Episode 118: Weight Regain While Fasting, Understanding Research Studies, and More

So my salvation has been doing coaching because I get to come into my office and shut the door and talk to people. So anyway, yeah, he'll be back till week work next week. And then he gave me for Christmas, he gave me six do nothing days. It's September. I have not used any of them because I'm not very good at doing nothing. So, like, what does to do.

to stay out of my life. He has to wait on me hand and foot, and I don't have to lift a finger. And so that's what he gave me for Christmas. Because I'm always like I wish I had a day where I had nothing thing to do. I can just turn my brain off and escape. And uh so I told him, I said, just what, you know, when you go back to work, I'm gonna I'm gonna cash in one of I do nothing days.

same kind of TV. So I don't know. This is my second marriage. Why do men always get to control the TV remote?

gonna cash in some you know. You know, I was kind of inspired to s K and community was talking about her kids were going back to school and she'd had a busy season and she last week she took like a week of just rest to recovery, and she was gonna just do what she wanted to do and rest. She was taking time off from the gym and kind of just reset her mind and relax. And I was like, you know, I need to do that. I've been on the go since April. I feel like, so downtime's important.

We need it absolutely. All right, Well, let's celebrate. Well, actually this is a triple celebration. This comes from Sarah, a member of our DDT community, and it really goes to the power of sharing. She said. Number one, my mom just finished her twenty eight day fastart and she's loving fasting. She's actually pretty healthy, but she's always chasing that smaller number and has the biggest diet brain ever.

She said. She loves if she feels great and doesn't feel like she is denying herself any foods that she loves. She does eat much better than me in general. Number Two, my dad, who is diabetic, has found great success lowering his insulin resistance with the long fests. I listened to Jin's book with them, and he is probably going to use the eating window approach when he isn't doing down days in order to heal his diabetes. What about me, you ask, I am down thirty pounds since May the twelfth,

which is below my pre pregnancy weight. I gained a good amount before pregnancy and breastfeeding, but this is a huge goal. We are going to try for number two starting in December, and I want to be a healthier mama for my firstborn and fingers crossed the second. Thank you all so much for your support and a place for me to come to for advice. Thank you Jin for bringing us all together and getting the IF word out there in a fun and easy manner.

the slippery elm are hypermellos cellulose and magnesium sterrate. I've just started taking these two to help with constipation issues and still unsure if they will help, but I'm interested to try thoughts.

digestive support. So I mean, I mean, acids are great, but you definitely don't want to take it while you're fasting because you're going to lose the benefits of your fast And then slippery Elm is a fibrous plant and it basically forms a gel in your bowels, much like chia seeds do or cilium huskas, and all of those are foods, and we don't want those foods during the fast. You know, if you're having constipation issues and you want to try the slippery elm in your window, go for it.

You Know, something else that I just feel like I need to point out is I'm not sure how long you've been fasting. A lot of people start to have issues with constipation in the early days of intermittent fasting. Your digestion runs on a circadian rhythm, just like your sleep and every thing in your body, right, and so when we adjust when we eat, then it takes time

for our bodies to catch up. We have a new circadian rhythm in you know, applied to our digestion, and so a lot of people notice constipation in the early days as well. You know, katosis does pull excess fluid out of our bodies, and so you know, if you're having problems with constipation, this could be a fluid balance issue. So you might try in the mornings, if you're not a coffee drinker, for instance, try starting your day with a big glass of hot water because that can help.

That's great for digestion. Make sure that you are taking a quality magnesium supplement, one that has like magnesium citrate in it is going to be helpful for constipation. And you know, make sure that you're eating quality whole foods in your eating window to help support that as well. But yeah, to answer your question, both of those things belong in the eating window.

world has an empty stomach. So that in mind, And if something is like a plant or food like, you just know Google isn't going to give you the right answers if it's food like, if it's protein, if it's an amino acid, if it has fat in it, All those things need to go in your eating window, and it's once you realize you know that these are the things that don't break a fast. Minerals, black coffee, plain tea water. So when you're trying to figure out does

this break a fast? Is it one hundred percent minerals, is it black coffee, plane tea, plaine water. If the answer is no, and it's food like or it's giving you nutrients of some sort, nutrients belong in the eating window, the fast is something different. So keep all that in mind, and that should really help because you can figure it out yourself if you understand why we're fasting. And I also wanted to just remind people that we have a

favorite magnesium and it's bioptimizers Magnesium Breakthrough. There's a link in the show notes and we both really do take.

and ninety pounds. Over the following year, I played around with different fasting schedules, and I successfully reached my ideal weight of one hundred and thirty pounds by March of twenty twenty three. Once I got to that goal, I wanted to shift into maintenance and I began eating once a day. However, by April of twenty twenty four, my weight had crept up to one hundred and forty eight pounds. I continued one meal to day, but by May of twenty twenty five, I had reached one hundred and eighty

pounds again. That was the turning point where I purchased Gin's book and I reached the podcast for support. In June of twenty twenty five, I began a thirty six hour protocol and then in July I transitioned into ADF as recommended in the book. So far, I've lost about five pounds. I understand that one meal day is considered a maintenance protocol, but I'm struggling to understand why I didn't maintain. One major change I made during the time

I was gaining was shifting towards a vegetarian lifestyle. I significantly reduced my protein intake and focused mostly on vegetables. I wasn't eating pasta or bread, and I thought I was making healthy choices. I've decided to reintroduce me into more protein into my diet. As for activity, I walked for an hour every day and I recently joined a gym to bring more variety and structure into my movement routine.

Health Wise, I'm generally doing well. I had a short period of low iron and I was prescribed a supplement which I no longer need. One thing that surprised me was a shift in my insulin levels from the fours in April of twenty twenty four to the ten in June of twenty twenty five. I am not really sure what caused that, possibly perimenopause. It's something I'm beginning to consenter. My current PA is not very supportive of my fasting lifestyle,

but I truly believe in it. I just want to understand my body better so that I can continue this way of living in a sustainable and healthy way. I'm not fixated on a specific number, but I know I feel my best and I'm most comfortable in my body around one hundred and forty five pounds, and that is the general direction I would like to head towards again.

If you have any insights on what might have contributed to the regain or ideas for how I can tweak things to get back to where I feel my best, I would be so grateful.

much weight eating in a very short tight window. When we say that a short tight window can be more of a maintenance protocol, that's because our body does tend to slow down if you're having a short tight window every day. But not eating enough would not make you gain weight unless you started eating more. Like if you didn't eat enough for a long period of time and your body slowed your metabolic rate, then you started eating normally again. Now you have a slowed metabolic rate, you

would expect your weight to go up. But if you started eating less and you kept eating less and you never started eating more, I don't know why you would gain all of that weight. So I don't have enough information here to know why. You did have a major change in what you were eating. And you said you reduced your protein intake. I don't know what you mean by that. Perhaps you mean meat protein. Maybe you have

a body that needs more meat protein. Sherry does, she needs more meat protein, and so I would just think about that. Maybe how are you eating before you changed your diet? Maybe that is the way your body thrives you. We're not all the same. We have bioindividuality. So you mentioned a vegetarian lifestyle, and one thing we might do when we're not having meat, we might slip in more dairy. Like for me, if I'm not having meat, I might have more cheese, and so I end up eating more

fat because I'm eating high fat dairy. So you didn't mention dairy at all, but dairy is one of those things that whenever my dairy goes up, up, up, up, up, so does my weight range. I can feel my honesty pants getting tighter, and so I really have to keep my eye on dairy just because it's really easy for me to overdo it. So I'm not really sure if your dairy intake increased during that time, But that's the only thing I could really think of that might have been it.

lot of peanut butter? Now? Are you eating more grains and pastasa?

ton just to try to get physical satisfaction. Which is why I know for me, I cannot be plant based. My body does not. It doesn't work for my body. So those are just some things that think about. But you know, the other thing too, is you are at that age of perimenopause, so that does affect your body and the way that you store fat, and it affects your blood sugar and your blood glucose control. So you know, it does not surprise me that you're insulin went up because Jen experienced the same thing.

math equation. But for satiety, you know that feeling of satisfaction. Really calorie dense foods like nuts and cheese and cream aren't going to lead to you feeling as satisfied as these high fiber foods, and so you can eat like I've realized, I don't do well opening with cheese and crackers anymore because that doesn't give me any satiety. Cheese is very, very calorie dense, and then the crackers are a crunchy dry food, and dry foods don't give us

good satiety. I was just hearing Kevin Hall, who's a science researcher, talking about satiety and also some other research that's been done. Dry foods don't give us good society, and the cheese doesn't either. So by the time I've eaten a whole plate of cheese and crackers, I've had a lot of calorie dense food and very little satisfaction.

And technically that was a vegetarian meal, right, but I'm not satisfied, and so I'm going to eat more and the quantity of the food, the calorie density does matter, so just because you know, we're not saying you should count calories and you need to restrict your calories. We can over eat and I set that in fast East repeat. Just because we don't count calories, it doesn't mean calories don't count in the way of if you put in more fuel, your body's going to store it. Right, there's

no free fuel. None of them are free. You know, we've had the periods of time where it's like, oh, if you eat low carb, you can eat as much as you want because low carb feods foods are free, or the whole low fat era as long as you're not eating fat, everything else is free. Or now it's protein, eat all the protein you want, it's free. Nothing is free, right, So you want to eat foods that make you feel satisfied without those really calorie dempse foods. For me, it's

butter cream and cheese. Those are the ones that when I freely eat too much of them. Ice cream, those are the things that I can tell make a difference for me, not in a good way. Right, Yeah, all right, now it's time for our segment called what's your Why.

Most of us have a weight loss in mind when we start intermitting fasting, and that is a great reason to begin, But there is so much more to what intermittent fasting can do for us beyond weight loss, and 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.

say that this why has changed. I can see now how much food was dictating my life. I was afraid of food, and my diet brain would constantly direct my choices. I was rarely eating guilt free. Looking back now makes me realize how much I was chained by all of the negative thoughts around feeding my body. My mind is now unchained and I am back in charge. Knowing that I could eat what I want during my windows has been a real game changer. I choose real food because

I enjoyed them. Thank you to the taste buds for resetting I eat the right quantity. Thank you for regaining my ability to recognize satiety. I listen to my hunger calls, which are always in line with my windows. Thank you for having regained the capacity to recognize real hunger. Being back in charge and knowing that I'm capable of making the good choices for my body is actually my real

Why now? Thank you again and again for having shared with the world the tools that make this possible for me today.

and I am trying to embrace the boredness. I feel like the clean fast has been such a game changer, and I'm eager to share and encourage everyone around me about the health benefits of intermittent fasting. I'm a forty year old woman who's five foot eight and around one hundred and fifty five pounds. I have an athletic build, and I live a fit and active lifestyle, working out five times a week with high intensity interval training, spin, yoga,

and weight training. I also have two young children who keep me running my question. After encouraging my husband to join me in this healthy lifestyle with the benefits of weight loss, he wanted to do some research of his own, and he came across an article from twenty twenty four or where the American Heart Association said it linked an eight hour eating window slash intermint and fasting to a

ninety one percent higher risk and cardiovascular death. It did say that short term there were health benefits to intermint fasting, so he's not completely off board. This article is very disheartening to me because ultimately I hope to live a very long, healthy and mobile life, and I guess I just wanted to hear your thoughts on the research and maybe some encouragement. Thank you, ladies for all you do to help guide all of us fasters on our intermint fasting journeys.

I don't know how long ago it was. It was a long time ago. They gathered some data where people did two surveys about what they ate the day before. Okay, think about that for a minute. People did a survey about what they ate the day before, and then they did another one two weeks later. So they did two surveys I don't know, fifteen years ago about what they ate on the previous day. Now, think about how many previous days you might have had. What day you're answering that.

But they took all that data and they followed these people later to see what kind of health issues they were having. And then they said, wonder if we could make some connections based on what they ate two days back fifteen years ago. And I could be wrong about that the number of years I'm just trying to remember, but let's see if we can find any commonalities. And of course we all know intermittent fasting is getting a

lot of buzz. People are interested in it, like, oh, look, we can see how much these people, how many meals they said they ate, and we could use that. And so that's what they did. And basically what they found is the people who on the two prior days reported they ate fewer meals had some sketchy health outcomes. But I want you to understand something that is so important.

Skipping a meal is not the same as fasting. And I actually talked about this in twenty eight day fast Start day by day in the negative Nelly's section, because even when I wrote that, there were people using this data set to say stuff about what that data set showed. This was not a fasting study. They were not fasting. And I tell this story in twenty eight day fast start day by day. I have a friend who told me she's like, I do that fasting thing like you're doing.

I'm like, oh, tell me about it. She's like, well, I really just pretty much only eat dinner. Okay, So if you asked her to fill out a survey, she would say she didn't eat because she didn't eat lunch and she only ate dinners. That sounds like she's eating one meal a day, right, Well, guess what though, she starts her morning with green juice. First thing in the morning,

she's drinking green juice. Then all day long she put lemon in her water, she might have herbal tea, she might have a smoothie, and then she only eats dinner. So is she fasting sherry? Absolutely not, not even a little bit. She's putting stuff into her body all day long. But if she had done a survey about what she ate the day before, she only ate one meal. So

that's why this is so confusing. You can only make conclusions about fasting if someone is fasting, and if you're not fast and clean, like you couldn't go in and have fasted surgery after having green juice and smoothies and lemon in your water. They would be like, you're not fasting. And so I think it is really really doing a disc nervous to the entire world to say that this is anything to do with fasting because those people were not fasting. Maybe they had coffee with creamer in it

all morning. They're not eating breakfast, but they're having coffee with creamer. We don't know. Just because you're eating all of your solid food within a window of time does not mean you're fasting. And so take all of this with the grain of salt when you see it, really look at what they were doing and were they actually fasting.

Like if they said we randomized people too fasting and told them to fast clean and eat one meal a day and we follow them for eight years and they all had heart attacks, well that would be a better study. I mean, I don't think that's what would happen, but that would have been you know, they were actually fasting. But we don't even know if what those people did the day before was what they do all the time, right, I just don't.

me tell you, I work with a girl. I watched her the other day. I about fell down, like about literary, just was like what is happening? Watched her put sugar in her coffee. This is at three o'clock in the morning. She's sitting at her desk at the Narses station. Got a cup of coffee. She pulls a bottle of coffee mate powder out of her bag and she puts in like four heaping teaspoons into a little twelve ounce maybe

coffee cup. And then she has a container of sugar that she just poured freely into the coffee and started up and started drinking it. And I'm like, what are you doing? I mean, so she doesn't eat all night at work? Is she fasting? Absolutely not, But if you asked.

to Sherry awesome. And these are basically rebuttals from experts, from cardiologists, from fasting researchers like Christa Verity, Jason Fung. Christopher Gardner has a rebuttal in one of these, and they really tell you the problem with this and how people jump to conclusions, and you know how it's just sort of a retrospective observational study and you cannot establish causation with this. There's just so many flaws in this, and so take a look at those that we've linked

in there. You can show them to your husband. Bottom line is, if he doesn't want to be an intermittent faster, he will find all the data out there that he wants to that says why he shouldn't be one.

Intermittent fasting has shown positive effects on numerous cardiovascular risk factors, and a second quote says the primary efficacy endpoint was significantly greater in the intermittent fasting group compared with the control group, So they were better at the end of the study four weeks. They did it for four weeks.

is years and years ago. They did a terrible study design where the groups were doing totally different things, and I'm like, all right, fourth graders, let me tell you these different groups. And I read to them about the groups and They're like, what, they didn't control their variables?

Biggest Loser study. He's done some really really good research, and he was talking about all of his studies, and he talking about his own studies tells you the flaws in them, because unexpectedly here was another variable they trying to control for these. But then oops, remember how I talked a minute ago about how dry food isn't dissatisfying

in the ultra processed food research. Barbara Rolls, who's done a lot of research on satiety, said, wait a minute, Kevin, you gay you know where the ultra processed diets more of the dry food. And he's like, well, I don't know, maybe so, and said that's a variable that you can't account for. So the best you try to do, you're still going to have things that are confounding the results.

what a serving of nuts is. You know, it's like how many servings of nuts did you eat this week? And this person thinks, okay, well I ate nuts three times, so I had three servings of nuts. But were they eating a cup of nuts every time they ate, because I'd be twelve servings of nuts, right. So there's inherent flaws built into so many research studies unless they're in a controlled lab environment.

your podcast on my loser app. Then I read Fast Feast Repeat and delayed on tonight. I've lost and kept off twenty five pounds since then. I am fifty five years old, five foot five, and I currently weigh one hundred and thirty nine pounds. I was a hardcore five hour window for a year plus, but I've loosened up a bit five to eight hours, and I've stayed steady

at one thirty eight to one forty two. I'd like to be in the lower one thirties eventually, and I know I need to tighten my window again to do so. I've listened to every episode of this podcast, and I don't think this question has ever been answered. You talk a lot about the five hour window being the sweet spot for weight loss, and that has certainly been the case for me. What I don't understand is why you are both still at a five hour window when you're

in maintenance. I guess I hope that when I get to maintenance, I might enjoy six to eight hour window long term, but that does not seem to be the case for either of you, who have been doing this for much longer than most of us have. Thanks for all of your helpful info and for building a community of intermittent fasters.

our goal weight, we still have body fat. Everybody has body fat, right, So if I wanted to have like a six to eight hour eating window like you suggest, I would have to be very, very regimented in my eating to make sure that I was not eating in excess of what my body could burn every day, and I would likely not get into katosis every day, because we know that you're not going to get into katosis every day until you burn through all the glycogen from

the food you ate the day before. So the longer your window and the more you eat, the more glycogen that you are storing in your liver, and then you want to fast sufficiently to clear that glycogen and you know, get into fat burning that day. That's where you get your good energy from. That's where you get your balanced blood sugar from.

never even had a taste for before. While they were having tighter windows, they start including more desserts in their window because their window just gets to the point where it's longer than it needs to be, and you end up eating foods. When you have a shorter window, You're like, I have five hours to eat and I'm going to choose my foods mindfully. I'm gonna choose foods that make me feel good and support my fast the next day and whatnot. When you get a longer eating window, it's

just like that more's more kind of thing. You've got a longer eating windows, so you eat more, but do you need more? And then you're not flipping the switch, and then you're more hungry during your fast.

And I'm gonna say there's probably more flexibility with a five hour window than there is an eight hour window. That is why I shifted to a five hour window. I originally lost my weight with about an eight hour eating window. I was dieting a night eight hour window. When I got to maintenance, I started to see some weight regain, and I shifted to a five hour eating window. What I found out was that is where I got

food freedom. That is where I got to stop, you know, really having stress over can I eat this, is this going to cause me to gain weight? Or whatever I eat in my five hour window, I eat to satiety. I choose great whole foods most of the time, and then I don't worry about it and I let the fast take care of my body.

hour window. But the truth of the matter is I feel better with a window that is five hours or less, seven days a week. Than I do when I have a six to eight hour window. I feel better with a five hour or less window even now. And it has to do with, like Sherry said, flipping that metabolic switch and having the mental clarity. And here's where I

think you might be getting a little confused. You know, if I continue to just every single day while I was fasting, lose more and more and more and more fat, eventually I would have zero body fat and I would die. And clearly that's not what's happening I'm maintaining. So how can I possibly flip be flipping the switch to fat burning every day and still maintaining that might sound impossible or like a mystery. Well, it's because of my eating window.

When you eat within your window, Let's say I have a five hour window and I eat with in it. My body processes the foods that I ate in my five hour window. It uses some of the carbs for quick fuel or you know, I'll I'll just ate it. There's that fuel. It's my blood sugar circulating in my blood, but all of it can't be used immediately, and so it puts some stored glycogen. So some of the meals that I ate in my window are stored as glycogen and my liver and my muscles wherever they might be needed.

And how about the fat that I ate? What does my body do with that? Well, if I have more fat than my body needs right this minute, it puts it away for later. That's fat I'm going to need to use tomorrow. So when you're fasting, you're using the fuel that was stored during your eating window. You know, when you're losing weight in the weight loss phase, you might be using the fat that you stored five years

ago or whatever. But from now I'm in balance. The amount that I put away after eating into storage is already balanced with the amount that I use during the fast to fuel my body. That's why I'm wheat stable. So you have to find that balance when you get to maintenance.

That's where you feel so good, right, and that's where you maintain you know, your appetite correction and you know you're not prone to overeating and you don't have hunger during the fast. If you have a bunch of eight hour windows back to back to back, you're gonna feel it pretty quickly. You're gonna feel the difference. You're gonna be hungry, you're gonna be a lethargic, You're not gonna

be motivated to continue your fast. You're gonna want some quick energy, and that's what leads people to stray away from fasting. Yep.

to intermittent fasting out there. It explains the clean fast, it tells you what to do, and even if you've read Fast Feast Repeat, if you're interested in ADF, I want you to get Delayedn't Deny the second edition. The ADF chapter has updated recommendations, and I really want you to read that before you try any kind of ADF.

And Delay Don't Deny second edition can be found only on Amazon if you're looking for the paperback or the hardcover, and if you want the ebook, you can find it wherever you buy your ebooks, and the audiobooks should be wherever you get your audio books. Now, if you want to dig in a little more into the concepts, if you want to do a book study, for Delay Don't Deny. You can get the Delay Don't Deny Digging Deeper. It

matches the second edition of Delay Don't Deny. And we all know reading a book is one thing, but to actually apply the concepts from the book something else. And so Delay Don't Deny Digging Deeper helps you apply the concepts from Delay Don't Deny in a meaningful way. And

my school teacher really comes out in that book. If you're looking for somewhere to keep track of things such as your daily fast, you're eating window, your daily weights, your weekly averages, goals, victories, etc. Daily reflections, daily accountability, then you need the Delay Don't Deny Life Journal. It's a six month journal and some people love it and they just keep going back to it over and over again. Every six months they get a new one and you

can find that only on Amazon in paperback. And now it's time for our tweak of the Week. And this is from Michelle in New Jersey. She's in our community. We love her. She says, turns out my updays needed a glow up. So earlier this year I had one of those aha moments that made me stop mid scroll and go, wait a minute, am I doing this whole

adf thing wrong. I had just posted a pic of one of my upday feasts, feeling kind of proud, not gonna lie, and then Jim popped in with a comment that was basically, hey, Michelle, maybe check out chapter nine of the revised Delay don't Denny and make sure or you're really up on your up days. Translation, girl, your metabolism is waiting for a party, and you've got it standing awkwardly in the corner like it's waiting to be

asked to dance. Then Roxy and Sherry jumped in like the adf Avengers, backing her up and reminding me that the feast is just as important as the fast. And just when I thought I'd heard it all, Roxy dropped a post on February fourth, called The up Day that hit me like a truth bomb. I was like, okay, okay, I get it. I might have been slacking on the feast part homework time chapter nine and a reality check. Jim's advice was clear, three meals eight to twelve hours

metabolic boost go. So I cracked open chapter nine like it was a survival manual and I realized I had some serious homework, not just reading but doing Roxy's let's be real post and Sherry's pep talks lit a fire under me. No more halfway up days, no more metabolic confusion. Let's feast like it's our job. However, at first there was panic, and yes, I had a mini freak out. Three meals every upday? What if I lose control and

start eating like that every day? But then I gave myself a pep talk, Michelle, don't talk yourself out of progress just because it's scary. You've got this. I wanted the metabolic boost. I wanted results, so I put on my big girl pants, the stretchy ones obviously, and committed next up day. I kicked things off around eight thirty or nine am, way earlier than my usual newness start. Why because I needed a full nine to twelve hour

feasting window to get that metabolic engine reving. Was it easy? Nope? Was I hungry every time I sat down to eat? Also nope? Did I do it anyway? Heck yes? And once I started eating, I actually enjoyed it. I started calling it my f shot, like a B twelve shot, But for my metabolism, it is energizing, empowering, and honestly kind of fun. Some days I'd look back and think, dang, I ate a lot today, But I didn't feel gross

or over stuffed. I wasn't binging. I was fueling. Turns out, eating fifteen to twenty twenty five percent over the recommended calories on up days is totally fine. It didn't feel like Thanksgiving. It felt like I was giving my body what it needed to thrive. So here we are, seven months later after course correcting. Note I reinstituted this hybrid tool protocol on January first. However, my course correction started in February, so overall, as today, after taking measurements, I've

lost eight inches total. This includes two and a half inches from my waist. I ditched the scale a while ago. I measure progress by how I feel, How'm a clothes fit, and how many times I actually give myself a wink back at myself when I look in the mirror. Here's what I've learned. ADF isn't just about restriction. It's about rhythm. The upday is part of the dance, not a break from it. Fear likes to dress up as logic. I almost skipped to the feast because I was scared, but

intension beats restriction every time. Mentors and community matter, and this community helped me course correct. Community wisdom is gold. Metabolic health takes time, inches lost, energy gained, and consistently built over months. That's the real glow up. Sorry for the book, but so many thoughts. If you're stuck in a stall or wondering why things aren't moving, ask yourself, are you really feasting on your updates or just kind

of nibbling and hoping for magic? Because sometimes the breakthrough isn't in doing less, it's in doing more with purpose, joy and maybe a little mac and cheese.

Progress is personal. It doesn't just reflect where you are going, but where you've come from and what you've had to overcome. Measuring your off by someone else's timeline can make you forget how far you've come on your own. Growth is growth no matter the pace, So whether you're sprinting ahead or taking cautious steps, you're still moving and that is all that matters.