Episode 537: Andrea Oliveau

0:00Are you struggling with food confusion or diet brain when it comes to what to eat in your eating window? Do you know that you need to make changes, but you don't know where to begin? I'm excited to announce my new Eat Like a grown-up program. It's a 52 week learning journey that helps you finally build a peaceful, competent relationship with food without dieting, guilt, or overwhelm. And it's only available in the new Fast Feast Repeat app. Join me in the app for the grown-up year, 52 weeks to listen, play, and nourish. Each week you'll watch a short video lesson and download a simple practical mission designed to help you listen to your body, play with your food in a joyful way, and nourish yourself with calm intention. You'll learn how to move past emotional eating, understand your hunger cues, make meals deeply satisfying, and you'll fall back in love with real food. People while connecting with a community that's growing right alongside you in the app. If you're ready for transformation that unfolds gently, but meaningfully over time, this is

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2:06for absorption. They're most complete formula yet for sleep, recovery, stress, and metabolic support. Here's my challenge to you. Try it, track your sleep, and see how you feel. You've got nothing to lose. Go to biooptimizers.com slash IF Stories, and use the promo code IF Stories 15 for 15% off your order. When you use my Lincoln code, you'll unlock exclusive discounts for friends of the show, plus surprise free bonuses and bigger discounts by optimizers rolls out during certain windows. You can also get free shipping on select orders, and every order is backed by their 365-day money back guarantee. So you can try it with confidence. You won't find this on Amazon in stores or anywhere else. That's byoptimizers.com slash IF Stories, promo code IF Stories 15. Welcome to intermittent fasting stories.

3:06I'm your host, Jen Stevens, author of the New York Times Best Seller, Fast Feast Repeat, as well as the book that started it all, delay, don't deny. I lost over 80 pounds thanks to intermittent fasting. After learning how to delay my eating, rather than denying myself the delicious foods I want to eat. Now, who's ready to hear an inspirational intermittent fasting story? That's why we're here. So let's get excited to talk to today's guest. Hi, everybody. Welcome to episode 537 of intermittent fasting stories. Today I'm here with Andrea Oliveau. Andrea lives in Southern California, and she is a chiropractor and a qualified medical evaluator. Welcome, Andrea. Thank you. It's so nice to be here. I'm excited. Well, you explained to me before we started recording what a qualified medical evaluator

4:06was, but explain it to the audience because I know you can do it better than I did. Good. Sure. So a qualified medical evaluator or QME, as we're called, is a state-to-pointed position where when there's a dispute inside the workers' compensation system, I get called in as a neutral third party to evaluate the patient and read through the entire medical history and then basically write a medical legal report to the attorneys and the judges telling them what I think is going on with the patient and the case. And then that way they can use that medical information from me to determine what their next steps are in terms of getting the case either wrapped up or the patient won't care or whatever. Awesome. Well, that's really important. I didn't really even know that was going on behind the scenes. Yeah, I did neither for many, many years. And a few years ago, a friend of mine told me about it and I made the switch a couple of years ago as part of a sort of global career change I'm working on. Okay. Well, I get it. I made a lot of career changes too. I know, right? That's true. But you know, you're still teaching just in a different way.

5:09That's exactly right. That's what I think exactly. All of my teaching skills carry over to what I'm doing now. Exactly. So you know I like to start by asking what brought you to intermittent fasting and when was that? 2021 was intermittent fasting. But in 2018, I had gone to a conference and I saw a girlfriend of mine and she dropped probably 30 pounds. And I was like, what did you do? You look amazing. And she said, Oh, I'm doing the snake juice diet. Now, I haven't heard anyone on your podcast talk about this. Maybe they haven't listened to all 500, whatever episode it's a baby. I think we have. I think we have. So just for anybody who doesn't know, here's here from my point of view, that at that time period, 2018, I was running my Facebook groups. And the guy who was running the snake diet popped up in one of my groups. He joined it. I mean, he was looking for members to come to his group. So he was trying to get people from my group to his group. He actually tried to join your group.

6:10He was in my group. My goodness. We had to block him. Okay. Because he had crazy ideas. But yes. And in fact, to the point that we had certain keywords that we had, we would get moderator alerts. And one of them was snake. Oh, yeah. Anyone in the group ever typed the word snake. We would get a moderator alert. So if someone's like, I was so scared, I saw a snake and I couldn't fast. We'd get that alert. But because we did not want anybody recommending that. So your friend was on the snake juice diet. Yeah. And tell us, tell us about that. I know. I love it. But it's, it's not. Well, it's actually not. It's cold. The guy who runs it is nuts. But the snake to get so snake juice is really just an electrolyte drink, right? Because often when you're fasting, your electrolytes get low, which is what makes the fast really hard. Mind you, this is a chiropractic conference too. So all of us are like into this woo woo kind of health stuff anyway.

7:13And so a bunch of us jumped on the snake juice bandwagon immediately after this conference. So my first fast, I had breakfast the morning. I was leaving as the conference was in Louisville, Kentucky. I, my husband and I were heading home. We had breakfast that morning. We said, we're not eating again. And for 48 hours, my first fast was 48 hours. My gosh. And we went home and we bottled the stuff to make the snake juice, which is just, you know, salt and magnesium and potassium and whatever. And we did our first 48 hour fast. And then we ate whatever we ate that I think it was like rib eye and blueberries or something for our first meal. And then I was doing these 48, 36 hour fast, something like that pretty regularly for about 10 weeks. I dropped 25 pounds. I thought I had found the holy grail, you know, it's quick. Yeah. I was like, oh, a lot of fasting. All I have to do is not eat. Yeah. He had people fasting. His recommendation was fast as long as you can.

8:15Just fast. You can fast for a month. You can fast for two months fast till you're thin. And he had people, he had pregnant women fasting. He had children fasting. He's like, there's no reason everyone can't do it just fast as long as you want. No refeeding, no careful. You might overheat and talk about any of that. No. Again, the results are spectacular. So I remember the early days of the groups. Even before 2018, maybe 2016, 2017, people were doing really long, extended fast. And they always ended up with, like they would lose a lot of weight really fast. And then they would start back, you know, trying to live normally. And they had the urge to binge. They would overeat. They gained all the weight, that plus more very, very quickly. And they were on this cycle. Go ahead. Yeah. No, it's kind of what happened with me too. So I started it like in July by October. I was the thinnest I'd been since college, you know what I mean?

9:17And then I maintained that for probably six or seven months. I was fine during the holidays. But like in January of 2019, I started trying to fast again. And for whatever reason, I couldn't, like my body didn't want to do it. And I was like, that's a little weird. I wonder what's up with that. Then in June of 2019, my husband had a car accident. Oh gosh. And he had basically had like a heart episode while he was driving. He had passed out while driving in his car, hit a telephone pole. But he has been on his way to one of the canyons to go to work. And so what stressed me out was not the accident. It was the thought of what if he had been on the canyon and had this happen and like gone over the side, you know. So what I would do is we have between the two of us five kids. And I don't want the kids to see how stressed I was. So I took my bottle of wine and my chocolate covered macaroons from Trader Joe's. And I went to the garage and I drank my wine and I ate my macaroons and I cried. And I did this for like three weeks. And I gave 19 pounds and three weeks. Wow. I was like, oh, my hormones are completely messed up.

10:17Like that was when I realized my cortisol was like through the roof. And that was actually when I started realizing that I had done some damage. So that was actually my first round with intermittent fasting. I read all of your books. I was in the groups. I'm even one of the voices in fast feast repeats somewhere. But what I did. Yeah. What I really struggled with at that time was because I hadn't learned how to change any of my actual behaviors. You had done this like really extreme thing to drop a bunch of weight because I hadn't learned how to change any of my behaviors. I was really struggling with how much joy I'm fasting, making the wrong choices while I was fasting. I wasn't fasting quite long enough for my health was at that time. And I just didn't have any success in all of 20, like 19. And then of course, 2020, I started trying to do like slightly longer fast again, like 24 hours couldn't do it. And then of course, the pandemic started and it all went out the window, right?

11:20So basically 2020 and 2021, you're going to laugh because like you with all your diets, me with every gimmick I did data driven fasting with Marty Kendall, who's amazing. I love his stuff. He's a very smart guy. So smart. I like him a lot, but it's really a prescriptive thing and it gives a lot of people diet brain. Yes, for sure. But see for me, and this is this is part of my journey. I could not trust myself to know what I needed to do. Like I kept looking for these external things to help me figure out what my body needed, right? So I did data driven fasting. Then I went to Dr. Boss. Have you watched any of her stuff? I have heard of her. Is she also low carb? Yes. Yeah. And she's totally in well, she was. I don't know. She's anymore, but she used to be like into the exogenous ketones. And yeah, that was big. Yeah. She has what's called the doctor boss index. So not only did I have my glusque, glucose monitor, but now I had to get a ketone monitor.

12:22Yeah. So that I would prick my finger, check my blood, see what my blood sugar was, see what my ketones were. Then there was like this ratio that you could figure out. It's like you and you're asking me anything about a diet and I'll tell you everything. Like what you do, it is not which food is not allowed. Like me, ask me anything you can do to measure your biomarkers. And I'll tell you how to use it to like game the system. Straight out. So I'm like, yeah. Yeah. So I'm like calculating all these things that Dr. Boss index that I got tired of that. So then I was like doing macros and I got tired of weighing all my food loss. And I went back to weight watchers. I was like, oh my god, this is ridiculous. Yeah. And I get it because especially when you've had quick weight loss, right? Like you did. You had really quick weight loss with the over fasting. And really at that point, no one official like was really talking about, okay, over fasting is a problem. We were seeing it in the groups.

13:24It was an anecdotal kind of a thing like we saw it. And it we had a lot of evidence just based on what was happening for people who were doing it. And that's by my recommendations have evolved the way that they have. But back then it was really just almost like the Wild West. 100% yeah. Absolutely. And what should we be testing and key tone testing was especially with the blood, the blood testers at home, that was new. And so with you and your, you know, you had that quick weight loss. You need there had to be a way to do it. But you just couldn't quite figure out what that was. Yeah. And I couldn't fair how to do it in a way that was sustainable, right? Right. Fasting 48 hours, three times a week. You can't do that forever. Like at some point. And at some point what when do you say, well, what about time with my family? And what about going to breakfast? And like it just, it just, it wasn't, it wasn't a good long term strategy for sure. But then because I couldn't trust what my body was trying to tell me.

14:26And I was doing all these, oh, like measuring systems like I wasn't learning anything there either, right? So it was just, you know, it was just very, just very frustrated. Like I had to measure something. And I also have autoimmune disorders. I've got Hashimoto's, which is mostly in remission at this point. But that's also part of it because I feel like, you know, already my body is kind of working against me. And so I think that also made the trust in my own knowing this harder to get. Does that make sense? It does make sense. It does because when you feel like my body is doing something I can't control. You can mistakenly think my body is betraying me, right? When really your body is responding, it's doing the best it can. But it feels like it's working against you. Yeah. So that was kind of how I felt. So then let's see, where were we? So then 2020 to 21, you went through all that. You did macros back to weight all that stuff, back to weight watchers.

15:27And then 22, 23, 24, I really just didn't do anything. And mind you, I'm five foot nine. And I've never been really overweight. I mean, I think like my highest non pregnancy weight was 183. Okay. But I've lost 20 to 30 pounds, 10 times. You know what I mean? Like up down, up down, up down. And the ups are always really fast. And the downs always really took a long time. But then I wouldn't be able to keep it more than six, eight months before it would go back up. And so although I haven't had to do like what you did, which is, you know, 85 or 90 pounds, like over a chunk, I've lost probably 200 pounds over the years, right? And then that yo, yo, dieting. So 2023, 22, 24, I was like, I was, I was just like, I was over it. Right. Didn't really want to do anything. I wasn't, I wasn't totally throwing it in the towel.

16:28And I pretty healthy already, like already pretty cleaned. But yeah, I was, I was kind of over it. So then 2025 in June, I went to a wedding in Pennsylvania. Then I went to Florida and while I was in Florida, I was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation. I ended up spending a week in the hospital. Gosh. So that was a bit of a wake up call because I was like, oh, like there's actually something seriously wrong with my body. So then when I came home and I was looking through my medical charts, one of the emergency room doctors had described me as a pleasant obese 57 year old woman. No. Oh no. You were pleasantly obese. I was. And, and I read that to my kids, they're like, you're not, you're not obese. So it's like, apparently they think I am.

17:29So I was sitting right at about 182 then. And I was traveling for work. I was up in Northern California and I was like, you know what? I'm just going to listen to some Jim Stevens. I hadn't listened to you in a while. And I put on, I think I found your intermittent fasting for life with you and Sherry. I started listening to that first that went back to intermittent fasting stories. And one of your guests said something like, if a doctor gave you something to follow, you would do it for at least a year. So just take intermittent fasting and do it for a year. And I think this was like August 29th of last year. And I say, you know what? I'm going to get back into fasting and I'm going to do it right. I'm not going to try to gain the system. I'm not going to, you know, try to figure out how to sneak something in my coffee. I'm, I only had a few rules for myself. My rules were, I'm not going to over fast. I have to eat every day. I was never going to go like two sleeps without a meal, right? Like I might go one sleep without a meal, but that was only because I had lunch. Um, so I was going to eat every day.

18:31I was never going to go two sleeps without a meal. And I wasn't going to weigh or measure any food because like I'm kind of over measuring everything over measuring food. I'm over measuring blood numbers. I'm, I'm just, I'm done with all of it. So it's like I'm not going to measure anything. But I'm going to start learning how to listen to my body and I'm going to make choices based on that. And like that was it. Those are my rules. And it was like what I'm fasting. I'm fasting clean. And even if my old fast is only 12 hours, once that thing closes, there's nothing else that passes my lips except water and salt until it's time to eat again my next day. So that was super helpful. Like those rules made it really approachable for me and made it so that I didn't feel like I was in danger of hurting myself again. Good. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's great because I do, like I said, remember those days and all of the voices out there talking about fasting and this tool and that tool and by this and you need this and measure this and I have one you can buy, you know, measuring

19:33things was really big business. And, and like, we don't want to be doing all that in the making decisions based on what your blood sugar number is at that moment. And am I allowed to eat? Yeah. And the thing is, I mean, anything that you measure and it's, I say this to people all the time at work, right? Like anything that you measure is just a snapshot in time. It doesn't tell you anything about the overall picture. It's just that time that you went to go your insulin drawn. You had that little peppermint thing in your insulin was high, right? Yeah. Like if you hadn't recognized that you had that little peppermint thing and that that might have caused your insulin to go up, you would have been like, wait, what's going on with my insulin and lighted the fact that I've been a faster for 10 years, right? Yes. Like it's just a snapshot in time. It doesn't tell you anything about the big picture. And so you really, if you're going to look at this data, you have to look it over to long period of time and take it in context, which I wasn't doing. I was just like, oh, right now my body is doing blog right now. My body is doing blog. No, it's like. So anyway, that was that.

20:34So I was pleasantly obese. I decided I'm jumping on intermittent fasting in August 29th. I started and some, yeah, some days my fasts are only 12 hours and some days are 24. It just really depends. Like I don't have any set schedule. I'd look at day to day, what's going on and then I take it from there. Do you focus on like a bit length of your eating window and just slide that around? Or are you focusing on your fast? I was focusing more on the length of my eating window. I am basically at my goal weight right now. I mean, I've probably got 10 more pounds I could lose, but if I lose it fine, then if I don't, that's fine too. Right now I'm working on body composition. So I'm, I'm having a little bit of window creep at the moment. My, my eating windows the last week or so have been between six and 10 hours. Okay. When I was really into it, my eating window is between four and eight usually. So I'm kind of keeping on kind of trying to stay on top of that. But I focused more in the beginning on my eating window. And now I'm just looking at how do I, how do I learn to live and keep my

21:38weight stable like what fasting protocol do I have to do? What I do is about once a week, I look at my total fasting time and how many fasts I've had and I figure out my average. And as long as my average is over 17 hours, I know I'm still in a sweet spot. If it drops down under 17 hours, then I need to, I know I need to tighten up my windows because that 17 hour sweet spot seems to be up for me on my average. And I love that you're, you're explaining that and that that is what is working for you. And that is your study of one and you were that is your sweet spot. So I want listeners to understand that like for me, that would be not quite enough fasting. Yeah. I need a little bit more. I, um, I've actually recently started using the window app again. It's the one my son made for me way back in like 2016. And I have my app set to not auto update. So it's still the last version he made. It's never updated. So it still works. And it's still, that's awesome. Stuff they added after he sold it. And so I've just been keeping an eye on my eating window just to see.

22:39And, um, you can look at the data or in the version that he had, you can look at your data and it'll calculate your average for you. Yeah. I think average is really important. I think so too for me. And it can switch between fast and eating window. But my average eating window, I didn't realize like I would have told you it was five. It's really four. Oh, interesting. My average over the, you know, since I've been tracking is four. So I just, I just, I didn't realize that. So yeah. That's cool. The thing with me that makes it a little bit harder is I don't have a set fasting schedule. So it really kind of depends on what's going on that week. It depends on my travel. It depends on my patient load. And so I'm kind of looking like day to day to see what I need to do. For example, I actually was supposed to break my fast this morning at nine something. But then something happened and I didn't. So I'm still fasting. So I'm like, okay, I'll push it through until 18 hours or whatever. I was going to, I was going to end at 16, 15, whatever. It didn't. So now I'm going to push it through until in 18 or whatever. But I have that flexibility. So every day, yep, it's built in.

23:41And honestly, like when I was doing it before, I would skip breakfast and I eat lunch and dinner. This time, I'm more likely to skip dinner and have either like a protein kind of bullet proof coffee thing and lunch or have breakfast and lunch and then skip dinner. If you've listened to this podcast for a while, you've heard me talk about magnesium breakthrough by bio optimizers many times. There's a reason for that. It's the only magnesium brand I recommend. And it's still what I reach for as a part of my own nighttime routine. And now they've taken it further and this is big. They just launched magnesium breakthrough advanced 10, 10 bioavailable forms, plus active vitamin B6 and ionic trace minerals to support uptake. And they actually test for bio accessibility to help ensure the magnesium is available for absorption. They're most complete formula yet for sleep, recovery, stress and metabolic support. Here's my challenge to you. Try it. Track your sleep and see how you feel.

24:43You've got nothing to lose. Head to bio optimizers.com slash I have stories and use the promo code. I have stories 15 for 15% off your order. Using my link in my code, you'll unlock exclusive discounts for friends of the show, plus surprise free bonuses and bigger discounts by optimizers rolls out during certain windows. You can also get free shipping on select orders and every order is backed by their 365 day money back guarantee. So you can try it with confidence. You won't find this deal on Amazon in stores or anywhere else. That's by optimizers.com slash I have stories. Promo code I have stories 15. I recently had the chance to try shoes from Topo Athletic. That's spelled T O P O. And the first thing I noticed when I put them on was just how comfortable they felt on my feet. Topo Athletic has what they call their signature fit with a roomy toe box that gives your toes space to move naturally,

25:44providing better comfort and control. And for me, that comfort really stood out right away. I also really like Topo's philosophy of embrace the journey because so much of staying active isn't about some big finish line. It's about all of those everyday moments along the way, getting out there, moving your body and doing something that feels good. Whether you're on your feet for long miles or simply long hours, Topo is designed to keep your feet feeling good. They make shoes for everything from walking and road running to trails, hiking, fitness and recovery. All built around their signature Topo fit to find your pair, visit topoathletic.com to shop online or use their store locator to find an authorized retailer near you. But I would say I skipped dinner probably four to five nights a week and then two nights a week. I had a longer eating window and I'll have something with my family in the evening like last night I dinner. So today was going to be a shorter fast, but then something happened. I didn't break my fast and it'll be a little bit longer.

26:45So do you use an app to track that? I do. I'm using easy fast, I think it is. Yeah. I think everybody, you know, I've been doing this for a very long time and I don't really think about it as much as I used to. Obviously, but I thought my average house was five hours and it isn't. That just goes to show that if anybody is not using any sort of app or writing it down or just some way of keeping track of it, you might have something going on different than you thought. Well, yeah, there's no way to measure it if you're not looking at it. I think it's five right? But yeah. And that's actually one of the things that I've actually that I've been trying to figure out for the last few months. Like I really don't want to have to measure all the time. Like I'd love to be able to not use an app and I'd love to be able to not hop on the scale. Like I know you don't really weigh anymore. I've started weighing again. Have you? Okay. What happened there? Well, it was just I felt like I was healed from the trauma before of Diabrain, I guess, is the way I put like I just

27:48I'm in a new relationship. You heard about my new relationship. Yes, I'm pretty free. I don't know all the details, but I know there is on this one, like the fast fee, stupid podcast is like I'm just like a week out on that one. That one's more up to date, but you know what the new relationship and having some windows that felt like maybe I was having window creep. And I was like, you know what? I also am very curious about my weight. Because he's weighing himself. I'm like, I don't know what I weigh. I'm like, there was suddenly a scale. And I'm like, yeah. And I'm like, I'm going to get on it. And so I did. I'm like, okay. So now I know. So now I'm weighing and I'm averaging and I haven't weighed every single day just because I've traveled here and there. When I'm out, I don't like take it with me or weigh when I'm traveling. But like every seven weights I'm averaging every seven. It doesn't matter how. Like in the past, I did a weight every day and then averaged once a week. But now I'm just every time I have seven weights, I'm averaging it. Yeah, that's good. After after I broke one 16 when I got into the 150s, that was when I was like, okay, now I just need to figure out how to stay here.

28:57So that's why I said like if I lose any more great, if I don't, that's fine too. Like I need to figure out what his maintenance look like. And then body recomposition will continue to do its thing. I'm not overly worried about it. But that was when I was like, well, maybe I don't need to weigh all the time anymore, right? And so I stopped weighing. But then what I found was if I wasn't weighing, I started questioning everything that I was eating. Oh, Sherry talked about this pampered chef popcorn thing on your podcast and I brushed right home and I bought it. It's my favorite thing. I could make buttered popcorn in three minutes and then my wife. And you know, I'd have popcorn that'd be like, oh my God, my weight's going to be up tomorrow. And I started having that kind of thinking, you know, because I wasn't weighing. So I realized I can't not weigh just yet. Like I'm not there, but I'm not weighing every day anymore. I'm weighing a couple of times a week just to kind of keep track of it. And then another thing that I noticed was body just more of a real thing. Like I was in Florida a couple months ago. And I don't know, I had a couple of days of going out with friends and I was like, oh my God, my jeans are going to be tight.

30:02And I put them on. They were not tight at all. They were just fine. Yeah. It's like that that that mentality of everything. What's what was that phrase? A taste on your lips and inch on your hips. Right? Like something like that. You know, we're so used to this instant gratification in our society that it kind of goes the other way too. Right? Like, oh, if I eat, you know, two big meals in a row, I'm going to gain 15. No, you're not sweetie. Like you might have a little extra water. Well, here's what I've noticed for myself, which is I think a really important lesson for everybody to take on is that our fluctuations are not necessarily fat. Right? They're not from day to day. They're definitely not from day to day. Definitely not. Yeah. So I have learned that actually the better I eat, I'm using quotation marks here, like if I have a window with lots of beans and vegetables and very high fiber, my weight is going to be up 100%.

31:03Because you've got all of that stuff holding all the water in your system. Right. My weight might be up. If I have what is like what you would think of as like the best eating day ever with fiber and good high quality food, and I'm like, that was just a great day. Tomorrow, my weight might be up to pass. Yeah. That makes sense to me. Yeah. And also the scale that I got, it's a cheap scale, it's not expensive, but it measures visceral fat. It says visceral fat. And on those days, my visceral fat is up. But that's funny. Which is my intestinal content. So that's right. There is sex who talk there, but it's really interesting to note. So if I were somebody who had diet brain, I might think, oh my gosh, beans make me gain weight. Well, they do. Technically, I did go up on the scale from eating a lot of beans, but it wasn't fat and long term beans were associated with lower levels of body fat. So anyway, I just think it's super interesting to understand it. Yeah. Absolutely. And so that's that's the thing that I've really learned in the last several months is, you know, how these these thought patterns.

32:09I mean, no wonder I've struggled. Often on with the same 30 pounds, right? Because I just never learned the lessons and I never learned to listen to my body. So that's where I'm at now. It's just really like, how do I listen to my body? Yeah. I love that. And so when you were, when you were over fasting, because you mentioned before that you would do three, 48 hour fasts in a week, I would do like a 40 hour fast, have a meal, roll back into another 48 hour fast, have a meal or two, roll into another 40, 42 or 48 hour fast. So and then after I lost probably the first 10 or 12 pounds, then I started doing like 36s, 40, choose 48s. My longest was ever a 60. Okay. But I will tell you I learned during that period of time what true hunger feels like right. And it is not the little rumblings your tummy does. No, it's after you had a snack. No, it's so right. It really, really is.

33:09And yeah. So when we talk about longer fasting protocols that are well researched, we've got alternate day fasting. Yes. That one is well researched. And that protocol was really if we put numbers on it, it was like a 3612, right? I mean, she did not use numbers like that. They were basically like, this is the fasting day. This is the eating day. You just every other, you know, literally every other day. But they were not fasting for 47 hours and having one meal. No, not at all. And they found that it was very protective of metabolism. That was what the update did and it was a good study. Study protocol. But that is I think where people have missed the boat on the extended fasting and the longer fasting that people have been doing out there thinking, you know, the little bit is good. A lot is better. Right. You're just not giving your body that refeed that update, that metabolic boost. Well, and that's one of the things I've learned from you during this particular portion of my journey. Excuse me. Is if I have a day that's more downish, right?

34:12Like, well, maybe I only have the protein coffee and lunch. That would be considered sort of a down day. So the next day I'm going to make sure I eat really well. Like I may only still only have two meals, but I'm going to make sure that they're bigger. Instead of just having protein coffee and lunch, I'll have protein coffee and breakfast and a really good size lunch the next day in order to have that metabolic protection, the balance, because that refeed is so important. And then there's also the concept of, you know, quantity of food versus quality of food. Right. I also recognize that I wasn't nourishing my body well, because I was, you know, doing more of the protein and the fat and like low, low fruits and vegetables, because, you know, their carbs. But now I eat a lot of sweet potatoes and beans and greens and smoothies and fruit. I eat all that stuff. Like I never want to say no to any food. Unless I've had an oblation. So I don't have the A5 anymore and I'm off my medications. So now my heart, I'm starting to get to see like what it's baseline is, which is interesting.

35:15Because I had had A5 for several years without knowing it. So I didn't, I didn't actually know what my baseline was. And I can recognize if I eat a certain food, if my body doesn't like it, because my heart rate shoots up very quickly. And it goes up to like 90 to 100, like my resting heart rates about 58. When I'm running around the other like, if I was just walking around the house, my heart rates in the 70s. If I eat something, my body doesn't like it shoots up to 90 to 100 relatively quickly within a couple of minutes. And then it stays there for about 90 minutes. Wow. So yeah, that's really, really powerful feedback. So what are some of the things that shoot up your heart rate? Heart rate, I'm getting a guess. Ultra processed foods sugar sugar, not so much actually. You would think. Yeah. We so my daughter graduated university last week. And we went to a place that has like this grill and sushi. I had sushi shot right up with them five minutes. Wow. I was shocked. So I think it's something in the rice. For me, it seems to be like related to preservatives or two.

36:18So sugar will do it. If I haven't had anything to dampen the sugars, you know, glucose, goddess, right? Yeah. If you opened with sugar, if you start with sugar, that might do it. Yeah. But if I start with vegetables or protein and then have the sugar, I'm OK. But gluten will do it. So gluten will do it. Dairy will do it. So interesting. Yeah. Gluten. But it's not necessarily not necessarily the ultra processed. But again, I mean, I haven't had a bag of cheetos. So I actually don't know. I haven't tested that. Right. It probably would. Yeah. I'm sure it would. It would. One time I made this caucho epape using a gluten-free pasta. Caught it was a, I think it was a skinny taste recipe. I love her recipes. She's got great recipes. She does. But the sauce was made out of cottage cheese, garlic, romano. I don't remember what else was in there. And that shot my heart rate up within three minutes of eating. It didn't have enough fiber and enough fat.

37:19Yeah, I don't know. I don't know who's that or if it was the volume of food that I ate, but I did not react very well to that at all. It was very interesting. I was like, OK, well, I probably need to test all of these components alone. I was scared to do it. I'm like, no, we'll do that. Just not eat that again. Well, I think it goes to the importance of a balanced meal. Yeah. Like, you know, that meal that it sounded like it was kind probably kind of low fat because her recipes are a little lower in the fat because she's using, you know, the cottage cheese, what, you know, and then also the pasta, the high carb. And so it was nothing to damper that like you said. Yeah. And the pasta that we were using was just like a regular gluten-free pasta. If I'm going to do pasta, I usually buy bonzo pasta, the chickpea pasta. The chickpea. Yeah. And I do really well with that, but this was not that. So I probably should test that recipe again with the bonzo pasta and see how it goes. I think that would be a smart thing to do. Had it even occurred to me until right now. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's like a great idea. But those are the kind of swaps. And the, you're lucky, your body has that feedback mechanism to say, sorry, Andrea.

38:25No, this is not working for you. And you, you really want to listen because that feeling probably having your heart racing probably doesn't feel very good. No, especially after, you know, this past year of recognizing like how bad I had let it go without knowing that I had let it get that bad, you know, like apparently. So your Fitbit will tell you if you have a Fitbit episodes. And my Fitbit has been warning me for a very long time. And every time I see it, I'd be like, why is it saying that? I don't have any problems with my heart. Medical professional heal yourself. I know. It's so ridiculous. So yeah, I was able to be like, La la la la. I can't hear you. I can't hear you for a long time. So by the time I was diagnosed, did it actually progress to the point where it was, it was pretty serious. So I'm glad you found it in time to, to fix it before it had any long lasting problems, right? Me too. I was able to find one of the top guys in the country with the newest technology for my ablation.

39:25And he did an amazing job. But he was pretty aggressive. I think his goal was one and done. So hopefully, hopefully I'm done. But you know, the healing journey continues, right? Because all of those things that led me to have it, I have to make sure I don't continue that behavior. You know, like there's a book called the A-Fibriture by a couple of doctors. And in there, they say that atrial fibrillation is a systemic disease that is showing up in your heart. And the main cause is at atrial fibrillation. There's a genetic component to it, which I do have both my parents had it. I used to be a very heavy drinker. And that's a huge component of it. And then there's, you know, stress and lifestyle factors, all of which used to factor in. So all of those things, I have to be very careful of moving forward because I already know that I'm predisposed to it. If I loosen up a little bit on these things, it could come back, right? OK. So that's important. Careful.

40:25So part of my, you know, part of the reason that fasting fits in for me as well is autophagy, you know, have that natural healing going on that cleanup every time. And then I still have to work on the stress factors. I don't drink anymore. I gave that up about two years ago. This episode is sponsored by Vinted. That's spelled V-I-N-T-E-D. I recently went through my closet and I had one of those moments where I realized just how many things were hanging there that I simply wasn't wearing anymore. You know the ones you keep thinking you'll wear it again, but somehow you never do. I only have so much closet space and it's time to free up some of that room. That's where Vinted comes in. Vinted is a second hand marketplace app that makes it easy to sell clothes. You're no longer wearing and actually get some value back out of them. Listing on Vinted is quick and simple. And once something sells, Vinted creates the prepaid shipping label for you. And here's what really makes Vinted appealing. There are no cellar fees.

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43:31Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com slash IF Stories. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK to that's qiuinc.com slash IF Stories. So I stopped to work on the stress factors have to work on the food, you know, just all those other things that that go into a healthy and happy heart, I guess. Right. Well, I love that you finally you paid attention and you got it taken care of and now you've got your natural signals to let you know, okay. Time to put the brakes on this gluten free regular pasta. So working for me is it connected to your blood sugar levels, would you say? I don't know. I asked my I've got a holistic MD that I see and I said to her, I think it might be related to my blood sugar. She's like, I don't know. I don't think so. And last time I had my blood sugar checked my A1C, considering how much I fast was a little higher than I would have liked it.

44:34It was like 5.4 or 5.6 and considering how much I fast, that's a little above where I think it should be. But my fasting insulin was a three. That's awesome. That's a very, you know, that that was really good. So I don't know. I don't know if it's related to the blood sugar or not. Okay. You know, this probably I'm sure you do as a medical professional. Did you also have your fasting glucose stone at the same time? Is that fasting insulin? Did you calculate your home IR? I didn't actually. Okay. Well, take those numbers. You just the blood code is the one Sherry likes just Google Google home IR and it'll show you different calculators H O M A dash. I are you know that but I'm saying it for the audience. Yeah. But if you if you have a fasting glucose, this is also for the audience. Yeah, because I know you know this. If you have a fasting glucose and a fasting insulin that we're done at the same time, that's really important. Then you can run it through their calculator and it'll give you your insulin resistance score.

45:34And so you got to have done it at the same time because like you mentioned before, everything is just a snapshot in time. You could take a snapshot of your fasting insulin and it's one thing and a day later a snapshot of your fasting glucose. And it could be just a whole different totally different. Yeah. Yeah. Depending on your stress, self-resort, whatever that day. Exactly. I'll take a look and I'll figure out what that is. For some reason, didn't you would occur to me to do that? Yeah. I was just so excited on that three on my fast. Yeah. Yeah. And people also get been out of shape about those numbers sometimes because those vary too. Like fasting insulin varies. And you know, like if you got it and it's a three and the next time you go, it's a five. Somebody might say, oh my gosh, I'm getting worse. How am I getting worse? Like, well, we don't really know. Yeah, we don't know this. We don't know how much it naturally fluctuates for you. So maybe five minutes before the three, it was a four. Right. Exactly. It just happened to be when you took it.

46:34So you got to take every snapshot piece of data with a grain of salt. Now if you had a three, then you had a 27, then obviously that would be a measurable difference. But there's a margin of error. And also there's something called the standard error of measurement. That's in every measurement. We take a standard error of measurement where something could vary one way or the other. Yeah. Exactly. The other thing too is I don't think any one data point is important is to the trend over time. It's true. So since this is the first time I've actually looked at it since having everything sort of under control. My next three month lab tests will be interesting to compare. Then my next three or four months after that will be interesting to compare. And then I'll actually have something to work with. Like right now I just have this one snapshot in time. It doesn't really tell me anything. It'll be what happens over the next three, six, nine, 12 months. That kind of gives me an idea of what my body is doing. That's important. In segregation. Yeah. We went everything right now. And yeah, it's not how the body works.

47:36No, it is not. And you've probably heard my analogy out and if you have about going into the forest versus coming and coming out of the forest. You know, our health. Well, we think about our health. The analogy is we're walking into a forest. You know, let's imagine you start at the edge of the forest. You walk in a certain distance. And then you have had enough of the forest. You decide it's time to go back out. You turn around. You have to walk back out the whole distance of the forest and our health can be like that too. You know, wherever you are right this minute, you got there. And if you're going to reverse course, you have to go back out. And so it can take time. That's just, you know, you've got to get out of the forest and you're not just going to the minute I decided I'd had enough for us. I'm not just suddenly out of the forest. Right. Exactly. It's interesting because in chiropractic way back in like the 19 early 1900s, there were the series of philosophical principles that were created for chiropractic. And the principal number six is there is no process that does not require time. It's my least favorite principle.

48:38No, because I want it now. I don't want to take any time. But you know, I think that's why all the GLP ones are so popular. Right. Right. Let's talk about that a little bit from your perspective. And I totally get it and my goodness. I guess I clicked on something on Facebook. And now it's like, oh, here, let me, let me give you a million GLP one ads. And they're now targeting people who don't have weight to lose. They're like are, are not like in the category that were a doctor would prescribe. But you know what I mean? Like maybe you just want to lose 10 pounds or five pounds. There no weight criteria at all through a lot of these places. They're like, you know, it doesn't even matter. Are we going to get it to you? And I'm like, wow. Yeah. I mean pharmaceuticals a big, big business. So of course they are, right? Like you should just, I think we should just expect it from them. But what makes me, what makes me worried for? So there are I think certain people who need the help of a GLP one.

49:40Right. I was watching my husband are watching out of Yellowstone or whatever. And ads would come across. And one of them was for a GLP mad and it said, you know, the fine print down on the bottom, right? You can expect to lose 14% of your weight within the first year when combined with diet and exercise. I'm like, I lost 14% of my weight in six months using intermittent fasting without exercise and without a GLP one. Like why are you spending $300 on a GLP? But I do think there are some people who need it, like some people with everything. There every medication is good for somebody or if you're type to diabetic, because that's, you know, what these drugs were originally for. Exactly. But in the different moms groups I'm in, I see all these moms who are like, you know, I need to drop 20 pounds for a wedding in September. Where do I go get this GLP one? I'm thinking, oh my goodness. First of all, can you drop 20 pounds by September? Probably not. Like I'm, I was lucky.

50:41So I did start losing relatively quickly. I know a lot of people with intermittent fasting don't. But it's entirely possible for you to go four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks without dropping a pound because your body's doing a healing on the inside. Right. And so I just feel like the GLP ones, I feel like for too many people, they're a crutch. They're not willing to, they're not willing to see what their body needs, you know. But and for me, you know, the, what I understand about GLP ones for people who have found them to be really excellent for them is that it turns off the food noise. For example, that's what I hear too. Yeah. And so, but that's what the clean fast is done for me. The clean fast plus eating high quality food turns off that food noise for me. So I wish people would give the clean fast plus high quality food to try first. Now I've learned this time and on as time goes on how important that food component really is the longer I, I live my life and see the more I realize it makes a difference.

51:43What I eat does really matter with how much I want to keep eating. If I eat a really nutritious, high nutrient density meal, I'm going to be so full. Yeah, absolutely. And you're going to stay satisfied for a long enough time. A long time that you can get that really good solid clean fast time in. You know, because you're not your blood sugar is not go dropping like a rock and then your body's like, I need something. Yeah. So for anybody who's just, if you're struggling, if you've been doing your intermittent fasting for a while again, this is for the audience. But if you've been doing it for a while and you're still having all the food noise and you know you're fasting clean, I would look to your food choices. And see if that makes a difference and focus on that. That's why I came up with the like a grown up program obviously because when we improve our food quality, things just fall into place. They really do. I mean, if your body is getting the nutrients it needs from the food that you eat, it can do a lot with that.

52:45But if you are not getting those nutrients, your body is going to crave it, right? It's going to send you down this, this path of, oh, I need law. My girlfriend and I used to talk about my mouth is hungry, but my stomach's not, you know, and I think a lot of people have that like their mouth is hungry because they're new, their nutrient deficient, they're missing phytochemicals and they're missing things. That was one of the things I noticed when I was doing the longer fasting and eating more keto because I wasn't doing a lot of greens. I wasn't doing a lot of fruit. So I wasn't getting a lot of those phytochemicals. That was one of the things I liked about Marty Kendall as he talks about like the nutrient composition of your food. But yeah, I mean, when you don't have, when I eat it, when I have a day where I eat, maybe not as good choices. The next day is a little bit harder for me because my body's like hello, we need nutrition. Yeah, yeah, and I just, I remember noticing one day, I don't know, it was before, maybe before I wrote clean-ish, I can't remember, but it's just been years ago.

53:46I had like a big Mac meal. And that's a lot of calories. That's a load of fuel. So if it were just calories and calories out, my body would be like, that was plenty, but I was hungry very shortly after that. Like I was like, I got to have something else to eat. And it's because there were no nutrients in there. Right. For my body. Right. So have you ever seen the app? Well, you do a lot of the, you do a lot of the meal prep kits, right? I do. I love meal kits. So we were doing hello fresh for a while because I was doing a lot of traveling and my husband needed to feed everybody. And so I was getting hello fresh just because it was easy and affordable enough for our family that it would work. But then I found this app called Neil I'm, it's M-A-L-I-M-E. I've seen it. Yep, it's, I, they have some stuff in there. Sometimes I'm going to learn all like Google, I'll search for vegetarian options. They have this one. It's this sweet, roasted sweet potatoes with like cumin and paprika and salt and nutritional yeast and all of oil.

54:48You roast the potatoes, then you make this like white beans, spinach and tomato compote that goes with it. And then you make this like a oily with garlic and chili, garlic and lime that is so delicious. And that chefs kiss me. It's like, wow, that sounds so good. It's on it. Just growled. Yeah. They've got some amazing recipes in there that I just love. And so I use that one instead of buying like the kits. I just use this app. You know, they've got that I did that one for a while, but I just really like it coming to my house. I know. I'm not feeding as many people. So that's the one difference is when you're when you're feeding fewer people, you end up with a lot. The milk kits and just throw it about for two, which I like exactly. Those, some of those programs are great. I think emails is another one just like it. Meal alarm and I am not sponsored by them. They don't even know I exist. I use them as a consumer. But you can, you can put in your preferences. And they will give you the meal, plant like what you need. Like these are the meals I'm going to have this week.

55:49And this is what you buy at the grocery store. It gives you a grocery list and one of them, I don't know if meal alarm does actually connect to like Walmart shop for you or some, I don't know. Interesting. But it'll like come to your house. I don't think me. Does that some of them do. I don't know. Like I said, I only use them for a little bit and I just really prefer the meal kits. But those are some great options for people out there that maybe your family is too large for meal kits to be affordable or you just want to do it your own way. Yeah. One of the other things I did is I did try hungry root for a little while just for me when I was kind of going through the early stages of the a fed. And so I said to my husband, like, I'm in my own food for a couple of weeks and we're going to see how this goes. When I got everything I realized, oh, I could probably recreate this using Trader Joe stuff. Oh, so what what I did is I actually went on to AI and I said, create for me a hungry root type meal plan with food from Trader Joe's and it gave me some fantastic stuff.

56:53It's like one of the things I do is I buy their frozen brown rice. Yeah, I'll buy organic sugar snack peas, organic cherry tomatoes, green onions, I'll either cook up chicken or I'll buy their chicken already made. I'll buy some hummus. I'll buy shredded carrots. I'll nuke the nuke the brown rice. I'll mix all the veggies in it. I buy their garlic sauce so that I make a balsamic vinegar using balsamic and olive oil and their garlic sauce. I'll toss that all together. I'll throw some chicken on it like a scoop of hummus or I'll throw by their chicken salad already made. I'll throw that on there with some hummus. So that's one thing from them I love. Another thing I love to get from them is I'll get like they're already prepared lentils. Yeah. Spinach and feta and chicken and make like a little dressing to go with that. But I've done that. I've also had it make like factor type meals for me. Oh, so I can just make those kind of things. Oh, that's fantastic. Yeah. And I'm not a huge AI fan, but in this instance has been very helpful. Well, here's the thing that I think is important. It's not expensive to eat healthy when you're strategic about it because people

57:58also like to eat healthy, but I just can't afford it. But what I see people doing, you know, I've got a, I've got a son who's 26. You might would door dash here and there and he also now edits my podcast. So he's going to hear me talking about him. But that's expensive getting someone to deliver something to your house or driving through even like McDonald's is expensive now. But beans are not. When it's time to scale your business, it's time for Shopify. Get everything you need to grow the way you want. Like all the way. Stack more sales with the best converting checkout on the planet. Track your chachings from every channel right in one spot and turn real time reporting into big time opportunities. Take your business to a whole new level switch to Shopify. Start your free trial today. This podcast is supported by your Southern California key dealers around Southern California.

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1:00:02McDonald's now. Absolutely. Do you know who Robert Malone is? I do. I'm familiar with this work. Absolutely. So he's got this whole homestead farm. Yes. And he literally just did a sub stack post yesterday or the day before about how I saw it. Yeah. I read it. How if you have the big thing of beans and the flower and the oats and the non fat milk, you can feed your nutritious family for like $2,000 a year or something. I sent it to my kids because my kids like you like like yours like they like to do the door to ash. Like there's something to be said for knowing how to take these staples and turn them into food. Well, I think that's the big thing and that's another another reason why I came up with it like a growing up program is because people don't know how to cook. The young people don't. They they don't know how to do it. They don't know how to begin. And meal kits really have helped me with that. Like a not that I couldn't cook before, but now I'm so much better at it. I'll get a meal kit and I'll be like, well, no, there is a better way to do it

1:01:05that I learned in another meal. Good thing. Yeah. Follow the directions. I could probably go on shopped now. Yeah. Give me a box of anything. I could make it into something. But learning how to cook is the best way to ensure that you're going to eat healthy and save money. Yes. And I love that you're doing it through like great trader Joe's. Short cuts like the brown rice. It's already there in the freezer section. So easy, but you don't have to. You can buy brown rice and cook it yourself. No, we often do like we have rice in the thing pantry that will just make. But this is what I'm throwing together lunches for me or what I'm exactly because I'm also good. I'm also eating off. Yeah, I'm often eating off schedule from my family. So that's why it makes sense. And we also hear you know, there's there's a train of thought out there that you should only buy things around the perimeter of the grocery store never buy anything frozen or whatever. That's not always true. There's some really good stuff in the frozen section like that frozen brown rice and frozen vegetables and just because it's been prepared in some

1:02:08way doesn't mean it's ultra process. Exactly. That was something else you just mentioned like the perimeter of the grocery story. That was something else that I wanted to to talk about was for me like I've been so so militant about things for so many years right because of all the measuring and tracking that being able to sort of settle into just eating and not worrying about every morsel that goes through my mouth like when I was younger, I would worry about it in terms of oh, am I going to gain weight. Then when I found out I had autoimmune, I would worry about it in terms of oh, what is the student of my body. And so now I'm just really learning how to eat and there's nothing. There's nothing that's not allowed. There's I've given myself a lot of grace. You know, and it's like if I want to have a gluten free pop tart, I'll have a gluten free pop tart. Well, there's the ish, right?

1:03:09I live in the ish. I'm clean ish. I'm less likely to have a pop tart because I don't want to have restless legs and a pop tart would absolutely give me rest. I'm mad about it. I'm mad about a wrestle. I thought about you because my husband went my so my daughter had bought herself like a carton of Ben and Jerry's and I know my husband and I had eaten that. And so he went to replace it and he was like, oh, they have dairy free baronjaro at Ben and Jerry's doing to get that for you. I was like sure, we'll try it. Normally if I'm going to ice cream, I buy Trader Joe's has a really nice coconut milk ice cream that's chocolate. It's delicious. It's really rich. It tastes really good. So normally five ice cream, that's what I'm going to get. He was at a regular store, not Trader Joe's. So he got me this dairy free Ben and Jerry's cherry Garcia. I ate it that night. My legs cramped all night. I thought of you. I was like, this is like gin and her sugar with the rest of the eggs. But I don't think it was the sugar because the other ice cream doesn't do it to me. It was something in that in that in that that set of ingredients, you know. Yeah. I thought about you. We learn we learn. I don't want to feel like that.

1:04:09So I mean, we make the choices that help us feel our best. Tell me some of your non-scale victories that you may not have mentioned already. So what are my first non-scale victories was I had just started intermittent fasting and I had made, I make this roasted potato dish where garlic, butter, parmesan, like in the bottom of the thing, then you roast the potatoes in there. And so they get really crispy and crunchy and they're delicious. And I used to be a bit of a nibble right? Like I'd be putting food away and I nibble on this or I nibble on that or like if there's, you know, a little crunchy bits of the bottom of the pan as I was cleaning things up, I would eat them. And I went into the kitchen that night to clean it up and crunchy little bits of the pan and I went to go like I literally was reaching into it to grab it. I was like, oh, no, my window's closed. So that was a non-scale victory like recognizing. No, there's a boundary. Yeah. There's a boundary. So that was the first one. I do believe I have healed faster from my ablation than I would have without

1:05:13intermittent fasting. So that's been really good. And then I actually bought a size medium top last week. Awesome. I also bought scrubs from work and I bought larges and they're two big. I think any mediums. Awesome. So fun. Those, those were awesome. But I think those are my big ones. So now that you have settled into intermittent fasting in a way you've relaxed into the process, you're listening to your body when it comes to food, you're not over fasting, you're trying to find the sweet spot. And that's really, like I said, for everybody who's listening, fighting your sweet spot, we tweak it till it's easy. We also tweak it till it works till you're getting what you want. Your goal is to be in a certain size range that feels good that you can maintain easily living your life. That's everyone's goal. And so you just need to figure out what that is. Exactly. And so now for me, like at this stage of the journey, because my body, because my weight isn't a good spot, now it's time for me to work on body

1:06:16composition. So we're on strength training. Yeah. That's the next thing I've added in and we'll see how my body responds in terms of like hunger signals and stuff. I'll have to listen to it really carefully. But you know, I always think of intermittent fasting is protective of muscle. So you know, a lot of times people will start these these strength training programs are like, oh, I have to eat 150 grams of protein a day. That's just not going to work for me on two, you know, two, maybe some days, I eat three, but most days I want or two meals. That's not going to work for me. I have to remember, okay, so there is some protection from the intermittent fasting. I do have to make sure I'm getting enough protein when I'm eating, but it doesn't necessarily have to be for meat because there is protein and vegetables and there's protein and beans and there's protein and grains, right? So yeah, I'm settling in just really. Yeah, people forget about that. When they're thinking about their protein consumption and they're trying to hit like a protein target, they only think of the protein that's in the piece of meat or the egg or whatever. And it's in so many things.

1:07:18Yeah. Like I was experimenting a couple of years ago or year, I don't know what it was, but someone said something about protein restriction being good for longevity. And they gave a number like a percentage. I'm like, well, let me say I just want to try. See how that feels. I couldn't hardly even do it. Really? I could not even eating in an eating window. I could hardly craft a meal that was low enough in protein to be considered protein restrict. And that's with you in your whole food plant base too. Well, it wasn't even I wasn't even doing all food plant base. It was just with, you know, once you beans, I mean, once you start adding it. So anyway, we are getting more proteins than we think. I'm never so. Also, when we're fasting clean, we have autophagy and our body is recycling protein in a way that we can't quantify. I wish we could say, oh, today my body recycled 30 grams of protein. I mean, I don't know. I just made that number up. Maybe it's five. Maybe it's four. I have no idea. 40. Who knows how much our body is doing. We can't quantify. Boy, I wish we could.

1:08:21Well, that's true. That's true. But it will help us stop worrying, maybe. Yeah. We're not having enough, but bodies are wise. And if you're not eating enough protein, your body is going to send you hunger signals. Yeah. And if you're hungry, you felt like you had enough food, have a little protein. And if that solved it, then yeah, you just needed a little more protein without even counting. Your body just told you. Is it you who says if you're hungry, ask yourself if you want to have a chicken breast? And if the answer is yes, you're probably really hungry. Or is that sharing? No, but it's probably sharing, but it's good advice. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes I scream sounds good. No, if a chicken breast. Yeah, that's a good one. Am I hungry? Yes. Do I want to chicken breast? No, I'm not hungry. It's true. That's a good one. Well, we are almost out of time. What would you tell someone just starting out with intermittent fasting or what do you wish you knew when you first started? When I wish I knew when I first started was.

1:09:23Nope. I'm going to back that up. What I would tell somebody just starting out is this is your journey. Mm-hmm. And you have to work with the choices you've made until now to figure out how it's going to work for you because we all come from different places. If my insulin had been higher and I had fasted for eight or ten weeks and not seen any weight loss. I would have had a different set of challenges than I had this time, right? But intermittent fasting truly can be the holy grail as long as you tweak it until it's easy. Like what it does for your physiology is real. But that might take time. Like depending on how deep into the forest you are, like you were saying, maybe you have a lot longer to come out of it than somebody who has made different choices. But intermittent fasting really can do it for you. But you have to, like you have to have discernment in terms of who you listen to. Because if you're listening to somebody who's telling you to just drink the snake juice and fast 48 hours,

1:10:29well, that's not sustainable. If you're talking to somebody like Dr. Fung who's working with people who are seriously obese and might need some fasting crutches to get started, that may not fit for you because even ultimately he says the goal is to get you to where you're not having anything. But people forget that because they just hear the word, oh, I can have cream in my coffee, right? Right. And it's not easy even for those people I would just like to say, it's making it harder for them. Yeah. So I just want to say, like really learn, learn how your body works and allow your physiology to normalize. And when that happens, everything works in your favor. That's awesome. Well, I have so enjoyed talking to you today and thank you so much for sharing your story. Do you have an intermittent fasting story to tell? Email me at Jen at intermittent fasting stories.com and I'll add you to the lineup. That's GI in at intermittent fasting stories.com. The world wants to hear your story.

1:11:31That's it for today. Remember, I may have a doctorate, but I'm not a medical doctor. So don't use anything you hear on this podcast as a substitute for medical advice. Please always check with your doctor or healthcare provider if you have medical questions. I'll talk to you next week fasting family where we will hear another inspiring story with the amix gold card earn four times points at restaurants and enjoy every night out to the fullest. Apply today at American Express dot com slash explore dash gold terms and points cap apply. Saturday, September 26 to have combat sports most dangerous strikers collide bear knuckle liver pulls on down the gorilla tail goes to war with Cuban powerhouse. YoL soldier of God Ramero plus the bear knuckle middleweight championship of the world is on the line when the rating champ Dave the redneck Mandel defense against undefeated British challenger. Jack the meat cleaver colon BKFC 94 till verse Ramero watch it live only on the zone.

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