Welcome to Fast Feast Repeat Intermittent Fasting for Life. I'm Jen Stevens, author of the New York Times bestseller Fast Feast Repeat.
And I'm Sherry Bullock, longtime intermittent faster and health and wellness advocate. Please keep in mind that this podcast is for educational and motivational purposes only and is not intended to provide medical or diagnostic advice. Jen and I are not doctors, so make sure to check with your trusted healthcare professionals before making changes, especially when it comes to any medical treatments or medications.
Whether you're new to intermittent fasting or an experienced intermittent faster, tune in each week to get inspired, to learn, and to have some fun along the way.
Hi, everybody, we are so glad you're here today.
Welcome to this week's episode of the Fast Feast Repeat Intermittent Fasting for Life Podcast. How are you doing today, Sherry?
I'm doing fabulous, me too. It is August the nineteenth as we record this, and last week y'all heard me talk about Seth, my bonus son, who went to the Marine's last spring and he graduated last week, and so we were out in South Carolina for several days. It was a very busy few days, and I just as a mother, I think that might be my proudest moment.
Oh that's awesome. Yeah, you were nowhere near me, which was sad.
Everybody's like, oh, South Carolina, no way far away in South Carolina.
Well, I'm want to be honest. Eric and I were looking at the map to figure out how to get there, and we were both shocked that this part of South Carolina is further south than Augusta, Georgia, which is almost straight east of US, and.
We're like, what like that you had to go south to get to Yeah.
Out we went down through Macon and that way.
So yeah, so I got in Surf side.
Are pretty much at the same latitude, which is surprising because you feel like you're going north northeast.
You actually do drive.
You have to drive pretty north and then come down back down south the way the roads are so but they're very they're at the same latitude.
It's looking a map again.
The map is always surprising because you imagine the states like being all like lined up in certain ways, and then they're right.
Yeah.
I had no idea that part of the coast of South Carolina, came down and like so far, I mean, I don't know. I guess I have to look at the map.
I'm you know, up on the top part of you know, the North Carolina end of South Carolina.
Yeah, you are, well, that's where he's headed. Next is North Carolina for more training for the next fourteen weeks after his he's on leave right now and he's coming over as soon as we finished recording. He's coming over and he's spinning today and tomorrow with us. So well, last week I did to see him.
It was see our son's week because cal came and visited and that was all came from San Francisco and too short, too short. But Will and I are going to see him in early November. I'm so happy Tripp yesterday.
Yeah good.
Yeah, I saw that picture of y'all together and it just made my heart happy.
Yeah, it's good.
You know, as parents who have sons across the country, you know, Parker moved back to Colorado when he was almost seventeen to finish high school out there. He just never really loved to hear in Alabama and that was hard on my mom's heart to let him go Before I was ready. I was like, you know, I always thought I had to lely graduate in high school, but I knew it's what he needed to do to thrive
and be happy, and so I let him go. And you know, it's hard at first, but then it just becomes Okay, Well, you know where he's at, and you still talk on the phone and you can still FaceTime or whatever. But when you see them, you realize how much you miss.
Them exactly exactly, and thank goodness for modern technology. You know, I think about families came over from. Most of my roots are British Isles, and like you sent your son across the ocean, you'd never see.
Him again or hear from them exactly. You might get a letter at some point.
Maybe, but you just really didn't know.
So you know, we could text him or FaceTime at any moments, and thank goodness for all of that, but there's still nothing like having them here.
Yep.
Yeah, for sure. He left nine years ago, and every time I leave the airport or leave him behind drop him to the airport, I still bawl like a baby.
Yeah, but they're thriving, and that's what we do. We send him into the world and let them thrive. Although it's so funny. Will has always been needed to be close to his mama. Like I think back to when they were toddlers, and Will kind of orbited me. My stepmother's the one who noticed. Still like he would go off and always like kept touching base with me. Well, Cal's just like whatever. You didn't either know when he
was a toddler. But we were walking. We went on a little boat excursion and we were walking on this beach at the very tip of Garden City, right where the merles Inlet comes in, and Cal was going.
We didn't know where he was. We couldn't even find him.
He just did got back on the boat.
But Will was orbiting me. He like would go over here, then you'd come back to me. Then you would go over there and come back to me. I'm like, this is so funny. They are still who they were. Yeah, we'll never move away from me.
No, Yeah, Well, I would say Parker and I always had a really close relationship, and he was kind of my clingy kid. He wanted to sit and touch you or lean on you or whatever. And when he's here, he's just as sweet as he's ever been. But I'm also really proud that I raised him to be independent and he's out there doing his thing. And you know he's back in Ireland currently working right now.
Wow.
Anyway, it's bittersweet watching your kid's grub, but it's also so rewarding.
Yeah, it really is, it really is.
All right, Well, let's share a weekly celebration, and this one's personal to me. I've shared before that my mom and dad started pasting the innimy and I mentioned the last time we recorded together that she was noticing more stamina. However, last week she sent me the following message. She said, I'm not bragging by any means, but I wanted to tell you that I walked further this morning than I have in over a year, mainly because my hips and knees wouldn't let me before, but I can do it now.
I also noticed this week that I can go downstairs without only being able to take one step at a time, if you understand what that means, and without my knee giving me problems. And I'll be honest with you. When I saw my mom in April watching her do steps, they live in a split level, so they have to go up and down like maybe five steps to go to the family room or up to the bedrooms, and I said to my dad, I don't know if you
could bill live in this house much longer. Mom can't hardly do the steps, so I was noticing that she was really struggling. She said, I'm so happy for those reasons alone for starting intermittent fasting. Thank you for helping me along the way. Today is the end of twelve weeks and I am close to five six hundred steps just today. This would have taken me a week plus
to accumulate that many steps. Over the last several years, I keep getting notices on my step app saying that there's a change in my steps and it hasn't given me a fall risk alert since before I started fasting, yay that is. I asked her if I could share this celebration today and she responded, thank you, Yes, you can share. Please be sure to tell them my age.
I'm seventy five turning seventy six this fall. In case it makes a difference to someone else, it is never too late to take care of yourself and your health. I may still need a knee replacement at some point, but I hope to put it off as long as possible.
I'm just incredible.
There's no better feeling than having your mom do intermit and fasting and change her life already in twelve weeks.
Yeah.
Well, you know, for years now, every time I've seen them, and I can tell, you know, I don't see them every day like I used to. And so we go a year nine months without seeing each other for the past several years, and then when I see her, I'm just like always shocked. I can tell that she's slowing down, that he's not as mobile as she used to be. I've been so worried about her, and you know, when I was there in April, I kept telling Dad, you've got to get her more active.
You've got to get due.
To like a senior sneakers class or get her moving. And she can't just sit here all day. And so I'm so glad that fasting has given her the energy and the stamina and she used her pain where she can be more active. And even if she lost never lost another pound. She told me that she won't change what she's doing because she feels so good.
Yeah, that's just fantastic. That's the main thing.
When people start feeling amazing and feel the difference. You don't want to quit, right, And for anybody who's listening, if you've been fasting for a while and you know that you should be fat adapted, like maybe you're sticking to a five hour window and you don't feel great and you've been doing this for months and you've been consistent, that's them to look at your fast and see if maybe you aren't quite fast and clean.
Yeah, we do that from time to time.
Yeah, when I see people that are saying that they're struggling and they've been fasting for three or four months and that they're not having the energy, or they're feeling sluggish or brain foggy or whatever, or they're really struggling with hunger still while they're fasting. If you dig deep, usually there's something in there that's breaking their fast during that time and they just either didn't think it mattered
or didn't notice it. So really look at your clean fast beverages and make sure that there are no weird ingredients in there and that it is truly just black coffee or plain black or green tea not Nasha not.
Dya that one right, or herbal teas.
No or nothing flavored, no jazzon green tea.
Yeap.
Yeah, Oh, I'm just drinking green tea. But it's jasmine green tea. That is not just green tea.
Right.
Yeah.
I was just so thrilled to hear that.
That really is exciting. It was thrilling that she shared it with us and our messenger. And you know, I sure wish I could convince my mom to do it, but she said, nope.
We hear people they'll join the community and they'll say I'm seventy two or I'm seventy five, I'm seventy six. Well, fasting work for me. Yeah, And I mean I think my mom right there, that wasn't a pay testimonial. She just added the blue sent me that message. When she said I'm not bragging, I said, you should go because.
You did the work. Yeah, exactly. So now we have a question from a listener. This question is from cold Runner from Norway. Dear Jen and Sherry, this is my success story and some questions. I'm a thirty nine year old woman from Norway who discovered the benefits of fasting two years ago. It all started with me experimenting with twenty four to forty eight hour clean fasts every other week. It was a struggle, but I was and am convinced and intrigued by the many benefits of fasting and autophogy.
As I am writing this, I realized that I have had an average of eighteen six since I discovered your podcast in twenty twenty four. I have had periods with shorter eating windows. I bet you're not surprised that my weight has been somewhat stable with an average of a six hour eating window. My weight has been fluctuating around four to five pounds up and down. This March, I decided to commit to ADF for a month to weigh daily and focus on my weekly average. It was an
interesting experience. In the same period, I focused on heavy lifting in the gym combined with training for my very first half marathon in June. I felt amazing most of the time, and I do want to pop in here, which I think she's getting ready to get to this.
I would if you change too.
Many variables at one time, like she committed to ADF and started heavy lifting at the same time.
That's a lot of variables. So we know heavy lifting is going to do two things.
You're going to work your muscles a lot, which will cause muscle inflammation and water retention is your muscles heel, which is what it's supposed to happen. That's not bad. That's the process of building muscle. So you're going to see an increase on the scale from your muscle inflammation is the healing of cars, and then you'll have some
muscle mass increase. So you might not see the scale go down with your fat loss because your muscle inflammation slash muscle growth will mask what's happening with your fats. I just wanted to pop that in there. Too many variables at one time can give you results that might not be it's easy to understand, not look accurate. They might not look accurate actually, But she goes on to say, my weekly average showed that my weight was slowly going down.
I was amazed by my.
Energy level and could really feel my body composition changing, which, of course, Sherry, is what we would expect fat loss and muscle building. She said, due to several reasons, I experienced some window creep and made worse food choices. In May, we had Norway's Constitution Day and several birthdays to celebrate. Because I am a curious biologist, I took a body scan at the gym prior to the ADF month and two months later.
I love what's coming. I love what's coming, she said.
The body analysis showed that my weight was exactly the same as before I started ADF, including the month with the window creep and poor food choices. I was disappointed. However, the analysis further showed an increase in muscle mass and to decrease in body fl fat percentage. See that is exactly what body recomposition is. Her weight stayed exactly the same, but she had increased muscle mass and decreased body fat, which is exactly what we would have predicted to happen.
And all those people, one particular person I'm thinking of who's running around on all the podcasts telling women not to lift heavy and do fasting because you'll gain fat. Boom, No, you want not if you're fast and clean, she said. My current weight is one fifty seven pounds and I am five foot three. After my month with ADF, I weighed one fifty two, but I'm back at one fifty seven. My personal trainer was impressed. He had never seen that
change in any of his female clients. Yet, as many trainers, he does not recommend fasting for more than eight to twelve hours for women.
It was so fun to prove him wrong. I love that so much.
Yeah, I mean eight hours of fasting means you literally eat every hour of the day that you're not sleepy.
It's true anyway.
On the flip side, I was struggling with an intense feeling of cold in the evenings and had to go to bed fully dressed under two covers with the hat, gloves and wool socks. Your podcast helped me understand I could reduce this feeling by moving my eating window closer to bedtime.
It helped.
After the month with ADF, I got the flu and changed to a more regular eating window again. I am struggling and doubting if I should continue with ADF or have a five hour eating window. As I am increasing my exercise training for a half marathon. The hunger was and is intense, and I feel my body is pushed to the max with injury or sickness lurking around the corner.
Do you think I can continue the positive trend of lowering my body fat if I increase the five hundred calorie Downday meal in periods with a lot of running if I continue with ADF, could a larger downday meal help me not feel intensely cold when going to bed? If so, how much is okay for the down day? I am one hundred percent that I eat enough on my up days, but my food choice could be improved.
Is a five hour eating window more fitting compared to ADF when training for a half marathon or increasing cardio? Considering the good results from my month with ADF, I am curious to try ADF a couple of more months. But then I'm also training for a new half marathon. I would appreciate some good advice and to remain strong and trust the process.
Love your podcast, all right, so let's talk about the cold feeling. You noticed that this was reduced a little bit when you moved your eating window closer to bedtime. You can also look, there are a lot of thermogenic foods. There's like list out there, and these are foods that you eat that actually can increase your body temperature. So you could play around with eating more thermogenic foods during your window, including some carbohydrates in your window, and I
mean some like really good quality carbohydrates. And then as far as whether or not you should do ADF for a five hour window. My answer is do what feels good. I personally, you say you feel like your injury or
sickness is lurking around every corner. One of the benefits of a daily eating window is that you get nutrients every single day, such as you replenish your electrolytes, and you replenish your micro nutrients, your zinc, your boron, your copper, and all those things, and so that is a benefit
to a daily eating window. If you're really looking to lower your body fat while you're training, which you know a lot of people when they are training for a marathon, they don't lose any weight, right, some people actually gain weight while doing that. So could ADF during that time help you. Yes, But then you also say that you were really struggling with hunger at some point. Trying to
find where you said that hunger. Yes, you said the hunger was and is intense, and I feel my body is pushed to a max.
And I want that hunger is intense with ADF training or just with a daily five hour window. That's the part I wasn't sure about. Why is the hunger INTENDF? She's one month of ABF and it was a while back. So she's back to a daily eating window again. Okay, so I feel like she's having a daily eating window, and if she's not eating sufficiently within a daily five hour window, what I'm worrying she might actually find that a full up day with twelve hours of eating. Maybe
she exercises on the morning of her down day. I mean, I'm sorry I said that wrong. Maybe the exercise the morning of the upday. First thing, she does her training first thing when she wakes up on the up day in the fasted state, and then immediately goes and has a big breakfast afterwards. So she's getting the fasted training, but then the big breakfast and then have lunch and then have dinner, have a full three full meals on the up day.
Yeah.
And then my other thought too was, you know, she asked whether or not she really needs to stick to the five hundred calorie meal. The research was conducted with a five hundred.
Calorie men, men, everybody.
Right, So I mean, if you don't feel satisfied with that five hundred, and you are a very active person, then I could see where that would be just a little drop in the bucket for you you may like more of a uppish downish approach, and just think about just take calories off the table for your downish window, your downish day, and just eat a really full meal to satisfaction and then immediately close your window back. So think of it more as one hour eight hours, one
hour six hours. Just listen to your body, and then on the uppish day, have two really full meals over the course of your uppish day, and maybe that will feel more balanced to you and it might help you satisfy your hunger a little bit more. And the other thing too, though, is just really make sure that you're
not using something that's potentially breaking your fast. As I mentioned earlier, if you're using some sort of electrolytes while running or something, make sure there's nothing sneaky in those electrolytes, like sit your gacid or boric acid or full of the acid that they like to put in those for preservative reasons. So you know, take a look at that if that's something that you're doing. But yeah, I just
continue to listen your body. It sounds like you're doing a good job at that, and slide back into ADF see how that feels, and you know, if you feel like your body is pushed to the max, it probably is right. So I also want to remind you to take recovery days. You should not be working out every day, and if you're training for a marathon, that's a lot. I don't know how many days you train a week.
Try to work some recovery days in there. If it's you know, something like yoga or pilates as a good way to stretch and work out your sore muscles, and you know it's just really good for your stress, and try doing more of a recovery exercise.
On your days that you aren't runn And I want to pop in with two important things. One is, we know that fasting is good for us, even women. We know that exercise is good for us, even women, but overfasting is not good for women. Over exercising is not good for women. You know, when we talk to doctor Tabatha Barber about fasting and women, she talked about how Olympic athletes who are definitely not fasting by the way, but Olympic athlete females will often lose their periods because
they're doing so much exercise and too much fasting. Is also what we don't want, but you do not want to combine it together. And there really is no like godline like here's exactly where it's too much and when you shouldn't do these things together. But you just want to always be cautious that you are fasting and feasting in a way that supports what you're doing, and your body gives you clues. And that's the second thing I wanted to say. If you start feeling an increased urge
to binge, that is always a bad sign. An increased urge to binge lets you know that your body is starting to feel hannicked, and that's when you need to figure out do I need to back up some of my exercise, back off have more recovery, or do I need to open my window more or both.
We had someone in the community.
Today's Sherry, that talked about how she was struggling and it came out she'd been doing longer fast like forty eight hours and then she was having the urge to binge. We don't recommend, That's why we are so broken record about you do a down day and then you have a full up day. Like I want you to think of it as thirty six twelve six hour fast, No.
Forty two, forty five forty eight.
No, A forty eight hour fast is two full calendar days of fasting. That is not alternate daily fasting. If you skip two twenty four hour periods, twenty four plus twenty four is forty eight. That is two days. So ADF is well researched. Fasting for forty eight hours and then having them that is not researched. There may be people doing it, but we find over and over people who are pushing themselves for long or fasts end up with the urge to binge, and fasting is hard, and
so that's just something to really keep in mind. If you find yourself wanting to binge, ask yourself, am I eating too lightly in my window? Is my window too short? Am I fasting too much? Am I trying to do longer fasts for ADF but I'm not having a full up day. Am I not nourishing my body?
Well?
Those are the things to ask yourself, and that's where you are your own study of one.
Yep, all right, so our next question is from the same region. I did not plan that. That's such a coincidence. The next question is from Nordic mom.
First, off.
I've missed listening to you too. I was an intermittent faster for a good year and a half and I absolutely loved it. I lost fifteen kilograms without ever feeling restricted, and I felt amazing, energized and confident. Then I got pregnant and I had to stop. I also stopped listening to the podcast because, to be honest, it was a bit tough to let go of a lifestyle that had finally helped me reach my goals without restriction or calorie counting.
My baby is turning nine months soon, and I'm starting to feel that it's time to prioritize my own body again. I've probably gained around ten kilograms through pregnancy and those intense breast freighting sugar cravings, but I know interment fasting will help me get back on track. Before my pregnancy, I typically followed a four hour eating window with a few thirty six hour fast each month. I obviously can't jump straight back into that, and I doubt it will
be as easy to start this time around. I'm still breastfeeding, so I'll need to ease into it and allow my body to adjust gradually. I've also come to terms with the idea that my milk supply may taper off during the process. Do you have any tips for me, especially on the practical and mental sides of restarting if during this phase of life, I'll of course consult my doctor in the health aspect, but I'd love your insight on
the real life side of things. For reference, I'm a short lady one hundred and fifty six centimeters tall, and at my lowest before pregnancy, I weigh a fifty four kilograms. I'm probably around sixty four now, though I haven't dared step on the scale in a few months. I'm genuinely excited to get back to fasting. I loved how it made me feel, but I know I'll also be wrestling with some mum gilt about choosing fasting and my health over my baby. In a way. Thank you so much
for your amazing podcast. I'm so happy to be back.
Well, I have some bad news. Nordic mom. You are not back and I do not want you. Sharona are very firm on this.
We do not want you to start back fasting until your baby is fully weaned. So I want you to think about the entire period of time that you're nursing your baby as not for intermittent fasting. It's not to do with milk supply. It's to do with toxins that get released as we lose fat.
And I am not making this up.
I read this out of a breastfeeding textbook and it wasn't even talking about fasting. It was just talking about should you try to lose fat while you're breastfeeding. That was the entire context. And I imagine a breastfeeding textbook is written by an expert, way more expert than me, so I'm deferring to this breastfeeding expert. And it had to do with talks that are stored in our fat stores that get released as we're losing fat, and unfortunately,
those toxins can get into your breast milk. So I know you're very careful about what you eat while you're breastfeeding, as all of us would be, but you don't realize that there's stuff stored in there from way before, and so you do not want to risk those toxins, I'm sure. So I don't want you to stop breastfeeding just so you can get back to fasting. I want you to
keep breastfeeding. If your plan was to breastfeed for eighteen months, then breastfeed for eighteen months, and this is for your baby. You're doing what's best for your child. And then when that baby is weaned, that is when you start back with intermittent fasting. And I also get it because I have two kids of my own. I didn't know any of this when I was, you know, after I'd had my babies. We want to get back to our prepregnancy body.
Everybody's doing these diets, but it's a very different world now with all of the toxins, and we really do not want to be trying to lose fat while we're breastfeeding. And we can make that sacrifice of not trying to get back to our pre baby body until baby is weaned. So wait, continue to breastfeed as long as you want to, or however long that might be, and then when your baby is weaned, that's when to ease back into intermittent fasting.
I would honestly start intermittent fasting as if you're brand new and you've never done it before.
That's from my.
Book twenty eight day fast. Start day by day can be very helpful. You just follow it day by day as if you've never fasted before, and ease your way back in, and that'll set you up for the best success. And I know it's disappointing to hear that, because you're excited to get back to fasting. And I'm glad that you want to get back to fasting. But I promised that if I thought it was fine, I would tell you.
But I am deferring to the experts who really say we should not be trying to lose fat while we're breastfeeding, which I know that message hasn't really gotten out there, but once I read it, I couldn't unsee it, and
I can't stop making that recommendation. I read that when I was researching for Well, I don't know if it was when I was researching for Cleanish or maybe it was fast Feast to repeat, but whenever I read it, and then researching for Cleanish, really helped me understand how many toxins there are in our modern world that didn't needs to be there. You know, two hundred years ago it didn't matter. But now our fat cells are really like storage for garbage our bodies. What is this?
I don't know what to do with it.
I'm going to stash it away kind of like if you're like trying to clean your room and you don't know where to put something and you shove it under the bed. Our fat cells are very much shoving it under the bed. So I hate to be the bearer of bad news. And I definitely am not trying to get you to stop breastfeeding.
I want you to keep doing that. Just hold off on the fasting.
And for someone who loves fasting, you know, I'm not going to try to convince people not to do fasting except when.
It matters, right, Yeah, and three years from now, it's not going to matter whether you started fasting today or you waited another three or four months until your baby was weaned, right, so you know, just enjoy this time with your little one, and it's such an important time, and then you know, when your baby is weaned, fasting will be here for you exactly.
So now it's time for our segment called What's Your Why? And I know that most of us begin intermittent fasting with weight loss in mind, and that is a perfectly wonderful reason to start, But there is so much more to what intermittent fasting can do for us beyond weight loss, and that is why In twenty eight day fast start day by day, I ask readers to craft their why
statement before even beginning. I genuinely believe that when your why is deeper than weight loss alone, you're more likely to find long term success and view intermittent fasting as a lifestyle.
So this week we have a why from Sally in Alliston, Ontario. My why is over all health and increase to taphagy. If I hit my goal weight of one hundred and thirty five pounds, great, If not, that's okay too. As long as I am healthy, I am the lightest I have been this century. I love saying that love I am enjoying. I'm enjoying the other health benefits, sleeping better, better,
bladder control, less inflammation. My nail fungus has disappeared. I have more energy most days and almost no cravings for.
Sugary or crappy food.
They have just gone away, along with the food noise that's feat.
We hear that a lot.
There's just so much more that we're not even expecting. You know, today we're recording this on Tuesday. It's Transformation Tuesday, and the community and people share something about them that is transformed and I believe it was Kim who shared how much she's changed mentally, how much mental noise. Just Sally said, here the food noise is gone. And you know, we come for the physical transformation, even if we're coming
for health reasons. We come for the physical transformation, right, but the mental transformation is what ends up maybe being the biggest surprise of.
All I think so absolutely.
Yep.
All right, so we have another question, and this was an end from Gina in Almost say Nina, Wisconsin. She said, I have been practicing IF since twenty twenty one. I am fifty four years old. I f I fit two and one hundred and twenty nine pounds. In twenty twenty one, I did eightyf and the weight just kept falling off, down to about one hundred and seventeen pounds. But then I had a hysterectomy and lost more weight and that did not feel healthy, so I stopped fasting.
For a while.
I started back up when I felt healthy again, but that was back up to about one hundred and thirty eight pounds. The weight did not fall off like the first time, but I also decided to do nineteen five on weekdays and sixteen eight on weekends. I have lost the weight slow and steady, down to one hundred and twenty nine pounds. I was thinking of a goal weight of around one twenty five, but I think my body really likes one twenty nine. I have Hashi motos, but
it's well treated and I generally feel great. I strength train every other day and I do yoga every other day. I also walk my every day about three miles, and of course I clean fast only water, with an occasional green tea or black coffee. My concern and questions are that I just started the Zoe nutrition testing in the hopes of seeing what foods work for my body, but in wearing the CGM, it appears I have some sort
of nocturnal hypoglycemia. I stop eating at seven pm every night, and my blood glucose is around eighty six, but then it starts to fall to seventy right before bed, and then dips into the fifty to sixty range while I'm sleeping. I keep going to the red zone, and the CGM says that I should be calling my doctor. I don't have diabetes. I don't take insulin, I don't drink alcohol before bed or almost ever for that matter. I don't
work out before bed. It seems like I don't do any of the things that would cause this, and I don't feel super shaky in the morning, but I often do feel tired and sometimes it's difficult to get out of bed in the morning. When I look at Google, it says I should eat a little something before bed, but I don't really want to do that because of my eye of lifestyle. Do you have any suggestions. I did yoga this morning and my BLOODCOSE was a about sixty and after yoga it raised up to a fairly
normal range of seventy. So I'm not really sure what's going on, but I would appreciate any thoughts that you have.
All Right, the CGM confusion, so you're wearing a CGM for the Zoe testing. I really have a love.
Hate relationship with cgms the more I've learned about them, Right, they can be so amazing and teaching you what works for your body, but when they're not accurate, you get really confused. For example, did you know that cgms they can have a margin of error And this is just like the average margin of error is ten percent.
Ten percent.
That is a lot. I just want to say up actually, because I'd heard this before, could be up to twenty percent typically, ten to fifteen percent typical.
So let's say one hundred is like an average blood gluecase number, So that can mean that you're ten to fifteen points off of what your blood gluecase really is. So you think you're at eighty six, I would be absolutely shocked if you stop eating at seven PM in your blow glucose is eighty six. I can't even unless you're like eating completely like Keto all fat. Do you agree with that, Sherry, A glucose of eighty six after hunting would be very surprising.
Yeah, eighty six after eating. I mean.
That does seem surprising to me.
That seems lower than I've ever seen naturally has a very low blood glucose.
Yeah, level, that doesn't seem right.
Yeah.
So yeah, like for me, like when I've won a CGM, I've worn them, you know, multiple times, so I have the you know overall what mine has done. Like I wouldn't get down to seventy until I was like flipping.
The metabolic switch right, just over time.
But if you have a sensor that is off like worse than the margin of era and again that's if the average margin of era is ten to fifteen percent, then one sensor could be off way more than that, right, And so also we have the fifty to sixty range, you're probably getting alerts while you're sleeping. Another variable is that happens even if your sensor is not giving you a bad number because you're.
Just laying on it.
While you're laying on it, it can give you a low number when it's not really low, but you're laying on it. So that's where the love hate comes from, because you are thinking that your blood sugar is going to the fifty sixty range while you're sleeping, and one your sensor might be one of those that has a wider margin of error and is just measuring you low. The fact that your blood glucose is eighty six after eating makes me think that's kind of surprising.
Well.
In addition, like sensor placement can make a big difference, and I just recently learned that if you put it over muscle, it can give you false low reading, right rather than on a fatty.
Point, you have it over muscle.
And also like lying on it if it's like on the back of your and you're a side sleeper, so like compression for sleeping can interfere with the results. There's like a twenty four hour period after you put it on where it's crazy the accuracy can really be lower because it's kind of trying to self calibrate after you put it on. Another really important thing is dehydration. So if you're mildly dehydrated, it concentrates your interstitial fluid and that can lead to inaccurate readings.
By the same.
Token, if you're overhydrated and you have extra interstitial fluid, if you're puffy retaining water, that can give you inaccurate readings. This is why anybody with diabetes who's using these for like insulin management, anytime they have what's considered an abnormal reading, they are encouraged to do an actual finger stick and test their blood for comparison.
Yeah, I was gonna say that. That blew my mind when I learned that diabetics who must dose insulin are told not to dose according to your CGM.
I was like, well, then.
We should not be, you know, taking it at one hundred percent phase value when clearly it isn't. And so here's what I would do if I were you, Because I know this is probably made you a little worried. I would get I go to any drug store and get a fingerstick, glue coometer. That's what they're called, right, serry, glue cometer. Get a glucometer, get the strips and test your blood sugar. And especially if you're still wearing the CGM, it would be really interesting to compare it and see.
And anybody who's listening, if you're ever wearing a CGM and you think the numbers seem weird, go get a finger stick. You don't have to have a prescription to get it, and compare the numbers, and you may be very surprised that the numbers are completely different.
And then you're like, oh, I would.
Say, when wearing a CGM, I think the most important thing to look at is not the actual numbers, but the trend. Yeah, Like after you eat, is your blood sugar returning to baseline within about two to three hours after you eat, or is it going up rapidly and falling rapidly and you're having some reactive hypoglycemia after eating, And so the trend is more important. They doesn't go up.
And stay up all night long, which we also don't want we don't either.
Yeah, right, And then the other thing I was gonna mention too. You know, if you say you wake up feeling tired or it's difficult that bad. I am a person whose blood sugar runs pretty low, and I had this issue when I was wearing a CGM mine red low almost all night long. But I'm a side sleeper and I sleep on my arm, and so I did. I do notice that some mornings I wake up a
little groggy, sluggish, can't quite get up. And the first thing I do is get up and get moving, because if you get up and get moving, for me, I drink a cup of coffee, that helps push some glycogen out, which is going to naturally raise your blood sugar up. But even just get up and do some brisk movement, get up and do some stretching, some jumping jacks, march
in place for a few minutes. You know that it's going to pump out some glycogen out of your muscles, out of your liver, and it'll raise your blood sugar up.
And she did say that after she did yoga, it came went from sixty to seventy. So that's an example of what Sherry was just talking about and again I don't think you were sixty. I'm predicting that your CGM is just off.
Yeah, I say, even a hot shower can get your blood sugar up.
Yeah.
So if you ever wake up and you're feeling like your blood sugar is a little low in the morning and you're feeling the effects of it, there's things you can do naturally to kind of boost it up without breaking your fast or eating something, and honestly eating.
Right before bed.
All that to me that all that's going to do is set you up for blood glucose dysregulation at night. So yeah, as long as your blood sugar is back to your baseline at bedtime, that's really what you're looking for, and that's fairly stable blood sugar through the night.
If I were ever to wear a CGM again, and I'm not saying I won't because I do, you think it's very interesting to see what happens, I would definitely get a fingerstick to have alongside of it, and then you can see maybe it always is off by twenty I don't know, or always off by ten every time you test it, and then you note a correct for that, so you think it's really sixty, but that's really seventy. Or you think it's really eighty, but that's really ninety.
When you see what the margin of error of your particular your reading ends up being so great. Tool got to understand the caveat.
Yeah, Like, let's just say the margin of air is fifteen percent, and your baseline blood sugar was seventy. A fifteen percent margin of air would mean your blood sugar might show up is fifty nine point five, but it's really seventy, but it's really seventy, right, So you just have to take that into account. And I mean, I have a CGM sitting on my kitchen counter right now, mainly just because I want to see if I'm having better goose control. I feel like I am since starting
on hormone replacement. I was having really why old hypoglycemic reactive hypoglycemia prior to starting on hormones, and I haven't retested, so I'll be doing that here in the next week or so.
And that's the love part the love hate. The love is that you're going to get some great data. The hate is that you got to check to see if it's accurate. And that's just the technology, you know, We're not putting shade on the CGM companies because you know, if I did have diabetes, I would probably wear a CGM, but I would also double check with the hunger stick back up. It would be really nice to have that data. But you know, you do want to know if your
blood sugar is like three hundred or something. That's when a CGM, you know, is going to be life change.
Really, I'm shaving. You need to know that.
Like someone who doesn't know your blood sugar is going up to three hundred after you eat, you need to write that. So yeah, I'm not against cgms. I just want everyone to understand the limitations and you have to learn to work with those limitations.
Right, all right, we.
Have a question from e from Jersey, Hijen and Schery, and I'm wondering this must be Jersey in.
England, That's what I'm thinking.
I don't know.
Well, let's see how things it looks like get spelled American. I So I mean by like all the words, that's what I was looking through. Okay, you start talking about stones than we know, Hijen and Sherry. I'm an avid listener of all your podcasts and Jen's books. Thank you both for all the time you put into helping others. I had a question about a couple of things that
tie together for reference. I'm a twenty five year old woman who has been practicing intermittent fasting since December first of twenty twenty three, and I'm submitting this June eleventh of twenty twenty five, about a year and a half or so. My starting weight was two hundred and eighteen point six and as of today I am at around
one hundred and seventy three. I've been practicing one meal a day with an eating window average of three to four hours, although I've dabbled an ada from time to time, usually for three to four weeks at a time, not very many spurts. I've been in the one seventies for six plus months now. I want to keep losing more weight, but I don't put too much much focus on it, as I'm living in a much healthier, more energetic body.
I got blood work in April of twenty twenty four, about five months into fasting, and I had an A one C of five point six and an LDL cholesterol of one thirty nine. I just got blood work done again fourteen months later and my A one C went down to five point two, which is a great sign. But my LDL is up to one sixty. That's a huge jump in LDL, and I don't know why that would be. I've been getting more plants in my diet, and I've even been making an effort to eat less meat,
although I haven't been strict with it. My diet when I cook food at home is very healthy, and my Zoe tests that I process fats well. But maybe I eat too many nuts and cheese. I've cut back a lot. I go for walks, but that's about it. For my exercise. I know I need to do more, but I haven't had a change in my exercise habits since last year. I don't know why my LDL would be so much higher after making a change for the better in my life.
I know that you mentioned before that as we lose fat, our blood cholesterol could temporarily raise, but I don't think I've been losing much fat lately. Any advice on how to lower my LDL besides exercise, I'm going to start incorporating that into my routine more and break my plateau. Thanks for your advice.
All right, Well, I think you actually kind of nailed it here.
Exercise is so.
Powerful for keeping our LDL low. And you said that you go for walks, but that's about it for exercise. And you said you know that you haven't really changed your exercise habits in last year. But my question is you did Zoe. And Zoe told you that you process fats well well. Oftentimes people think that gives some liberty to add more fat to their diets. I definitely thought I could get away with more fat. Or Zoe told me I processed fats well, and what I saw was
a very sharp increase in my LDL. Some people are hyper responders and they're very sensitive to saturated fat in their diet. So what when Zoe says you process fats well. All that means is that fat is not super inflammatory for your body, that you're you know that you clear it out of your bloodstream well. But it doesn't mean that it's not going to raise your cholesterol. Those are two different things, and some people just have a genetic
predisposition to having higher LDL cholesterol. I am one of them. Both of my parents take statins, they have for years. I refuse to do that, so I work really hard at keeping an eye on my LDL and trying to keep it down.
So my best.
Suggestion to you is, yes, it's possible to eat too many nuts and cheese. If you look at what a serving a cheese is, it's one ounce, it's not a lot. A serving of nuts is usually about a quarter of a cup, very small handful.
So it's really.
Easy to overeat those foods. Are they healthy and moderation absolutely, but most people aren't very good at moderating things like that because they're easy to overeat. So you mentioned that you've upped your vegetables, that's great. Just make sure you're eating high fiber plants, including a lot of fiber. You can include oatmeal into your daily eating window. You can make some overnight oats with some flax and gseeds and oats.
That's really good for getting your blood sugar down. There's plants, stannels, and sterols that you can take in your eating window to help with that as well. But yeah, being active, reducing excess sugary foods and getting a lot of fiber is really the best way to get your cholesterol down.
You have anything you want to add to I.
Do you know when you look about the difference in your LDL cholesterol. It went from one thirty nine to one sixty not a lot. That's not a lot. And I just looked, and there is a natural fluctuation of cholesterol levels. It says three to five percent day by day. Seasonal variations are also significant and so that can vary as well.
I had two blood draws in the same week a couple of weeks ago. Uh huh, And there were two different tests that tested cholesterol, one on one day and one on another. And my LDL one day to five days later was like almost twenty it maybe eighteen points stafer.
Right, So you did.
Not change dramatically in two weeks, right, cholesterol level was the same as ease. As far as difference, it might just be the natural variability. I mean, I don't know. Maybe you ate a lot of cheese a day before you wouldn't got out right, I don't know exactly. Just as blood sugar varies, and you know, influence is going to vary, I think that you're circulating, you know, LDL cholesterol in your blood is also going to vary. I'm
glad that you had that tested two weeks apart. Cherry, you said no, five days.
Five days apart. Five actually wasn't even.
With four days.
One draw was on a Tuesday morning and one draw was on a Friday morning.
So twenty point difference in four days.
Right, So e, your twenty point difference might be like Sherri's twenty point difference in four days, and maybe your cholesterol is not steadily going up.
Yeah, And I also wanted to add too, So when we are in fat burning, you know we are using these fatty acids. I mean our body is literally turning fat into internal cos and that can give you a falsely elevated LDL. So for me, when I try to get my cholesterol drawn, I try to do it between eight and twelve hours of fasting, because twelve hours to me is middle of the road and where I spend you know, half my time. I'm in a twelve hour fasted state, right, So I kind of want to know
what my cholesterol is doing in that state. When from twelve hours, from one hour to twelve hours, when I'm deeply fasted, I know I have fat mobilized and that can raise my cholesterol. So you know that makes a difference too. So maybe you had it done before and you were ten hours fasted, and maybe you had it done this time and you were eighteen hours fasted, and that alone can make a change in your cluster.
Even if you're not losing enough fat to see the scale going down, you're in balanced. Like when you.
Fast, you're losing some fat because you're burning some fat for fuel, but then you eat, your body puts it back right.
You're like in homeostasis.
You're in balance, but that doesn't mean you're never burning fat. Even if you're not losing fat, you're balanced because your weight is stable, you still have some times during the day where your body is running on that stored fuel.
Yep, all right, Well, before we get this week of the week, I want to take a minute to talk about clean skincare, which is a passion of mine. Like many of you, I waited over a year for Beauty Counter to come back, and when it came back as Counter, I was disappointed to find that many of my old favorites didn't make it in the lineup. However, during the year their way, I found and fell in love with Crunchies,
clean skincare and makeup. So now I'm using a little bit of a combo of my favorite product from both companies. As for Crunchy, the most recent addition to my skincare routine is a twice weekly skin exfoliator called I Am Polished. It is a ten percent blend of fruit drived AHAs and a natural pummice. This multitasking treatment gently resurfaces dull skin and smooth your texture, visibly, brightens the tone, and refines pores with natural ingredients to help firm and soften
the look of fine lines in just five minutes. I love it and I cannot tell you in the last few weeks how many people have told me that my skin is glowing. So anyways, that was just a recent addition to my routine, and it's the perfect prep to bright glowing skin prior to foundation or their tinted facial
sunscreen called Sunlighten, which I wear nearly every day. It's the perfect blend of skincare, makeup and suncare all in one and I put it on as my final step of my skincare routine each morning, and it helps protect my skin from the sun's harmful rays. And there are ingredients to protect your skin from blue lights that it's exposed to every day, which can lead to premature skin aging.
So if you want to learn learn more about that, you can go to show notes I have links, or you can go to crunchy dot com slash Sherry Bullock. That's s h E r I b U l O c K and Crunchy. Somebody reached out to me and told me they look forever trying to find Crunchy. It is spelled c r U n c H.
I know why.
Or if you can't find it, or you just have questions, you can always email me.
At Sharry at fast feastrepeat.
Dot com for more information.
So now it's time for our tweak of the week. You know I always say tweak it till it's easy. Now I've started also saying tweak it till it works because we want it to be easy, but we also wanted to work and we know the tweak that works for me might not be the one that works for you. And that is why it is super helpful to hear how other intermittent fasters are making intermittent fasting work for them. This is from sk from Perth, Australia. She's in our community and we.
Just love her. We do, we do.
She's a doctor, she's amazing. So she says hello to my favorite dynamic imduo. First, I just want to thank you, lovely ladies, for this amazing platform that you've created and the thoughtful work you put into each episode. You're both so amazing and I'm so, so so grateful for all you do. I wanted to share a little mindset shift that has helped me. I've tried ADF a few times before,
but never really loved it. I was reflecting on this today and decided maybe it's time to change my mindset about it so I can approach it more positively this time. So I thought about these three keywords which encourage a different way of thinking about ADF for me, the rhythm of rest, restore, and reset. And by the way, Sherry, I told her that sounded like a book title. Hint,
hint her to write she should write a book. Okay, not like you're not busy enough, but rest, restore, and reset written by a doctor.
I would love it.
Yep.
So she goes into more. Number one down days are for rest. Low calorie which would be five hundred calories or no eating your full fast, gives your body a break, lets your body rest, repair and heal. It lowers inflammation, promotes fat burning updays. Restore, focus on full nourishment and fuel for your body, rebuilds energy and muscle, replenishes nutrients, reignites an increase in metabolism. And number three, your one meal a day or your time restricted eating days are reset.
You replenish in a time restricted eating window. You replan your upcoming fast and fuel days, You refocus your goals, and you get ready for this next cycle of rest and restoration. And I am serious, sk I want that to be a book. Yeah, rest restore and reset it with a subtitle about intermittent fasting.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, we love to leave you at inspirational motivational quotes, and this week we have some thoughts and a quote from Ann. The quote is healthy eating goes beyond a nutrition label and fuels you to live your best life physically, mentally and emotionally and shared every day, I am letting the need for weight loss go a little bit more, and I'm making room for the gain of strength, peace and balance that is replacing it. And I think that is so very important.
Thanks so much for listening today. We would love to have you join us in the delayed on Tonight community where you can interact with both me and Sherry, plus the most supportive bunch of intermittent fasters you'll find anywhere. Go to Jenstevens dot com slash community to join us.
Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast to your favorite podcast app, and if you haven't already, please leave us a five star review that helps new listeners find the show, and we really appreciate it.
We are a community driven podcast, so to submit your success stories, your questions, your favorite tweak it till It's Easy, moments, or anything else you want us to share on the podcast, go to Fast Feast Repeat dot com slash submit and then listen each week to see if we share your submission or answer your question Until next week, Thanks for listening,