Episode 121: Fasting With an Underactive Thyroid, Suddenly Feeling Hungry, Snack vs. Meal, and More

and currently sitting around two hundred pounds. I first encountered Jen's book Delayed on Deny after reading The Obcit Code by doctor Jason Fung in twenty twenty two, I hopped right into intermittent fasting and I loved it, doing a five to seven hour eating window approach. I started at two hundred and ten pounds at that time. I lost

twenty five pounds or so, and then life interrupted. I got pregnant and had a third baby after a seven year break from childbirth, and obviously my fasting practice had to shift. Well. I don't know if it was a sudden pregnancy meets post COVID career blaws or what the boy did it shift Once I got pregnant, I just ate whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, including but not limited to chocolate, fast food, ice cream, fried foods, and bread,

and then I continued to do so. In the first few months of postpartum, I was pressed, so I often found myself snacking in the middle of the night, sometimes on granola bars or even chocolate. Well before I knew it, I had reached an all time non pregnancy high of two hundred and twenty five pounds. I felt terrible. I looked puffy and uncomfortable. Anytime someone pulled a camera out to take a picture of me with the kids, I

felt full of shame. And discomfort. I don't know it clicked, but one day I woke up and said to myself, not today, Satan, and also never again. So in March of twenty twenty five, I started listening to the Fast Feast Repeat podcast. I refreshed my memory on delay don't deny in the Beastie code, and I got started. I fasted dirty for about a week, and then I began clean fasting shortly thereafter, and I have not looked back.

I eat within a five hour window a lot of days, opening somewhere around four pm, but sometimes I windows a little longer, and sometimes it's more like an O mad day. It just depends on life. I love the flexibility this lifestyle offers, among other non skilled perks. I still enjoy all the foods I love of, even the occasional fast food drive through splurge, although thanks to all of the other benefits of IF, I am losing my taste for

this over time. I don't feel restricted. When I have a special occasion or a birthday, I simply get back to it the day following. On the occasions where I've failed to fast for a few days in a row, it was harder to jump back in but never impossible. My will and commitment to continue is growing as I begin experiencing the many benefits of this lifestyle. Since March first of twenty twenty five, I have lost thirty five

pounds and I'm still going strong. I have become much more physically active, at least partially due to the energy boost I get from fasting, but also due to the helpful distraction that exercise can be from the normal, non urgent hunger waves that can come and go throughout the day. Sometimes at nine am, I feel super hungry all of a sudden, but ninety nine percent of the time if I go for a brisk walk, it passes some other

non scale victories. I'm loving right now. I am seeing body recomposition changes, the appearance of cellulite, and my legs is dramatic decreased. My jaw line is reappearing, and my clothes fit so much better. All my old genes are falling off as I've gone down at least two pant sizes so far. I feel a lot of energy, and to meet me in public, you would never know. I'm still waking up two to three times a night with a baby. I don't feel sleepy or fatigued most of

the time. One nonscale victory that surprised me recently. The other day, it occurred to me that I haven't had one cold sore the entire time I've been doing IF this time around. Normally I get one at least every month or two. I lift it up in lo and behold. It seems that managing and or preventing herpies out bricks

can be a benefit of IF. Who knew? Like most people, I imagine, I started doing this primarily for weight loss benefits, but I also knew that I'd be putting myself in a powerfully healthy state, hopefully helping my body keep me alive and thriving for many years to come. I plan to continue forever, so I will hopefully live a vibrant and vivacious life until I pass on. I am fully in on cultivating the flexible rhythm of fasting, and I am so happy I gave it another try.

makes it easier to resume. And I've been that. You know, if she takes a few days off from fasting, it is harder to jump back in. You know, that's something people do experience. But when you're dedicated and you're consistent and you're like, yes, I know I took time off, but I'm going to push through and it's going to be easy again, then you can get right back at it.

is from Marie from Ireland. Hijen and Sherry, thank you both for being so generous with your time and knowledge with this podcast. It has already been hugely beneficial to me and I look forward to listening each week. When I first found the podcast, a nineteen five protocol sounded impossible, but I decided to stick orn and apply the knowledge you shared to the sixteen eight protocol I had done previously. Like Jen says, it was difficult in theory but easy

in practice. Before long, I had bought Gen's books and was doing the fast Start working up to nineteen five. Aside from the initial few days, I found the clean intermittent fasting lifestyle easy. I never really felt the waves of hunger in my fast that other listeners mentioned in their submissions. Finally, I had found a tool that would work for me on autopilot. If you felt a butt coming, you were right. I have recently been diagnosed with under

active thyroid. My low energy levels in the months before the diagnosis meant that I didn't have the willpower I needed to stay on my protocol. Suddenly, even fasting eight to ten hours seemed like a mammoth task. My low energy levels had me adding sugar and milk to my coffee in the morning and kept me reaching for sugary snacks just to get through the workday. It wasn't long before I had regained the roughly fourteen hounds I had

lost between February first and June thirtieth. I have started on the thyroid medication, and once my energy levels start to return to normal, I plan to restart the twenty eight day fast start like a new intermittent faster. I was wondering if you have any experience with intermittent fasters in the community with underactive thyroid, and could you share if the lifestyle still works for them. I know that I have to take the medication at least thirty minutes

before coffee or food. I understand from previous episodes that coffee can help with pushing glycogen out, so I may need to miss out on that push until I have energy to begin my daily walks. Again, thank you so much for all that you do, Marie.

labs and everything was suddenly like normal. And so when he told them he'd been out of thyroid meds for two months, they were like, you haven't been on your thyroid medicine and he said no, because he's very non compliant. But his labs were drastically different than when they were like six months earlier, and so they were like, okay, well maybe it's fluke whatever. They had him come back in they read threw his labs. His thyroid has been one hundred fine since then, So it was just a

weird thing. And like they said, you could have something viral that's causing it to happen. So usually people start noticing some of low thyroid like over time. I mean I've even heard that before you are clinically diagnosed. Some people are really truly like hypo subclinically hypothyroid for like five to ten years. So anyway, definitely keep an eye

on that. What we notice is people once they are on like people who are on thyroid medicine and they start fasting, they often have to adjust their medicine and start taking less of it because your body is using thyroid hormones so much more efficiently. Part of that has to do with your liver. The healthier your liver is, the better it can metabolize your thyroid hormone. So definitely keep an eye on that. You are right, you need to take your medication at least thirty minutes before having

any food, especially fat. So I do hope that you start feeling better. I really I think you should start feeling better pretty quickly. I don't know when you started on your meds, but definitely, you know, keep talking to your doctor about that. And I'm going to be honest, the clean fast is really going to help you with your energy levels better than adding any sugar or anything to your coffee. So if you're feeling sluggish in the morning, really the best thing you can do is to do

a light walk. It doesn't have to be a vigorous walk. Just get moving because you're right, that will push glicogen out. Like coffee, you'll push some glicogen out. So maybe take your meds and then take a little walk and then from then you can come back in and get your cup of coffee. But yeah, we have people who have loss of success with both thyroid or hashimotives.

that was way worse in response to that. So if you're not feeling better, then I would talk to your doctor about your meds and your dacage level. But I don't know why you would need to wait to get back started clean fasting.

as citric acid or fulvic acid or cubic acid. Some people are taking like amino acids thinking that they're safe for the fast because the company says they are so one hundred percent. Make sure there's no, nothing that you're ingesting in your fast other than black coffee tea that you brew yourself or plain water, because those low energy levels could be a result of, in evarently breaking your fast.

Like I said, the other thing could be, if you're having low energy levels, you could need some electrolytes, particularly like some extra sodium. People that are a little low on sodium often have a lot, like really low energy feeling. Your cells use sodium for energy, so you may need

to add some sodium to your diet. And the third thing would be is if you are below goal weight, like a good maintenance weight for you, and you are fasting too long for your body, and or you're not eating enough in your eating window, and then you're gonna probably feel low energy and hungry during your fast. So those three things kind of came to mind while we were talking. Yes, I think that just here that people don't feel well while fasting even.

eight pounds. I'm now one hundred and seventy one. My goal is one hundred and fifty for now. I am hoping that one forty might be a later goal. I have dieted my whole life and I finally feel in control, but I am wondering about the tooth brushing. Otherwise, my fast is totally clean, black coffee and tap water only. I'm also considering ADF as a way to be less hungry, but it feels confusing. I like the simplicity of what I'm doing now, but I wonder about my metabolism getting stuck.

Sometimes on the weekends, I'll have a day off and just eat normally. Is that a good idea? Thank you for your important help, I am so happy to have found if.

on and on and on. So brushing your teeth, don't worry about it, brush and move on, And that would not all of a sudden start making you hungry if it hadn't been before. But what will is if your body is about to flip the switch. I'm not sure when this question came in. We're recording this in September, and you've been doing intermittent fasting since the end of July. I think it was pretty recent if I remember pretty recently, so best case scenario, you've been doing intermittent fasting for

less than two months. But even if it just came in like today, you've only been doing intermittent fasting for two months or less by the time you wrote this in. And if you've been taking weekend days off and only doing intermittent fasting for two months, it is very possible that your body hasn't flipped the switch yet. You could be just keeping yourself right on the edge of that

metabolic adaptation. And when you get to the point that your deliver is running out of the readily accessible glycogen, you're about to flip that switch. You can have a little extra hunger for a few days. The fast gets a little harder before you flip the switch. So for anybody who's listening, if you're going along and it's easy and all of a sudden it gets harder, think about

how long you've been doing it. Could it be just that your body is just getting ready to flip the switch through in your first couple months, that's likely, Or have you been taking more days off that will make you hungrier, Or as we said in the prior question, answered, are you accidentally breaking your fast in some way with something else, something that's new, something that you've introduced that you hadn't been having before, a supplement, a vitamin, even

a new medication. And when it comes to medications, you know, if you have to take it, you have to take it, but you can always talk to a doctor about when you need to take it. A lot of things say take first thing in the morning, but that just really means take before food, and since we don't open until later, you could shift that later, but that would be always

something to talk to your doctor about. So when it comes to ADF, you're still way too early for ADF at two months in, and we really caution people to stick to intermitt and fasting for several months before trying to get to ADF. And it's because of our experience with people who try it too soon and then they lose the plot. You really want to be completely metabolically flexible and established to the point that you can't even

imagine not having a daily eating window. It's your life now, then you're ready to start maybe trying with some ADF, but only if you need to. This is also why we recommend that you weigh daily and then once a week take the time to calculate your weekly average. If you are losing weight from one weekly average to the next at one half to one pounds per week, week after week after week, then you know that you are doing fine. Now, if you like go on a vacation

and you don't lose weight, you know why. If you have a lot of holidays or you're a little bit not quite sticking to it, and you don't lose weight. You know why. But if you're sticking to your intermittent fasting goals consistently seven days a week, you should expect to see some weight loss one half to one pound

a week from one weekly average to the next. If you are sticking to it, you are doing it seven days a week, and your weekly average suddenly stops trending downward, you're just stuck week after week after week for like four weeks, for example. Then you need to like really reassess and think about two things. Number One, am I at a healthy weight now where my body can maintain easily? This might just be your maintenance weight. Or Number two, has your body adapted to your daily eating window, in

which case maybe it's time to consider some ADF. But we don't need to do it just to do it, And I don't want you to feel pressured into doing it or feeling like you have to do it. I want you to do it when you're ready, if you need to.

the flexibility. We'll have time to get there, right, But people who experiment with flexibility too early are the ones who end up stopping and it suddenly gets hard, and then they're like, why did I quit? I haven't been fasting for two months now, and though now I'm starting over. So we want to stop that starting over mentality by just really nailing that consistency until you know your body has it down before trying to throw any other wrinkles in there. Yeah, for sure, And now it's time for

our segment called What's Your Why. Most of us begin intermittent fasting with weight loss in mind, which is a great reason to start, but there is so much more to what intermittent fasting can do for us beyond weight loss. I genuinely believe when your why is deeper than weight loss alone, you're more likely to find long term success and to view intermittent fasting as a lifestyle. So this week we have a.

Over the years, I tried calorie counting. I would lose five to fifteen pounds here and there, but could never stick with it. Hunger and frustration always won. I discovered IF in twenty seventeen, but I wasn't committed to the Clean Fast. I thought calories in, calories out was the only way, and fasting with flavored coffees and creamers made

it unsustainable and I never got results. A year ago, my family lost a loved one to a lifestyle related illness, and my mom, in her sixties, began weight loss injections for pre diabetes that made her sick, and I realized I don't want this to be my future. So I went back to Jen's Fast peas repeat, reread it cover to cover, and this time I fully committed to the Clean Fast. Now it's black coffee, plain tobochico and water only, no flavors, no creamers. It hasn't been a perfect road.

I've stumbled through the twenty eight day fast start before quitting on day twenty nine when the scale didn't budge, or when the adjustment period felt too hard. But each time I've learned, and ea time I've come back stronger. My why because I want to be healthy is I age, because I don't want my life cut short my lifestyle related illness, because I deserve freedom from diets, guilt, and frustration.

This isn't just about losing weight. It is about living fully with health, strength and joy for the years ahead.

But when you realize that what you're depriving yourself of by skipping that breakfast is metabolic issues being overweight, I would like to deprive myself of those things. Suddenly I no longer feel like I'm depriving myself of the breakfast. It's just a mindset shift and mindset is that's important. Oh my gosh, there were so many years from twenty nine to twenty fourteen when I dabbled in fasting that I would be like mad right that I just couldn't

eat all day. I had to get past that for intermittten fasting to be a lifestyle.

it's gonna walk you through all of this. But please don't give up. Please please please commit to twelve weeks at least because something magical's gonna happen in that time. And then the other thing is set yourself up for realistic expectations. You may not lose one single pound during the twenty eight day fasttart, that's okay. That's not weight loss time. That is habit building time. That is getting your body fat adapted time. That is not weight loss time.

The weight loss happens, the fat loss happens once your body is able to burn fat for energy. So keep pushing. I don't want you to have to start over again in three months when you're like, maybe I should have stuck with it. You're doing it now, stick with it. You'll get there, absolutely.

and it works great. I just realized I should probably look at the ingredients and I'm hoping this is not breaking my fast, but I have a feeling it may. It's a five milligram tablet. Usually I break it in half, but the ingredients include xylotol, dextrin, food starch and natural flavor, steric acid, and all sorts of other citric acid, all sorts of other ingredients here. She says, Uugh, that's a lot. I guess I assume melotanin was all natural, and apparently

I was wrong. So Jen, do you have any suggestions for her?

didn't sleep, I couldn't sleep. My mind was raising. I couldn't sleep, which is not like me. But even with the progesterone, I was waking up the melanite. I couldn't sleep, and I'm like, well, I wonder if melatonin would help. Well, melatonin makes me feel crazy. No meltone. It did not help. But I went and looked for some melotonin and I settled on one that had like layers to it. It was like one that was quick release and then the

rest was slow release. And so I took that that would not break a fast in the same way because like you swallow it down and then the quick release layer pops out and then the slow release layer. It'spos to help you stay asleep anyway. I have thrown the melotone in a way because it makes me feel like I have a terrible hangover. It always has, but also not sleeping well makes you feel like I have a

terrible hangover. Melotonin doesn't work for me, but I would look for a different formulation of the meliton.

I weigh about sixty five kilometers. I don't know why I keep suddenly saying kilometers. This is the second time I've done that. It's kilograms. It even has the kg. She does not weigh me that the other day I did. It's like my hit. My eyes are a hit when I read really fast, so I'm like looking ahead and my mouth is just saying one thing in my brain anyway, So she does not weigh kilometers. She has sixty five kilograms. What I was thinking, Sherry, was I have no idea.

Would you do some calculation and figure out how tall?

But I struggled with fad diets, body image, and a relationship with food since my teenage years. When I reach to my lowest BMI of sixteen, for a year or so, I had hypothalamic amin rhea. Did I say both of those? Right? Is that right?

feels more intuitive and satiety is easier to reach. I don't really struggle with waves of hunger, though I don't feel as energized as i'd like to. Sometimes I feel a bit lightheaded and tired. So did you get a chance to pull all that together? I did?

Thank you so much for your help.

I will tell you that we have had fasters in the community who did discover, whether it was accidentally, like they always drink brood coffee, but they went on a trip and brought an instant powdered coffee with them, or they were vacationing somewhere and that's what they were offered. Or sometimes people start out drinking that thinking they're great, but you know, they're six months in and they are still struggling with fasting, and so they give it up

and realize, like fasting is so much easier. Other people drink it every day and don't have any problem with it. So I don't have like a clear cut answer for you. If you think that it could be contributing to you feeling lightheaded and tired, I would go without it. That's the only way you're going to know. If it's the coffee, go without it, switch to a brood coffee, get some cold brew, clean fast approved coffee, do something else instead

and see if that makes a difference. If it doesn't, you may be somebody who needs electrolytes in your window or in the fast. In your fast or your window, it's really up to you when you take them. The thing is, when you're eating in your window, you ask where you should be getting your electrolytes from food. But if you can find a clean fast electrolyte, it might help you to take one when you wake up in

the morning. Alternately, you can just take like a quarter teaspoon of some high quality salt, like a Celtic sea salt, a Himalayan salt, and dissolve it in some warm water and drink it like you would any other hot beverage. You can also just put it under your tongue and kind of hold it under your tongue sublinqually and let it kind of dissolve there. That's like a quick way to get in your body and see if that makes a difference. I am one that just needs more electrolytes

and being lightheaded. That can be a sign that you could need some electrolytes, but it also can be a sign you're breaking your fast. So definitely experiment and see what helps make you feel better, because you shouldn't be feeling that like that why you're fasting.

on to us. But our plants are so clean we're missing it. So anyone on a plant based diet needs to supplement with B twelve. So check into that. And as I have experimented with being plant based here and there, my BE twelve was low. Then my doctor actually had me on BE twelve shots for a while. I was given them to myself share And I mean, I don't know. I didn't feel bad, I didn't feel better, but my levels were low, Like I never couldn't tell they were low. But being lightheaded or tired.

Can you tell me if the pills are okay in the fast or should I take them in the eating window? Thank you, and I love your podcast. Well, they absolutely do break a fast. Sorry I hate to tell you that, but just put them in your window. And here's how you can ask yourself this question and figure it out. You're right about the stevia. You got that. So we have our three fasting goals. Number one, keep insulin low,

and that's why we would avoid the stevia. We don't want to have this a fallat phase insulin response, so you're right on that one. Clean fast goal number two is we want to burn our stored fat for fuel, so we're not putting things in there like butter in our coffee, oil in our coffee. We're not having any source of fuel.

clean up time. So we put protein in during our eating window, and that would include any supplements that have any sort of protein or that's going to help us with building up, so that the eating window is our building up time, the fasting is our cleaning up time. So anything that is a nutrient, put it in during the during the eating window, keep it out of the fast so you can ask yourself that in the future, you can say, Okay, amino's building block of protein, I

want to have increased autology during the fast. I'm going to save that for my eating window. Hopefully that helps.

just accountability to yourself. So one of my weekly clients, I'm so proud of her. She's having huge success in all of the above. After just three sessions, she is thriving. She has busted a multi month plateau and she's feeling great. Another client was really struggling to shorten up her fasting window in order to see her weight loss goal. She was closed, but she just couldn't get there. And with some consistent work and weekly sessions and some daily check ins,

she is now nailing her eating windows. Even with a vacation and a very pesky kidney stone that she suffered after vacation, she has still been doing great. So you would like some help, I do book out several weeks in advance, so don't wait reach out today. Just email me at Cherry at fast feastrepeat dot com. And once again, Sherry has one R sh E R I.

whereas other people need a little more help. We've got these podcasts. They help people the community another layer of support, and then some people need that one on one. They just need it. Just like in the classroom, some kids needed to come sit with me and go over the math a little bit before they could get it. And there's no shame in that. And different phases of our life we might need more support in other ways.

can do. But then when I really we sit and talked about it and I'm like, well, tell me why you feel that way, we can really figure out like their holding themselves back out of fear or they don't they're afraid to be a little uncomfortable, but if we can work through that together and they know they have somebody supporting them, or sometimes they just need somebody to tell them what to do.

do it. If I say, hey, if you don't have a thing to do today, why don't you do some work around the house, Nothing's going to happen because he doesn't know where to even start. So sometimes you just need that person to help you identify where to start, what to tweet, what next. And I'm having a lot of fun helping them and really seeing their success.

now it's time for our tweak of the week. I always say, tweak it till it's easy. But the tweak that works for me might not be the one that works for you. And that's why it is super helpful to you. How other intermittent fasters are making intermittent fasting work for them. This is Sally from Aliston, Ontario. She said, for me, when I open my window, I have to have a good amount of protein twenty five to thirty grams or I am grazing all afternoon unsatiated. I cannot

get by on a snack. I tried it. This sustains me until dinner and dinner has become a smaller meal than it used to be. Another pleasant surprise, saving a lot on groceries. And I want to talk about that for just a minute if I could, Uh, I wish I could go back and revise. I often wish I could go back and revise things. Book books that are out in the world that have a recommendation in both

Fast Feast Repeat. And then when I wrote twenty eight day Fast Start day by day, I followed the same format for the fast start that I had in Fast East Repeat, and I recommend a snack and a meal. I think there are a lot of people like Sally who need to open with a meal. And I think there are a lot of people trying to open with a snack and then finding that that's not satiating. Then they overeat, and then they end up eating a whole second meal because it's dinnertime.

for me, hot food makes all the difference. Opening with something hot after over eating something cold makes a lot of difference. And how satisfied I am through the you know, up until my main meal.

loss window for me. Two meals and eight r two meals, two full meals. And like I'm a volume meter, so what I considered to be a meal someone else, what I considered to be a snack might be someone's lunch, right, But I wish that I hadn't put it that way and said, be flexible with it and figure it out. So if when you open your window, this is for everybody. If when you open your window you're locked in on the idea, well, Jen said, start with a snack and

then you're starving, and then you keep eating. Then what you're opening with is not sufficient. Now that I am by myself and I am not sitting down at a meal time with Chad, and bless his heart, we know one thing about Chad was he was original meal times. Like literally the clock didn't say five o'clock. He wasn't going to have it by food till it's aid five o'clock. So we were having our dinner around six. So I had to or even after that, I had to schedule

my window around when Chad wanted to have dinner. But now that I am free to do what I want, I am opening with my main meal whenever that might be. I start cooking, I have my main meal, I eat it, and then later I'm not having a second main meal. But maybe like five thirty six o'clock, like maybe I open it two thirty, maybe I open at three thirty, whatever it might be, have my main meal and maybe six o'clock I need a little something else. I mean,

just whatever it might look like. But it really that is what's working really really well for me. And I think back to when I was so successful as a teacher, and it was so easy to fast till I got home from work and I didn't even think about eating at work. I got home and I would start making dinner and so I would have my main meal. Right. So once I retired and started, I would want to eat around two and I would have like a full meal and then have to have another full meal. So

that was just really too much for me. So keep experimenting with what you call it and how big it is, and even if you have to feed a family. I finally got to the point where I realized that wasn't working well. And if you need to open with something hearty, even if you're eating by yourself, and then later you have to put a full meal on the table for your family, have a snack sized portion of that full meal.

Just really really think about what suits you. But it probably won't be having one full meal at two o'clock and then another full meal later with your family's probably not going to be it, but anyway, I just want to take it.

and that applies to fasting so much. I always say it takes like discipline, dedication, consistency, to really build the habit and like that quote, just nailed it.