy. But for us, it's different. If you think about the state of ketosis that we get into when we're fasting, intermittent fasters, who are metabolically flexible, we can get into ketosis every day. Now, someone who is not metabolically flexible, if they just started fasting, they might not get into ketosis for 72 hours or something. I'm just throwing that number out there. So, does that mean that everybody has to fast for 72 hours to get into ketosis? No. What does that have to do with autophagy or ketosis and autophagy the same thing? They are not. But they happen in the same state in the body, when we are in the fasted state and our body is rummaging around to find energy sources. 

Our body is rummaging around to find energy sources turning fat into ketones, there's the ketosis, and at the same time, autophagy is upregulated, because our body is like, "Well, we got no protein coming in. Let's recycle some old protein." They happen at the same time. Just think of it as when ketosis is maximized, autophagy is also getting ramped up at the same time. Now, if you enjoy doing 42-hour fasts, then do them. I actually for you, however, because you've mentioned that you have a hard time eating enough because of your gastric sleeve, you may want to do 36-hour fasts instead of 42, and then give yourself 12 hours to eat, where you're eating your small amounts. So, 36:12 might be a better approach to eat for you or even 40:8, where you are fasting for 40 hours, then you have an eight-hour eating window, because you're right. You don't want to under eat on your up day, and you've got that surgically altered stomach that is going to keep you from being able to actually be up. If you have for example, a six-hour window, I cannot imagine you eating enough food in six hours with your small stomach to really truly be considered up like the research on up days. 36:12, possibly 40:8 might be better for you. 

Now if you'd like to listen to somebody, who shared their story on Intermittent Fasting Stories, someone who's been through a gastric bypass, Sue Wilsey, Episode 7 of Intermittent Fasting Stories is one to listen to. She talks about her struggles just like you're saying. You can't sit down and eat a giant meal. But Melanie and I, we were volume eaters, but you can't do that, because your body physically won't let you do that anymore. See about that, listen to that episode, and think about how you can make sure. If you're doing the longer fasts, make sure your up day is up enough. If you really want to make yourself feel competent that you don't have to do the longer fasts to experience neurological benefits, check out Dr. Mark Mattson's book, The Intermittent Fasting Revolution, because like I said, he is probably the premier expert on neurological diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, and how fast you can be beneficial for those, and he eats every day.

Melanie Avalon: Awesome. You had a lot of amazing thoughts and I agree with most of it. I have a slightly different idea about one of the things. Yes, one thing that is important to point out and Gin touched on this, but it's the concept, and she didn't really talk about this in her question, but just to dismantle an idea that's out there. Autophagy is not on or off. It's more like a dimmer switch. I think people often think that it's either on or it's off. But it's actually we have some autophagy going 24/7 all the time. It just gets ramped up substantially with things like fasting, exercise, even coffee. Oh, she did say something about that. She said-- Oh, that the significant effects are-- Oh, that it's maximized in the 36-to-72-hour range, which is likely the case that the longer you fast, the autophagy will be substantially ramped up. My initial thought was, I was actually thinking, Marilyn might like to do something like a fasting mimicking diet a few times a year, which is what Valter Longo, he's a researcher at USC and the Gerontology school there, I believe. He's done a lot of work and research on a five-day fasting mimicking type diet and the effects on autophagy. He has ProLon, which is a commercial version that you can buy and just do it. Some people do their own DIY versions of it, but it's basically a super, super low-calorie diet with very specific macros and very specific nutrients that stimulates a lot of the fasting epigenetic processes without actually being completely fasted. But you do get the ketones, and the autophagy, and they've seen a lot of effects on the immune system, basically, regenerating, which is pretty cool. 

That's something that you could play with, especially, since you're used to those smaller meals, some people with the fasting mimicking diet, especially, if they're coming from an intermittent fasting approach like I do, where they're eating really large meals, they're just miserable doing a fasting mimicking diet, because you're eating these really small meals. But if that's something you're used to and if you're used to longer fasts, that might actually be something that would be a cool thing to try. Then I do like a lot, what Gin said about the 36-hour fast, if it is something that you like. Then I guess, the question I have is and it sounds maybe, I mean, you didn't say this, but the fact that you've experimented so much with these different fasts, although, I wonder do you think these fasts she experimented with, do you think that was before or after her surgery?

Gin Stephens: Well, the surgery was in 2019. So, I would have a feeling-- She says, she has been doing IF for three months.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, okay. You're right. Oh, sorry. Yeah, wow. Yes, that would be the answer. Gin figured it out. The fact that you've experimented with these and you didn't mention, the thing I'd be worried about is that you do these longer fasts, and then you have this, not that it's binging, but you have this intense need to eat a lot, because some people do experience that. But you didn't mention that being a problem. It sounds like you are able to do the longer fasts and then just jump into a longer eating window. If that is working for you, I think it's a great thing to continue doing. But I do really like what Gin said about how Mark Mattson. How he does the daily eating window and loves that for the neurological protective effects. I will do a plug. I would actually really, really suggest supplementing with serrapeptase, if you haven't. It is not autophagy. But what autophagy does in part is, it's breaking down old and problematic proteins in our body and recycling them. Actually, that's what serrapeptase does. It actually goes in and breaks down problematic proteins. I think it can really, really enhance that process. There are actually been studies on serrapeptase and it rivals the leading therapeutic used for breaking down amyloid plaque. It actually can do that as well, both in vitro and in vivo in animal studies. What that means is, putting serrapeptase directly on amyloid plaque breaks it down, but also when rodents are given-- I think it was it was definitely animal studies. I think it was rodents. When rodents are given serrapeptase, that breaks down the amyloid plaque in their brain. I would definitely suggest fasting and supplementing it with serrapeptase. So, you get my AvalonX serrapeptase at avalonx.us. But yeah, those are my thoughts on all of that. Any other thoughts, Gin?

Gin Stephens: Nope, I think that's it. 

Melanie Avalon: Okey-dokey. Shall we go on to our next question?

Gin Stephens: Yes. We have a question from Leanne. She says, "Hi, I am a huge fan of your podcast and have read Delay, Don't Deny and What When Wine. I am a fasting disciple and always recommend your books as well as those from Dr. Jason Fung. I am an avid listener to your Intermittent Fasting Podcast and have fasted clean since January 2019. I am 45 years old. So, losing weight has not been easy in the last five years. However, right away, I saw the benefits. I went quickly into one meal a day, because it just felt right since I hate to diet. I did eat whatever I wanted and lost 10 pounds within six months. I could see the muscle mass increase. Since February of 2020 however, I have had weight gain. I decided to start eating more healthy to try and lose the weight. I had many stressors in my life, a move, building a house, decrease of income due to cutbacks in company due to COVID, and my daughter graduated from high school. I have had many symptoms that point to high cortisol. 

After listening to Episode 61, I'm very interested in trying and--" It's a doctor that I interviewed for Intermittent Fasting Stories. Yeah. She said, "I couldn't find on your website, his number and I believe I need to have my levels checked. I have been to several doctors and I'm currently on blood pressure meds. The doctors are only treating symptoms, high blood pressure, anxiety, insomnia, weight gain, low libido. I have noticed that I continue to not get hungry at my window, which is usually three or four, but my blood pressure is going higher, the longer I wait to eat. This makes me so sad, because I know it is the key to all my health problems. My question, can fasting make blood pressure increase if one has high cortisol levels? Thank you for your wisdom and insight. This lifestyle has truly changed my life. You're both a blessing from God. May He continue to bless each of you." All right. This is an old question. It's from June of 2020. Yeah, there's a lot of COVID stress different in June of 2020 versus today. Can I real quick before you answer it, Melanie, talk about the doctor that I interviewed for Intermittent Fasting Stories. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, that'd be great. 

Gin Stephens: When I had that interview, he is fantastic, by the way. I worked with him, and Chad worked with him, and he checked our levels. It was great. But for some reason, everybody's like, "Oh, let's all-- we have to call go to that doctor. He's the only doctor we could go to." No, [giggles] I'm not going to share his number or I noticed I haven't even said his name. Because I don't want everyone to think that-- He was about to retire last time I talked to him, he was getting ready to retire, turning his practice over to some of the younger doctors in the practice. It's really important to find somebody who's close to you. Telemedicine is amazing and we can-- we can talk to people all over the place that way. But I really think the best thing to do is to find people close to you and I'm not comfortable endorsing one doctor, okay? Because here's what happened. People are like, "Well, I've heard you talk to him on the podcast, so, I'm going to call him," and then they like, "Maybe they didn't like what he said." Then they're calling me or emailing me, and they're like, "Well, I talked to him and I didn't like what he said." I'm not going to endorse the doctor and say, "This is the doctor, you should go to." 

Me, interviewing one should never be taken as an endorsement of that's the doctor everyone should go to. He is a very great guy and he's done amazing work with people. He uses fasting in his practice. But I want you to find somebody close to you that you can go see. I know, that's easier said than done, but that's the best I can do. I don't want to endorse any one doctor and let everyone think like, "Here's the doctor that is magically going to solve everybody's problems" and that's all I can say about that. [giggles] Does that make sense, Melanie? 

Melanie Avalon: Yes, 100%. 

Gin Stephens: I do understand Leanne, your frustration with doctors only treating symptoms, because we know, it's better to treat the root cause than just treating the symptoms. So, I get it. It's tricky till you can find somebody that really works with you the way that you need the doctor to work with you. A lot of this does sound like stress. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, it definitely does. 

Gin Stephens: I actually wrote a blog post about it in the spring of 2020 and it was about the pandemic, and stress, and how we were all under different kinds of stress than we'd ever really been under before. Even if you weren't moving, building a house, and having your income cut back, just the whole COVID was just a crazy stress for all of us and not knowing what was happening.

Melanie Avalon: This question, if it wasn't posited in the context of cortisol and stress, I think the answer might be a little bit different than if the question was just fasting affecting blood pressure, if that makes sense. Because I did a lot of research on the effects of fasting on blood pressure. But then the caveat about all of that is the studies I'm looking at, we're looking at it really in the terms of a psychological stress. I don't know if in a stressful situation with a blood pressure context. Maybe it is that fasting can raise blood pressure, because of that psychological context of cortisol. I'll talk briefly about just blood pressure and fasting in general. There's not a ton of studies, but there are some. These are all actually fairly recent studies. I read one study, a 2021 study and it was called effects of intermittent fasting and chronotherapy on blood pressure control and hypertensive patients during Ramadan. What's interesting is, in that study, they say that studies on the effects of fasting on blood pressure and heart rate of hypertensive patients are rare and have provided inconclusive results. That said, all of the ones I pulled up that were recent were all favorable for fasting effect on blood pressure. But apparently, there are ones that are inconclusive. That 2021 study, they found that, there was no significant changes in systolic and diastolic blood pressure, as well as heart rate during the two periods. In their study, they found no effect on fasting and blood pressure. 

The other recent ones I looked at, there was blood pressure changes in 1,610 subjects with and without anti-hypertensive medication during long-term fasting. That was a 2020 study. They found that long-term fasting tends to decrease blood pressure in subjects with elevated blood pressure values and that the effect persisted during a four days of food reintroduction, even when the subjects stopped their hypertensive medication. A 2020 study called the effects of Ramadan fasting on anthropometric measures, blood pressure, and lipid profile among hypertensive patients found that Ramadan fasting could contribute to the improvement of blood pressure and also lower triglycerides, body weight, BMI, and WC of adult hypertensive patients. Then, I found a 2022 study effects of intermittent compared with continuous energy restriction on blood pressure control in overweight and obese patients with hypertension. It found that intermittent energy restriction is an effective alternative diet strategy for weight loss and blood pressure control, and is comparable to continuous energy restriction. Basically, calorie restriction in overweight and obese patients with hypertension. That's a really quick overview of a lot of recent studies, but all the studies I saw looking at blood pressure control and fasting tended to find a favorable effect on blood pressure. 

All of that said, and this is how I started it, and this is going off of what Gin said, I don't know the psychological effect of the cortisol. The fact that Leanne is seeing that the longer she fasts, at least at the time that she sent in the question that her blood pressure was going up, then that's what's happening. I would suggest that she work with her doctor and find the approach that doesn't have that effect. It might be that she's looking at the fasting, but she might be able to address the cortisol aspect of it without necessarily having to change the fasting so much. There are a lot of lifestyle practices that you could implement to work on stress levels, so many things. Working on your light exposure, focusing on your sleep, things like meditation, gratitude, even things like CBD and supplements that might have a beneficial effect, breathing exercises, cryotherapy, there're so many things you could do to try to work on your cortisol levels. Maybe the solution would be to ease off of the fasting a little bit and also really work on your other lifestyle habits that might be contributing to your cortisol and seeing if there's a way to address all of it that way. Do you have thoughts, Gin?

Gin Stephens: Well, I think, you said some great things there. Stress, it has such an impact on so many things in our bodies. The period of time when she wrote those, June of 2020 was a very stressful period of time. I would love to have a follow up, Leanne, and we could probably pop it to the top [laughs] of the queue. I would bet if we would like to hear what actually happened, because it's been over a year since we heard from her.

Melanie Avalon: She also, it wasn't and not even just COVID. She said she moved, built a house. daughter graduated from high school. She had a lot. So, definitely report back. Yes, like Gin said, we can bump it up, because I am very, very curious. I will say for listeners, the show notes at ifpodcast.com/episode259 have a complete transcript as well as links to everything. So, we'll put links to all of those studies there.

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Melanie Avalon: So, we have a question from Marika. Is that how you would say it?

Gin Stephens: I don't know. Marika, maybe? 

Melanie Avalon: Marika? 

Gin Stephens: Or, maybe it's Mary Kay. 

Melanie Avalon: Marika. 

Gin Stephens: Mary Kay. It's a beautiful spelling. I just don't know how to say it.

Melanie Avalon: Yes. [giggles] The subject is: "eating after a strenuous workout," and Marika, Mary Ca, Mary Kay says, "Hi, Gin and Melanie. It's so exciting to be writing to you finally. I love your show, and the information, and the dialogue between you two. Sometimes, I laugh out loud while I am listening to you on my walks. Here's a little bit about me. I'm a 26-year-old mom of a six-year-old and one and a half year old twins." She says, "to lose weight from my first, I consistently counted calories and did IF. I have come back to and I've been doing IF since I stopped nursing my twins at nine months old. I was 190 pounds in April 2021 and I am now, 155, thanks to IF. I generally aim for 17:7 although, it varies. I do clean fast and I feel amazing when I do. I'd like to lose 20 to 25 more pounds. Here's my question. Do you have to eat after a strenuous workout? I recently started a kickboxing class and my classes later. I try to go two to three times a week. I rush home, and put the kids to bed, and by the time I'm done, it's 8:30 or 9:00. Then I eat after that a wrap with chicken, Greek yogurt parfait, or protein smoothie. I feel better once I've eaten, but the next morning I always feel bloated and hungry. Generally, I feel best if I stopped eating by about 6 PM, then again, the next day around lunchtime. But on kickboxing nights, I feel I have to eat at least protein. What would you recommend for me, continue this way and extend my fast the day after to keep consistency in my fasting links? Why do I always feel hungrier the next day if I've eaten closer to bed? Even on non-workout evenings, it's the same if I eat too close to bed. I would love your input on the risks of not eating after a workout."

Gin Stephens: All right, I don't think there's any risks for not eating after a workout. There we go. Thank you for the question. The risks would be, we've talked about this before. You need to get sufficient protein within the 24-hour period surrounding your workout, but it doesn't have to be immediate. Also, remember, when we're fasting clean, we have increased autophagy. Some of our protein needs are being met from within our own bodies, because we're better able to recycle and upcycle the proteins that our bodies are breaking down. So, keep that in mind. We tend to think that all of our needs need to come from external sources, when some of them are coming from internal sources. I'm trying to figure out, if you're doing 17:7, it sounds you're not working out in the fasted state. You eat earlier in the day, then you go to kickboxing, and then you think you have to eat again, just because you've done the workout. I'm going to release you from that. You do not have to eat at 8:30 or 9 o'clock after kickboxing. You can just go to bed, you don't like to eat that late. Your body is telling you, you don't need to do that. So, don't do it. Just eat at your normal time before you go, like, you're already doing. Go do your kickboxing, come home, go to bed, wake up the next day, feel great. Maybe the next day, you'll want to have a little increased protein during your eating window. But it doesn't have to be bam immediately after working out. That's just a myth. 

As far as why are we so much hungrier if we eat late, for me I really like to think of it as you're just not as deep in the fasted state the next day. Your body's like, "All right, feed me." It's the way if I eat lunch, I can't just do one meal a day that day, because I always get hungry eight, nine hours later. I have to eat again, before I go to bed. Same kind of a thing. If you just eat and then go to bed, you're not fully getting into that fasted state. You wake up and you're like, "Right now, I'm hungry, again." That's right when your body's ready to eat. Then you have to get to the fasted state, at least that's what it feels like to me. You're just not getting there yet. But if you eat a few hours before bed, then you go to bed, you're already a few hours into the fasting time. When you wake up, you're probably deep enough into the fast that you're feeling like you can just keep going. That would be my hunch.

Melanie Avalon: We had a question about this recently about that concept and why are they hungrier the next day when they eat later. I agree that I think that's probably often the case. Yeah, so, it sounds when she's not kickboxing, she's eating between 12 to six-ish. Yeah, so, if you're not in the fasted state anyways with the kickboxing, I would try front loading the protein, because it sounds what's happening is, she gets back and-- Because she says that she feels the need to eat. I feel it's because she actually feels hungry for the protein compared to she just feels she needs to based on what society says. But it sounds it's more that she feels like she's hungry.

Gin Stephens: The way she said it, she said, "On kickboxing nights, I feel I have to eat at least protein." I feel the way that she worded it later when she said, what are the risks of not eating, she instead of feeling physically she has to eat, I think she mentally feels like she has to eat. That's the way I interpreted it. I could be wrong.

Melanie Avalon: The reason I interpret it differently was earlier, she says, "I feel better once I've eaten."

Gin Stephens: Yeah, it's hard to know. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. It's a subtle nuance that could go either way. I actually think it's important for my answer, because if it's completely mental, if it's completely just you think you need to be eating protein and that's why you're doing it, and you feel better psychologically, because you ate your protein, I would just not worry about that [giggles] like Gin said. See how you feel not eating it. If it is a little bit or all that you actually are craving that protein and you feel physically better after eating the protein, I would not encourage you not to eat the protein, actually.

Gin Stephens: I would have it earlier in the day. Have more protein before she works out and then her body would have that protein, then.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. So, that's what I would suggest. I would suggest trying that and seeing if that solves that problem of craving the protein, it very well might. If it doesn't and you still feel this need to have the protein, and again, it's hard to know exactly what you're experiencing. But I would probably work on finding the minimal effective amount of protein that you can eat that it doesn't make you feel bloated. She says, she's trying a wrap with chicken, Greek yogurt parfait or protein smoothie.

Gin Stephens: I can't imagine just a protein smoothie making you feel bloated the next day. I could see how it might make you feel hungry. 

Melanie Avalon: I would maybe try something like, I mean, this might sound crazy, but just a plain chicken breast without all the other stuff, and seeing if that gives you that satiety, and that good feeling from the protein post-workout, and then not having the bloating issue the next morning. Oh, and then I also wanted to address, I wouldn't stress about extending your fast the next day for the consistency in the fasting links. I wouldn't really stress about that. I would just go back to you know what you do normally that feels well. I wouldn't change it in your head mentally to make up for having a longer eating window the day before. But if you naturally want to fast longer, I would just say go for it. I would just let it happen naturally. I don't have really one answer. I think it's going to require some experimentation to figure out what is the best solution. 

Gin Stephens: Absolutely, yeah. 

Melanie Avalon: But I think we can definitely-- if anything, we can help you with the psychological concerns about needing to have protein right away.

Gin Stephens: Right. Yeah, at least you can say, "No, there aren't any risks. There are no risks."

Melanie Avalon: She's trying to lose weight. So, it doesn't sound she's trying to be a bodybuilder and build muscle. If you were like a competition bodybuilder or something like that, I do think that actually has a different set of rules, as far as-- It's really intense with the exact methods to follow with eating protein to get the maximum muscle protein synthesis and things like that. I'm not talking to the bodybuilding people here. I'm just talking to people, who want to work out, and support their muscle during that, and then the timing. So, just is my caveat. 

Gin Stephens: Yeah, that sounds good. 

Melanie Avalon: Well, this has been absolutely wonderful. So, a few things for listeners before we go. If you would like to submit your own questions for the show, you can directly email questions@ifpodcast.com or you can go to ifpodcast.com and you can submit questions there. The show notes will be at ifpodcast.com/episode259. All the stuff that we like will be at ifpodcast.com/stuffwelike and you can follow us on Instagram. I am @melanieavalon, and Gin's @ginstephens. And I think that is all the things. All right. So, anything from you, Gin, before we go?

Gin Stephens: Nope. I'll just talk to you next week.

Melanie Avalon: Okey-dokey. Bye. 

Gin Stephens: Bye. 

Melanie Avalon: Thank you so much for listening to the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Please remember, everything we discussed on this show does not constitute medical advice. We're not doctors. If you enjoyed the show, please consider writing your review on iTunes. We couldn't do this without our amazing team. Administration by Sharon Merriman, editing by Podcast Doctors, show notes and artwork by Brianna Joyner, transcripts by SpeechDocs, theme music by Leland Cox. See you next week.

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Mar 27

Episode 258: Seasonal Allergies, Eating Breakfast, Carb Cravings, Talking To Your Doctor, Fasting During Menstruation, Hormonal Health, And More!

Intermittent Fasting

Welcome to Episode 258 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine and Gin Stephens, author of Delay, Don't Deny: Living An Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle

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

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SHOW NOTES

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Listener Q&A: Cristyn - Three Questions

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

Listener Q&A: Jorge - Doctor's arguments/Can't stop carbs

the intermittent fasting revolution (Mark P. Mattson)

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Listener Q&A: Neetu - Periods

The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #135 - Cynthia Thurlow

Episode 189: Cynthia Thurlow

Episode 34: Cecily Ganheart

TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Welcome to Episode 258 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. If you want to burn fat, gain energy, and enhance your health by changing when you eat, not what you eat with no calorie counting, then this show is for you. I'm Melanie Avalon, author of What When Wine: Lose Weight and Feel Great with Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, and Wine. And I'm here with my cohost, Gin Stephens, author of Fast. Feast. Repeat.: The Comprehensive Guide to Delay, Don't Deny Intermittent Fasting. For more on us, check out ifpodcast.com, melanieavalon.com, and ginstephens.com. Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this podcast do not constitute medical advice or treatment. So, pour yourself a cup of black coffee, a mug of tea, or even a glass of wine, if it's that time, and get ready for The Intermittent Fasting Podcast.

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: Hi everybody and welcome. This is Episode number 258 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon and I'm here with Gin Stephens.

Gin Stephens: Hi, everybody. 

Melanie Avalon: How are you today, Gin? 

Gin Stephens: I'm fabulous. The weather is beautiful, although, I did have to spend some time dusting pollen off of stuff today before I could sit down. I know Atlanta's pollen land just like Augusta is. 

Melanie Avalon: This is what I was going to talk about. I'm so glad you said that. 

Gin Stephens: Oh, wow. Great minds. 

Melanie Avalon: I know. I was reflecting, because it literally turned to spring like overnight. Well, it turned to summer for a day [giggles] and then spring. I was thinking not that I have seasonal affective disorder, but spring comes, and I get really sad. [giggles] I don't like it. 

Gin Stephens: I know that seasonal affective disorder has to do with light and people needing more light and more sunlight. So, what would make an increase of light make you be sad? 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I'm joking, because the seasonal affective disorder is about light exposure, but for me, it's the environmental, pollen, and springness, and lack of cold makes me sad. But I was reflecting on how grateful I am for my serrapeptase, because I forget that the reason, I started taking it almost probably eight years ago was for seasonal allergies. Because it just completely stopped my allergy response to pollen, which is-- Or, it doesn't stop my allergy response, but it just clears my sinuses and it was the way I was able to get off of allergy medicine. 

Gin Stephens: I just stopped needing it. I just not stopped needing allergy medicine in 2016. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I substantially needed less, but grass is just so allergenic for me. 

Gin Stephens: Now, my eyes will still itch. That never stopped. If I rub pollen into my eyes, they'll itch. But I don't have the nasal issues, the runny nose. I had to keep Kleenex literally shoved up my nose like a stopper. My nose ran so much. It was awful.

Melanie Avalon: Mine, too. 

Gin Stephens: I have not taken any kind of allergy medicine since 2016. I think it's the decreased inflammation and thinking about our bucket. The bucket effect and how much your body can take before it starts to overflow with symptoms of whatever. I talked about this analogy in Clean(ish), but allergies work like that. If your bucket is full of other toxins, then all the pollen comes in and bam. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, really hard to handle. With the fasting and serrapeptase, I feel resilient for spring. 

Gin Stephens: Well, that's good. I love when the days start to get longer and the time change, it makes me so happy.

Melanie Avalon: It makes me so sad. The first day that it made that weather switch, I was so sad. [laughs] I was walking around, I was like, "No, I want it to be forever winter." 

Gin Stephens: [laughs] You're just going to have to move to Alaska. 

Melanie Avalon: I know. What is new with you? 

Gin Stephens: Just spring and loving the weather. That's it. How about you?

Melanie Avalon: Just the supplement developments in the show and all the same things. Getting closer and closer to making our magnesium supplements. So, that will be very exciting. Listeners, stay tuned for that. You can get on the email list at melanieavalon.com/avalonx for all of the updates, and then you can get the serrapeptase, and then the magnesium, when it's available at avalonx.us. Yeah, I'm really enjoying this year. 

Gin Stephens: Oh, good. I am, too. It's going to be a great year. 

Melanie Avalon: Yes. Shall we jump into everything for today? 

Gin Stephens: Yep, I am ready. 

Melanie Avalon: All right. To start things off, we have three questions from Cristyn and the subject is: "Three questions." Cristyn says, "Hi, Gin and Melanie. I just had a couple of questions below and so we can go through these one by one." She says, "Sorry, if they've already been asked before. I'm only on episode 24." It would be really interesting to go back and listen to one of our first episodes. 

Gin Stephens: Oh, that would be hilarious, probably. 

Melanie Avalon: Oh, my goodness. I might. 

Gin Stephens: It might be amazing. Maybe we were great. I will say, I did go back, when I was-- several times, I've gone back and looked at Delay, Don’t Deny once when I was fixing some things after the pirating. It inspired me to-- This is back in, I don't know, 2018. It inspired me to fix some typos and push it back out, and I was pleasantly surprised. I was like, "What if I read this and it makes me cringe?" [laughs] But it didn't. It didn't make me cringe. So, that was good. Maybe we would be like, "Wow, listen to us. We did a great job [laughs] or maybe we would cringe." I don't know.

Melanie Avalon: It might just today. 

Gin Stephens: Well, I do remember the first time someone asked us about CBD, then we're like, "It's probably not even legal, we don't know, don't take it."

Melanie Avalon: I know. Now, I'm like, all Feals all the time. 

Gin Stephens: Yeah. Well, that's how fast things have changed. 

Melanie Avalon: Oh, yeah. And Feals is sponsoring today's episode.

Gin Stephens: Awesome. But do you remember that though? Somebody asked about CBD, we're like, "No, not legal, probably." Anyway.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. That's so funny. Yeah, things have really-- 

Gin Stephens: Now, there's a CBD place on every corner. 

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm. Yeah. That is so, so funny. Yep. Okay, so, Cristyn's first question. I really like the way that Cristyn spells her name, too. It is C-R-I-S-T-Y-N, Cristyn. Number one, she says, "How do you know it's working?" So, intermittent fasting. She says, "You have more energy, maybe the weird taste in your mouth, are there any other signs? I don't have a weird taste in my mouth and I drink coffee during fasting. I don't know if the energy is from the coffee or not." 

Gin Stephens: All right, so, that is a loaded question, [giggles] because first of all, we would have to define the word 'working.' I could think of 10 ways to define working. Losing weight is one way. A lot of people come to intermittent fasting for the weight loss. If you're losing weight, then you know, something's working. I would encourage everyone if they want to know, how do you know if you're losing weight, that might sound silly, but we're used to weight loss diets, where they tell you, "You're going to lose 10 pounds in a week or something." Intermittent Fasting is not like that. You really need to have multiple strategies for measuring your progress to know if you're losing weight. Because of body recomposition, you can lose fat and build muscle, especially if you're someone who works out. So, It might not look like it's "working on the scale, but you're literally shrinking in size." If you have Fast. Feast. Repeat., read the "Scale-Schmale" chapter, because I talk about all the ways to measure your progress. If something is changing, then you're losing fat. That's the goal. You want to lose fat, maintain your muscle mass, the scale is one way. 

Measurements, progress photos, honesty pants, so, if any one of those things is showing progress, then you know, it's working for fat loss. But there's also a lot of other things that it's working on. Autophagy, for example. That's not really something we don't have an autophagy meter, where we can tell that that's going on. You just have to trust the process of fasting doing good things in your body. You may not even know until something that's been pesky goes away, like, we were just talking about allergies. I know, fasting is working in my body, because I haven't had to take allergy medicine since 2016. Prior to that, I was at the point during peak allergy season, where I was taking something that I took every day, 365 days of the year, but I had to also stack Benadryl on top of that, when it got really bad and I felt so bad. I felt so terrible. My nose was running constantly, it was miserable. So, that's a sign that it's working. 

I talked to over 200 episodes of Intermittent Fasting Stories now and everyone has their own list of non-scale victories, things that have changed that show that intermittent fasting is working for them and their bodies. We also have health victories. Someone might notice that their A1c has gone down over the last time it was measured or perhaps skintags have fallen off. That would be a sign that you're correcting insulin resistance. Maybe your waist circumference is getting smaller, because we know that your waist to hip ratio is a very important sign of health. Maybe plantar fasciitis has improved. I can't even list all the things that people mention as positive benefits that they experience. So, you know it's working when you're seeing anything positive that has changed from before. 

Now as far as energy during the fast from coffee, I assume you probably also used caffeine prior to fasting. I wouldn't think that it would be super, like, the coffee would be different now versus when it was before. The energy that I have during the fast is the ketosis energy. As far as the taste in your mouth that you've mentioned, not everybody gets the same ketosis taste. So, you can't judge whether or not you're going into ketosis based on what you taste in your mouth, necessarily. If you do have it, you know it. But if you don't, that doesn't mean that you're not experiencing it.

Melanie Avalon: A good resource for you might be something like InsideTracker. I actually, this week, although when this airs, it'll be over, but I'm doing a giveaway for them on my Instagram. Definitely follow me on Instagram. I'm going to do another giveaway in a few months. So, stay tuned for that. But that is something that's really, really helpful, because bloodwork is another way you could gauge changes and improvements in your health. I honestly mean this, until I got InsideTracker, I couldn't really see trends, and I couldn't really see changes over time, and my blood work, I guess, I could have if I had downloaded all my bloodwork and made my own Excel sheet, which is actually-- Oh, my goodness, I forgot that used to do this. That's what I used to do. Oh, my goodness. I used to make an Excel document, and I would put all my bloodwork, and I would try to see trends over time, and try to see what was happening, and it was really overwhelming. But with InsideTracker, it tests a lot of key markers that are related to health, and longevity, and metabolic fitness in particular. Then you can see your trends over time and it'll tell you how you're trending and will make recommendations. So, that would actually be a really, really valuable resource. 

What's really amazing about it is, you get the tests directly from them. But you can also upload your own lab work. If you're seeing a doctor and you have access to your blood results, which you do, because you legally have to have access. You can upload all of your own blood work and it'll integrate it into its graphs and charts, and show you what's happening. That would be a good way to actually see if you're improving in your blood work over time. The only other thing, everything Gin said, I echo and I was also going to comment that with the coffee. If you're drinking the coffee before, then you should be able to see either no change or change unless you've started drinking coffee at the same time to do the fasting in which case that would make sense that you wouldn't know what was what, which could be a possibility. That's actually a good question. Do you find with your experience with all of the members and such that when people start intermittent fasting that they up their coffee intake to make it easier?

Gin Stephens: I don't know. Probably, if I'm told to take that would be interesting. I certainly don't drink more coffee now. I just drink my coffee differently. I used to drink lattes all morning. Now, I just drink black coffee. So, it's just different. Maybe it's more because it's not all milky. [giggles] the coffee, there's actually more coffee, but I also would often have a diet soda. I don't think my caffeine consumption has gone up because back in the day, I drank Diet Mountain Dew all the time for a while and that I think might even have more caffeine than coffee. I don't know. It's pretty caffeinated.

Melanie Avalon: I wonder if because I'm thinking about what my personal trend was. I think at the beginning, I was doing a lot of those green tea, that iced green tea from Starbucks. Because when I started, I was not as intense as I am now about all the organic and all of that stuff. I definitely upped my intake of caffeinated green tea. But then as I got used to fasting, I needed it less. Now, I'm so minimal. I have literally a spoonful of liquid coffee in the morning or a sip and I'm good. 

Gin Stephens: Oh, here's a tip about Starbucks, everybody. Be careful about some of their beverages, because a lot of the stuff is they add stuff, it's flavored. A lot of their tea products, I would not recommend for the clean fast now. I know that that was a long time ago, but also green tea makes me queasy. Does it not do that to you on an empty stomach? 

Melanie Avalon: No. That's interesting. 

Gin Stephens: Plain green tea, regular green tea is absolutely fine for that clean fast, but there's a subset of people, tea, green tea, especially, it makes us queasy on an empty stomach. 

Melanie Avalon: I wonder if it's the tannins or the-- 

Gin Stephens: Something. That's I think so. I've read something about it. I can't remember exactly, but I would probably guess what the other question about. Do people drink more coffee? I would guess some people do, but then there's the people who are like, "I'm never going to drink black coffee. So, I'm just going to quit drinking coffee entirely." There's a subset of those as well. They might cancel each other out. I don't know. 

Melanie Avalon: I think I'm going to write this down. I'm going to do a poll about this in my Facebook group. Then, I can report back. 

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Melanie Avalon: All right. So, that is her first question. Her second question. She says, "What would you say to the haters about the negative effects of skipping breakfast?"

Gin Stephens: Well, that's a great question and I actually thought about how I was going to answer this. I actually don't get into conversations with haters about skipping breakfast anymore. That was why back in the day, I left all the Facebook groups except for mine. Sometimes, some of the moderators, because they stayed in a lot of different groups, and they'd come in, and they'd be like, "I'm having an argument with someone in another group about something." I'd be like, "Why? Why are you doing that? Stop doing that?" Because we believe what we believe and I don't have to convince anybody else the opposite. I don't need to convince a hater that they should skip breakfast. They can skip breakfast or not skip breakfast. I am 100% convinced that there are positive benefits from skipping breakfast and the research is backing that up. If you wanted to just defuse the situation, maybe it's your mom that's giving you pushback or a friend that you can't really avoid this friend, because they're your friend. I would say something along the lines of-- You know who created the phrase "breakfast is the most important meal of the day." Kellogg's. They funded that research, they found that Kellogg's breakfast was the best. Are you surprised? And deflected. Because that's really true. [laughs] 

Melanie Avalon: I know, you know this. But the history of Kellogg's, like, why that cereal was formed is crazy. 

Gin Stephens: He was a little bit of a nut. 

Melanie Avalon: He thought it could combat, basically, over sexual drives in men. 

Gin Stephens: Cereal reducing your drives. [laughs] That sounds great. 

Melanie Avalon: That's why he made it. [laughs] 

Gin Stephens: To make you slow and dull.

Melanie Avalon: In the morning to quell the-- Yeah, the sexual appetite. What does that tell you about what it's doing to your health if that was--? That's not what they promote it for now, but a little concerning.

Gin Stephens: I don't waste my time going around, getting into arguments with people about fasting. I can remember one time I was on a cruise, Chad and I were there, and we were at the Martini Bar, and we were having drinks before dinner, and we were talking to the bartender, and I said something about intermittent fasting, and he started bashing it, and I was just like, "Okay, well, thank you. It's worked for me and a lot of people." and I didn't feel I needed to argue with him. I just stopped talking about it for real. But I will say that was a long time ago. More recently, for the past couple years really, anyone I've mentioned it to has more of a positive perception about intermittent fasting, because it's really all over the place. I find that the people who say negative things about it are few and far between. The main negative comments I hear are from people who said, "Oh, I tried that and it didn't work for me." I always dig in because you know me, and I'll say, "So, let's think about why. Let's see if we can figure out what was going on. What were you drinking during the fast?" They're always like, "Well, I was you know--." They were not fast and clean, basically. We talked about that and hopefully, they'll give it a try with the clean fast and see the difference. I would say, 90 something percent of the time the person was not fast and clean, or they didn't give it long enough, or both. 

Melanie Avalon: All very good points. I will refer you to two additional resources, because I have done a deep dive into this. In my book, What When Wine, if you get that, I actually have a section on this. I have a question, "isn't breakfast the most important meal of the day?" I'm just looking through right now what I had written there. This speaks to what Gin was saying about the whole concept of breakfast being the most important meal of the day being spearheaded by the breakfast cereal industry. A 2013 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, they did a meta-analysis of pro breakfast studies. They concluded that the majority of those studies featured biased interpretations, misleading language, improper citations, and inappropriate use of "causal terminology." Basically, the majority of studies that find that breakfast is the most important meal are misleading. They're misinterpreting the data. The meaning when they say "inappropriate use of causal terminology," that means that what they're doing is they're drawing conclusions that eating or not eating breakfast causes whatever effect when that's not what the data shows. The data might show that it's correlational or is probably more nuanced, then this causes this. Then I also talked about a lot of really specific studies that show the opposite. Some examples are, like, a 2011 study found that children who skipped breakfast feel like they could eat more at lunch. But ultimately, they consumed the same amount, and they end up consuming fewer calories, and total for the day.

Gin Stephens: I had an interesting conversation with Dr. Mark Mattson, when I interviewed him for Intermittent Fasting Stories. He was talking about the study that they did with kids. How they say kids need to eat a good breakfast, so that they can learn better. I was like, "Well, there must be some great data about that." He was talking about the study that they did. I'm going to try to remember, because it's been a while since we recorded it. Do you know how long that they tested those kids to see the effects of breakfast? They took one group of kids, kids who normally ate breakfast. I think this is important. One group of kids, who normally ate breakfast and they divided them randomly into two groups. They fed half of them breakfast and the other half didn't get breakfast. Then they did some kind of test later in the morning to see how mentally sharp they were. 

Melanie Avalon: Oh, okay.

Gin Stephens: So, guess how long they continued the study. 

Melanie Avalon: Like a day.

Gin Stephens: It was one day and it was kids, who normally ate breakfast. They were clearly not metabolically flexible kids, they're used to breakfast. Imagine if they had looked at kids, who normally didn't want breakfast. That would be totally-- There are kids who don't like to eat in the morning. We forced them, because we've been told we had to. I always forced my-- here you have to eat your breakfast. 

Melanie Avalon: I never woke up hungry, but I really liked the experience of eating. I would do it completely just, because it was fun. 

Gin Stephens: I just think we should teach our kids to intuitively eat or not eat. I would never say, "All right, children were fasting." No, I wouldn't do that either. But if your kids are like, "I'm not hungry, I don't want to eat." I would let them take the lead. 

Melanie Avalon: Actually, I interviewed Chris Masterjohn this week and one of the questions I asked him-- This is something that haunts me and I'm going on a tangent rabbit hole here, but it's all going to relate a little bit. I always wonder why his focus a lot is about nutrients and vitamins, and how do you get the most nutrient rich diet? He was talking about the work of Weston Price and how he found that basically, indigenous cultures and hunter-gatherers in different societies, all consumed one out of four categories of foods. Do you know what these are? It was like, they consume a lot. One of these categories. Dairy was one category, a high-fat dairy. Eggs and something else, egg yolks and something else, shellfish and fish, and then organ meats. I've always been really fascinated, because we often talk about liver being so nutrient rich. What I don't understand is why-- Do you like liver, Gin? 

Gin Stephens: No, [laughs] I don't. I don't like any of the organ meats at all. We went somewhere to eat recently, and they have pâté, and I was like, "I'll just have a little of the pâté." It was a sausage and cheese, and doing sausage like a New Orleans kind of a restaurant. I was like, "No, I just don't like it." 

Melanie Avalon: Interestingly, growing up, I ate liver. My grandmother was German and we would eat the liver-- the liverwurst, which is really salty and it doesn't taste-- It tastes really good. Pure liver, I don't like and I feel that's the response that I get when I ask people this question. What's really interesting is, even when I was severely anemic, like, very anemic, I remember thinking, okay, because I hadn't tried straight up liver, plain, like buy some at Whole Foods and cook it. I was like, "I'm going to like this, because there's no reason I shouldn't." I'm anemic right now, it should taste really good, and I tasted, so disgusting. [laughs] I was asking Chris, "Why is this a theme?" We were talking back and forth and we were just hypothesizing. Was it cultural, was it maybe the potential for excess of nutrients in liver? This is how this all comes full circle. I mentioned how in your book, Clean(ish), which I finished, by the way, which is awesome, by the way, everybody.

Gin Stephens: Did you like it? 

Melanie Avalon: Yes. Everybody get Clean(ish). 

Gin Stephens: Because we've never talked about it. 

Melanie Avalon: I know. 

Gin Stephens: I was like, "I don't know if Melanie's even read it." 

Melanie Avalon: I have. I just finished it. Everybody get Clean(ish). It's super amazing. 

Gin Stephens: Well, I'm glad you thought so.

Melanie Avalon: Yes, it's incredible. You did a really good job of covering such a breadth of information and I think providing just the right amount of detail and information, so that people could walk away feeling really empowered about all those different topics without getting overwhelmed with any one thing.

Gin Stephens: That was my goal.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, really? 

Gin Stephens: Yes. The whole word "empowering" is what I wanted it to be. Because we've been joking in the Delay, Don't Deny community, because we've been doing a Clean(ish) book study. Some people really are freaking out. After the beginning, they're like, "Oh, no." I'm like, "Well, look, knowledge is power. Just because you didn't know ignorance is bliss." That's totally right. Ignorance is bliss, but knowledge is power, but it's good to know, and don't be freaked out. Because every change you make is a step in the right direction. It's better to know than not know. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I agree 100%. So, I think he did a really good job of that. I actually mentioned it when I'm talking to Chris, because he was saying, he wonders if we were to expose kids to organ meats, would they naturally like it, would they be learning in real time? Is it still cultural, but they're learning in real time to like it? Because I'm actually going to send them the study, because you talked about that study in your book. 

Gin Stephens: It was fascinating. 

Melanie Avalon: I was so excited. He hadn't heard of it. I'm actually going to send it to him today. 

Gin Stephens: Yeah, it's an old, old study from like the 30s or something and it was a pediatrician, and they would never be allowed to do that study today, but they let the kids, these kids craft their own meals out of all these random things. And the kids were like little mini nutritionists. 

Melanie Avalon: It was like weird foods. I don't remember exactly the list. 

Gin Stephens: Stuff, we don't even know what it is. 

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm. Do you remember if liver was in there or any organ? I'd have to look again. 

Gin Stephens: I'd have to look, too. 

Melanie Avalon: But it was definitely that type of food that was quite the tangent. 

Gin Stephens: I really do think a lot of its learned. It's what we expose the kids to.

Melanie Avalon: That's what I think, too. But that's why I was really fascinated with my experience with the liver recently. I was like, "Can my body just not unlearn this conditioning?" 

Gin Stephens: You're not hungry, like, starvation level hungry. I think that if that happened, you would have a whole different thought to the liver. You're well nourished. I think that when we're well nourished, we can be picky in what we like and what we're used to. But if we were starving to death, that cockroach in the corner might look delicious. 

Melanie Avalon: To that point, I'm really excited to interview Bill Schindler, who wrote a book called I think it's called Eat Like a Human and he has a TV show. He's been on a lot of TV shows, but he talks a lot about insect protein in his book and I'm excited to talk to him about the cultural stigma against that. Because apparently, if we embraced insect protein as a thing, it's very impressive. The nutrients, the effect on the environment, the sustainability, it's like a win. But the cultural vibe is hard to get onboard. But in any case, back to the breakfast. In that study about the kids, who felt they could eat more at lunch, but ultimately, they consumed around the same amount. Some other similar studies or a 2014 study of 283 adults trying to lose weight in a free-living situation found no difference between eating or skipping breakfast. A two-week 2013 crossover study, men consumed either a 100-calorie or a 700-calorie breakfast. While the men snacked more following the low-calorie breakfast, lunch intake was similar for both and ultimately, they consumed fewer calories when they eat a low calorie rather than a high-calorie breakfast and the high-calorie breakfast also reduced fat oxidation throughout the day. 

There's a lot more and I will also refer you to a blog post I did recently called, "early versus late night eating contradictions, confusions, and clarity." I talk a lot about early versus late night eating, but I do talk about breakfast in that study as well, and I talk about some more recent studies in there. Something else important to consider is the healthy user bias and I think that is probably a huge, huge factor. Basically, what that means is the type of people, who eat breakfast are often the type of people following the "healthy trends," because breakfast has been posited as being the healthy avenue for health for so long. It's hard to know if its effects are from the breakfast or if it's from the overall lifestyle of the people following that breakfast. That also applies to things like veganism. My guess, even you could apply it to a Whole Foods diet. But it really applies to anything where there's a messaging surrounding the habit as being healthy. So, it's hard to separate that from the overall lifestyle of the individual. But in any case, I do think that the tides are changing a little bit and that intermittent fasting is becoming more and more popular, and more and more people are skipping breakfast, but I definitely think a lot of people-- 

I know, Gin you said, you don't get it quite as much anymore, but I think that is still-- When people get nervous or ask questions about intermittent fasting, it often is that question. Oh, in the show notes, by the way, because I've mentioned links quite a bit. They will be at ifpodcast.com/episode258. Okay, Cristyn's last question. She says, "Right now, I do 16:8 roughly, but I tried going to one meal a day. When I did that, I would over eat. I tried 20:4 and 19:5. So, what is a good way to slowly transition from 16:8 to 19:5 or a longer fasting window? Should I just try adding one-hour each day or some people just not cut out for a shorter eating window?" 

Gin Stephens: All right, so, there's a lot to unpack in that question as well. Including the idea that you are overeating in your four or five-hour window, there're two ways you might think that you're overeating. One of them is because you just feel like, "Gosh, I ate a lot of food. That must be too much." I must have ever eaten, because it seems like you ate a lot. But the other way would be if you actually felt physically uncomfortable in which case, yes, that is over eating. If you desire to have a four or five-hour eating window, but you're physically eating to the point that you feel uncomfortable, then you're going to have to come up with a strategy to not do that. Some people do better when they start with a snack to open their window, and then they wait a little while, and then they have their main meal. That'll calm down the hunger, so that they're not physically overdoing it and then feeling bad. Because the goal is, you don't want to feel overstuffed like you overate. If you don't feel overstuffed like you overate, you probably didn't over eat. It's just that you feel it. When you do, you know you did. 

Other people are the opposite. They might do best opening their window with a meal, and then waiting a little while, and seeing if they need a little more later. So, really, the key to make a shorter window work for you is to be more mindful of the way that you're spacing out your eating and stopping before you get to that overstuffed feeling. One strategy you might want to use is serving yourself less food than you think you're going to want and say, "Okay, I'm going to eat this now, and if I'm still hungry in 30 minutes, I can have some more." Then 30 minutes check in, maybe your cues have kicked in, you're like, "Yeah, I don't really need any more or maybe you are still hungry, and then you can eat." Just really think about, "Are you overeating and what can you do to change up the order of how you're eating in your window, so that you don't feel the need to overdo it?" Some people find that if they shift their window earlier, they're less likely to overeat. Some people, if they wait till late, they just start shoveling the food in. That doesn't work well for them. So, shifting earlier works. 

I'm the other way. I feel better if I wait till later. I have better appetite correction when I open my window really, if I open after 5 o'clock, then I really hardly can overeat if I eat after five. Now, I could ever eat, I hear better signals. I hear you've had enough signal better when I wait till later to open my window. Also, quality of food makes a huge difference when it comes to satiety cues. So, think about what you're overeating. I am much more likely to overeat ultra-processed foods, because my body doesn't get the 'I've had enough' signal. Some people really are not cut out for a shorter window, because you like to eat a little bit at the time. Maybe you are a restrained eater, and you like to eat a little bit, and so, you'd like to have a little bit. Then a little while later, you eat something else. You're more of grazing through that eight-hour window and you never want to have a big meal in your stomach, because you don't feel well when you do. Maybe having a big meal makes you feel like you overate, in which case a longer window would be right for you. There's no easy answer here. I know what works for me, but that doesn't mean it will work for you the same way that it works for me. You've got to really experiment and know what feels good to you. You certainly can try adding an hour a day, but instead of really the time, I would think it's structuring the way you're eating throughout your window. That will help. 

Melanie Avalon: I love that. That would be another good poll to take. 

Gin Stephens: Yeah. It really also differs from person to person. There are people who do it all sorts of ways.

Melanie Avalon: Listeners know this that I am definitely the type that you talked about that. I like to have a lot at once. I do not do well with what you called the restrained eating approach. It's so interesting that we can have an experience of the world and somebody could have a completely different experience that we just can't comprehend, because I just can't comprehend having a little bit and that working better for me, but there are so many people that that works better for.

Gin Stephens: Exactly, yep. I am not one of them either. 

Melanie Avalon: Me, neither. But yes, the slow transition would definitely be something to try. But yeah, Gin you answered that very well. 

Gin Stephens: All right. Are we ready for the next question? 

Melanie Avalon: Yes. Now, we have a question from Jorge. The subject is: "Doctors' arguments/can't stop carbs." Jorge says, "I am a 43-year-old guy living in New York City. Thanks a lot for the podcast. It took me a couple of months to go through all the episodes and now that I am up to date. It seems an eternity for me having to wait for a week or more to listen to you guys, again." Oh. He says, "I've been IF since November of last year. Six days 16:8, one day one meal a day. My primary goal is not weight loss, but maintenance and energy. I do very high intensity training multiple times a week. I am feeling better than ever and fully convinced this IF lifestyle has helped me immensely. It's been a true game changer for me. I have two questions. What would you tell your nutritionist or doctor to convince him or her into IF? I will have a full and complete body checkup coming up in August much more detailed and in depth than a common yearly physical? I am sure the nutritionist will raise her eyebrows when I tell her I am into IF. I know all the huge benefits IF brings. If you were in my shoes, what would you explain and argue at that level as I think she would surely try to refute it? I would like to make her see IF is the best dietary lifestyle out there." 

Gin Stephens: I wouldn't even argue with a doctor or nutritionist at this point. I wouldn't. I wouldn't argue. I would just say, "Gosh, I have some resources I'd like to share with you. I'm sorry that you haven't seen them." Yeah, try to be nice about it. Right now, we're at a great point. I'm glad that we're answering this now in 2022 instead of 2018, because we have way more resources to hand them. I would hand a doctor or a nutritionist, Dr. Mark Mattson's new book that just came out February called The Intermittent Fasting Revolution. It is the most up to date science compilation of intermittent fasting out there. It reads like a medical journal. Chad, who has never read Fast. Feast. Repeat. and has no desire to, when this came, I got an early copy of it. He's like, "Ooh, I'd like to read that." Because he likes to read medical journals. That's what he does. He's published in a lot of them for his organic chemistry work. 

A doctor or nutritionist that is used to reading medical journals needs to read The Intermittent Fasting Revolution by Dr. Mark Mattson. It has all the science in there, all referenced. You don't need to argue about it and you don't even need to try to convince them. You just say, "Oh, here's everything written by one of the most renowned experts in the entire world, Dr. Mark Mattson from Johns Hopkins." He also wrote something that was in the New England Journal of Medicine that you might like to look back at and then boom, you're done. You don't have to explain it, you don't have to apologize, you don't have to convince them. That is not your job. 

Melanie Avalon: I have a question. I have to ask, because I have to know if I've been pronouncing this word wrong my whole life. Is it renowned or renowned? 

Gin Stephens: I say renowned. What did I say before? 

Melanie Avalon: Renowned? 

Gin Stephens: Well, I might have said it wrong. I don't know. Maybe, it's a word that you can say more than one way. There are a lot of words like that depending on the context, 

Melanie Avalon: Wasn't it you and I talking last time about words? Because you're talking about how Chad thought it was taking things for granite. 

Gin Stephens: I think there's a lot of words that when they flow together in certain ways, you pronounce them one way or I could have said it wrong. [laughs] 

Melanie Avalon: I just like to check, because I always wonder about my stuff. 

Gin Stephens: And also, there are words that people pronounce differently regionally, which is so funny to talk about. My friend, Sheri is married to someone, who is Alabama born and raised. They say things super different down there or at least, he does. [laughs] She's always telling me something that he said. Anyway, it's regional. So, who knows? If I said it wrong, I don't know. I'm not even sure what I said.

Melanie Avalon: As to everything else you said, I think that is a great suggestion. What I have done a lot is I have literally printed out studies. Not just for intermittent fasting, this has happened for other things, where I've wanted to communicate something to the doctor, or discuss testing something, or whatever it may be. I am that patient that prints out medical journal studies, and just has them, and it's like, "Here, something to consider." So, for the nutritionist, I don't know the situation, like, I don't know if this is a thing where you go to your doctor and the setup is that it's including a nutritionist visit. I don't know what the setup is, but I would actually encourage people-- If you're paying to see the doctor and paying separately to see the nutritionist, and if you plan to continue working with the nutritionist, because some people-- This has been my experience. It's like, the nutritionist is a part of it, but it's not that I think I know better than them, but it's not that I actually intend to work with them on an ongoing basis. They're just part of the package or whatever, compared to wanting to work with them on an ongoing basis. If it's somebody you want to work with on an ongoing basis and work on your nutrition plan, I would encourage you to find somebody in line with your goals regarding fasting. If it is such a big part of your lifestyle and you're working with a nutritionist, I just think it is more beneficial to everybody if you find somebody, who is supportive and there are nutritionists who are supportive.

Gin Stephens: 100%, yep. I've interviewed a few dietitians for Intermittent Fasting Stories that they definitely recommend intermittent fasting to their patients and clients. There are doctors, who are telling people to do intermittent fasting. Did I tell you this already, Melanie? Someone in my community shared a photo from her doctor's office, that the doctor had a photo of Fast. Feast. Repeat. cover on the cabinet, and points to it and tells people, [laughs] I'm like, "Oh, my lord." For every doctor that's out there saying-- I'm definitely not one to one, I don't know. But for every doctor who's out there saying intermittent fasting, that's wacky. Imagine another doctor out there who's prescribing it to their patients. I wonder what the ratio is. I start and I think it's probably flipping, few are thinking It's wacky, more thinking it's amazing. The seesaw is going the opposite direction, the good direction.

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Melanie Avalon: And then his second question, he says, "I understand that when you are fat adapted, you start losing the carb craving feeling. But to me, it happens that if for some reason during my feeding window, I eat or snack carbs, I have this urge to keep eating them and I just can't stop. I would like to know if this is common, if there's a reason, and if any of your listeners have had this feeling as well. Thanks again so much for all the great advice and help throughout this IF journey. Keep it up, please." 

Gin Stephens: All right, so, I do not agree with the idea that when you're fat adapted, you will no longer crave carbs in your eating window. I'm somebody, who eats carbs every day in my eating window. I don't feel that I shouldn't want to have them. They made me feel great. But when you say that you're eating or snacking on carbs, and you have the urge to keep eating them, and you can't stop, so many times people think they attribute this to carbs and really it's ultra-processed foods. I would be interested to know what exactly are the things you're eating or snacking on. For example, cherry tomatoes, those are carbs, mostly carbs. I feel I can only eat so many cherry tomatoes. Then I'm like, "All right, I've had enough of those." But give me a bag of Cheetos and I have no off switch for real. My brain would never say to stop eating those. It's the ultra-processed foods that are legitimately, genuinely designed in the lab to keep us eating them. The flavor profile, the fat and carb ratio, because those Cheetos that I just mentioned are not just high carb, they're also high fat. If I said, "What kind of food is this?" Probably, most people would say, "Oh, that's a carb." Well, it's high carb and high fat. That's not even right. I would like you to think about when you're saying you're overeating carbs and can't stop, I would bet you're talking about ultra-processed foods, and I bet they're high carb and high fat, and instead just eat real food.

Melanie Avalon: That's what I was going to say exactly that the type of carbs is probably key. Robb Wolf often talks about this clip from some TV show. It was some TV show, like, one of those eating TV shows, where a guy-- I think he would always go and try to eat massive amounts of food. There's some episode, where he's having to eat, I don't know how many pounds of ice cream. He's getting sick, and can't eat anymore, and then he asks for French fries. Then when he eats the French fries, he's able to eat more ice cream. It's probably because switching back and forth the variability of it hacks our brain to keep wanting more. It's playing with us, these foods. Again, that was an example of switching from sweet to salty, but I think a similar thing can happen if you're eating not having the carbs and then switching to the processed carbs. It can definitely have that effect. It also can be depending on-- Let's say it is Whole Foods carbs, it also could be that some people just do better on a lower carb diet. Even with the Whole Foods carbs that it creates blood sugar regulation issues and ups and downs when they do eat carbs. I don't want to make blanket statements, but on the flipside of that, I think there are a lot of people who get stuck in the low carb world and think that's going to be the case if they integrate carbs back in, and it's not necessarily the case. So, yes, that was all over the place. Yeah, I would try switching to Whole Food carbs if you haven't already. Yeah, those are my thoughts. 

Gin Stephens: I just really also think a lot of people are confused by what actually carbs are. Really honestly, like pizza, and burgers, and fries. They're like, "Yeah, carbs like that." [laughs] Those foods have carbs, but they're also high fat, and also, a lot of them have a lot of protein too. It's just the fact that they're ultra-processed. It's like in the common speak, ultra-processed foods are just considered carbs and that's what's evil about them is the carbness. But ultra-processed fats are also terrible. Ultra-processed proteins are terrible. Ultra-processed foods are not good for our bodies. Now, because I'm cleanish, I still include them, but they're not the main part of what I'm eating. So, it makes such a difference. 

Melanie Avalon: Exactly. 

Gin Stephens: All right. Are we ready to go on? We have another one from 2018. You were back in the archives. [laughs] 

Melanie Avalon: I was. 

Gin Stephens: This one is from Nitu and the subject is: "Periods." Nitu asks, "Can I do intermittent fasting when I have periods?" 

Melanie Avalon: Okay. Short and simple question. First of all, for any question that says, can I do, you can do whatever you want. I know that's a silly answer, but I think it's an important concept to consider, because it's not we're making the rules. Gin and I are not making the rules, nobody's making the rules. You can do whatever you want to do just in general with everything and that's why I think it's so important to look at different opinions, and different perspectives, and seek truth, and find what works for you. So, I don't have the answer, the definitive answer for anything. I can just give you my opinion and my thoughts. All that said, we've talked about this a bit on the podcast before and there is a lot of concern out there, people thinking that women cannot do intermittent fasting on their periods that it's too stressful for their bodies. But there are so many women doing intermittent fasting, doing it while they have their periods, and experiencing amazing health benefits, reversing health conditions. 

It can become too stressful for women, intermittent fasting, independent of cycling and periods. If a female is doing intermittent fasting in a way that is too restrictive, it can definitely be too much of a stressor on the body. It may affect their menstrual cycle and be a problem there. I actually just had Cynthia Thurlow back on the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast. So, I will put a link to that episode and also, her new book just came out Intermittent Fasting Transformation, and it's really, really wonderful. She specifically focuses on intermittent fasting for females and she dives deep, deep, deep into hormones and enstrual cycles, it's a very eye-opening read. 

Gin Stephens: Can I tell you something funny? 

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm.

Gin Stephens: My interview with her came out on Thursday and yours came out on Friday. Did you know that I interviewed her as well recently?

Melanie Avalon: Did I know that? I might have.

Gin Stephens: Well, anyway, it's just so funny. Mine, that's just where mine came up in the lineup. I didn't put her to the front of the line just like I interviewed her a while back. Well, I interviewed her. It was a long time ago. Gosh, it was before Christmas, but whenever it was, I knew it would come out right before her book was coming out. The timing was just perfect. It happened naturally. I didn't move her around. It just happened to come out at the same time. Yeah, but it's just so funny, because it sounds like to me you purposefully put hers, where her book would be. But it just worked out that way for when I scheduled her. Yeah, but the fact that they came out one day after one another is funny to me. I thought I wanted to mention that. 

Melanie Avalon: Actually, I did interview her quite a while ago, but I purposely aired it, because her book is coming out on the 15th, I believe. When does this episode air?

Gin Stephens: On the 28th. So, her book already be out by the time this comes out. 

Melanie Avalon: I wish this was a little bit earlier, because I'm actually doing an IG live with her on the 18th. 

Gin Stephens: Sorry, y'all, missed that everybody. 

Melanie Avalon: What was interesting is, so, I was saying to seek different perspectives and opinions, and Cynthia's belief about the matter-based on her research as she thinks that there should be no fasting longer than 12 to 13 hours the week prior to menstruation. It's really about finding what works for you and you're going to get a lot of different perspectives, but something I regardless of the approach you take and your personal beliefs, the things I do believe I already said, which is that I do think it's women can become too restrictive with fasting. It doesn't mean that fasting is necessarily, naturally restrictive or that fasting by itself is a problem with your periods, I don't think. But I think women can get too restrictive in general with the fasting and then it might be a problem. Gin, what are your thoughts?

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I never stopped fasting around my cycle ever. I just kept going. I got great at listening to my body. There was always a day, it was funny. I had an app, because I'm on the other side of menopause now. But I had an app, been tracking my cycle from 2012 the whole way through. I could go back and look at it right this minute unless the app died, which apps do. [giggles] You'll go back look at an old app and it isn't supported anymore. But this app, I used from 2012 till all the way through menopause. As I was going through perimenopause, my cycle got less regular, which is very normal during that period of time. But I would find that I'd be starving one day, like, so hungry and I'd be like, "What's wrong with me? Why am I so hungry?" Then the next day, boom. My period would start with clockwork. Finally, I got to the point where I be like, "I am so hungry today and I bet I'm getting ready to start tomorrow." Because it was no longer regular by that point, like I said, because of perimenopause. Boom, there it was. I could just tell by my appetite. I think we have signals in our bodies for a reason. So, listen to your body. I think the question, the concern would be fertility. if you're not trying to get pregnant not in your childbearing years, then the point is moot more so. Because you still don't want to disrupt your hormones, but it's not as big of a deal. 

Melanie Avalon: I just want to comment on that. 

Gin Stephens: I might be wording it in a clunky way. The question comes up, because women who want to get pregnant worry that they're going to disrupt their cycles and not be fertile. When you get to a certain age, that's no longer a factor. I guess that's all I'm trying to say. But here's the thing about that. I had Dr. Cecily Ganheart on the Intermittent Fasting Stories Podcast and she's an OB-GYN. She actually has her patients with PCOS incorporate intermittent fasting to improve their fertility. The question, "should we not do intermittent fasting, should we-- what should we do? It really just depends on you. If you're someone with PCOS, intermittent fasting can really be a benefit to you and help you get your insulin levels down. A lot of women become pregnant after incorporating intermittent fasting when they've had PCOS. 

On the flipside, if you're someone, who hopes to get pregnant and you're doing intermittent fasting, but you're doing it in a restrictive way, it could negatively impact your hormones to the point that you have trouble conceiving. But of course, any restrictive diet would be the same. You don't want to do an overly restrictive diet, when you're trying to conceive, whether it's fasting or anything else. That's the time to really nourish your body. I think we get caught up in periods, because that's the part that's easy to see. But our hormones are doing different things all throughout the cycle at different phases. You just said, Melanie, Cynthia recommends the week before that was when you would scale back your fasting. That would not be when you're having the period. It would be the week before. There's just so much going on in your body. Intermittent fasting could be very beneficial, or it could be a problem, or it could be neither. It just really depends on your hormonal health. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, and the thing that Cynthia talks about is, she says, she really likes a lady's menstrual cycle, because you just mentioned this, it's something you can see. It is something that you can monitor as a sign of your stress levels. But the caveat I want to provide with that is that, a lot of people find when they first start intermittent fasting, it might change it a little bit in the beginning like get lighter, or skip a cycle, or change length between days. If you write it out that it does end up regulating, but that aside, it can still be a nice indicator of what might be going on and you reverted it to re-message it. 

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I knew it was coming out wrong. That's not what I was meaning to say. I was like, "I got that."

Melanie Avalon: Because what we don't want to say and this is what you clarified. We're not saying that, because you don't want to be pregnant that you shouldn't pursue fertility promoting lifestyles. 

Gin Stephens: I was more thinking about it through the lens of menopause. When you're no longer in your fertile years, it's a different-- But still, hormonal health is important no matter what stage you're in. You want to have your balanced hormones. But I think what I was trying to say was that it's more a central during your fertility years when you're actively trying to conceive, you need to pay more attention to it than ever.

Melanie Avalon: That is something else in Cynthia's book. She's much more lenient with fasting. You know what? I need to double check. I'm not sure. I'd have to double check. But I don't know if she still has that recommendation for menopausal women. 

Gin Stephens: I don't think she does. After menopause, you don't have to fast differently. I think I remember that. 

Melanie Avalon: If not that, it's definitely not as much of a concern. 

Gin Stephens: But you do need to be more cautious if you're trying to conceive. You need to make sure that you're nourishing your body well and not over restricting either through intermittent fasting or any diet. We're not teaching that to women. That's what's so frustrating. We're not teaching women not to over restrict with any diet. We're teaching them to restrict and that's the wrong thing to do. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, exactly. Well, this has been absolutely wonderful. So, a few things for listeners before we go. If you would like to submit your own questions for the show, you can directly email questions@ifpodcast.com or you can go to ifpodcast.com and you can submit questions there. The show notes will be at ifpodcast.com/episode258. You can get all the stuff that we like at ifpodcast.com/stuffwelike and you can follow us on Instagram. I am @melanieavalon, Gin is @ginstephens, and I think that is all things.

Gin Stephens: All right. Well, I enjoyed it. 

Melanie Avalon: Anything from you, Gin, before we go? 

Gin Stephens: Nope. 

Melanie Avalon: All right. Well, I really enjoyed this and I will see you next week. 

Gin Stephens: All right. Bye-bye. 

Melanie Avalon: Bye. 

Thank you so much for listening to the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Please remember, everything we discussed on this show does not constitute medical advice. We're not doctors. If you enjoyed the show, please consider writing your review on iTunes. We couldn't do this without our amazing team. Administration by Sharon Merriman, editing by Podcast Doctors, show notes and artwork by Brianna Joyner, transcripts by SpeechDocs, theme music by Leland Cox. See you next week.

STUFF WE LIKE

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

More on Gin: GinStephens.com

Theme Music Composed By Leland Cox: LelandCox.com

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

 

 

Mar 20

Episode 257: Caffeine Pills, Glycogen, Dietary Fat, Hypoglycemia, Stevia, Dirty Fasting, Hunger, And More!

Intermittent Fasting

Welcome to Episode 257 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine and Gin Stephens, author of Delay, Don't Deny: Living An Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle

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

LMNT: For Fasting Or Low-Carb Diets Electrolytes Are Key For Relieving Hunger, Cramps, Headaches, Tiredness, And Dizziness. With No Sugar, Artificial Ingredients, Coloring, And Only 2 Grams Of Carbs Per Packet, Try LMNT For Complete And Total Hydration. For A Limited Time Go To drinklmnt.com/ifpodcast To Get A Sample Pack For Only The Price Of Shipping!!

 JOOVV: Like intermittent fasting, red light therapy can benefit the body on so many levels! It literally works on the mitochondrial level to help your cells generate more energy! Red light can help you burn fat (including targeted fat burning and stubborn fat!), contour your body, reduce fine lines and wrinkles, produce collagen for epic skin, support muscle recovery, reduce joint pain and inflammation, combat fatigue, help you sleep better, improve mood, and so much more!! These devices are literally LIFE CHANGING!! For A Limited Time Go To Joovv.com/ifpodcast And Use The Code IFPODCAST For An Exclusive Discount!

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

SHOW NOTES

LMNT: For A Limited Time Go To drinklmnt.com/ifpodcast To Get A Sample Pack For Only The Price Of Shipping!! Learn All About Electrolytes In Episode 237 - Our Interview With Robb Wolf!

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

Listener Q&A: John - Caffeine Pills

Understanding the role of bitter taste perception in coffee, tea and alcohol consumption through Mendelian randomization

Listener Q&A: Giuseppina - Lots Of Topics With Questions!! Glycogen, Dietary Fat, Hypoglycemia, Stevia, Dirty Fasting, Hunger

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

TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Welcome to Episode 257 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. If you want to burn fat, gain energy, and enhance your health by changing when you eat, not what you eat with no calorie counting, then this show is for you. I'm Melanie Avalon, author of What When Wine: Lose Weight and Feel Great with Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, and Wine. And I'm here with my cohost, Gin Stephens, author of Fast. Feast. Repeat.: The Comprehensive Guide to Delay, Don't Deny Intermittent Fasting. For more on us, check out ifpodcast.com, melanieavalon.com, and ginstephens.com. Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this podcast do not constitute medical advice or treatment. So, pour yourself a cup of black coffee, a mug of tea, or even a glass of wine, if it's that time, and get ready for The Intermittent Fasting Podcast.

Hi, friends. I'm about to tell you how you can get free electrolyte supplements, some of which are clean, fast approved, all developed by none other than Robb Wolf. Have you been struggling to feel good with low carb, paleo, keto, or fasting? Have you heard of something called the keto flu? Here's the thing. The keto flu is not actually a condition. Nope. Keto flu just refers to a bundle of symptoms. Headaches, fatigue, muscle cramps, and insomnia that people experience in the early stages of keto dieting. Here's what's going on. 

When you eat a low-carb diet, your insulin levels drop. Low insulin in turn lowers the production of the hormone aldosterone. Now aldosterone is made in the kidneys and it helps you retain sodium. Low aldosterone on a keto diet makes you lose sodium at a rapid rate. Even if you are consciously consuming electrolytes, you might not be getting enough. In particular, you need electrolytes, especially sodium and potassium in order for nerve impulses to properly fire. Robb Wolf, who as you guys know is my hero in the holistic health world worked with the guys at Ketogains to get the exact formulation for electrolyte supplements to formulate LMNT Recharge, so you can maintain ketosis and feel your best. LMNT recharge has no sugar, no coloring, no artificial ingredients, no junk. They're used by three Navy SEALs teams, they are the official hydration partner to Team USA weightlifting, they're used by multiple NFL teams, and so much more. Guess what? We worked out an exclusive deal for The Intermittent Fasting Podcast listeners only. Guys, this is huge. They weren't going to do a deal, I begged them, here we are. 

You can get a free LMNT sampler pack. We're not talking a discount, we're talking free. Completely free. You only pay $5 for shipping. If you don't love it, they will even refund you the $5 for shipping. I'm not kidding. The sample pack includes eight packets of LMNT, two Citrus, two Raspberry, two Orange, and two Raw Unflavored. The Raw Unflavored ones are the ones that are safe for your clean fast and the other ones you can have in your eating window. Word on the street is the Citrus flavor makes an amazing margarita, by the way. 

I am loving LMNT and I think you guys will too. Again, this is completely free. You have nothing to lose. Just go to drinklmnt.com/ifpodcast. That's D-R-I-N-K-L-M-N-T dotcom forward slash I-F-P-O-D-C-A-S-T. I'll put all this information in the show notes.

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: Hi, everybody and welcome. This is Episode number 257 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon and I'm here with Gin Stephens.

Gin Stephens: Hi, everybody.

Melanie Avalon: How are you today, Gin?

Gin Stephens: Well, it is a beautiful day. I've been sitting out in the sun. I actually read something really interesting the other day, which might explain why I've had more trouble sleeping lately and why I sleep so much better at the beach.

Melanie Avalon: Is it grounding? 

Gin Stephens: No. [laughs] It's sunlight. Of course, we all know that when you go out in the sun it increases your vitamin D levels. But it also affects your melatonin production. You probably knew that already. I'd never thought about the sunlight and melatonin. I've got low vitamin D. I just had InsideTracker. I just had my bloodwork done.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, you did? 

Gin Stephens: I did it. Yeah. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah? Did you find anything interesting?

Gin Stephens: Well, my vitamin D level is really low. [laughs] But I had been really struggling to sleep. I was like, "Why am I all of a sudden having such a hard time sleeping?" Well, it's been winter I haven't been outside, I haven't been getting sun, I've been very, very busy. The past couple days, I've been going outside and now that the weather is warming up, I've been purposefully going out and getting sun. Last night I slept great. 

Melanie Avalon: Nice. 

Gin Stephens: I know. I think we hear about the sun and vitamin D so much that you think that's all the sun is doing, right? I hadn't really thought about it with melatonin production.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, it really regulates the rhythm of your melatonin release getting that sun early in the morning.

Gin Stephens: Yep. Getting that sun, I'm getting out there, but that explains like I said that why I always sleep so much better at the beach or that might be part of it. Because I get a lot more sun when I'm at the beach. 

Melanie Avalon: Very exciting. 

Gin Stephens: It is exciting. Oh, can I also tell you something else? I am going to throw up. I have ruined everything moment yesterday. Oh, my God, it was the worst. ginstephens.com disappeared. It was gone. I was trying to redirect. How we had the social network, the Delay, Don’t Deny social network, dddsocialnetwork.com, and that didn't work out well with the technology. We moved it to circle. Now, we have the Delay, Don’t Deny community, but it's a separate platform. The web address is different. We had dddsocialnetwork.com for the one that we left, we left them in September, but it was still hanging out there. I was like, "I need to redirect that site in case people ever go back and try to find it." We had some final words there, but we're going to lose the access to it, because it's been a year. We had a year contract with them. So, it's going to disappear. I'm like, "All right, well, if it disappears, I need it to redirect." I'm in Weebly trying to redirect dddsocialnetwork.com, so, it goes to ginstephens.com, and somehow, I don't know what I did, but ginstephens.com was gone. 

Melanie Avalon: Wow. 

Gin Stephens: And I was freaking out. All the content, it suddenly was like, "Get started and publish your website." I'm like, "What, what, what?"

Melanie Avalon: How long was it down for?

Gin Stephens: It was not very long. I got on chat with tech support for Weebly. They were fantastic. So, if anyone is thinking about starting a website, Weebly was great. It's an easy website builder. But I was like, "Oh, my God, I've lost all the content." He sent me a screenshot. He's like, "You mean this content?" I'm like, "Oh, my God, hallelujah, it's somewhere." [laughs] I don't know, but he fixed it. Oh, I thought I was going to die. 

Melanie Avalon: I use GoDaddy for our sites. I also love GoDaddy. But I've had quite a few panic calls with GoDaddy, where it was like, "Talk me off the ledge. The website is somewhere."

Gin Stephens: It's somewhere and he was able to also help me fix it, so that it does redirect. If you try to go to dddsocialnetwork.com. It does redirect to ginstephens.com now. Ah, anyway, I was really freaking out. But can you imagine if you lost everything for your website, everything?

Melanie Avalon: Does Weebly have the backups and everything?

Gin Stephens: Apparently. [laughs] Thank the Lord, because-- Anyway, oh, my God, it was the worst. So, what's up with you? Anyway, it was actually the best, because they fixed it. 

Melanie Avalon: And now, you know that there are backups. 

Gin Stephens: Exactly. But I never want to touch the backend all that. That technology man, it's hard. 

Melanie Avalon: I don't understand it. 

Gin Stephens: They start saying things like-- Anyway, just the word redirect is hard enough. Now, I understand redirect, honestly. But there's just there's a lot going on.

Melanie Avalon: Every time we've switched platforms for our show, I've been so nervous. There's been moments, where I was convinced that we lost, because we recently switched platforms a few weeks ago for this show. There was a moment where I thought we lost half our episodes. Did you know that happened? 

Gin Stephens: I didn't know. You thought you lost half the episodes? 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, half of them stopped showing up on all the platforms. I was like, "What is happening?" Our host was like, "Yeah, this sometimes happens if something about didn't finish importing." I was like, "Oh, my goodness." [laughs] like they were gone. But all is well, all is well. 

Gin Stephens: Well, yeah. All is well, if you don't lose everything. That's all I'm saying.

Melanie Avalon: But if you do, you can just start afresh.

Gin Stephens: Well, I don't want to start afresh. [laughs] I did not want to start afresh with my website. No. Anyway, I was imagining, I was going to have to do it. I was like, "I'm never going to sleep again. I'll be rebuilding my website." But okay, I didn't have to.

Melanie Avalon: If that happened, I would just hire somebody out to--

Gin Stephens: You see, I've got all the blog posts that I had written. They would have been gone. The content, exactly. Well, I could rebuild it. Weebly is easy to build on. I would not hire someone now. I built it the first time. I could rebuild it, but I don't want to. That's what I'm saying. I do not want to. Anyway, good times. Anything new with you?

Melanie Avalon: Just all the normal things. We are getting closer to our final formulation for our magnesium for my next AvalonX supplement. So, that's really exciting. It's a matter of figuring out which forms to put in, and which amounts, and there are so many different magnesiums. Yeah, that's the main thing. Then, so, I'm working on the EMF blocking product line and then also working on a pet food line.

Gin Stephens: You really are. You're going forward with the pet food. 

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm. 

Gin Stephens: Very cool.

Melanie Avalon: Yep, and then just the shows. So, life is good.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, well, the busier you are, the more you get done. That's what I've always found.

Melanie Avalon: It's just fun. I just love doing all the things. I'm just so grateful that you get to wake up and work on things that we love. 

Gin Stephens: Exactly. 

Melanie Avalon: And not have to report to anybody like being your own boss. 

Gin Stephens: That's huge, because I was a teacher for 28 years and so, very much not my own boss. I loved it and I was good at it, but that last year, when I really realized how much I wanted to be doing that I couldn't do, because I felt stuck to the job all of a sudden. After never feeling that way, I all of a sudden did. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. So, that must have felt really freeing for you. 

Gin Stephens: So freeing. Grateful, ever grateful. 

Melanie Avalon: Do not take it for granted. 

Gin Stephens: Oh, no. Not for one second.

Melanie Avalon: So, shall we jump into everything for today?

Gin Stephens: Yes, let's get started. 

Melanie Avalon: All right, so, a very short question to start things off. This comes from John. The subject is: "Caffeine pills". John says, "I can't drink black coffee. Is it okay to take a caffeine pill upon waking instead?"

Gin Stephens: Well, you can. [giggles] When we think about something like a pill of any kind, they're all going to have fillers and stuff in there. Your caffeine pills going to have fillers in there. I feel for me, if I was not going to drink coffee, I would wean myself off of caffeine. I don't know. I don't think I would need caffeine. I enjoy coffee, the experience of coffee. Personally, I wouldn't want to put a caffeine pill every day into my body. I would just wean myself off caffeine. Yeah, you can if you want to. But I probably wouldn't, but you can. Is that though the worst answer in the history of answers, Melanie?

Melanie Avalon: No, no, not at all. I actually went through a caffeine pill phase. 

Gin Stephens: Did you? Were you taking it for caffeine benefits, like, adding extra caffeine?

Melanie Avalon: I was taking it, it was probably right after college, and in college, I was drinking so much coffee. I wanted to have a way I could control my caffeine intake and not-- Because you know what the coffee, you could just keep drinking coffee. I wanted to switch over, and just have a dosage, a pill, and then be done for that morning, pep in your step. Gin just said this, but can you or is it okay? Yes, it is okay. You probably would want to look at the other ingredients in the pill. I would look at the why, for why you want the caffeine. So, if you want the caffeine-- [unintelligible [00:15:28] don't want to drink coffee.

Gin Stephens: Well, he doesn't like black coffee. Actually, now, that I mentioned that part, I think John could drink black coffee. That's what I would do. I would just retrain those tastebuds, John.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. A lot of the proposed benefits for coffee are due to the caffeine. But a lot of the benefits are found in decaf as well. A lot of the benefits aren't necessarily even from the caffeine. They could be from polyphenols and the plant compounds in coffee. You're not going to get all of those benefits from a caffeine pill. And also, the way your body handles the caffeine, we think we talked about this in an episode a while ago, but the curve of how your body processes the caffeine is different when it's in coffee or tea form versus caffeine pill. The caffeine pill tends to be a much bigger spike and drop compared to coffee and tea, which is a more gentle slope and likely has more beneficial effects throughout the whole body.

Gin Stephens: Exactly. Yeah, because so much of what's good about the coffee is not just the caffeine. 

Melanie Avalon: Yes. You know what so interesting, though is, I just think it's so interesting how, especially in the plant polyphenol world, how people attribute different things to the benefits. So many people will say, the polyphenols in plant compounds and coffee are working because of this reason. The Sirtfood guy diet would say, it's all about the sirtuins. But then I just interviewed Steven Gundry and he talks about polyphenols. But for him, it's all about the mitochondrial uncoupling. People have different reasons for why it works. But I guess, it doesn't change the fact that good things are happening. 

Gin Stephens: They do so many things we don't even know. That's the thing. For example, beta-carotene in carrots, right? People are like, "Oh, carrots are good for you. It's because of the beta-carotene." But then when they made a beta-carotene supplement, it didn't have the expected effects the same way like a carrot would. It's just because there's also thousands of other compounds inside that carrot. We've identified this one, but that doesn't mean it's the magic compound.

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm. Exactly. I feel that's a long-winded answer. So, the answer is yes. But yes, and maybe there's a better option.

Gin Stephens: I really do want to go back to what John said, because I think I'm getting the psychology of it now, like, when I read it again. "I can't drink black coffee" from John. The reason he wants to take the caffeine pill, I'm now assuming, I'm reading more into this question. He's used to drinking coffee just not black coffee, so, now that he knows it needs to be black to fast clean. He's like, "Well, that's a deal breaker. I just am going to quit coffee." So, John, I want to tell you my story about this. I was the same way. When I read The Obesity Code and realized that stevia would cause you to have a cephalic phase insulin response, and I wanted to keep my insulin low during the fast, and so, it was counterproductive to drink stevia in my coffee all morning long, that wasn't good for me. I was like, "Well, I can't drink black coffee. So, I guess it's no coffee for me" and I quit coffee for just a few days. Then, I realized I missed coffee. 

I liked the act of drinking coffee. I was like, "Well, I'm just going to hold my nose, and suck it up, and I'm going to drink my coffee black." I did and I adjusted so quickly that the old me probably wouldn't believe that it would happen so quickly. Your tastebuds really do change. If you think you can't drink black coffee because you're used to drinking it with stuff in it, if you like the smell of coffee and you've enjoyed coffee in the past, then you can train your tastebuds to black coffee, too. I really think it opened up my tastebuds, my palate to the point that now I can tolerate a lot more bitter foods that I used to find to be really yucky. Now, I think my tastebuds had a whole remodel. So, now, I don't mind so many other foods that used to bother me, anyway.

Melanie Avalon: I have a question for you about this. We talked about the importance of the clean fast and the black coffee. Let's say, a person really only likes drinking coffee, super steviad up, super creamed up. Would you prefer or suggest, if they are open to tapering down? So, doing slightly less cream, slightly less stevia, and tapering down over a few weeks, would you suggest that or would you suggest not?

Gin Stephens: Well, it's just going to make it harder in the long run. You think it's making it easier? 

Melanie Avalon: The tapering?

Gin Stephens: Well, it's going to also, you're not going to be fast and clean. It's going to make your fast harder. It going to make your fast really hard. I just know from what I've heard from so many people, even if it was just my own experience. My own experience was, when I switched to the clean fast, I could not believe the difference in myself. But if it was only my study of one, obviously, that's just me. But I've also heard it literally from thousands of people. It makes such a difference. My recommendation is not to taper or drag it out, because you're only making it harder. If you just, bam, you just do it, and your tastebuds will change.

Melanie Avalon: I just find this so interesting. I think we have the same thoughts about this concept, but flipped for food versus fasting. For fasting-- I don't know. I haven't really thought about this. 

Gin Stephens: What do you mean? I don't know what you mean. 

Melanie Avalon: I feel for fasting, I think if a person felt comfortable with the tapering approach with fasting, that's what I would maybe advocate for with the food. I feel I would rather just go all in rather than taper with the food approach.

Gin Stephens: You're more all in with the food anyway or I am not. I'm ish with my food. I'm clean-ish. I don't ascribe to a very regimented eating style.

Melanie Avalon: The end point would be different. 

Gin Stephens: Right. Now, I'm not trying to get to a regimented eating style. I appreciate that some people feel better on a lot of different eating styles, some of which are regimented, but I don't want to or feel better that way. So, yeah. That was an interesting thought. Yeah, different end point. I just know that from what I've heard from people like Dr. Fung and his group, I think they call them crutches. When you're putting cream in your coffee, they call it a crutch, and you wean yourself off of it. We've actually found with people. It actually makes it harder. You think that it's helping you, you think it's making it easier for you to transition, but it actually is delaying your transition and making it more likely that you're like, "I hate fasting, it's so hard." If you just from day one, fast clean, it's just such a difference. I've just heard it in my community, because I'm so clean fast, working with lots of new fasters over the years, thousands and thousands of them. The number of people who have said, "This is what I used to do, and then I switched to what you said to do, and oh, my gosh, the difference." I've heard of a lot of times. I really think it makes a difference. So, that's what I would recommend.

Melanie Avalon: I wonder if they've done any studies on the timeline of people's tastebuds changing.

Gin Stephens: With coffee or just in general? 

Melanie Avalon: Probably in general. 

Gin Stephens: We've talked about one before. I remember us talking about something at some point where how quickly your tastebuds turnover. It's faster than you think. I can't remember what we said, but I know it was years ago we talked about this very topic.

Melanie Avalon: I want to read this study. I just googled it briefly. This one's called "understanding the role of bitter taste perception in coffee, tea, and alcohol consumption through Mendelian randomization." [laughs] Put that on the to read list. [laughs] Good times. Okay, so, you can do it, John. 

Gin Stephens: You can, John. You can drink black coffee. [laughs] All right, or, you can have a caffeine pill but I wouldn't. 

Today's episode is brought to you by Prep Dish. I know you've heard us talk about Prep Dish for years. If you've been putting off trying the meal plans, now is the perfect time. Why? Rising food costs or making bouncing healthy food with grocery budget more challenging than ever. Many members rely on Prep Dish meal plans to keep their grocery budget under control. Prep Dish is a company of moms and they get it. They understand that you want to serve healthy homemade meals to your family without spending every hard-earned dollar at the grocery store. The Prep Dish team has started offering regular budget tips and lower cost substitutions in the weekly subscriber newsletter and they can really help you keep your costs down. You'll easily make up for the subscription cost by eating more meals at home and avoiding takeout. Having a done-for-you meal plan makes it so easy. All meals are not only window worthy, but they're healthy. Want to try it for free. Their founder, Allison understands that deciding what to feed your family is important. That's why she's offering you a free two-week trial. That's right. It's absolutely free. You can't beat that. Check out prepdish.com/ifpodcast to try the recipes for yourself and commit to your healthiest year yet. Again, that's prepdish.com/ifpodcast for your first two weeks free, and let us know how you like it. And now, back to the show. 

Gin Stephens: We have a question from Josephine and the topic is, lots of topics of questions. "Glycogen dietary fat, hypoglycemia, stevia, dirty fasting, and hunger." She says, "Dear Gin and Melanie, as an avid longtime listener, I have stockpiled my most persistent nagging questions for you after listening to every one of your podcasts and still not finding the answers. I would so appreciate you giving some thought to my questions as I cannot find clear answers to them no matter how deep a rabbit hole I dive with research. Most of these questions stem from the intriguing information I have culled from wearing a CGM for the last several weeks. For context, I am slightly dirty fasting about 14 to 16 hours every day." Josephine you're getting my teacher look. I'm looking at you with it right now. She says, "and I have been off and on for the past year. I took a five-month break from clean fasting to follow the Ray Peat bioenergetic diet as I was feeling sluggish and low energy at one point while clean fasting. The first few months of clean fasting I felt great, lost all the weight, but then stopped sleeping well, and found out I was hypothyroid. At which point I read Ray Peat's philosophy and thought I'd try it. 

I did feel good not fasting and following the bioenergetic way of eating. Breakfast upon awakening, orange juice and milk between meals for adrenals, avoiding high-fiber vegetables, etc. But I gained a ton of weight and hated in the end feeling heavier. So, I went back to fasting, and listening to you guys, and dropped the weight and felt better. Only this time, I added stevia and a teeny splash of milk in my coffee. So, I enjoyed my life more. Maybe I'm weird, but black coffee is so depressing to me. I can't sustain fasting like that for my whole life." 

Melanie Avalon: Here it is again.

Gin Stephens: Oh. [laughs] "Now, that's what I do. 14 to 16 hours of dirty-ish fasting. When I ate, it was mostly lean proteins, and fruits, and vegetables. I got the CGM, because I wanted to understand what amount of food and combination of macronutrients during my eating window would allow me to feel satisfied, but not gain weight. Here are my questions."

Melanie Avalon: Can I jump in really quick? I was just going to talk about what-- so people know what the Ray Peat diet is a little bit.

Gin Stephens: I also want to talk about the dirty fasting and what my philosophy about that. But go ahead and talk about Ray Peat first.

Melanie Avalon: I'm very familiar with Ray Peat. I find his work very fascinating and he doesn't really have a diet. He doesn't ever say, this is what you do. It's a collection of philosophy that he's written about, and there are a lot of forums, and people have come up with his takeaways, and created this Ray Peat diet. The way I found his work is because I kept googling what I was eating. He's not a fan of fasting. But I kept googling the types of foods I was eating and I kept coming back to Ray Peat. Basically, the foods I eat are very Ray Peat-ish. So, that said, he does advocate things like orange juice, and even sugar, and Coca Cola. He's for a low fiber, low residue, running on glycogen, and glucose high, less inflammatory protein, so fish. He loves fruit, he loves dairy. He's all about like stroking the metabolism.

Gin Stephens: Did you mean stoking?

Melanie Avalon: Both stoking, stroking. Is it not stroking? Is it stoking?

Gin Stephens: Stoking. Stroking, I don't understand stroking the metabolism. Maybe that's the thing. I don't know about stroking the metabolism, but stoking the metabolism is like firing it up. Is that what you meant? 

Melanie Avalon: That is what I mean. 

Gin Stephens: You're stoking it.

Melanie Avalon: I'm going to see if anybody says that. 

Gin Stephens: Stroking the metabolism. Here's a funny story, where we are not going to edit this out, by the way. Here's the funny story. Really intelligent people all the time use words wrong. Here's an example. Chad, my husband, PhD, very smart guy. He thought the phrase was "Don't take me for granite." G-R-A-N-I-T-E. All his life, he thought it was "Don't take me for granite," instead of granted.

Melanie Avalon: When did he have that?

Gin Stephens: I don't know. It's been in the past couple years. He's like, "Wait, it's what, it's what?

Melanie Avalon: I would love to know, because I'm sure there are tons of things like that for everybody. What are the three biggest things for me personally, where I would just be like, "What?" [giggles] Stoking the metabolism, yes, he's all about that. But what's really interesting is, so, you can do his approach and I think lose-- He says this, because I've googled this. He says, "If you want to lose weight on his approach, you got to do the low-fat version." You got to eat the low-fat foods. Oh, he loves coconut oil, too. If you do it eating the higher fat foods that he advocates, so the high fat dairy, and I mean, it's a lot high fat dairy. A lot of people to gain weight. I don't think it's so much about Ray Peat's approach causes weight gain as much as how does your version of Ray Peat manifest, and are you doing a type that encourages weight gain or encourages weight loss? All that to say is, I think you can eat Ray Peat foods, and lose weight, and still get the benefits.

Gin Stephens: I think I would feel so terrible. If I tried to eat that all that sugary stuff, I don't do well. I don't do well with that.

Melanie Avalon: I don't eat the sugar, all of that. The foods I eat that are very Ray Peaty is. I eat a ton of fish, scallops. He likes fruit, vegetables, so, I can eat the cucumbers, fruits. He thinks a lot of fiber is irritating to the gut. So, not eating a ton of veggies and things like that.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, he's the opposite of what I eat. [laughs] 

Melanie Avalon: It's funny. Yeah, he probably is, completely. 

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I think so.

Melanie Avalon: I was just going to clarify that. So, go ahead.

Gin Stephens: "About the dirty fasting, I'm really proud of bringing the terminology clean fast to the world," because that happened in our Facebook group. We created the words fast and clean, the clean fast back in probably around 2017. It was after I wrote Delay, Don’t Deny. But then we started using the word. We needed something to talk in a way to differentiate what we were doing versus what you might find in other fasting groups. We're like, "We want you to fast clean." We started using that terminology and now, it's everywhere. People are using it. But when you say clean fasting, that implies there must be the opposite of that meaning dirty fasting. But I genuinely believe you're either fasting clean, or you're not fasting. So, I love that we brought the terminology 'clean fasting' to the world, but I really don't like the terminology 'dirty fasting,' because to me, if you're fasting clean, then you're not eating food, for example, or taking in energy or all of that. 

That being said, if you're having milk for example, that is not fasting. It is food, milk is food. You're doing a low-calorie diet. When you're having a little bit of milk here, a little bit of milk there, a little bit of milk, that is a very, very low-calorie diet. Can you lose weight that way? Yes. We've all lost weight on low-calorie diets. You could just have milky coffee all the time and I'm not talking obviously about Josephine, but just in general, hypothetically, someone could just drink milky coffee all day long if it's a low-calorie diet. But it's definitely food. Dairy is nature's perfect food for a mammal baby. We all feed our baby, all mammals feed their babies some kind of milk. So, it's food that's created for the period of time when you are growing the most. Think about that. When are creatures growing the most when they're babies and they're growing? So, to me, that's the last thing you'd really want to take in during the fast is dairy. Anyway, so, I really don't like the terminology dirty fasting just because first of all, it makes it feel it's a choice. "Well, I do a little dirty fasting, but it's no big deal." I really think you're not fasting if you're doing that. The same thing with the stevia. 

Your goal is to keep your insulin low. We've got three goals for the clean fast. Number one is keep your insulin low. Why? Why do we want to keep our insulin low? Well, it's because if you've read Benjamin Bikman's book, Why We Get Sick, high levels of insulin are linked to so many of our problems. Our health conditions that are just rampant. And also, insulin is anti-lipolytic. Meaning, it keeps you from tapping into your fat stores effectively. So, now, let's think about you're having the stevia in there that's keeping your insulin raised. When I gave up my stevia it was because I read in The Obesity Code that stevia actually caused your body to release more insulin than table sugar. Jason Fung said that in The Obesity Code. I highlighted it, and took a screenshot of it, and I'm like, "What?" So, I certainly wouldn't put table sugar in my coffee. Why would I want to raise my insulin more? Because high levels of insulin keep your body from tapping into your fat stores well. Like I said, it's anti-lipolytic, anti-fat burning. I'm like, there is no reason why I would want my insulin to go up. When I'm fasting, I want my insulin to go down, because I want to tap into fat stores. Okay, so, fasting goal one: keep insulin low. Fasting goal two: tap into your fat stores by not adding anything that's energy for the body. That would be whether you're adding your MCT oil, or butter, or anything like that. You don't want to do that either. 

We also want to keep autophagy going strong. Protein affects autophagy. There's a little bit of protein in milk. I would really encourage you to rethink what you're doing. You're fasting in my opinion until you have that stevia and milk. Then your window is open and now you're low-calorie dieting. Keep that In your mind and it made me sad the way you said. I'm trying to find it in the question that the black coffee was so depressing that you can't sustain fasting like that for your whole life. I would encourage you to make a mindset shift, because as long as you think "I can't enjoy my life if I'm drinking black coffee, it's so depressing, I can't sustain fasting like that for my whole life. That's what you're telling yourself. That's the story your brain is telling you." But what if you flip the switch and said, "I want to have low levels of insulin, because that is healthier for my body. I want to get all the benefits of the clean fast and I want to tap into my fat stores, because I have low levels of insulin, and I'm not taking in milk, and that is what I want to do for my whole life doing it for the health reasons." 

If you make that mental shift and went to the black coffee and instead of thinking of it like, "Oh, this is so depressing. I can't believe I'm drinking this terrible black coffee." If you're like, "Well, I'm drinking this because it's a much better choice for health for me." If you could just flip that switch and realize you want the benefits from fasting, fast clean, so, I'm going to encourage you to really do that and I think its life changing. Do you have anything to add to that, Melanie?

Melanie Avalon: Just that, that is going to be very helpful for the question she asks a little bit later. I'm glad that you said all of that.

Gin Stephens: It also goes along with the question that we had a minute ago from John, the black coffee. All right, so, we're ready to keep going with the questions. All right. She said, "in the beginning, my blood sugar levels were 70 to 80 while fasting. Whenever I ate, they would rise and fall quickly to below my fasting blood sugar levels. So, reactive hypoglycemia, what would you say? Would you say that's reactive hypoglycemia?

Melanie Avalon: Probably, yes. Basically, reactive hypoglycemia is where when you eat, your body releases insulin, but it releases more insulin than is needed. It's too effective in a way. So, then your blood sugar drops below what it was prior to eating.

Gin Stephens: Okay. So, it goes on to say, "This was interesting, because it helped me understand why I was never satisfied after starting to eat. I upped my dietary fat intake and was pleased to find out that it helped the reactive hypoglycemia and level of satisfaction." So, yes, that is true. That's one thing that really I learned doing the-- I knew this already, but doing the ZOE testing was how it changed things when you combine different foods. It made a huge difference. I knew that if I ate for example of plain baked potato with nothing on it that I would feel a crash later, but if I put butter and sour cream, then the fat helps the way your body processes those quick acting carbs and then it's steady, and you don't have that crash. But it was interesting to see it right there in ZOE to see the numbers change. Like, "Here's what a plain potato is. Now, you add this butter to it and it increases the score for my body." Anyway, so, that makes a lot of sense. 

The way I'm interpreting this, Melanie, in the beginning, this means probably back when she was fasting clean. She used to fast clean and, in the beginning her blood sugar levels were 70 to 80 while fasting. I think that's important. Then here's the next part of that question. "However, now, my fasting blood sugar the next day remains in the 90s and the 100s literally all day. I never want to open my week eating window when the levels are so high like that. Does this mean I don't clear fat well? I don't want to gain weight by eating if my glycogen levels are never depleting enough. Yet, I also don't want to go back to low fat and find myself hypoglycemic and hungry all the time, what to do?" Now, I'm so curious what not clearing fat would have to do with blood-- Maybe she means, because she ate fat yesterday?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, what she's saying is, when she was doing low fat, really low fat, she would have a reactive hypoglycemic response and she would still be hungry. But the next day, she would have lower fasting blood sugar levels. When she added fat, she didn't get that reactive hypoglycemic response. She felt more satisfied. But the next day, she had higher fasting blood sugar levels.

Gin Stephens: I'm curious if one of these was done with clean fasting and one of them was not. Because she said, she did do clean fasting, then she stopped doing clean fasting.

Melanie Avalon: She went back to fasting. I think she's been doing her version of the dirty fasting through all of this, because she says she was doing Ray Peat, and then when she went back to fasting that she did it with the stevia and the tiny splash of milk, I think that's been consistent from what I'm reading.

Gin Stephens: Okay. So, when she says in the beginning she's talking about recently.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. The time I'm getting from this what it sounds is, she did clean fasting, then she did Ray Peat, then she went back to fasting, but she did it with the dirtiest fasting.

Gin Stephens: Milk and stevia?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. But the beginning of her return to fasting was low fat. She's having reactive hypoglycemia. Then she went to a higher fat, no more reactive hypoglycemia. But she has higher fasting blood sugar levels the next day. That's the timeline I'm getting from this. 

Gin Stephens: Well, we'll assume that's what it is. 

Melanie Avalon: Feel free to let us know, Josephine, if it's not. But I do have thoughts on this. Do you want me to jump in? 

Gin Stephens: Yep. 

Melanie Avalon: Yes, this is what I've seen. Actually, I'm really fascinated by this, because a lot of people say, adding fat to a meal reduces the blood sugar spike of the meal, which is true. However, what is often not accounted for is the longer-term effect, which has-- I've read studies on this, and this is what Josephine is experiencing, and that it can create a longer, higher blood sugar. That's like a much longer timeline.

Gin Stephens: It's like slow release. It becomes slow release instead of bam.

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm. It's longer. Rather than being up and down, it's not as high up, but then it's longer. Carrying into the next day, so that's quite a while. The next day she's seeing that she's having all day these higher blood sugar levels, I do think it's the fat that is causing that, and I do think that she's saying that her glycogen levels aren't depleting enough, which is likely happening. I would keep tweaking to find what works for you. Because I think in your head, it sounds like you think it has to either be this super low fat or this higher fat version. I think there are two options here. I would maybe try-- I don't know how you're adding the dietary fat. Were you actually adding fat like pure fat, which would be like oils, butter, things like that? If that's how you're adding it, I would maybe add it through more whole food versions. So, instead of oils and butter, just having maybe fat. Oh, yes, yes, because she's eating lean proteins, fruits, and vegetables. This is what I would try, Josephine. I'm very excited. If you're upping the fat was adding oils and butter, I would not add oils and butter. I would eat fattier cuts of meat. Instead of eating the lean protein, just have more whole foods, fattier protein, I would try that. I would see if that works. 

Another thing you could try is not upping the fat, upping the protein. Because protein can have a really beneficial effect on satiety and/or regulating blood sugar regulation. Instead of trying to fix it with the fat approach, you could try to fix it with the protein approach. Those are the two things I would try, and I would just keep tweaking, and I would keep using a CGM until you find the approach that works for you. Because Josephine, we actually follow a very similar diet it sounds like because I eat mostly lean proteins, fruits and vegetables, although, my vegetables are cucumbers. I will have the same response. If I go higher fat by adding in fat like oils or butter, I will have higher resting blood sugars the next day. But if I add in just fattier cuts of meat, so salmon, maybe adding in some more red meat and things like that, I can mitigate all of this. So, that's what I would try. 

Gin Stephens: I would also, again, I'm going back to fast and clean, because we haven't talked about the fact that when you're putting milk in your coffee, the milk breaks down and there's sugar in your bloodstream. Some of that might be coming from that milk. Anyway, just FYI. Milk can absolutely cause your blood sugar to go up. So, if you see what happens, leaving the milk out, see how that affects your readings. 

Melanie Avalon: If the milk was consistent through all of it, then it probably is more the dietary shift that created it. But that said--

Gin Stephens: Stop adding stuff in during the day and that will--

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, it could be that if you do the black coffee, then it results that without having to.

Gin Stephens: Exactly. Change what you're eating. Yep, I just know my blood sugar. We're all different with the way we our bodies clear the fat, and the blood sugar, and all that. My experience may not be the same as someone else's. But from wearing a CGM briefly, what I found was, when I woke up in the morning, my blood sugar was a certain amount. By the way, before coffee, of course, it was lower and then after coffee, it goes up. So, when I just had my InsideTracker results, my fasted blood glucose was 86 when I woke up.

Melanie Avalon: I'm really curious. When did you have it tested? In the morning, or--? 

Gin Stephens: Yeah, it was in the morning. I'd been up, I'd already showered, I'd been moving around. We know that it goes up and down. But generally, in the morning, whenever I was wearing the CGM, I would notice after coffee, it would go up and be in that 90 range for a little while, while I was drinking my coffee. Then eventually, mid-morning, it would go down into the 70s and then I would have right when it was going down is when I would have a mild wave of hunger. That's how I knew. I'm like, "Oh, I'm having a mild wave of hunger," and then I would check the CGM. Sure enough, that's when it was going down. Then it would stay in the 70s the rest of the time. So, it was fascinating to see. Actually, maybe when I was sleeping, I'm trying to remember. Maybe when I was sleeping, it was like 70s, 80s, I don't know. But then after the coffee, it would go up. After coffee, it went up and that was my body dumping out the glycogen from my liver in the coffee helps with that. But then midmorning, boom back down and then it would stay in the 70s the whole rest of the time that I fasted, and it was very steady. It didn't go up and down, up and down, up and down. It just stayed there. 

Understanding what the coffee was doing was important. But that's why this time when I had the InsideTracker, I was like, "Well, I'm not going to drink coffee till after they come," because I want to see what it's doing. Sure enough, the last time I'd had fasted blood work, I drank coffee beforehand, because I didn't even think about the glycogen dump. Then I'm like, "Why did I drink that coffee?" I just wasn't even paying attention. Really, it was when I wore the CGM that I was like, "Okay, it really does make a huge difference" and it did. So, I really wanted to try to see what it was, what the fastest blood sugar was without the coffee and it was better. 

Melanie Avalon: Was that your first time doing InsideTracker? I just love InsideTracker so much. 

Gin Stephens: It was not. It was the second time.

Melanie Avalon: We were talking about this before, but I got too high vitamin D often on my InsideTracker, because I've gotten so intense on trying to raise my vitamin D.

Gin Stephens: What do you do to raise it? 

Melanie Avalon: Supplement vitamin D every night. I take the Thorne D/K2 blend, that's a supplement I want to make in the future of vitamin D. Then I was doing three-minute really short EPB tanning sessions last winter. I haven't done them in a while. I stopped doing them once I realized my vitamin D was really high.

Gin Stephens: You know me and supplements, I'm not a supplement person. I'd rather get it from the sun. Again, the sun doesn't just give us the vitamin D. It also helps with our melatonin. I may have heard that before, but it never really clicked with me. You know how you hear a lot of stuff, and you just, like, whatever, and then all of a sudden, one day it clicks, and I was like, "Oh, I'm not sleeping. Oh, my vitamin D is low, my melatonin is probably also low." It was the right time to read that after I'd had a very restless night sleeping. A lot of things just suddenly came together and suddenly I was ready for that information.

Melanie Avalon: I think it has to do with the sunlight going into your eyes.

Gin Stephens: I think so. I 100% think so. I've heard that, too.

Melanie Avalon: That affects the melatonin release. It resets the clock. 

Gin Stephens: It really does. I've heard that before. That's not new information. But I guess, I needed to hear all that at the same time after just having gotten my vitamin D back and having trouble sleeping all at the same time. It was the right time for it to really be reinforced.

Melanie Avalon: I've actually been experimenting-- Well, ever since reading Dr. John Lieurance's Melatonin Miracle book and having him on the show, I've been very fascinated about melatonin. Then when I got COVID, I was really looking into the role of melatonin helping that. Then when I did that moment, Gin, where I took a whole bottle of melatonin by accident and felt so good the next day. I've been really experimenting with supplemental melatonin and then when I interviewed Dr. Steven Gundry and he talks about the mitochondrial uncoupling in the mitochondria, he was saying that the two master antioxidants in your mitochondria that, I forgot exactly what their role is. But they are very, very helpful was melatonin and glutathione. So, I've been experimenting supplementing with melatonin as a supplement.

Gin Stephens: It makes me feel hungover. I don't feel good with it.

Melanie Avalon: Have you tried a version that is not the chewable flavored pills? 

Gin Stephens: Oh, I don’t take chewable flavored pills. [laughs] Yes, I've tried several different versions, but I don't take chewable anything ever. 

Melanie Avalon: Okay. 

Gin Stephens: Every time I've ever taken it, it just made me feel hungover. Also, Benadryl makes me feel hungover. So, my brain is weird about things. 

Melanie Avalon: Benadryl can make me feel hungover, but it just knocks me out so well. 

Gin Stephens: Yeah, not me. It makes me like wired. But interesting, you were just talking about COVID. I remember early on, we heard about vitamin D linked to COVID and when people who had low vitamin D levels had worse experiences with COVID, but then also the role of melatonin. Really was it the vitamin D that was the problem or was it the melatonin, because they go hand in hand. That's where we can get the cause and effect wrong. We're like, "Oh, look, we can measure vitamin D. Their vitamin D is low. They must need vitamin D. Let's give them supplemental vitamin D." When really, that was just the marker for it and it was really melatonin that was making the difference.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, it's like-- I was actually just emailing, because I work a lot with InsideTracker and I've been emailing them a lot, because they do make one recommendation and it depends on-- When you get your results, its recommendations tailored to you, so not everybody gets this recommendation. But one of the recommendations that has to do with one of their biomarkers, I think specifically HDL, maybe. It actually says to sleep less is the recommendation. I went and looked at all of the studies they're basing that off of. What's interesting is too much sleep in general, so sleeping more than, is it eight or nine hours? Sleeping more than is what is thought to be the healthy amount is correlated to health issues. My big question for that is¸ is it sleeping more that's causing the health issues or is it people, who have health issues are sleeping more? 

Gin Stephens: Yeah, my brain went right there.

Melanie Avalon: I really think that's what's going on.

Gin Stephens: It's a study, I heard him say one day on the radio years and years ago, and my boys were little. They're children, who are spanked are more violent. I'm like, "Or, our children who are more violent likely to be spanked more." [laughs] I don't know. We tend to make the line this way when it could be the other way. Anyway.

Melanie Avalon: Exactly. I keep telling them, I'm like, "Please, I'm--." All they would have to change, I would just change it to get more quality sleep. That would still be the same recommendation in a way.

Gin Stephens: It's just an example of why we have to be so careful, because all that information about vitamin D levels and COVID, everybody's like, "Oh, we need to supplement with a tons of vitamin D." But really, maybe that wasn't the thing. It wasn't the vitamin D at all. It was the melatonin.

Melanie Avalon: The type of people with more vitamin D may be the type of people who are outside. 

Gin Stephens: Well, because generally, that's the thing. It's hand in hand. They noticed that COVID was hitting people worse in areas, for example, Italy and New York where that's the period of the year where their vitamin D levels are lower, because it's their latitude. Latitude is a factor. But along with latitude, comes the strength of the sun's rays and how much vitamin D you're making. But of course, melatonin is in there, too. So, anyway, don't just start taking supplements when we don't really know what it is. [laughs] It's the moral of that story. It could be the totally wrong cause and effect.

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Melanie Avalon: She says, "also, I hesitated to admit the stevia/splash of milk in my coffee to you both, because I know how adamant you are about clean fasting." Oh, she knows us well. She said, "however, I don't understand one thing. If the idea is to avoid insulin production, so the body doesn't go into fat storage mode, and a little bit of stevia, and milk raises insulin, which causes a dip and for hunger levels to rise, what about people like me who do not feel hungry from stevia and milk in their coffee? I feel exactly the same whether I drink it black or add the sweetener in milk, same level of hunger. Since it satisfies me and doesn't make me hungry, isn't it okay for me to have that tiny amount? Yes, it spikes insulin a little, but not that much. So, the fat storing hormones are only present briefly. I'm not hungrier, and then they go away, and I can continue to fast. In that case, isn't it okay for me to have the stevia/milk? How much of a problem does that little bit of stevia/milk pose for my desire to burn fat, if it doesn't create a hunger issue for me?" 

Gin Stephens: All right, well, that's a faulty thought that if it doesn't make me hungry, then it's not breaking my fast. I've never once said, "If something doesn't make you hungry, it's not breaking your fast." Now, I have said, "If you do find reactive hunger happening after something like cinnamon in your coffee, for example, that's a sign that it was." But the absence of the hunger doesn't mean it wasn't. Does that make sense? Do not use whether it makes you feel hungry or not to decide that something is okay. Only use that test to decide if something is not okay. Why would something cause you to be hungry and lets you know it's not okay, if it causes your blood sugar to crash. Now, you just said that your blood sugar is in the 90s and a 100s. Your blood sugar is not crashing. Your blood sugar's steady in the 90s and a 100s. Remember how I mentioned a minute ago how when I was wearing my CGM, I would notice that I would have a little wave of hunger, and look at my CGM, and that was the moment that my blood sugar was dropping. Josephine, your blood sugar is not dropping. It's in the 90s or 100s, because you're also having milk, which is keeping it up. Hunger is not the right metric here. There's really nothing you can measure to let you know how much insulin is going on in your body right now. 

But let's reframe that, okay? Since you're saying it doesn't create a hunger issue, it's not a problem. We said before milk is food. It's food for mammals. What if you had the equivalent of instead of milk, you're having a little bit of pizza? Same amount of pizza, would that be fasting? It wouldn't, that's food. Just because it's liquid, it doesn't make it not food. You wouldn't eat Tic Tacs or something. I'm just thinking of things people might be eating or you wouldn't eat a little bit of cheese and say, "Well, I eat this little bit of cheese and it doesn't make me hungry. I feel it's okay." But it's still eating, not fasting is the point I'm trying to make. Just because milk is a liquid, it's still food. I don't know if I'm explaining that very well or not. But hunger is not the factor. I am never going to say it's okay to have food and say that you're fasting. With one caveat, you have to take medication with food and there's no other choice. You have to. It's over and done. You have your medication that must be taken with food, you have it, you're finished, you move on. 

But when you're drinking coffee with milk all morning long, it goes on, and on, and on, and on, and on. I am never going to say that that is fasting. I just can't. You're keeping your insulin up, and you're having food, and it's a low-calorie diet. Eventually, if your body is not tapping into your fat stores effectively because of that milk and that stevia keeping your insulin high, consider that it might slow your metabolism, because you're no longer well fueled during the fast. You might be-- this is hypothetical because we don't have a study where here's somebody who fasted clean and here's somebody who had stevia and milk. Let's see what their metabolisms did. But we know what happens with low-calorie diets over time and we know what happens to metabolic rate. I would really encourage you to fast clean. That's all I can say. 

Melanie Avalon: Is she still trying to lose weight or she said she lost all the weight? 

Gin Stephens: But then she gained it back. 

Melanie Avalon: She said, she gained it back. Gained a ton of weight.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, she took a five-month break from clean fasting and then she found out she was hypothyroid, and then she gained a ton of weight and went back to fasting.

Melanie Avalon: Dropped the weight and felt better second time around. I agree that the clean fast is the way to go. The black coffee and the water is definitely the way to go. I am really interested about more of a hypothetical thought experiment question. I know she was talking just about literally hunger as the measure for whether or not it was breaking the fast. Something I do think about is, are there people at a maintenance place, where they do have this little bit of stevia and milk. I think maybe, for some people, long term on the flipside of the clean fast, they might be happier having a different approach to fasting. But I don't think they will know that unless they have done the clean fast, and really experienced the clean fast, and the benefits of it. 

Gin Stephens: I just can't help, but think that the health benefits of the clean fast are going to be so much greater. It's like, "Why are we doing it? Why are we fasting?" We're fasting for all these things that happen during the fast. We want our insulin to be as low as it can be during the fast, I mean obviously not. We don't want it to be zero. It's never zero. But we want to keep our insulin down during the fast. We want to encourage all these processes. We want to encourage increased autophagy. We got to remember, "Why are we fasting?" If you want to do a low-calorie diet, that is okay. But it isn't fasting as all I'm saying. If someone wants to have stevia and milk all morning long, and drink that, and it works for them, and they feel good, but it's really not fasting is all. That's all I can say. I do not believe dirty fasting exists. You're either fasting clean or you're not fasting. So, here's an example. If you had to go have surgery, and the doctor said, "You need to be fasted for your surgery," would you put stevia and milk in your coffee? Or, would the doctor say, "You can't have that, that's not fasting?" What would the doctor say?

Melanie Avalon: I think they would say, no to the milk. They might be okay with the stevia. It's a thing where it might be for some people, the stevia doesn't affect their insulin. It's hard for me to say-- 

Gin Stephens: Actually, there was one of the studies I talk about in a blog post that I wrote about insulin response, why doesn't everyone agree? They actually found that people who are overweight and have struggled with their weight have a much more robust insulin response than other people. We do have varying responses just like fat clearance levels, or blood sugar or we have different responses to things.

Melanie Avalon: I'm so glad you said that.

Gin Stephens: It does make sense that everyone would have a personalized insulin response, too. But anyone who's ever struggled with their weight, they found in this study that they had a more pronounced insulin response. Anyone who's trying to lose weight, you probably have an exaggerated insulin response, which is even more reason for you to fast clean. Someone like Chad, Chad has never had a weight problem. His fasted insulin level way lower than mine. He probably just doesn't release much insulin ever, which is probably one reason why he's never had trouble with his weight. His body doesn't store fat well because his insulin is really low.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, so, I'm actually, I'm so glad that you brought that up, because I think I find it so interesting with artificial sweeteners and things like stevia. Some people say, it releases insulin, some people say, it doesn't. I really honestly think its personal.

Gin Stephens: Oh, really, everything in our bodies is personal. Everything we've got going on is so different. But since we can't measure insulin, it wouldn't be nice if we could. If we could all measure our insulin levels all the time, we could manipulate what we're doing to keep them at a low level, but we can't.

Melanie Avalon: That's why it's complicated and I think it's an interesting thought experiment. But I don't think we can have an answer to it. But I could see a situation where there's a person, who with stevia literally does not affect their insulin.

Gin Stephens: Versus Jason Fung cited a study that showed that stevia in general caused a greater release of insulin overall average than sugar, white sugar. But there could be someone-- If you think about that normal curve distribution for everything, I remember learning about that in high school, I guess. It was fascinating. Even the number of leaves on a tree follows a normal distribution, and how many hairs on your head, or IQ, or shoe size, they all follow that normal distribution. That means there's always someone on the low end and someone else on the high end of everything. Someone is going to release a ton more insulin whereas most people will be in this average section, but then there'll be people down there on the left of that normal curve that release none. But you can't measure it and know which you are. True or not? You'd be like, "I hope I'm down here. So, I'm just going to do it and hope I'm down there." That I wouldn't do that.

Melanie Avalon: Exactly. It's a really interesting thought experiment. It's really hard to practically draw conclusions about-- 

Gin Stephens: Man, I wish we could measure it. That'd be amazing.

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm. I'm just thinking how cool it'd be if there was a CGM that was your constant insulin?

Gin Stephens: Yeah, continuous insulin monitor if that would be-- Honestly, that would be amazing. Because ever since I read, I think it was written by a Nurse Practitioner. I can't remember. It was when I was writing Fast. Feast. Repeat., it was a journal article about hyperinsulinemia. The nurse, who wrote it said, "We are measuring the wrong thing by measuring A1C and tracking that. We should be looking at patient's fasted insulin level, because that's the leading indicator. If we knew when that started to go up, that precedes when you start having blood sugar problems. What we don't know nobody knows. But once that insulin starts to go up," and again, reading Why We Get Sick by Benjamin Bikman, same thing. That high insulin, if you could just get that insulin under control, that really seems to be such an important health marker. So, I would encourage you, Josephine read Why We Get Sick by Benjamin Bikman, and then you're not going to want to risk your insulin being any higher than it could be. That's my recommendation. Fast clean, Josephine. [laughs] Fast clean, Josephine.

Melanie Avalon: Josephine has one more question. She says, "what are the ways in which we can measure what will cause hunger? Blood glucose levels, insulin levels, leptin levels? I honestly got the CGM just to see if I could correlate my glucose levels with my hunger levels. I hate when I am really full and still want to keep eating. Dietary fat seems to be most successful in keeping my hunger at bay, but as I said before, it causes me to have higher glucose levels and less effective fat burning in fasting mode. A high-carb, super low-fat diet works best for me to burn fat, but I sleep terribly and am hungrier far more frequently. Thank you for tackling my wild and complex questions. I love, love the two of you and you better never go off the air," Josephine. 

Gin Stephens: Well, thank you, Josephine. The way to measure what causes hunger is just to feel your hunger. [laughs] There's nothing you can measure to see what will cause hunger. You just have to listen to your body. Because it's way too complicated. Wouldn't it be nice, again, if we had a fuel like your car, you get in your car, I know how much gas I have in my car, I know when I need to get more gas, it's not a mystery. I just get gas when the fuel levels low, but our bodies don't work like that. There's way too much going on. The only thing you can measure is blood glucose. You can't measure insulin at home, you can't measure leptin at home. I do find my glucose level does go really nicely with my hunger level. I want you to try fast and clean and seeing if maybe it does. Maybe when my glucose went down, but it didn't go forever. My glucose went down, I had a mild hunger wave, then my body kicked into fat burning mode, and I went into ketosis, and the hunger was gone. It feels maybe keeping your blood sugar in that 90 to 100, you're not getting down into the low enough level to really you're not getting into ketosis, perhaps. Anyway, fast clean Josephine, and see what happens. We can't really measure what causes your hunger. You just have to feel it and start. You are the study of one and figure out what works for you.

Melanie Avalon: I love that you said that. What's really interesting about the blood sugar levels is, people could have hunger on, well, they could really have hunger at any blood sugar level. But they could definitely have it at either side of the spectrum, because with a hypo for similar reasons, but different, which is really interesting. They could have it on the low side, especially if they're not in a ketogenic state. They are relying more on blood sugar. So, if they have too low levels, they're going to be hungry likely.

Gin Stephens: Oh, yeah. Because if you're not fat adapted, you're not going to be able to tap into your fat stores. So, you are going to be hangry.

Melanie Avalon: You could have low blood sugar, if you're not in ketosis. Be hungry, because your body needs fuel and sugar. On the flipside, ironically, you could have high blood sugar levels, and also, be hungry because your cells aren't getting the energy. It's staying in your bloodstream rather than getting into your cells. So, it's interesting that it could be a similar cause of hunger on either side of the spectrum. 

Gin Stephens: Yeah, that's an excellent point. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. But yes, but I echo what Gin said, really, it's going to be just you have to experience the hunger and see how it correlates to what you're eating, how you're fasting, what you're doing, and learn from there. I do think the CGM can be a very valuable tool and seeing how your hunger correlates to your blood sugar levels, and seeing how your diet affects that, and how your fasting affects that. But you just got to be a little detective and try all the things. 

Gin Stephens: It was fascinating to see it. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, on the CGM. Yeah. 

Gin Stephens: Correlate how I felt what it was doing. I love that then it just stayed steady, because we hear from people that worry that your blood sugar is just going to go down and crash, and crash and burn, but as I went on in the fast, it just stayed so steady, just steady, steady, steady right there in the 70s.

Melanie Avalon: I love it. 

Gin Stephens: Me, too. 

Melanie Avalon: All righty, well, thank you, Josephine for your long questions. This has been absolutely wonderful. A few things for listeners before we go. If you would like to submit your own questions for the show, you can directly email questions@ifpodcast.com or you can go to ifpodcast.com and you can submit questions there. The show notes will be at ifpodcast.com/episode257. The show notes will have a full transcript. So, definitely check that out, and they'll have links to everything that we talked about, and you can follow us on Instagram. I am @melanieavalon, Gin is @ginstephens, and I think that is all the things. 

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I think so. 

Melanie Avalon: Well, this has been absolutely wonderful. Anything from you, Gin, before we go? 

Gin Stephens: No. I think that's it. 

Melanie Avalon: All right. Well, I will talk to you next week. 

Gin Stephens: All right. Bye-bye. 

Melanie Avalon: Bye. 

Thank you so much for listening to the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Please remember, everything we discussed on this show does not constitute medical advice. We're not doctors. If you enjoyed the show, please consider writing your review on iTunes. We couldn't do this without our amazing team administration by Sharon Merriman, editing by Podcast Doctors, show notes and artwork by Brianna Joyner, transcripts by SpeechDocs, theme music by Leland Cox. See you next week.

STUFF WE LIKE

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

More on Gin: GinStephens.com

Theme Music Composed By Leland Cox: LelandCox.com

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

 

 

Mar 13

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

Intermittent Fasting

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

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

BUTCHERBOX: Grass-Fed Beef, Organic Chicken, Heritage Pork, Wild-Caught Seafood: Nutrient-Rich, Raised Sustainably The Way Nature Intended, And Shipped Straight To Your Door! For A Limited Time Go To Butcherbox.com/ifpodcast And Get Free Ground Beef For LIFE!!

FEALS: Feals makes CBD oil which satisfies ALL of Melanie's stringent criteria: it's premium, full spectrum, organic, tested, pure CBD in MCT oil! It's delivered directly to your doorstep. CBD supports the body's natural cannabinoid system, and can address an array of issues, from sleep to stress to chronic pain, and more! Go To feals.com/ifpodcast To Become A Member And Get 50% Off Your First Order, With Free Shipping!

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

SHOW NOTES

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

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

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

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

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

Listener Q&A: Nancy - Iron

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

The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #60 - Wim Hof

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

TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Welcome to Episode 256 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. If you want to burn fat, gain energy, and enhance your health by changing when you eat not what you eat with no calorie counting, then this show is for you. I'm Melanie Avalon, author of What When Wine: Lose Weight and Feel Great with Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, and Wine. And I'm here with my cohost, Gin Stephens, author of Fast. Feast. Repeat.: The Comprehensive Guide to Delay, Don't Deny Intermittent Fasting. For more on us, check out ifpodcast.com, melanieavalon.com, and ginstephens.com. Please remember the thoughts and opinions on this podcast do not constitute medical advice or treatment. So, pour yourself a cup of black coffee, a mug of tea, or even a glass of wine if it's that time, and get ready for The Intermittent Fasting Podcast.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gin Stephens: Hi, everybody.

Melanie Avalon: How are you today, Gin?

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

Melanie Avalon: It's cold where you are?

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

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

Gin Stephens: Have you been outside today? 

Melanie Avalon: No. 

Gin Stephens: It's 51 degrees and raining.

Melanie Avalon: Wonderful.

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

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, that was a problem.

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: I know. 

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

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

Gin Stephens: Okay.

Melanie Avalon: I have a random question. 

Gin Stephens: Okay. 

Melanie Avalon: Did you ever get night terrors?

Gin Stephens: Night terrors as a kid? 

Melanie Avalon: Yes. 

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

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

Gin Stephens: Like a dream. 

Melanie Avalon: But you're awake. 

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

Melanie Avalon: No. 

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

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

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: You didn't probably remember them? 

Gin Stephens: Probably, so.

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

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: Brain is just really interesting. 

Gin Stephens: It is. 

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

Gin Stephens: Oh, how'd that go? 

Melanie Avalon: It went very well. 

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

Melanie Avalon: Unlocking the Keto Code. 

Gin Stephens: Okay.

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

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: I want to know everything.

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

Melanie Avalon: Oh, I see. 

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: Well, yes, yes. 

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: Awesome. 

Gin Stephens: That's it. 

Melanie Avalon: Shall we jump into everything for today? 

Gin Stephens: Absolutely. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: What is her new book?

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm. 

Gin Stephens: See, I don't.

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

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

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

Gin Stephens: Worrying versus fighting? 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.

Gin Stephens: Do you worry or fight, right?

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

Gin Stephens: Well, that's interesting. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.

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

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

Gin Stephens: Oh, the intermittent fasting? 

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

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

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

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

Gin Stephens: Well, exactly, right. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: Yes, exactly. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: Just that I agree completely. 

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

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

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

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

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

Gin Stephens: Metabolic systems really just sums it up.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: Too low is not good. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gin Stephens: Go ahead. 

Melanie Avalon: It's called ferritinophagy. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gin Stephens: Wim Hoff? 

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

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

Gin Stephens: In summary, yes. [laughs] 

Melanie Avalon: Possibly, possibly.

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

Melanie Avalon: Yes. Very cool. 

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

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

Gin Stephens: All righty. 

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

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

Melanie Avalon: Oh, that's possible. 

Gin Stephens: Adding fat, yeah. 

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

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

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm. 

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

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

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

Gin Stephens: And some food. 

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

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: That's funny. [laughs] 

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

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

Gin Stephens: Is he?

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm.

Gin Stephens: He thinks you should. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: Talk to you next week. Bye.

Gin Stephens: Bye. 

Melanie Avalon: Thank you so much for listening to the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Please remember, everything we discussed on this show does not constitute medical advice. We're not doctors. If you enjoyed the show, please consider writing your review on iTunes. We couldn't do this without our amazing team, administration by Sharon Merriman, editing by Podcast Doctors, show notes and artwork by Brianna Joyner, transcripts by SpeechDocs, theme music by Leland Cox. See you next week.

STUFF WE LIKE

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

More on Gin: GinStephens.com

Theme Music Composed By Leland Cox: LelandCox.com

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

 

 

Mar 07

Episode 255: Melanie’s Sexual Assault Experience, Increasing The Rate Of Weight Loss, Losing Your Period, Disturbed Sleep, Circadian Rhythm, Extended Fasting, Medication & Autophagy, And More!

Intermittent Fasting

Welcome to Episode 255 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine and Gin Stephens, author of Delay, Don't Deny: Living An Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle

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

LMNT: For Fasting Or Low-Carb Diets Electrolytes Are Key For Relieving Hunger, Cramps, Headaches, Tiredness, And Dizziness. With No Sugar, Artificial Ingredients, Coloring, And Only 2 Grams Of Carbs Per Packet, Try LMNT For Complete And Total Hydration. For A Limited Time Go To drinklmnt.com/ifpodcast To Get A Sample Pack For Only The Price Of Shipping!!

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

SHOW NOTES

LMNT: For A Limited Time Go To drinklmnt.com/ifpodcast To Get A Sample Pack For Only The Price Of Shipping!! Learn All About Electrolytes In Episode 237 - Our Interview With Robb Wolf!

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

melanie's sexual assault experience

Listener Q&A: The tazmanian devil - ADF and weight loss

The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #135 - Cynthia Thurlow

GREEN CHEF: Go To Greenchef.Com/Ifpodcast130 And Use Code IFPODCAST130 To Get $130 Off Including Free Shipping!

Listener Q&A: Nancy - Why Follow The Circadian Rhythm?

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

LEVELS: Skip The 150,000 People Waitlist At Levels.Link/Ifpodcast!

Listener Q&A: Steven - Medications

TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Welcome to Episode 255 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. If you want to burn fat, gain energy, and enhance your health by changing when you eat, not what you eat with no calorie counting, then this show is for you. I'm Melanie Avalon, author of What When Wine: Lose Weight and Feel Great with Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, and Wine. And I'm here with my cohost, Gin Stephens, author of Fast. Feast. Repeat.: The Comprehensive Guide to Delay, Don't Deny Intermittent Fasting. For more on us, check out ifpodcast.com, melanieavalon.com, and ginstephens.com. Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this podcast do not constitute medical advice or treatment. So, pour yourself a cup of black coffee, a mug of tea, or even a glass of wine if it's that time, and get ready for The Intermittent Fasting Podcast.

Hi friends. I'm about to tell you how you can get free electrolyte supplements, some of which are clean, fast approved, all developed by none other than Robb Wolf. Have you been struggling to feel good with low carb, paleo, keto, or fasting? Have you heard of something called the keto flu? Here's the thing. The keto flu is not actually a condition. Nope. Keto flu just refers to a bundle of symptoms. Headaches, fatigue, muscle cramps, and insomnia that people experience in the early stages of keto dieting. Here's what's going on. 

When you eat a low-carb diet, your insulin levels drop. Low insulin, in turn, lowers the production of the hormone aldosterone. Now aldosterone is made in the kidneys and it helps you retain sodium. Low aldosterone on a keto diet makes you lose sodium at a rapid rate. Even if you are consciously consuming electrolytes, you might not be getting enough. In particular, you need electrolytes, especially sodium and potassium in order for nerve impulses to properly fire. Robb Wolf, who as you guys know is my hero in the holistic health world worked with the guys at Ketogains to get the exact formulation for electrolyte supplements to formulate LMNT Recharge, so you can maintain ketosis and feel your best. LMNT recharge has no sugar, no coloring, no artificial ingredients, no junk. They're used by three Navy SEALs teams. They are the official hydration partner to Team USA weightlifting, they're used by multiple NFL teams, and so much more. 

Guess what? We worked out an exclusive deal for The Intermittent Fasting Podcast listeners only. Guys, this is huge. They weren't going to do a deal, I begged them, here we are. You can get a free LMNT sampler pack. We're not talking a discount. We're talking free. Completely free. You only pay $5 for shipping. If you don't love it, they will even refund you the $5 for shipping. I'm not kidding. The sample pack includes eight packets of LMNT, two Citrus, two Raspberry, two Orange, and two Raw Unflavored. The Raw Unflavored ones are the ones that are safe for your clean fast and the other ones you can have in your eating window. Word on the street is the Citrus flavor makes an amazing Margarita, by the way. 

I am loving LMNT and I think you guys will too. Again, this is completely free. You have nothing to lose. Just go to drinklmnt.com/ifpodcast. That's D-R-I-N-K-L-M-N-T dotcom forward slash I-F-P-O-D-C-A-S-T. And I'll put all this information in the show notes. 

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

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

Melanie Avalon: Hi, everybody and welcome. This is Episode number 255 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon and I'm here with Gin Stephens.

Gin Stephens: Hi, everybody.

Melanie Avalon: How are you today, Gin?

Gin Stephens: Doing great, feeling good. How about you? 

Melanie Avalon: I am good. I was wondering if I could share something, a story?

Gin Stephens: Absolutely.

Melanie Avalon: Well, I will start by saying just brief disclaimer for people listening. If you have young children listening, maybe skip ahead, look at the show notes and skip ahead just a little bit, because I'm going to share something of a slightly sensitive nature. But it's very important to me. So, yes, that is a disclaimer. On Valentine's Day, which was pretty recently, I got a massage and I actually experienced sexual battery from the massage therapist. The situation was really, really scary and I felt very helpless. Right afterwards, I was just crying, and I was talking to my friends, and they were encouraging me to go to the police, and I was really scared about going to the police, because you don't know if you're overthinking it or if they're going to believe you. It's just a scary thing. But I did. The reason I'm sharing this is because I am so, so happy that I went. I immediately felt very safe. I'm very grateful for that whole situation. Actually, they were able to arrest him that night, which was very wonderful to hear. So, I will have a court date for that.

I just shared that, because since then I've done a lot of research on the whole issue of sexual assault. The stats are just really, really shocking. I think it's something that people just don't really talk about. First of all, I was thinking about it, like, it's one of the only major crimes, where there's often no evidence. If somebody steals something, then something's stolen. So, you know something happened. If somebody kills somebody, which is awful, but you know somebody's dead. So, you know something happened. With this often, there's not any evidence that you can see on the outside. Interestingly, that night, I was actually meeting with the investigator in the investigation room, like you see on TV. He told me in the room, he said, "Just so you know I'm going to go talk to this guy, but it's really, really hard to make arrests in the situation, because normally they'll just say that they didn't mean to or that they don't know what you're talking about. It's really hard to arrest them, because it's just two people's words against each other."

Gin Stephens: That is true. It makes sense that it would be hard to-- Then, I guess, people go through it and they're like, "Well, I probably shouldn't say anything, because we can't prove it." So, people keep it to themselves and really that doesn't help the situation for anybody. But I understand why. 

Melanie Avalon: Exactly. It's like--

Gin Stephens: Embarrassing. It feels embarrassing to talk about.

Melanie Avalon: It's a crime that feels shameful in a way, even though you didn't do anything. I just think it's a really big issue. Interestingly, he was able to arrest the man, because he asked him what had happened and he didn't say that he didn't do it, and he didn't say that he didn't know what he was talking about. He just asked for an attorney. He wouldn't say what happened. The detective was able to arrest him. because then he was only going off of my testimony. Again, very grateful for that situation. Yeah, so, I just think people aren't talking about this and I think it's so, so common. I was looking at some statistics and these are from RAINN, R-A-I-N-N, which stands for Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network. 

It's most likely that sexual assaults are actually the most prevalent crime in the US, but they're also the most underreported. Every 60 seconds, an American is sexually assaulted, every nine minutes that victim is a child. Meanwhile, only 25 out of every one thousand perpetrators will end up in prison, only 5% of sexual assault reports filed have been proven false, 82% of all juvenile sexual assault victims are female, 90% of adult rape victims are female. In 2019, over 652,676 women were raped and nearly 1 million women were victims of sexual assault. So, I'm very grateful.

First of all, the support from in the Facebook groups, and Instagram, and everything was overwhelming. So, thank you so much, everybody. It was so wonderful. Oh, and so many guests that I've had on my show reached out and sent me messages and emails, and I was honestly overwhelmed with everybody's support. It was a really beautiful thing. So many people said that similar things that happened to them too, but they never said anything.

Gin Stephens: I think that's very, very common. I really do think it is important to speak up. Like we said, even though it's hard and even if it feels shameful, something like that believe it or not happened, where the salon that I used to go to. The guy, it was a male massage therapist. He'd been there for years. Someone reported some inappropriate touching and he was fired. I think it's important that the massage board or I don't know, who does the licensing, what it's actually called. They need to hear all these reports. Even if you can't get the perpetrator arrested, it's important to file it, because I think that once you start having it, if it continues to happen, that person should not be able to be licensed. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, if it happens once.

Gin Stephens: Again, it is he said, she said kind of a situation. But if it happens, if there's a pattern, I don't really know what the massage board would require as far as proof, as far as when they would take someone's license. Because there could be somebody who-- This may sound awful, no one plays things like this. There could be someone who makes a false report. I'm not saying that people are likely to make a false report, but it is a possibility. But if there're two reports, it's very unlikely that either of them is false. Does that make sense? So, I would never say someone is making a false report, but there is a possibility someone could and so, one report is really too many. But if you investigate it, they should all be investigated. 

Melanie Avalon: That's such a good point. Yeah, so even if you could file a report, even if there's not an arrest or a trial or prosecution, if we're all filing when these are happening, those reports will add up. If every time we file, because these people-- It's not just massage, it's all different things. 

Gin Stephens: Oh, yeah. Any place that you could be alone with someone or it could happen anytime, but you need to file, definitely file a report, because I really think that there's strength in numbers. I guess, that's all I'm trying to say, strength in numbers. 

Melanie Avalon: Yes, exactly. 

Gin Stephens: I hesitated to even say that someone could file a false report, because I know that sounds very much like not believing the person.

Melanie Avalon: People do. I'm sure. Like that stat 5%. I don't know how accurate that stat is, but I would guess maybe that sounds reasonable to me. I don't know. But I just think because of the sensitive nature of it, people are just so unlikely to and like I said, I was really scared, too. What happened to me was very, very most definitely qualified. So, it was-- [crosstalk] 

Gin Stephens: No question that that was not something that he should have been doing.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. But even then I was really scared. Then I was scared talking to the investigator because he said, "If we are able to arrest him, then you have to make the decision. Do you want to prosecute, which means do you want to go to trial?" I said, "Yes." So, that's upcoming. Oh, somebody did say a really good comment on one of my posts. They said, if you're questioning, if something happened to you that was inappropriate, it probably was because people don't question things that are normal and appropriate.

Gin Stephens: Even if you can't-- I'm going back to, of course, to the spa situation just because that's where you were and it happened at a spa that I went to as well. You need to absolutely report it to the owner of the spa, also the authorities, the police, the massage board, all of those places just because you don't want that person to be licensed, you don't want the person to be rehired somewhere else, but you definitely want to get them out of where they are working now. 

Melanie Avalon: Yes. Something else, I think the thing that convinced me to actually go to the police and the thing that convinced me to say yes about did I want to prosecute was thinking, it's not even about me. It's about stopping this person from doing this to somebody else. 

Gin Stephens: Right. 100% That's what I think if any of us have this situation and we feel embarrassed or we're not brave enough to say something, we need to be brave enough, so that we can stop it from happening to somebody else and our voices can be heard together. Because again, he probably has not only done that to you, he's done that to other people. The other people may just be traumatized and never going to get a massage again or never going to have a male massage therapist again versus if they had spoken up, it might have prevented it from happening to you. 

Melanie Avalon: Exactly. 

Gin Stephens: Even if you think they might not believe you, speak up. Because the more people speak up, the less that the person will be able to say, "Oh, nothing really happened." Because if a lot of people are saying, "where there's smoke, there's fire." There's the saying for a reason. If a lot of people have a similar story, then that person can't keep making excuses.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I actually heard what you said. I actually heard that from some other comments people were saying that they didn't say anything, but then later the person was fired or something. I'm on a mission. I actually recorded a PSA for my other show and I'm going to run it on every single episode, because I just want everybody to hear this. It all manifested fine. I went to the police, I feel very good about the situation, but if somebody had told me before all of this, I think I would have felt different during the experience. 

Gin Stephens: You might have been empowered at the time. Yeah. I get it, because you're probably thinking, "Is this really happening?"

Melanie Avalon: Yes. 

Gin Stephens: "Is this, okay?"

Melanie Avalon: Also, comparing it to the other crimes. The other crimes is just so obvious that something was wrong. But with this-- 

Gin Stephens: It's subtle, but against the law. 

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm. It's almost worse because compared to theft, because it's a violation of your body in a space where-- 

Gin Stephens: You should be safe. We feel like if you're at a doctor's office, or in a place where you're getting massage therapy, or in a dentist's chair.

Melanie Avalon: Yes, yes, exactly. 

Gin Stephens: Again, if something feels off, it is off. Really trust your instincts with that. Again, I just want to reiterate when I made the comment that someone could make a false claim. 

Melanie Avalon: Oh, but they do, they do. 

Gin Stephens: I feel almost like I shouldn't have even said that. But I think that it's important. It's hard to know what the law should be. One claim, you're out, I don't know. I guess, it's the mother of sons. Maybe that's why I'm sensitive to. [giggles] I don't know. I'd have told my children never do anything that we've had this conversation.

Melanie Avalon: I think all claims should be taken seriously. So, I think there should be a trial.

Gin Stephens: And investigation, a thorough investigation. I also feel if you just had other people talk to other people, they're probably-- I get this place where I was and the guy was fired. They started talking to other people and sure enough, it wasn't just one person. There was plenty. It wasn't just one. There were lots, but no one had spoken up. So, one person did, one person spoke up, and then the owner started asking around, and then that wasn't-- There was plenty of like, "Okay, corroborating evidence."

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I was actually a pretty good candidate for having a stronger testimony, because the investigator in the room, he was asking me a lot of intense questions, which he said he was doing, because he had asked but also because he was like, "If this goes to court, this is the way they're going to ask you questions there." The good thing about my experience is, you guys know, I get a lot of massages. This is something I've been doing for a long time. It's not like this was my first massage. I've been going to that location for years. It's not I was just like, "This was my first massage and I was reporting it." 

Gin Stephens: Wow. So, will you go back to that location? 

Melanie Avalon: No, which makes me sad, because it's the only location by me where they actually have chair massages, which is why I like to go-- This was not a chair massage. That's why I'd always go in there. 

Gin Stephens: You could get just a really quick chair massage. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, really quick. Yeah. Actually, the reason I went with this guy because I actually, normally as a rule always go with women when I do a full body, but I had gone in the week prior and he was new, and he gave me a chair massage, and it was just so fabulous, and I was like, "Okay." I was like, "I'm going to book--." He was like, "You should come do a full body massage." I was like, "Okay, I'll do that for Valentine's, that'll be fun."

Gin Stephens: Yeah, well, I'm glad that you got him out of there. I assume you talk to the people that run the place.

Melanie Avalon: I actually haven't. 

Gin Stephens: Oh, I would do that right away or did the investigator tell you not to?

Melanie Avalon: I left right away. I just wanted to get out of there, because I anticipate they're probably going to ask me, why did I not talk to him then or talk to the owners then. Gin, I was so scared and so confused. I just wanted to leave and I didn't want him to think that I was on to him. I just wanted to leave and then deal [laughs] it’s like the freeze response.

Gin Stephens: Maybe check with the police and see if they're going to report it to the owner, because I think the owner needs to know.

Melanie Avalon: That night they had police squad over there. 

Gin Stephens: Okay, so, they know. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gin Stephens: Okay. That's what I was trying to get to. Does the police know? It doesn't have to be you, somebody has to let the place know. I want to make sure, because I know the guy knows, then you know, and the police know, but did the place know?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. Where they talked to him was at the place.

Gin Stephens: Oh, good. Well, that makes me feel better. I also think that one report and you are not touching anybody else till there isn’t a full investigation.

Melanie Avalon: Yes, I agree. I think the fact that he wouldn't say what happened and immediately asked for an attorney is pretty telling. Yeah, they immediately sent police over there and actually, then I went home, and then they call, and it was like 10 o'clock by that time. They like, "Can you come back? The detective's actually still here." Then I came back, and then I did that, and then he went over. So, it all it was all taken care of that night.

Gin Stephens: Well, I'm sorry that it happened, but thank you for speaking up, and you're going to give someone that's listening is going to have the courage to tell what happened in the future, so that just from hearing the story. So, thank you for doing that.

Melanie Avalon: Thank you and I know we're going long, but the last thing is I also really encourage parents, I know it's a really sensitive topic, but I really encourage parents too, in their own time and when they think it's appropriate have these conversations with their children. 

Gin Stephens: Oh, 100%. And also, like I just said, as the mother of boys, have conversations with your boys about what is appropriate or not appropriate for them to be doing. Obviously, they can also be victims of abuse, but you also need to make sure they are careful not to be perceived as abusers or that they know what that means, so that they're not making-- I know, there was a thing I went to when the boys were, I guess, middle school age, it was called "Teen Years 101." It was put out by a judge here in town. He had a night for the parents and a night for the kids to go to, and he told us all the ways that your children could get in really bad trouble. You leave and you're panicked like, "Oh, my gosh. Yes. All the things your kids can do wrong, and then they're ruined forever." [laughs] 

With Will, he's 22, I'm like, "Never date a girl who's under 18. Never, never, never." Stuff like that just because you got to protect your boys from making mistakes that they don't know are mistakes. 

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm. I can see how that would happen for sure. 

Gin Stephens: Anyway, if they're not 18, do not even go on a date with them [laughs]. Yeah, make her show you her license. I mean, seriously. [laughs] Anyway. 

Melanie Avalon: It's all funny, but it is funny. 

Gin Stephens: I know. Well, as the mom, we want our kids to be safe and protected, but we also want them to make smart choices and not get in trouble for things that they maybe didn't even know were wrong things.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. It's such a delicate, complicated topic.

Gin Stephens: If drinking is going on, you need to let them know what is consent. If everyone is drinking, they need to understand those things.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, exactly. I think we should just approach everything. I don't know with all events. I don't want to say automatically believe. I think there should be a thorough investigation into everything is my point.

Gin Stephens: Yes, I agree with that. Any report should be thoroughly investigated as true. 

Melanie Avalon: Yes, I agree. 

Gin Stephens: But you do have to investigate. You don't just like, "All right, someone said it. So, you're out." 

Melanie Avalon: Yes, exactly. I want to reach out to that RAINN organization and see if I can get their president or something on my show. I want to do a show about it. 

Gin Stephens: Oh, yeah. I think that would be great for awareness. 100%. 

Melanie Avalon: All right. 

Gin Stephens: Well, that was heavy, but thank you for sharing it again, and I hope that everything I was saying comes across with the right intent and spirit. 

Melanie Avalon: It 100% did.

Gin Stephens: Because I could see somebody being like, "Well, that was terrible. Why you didn't say that?" 

Melanie Avalon: I got your message. So, and I agree with the messaging.

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Melanie Avalon: All right. Shall we jump into lighter topics? 

Gin Stephens: Absolutely. 

Melanie Avalon: All right. To start things off, we have a question from the Tasmanian Devil is what she want?

Gin Stephens: I love it. Tasmanian Devil, that was one of my favorite cartoon characters. 

Melanie Avalon: What is he? 

Gin Stephens: He's a Tasmanian Devil.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, that's an animal? 

Gin Stephens: Yes. 

Melanie Avalon: What do they look like in real life?

Gin Stephens: Not at all like the cartoon character. I think they're cute. I don't know. Maybe they're not cute. I can't remember. I know I've seen it before. 

Melanie Avalon: Do they have little tornadoes around them? 

Gin Stephens: No, that part is made up. Also, if you drop an anvil on a roadrunner, he's going to die. [laughs] 

Melanie Avalon: Wait, if you google Tasmanian Devil, they look really scary. 

Gin Stephens: Do they? Okay. I can't remember. 

Melanie Avalon: The first three pictures are terrifying. 

Gin Stephens: Do you want to know something that's funny. What animal is super scary and you might not even realize it?

Melanie Avalon: Oh, wait, I think I know the answer. There's a few. Oh, can we play this game? Okay.

Gin Stephens: Well, we could. He only looks scared because his teeth are out. He does look scary. Oh, yeah. Okay. When his teeth are out-- The Tasmanian Devil, he looks cute in this picture.

Melanie Avalon: His teeth are often out is the thing. 

Gin Stephens: He looks super He does look cranky. This one, his teeth are not out, but he looks cranky. He does look pretty cranky.

Melanie Avalon: He walks around. I get the impression that like you walk up to him and he just like, [laughs] 

Gin Stephens: Okay, all right. I'll say why, they're from Tasmania, and they're in New South Wales in Australia. All right, anyway. I saw an animal that usually we think of as super cute, and it was a little bit horrifying, and I was at an aquarium. So, that might help. 

Melanie Avalon: In general, or just the one you saw? 

Gin Stephens: Just this one. There's one that I saw at an aquarium last week that I would have thought of was-- 

Melanie Avalon: An otter. 

Gin Stephens: No, otters are so cute.

Melanie Avalon: I know. That's why it's going to be mind blown, a dolphin. 

Gin Stephens: Oh, no, dolphins are so cute. They have smiles, they're so cute. 

Melanie Avalon: Dolphins are so great. 

Gin Stephens: They are. They're the kindest animals. Yeah, definitely wasn't a dolphin. 

Melanie Avalon: You saw this animal and what happened? 

Gin Stephens: It was just so creepy, but I've always thought of them as cute. It is not cute.

Melanie Avalon: Can I have hint? Was it a mammal? 

Gin Stephens: No, it is not a mammal.

Melanie Avalon: Was it a fish?

Gin Stephens: No, it wasn't a fish, because fish are vertebrates. It's an invertebrate. Let me put it that way. It's invertebrate. 

Melanie Avalon: Was it a reptile? 

Gin Stephens: No. Invertebrate. Reptiles are vertebrates. This is my elementary teacher coming back to. 

Melanie Avalon: Wait, snakes. Snakes? 

Gin Stephens: Snakes are vertebrates. They have vertebrae, I promise. [laughs] They are vertebrate. They have backbones. 

Melanie Avalon: I have to google this. 

Gin Stephens: Well, you can Google it if you want to. Someone taught elementary science for as many years as I did. I know my vertebrate animals. [laughs] Are you surprised?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I'm just surprised that there's not one reptile that's an invertebrate.

Gin Stephens: Reptiles, they would not be a reptile. The reptiles are by definition vertebrates.

Melanie Avalon: You just don't think of a snake as having-- 

Gin Stephens: I know, you don't. In fact, I remember I was teaching third grade and one of my students said, "Our second-grade teacher told us snakes didn't have bones." I said, "Well, that's really sad in my head" [laughs] and then I said, "Well, that's not true. Let's look it up" and sure enough. But the all the other kids were like, "Yeah, that's what our teacher said." I'm like, "Well, okay."

Melanie Avalon: Was it an octopus? 

Gin Stephens: Yes. Have you ever seen an octopus in person?

Melanie Avalon: I don't think so. 

Gin Stephens: It was a-freaky. 

Melanie Avalon: I've seen a baby octopus. 

Gin Stephens: Oh, my God. It was not cute at all. It was giant and instead of his cute little legs swinging around all cute, no, he was all balled up and his little tentacles were all over him. But they were all curled up and he kept rubbing with his tenta-- Oh my gosh, I was like, "I'm not an octopus fan."

Melanie Avalon: I would be so scared. I know, you should never have a pet octopus. But if I did, I would be convinced that I would wake up and it would be on me. Those things are smart. They get out of their cages.

Gin Stephens: Well, it wasn't cute. The seahorses are just adorable. Even the shark, it was like a tunnel you go under and the shark is over you, I didn't care. But the octopus gave me the heebie-jeebies, anyway. 

Melanie Avalon: Have you seen some of the videos of them getting out of their enclosures? 

Gin Stephens: No. 

Melanie Avalon: It's terrifying. They get out. 

Gin Stephens: Octopuses? 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, they're brilliant. Brilliant. There're some videos. Did you see the Finding Dory. 

Gin Stephens: I didn't. I need to. 

Melanie Avalon: Okay. There's an octopus character in that one and he just gets out of everything. In real life, they do that. There're videos of, there's this one where he's in an enclosed container with a screwed-on lid thing. That octopus just gets out.

Gin Stephens: Well, I'm glad I didn't know that. [laughs] I would have been running, running out of there. Anyway, so, all this because of the Tasmanian Devil, yes, they are creepy looking, but they're cute in the cartoon, and it is one of my favorite cartoon characters. 

Melanie Avalon: Oh, that's why we're talking about this. Okay. 

Gin Stephens: So, let's hear about the Tasmanian Devil's fasting question.

Melanie Avalon: The subject is: "ADF and weight loss." The Tasmanian Devil says, 'Dear Melanie, and Gin, thank you so much for your podcast, books, Facebook groups, and everything else you do. I hope the value you add to others lives leads to similar abundances flowing into your lives and hearts, too." That is so wonderful. 

Gin Stephens: That really is. 

Melanie Avalon: She says, "I have listened to all your podcasts, but couldn't find the answers to my questions. I finally decided to write you. My main question is about the speed of my weight loss with ADF and I am hoping you can suggest ways to speed it up. I'm a 46-year-old woman, not yet perimenopausal, and I first started IF two years ago. I lost easily with one meal a day and got to my goal weight of 63 kilograms from a starting weight of 75 kilograms very quickly within five short months. On that occasion, I combined it with weightlifting three times per week. I'm 5'5". I developed some ear, nose, throat health issues last year, and relaxed my window, and ate more unhealthy and processed foods. I gained more weight than I had originally wanted to lose and I got to 81 kilograms. I restarted my IF journey with one meal a day for one month, and then quickly moved to ADF, and have been doing true every other day water only fast for the last seven months. I haven't been able to exercise this time due to an ankle injury. I'm only losing one kilogram every three weeks or so. I eat really well on my eating days, mostly Whole Foods, mostly plant based, but some meat as well. I still have at least nine kilograms to lose to get to my goal of 63 kilograms. Although, this time I am a strangely smaller size at a higher weight." I don't think that is strange. I think I know why that's probably happening. 

Gin Stephens: Body recomposition in action losing the fat, but maintaining your lean muscle mass. That is exactly why. 

Melanie Avalon: Yep. She has a few questions. Maybe we can go through this one by one. 

Gin Stephens: All right. 

Melanie Avalon: Her first question. She says, "Is IF weight loss slower/harder/less actual scale weight loss, if you have to do it over a second or third time after regaining? 

Gin Stephens: Well, I find it interesting that you're saying your weight loss is slow, or hard, or not happening, because here's why. A kilogram every three weeks is actually almost a pound a week and that is really right on target. That sounds perfect to me. It sounds she was doing a one-meal-a-day plan in the past, and was doing weightlifting at the time, and then stops doing intermittent fasting, gained weight, restart intermittent fasting, but now is doing alternate daily fasting, and not exercising, but losing at almost a pound a week. If you're losing a kilogram every three weeks or so, if you have nine kilograms to go, you'll get there in half a year. Just be patient. Again, here's something I want you to keep in mind. Instead of having that goal weight of 63 kilograms, since you've mentioned that you're having body composition, you may find that you get to your goal size, your goal body, and you're higher than 63 kilograms, because you're losing fat so well. 

Alternate daily fasting, you're really tapping into your fat stores during those longer fasts that you're doing every other day. Clearly, you're maintaining your muscle mass very well if you're smaller at a higher weight than you had been before. I would say that you are just doing amazingly so great. The next question I can see it right here is, "What can I do to speed it up?" Not a thing. You do not need to speed it up. It is absolutely fantastic. That's what I have to say. What do you think, Melanie?

Melanie Avalon: I will answer the question objectively, just in general. Her experience aside about, "Is IF weight loss slower, harder, less actual scale weight, if you have to do it over a second or third time after regaining?" That is very likely, actually. Just because we know that with regaining and losing, and regaining and losing, and regaining and losing for a lot of people, it does get harder and it could be a few different things going on. I've talked about this at length before on the show. But when I interviewed Joel Greene, he talks about what actually happens to fat cells, when we gain and lose weight from them, and it has to do with their extracellular matrix, which is basically their outer membrane clothing. The more you stretch and expand, and shrink and stretch, it makes it stiffer in a way, and it makes it less likely to actually make changes to the fat cell to be smaller. It can make it harder the more that you go through this process. 

Then on top of that, depending on-- this is not speaking specifically to the Tasmanian Devil, but in general, if you're losing and regaining a lot, so not just a small amount fluctuating within normal weight levels, but actually becoming overweight and then losing weight, and then becoming overweight. When fat cells are overfilled, they release inflammatory cytokines. They're in an inflammatory state and that creates cellular damage to the cells, mitochondria, so, how they're generating energy, their willingness to burn fat. The more inflammatory state that you get in by gaining, the harder it can make it to lose. Not that you can't, but can just make it harder. 

Then also, there are lots of theories surrounding setpoints, which is possibly governed by the hypothalamus in our brain, and this is hotly debated, but there are theories about the body preferring to be at certain weights. With gaining and losing, and gaining and losing, it might play with that and create a point where your hypothalamus more likely wants to try to maintain a higher weight. So, her aside, this can be a thing. It doesn't mean that you can't lose the weight. 

Gin Stephens: Well, I also would think that one of the factors would be why did you gain it and it might be because something's different in your body that caused you to gain it. If there's something going on that caused you to gain weight, maybe you took steroids, or maybe you had an illness, or whatever it could be, maybe you're menopausal. If that caused you to gain weight and you also quit intermittent fasting, then it's also that thing that caused you to gain the weight is also going to make it harder to lose the weight. So, there's just so many factors. It's hard to say yes or no.

Melanie Avalon: Very true, very true. For speeding it up, I know we don't think she needs to speed it up. 

Gin Stephens: She's also eating really well. 

Melanie Avalon: Yes. In general, as far as speeding it up, I think there are little things you can do that can really add up. She is eating well. I'm always be the one to say that. I think there's a lot of magic though that can't happen with food choices. I talked about this, I think last show, maybe having a few days where you eat the high-protein, low-fat, and low-carb meals. If you're doing such a one-meal-a-day window, like having a few days per week when you do just those foods, that might be a way to really speed up your weight loss. The power of staying active in your fasting window, so, making sure that you're moving. If you are working out, if you do that near the end of your fast when you're really deep into a fat burning state, I think that can be pretty productive.

Gin Stephens: Yep, and she said that she had not been able to exercise because of an ankle injury.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. When she is able to exercise again. Yeah, I really just look at those two things.

Gin Stephens: All right. You ready for the next question? Go ahead with that one.

Melanie Avalon: She says, "I have not had my period over the last two months. Could I be stressing my body out? I feel great while fasting and have very little hunger. I could extend my fast, but I don't go over 42 hours usually.

Gin Stephens: All right, so, this is a question that it does raise a bit of an alarm that you could be overstressing your body, but I feel that doesn't happen unless you're losing really quickly as well. You're not overexercising, obviously, because you're not exercising right now, and it doesn't sound you're over restricting. I would look and see what has caused you to lose your period. Also, you're 46. I know you said you're not yet perimenopausal, but how do you know that? Because if you've lost your period, that really is what happens when you're perimenopausal. That was exactly when I started having weird period stuff. My cycles got longer. Instead of every, let's say 28 days, it might be 72 days, and then boop, there's another period. That happened for years. I took a bunch of pregnancy tests all throughout my 40s just because things got wacky and I'm like, "Oh, God." Thank goodness, they all were negative, because I was in my 40s. But I have all of my period data from 2012 on because I got an app at that time and I could see how it changed over time. But I think it's pretty much textbook. I went through perimenopause like a textbook way. That actually started prior to intermittent fasting. So, I can't say it was because of intermittent fasting that my period got out of whack. It happened before. 

But as I went through the transition, it just continued. I think that's just very, very normal. I would talk to your OB-GYN about that and it could just to be normal perimenopause, even though you don't think you're perimenopausal you might be, or you could have your hormones checked and see, or you could really dig deep. If you are over restricting, you'll know it. You said that you don't usually go over 42 hours, that's good. You're having a significant refeed or eating at least two meals on your up-day. If you have in the back of your mind, "Could I be over restricting and not eating enough?" If you think that might be true, I definitely don't think that about myself. I know, I'm not [giggles] in danger of over restricting, because I know I eat very, very well. But if you have that, "Could I be over restricting?" Then you might be? Think about that. But again, I would feel like, what would happen is you would have some other things going on that would give you a clue that that's what's happening. But definitely talk to your OB-GYN and see what he or she thinks. 

And also, if you suspect that you're over restricting, then maybe it's time for you to stop with ADF. Maybe you should go with the daily eating window approach, and have maybe a five-hour eating window, and see what happens. I think that could make a difference if you feel like the ADF is over stressing your body. But we can't tell you yes or no. In general, the research on ADF, it didn't tend to cause that type of an issue or at least they didn't report it. If it did in the literature that I've seen, but also, we are all very much a study of one. It is possible. You could be over restricting, but it's also possible that you're not and it's just typical 46-year-old perimenopause happening. 

Melanie Avalon: Perfect. I thank you. I have nothing to add. She says, "Strangely, I sleep like a baby on the fasting day, but can't get to sleep easily on the eating days. Why is this? Shouldn't it be the other way around?"

Gin Stephens: Well, that would be more typical, but again, we're all a study of one. [laughs] I find I have a harder time sleeping if I overdo sugar or alcohol that keeps me very, very restless. Or, if I over restrict. If you feel you're on your eating day that you're in that wired ketosis state, that might mean you're not eating enough on you are up-days. Keep that in mind. You may need a longer, maybe just do 36:12 and see if that helps. 

Melanie Avalon: Does she give the times that she's eating?

Gin Stephens: She doesn't. She's just doing a true ADF, but rarely fasting over 42 hours. But if she's doing 42:6, that could be restrictive.

Melanie Avalon: Just to speak to that, too, actually, I think 42 can very easily be restrictive for a lot of people really anything. For some people, they feel a one meal a day is too restrictive.

Gin Stephens: Well, when she says I could extend my fasts, I absolutely would not extend your fast. I would scale them back more than extend. More is not always the answer. 

Melanie Avalon: I agree. But as far as the sleeping, the reason I was wondering when she's eating, it could be that you're just eating too close to bed. 

Gin Stephens: For your body. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. If you're especially maybe in this approach, you're eating more than your body was accustomed to historically eating before bed. So, I look at that, I will look at the food choices that you're eating, how digestible are they, are you having digestion issues at all? If you find that you sleep better fasted you might just want to try, again, I don't know when you're eating, but you might want to try not eating as close to bed when you do eat.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, open your window earlier. Breakfast, have breakfast. Breakfast, lunch, and an early dinner and see if that helps. 

Melanie Avalon: Yes. She says, "Once I get to my goal would 5:2 be a reasonable maintenance to trial first?"

Gin Stephens: You certainly could. It's all about what you enjoy. Do you want to eat every day or do you want to have down-days? It's up to you, I like to eat every day. For me, I don't want to do any full fasts twice a week, or once a week, or whatever. I don't want to. I want to eat every day. But if you absolutely love having a 36-hour fast followed by an up-day, and you would like to do that twice a week, and then the other days, it can be whatever eating window feels right to you, do it. You are in charge at all times of what feels good. Would that be maintenance for you or would you continue losing weight, or do you need longer windows? You'll only know once you get there and see what feels right. You'll really listen to your body, because I got more hungry when I got to maintenance, I needed more food. So, that's very normal as well to be in slightly longer windows once you get to goal.

Melanie Avalon: Yep, it's really all about the thing that makes you happy with maintenance. 

Gin Stephens: Yep. What feels good. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. She says, "Is lack of exercise stalling my weight loss?"

Gin Stephens: Yeah, that's hard to know. Again, you're losing almost a pound a week and you're seeing body composition, which indicates you're losing fat, but maintaining muscle. Honestly, it sounds really, really good to me. I wouldn't stress about it. As you're feeling better and your ankle is better, if you can start being more active then you'll know the answer to that question. I'm one of those people genetically based on the limited genetic data we have based on the thing when I had my DNA and analyzed, it said, "I am genetically someone who is less likely to lose weight exercising." But some people are more likely. The people who are listening, who are like, "Yeah, I never lose weight unless I'm exercising," that's probably true. For me, I never in my entire life saw a connection between adding an exercise approach and weight loss. That's just me. People might be like, "That's not true." Well, that was true. It seemed true for me. I just got really hungry. [laughs] Whenever I exercised, I ate, it balanced out. My body just balanced it out with an increased appetite. I'm not saying exercise isn't great. I do exercise. We've talked about that before. It's just will it lead to weight loss. That's the question. What if I say to you, "No, exercise does not make me lose weight," that doesn't mean I'm saying, "So, you shouldn't exercise."

Melanie Avalon: By exercise, are you speaking more to cardio, or strength training, or what type of exercise?

Gin Stephens: Well, I never saw any increased weight loss with any of it, personally. But I know some people do some people-- we're all different when it comes to how our bodies respond to that.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. Again, I don't really do concentrated exercise sessions, but I feel best in my body when I'm moving a lot throughout the day, doing a lot of functional type movement, and wearing my weights, and all that stuff. So, yep. Although, I continue to be very addicted to Emsculpt, so, the muscle stimulation, I've been doing that a lot. I am seeing major, major changes with it. 

Gin Stephens: Well, that's fascinating. 

Melanie Avalon: It's incredible. I've been doing my arms, glutes, hamstrings, and abs. I'm pretty sure I'm just going to do it for life, because I think it's really, really healthy to build muscle.

Gin Stephens: You're seeing muscle building?

Melanie Avalon: Oh yeah. Fat reduction, muscle building, toning. It's building because I just started doing-- While I'm on my third session on my hamstrings and I'm really feeling the changes there. The arms have been great. It's very exciting.

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

Gin Stephens: Yes, we have a question from Nancy and the subject is: "Why follow the circadian rhythm?" She says, "Hi, Melanie and Gin, the information you provide is invaluable. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for teaching us and keeping us informed of the latest and accurate information. My question. Why do we follow the circadian rhythm of 24 hours when fasting i.e. 20:4 or 18:6. I have some health issues and I am wondering if a longer fasting rhythm would give me more of the healing benefits of intermittent fasting. I'm thinking 36:12 or 40:8. Is there research where people have consistently followed a longer cycle such as this?" Nancy. We just talked about that actually. Yes, we did. There is and I just recommended that Tasmanian Devil do 36:12. [laughs] So, Melanie, what do you say to this?

Melanie Avalon: I recently published a blog post and it was actually featured as well in the latest issue of Biohackers Magazine, but it is at melanieavalon.com/eatingtiming. I dive deep, deep, deep into the circadian rhythms of the body. This is just to answer "why do we follow the circadian rhythm of 24 hours when fasting? In general, and I believe the reasoning for that is that longer fasts assign our bodies as human beings and our hormones pretty regularly follow a 24-hour cycle with fluctuating rhythms. That has a lot to do with light. Basically, everybody's body daily is going to go through rhythms of different hormones involved in fat burning, and energy use, and so many processes in the body. That's ghrelin, the hunger hormone, leptin, the satiety hormone, insulin, which is involving if you're storing nutrients, cortisol, a stress hormone, but that can help you release energy stores as well. Adrenaline, norepinephrine, epinephrine, there's so many hormones and those hormones are not on a 36-hour or a 40-hour cycle. They're on a 24-hour cycle. 

That would be a reason that, in general, we are adapting our fasting as a lifestyle to fit within that rhythm. That said, there are people who do the other approaches. But as far as like, she has some health issues and is wondering if a longer fasting would give her some of the healing benefits, quite possibly, I'm not sure what the health issues you experiencing are. It's always something that you could play with. Thoughts, Gin? 

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I just wanted to reiterate. One reason we talk about things in numbers like 20:4 and 18:6 or 19:5 is just because there're 24 hours in a day. We talk about them because that's how many there are. But when you're fasting, it doesn't have to-- We're fasting over an overnight period. It's part of two different 24-hour periods. Your fast is part of this day and part of that day if I'm explaining that well. It might not add up neatly to 24. I might do, for example, yesterday, Chad and I went out to eat, and I fasted until probably 7 PM. I had a 24-hour fast and then I had an eating window that was probably, we had a leisurely dinner, and then we went somewhere else and had dessert. I probably had a three-hour eating window. I did 24:3. [laughs] You're like, "Wait a minute, it's not possible to do 24:3. How did you do that?" Well, I did 24:3 because I fasted for 24 hours, then I ate for three and that's just how it worked out. Because part of that 24-hour fast was on Friday and the other part or whatever day, yeah, part of it was on Friday, and part of it was on Saturday, and then it just added up to be that. Don't get too caught up in the numbers of making an add up to 24. I just wanted to throw that in there. In a calendar day, it will definitely add up to 24. So, within the day of Saturday, there were only 24 hours in Saturday, but some of the fast was part of Friday's fast and some of it is part of Sunday's fast, if that makes sense.

Melanie Avalon: Yes, and it also to that point and to Nancy's question, it doesn't necessarily have to be either/or it doesn't have to be you're doing within a 24-hour daily thing, or you're doing this 36:12. You could be doing in general like 24-hour cycles and then have the occasional longer fast.

Gin Stephens: Right. That's exactly what we were talking about with Tasmanian Devil as well, where we were talking about 5:2 and I suggested she could do that with two 36:12 for example in a week. That would encompass four of your days. 36:12, then the next day, maybe you had a 19-hour fast and a five-hour eating window, and then you did another 36:12 or something. There's a lot of room for flexibility. But yes, Nancy, it is true that there's lots of research where people have followed a 36:12 cycle. If you have Fast. Feast. Repeat. read the "Alternate Daily Fasting" chapter because I talk about that research. It's a well-researched approach and it's great for certain things. If you are trying to heal insulin resistance, for example, 36:12 is a great way to do that. It really gets your insulin down, because you're fasting for 36 hours. If you have a slowed metabolism from years of dieting 36:12 would be great for that, because 12 hours for your eating day, your up-day. in the research that they did on that alternate daily fasting, they found that participants slightly overate on their up-day. In that 12-hour day you would slightly over eat, but that boosts your metabolism. That's why it's so great if you feel you have metabolic slowing. 

Melanie Avalon: Yes. 

Gin Stephens: All right, we have one more question from Stephen and the subject is: "medications." Stephen says, "do any pre-workouts, or supplements, or anti-psychotics, or SSRIs, or medication in general break or stop autophagy from taking place if taken during your fasting window?"

Melanie Avalon: All right. Thank you, Stephen for your question. Out of these categories, things like medications, SSRIs, I don't really think that that's something that we should be worried about for autophagy. Autophagy in general, when the body breaks down old proteins, dysfunctional proteins, and gets rid of them, it cleans up shop or repurpose them in the body, it's a good cellular cleansing renewal process in the body. It's actually happening 24/7. It's always happening. It's gets ramped up in certain situations. So, exercise can ramp it up, fasting really ramps it up. Even coffee has been shown to ramp it up. It's not something that I would even think about as a factor and taking your medication. Things like supplements, straight up vitamins, you should really look at the fillers and things that are in them. A lot of fillers are actually made with amino acids as the filler and amino acids are things that would discourage autophagy. Vitamins and stuff shouldn't really affect autophagy, but depending on the ingredients in the supplements it might be a problem. Pre-workouts, so, if your pre workout is coffee, that's probably going to encourage autophagy. But if your pre-workout has sweeteners or often they have amino acids, things like that, that could hinder autophagy. So, yes. Thoughts? 

Gin Stephens: Yeah, we don't recommend those pre-workouts out there that they're selling to you, because most of them do have fast breakers in them. You don't need them. They just want to sell you something. Black coffee is a pre-workout that does not break the fast. You can just have your black coffee and that would be great. Medications, never change up your medications without talking to your doctor or pharmacist. So, that's important.

Melanie Avalon: Yes, I feel the autophagy thing, people-- not that they're taking it too far, but they're getting really obsessed with it and we don't have charts of, "This stops autophagy or this." We know that certain compounds increase it. In general, lifestyle things like I said, exercise and fasting increase it, but it's hard to say that this will have this X effect on autophagy. I just don't think we have that research. 

Yep, this has been absolutely wonderful. A few things for listeners before we go. If you would like to submit your own questions for the show, you can directly email questions@ifpodcast.com or you can go to ifpodcast.com and you can submit questions there. The show notes will be at ifpodcast.com/episode255. Those show notes will have a full transcript as well as links to everything that we talked about. Then you can follow us on Instagram. I am @melanieavalon, Gin is @ginstephens and I think that is all the things. So, anything from you, Gin, before we go?

Gin Stephens: No, I think that was it. Again, thank you for sharing your story. I know it was hard to experience it and to go through it, but sharing your story is going to help someone else be brave to share their story.

Melanie Avalon: Well, thank you and thank you for being so receptive and for the dialogue. That was really wonderful. Yes, well, this has been absolutely wonderful and I will talk to you next week. 

Gin Stephens: Awesome. Talk to you then. 

Melanie Avalon: Bye. 

Gin Stephens: Bye. 

 Melanie Avalon: Thank you so much for listening to the intermittent fasting podcast. Please remember, everything we discussed on this show does not constitute medical advice. We're not doctors. If you enjoyed the show, please consider writing a review on iTunes. We couldn't do this without our amazing team. Administration by Sharon Merriman, editing by Podcast Doctors, show notes and artwork by Brianna Joyner, transcripts by SpeechDocs, theme music by Leland Cox. See you next week.

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Feb 27

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

Intermittent Fasting

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

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

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

SHOW NOTES

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

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TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Welcome to Episode 254 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. If you want to burn fat, gain energy, and enhance your health by changing when you eat, not what you eat with no calorie counting, then this show is for you. I'm Melanie Avalon, author of What When Wine: Lose Weight and Feel Great with Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, and Wine. And I'm here with my cohost, Gin Stephens, author of Fast. Feast. Repeat.: The Comprehensive Guide to Delay, Don't Deny Intermittent Fasting. For more on us, check out ifpodcast.com, melanieavalon.com, and ginstephens.com. Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this podcast do not constitute medical advice or treatment. So, pour yourself a cup of black coffee, a mug of tea, or even a glass of wine, if it's that time, and get ready for The Intermittent Fasting Podcast.

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

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

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

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

Gin Stephens: Hi, everybody.

Melanie Avalon: How are you today, Gin?

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. 

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

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

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: Can I ask you a question? 

Gin Stephens: Yeah. 

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

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: Yes. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: I do. 

Gin Stephens: Do you? 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: Yes, yes, it could. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: It was January 11th. 

Gin Stephens: Oh, yeah, I saw that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: Yes, I know. 

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

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

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

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

Gin Stephens: How long did they do it for?

Melanie Avalon: They did it for 11 days. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gin Stephens: That's a cool study. 

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

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

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

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

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

Gin Stephens: Yes. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm.

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

Melanie Avalon: Or, a medication. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gin Stephens: Well, she said mostly wholefoods. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gin Stephens: Been something that she enjoyed? 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gin Stephens: I would love it. [laughs] 

Melanie Avalon: I want to try it. 

Gin Stephens: Yeah. 

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

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

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

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

Gin Stephens: I'm glad. 

Melanie Avalon: I'm learning so much. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: Oh, wow. Really? 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: That would be really awful. 

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

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

Gin Stephens: Maybe. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: I agree. 

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. 

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

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

Gin Stephens: No, I think that's it. 

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

Gin Stephens: All right, talk to you then. Bye.

Melanie Avalon: Bye.

Thank you so much for listening to the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Please remember, everything we discussed on this show does not constitute medical advice. We're not doctors. If you enjoyed the show, please consider writing your review on iTunes. We couldn't do this without our amazing team administration by Sharon Merriman, editing by Podcast Doctors, show notes and artwork by Brianna Joyner, transcripts by SpeechDocs, theme music by Leland Cox. See you next week.

STUFF WE LIKE

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

More on Gin: GinStephens.com

Theme Music Composed By Leland Cox: LelandCox.com

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

 

 

Feb 20

Episode 253: Vegetarians, Bone Broth, Chocolate, Protein, Fructose, Refined Sugar, Fasting While Cooking, Hypoglycemia, Scale Weight, And More!

Intermittent Fasting

Welcome to Episode 253 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine and Gin Stephens, author of Delay, Don't Deny: Living An Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle

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

LMNT: For Fasting Or Low-Carb Diets Electrolytes Are Key For Relieving Hunger, Cramps, Headaches, Tiredness, And Dizziness. With No Sugar, Artificial Ingredients, Coloring, And Only 2 Grams Of Carbs Per Packet, Try LMNT For Complete And Total Hydration. For A Limited Time Go To drinklmnt.com/ifpodcast To Get A Sample Pack For Only The Price Of Shipping!!

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SHOW NOTES

LMNT: For A Limited Time Go To drinklmnt.com/ifpodcast To Get A Sample Pack For Only The Price Of Shipping!! Learn All About Electrolytes In Episode 237 - Our Interview With Robb Wolf!

BEAUTYCOUNTER: Keep Your Fast Clean Inside And Out With Safe Skincare! Shop With Us At MelanieAvalon.com/beautycounter, And Something Magical Might Happen After Your First Order! Find Your Perfect Beautycounter Products With Melanie's Quiz: melanieavalon.com/beautycounterquiz
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AVALONX: AvalonX Supplements Are Free Of Toxic Fillers And Common Allergens (Including Wheat, Rice, Gluten, Dairy, Shellfish, Nuts, Soy, Eggs, And Yeast), Tested To Be Free Of Heavy Metals And Mold, And Triple Tested For Purity And Potency. Order At AvalonX.us, And Get On The Email List To Stay Up To Date With All The Special Offers And News About Melanie's New Supplements At melanieavalon.com/avalonx

GREEN CHEF: Go To greenchef.com/ifpodcast130 And Use Code IFPODCAST130 To Get $130 Off Including Free Shipping!

Listener Q&A: Angelika - Newbie

Go To melanieavalon.com/broth To Get 15% Off Any Order With The Code MelanieAvalon!

Listener Q&A: Joseph - Intermittent Fasting and Hypoglycemia

Skip The 150,000 People Waitlist At Levels.Link/Ifpodcast!

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

Listener Q&A: Nancy - IF

Listener Q&A: Janet - Insulin

Effects of intermittent fasting on health markers in those with type 2 diabetes: A pilot study

Intermittent fasting: is there a role in the treatment of diabetes? A review of the literature and guide for primary care physicians

Effect of Various Types of Intermittent Fasting (IF) on Weight Loss and Improvement of Diabetic Parameters in Human

TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Welcome to Episode 253 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. If you want to burn fat, gain energy, and enhance your health by changing when you eat, not what you eat with no calorie counting, then this show is for you. I'm Melanie Avalon, author of What When Wine: Lose Weight and Feel Great with Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, and Wine. And I'm here with my cohost, Gin Stephens, author of Fast. Feast. Repeat.: The Comprehensive Guide to Delay, Don't Deny Intermittent Fasting. For more on us, check out ifpodcast.com, melanieavalon.com, and ginstephens.com. Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this podcast do not constitute medical advice or treatment. So, pour yourself a cup of black coffee, a mug of tea, or even a glass of wine if it's that time, and get ready for The Intermittent Fasting Podcast.

Hi friends, I'm about to tell you how you can get free electrolyte supplements, some of which are clean, fast approved, all developed by none other than Robb Wolf. Have you been struggling to feel good with low carb, paleo, keto, or fasting? Have you heard of something called the keto flu? Here's the thing. The keto flu is not actually a condition. Nope. Keto flu just refers to a bundle of symptoms. Headaches, fatigue, muscle cramps, and insomnia that people experience in the early stages of keto dieting. Here's what's going on. 

When you eat a low-carb diet, your insulin levels drop. Low insulin, in turn, lowers the production of the hormone aldosterone. Now aldosterone is made in the kidneys and it helps you retain sodium. So, low aldosterone on a keto diet makes you lose sodium at a rapid rate. Even if you are consciously consuming electrolytes, you might not be getting enough. In particular, you need electrolytes, especially sodium and potassium, in order for nerve impulses to properly fire. Robb Wolf, who as you guys know is my hero in the holistic health world worked with the guys at Ketogains to get the exact formulation for electrolyte supplements to formulate LMNT Recharge, so you can maintain ketosis and feel your best. LMNT recharge has no sugar, no coloring, no artificial ingredients, no junk. They're used by three Navy SEALs teams, they are the official hydration partner to Team USA weightlifting, they're used by multiple NFL teams, and so much more.

Guess what? We worked out an exclusive deal for The Intermittent Fasting Podcast listeners only. Guys, this is huge. They weren't going to do a deal, I begged them, here we are. You can get a free LMNT sampler pack. We're not talking a discount. We're talking free, completely free. You only pay $5 for shipping. If you don't love it, they will even refund you the $5 for shipping. I'm not kidding. The sample pack includes eight packets of LMNT, two Citrus, two Raspberry, two Orange, and two Raw Unflavored. The Raw Unflavored ones are the ones that are safe for your clean fast, and the other ones you can have in your eating window. Word on the street is the citrus flavor makes an amazing Margarita by the way.

I am loving LMNT and I think you guys will too. Again, this is completely free. You have nothing to lose. Just go to drinklmnt.com/ifpodcast. That's D-R-I-N-K-L-M-N-T dotcom forward slash I-F-P-O-D-C-A-S-T and I'll put all this information in the show notes.

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

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

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

Melanie Avalon: Hi, everybody and welcome, this is Episode number 253 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon and I'm here with Gin Stephens. 

Gin Stephens: Hi, everybody. 

Melanie Avalon: How are you today, Gin? 

Gin Stephens: I'm doing great. So much to do, so much all the time, but I'm loving it. It's good to be busy, right? 

Melanie Avalon: Oh, yes, that is my favoritest thing. What's the thing that you're most excited that you're working on? 

Gin Stephens: Oh, just a lot of little things. I love that the community is going so well, The Delay, Don't Deny Community. I'm really enjoying connecting with people in there. That's my favorite talking to people. I'm the kid who when I was in, I guess, it was sixth grade, my desk was put over to the side of the room, so I couldn't talk to people [laughs] because I talk to too many people. 

Melanie Avalon: Oh, you're that kid. 

Gin Stephens: I was that kid. Yes. Arnold from what was that? Diff'rent Strokes? Is that the name of that show, Arnold from Diff'rent Strokes? There's that meme where he's there and he's like, "Sorry, Teacher. Moving my seat won't help, i talk to everybody." Have you ever seen that meme? It might have just gone through all the elementary schools, because it was a very teachery kind of a meme. But have you ever seen it? 

Melanie Avalon: I have not. 

Gin Stephens: Okay. Well, I've seen it a million times. Well, also, people send it to me or they used to. [laughs] But that was me, no matter where they put me, I'll talk to people. So, I had to be by the wall. I probably talked to the wall, too. I'm not sure. But I just remembered that from sixth grade and I love to talk to people, and so the community is where I get to connect and I love it. 

Melanie Avalon: That was not me. 

Gin Stephens: Really? You were the good little girl who followed the rules? 

Melanie Avalon: Yes. 

Gin Stephens: I wasn't sure what the rules were at any time. So, I was just probably, randomly just doing things that felt right, whatever it was.

Melanie Avalon: I was the one when nobody's supposed to be talking, and somebody else talks, and I get stressed for them. Yeah, when they be quiet, and then somebody whispering, and I'm like, "Oh." 

Gin Stephens: I was the one whispering. [laughs] I wasn't even whispering. I was just right out. I don't know, I was a mess. I was probably ADHD just because knowing what I know now about my brain chemistry and how we've talked about this before, Benadryl hypes me up, caffeine makes me calm, and that's a hallmark of ADHD, stimulants calm you down. So, I'm sure I was ADHD. Back then, this was the 70s to 80s, and I'm sure there were places that were treating it, but I don't remember anyone ever talking about it about me, but I'm certain that it was true, especially watching my own children. 

Melanie Avalon: I was not ADHD.

Gin Stephens: I was just all over the place. I'm sure. I wish I could go back in time and see myself from the perspective of the teacher. Here's something that's telling. I have no memory throughout my entire elementary school years of seeing a teacher in the front of the classroom teaching us. I'm sure teachers did that, I have no memory of it. Apparently, that was not what I was focused on whatever the teacher was doing. I don't remember the teacher teaching. I'm sure she was. 

Melanie Avalon: Wow. That's like the majority of my memories. 

Gin Stephens: You remember the teacher teaching? 

Melanie Avalon: Yes. [laughs] 

Gin Stephens: I remember my third-grade teacher playing the guitar and singing that caught my attention. [laughs] That's all. Yeah. 

Melanie Avalon: Yes, I was laser focused. 

Gin Stephens: Not me, uh-huh. 

Melanie Avalon: Well, I have a little story, an announcement and an announcement- 

Gin Stephens: Well, okay. 

Melanie Avalon: -and they all relate sort of. So, super exciting. I got to meet my business partner this week for creating the Avalon X serrapeptase supplement. I felt such a business person on a business meeting. 

Gin Stephens: Well, that is true. It does feel like that. 

Melanie Avalon: Because he had to fly in from Pennsylvania. Shoutout to Scott, because he listens to the show. Because the majority of the stuff that I'm doing, business meetings and calls every single day, but they're related, I don't know, it's just different. They're podcast stuff. This is a different world.

Gin Stephens: This is business. Right here, we're having business [laughs] but it's different. You are right. 

Melanie Avalon: It is different. Yeah. So, that was super exciting to just meet in person and brainstorm the future of the Avalon X line. I am so excited, that relates to my unannouncement and my announcement. My unannouncement is last episode, I think. I'm so sad. I talked all about an NMN and we are not making NMN, not right now. The FDA is very interesting, and its rules and regulations, and certain supplements are FDA approved, and some are not, which doesn't mean they're unapproved, but it means they're in a gray zone. Even though NMN is a fantastic supplement and NR, which is another version is FDA approved, it would not be a wise business decision to make a large NMN order right now, just in case something happened, and it didn't get approved with the FDA, then you just have a lot of products that you-- But good news, bad news. That's the bad news. Good news, we've decided what we're going to make instead, and actually our audience probably be more excited, because I know a ton of them love the supplement and already take it. You know what it is Gin, right? 

Gin Stephens: Well, no, I'm not sure now. I have two ideas of what it might be, but I don't know. 

Melanie Avalon: But I told you. 

Gin Stephens: Well, you told me several things. So, I have two in my head that it might be-- 

Melanie Avalon: Oh, I see. Oh, true. Yes. Okay. It's the one that you like a lot. 

Gin Stephens: The one that I take all the time. 

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm. 

Gin Stephens: Okay, that's what I thought. 

Melanie Avalon: We are going to make a magnesium. I am so excited. 

Gin Stephens: Oh, you did tell me that. You did. I think you texted it to me. So, I remember we had a conversation about it.

Melanie Avalon: Very, very excited, because as you guys know, both Gin and I have been big proponents of magnesium for a long time. In my dream world, we get all of our nutrients from food, that would just be the way it happened. But because of our modern soil, our farming practices, our food today is just not as nutrient rich, and then on top of that, we have a lot of gut issues, issues absorbing nutrients. So, magnesium is one of the nutrients that it's actually very, very hard unless you supplement to get enough of it in our diet. It's one of the ones I've been saying for years at this point. That is one of the ones I think most people can benefit supplementing from. There are a lot of forms of magnesium and people often will just get one form or not get the form that's correct for them because it actually involved in over 300 enzymatic processes in the body. So, so many things use it. But like I said there're different forms. 

The magnesium that we're making is going to have multiple forms. I'm not going to say how many, I think I know how many, but those details have not been confirmed yet, so I can't say. But it has a lot. And then, it's going to be made without problematic fillers, it will be in a glass bottle, it's probably going to have methylated cofactors to help with absorption. It's going to be the best magnesium on the market and I can honestly say that.

Gin Stephens: Well, very cool. 

Melanie Avalon: So, I'm very, very excited. If listeners would like to learn more and get the updates, you can get on my email list. That is at melanieavalon.com/avalonx. By the way, when you sign up for that email list, look for the welcome email, because it might be going to your promotions folder, or your junk, or your spam. Then, once you get the welcome email, you can add that address to your favorites, or VIP, or whatever, so then, you don't miss the emails. Then, of course, if you do want to get the serrapeptase that we currently have, that is at avalonx.us. So, I'm very, very excited. 

Gin Stephens: That is very exciting. Can I make a community service announcement just about emails in general? 

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm. 

Gin Stephens: I have found no way to fix this for me, but for whatever reason, a lot of my important emails go to the spam folder. Whatever, even emails from myself or people that are on my favorites list, and so just FYI. Check your spam folders, everybody. 

Melanie Avalon: How many email accounts do you have? 

Gin Stephens: Well, I have a bunch. 

Melanie Avalon: I have 14.

Gin Stephens: Well, I don't have 14. [laughs] Maybe five, but they all behave differently. Every week in my calendar, I have things that pop up to remind me to do them. Every Monday, I have certain tasks. I always do on Mondays. So, they come up every week, but twice a week, my daily task reminder to-do is check junk email. I always find something important. 

Melanie Avalon: You find something like, "Oh," right? 

Gin Stephens: Everyone check it. You're going to be shocked. There was somebody, who was-- Just the other day, I don't know, she emailed me, or messaged me, or she was in my community, I can't remember how she communicated. But in one of those places, I think it was a private message in my community. She said, "Hey, I'm not getting emails for Intermittent Fasting Stories every week like I used to. Are you no longer sending them out? I used to like to get them because it would remind me it was time to listen to a new episode." I said, "Check your spam folder." There they all were. She had been getting them, then she wasn't. But again, for me, even it is people that I have marked as favorites, we'll go there sometimes. Even emails from myself, that's the weirdest. I'm spamming myself. 

Melanie Avalon: That is weird.

Gin Stephens: It is, it's so weird. 

Melanie Avalon: I always get really excited because I do the same thing. I always get a little bit excited checking the junk, especially if it's an email account where I know, because some of the email accounts have likely more important things coming than others. I check the junk and I'm like, "Ooh, what am I going to find today?" [laughs] 

Gin Stephens: But yeah, twice a week, I have to check them. [laughs] Again, people I have marked as favorite in my contact still go to spam. 

Melanie Avalon: Crazy. 

Gin Stephens: I would like nothing to go to spam. I just don't want anything to go to spam. 

Melanie Avalon: Me, too. You know why? Because then, well, except for one account that gets a lot of spam, I do appreciate. A lot of it is stuff where if it did come in, I could block them one and done or I could unsubscribe. It'd be a way to clear out stuff.

Gin Stephens: Yeah. But instead, I have to look at them, and take the time, and yeah. 

Melanie Avalon: Yep. 

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Melanie Avalon: Shall we jump into everything for today? 

Gin Stephens: Absolutely. 

Melanie Avalon: Okay, so, to start things off we have some questions from Angelica and I was thinking we could just take these one by one. 

Gin Stephens: That sounds good. 

Melanie Avalon: Perfect. Oh, my bad from newbie, Angelica. She identified herself as a newbie. Angelica says, "Hi, both. Writing this as I'm listening to you both giggle." We do do that a lot. "Thanks for your podcast." 

Gin Stephens: We're having a good time. 

Melanie Avalon: We are. She says, "Hope you're both keeping safe. COVID-19 made me lazy and I've gained some weight which I want to shed. Fasting comes easy to me, so I thought of changing my lifestyle and doing IF. I'm currently in my first week and doing 19:5 daily. I have a few questions and appreciate you answering any of them." Well, Angelica, we are going to answer all of them. She says, "I would like to get a better understanding of what I should break my fast with, I'm vegetarian. Lots of confusing info on the net, but I'd like to clarify the whole carbs, fat, protein connection when breaking the fast and what is best to break it with? What are your meal suggestions?" 

Gin Stephens: All right, that is a great question. My main suggestion is not a meal suggestion, but it is to stop googling it. [laughs] Sorry, I had to say it like that, because she's talking about confusing info on the net. Yes, you can google this question, or look on the net, or look everywhere and find everything but opposite of everything else, literally. Someone will say, "The best thing to break your fast with is a smoothie." Someone else will say, "Never break your fast with a smoothie or you must have this combination of fat and protein, or never include carbs when you--." There's so much conflicting information out there that I would stop looking at that. I'm going to tell you, there's only one source that you can trust in the entire world about what you should break your fast with. Do you know what I'm going to say, Melanie? 

Melanie Avalon: It's you. 

Gin Stephens: Yep, it's your body. Your body will tell you. That's it. You'll know what works for you and what doesn't. For example, for me, I've just said, some people say, "Open your window with a smoothie." That would make me feel terrible if I had a smoothie to open my window. But for some people, they feel energized and amazing. It all depends on how your body responds to what you put into it and it's not going to be the same for each of us. So, you are your expert, you're your study of one. The only reason I know a smoothie doesn't work for me to open my window is because I've tried it. Someone, who thinks it works great for them, they've tried it, they feel great and energized. For me, it makes me have a crash. I can close my window with a smoothie and I'm fine, and I don't have a crash after having a more balanced meal in the middle. For me, this is Gin Stephens, what she needs. I need to have really a combination. 

Like your grandmother said, "Well-balanced meal," I feel better when I have a "traditional well-balanced meal, or snack, or whatever." I need a mixture of carbs, and fat, and protein. If I have carbs by themselves, I don't feel good. If I have fat by itself, I don't feel good. I guess, I could probably eat protein by itself and I'd feel okay. It wouldn't make me satisfied, because I need carbs, and fat, and protein to be satisfied. There is no universal best. So, ignore anybody who tells you what it's supposed to be seriously. Now, real food is always going to be better. I will say that. Real food for the win, no matter what it is, your body knows what to do with real food. You're more likely to have a good experience if you're prioritizing real food. 

Melanie Avalon: I could not agree more. Yeah, in general, the actual food and what you're eating, like Gin just said do what works for you. For a lot of us with sensitive guts like me, that means eating the way that I best digest it. I can just tell and I just know. So, I wouldn't focus on the macronutrients or anything like that. There are some functional foods that people purposely open their fast with. You're vegetarian, so, bone broth wouldn't be a thing for you. But a lot of people find that having bone broth, for example, when they break their fast is really healing for their gut. That's an example of something a person might want to try. Although actually, this is perfect. Today's episode is not sponsored by Beauty & the Broth, but we do have a code for them, which is at melanieavalon.com/broth with the coupon code MELANIEAVALON. But Melissa, who runs that company, she just released a vegetarian version. So, that is perfect for you, Angelica. It's based on mushrooms. Anybody interested in that, definitely check that out. 

But yeah, basically everything that Gin said, and as far as like meal suggestions, I don't know if you're saying in the context of IF or in the context of just meals, the answer to that is twofold. If it's in the context of IF, it's what we just said that it doesn't really matter, because it's you do you. If it's in the context of meals, that's just I don't really even have suggestions. There are many.

Gin Stephens: I bet she's coming across the people out there who are just so insistent that if you must open your window with a mixture of protein, and fat, and zero carbs. There are people who say things like that, like it's the law. I'd say ignore all of that. Ignore it. That doesn't mean that maybe you won't feel better eating that way but you're doing it, because you feel better and that's what you've tried not because this person made a video and said here's what to do. 

Melanie Avalon: Gin, you know what I always open my window with? 

Gin Stephens: I can't remember. You might've told me, but tell me again. 

Melanie Avalon: Wine. 

Gin Stephens: You open with wine? Your little tiny micro dose? 

Melanie Avalon: I drink normal glasses now.

Gin Stephens: Okay. 

Melanie Avalon: But not a lot. I probably drink less than a glass a night. But yeah, I have a very ritualistic one meal a day eating, wind down, work pattern, every night, sauna. It's a whole thing. Lana Del Rey, it's a whole thing. In any case, Angelica's next question. She says, "I still have a lot of obsessive sugar cravings during my window. Any suggestions on how to suppress them." She means her eating window because she says, "I ate a whole bar of chocolate after my fast yesterday." 

Gin Stephens: Here's the thing about sugar. You just have to decide. Actually, I want to back up a little bit. It is not "bad or wrong" to have cravings for sweet things. That is very natural. Especially, you just started, you're in your first week. In your first week, your body is not well fueled during the fast. You open your window and your body is searching for quick fuel, sugar is going to give you that. So that might be a function of your brain saying, "I need some quick fuel because you're not well fueled during the fast, because you're not fat adapted." So, keep that in mind. You may find that gets better as you become fat adapted. However, even once you're fat adapted, it is normal part of the human condition to crave sweetness, and to like it and that is not bad, or wrong, or a sign that you're weak. I'm not in the mindset of you must suppress cravings for sweetness because they're natural. But what you fill them with can make a difference. It just depends on you and how you react. For example, for me I bought two bars of really high-quality chocolate about, I don't know over a month ago. You know that Bronner's, Melanie? Bronner's soap?

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm. 

Gin Stephens: They now make chocolate. Maybe, they've always made chocolate, I don't know. They make chocolate. 

Melanie Avalon: Wait, that's funny. Because I feel like that's like me. Like my product expansion, it's going to just be such a random thing. 

Gin Stephens: That'll be chocolate, but the ingredients are super clean, it's a really high-quality chocolate, and I love that company. They've been around forever. I bought two regular sized bars, one was filled with a hazelnut butter or something and one was filled with an almond butter. I just eat a little tiny piece of it, and that is all I need, and it's been over a month, and I forgot it was there for a while. [laughs] Then I'm like, "Oh, I saw this chocolate." I was hiding it, because certain members of my family who live here would be able to eat the whole thing, and it'd be all gone, and I was like, "I want it to be there when I would like to have some." So, I put it behind the macaroni or something. I remembered it was back there and I'm just eating a little bit at a time. If I was the kind of person and no judgment here, because I'm like this with potato chips, that's why I can't buy potato chips. But if I were the kind of person who knew that I would eat the entire bar or two bars, maybe I shouldn't have that there. But I'm the kind of person that can forget I have it, and then just eat a little bit at the time and it's okay. 

Now, so, you just have to know yourself. Again, like I said, it might get better as your body adjusts. But instead of whatever it is, it's your trigger, maybe, you can have dates. I always have organic dates in the fridge. Couple of those satisfies my sweet craving. I know Melanie loves pineapple. Pineapple can satisfy your sweet craving. Right now, it's blueberries. Whatever it might be, that satisfies your sweet craving. In berry season, I like to buy organic blackberries, and then put some heavy cream over them. That satisfies my sweet craving. But I'm not going to just eat so many that it makes me feel terrible. I can stop, my brain is happy. So, it's all about what works for you. But as I've mentioned, there are things I can't include like potato chips, because my brain doesn't have an off switch with that. You just need to know what are things that your brain doesn't have an off switch around that you really don't want to be consuming a lot of. It might be chocolate for you and sugar, refined sugary stuff, or it might be something salty like me with potato chips, you just have to figure out what it is. But that doesn't mean I shouldn’t ever eat salty things. It just that this is one thing that I have to probably not have a lot of. I hope that's helpful.

Melanie Avalon: It is. This is ironic. This is going to seem like I again undid something that I just said. It actually is not. I was saying earlier there's not a certain order to eating things and you have to find what works for you. That said, what works for you, some people do find that ordering of certain things does work for them. One of those things is that opening your meal with protein for example. A lot of people find that really, really helps with satiety. There's the whole protein leverage hypothesis theory that basically when we're eating, we're eating to fulfill our protein requirements. We're just going to be hungry until we get enough protein. Especially, if you're a vegetarian, you might be finding it a little bit more difficult to get protein, although I know vegetarian can include milk and dairy, right? Or dairy and eggs. 

Gin Stephens: Yeah, it can. Vegan is not having any of those products, but vegetarian, you can. Yep. 

Melanie Avalon: It's so interesting to see how far things have come in such a short amount of time because I remember when I was writing What When Wine, because oh, that would be a good resource for you, Angelica. It has 50 recipes and they note if they're vegetarian, vegan, or all the specifics like lacto, lacto-vegetarian, pescatarian, all these different things. But I remember when I was researching to write that, people knew all the differences, but it wasn't second knowledge. Now, I feel it's pretty common knowledge, the difference between vegetarian and vegan. This wasn't that long ago. This was 2017. I just remember looking up all the differences and it just wasn't as known as it is now. But prioritizing protein when you open your meal might be a way to help those sugar cravings. Also, I'm about to interview finally, next week, Dr. Rick Johnson, oh, my goodness, the amount of notes I have for this episode. But he's the one who really studies fructose, and they do a lot of studies on fructose and sucrose, and the refined forms versus Whole Food forms. 

The issues that come along with refined sugar. Even though, he really believes the mechanism of action is the fructose and they're still fructose in naturally sweet things like fruit, they don't see the metabolic problems, when it's just coming from Whole Foods forms. The reason I'm tying that all back in is, cravings are often related to metabolic signaling, and hormones not working to your advantage. I think eating in a way that helps all of that work to your advantage, it can help quell those cravings. This is iterating what Gin just said. But if you can turn to-- I know she was talking about the chocolate bar as well. But if you can try starting with the protein and stuff to filling up that way and then turning to alternatives for those cravings, you might find that those cravings get easier and maybe even eventually go away. So, finding the fruit or the fruit that works for you might be helpful. Any other thoughts? 

Gin Stephens: No. Just the same thing that you said about the sugar. If I opened my eating window with sugar, I would feel terrible. I would have a big blood sugar crash. It wouldn't feel good at all. 

Melanie Avalon: I remember when I did the ZOE experiment, even though that's fat and sugar, but eating those muffins, I would eat the muffin and then starving, starving. You have to fast for four hours, miserable. [laughs] 

Gin Stephens: Whereas yesterday, I had a daily harvest bowl full of lentils and I don't know, I can't remember what was in the one I had yesterday, maybe brussels sprouts, and I was so satisfied. 

Melanie Avalon: It's a big difference. 

Gin Stephens: It really, really makes a difference. All right, she got more questions. 

Melanie Avalon: Yes. Her next question. She says, "My last question relates to my husband. He is a private chef, who works varied shifts. Sometimes, leaves the house at 8:30 to only come home after 10 PM. He has to taste all of the food he prepares. How do you go around that and try to fast? He is keen to join me on the IF train, but it seems impossible."

Gin Stephens: I am going to say that if he's eating, he's not fasting. 

Melanie Avalon: We've had this question before and it's-- 

Gin Stephens: I know. It's one of those things-- I've talked to chefs before on Intermittent Fasting Stories and they structure their tasting within whatever their eating window is going to be. I understand that he has to work varied shifts, but he doesn't have to taste every minute. I've worked in restaurant kitchens before and I know for a fact that they're not back there tasting every dish that goes out of the kitchen. But I'm just talking about from a restaurant kitchen's perspective. I've never obviously worked as a private chef. But watching the people cooking in the kitchen, they're not constantly tasting every dish before they send it out of the kitchen. I understand that you have to taste frequently within the job, but he needs to figure out a way to structure his window, so that he's doing his tasting within his eating window. 

Melanie Avalon: Yes, I wish there was a better answer, but that is the answer. 

Gin Stephens: If you're eating, you're not fasting. The tasting makes it hard. I felt I was getting a cold or something the other day. I was like, "I feel I'm getting a cold." My nose was a little tickly, like a sneeze was coming on. I've always used zinc to help me with fighting a cold or whatever, but I can't take it on an empty stomach. It makes me feel queasy. I was like, "What?" I wasn't ready to eat yet. I was like, "What do I have in the fridge that I could take the zinc with to coat my stomach so I don't get queasy. I was like, "Well, I've got some kefir or kefir, however you say it, but I think it's kefir. We've looked that up before. It's like a yogurt but unsweetened. This is an unsweetened whole milk version, no sweeteners, just the fermented whatever they do to it to make it into kefir. It's a probiotic yogurty kind of a drink. It's like, well, this is probably going to coat my stomach the best. So, I just had a tiny little bit with the zinc. Tiny bit. Barely even tasted it. So hungry. 

I was like, "Well, I guess I'm opening my window now." I technically opened it with the kefir, but it's okay to open my window earlier I needed to take something. Then, I just opened it for real, I ate food. I finally ate food. So, I can't imagine long story short trying to taste food and then fasting. I just can't. I couldn't do it. And plus, you're eating and it gets the digestive process started, and just the taste of the food initiates the cephalic phase insulin response to the food because your body's like, "Oh, we're eating now. We're going to need some insulin, so it pumps some out" and that keeps your insulin high. It's not one of those things I feel would be easy. 

Melanie Avalon: Yep. I wish there's an answer but-- 

Gin Stephens: I know. Plus, you're really mega low-calorie diet if you're just tasting little amounts all the time. 

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm. I wonder with the varied shifts, are they all dinner shifts, I wonder? 

Gin Stephens: Well, he said he leaves the house at 8:30 and comes home at 10. 

Melanie Avalon: Sometimes. I'm wondering if that's an example or if they're like, is he doing lunch? Does he do lunch stuff, too? If he's just doing dinner shifts, then I would just have the window be a fluctuating window. Fluctuating meaning it's just defined by whatever that night's event is. So, okay. Well, the rest of her email she says, "Again, appreciate you answering any of these and I'm sorry if you've already answered some of these in detail." Oh, she was on Episode 15. "So, many more to listen to. Sending warm wishes from London." London, have you been to London, Gin? 

Gin Stephens: I've never been to Europe or anywhere over there. No, I haven't. [laughs] I've only traveled in the United States and then wherever cruises go out of Florida. I've traveled out of Tampa on a cruise, and I traveled out of the other side of Florida, and also Charleston on a cruise. I had been to Jamaica by plane. But you could also cruise there. So, really anywhere down there a cruise ship could go, I've been around in the islands in Mexico. But yeah, never been to Europe, never been to Asia, and never been to Australia. 

Melanie Avalon: Would you like to go? 

Gin Stephens: One day. I would really like to go to the British Isles, because so many of my roots are from there. A lot of family tree from Scotland, England. I would love to go. There's also a lot of people over there that I've met through my intermittent fasting groups that I would really like to meet. 

Melanie Avalon: I know. You could have a meetup in all the different international cities. That'd be fun. I'll live vicariously through you. You can do that.

Gin Stephens: Well, have you been to Europe? 

Melanie Avalon: A lot, actually. 

Gin Stephens: Really? When did you go? 

Melanie Avalon: All the time growing up. My family still goes, but we have family in Germany and we have an apartment there. Growing up, we would always go to Germany and then we would go to another country like London, Rome, Paris, see all the places, and then I went on school trip. So, my family still goes all the time. I tried to get me to go every single time. Someday. Traveling is just a lot. 

Gin Stephens: Chad's never been, Will's never been, but Cal has. Cal and Kate, they did a whole and in summer of 2019, that's where they got engaged in Europe. They were in Venice. So, they've been all over the place. They love to travel. 

Melanie Avalon: I am really grateful that I've been to have seen actual other cultures in person, I think as a nice understanding to the world. Not that you need that, but I think it's helpful. 

Gin Stephens: Did I get what you're saying? Shall we go on to our next question? 

Melanie Avalon: Yes. 

Gin Stephens: This is from Joseph, and the subject is: "Intermittent fasting and hypoglycemia." He says, "fantastic guidance and a possible cure for many problems. I have only been doing IF for a week and it's great to wake up without feeling pain. A question for your podcast. How should a non-diabetic with hypoglycemia best apply intermittent fasting. Thank you," Joe.

Melanie Avalon: All right, Joe. Thank you so much for your question. To start, so hypoglycemia for listeners who are not aware of the differences, hypoglycemia is low blood sugar, hyperglycemia would be high blood sugar. Joe is talking about low blood sugar. In general, a lot of people find after adapting to an intermittent fasting lifestyle that it can really help with blood sugar regulation issues. Especially, when people with hypoglycemia eating throughout the day, they can experience hypoglycemia and blood sugar swings, because going from meal to meal, their blood sugar might drop in between meals or they might have reactive hypoglycemia, where it drops actually after a meal. But it can be a roller coaster for sure. In the long-term, I think a lot of people see great benefits with managing their blood sugar and be it hypoglycemia or hyperglycemia with intermittent fasting. That said, when you first start, because you just started, he's been doing it for a week, although this is, oh, this is a really recent question, very recent, two days ago. 

In the beginning, there is the potential for experiencing more intense hypoglycemia because you are fasting, and if your body's not fat adapted, and not used to that, your blood sugar might be going low. I guess, my first question is, your hypoglycemia now, Joe, I wonder how intense it is. Is it where you just-- you can feel yourself getting hypoglycemic and you eat, or is it something where you actually are doing a glucometer or even wearing a CGM? I doubt he's wearing a CGM. But how intense is it? Is it something where you've actually had fainting spells from it, because that would be a whole another level compared to somebody who just tends to get low blood sugar and get hangry as they say. I would use that approach when applying it to the intermittent fasting. Again, I'm not a doctor with any of this that I'm saying. But if it's something where you just have blood sugar swings, and it can be a little bit uncomfortable, again, I'm not a doctor, not a doctor, but it is possibly okay to experience those swings and get accustomed to intermittent fasting. If it gets too unbearable having something to eat and slowly working your way, because you could work your way to a smaller and smaller window if you need, so you could start with a longer window and slowly shorten it. But if it is something where it's more intense, I would recommend which you might already be doing by checking your blood sugar with a glucometer or even getting-- 

You know what, getting a CGM would actually, probably be a fantastic solution for this. Because they last for around two weeks. You could wear it when you're trying the IF, and be watching your blood sugar levels, and seeing if it's going too low, seeing how you're adapting, and also seeing the changes. If you do have a hypoglycemic moment, where you do need to address it, you eat something. Again, you could just slowly work on adjusting your window. I'll put a link in the show note to Levels. They provide access to CGMs for people who are not diabetic. If you go to levels.link/ifpodcast that will let you skip their waitlist that actually has around 150,000 people on it and get access to that. That link does let you skip the waitlist. For some reason, sometimes, people think that they still get put on the waitlist. But no, that link gets you direct access. I didn't even define what a CGM is. It is a continuous glucose monitor. It's going to monitor your blood sugar 24/7, actually via your interstitial fluid in your cells, not actually your blood sugar, but it gives you the blood sugar readings. So, those would be my suggestions. Gin, what are your thoughts?

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I agree with what you said early on and I wanted to highlight that again that we find that people who suffered with hypoglycemia in the past when eating a traditional approach where you get up and you eat breakfast, and have a snack, and all that, that gets you on that blood sugar roller coaster of ups and downs, and that is how I used to live my life. Even when I was a little girl, I would notice that I might would have a blood sugar crash if I ate certain things or had something sweet. I would say, I maybe really did suffer from hypoglycemic type feelings, if you feel shaky or you need to eat. But with intermittent fasting, I never ever, ever, ever, ever feel that way ever during the fast. [laughs] Did I say I never ever feel that way? Never, never, ever. When I actually had a CGM from Levels that I tried out, they sent me one to try and it was fascinating to see what my blood sugar did during the day. 

Of course, I'm well adapted to fasting. I've been doing it for years. But after I would have my morning coffee, that causes your liver to dump out some glycogen. I would see my blood sugar go up a little bit, and then it would stay around a certain state for the morning, and then I would feel a little wave of hunger, and I would look and see what my blood sugar was doing. That was right when it was going down. It was just a little mild wave, "Huh, I could eat." But it wasn't shakiness or feeling like I was crashing. I just kept fasting, and then the hunger wave passed, and then my blood sugar stayed really, really steady right in the 70s. As long as I just kept fasting, my blood sugar stayed just right there in the 70s. It wasn't wildly fluctuating up and down, up and down or crashing, because it doesn't do that. It really responds to something coming in, whether you're having that cephalic phase insulin response, your body releases some insulin, that would cause your blood sugar to crash. 

I feel if you're not fasting clean, you might have some hypoglycemia. Drink a diet soda, no sugar really comes in because it's artificial sweeteners. But your brain gets that, "Oh, some sweets coming in," releases the insulin, bam. Now, you're going to have that blood sugar crash. As long as you're fasting clean and you're adapted, you should really see that steady blood sugar instead of the big roller coaster frequent eating. Very much just repeated what Melanie said, but I wouldn't worry about it unless you feel shaky, and then you need to eat.

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Melanie Avalon: We have a question from Nancy and the subject is: "IF." Nancy says, "I lost 30 pounds with keto and plateaued. I then found your book, Delay, Don't Deny and began IF. I started in March and to date." This is August when she's writing this. This is five months later. She says, "I have lost five pounds. I have lost inches most everywhere, but I still have too much tummy. From March at 146 to today at 141, I have been here for weeks. I have been doing one meal a day, which works well with my family, but do you think I need to do ADF to start losing again or something else? I do longer fasts in there, too. Thank you." 

Gin Stephens: Now, this is going to be one of those situations, where it's really tricky for us to answer, because we don't know where your weight is as far as in a healthy weight. For example, you weigh 141 and 141 is just a number that could be at the low end of the healthy weight range for somebody at a certain height or it could be at the high end, you could be overweight at 141 depending on how tall you are. It's hard for me to say. It's possible that 141 could be your body's ideal weight and you just should weigh 141. Over time, you'll still see, maybe your tummy will very slowly change. My body changed really slowly over a couple of years. I changed two jean sizes over a year, but didn't lose a lot of scale weight, but my body really, really reconfigured. Thanks to body recomposition. The scale number doesn't always tell the story. It depends on really how much weight you need to lose to be healthy what my answer will be. 

If 141 is a healthy weight for your body, then you don't need to change a thing and give your body time. If you need to lose fat on your tummy, then you'll probably see the shape will change, but you still might weigh 141, but you'll have some body reconfiguration, the body recomposition. However, if 141 is still in the overweight range for your body, and you're stuck there for weeks, and you need to think about, "Okay, I probably do need to shake something up." Now, if your body is still changing, take photos, use your honesty pants to see if your body is changing. Again, body recomposition can happen even if the scale isn't changing. But if really your body is not changing at all and you need to lose weight to be at a healthy weight, then you're going to just shake something up, okay? It could be the length of your window, the timing of your window, what you're eating in your window. 

For example, you said that you're doing one meal a day, that could look like so many different things. For me, I have a snack and a meal within a window of about five hours perhaps, I could certainly shift that around a lot. When you say one meal a day, you talking about strict 23:1 for example. If you are doing a very strict form like a 23:1, then it's very likely that your body has adapted to that, and so, I would do some shaking up of things. If you've got Fast. Feast. Repeat., I would read the "Tweak. It. Til. It's Easy" chapter and see all the ways you might want to change it up. You don't have to go full on ADF unless you want to. You mentioned that you do some longer fasts in there, too. I'm not sure what you meant by that. So, maybe you're already doing a 36 hour fast here and there. Maybe a meal-less Monday, and then make sure you're having an up-day following that. 

That really is the key is making sure that you have more of a rhythm that it's not always the same. Like up and then a down, and then up and then a down instead of just everything being the same, the same, the same, the same, the same. Have a little something in there that shakes it up. That would be my advice. As I said, it depends on really what 141 means to your body. Y'all, when you're writing in a question for us, it would really, really help to have just a few more details to know, because 141, if you're 5'10" is really different than if you're 4'10", for example. 

Melanie Avalon: Yes. I thought that was a great answer as per usual. Especially, since she lost inches, it sounds she definitely is experiencing body recomposition. So, that is great. The only thing I'll add on and this is what Gin just said, but I'll elaborate on it a little bit. As far as, she was talking about how if you're not seeing results with everything and it is time to make tweaks, a lot of people want to automatically make the tweak be something around the fasting related, but there's a lot that can be done by looking at the food and what you're eating like a lot can be done there. The only reason I say it is when people don't even mention at all what they're eating, I think that is possibly a sign that there's a lot of potential in that world compared to somebody who already has their-- 

Not to say you don't have your food dialed in or not though even need to dial in our food. But some people will tell us exactly what they're eating and all of that. For those people, maybe the focus shouldn't be on the food as much, maybe it should be other things. But when people don't mention at all what they're eating, it says to me that the case might be that there's possibly a lot of potential if you haven't looked at that yet at all. So, I just wanted to note that. But again, ADF might be something that works for you. The good thing is there's just a lot of things that you could try.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, and a lot of people love ADF. People, who try it and the rhythm works really well for them, they just absolutely love it. You never know until you try it. But there are people who that is their preferred way to do it. A lot of people think, "Oh, ADF, that sounds so hard. I'm not going to like it. I'm going to force myself to do it because it's the only way I can lose weight." What if you try it and you're like, "Oh, my gosh, I love this." You just never know. Try it with a curiosity instead of dread, if you want to try it. If you don't like it, you don't have to do it. But you might love it. Surprise yourself and see. But it isn't right for everybody. I eat every day. 

Melanie Avalon: It does not work for me, but it works really, really well for some people. 

Gin Stephens: Yeah. I just really enjoy eating every day. Sometimes, I eat for reasons other than the fact that I'm hungry. [laughs] We just-- 

Melanie Avalon: For shame. 

Gin Stephens: I know. I said that in a sarcastic tone, because there's a bit of a thought, a train of thought that if you're craving stuff or you're eating for reasons that are not just-- if you're eating for enjoyment or if you're eating because you're not hungry, that it's wrong or bad. But it's not. Food is one of the greatest pleasures of the world of living, of being alive. I enjoy eating every day. But if someone enjoys fasting, and then the next day, they have an up-day, and they love the up-day, and they love the fast, that is the right thing to do. This is all about what feels good to you and sustainable and you can switch it up. There's a lot to be said for switching it up, keeping the body guessing. 

Melanie Avalon: Exactly. Do we have time for one more? 

Gin Stephens: Sure. The one that we have next is one we could definitely get to. All right, so, we have a question from Janet. Janet says, "I wanted to try this fasting to lower my blood sugar. I was diagnosed with diabetes about seven years ago. It has gotten worse, although I'm not on insulin, but I take 2000 metformin daily." I'm not sure 2000. What is that? Anyway, her dose is 2000. Probably, people who take metformin would know what that means. She says, "I also have high cholesterol, which I think is from the diabetes. It runs in my family. I work out every day, I am not overweight. I was paleo for six months and it still didn't lower my A1c. Could the fasting work for me?" 

Melanie Avalon: Yes. 

Gin Stephens: I told you this was a quick one. 

Melanie Avalon: There is a ton of literature on fasting and its effects on blood sugar regulation and A1c. For listeners, A1c refers to glycated hemoglobin. It's a longer-term measure of your average blood sugar levels, because basically, based on whatever your blood sugar levels are consistently affects the amount of glycation on your red blood cells. Glycation is a problematic process that happens with sugar. Like I said, there's just so much literature. It's almost overwhelming how much literature there is on fasting for helping blood sugars, A1c, and metabolic health. I don't really have much more to say, but we can put a link in the show notes to some studies. 

Gin Stephens: The answer is yes. It absolutely could work for you. I feel fasting is the most powerful thing you can do to lower your A1c, lower your insulin resistance, all of that. I think it's the most powerful tool in our toolbox. Even more powerful than the what, although, the what does matter. But you see that Janet, when you did paleo for six months without fasting, that was not enough to lower your A1c, but if you eat in a style that includes healthy whole foods and incorporate intermittent fasting, that's like magic. 

Melanie Avalon: I just thought of a random fun fact I wanted to share that relates to an earlier question. Can I share it really quickly?

Gin Stephens: I love random fun facts. 

Melanie Avalon: I should probably find the exact numbers, but I'm sure you know this, Gin. But I'm prepping to interview Dom D'Agostino, who is the ketone researcher guy. There have been really fascinating studies. This goes back to the question on hypoglycemia. I'm not advocating this, but people on really intense ketogenic diets, they did studies way back in the day that I think would have been stopped now with these findings, but back then they didn't, this was decades ago. The blood sugar levels, the level of hypoglycemia that people reached in some of these studies, where they were doing a long-term ketogenic approach was shocking. They shouldn't even have been alive, but they were fine. But just because they were fueling on ketones, which was just a random fun fact. I wonder if I have the number, but that is not going to be the case probably with people. Now, I'm not saying that shockingly, low blood sugar is okay. This would be at a clinically controlled, really intense ketogenic therapeutic diet study. But the point of it is that there's a lot more going on then, I think, what we often-- like, the basic facts we think of when we think of blood sugar, but there's a lot more with ketones, and fasting, and all of that. 

Gin Stephens: Yeah, it's true. There's a lot. A lot going on in the body that so much of what we think about, what we've been told, for example, is not always accurate. The first time I read The Obesity Code that really just blew my mind. So many of the things that I was like, "What?" The Diabetes Code. If I were if you, Gin, I would read The Diabetes Code. 

Melanie Avalon: Oh, yeah. That's a great suggestion. 

Gin Stephens: Yep. Jason Fung, The Diabetes Code. Absolutely. 

Melanie Avalon: All righty. This has been absolutely wonderful. A few things for listeners before we go. If you'd like to submit your own questions for the show, you can directly email at questions@ifpodcast.com or you can go to ifpodcast.com and you can submit questions there. The show notes for today's show will be at ifpodcast.com/episode253. Those show notes will have a full transcript, so definitely check that out. Then you can follow us on Instagram. I am @melanieavalon and Gin is @ginstephens. So, I think that is everything. Anything from you, Gin, before we go? 

Gin Stephens: No, I think that's it. 

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

Gin Stephens: All right. Bye. 

Melanie Avalon: Bye. 

Thank you so much for listening to the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Please remember, everything we discussed on this show does not constitute medical advice. We're not doctors. If you enjoyed the show, please consider writing your review on iTunes. We couldn't do this without our amazing team, administration by Sharon Merriman, editing by Podcast Doctors, show notes and artwork by Brianna Joyner, transcripts by SpeechDocs, theme music by Leland Cox. See you next week.

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