Strategies for Customizing Your Fasting Lifestyle – with Dr. Mindy

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

On this episode of The resetter podcast, I am bringing you a call that I did for my Reset Academy on how do you customize building a fasting lifestyle. So those of you that read fast like a girl, you I had a whole section in there on what a fasting lifestyle is. And I am so dedicated to this fasting lifestyle, that it’s really important to me, you understand that it’s completely customizable and completely personal to your lifestyle. So my reset Academy, we do several experiences together every other month, we do a fat burning experience. I have coaches in there that are teaching on all different types of health concepts. And one of the most common questions we get within our reset Academy is we would like more information on how do we customize a fasting lifestyle to our personal needs. So what you’re about to hear is the best explanation I could possibly it’s an hour long, I went into a lot of detail, I gave a lot of examples, I gave a lot of concrete principles for you to follow. And what I’m hoping and why I wanted to release it with the resetter podcast is I’m really hoping you will see a personalized path for you. And you will understand that all the tools that I have taught you in fast like a girl and here on the resetter podcast and on my YouTube channel. They’re all tools. Now your job is to take these tools and make them customize them make them personal to you. This is totally opposite of what many people teach. Many doctors, many nutritionists, many health influencers say this is the way and this is the only way and you follow my way to a tee. I don’t teach like that. I am teaching a lifestyle that now your job is to make it unique to you because your body is not like any other body on the planet. So when we look at the tools that I offered up and fast like a girl like the Keto biotic eating style, the hormone feasting meeting style, the six different length fasts, how to break a fast, like how do you take all of that and customize it to fit your personal needs? If that has been a question, this is the episode for you. And I’m so excited to bring it to you. So here you go. If you want to make this a personal health path, that here is your answer. Here’s your resource. And as always, I hope it helps. Welcome to the resetter podcast, this podcast is all about empowering you to believe in yourself. Again, if you have a passion for learning, if you’re looking to be in control of your health and take your power back, this is the podcast for you.

What I’m looking at this conversation as is as if I was personally coaching you, this is how I would be explaining the customizing of a fasting window and an eating window to match your lifestyle. And honestly, I think that might be what I love about fasting the most is it’s customizable. I’ve sat with patients that have said, I it’s really important to me to eat dinner with my family. And we all get home from the sporting events. And it’s eight o’clock at night. And that’s when I’m going to eat dinner. So we’ve I’ve learned like, okay, that’s important. That’s oxytocin, that’s, it’s part of what a value of you and your family, we need to make this effortless. So let’s build a fasting lifestyle around this anchor of sitting at the family table at eight o’clock at night. I’ve had other people say to me, I work out in the morning. And I need to either eat before I work out or I need to eat right after I work out. And that’s around seven or eight in the morning. And so we’ve customized family life or fasting lifestyles that will fit that early morning workout. So literally you can position this any way you want to position it and in fact, I encourage you to position it for your lifestyle. And you might even position it differently every day. If you’re like me where I don’t really have a set routine. And my and my routines are always changing so I’m always adapting my fasting and eating Windows according to my routine. So I’m going to go through some basic principles. And then I’m going to go through some different scenarios, I’ll use the scenarios in my own life, I’ll use the scenarios I’ve been using in with some of the high performing clients that that we’ve had to really work some interesting fasting and eating windows through. To start with, the way that I look at every single day is that I have an eating window, and I have a fasting window. So the eating window starts, the minute my blood sugar goes up. So I’ll give you an example. It’s right now it’s what nine o’clock here in California. I was up early doing my morning time. And then I had a call at eight o’clock. And I had this short little break before I came to you all, and I’m hungry. And I’m like, because I ate a really early dinner last night I I’m like, Man, I want breakfast. Like I’m craving food, I’m craving breakfast. But I had to come on a call here with you all. So instead of like taking a bite of my Gluten Free bagel that’s waiting for me, I grabbed some bone broth, because bone broth will most likely keep me fasted, I know this from my glucose monitor. And I saved the bagel for after this call. Because my brain was like, Oh, if I even take a bite of that bagel, I’ve now opened up my my eating window. And if I can wait another hour, it might be either hunger goes away. And maybe I’m not going to open up my eating window for several hours. Or maybe you know, my eat, I’ll just open my eating window up an hour from now. So I’m always thinking the minute I spike my blood sugar, the eating window is now officially open. And I know because I wear continuous glucose monitors all the time, I’m very clear on what will pull me out of a fasted state and what doesn’t and bone broth doesn’t seem to pull me out, it seems to actually bring my blood sugar down. So it was kind of a good resource at this moment to be able to curb my hunger while I maybe wait a couple more hours before I open my eating window. So the first thing you want to every day is when like when I wake up in the morning, it’s when is that eating window going to start? Now some mornings, I wake up, and I’m not hungry at all. That was actually yesterday morning. And I had a really big day, the last couple of days, I’ve been doing a lot of YouTube videos and podcasting and production work. And I I like my high performance work to be done in the fasted state. I do really well with that. So yesterday, I didn’t open up my eating window until one o’clock. And then again, once it opened up, then I was now in an eating food. So the first thing to do is to figure out when’s that eating window for you? And every day it could change. Now sometimes I do more of a reverse approach, which is okay, what is the healing effect of fasting that I want? am I wanting to go a little longer because I want more autophagy? Do I feel like I need to reset my gut. If I feel like I reset my need to reset my gut, I’ll wake up, and I’ll be like, Okay, I’m not hungry. I’ve got a busy day, I’d like to reset my gut, could I go all the way to dinner, and maybe I’ll just have dinner. So I’m thinking about my day, the state I want to be in and the repair that I would want. So that’s sort of how I decide that eating window. And to me, the way my brain visually sees it is it moves around that eating window moves around for me, sometimes the eating window is 10 to five, sometimes the eating window is three to eight, like it’s but I’m constantly moving the eating window around and when I have a time period where you know, I want to use fasting as a healing tool, then I just have to adapt my eating window. So I think the first thing to think about is sort of come at it from the eating window perspective. And what when are you opening it up and when are you closing it down? And then how many hours does that leave for fasting? And is that are those hours enough? To create the healing effect you want to create in your body. I mean that that is like a daily thing that goes through my head all the time, the and then, you know, if like Sunday was Easter, and it also happened to be my husband’s birthday. And we had a ton of family here. And so my brain was like, Well, I know, I’m gonna have this really big meal at six o’clock at night, it’s not my preferred time to have a big meal. But this is what the family is doing. So I fasted all the way up until the big meal, and then we sat down, and it was quite a meal. It was like a four hour meal, where we sat there and ate till 10. And I just enjoyed this incredible experience and all the food that it provided me, but then I knew that at 10 o’clock, my eating window had was shut. And so the next day, I was like, Okay, that was really late. I think I’m going to fast, a little longer. And a Monday, I didn’t open my window up until two or three in the afternoon. So, play with it. The first advice I have is on a daily basis play with that eating window, where are you putting it based off of your needs? The biggest challenge you have that I see sometimes is if you have a need for food in the morning, because it’s post workout. And maybe you have a social event at night. And so how do you you’re not going to have a long enough period for a significant fasting window. So those are the days you wouldn’t fast. Like there are some days that you know, I don’t fast, which is is a lot of what I teach that it’s okay to have days that you don’t fast, and then you would just maybe you open up your eating window at seven or eight in the morning. And you’re kind of grazing all day, and then you close it it you know, seven or eight at night, that would not be a fasting day. So think in terms of how you move this eating window around. Now, the second thing that I think about when I open up my eating window is what does my body need? Does it need a low carb day? Does it need a high protein day? Does it need more of the three P’s poly phenyl probiotic prebiotic foods does does it need more carbs? Now I base all of that off of symptoms. So if I feel like I want to drop weight, I will then go into a lower carb day. So if I’m like ooh overdid it a lot, feeling a little couple extra pounds, not not feeling good about that, I will tell myself, I’m going to shorten my eating window. And when I eat, it’s going to be meat and vegetables. And I will stick to it and I will do no fruits. On those days that I feel like I need to be more in a Keto biotic place. And I need to become more insulin sensitive, and I need to drop a few pounds. So on that kind of day, it’s a shorter eating window. And it’s more of the Keto biotic eating plan. Now for those of you that have irregular cycles sit with me, I’m going to time this we’re going to once I get through these principles, I’ll talk about how you relate them to an active cycle. For my postmenopausal women, you don’t really have to do that as much you can do it a little more every day, sort of check in with yourself and see what you’re trying to accomplish. So the other place that a longer fast, more keto day, another symptom that would work now this is a symptom, I don’t get any more, but I did get and that is hot flashes. If you are getting hot flashes, oftentimes that can be low estrogen like your estrogen system has completely tanked. So if you got night sweats that night, or you had two more hot flashes during that the days preceding a longer fast, more keto, less alcohol, those are the three cures for hot hot flashes.

If I have a high performance day, where I’m like, I need my brain to be incredibly sharp for me, then I would do more fasting and more keto, because that keeps those ketones coming so that I can have that mental clarity. I point that out because a lot of the symptoms of perimenopause and menopause is brain fog. So when brain fog is high, fast go longer, carbs go away. And that seems to really help sharpen my brain for a performance day where I just have a ton to do. So that would be I would organize more of a Keto day, my hormone feasting day. These are the foods that I lean into where I will bring my carbohydrate load up. And I know it’s time to bring my carbohydrate load up. When I’m feeling more anxiety, like whether it’s just random thoughts of anxiety, or I can’t sit on the couch without relaxing, or if I have insomnia, those are signs that potentially progesterone has gone low. So I will do if I’m starting to see a pattern of those kinds of signs, I do less fasting, and I do more hormone feasting fits. Hormone feasting foods, for me is going to be a lot of squashes, a lot of fruit, a lot of potatoes, and maybe some gluten free bread breads. I am a huge fan of fermented sourdough bread because you get that added probiotic in there. So if I am going to go into bread, it’s usually I would go in with more of a fermented bread because there’s some benefit to the My microbiome. But I lean I will eat these hormone feasting foods when I feel those symptoms. Again, I just want to remind you, that is through the lens of a postmenopausal woman. In my Peri menopausal years, I started noticing that if I did longer fasts, and did more keto biotic days, that I would find I started spotting, because you know, you’d have in your Peri menopausal years, you can go 60 days without a period, I would start to see that I was spotting a lot. And if I was starting to spot a lot that was assigned progesterone was trying to build in order to be able to shed the uterine lining. So I needed to bring glucose up and fast less, so that I can give progesterone what she needed, so that I can have a full period. So you can either use your symptoms, or you can, you know, you can look at like what your hormonal needs might be. And I and as opposed menopausal women, it’s usually my symptoms, because that’s all I have to go off of right now. Or I’ll follow the moon cycle, which we’ll talk about here in a second. So, again, I want to recap that you’re picking your eating window based off of what your day looks like. So you’re gonna move that eating a window, according to are you sitting down to dinner with the family? Do you need to be able to eat breakfast, or eat around a workout. Or maybe it’s a busy day, and you like having ketones, fuel your brain so that you can function at your best. That’s how you’re picking where that eating window goes. And that eating window, it’s okay to change it every single day. Now, the and then you’re looking at the length of your eating window is really determined based off of how long you want to fast. So if you feel like you need to detox, then you need to at least get to 17 hours of fasting, which would leave you with a seven hour eating window. So you would just take that seven hour eating window and you would move it around according to where you want to put your food that day. So it makes sense. And then if you wanted a gut reset, you would have one meal a day. Now where’s that meal gonna go? You just need at least have 24 hours without food and then you put the meal in. So I hope you’re gathering that you can move your eating window very freely. And I experiment all the time. So lately I’ve been really experimenting with the eating window being in the daylight. I am absolutely finding that if I keep my eating window in the daylight that I tend to sleep better and I tend to stay the weight that I want to stay. If you’re not familiar with that concept that is based off of melatonin when we when it’s dark out melatonin is high. When melatonin is high you are more insulin resistant. So eating your meal You’re in the daylight when melatonin isn’t around, allows your cells to be more insulin sensitive so they can take in that glucose. Now, obviously, the example I gave you about Easter doesn’t work, because I ate in the dark. But that was an unusual situation. But what I’m trying to show you and I hope hope hope this is coming across is that you have flexibility in this eating window and the length of your fasting window. That’s what makes this so easy to stick with over time. Because you get to create the length of your fasting all at whatever you’re trying to do, and you get to move the eating window around. So Jesse Itzler is this really fun, beautiful human. He is what started off as a rapper, he had a rap song that the New York Knicks used as their as their their theme song. And then he became a serial entrepreneur, Marquis Jet, yo, he was co owner of that, and Zico, coconut water, and he’s now part owner of the Atlanta Hawks. And he happens to be married to one of my heroes, Sara Blakely, who started Spanx. So Jessie heard me on a podcast and got really fascinated about this fasting thing. And so he brought me on, or asked for a consult with me. And we worked together for about a year customizing all of his eating windows around his family meals and his workouts. And they constantly changed, the eating window constantly changed based off of if he was literally about to do 100 mile endurance race, if he was training for one of those. Or if he was on going on vacation with the family. He then invited me in to a mentorship group, where he was he has all these high performing entrepreneurs have these really crazy lifestyles, and my job to that for this group is we would pop on a call, and for a month, I would create a fasting plan for them. And it was always based off of what their work schedule was, what their priorities with their family was, what their workout schedule was, and, and how we could vary that in a week’s time. So it’s really just about moving the eating window around to match your, what you’re trying when you’re trying to eat with loved ones, or what you need to eat according to your workouts or what kind of performance state you’re at. So I hope, I hope that makes sense. Because it’s a moving target that you get to myth, if you are postmenopausal. This is where we have a lot of freedom, because we don’t really have a cycle that we’re matching it to. So I like to use my symptoms, like I explained to you, I like to use my symptoms, so that I can sort of say check in with my body every morning and be like, what do you need? And sometimes, I don’t really get a clear answer, like my body’s like, I feel good. So then if that’s the answer, I asked myself, have I done too many keto days? Have I eaten enough carbs? What Foods haven’t I eaten? Do I need to open the diversification of my foods? So I’m constantly adapting to what my body needs or what my lifestyle demands. That’s if you’re postmenopausal. If you have a menstrual cycle, we have more boundaries. So your eating window can be shorter. From day one to day 10.

Day one is the day you bleed. So from day one to day 10. If you’re trying to lose weight, if you’re Peri menopausal, and you want to clean up the hot flash situation or you have brain fog, or you have big high performance moments. Then you’re going to lean into a shorter eating window leaving a longer fasting time. And you’re going to want to eat more keto biotic, that is your performance state combo. But if you have a menstrual cycle, you can only do it from day one to day 10. And then after ovulation Day 16 Today night 10. So you have about half of the month to lean into those those that setuptools If you look at it, if you’re trying to lose weight, you literally have half the month that your hormones will be okay going into these more cortisol rich experiences, which, you know, a longer fast creates a higher cortisol spike, estrogen doesn’t mind that as much. And you can go into keto, so that you can lose more weight, you can have more ketones for better, better mental clarity, you’ve got half of a month to be able to lean into that tool. The challenge we had as women, was that we were doing once Kido came out or in fasting came out, women were so excited. I mean, everybody was so excited about the energy it gave us and the mental focus it gave us and the ability to drop weight that we were able to get from it. But then when women were doing it all month long, they started to see that it was at the expense of another key hormone, which is progesterone. So just to be clear, although estrogen and progesterone are both considered sex hormones, they require very different lifestyle tools. And so when we do a restrictive diet, when we go, we get addicted to one meal a day, or we love fasting, and we’re like, I gotta just do this all the time. We are doing it at the expense of progesterone. She does not like that. So if I want to lose weight, I am going to use day one to day 10 of my menstrual cycle, and day 16 To day 19 of my menstrual cycle to fast longer and to do keto longer. That’s how I map that. And now I mind in the principles of, of estrogen. When we go into the ovulation window, which is Day 11 Today 15. So day 10 Is this weird day, it’s a transition day, it’s like a day your you know, your body’s getting ready for ovulation. Now we have a really different scenario going on in that window in that time period, because estrogens at her peak, testosterone comes roaring in and you get a little bit of progesterone. For the experienced faster, you can get away with like a 15 hour fast. I think a 15 hour fast is really good in that little window period. If you don’t want to fast you’re fine not fasting. If you want to fast, even lower like a 13 hour fast, you’re fine. But when you open up your eating window during ovulation, it is massively important to lean in to more of what I call nature’s carbs. And nature’s carbs are basically anything that has been grown on a tree or come out of the ground and didn’t require any alteration. So like you could say wheat is a nature’s carb. But most people don’t just take a wheat wheat stock and eat it. It has to be milled and refined in order to be put into a flower so that we can make a bread and so now it’s a man made carb. To me nature’s carbs are like fruit, potatoes, you know, all the vegetables that came out of the earth and were instantly ready for me to eat them. When you’re in that ovulation window, you’re eating those nature’s carbs are really important because they have a ton of fiber in them. And you need fiber to be able to feed the bacteria in your gut that break down your hormones. Your hormones have to be what we call metabolized. metabolized is where you take a hormone that’s been produced, and you make it usable for the cells. It’s very much like if you have to export a document to be able to email it to somebody, you have to change the format of that document so that it can be sent as an email. So the same thing during ovulation. You have all of these hormones surging in and so you need to step out of keto, you need to go into these hormone feasting foods you need to eat more carbs so that you can feed your gut so that you are able to breathe Take these hormones down so they’re usable to your cells. So I like to use ovulation for a lot of fiber fueled meals, you can still fast, it just has to be a little shorter because progesterone is around, she’s hanging around. And progesterone doesn’t like when we fast longer when you come out of ovulation, now all your hormones drop, and you are able to go into a shorter eating window and a longer fasting window. But that’s another point. Like you have a dip, you can go into the fasting as your tool and a shorter eating window. When we hit day 20 day 19 day 20. I know I’m not trying to be vague. It’s just everybody’s a little different. But around day 19 day 20, we need to step out of fasting because this is progesterone is moment she is needs to peak, you have to have a high amount of progesterone in order for your uterine lining to shut. If you don’t hit just like estrogen during ovulation, she has to peak in order for an egg to be released. Starting day 1920 progesterone has to peak in order for that uterine lining to shed that’s what will trigger the uterine lining to shed and for you to bleed as progesterone hits a peak. So we need more carbs, less stress, less fasting. So you could customize your fasting lifestyle, but through your menstrual cycle, following those guidelines, that’s what fast like a girl was all about. Now, the good news is that I have a sequel coming out called eat like a girl. And that sequel is all about the eating window. What do we look at according to the menstrual cycle, and my menopausal friends? I heard your cries of like more postmenopausal information. So there’s a ton. There’s a whole chapter dedicated to you. There’s a ton of information in there about how we eat to help our post menopausal symptoms, and how do we eat when we don’t have a cycle. So I’ve got you covered there. But what I want you to think of and what I when we’re customizing a fasting lifestyle, I really want you to think about moving this eating window around according to your lifestyle demands, according to what you’re trying to accomplish with your body and according to where you are with within your menstrual cycle, or what your hormonal needs are. So it’s movable. Does that make sense? Now what I can totally do is sort of

I’ll give you you know what I’m going to do, I’m going to give you Lisa billion’s plan that I customized for her last week, because she’s been very public about the work we’re doing together. So, Lisa, Bill, you is the podcast host for women of impact. I highly recommend you follow this badass woman. She is incredible. She is a high performer. She was the founder of Quest Nutrition. She sold that company about five to seven years ago. And she now has this amazing podcast that is all built around empowering women. And she had last week, a really busy week. So she literally sent me her calendar. And we built a fasting lifestyle around her demands that week. And I’m going to give you some of the highlights that I created for her that you might find necessary for your fasting lifestyle. And you’re going to see if you’re like I’m so confused. We took the demands of her life. And we customized eating windows and fasting or windows around what her life demanded. And when she needed to be in a performance state. So it started on a Sunday. She was flying from LA to New York on on Sunday, but her flight was at like 11 or 12 California time. So I would have told her to fast all day long. A lot of times my travel days are fasting days. And this is a really important note. When you go up in an airplane, your digestion shuts down. That that pressure change causes a change to your digestion. And so the best thing you can do when you fly is to not eat a meal two hours before the flight or just to fast all day. One trick I’ve been doing lately is bringing bone broth protein powder on a flight with me. And then I just asked for hot water. And I’ll just do drink boat bone broth while I’m on the flight. Now, Lisa, we had seen some days, she’s very thin. And we had seen some days when she fast all day that she went into a really cortisol saturated anxiety state and her blood sugar dropped. We had already experimented with that two weeks earlier. I didn’t want to reproduce that. So I told her to get up that morning and eat breakfast just make sure the that and have a big breakfast, a carb rich breakfast a protein rich breakfast, two hours, make sure it was two hours before she got on the flight. By the way, another fun hack is she’s in her mid 40s. She built this badass company that was a lot of stress. And so both myself and she had just interviewed Dr. Daniel, amen on her podcast. And he told her that he just doesn’t fly red eyes anymore. Because he’s like, I’m too old and I care too much about my sleep. And I want to protect my brain. I don’t do red eyes. So she was used to doing red eyes because they’re very time efficient. And I told her no, we’re trying to get you out of dysregulation with your nervous system. I agree with Dr. Amen. No red eyes. So she took this flight right smack in the middle of the day, which was great for her nervous system, but it created a bit of a challenge for her food system. So her biggest meal that day was breakfast. Then she got to New York. And the plan was for her to do bone broth. But she messaged me and she’s like I’m here. It’s eight o’clock at night. She had a big day of interviewing, she was interviewing the next day, Mel be the Spice Girl. And she was really excited about it. And I had already witnessed that she needs to be fueled before a high performance state. So I needed to get some food in her. So I told her at eight o’clock at night, here’s what I would tell you is eat some protein, because protein is going to stabilize your blood sugar. So she had taken some paleo Valley beef sticks. And when she got to her hotel, she had a bunch of beef sticks and some bone broth protein and went to bed. So now she had amino acids in her. We had stabilized her blood sugar. She woke up the next morning her interview with Melby was that two or three in the afternoon. So I had her eat breakfast and eat like a couple of good meals before the interview. They were more keto biotic, we didn’t go into carbs. We did more protein, more vegetables so she could be in a performance state at two o’clock in the afternoon. Then she came out of that by the time she was done. It was six o’clock at night. And for recovery, we went back in to more protein, same kind of meal that she had that night. Now, Tuesday, she got up early and flew home. So there was no breakfast. But now by the time she got home, I was like we got to get some carbs in you. You’ve done a lot of protein and a lot of fasting. We need some carbs. So I told her when she got home to eat a carb rich meal that night so we can bring the carbs back in. And then Wednesday, she had another day where she was had a couple of podcasts. So I kept her fasted that day. But I had her do a bone broth fast so she could keep her blood sugar up, and that it was easy for her as she was going through her podcasting day. And then the following day, now she had a little more free time. So we went a little more into carbs because carbs can sometimes tank your your energy. We hoped we’d create a longer eating window. And then the next day was her husband’s birthday. And I Mike you got to do whatever is right you eat to celebrate his birthday, like let’s not have a rule around it. So I tell you all this to say we had to build fasting around the flight. We had to keep her food in more of a Keto state built around performance. And we had to find pockets that fit where I could Bring some carbs in, and some more diversity of foods. So we she was well, that everything was she had enough nutrients to be able to keep her blood sugar at a high level. So I if you if I completely lost you no problem, I just want you to know that the name of the game was we created variety around the ever changes changing the cadence of her schedule, and you can do the same. If you have more of a routine, it’s much easier. If you have like an exercise routine, you have like a a workout routine much easier. Like you get up in the morning, your fasting window may be always in the morning, you like like when I’m when I’m not traveling, I like to work out 11 o’clock. So I and I like to work out in a fasted state. So when I work out, I I’ll you know, I’ll do some aminos I’ll do maybe some collagen powder, I’ll go work out and then the minute I come home, I open up my eating window. And now I lean in to more fit. So I’m just sort of showing you the flexibility of this moving target, believe me, it would be a lot easier for me to just tell you, here’s when your eating window opens up every day, here’s when it closes down, here’s the food you’re going to eat, it’s so much easier to tell you that. But we all have these sort of lifestyles that tend to change. And so we need to have our food patterns change with it. And then we have to change with our hormones. So again, I hope, I hope that makes sense. Another eating window that I did for years or eating variation that I did for years in my clinic was around high performing athletes. And what I did is we looked at the days that they did not these athletes did not work out as rigorous. And those were our longer fasting days. So I used the days with less training as longer fasting. And I use the days so that we could stimulate them. By the way, there was a reason for this. The reason was to be able to stimulate the release of stored glucose in their muscles, so that we can make sure that those muscles stayed insulin sensitive. So that when they did eat, the muscles, were grabbing the nutrients that were grabbing the glucose so they could be ready for a performance state. Then on the days that they were training harder, or they were lifting more weights, we didn’t fast as much, we actually leaned into more protein.

So I used recovery days, and less working out for more fasting, and I use the harder fitness days for more eating and more food. So it changed according to that. So again, I’m hoping that you’re seeing that there’s flexibility in all of this. And and I’m not trying to confuse you, I’m trying to help you find your pattern. I’m a huge believer in a couple of principles that will tell you if you nailed your eating and fasting windows. So the first thing is, I really want you to understand this concept called N of one and I talk about it a lot here in the reset Academy. I write I have a big section on it in eat like a girl so you can understand it. When we look at a science article or add a study the n equals how many people were in the study. So well, let’s use my favorite study to break apart that horrible not a study but pretended to be a study that came out saying that 91% increase in cardiovascular event, if you intermittent fast. Just so we’re all clear. That was not a peer reviewed study. But when I first saw that statistic come out, my brain was like this makes no sense because I’ve spent the last decade of my life looking at fasting research. And over and over and over again. I am seeing the exact opposite of what this study is saying. I am seeing that people who intermittent fast that they actually really help improve their blood pressure, their cholesterol, their liver enzymes, their belly fat, all the things that are predictors for a cardiovascular event. So I was massively suspicious from the 91% statistic. But the next thing I went and did is I looked at how many people they studied. And it was impressive. I’m not gonna lie, it was over 20,000 people. So the end was 20,000 people. So then my brain went, like, how were they able to do that? Like, how do they? What did that how I mean, being able to put 20,000 people in a study setting is almost near impossible, like you just don’t see ends of 20,000. And that’s when the study started to fall apart. And just so we’re clear, because this has been a thorn in my side over the last couple of weeks, because, unfortunately, we have lost some people who have got had great results with fasting to a sensational headline. And we have spouses that are concerned friends that are concerned that their loved ones are fasting, and is going to create a cardiovascular event. So where the fun study fell apart, is they looked at these 20,000 people over many years. And they had them report in two days, out of many years, they had to call in an answer some questions. And one of those questions was, do you intermittent fast. And the people who say yes, all got put in a separate grip, to be analyzed. Now within that group, just so we’re clear, 27% of that group smoked. So they didn’t, which probably was part of the huge reason for the cardiovascular event, and calling in, what they realized is people don’t really remember their food choices, and they don’t remember their, their fasting windows. And as you all are learning, intermittent fasting is a different phrase to different people. So if somebody says, Do you intermittent fast, one person might be like, Yeah, I only have fruit juice in the morning. And I don’t eat a meal until noon, that’s not intermittent fasting. They didn’t vet this group for what they were doing in their eating window, or in their fasting window. And then the second part of that is they didn’t ask them what they ate in their eating window. So this is why it is a bogus study. But I tell you all this, to say that the N group was really big, what I’m going to ask you to do is to be an n of one, where the only person that matters, in your fasting lifestyle is you. And what works for you. One of the biggest challenges we have around science is that you take people, if you even if you’re even looking at people and not mice, and you put them in a very controlled environment, and you try to take as many variables out of the equation as possible. That’s not how we live. That’s in opposition of everything I just taught you, which was this fasting, lifestyle is flexible, and it can work to your lifestyle. So you customize it, you change that eating window based off of the demands of your family, the demands of work, and what you’re trying to do with your health. And keep in mind your hormonal symptoms, or where you are in your menstrual cycle. You could never study that. Like, it’s got a lot of variables in it, which means the only person that matters in this moment is you and making sure that you are fitting this to your needs. So yes, it’s confusing when I when I teach it. But the more you listen to it, the more curious you are, the more you play with these principles. The the easier this becomes. My experience is when we take ownership back of our health and our lifestyle and say, I’m going to make this thing work for me and the demands of my life. That it becomes effortless over time to stick to it. How many diets have we gone on where we’re like, I’m done carrying extra weight and I’m done feeling horrible. And my friend went on the X, Y and Z diet and she lost 30 pounds so I’m going to do what she did. And we go on that diet. And either we get a result. And then over time, we’re like, this is really hard. It’s a lot of discipline, and I’m not able to eat with my family and, and I’m finding that like, like, this is actually how I feel about protein right now. I love that we’re bringing protein into the conversation. I love that we have a marker now one gram of protein for every pound of ideal body weight, I love that. But how many of us are discovering that over time, keeping that focus on protein is exhausting and hard. And on a busy day, I get to the end of the day, and I’m like, oh, man, I forgot my protein. So we have to find our own natural rhythm with protein intake. So we can keep protein in the diet conversation for the long haul. Because the principle is good. And the principle is not going away. But there’s no way I don’t think unless you’re a fitness bodybuilder who has really got your, your body at the forefront of every single part of your day. I don’t think it’s it’s an easy eating style to to stick to over time. If you give yourself permission in a fasting lifestyle, to flex in and out of high carb, low carb, high protein, Oops, didn’t wasn’t able to do a lot of protein today. Long, fast, short, fast, and you look at them as tools you’re going to use to build yourself a healthy lifestyle, it will get easier over time, and it becomes effortless. But the minute we start to do it, like our friend did it the minute we go into rigidity over time, the whole all of what I’m saying falls apart. And we can’t sustain it. And this lifestyle when we use the put our n of one glasses on, and we take these principles and we look at them like tools, and we customize them for our needs and our lifestyle. They become easier and easier and easier. What I had this amazing dinner on Easter, we had some great wine, oh my god, this place had gluten free sourdough bread. I was like, I’m normally the person that’s like put the don’t even bring me the bread basket at a restaurant. This one, I was like, keep bringing me the bread basket. I had dessert. This is not a normal thing that I typically lean into. But I was in celebration with my family. And in that moment that I have a foodie family. We love food. In fact, our son right now is is training to be a chef.

And so the food experience is important to the family experience. So I went into it without any guilt. And then I the next day was like, Okay, what tools do I have here? I’d like to fast a little longer. I’d like to sharpen my brain. I’d like a little bit of a recovery from that meal. Now I’m going to go into more keto. If that makes sense. Is that helpful. So in fastonic, a girl what I tried to do is give you some protocols. So if you have an autoimmune condition, if you have a thyroid problem, if you’re trying to get pregnant, I just was on a call with a client who is wanting to become insulin sensitive before she got pregnant. And so we’ve spent the last three to four months really working on that insulin sensitivity longer fast, more keto. And now we’re at the month she’s going to try to get pregnant. And so the whole thing changed. Because now her target is different. I think we should should do this with every eating style. We do it with working out anybody who’s serious about working out doesn’t do the same workout over and over and over again because we get less of a result we’re constantly changing the workout to meet what we’re what we want to accomplish in our body your fasting and your should be the same fasting window eating window timing, how am I mapping those and what food style do I need? But I really want you to see that there’s freedom in this lifestyle. And this is why I you know, we in full transparency, like fast like a girl is doing better than anybody thought. Especially me like I was blown away like I just wrote a book because I really wanted women to have another resource and what I’m discovering in over 4000 reviews on an Amazon is that women are finally finding a lifestyle that they can stick to. And it’s because it’s so customizable. So if you’re one of those women that you like the rigidity you like the structure, okay? Well, we in fast like a girl, I gave you a 30 day reset in there, you can, you can use that structure and kind of start there. I in the back of the book, I gave you weekly structures that are mapped over like eight to 12 weeks. So if you have a condition, you can lean into that and use that. But ultimately, I think those are training wheels. And that you should start to like this should start to become an effortless experience. So I just really, it’s it’s, I think the hardest part for people is when we go on a diet, it has a lot of rules. And it has a lot of rigidity. But this is why the diet culture doesn’t work. And so this is why I call it a lifestyle. To me a lifestyle is something that’s adaptable, and that’s what a fasting lifestyle is. And then the last thing that I want to say is really be curious about what your body needs. Because you can’t mess this up. So if you have a day that you’re like, get to the end of the day, and you’re like, Okay, well, I tried a longer fasting window, and then I opened up my eating window. And the next thing you know, I ate the whole house. Okay, well, that was a good experiment. Like, maybe we need to have like that first meal. And I have a whole chapter called The first meal matters and eat like a girl. But maybe that and I had a whole chapter called breaking the fast and fast like a girl, maybe that first meal, you just need to focus on that first meal, the next time you go into longer fast. As opposed to what we used to do, when we would go in to a diet is we would mess up, and then we ridicule ourselves, I messed that up, it was doing so well and I messed it up. And now I’m really mad at myself. And then the next day, you’re holding on to guilt and shame. And you’re beating yourself up, and you’re feeling bad. And all of a sudden your favorite food comes in front of you and you have it, you eat horribly again. And now that second day, you’re like No, like two days in a row. I’ve messed up. If you do that, in enough days in a row, you just go, I give up. I’m going to ask you to stop that behavior that play with these tools play with the fasting window and the eating window. Play with them. What are you breaking your fast with? What diet? Are you leaning into play with these tools. And if you get to the end of the day, and you’re like, well, that tool didn’t work for me because at three o’clock, my energy crashed, or you do three or four days of hormone feasting foods in a row. And you’re like I’m gaining weight. Okay, well now lean into the next tool, which is keto and a longer fast. But don’t beat yourself up because the minute that the mind starts to go after itself. Now we’re back into the arms of the western standard diet. And once you have given up, and you’re not in this fasting lifestyle, and you’re just eating what’s in front of you, or you’re just eating what your tastebuds tell you to do, or you’re just going into the market, and eating whatever you used to eat, you’re dead in the water. And I can’t say this enough, but we we literally now live in a time that if you are mindlessly eating, you are putting yourself in the category of building chronic disease. We have chemicals in our food that are called obesogens that are triggering stem cells to become fat cells and are known endocrine disruptors that are throwing all of your hormones off. So if we are not intentionally eating and intentionally thinking about when we fast or when we don’t fast, you are in the lane of chronic disease. This is why we have to have a lifestyle that gets easier with time. And the only one that I know when it comes to eating and it comes to when to eat and what to eat is a fasting lifestyle. It mean you might know another one you can let me know. But it’s it’s our door out of this chronic disease our door out is not ozempic Because what happens when you stop ozempic Like where are you going from there? And if you’re on ozempic, then this fasting lifestyle is even more important because the path off of ozempic is a fasting lifestyle. So I, and I’ve tried to disprove this, and I can’t I’m here I sit a decade later, after studying this fasting lifestyle and how it fits to the feminine body, I am more convinced than ever before, that this is our way out of the horrific food culture that we are living in. So I hope that helps. I really like my biggest concern is that the information will overwhelm, and so you shut down. So go back, really listen to this, and be curious about this beautiful body you get to live in. And if you have a day where you’re fasting and food didn’t work for you, then that then it’s just data, just that, Okay, that didn’t work today. I’m going to do it differently tomorrow. And I have a lot of tools and a lot of ways I can do it different. Okay. So I really hope that helps I try when I give confusing information, I try to come at it from different directions, knowing that some of you are going to hear this very differently. I also know that some of us are auditory learners, some of us need the visual, I’m a visual learner. And some of us need the experience of it, which is why the reset Academy was created so we could experience this. So please, please stick with that. Don’t give up on it because I again, I’m more convinced than ever, that this is our way out of chronic disease. Thank you so much for joining me in today’s episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we’d love to know about it. So please leave us a review, share it with your friends and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai