Ever wonder what all the fuss is with this Intermittent Fasting? Is it just a trend? Is it useful? Should you do it? It is even do-able?? I will answer all of your intermittent fasting questions relating to the Eat to Live lifestyle on this jam-packed podcast. And if you want to get more support along your way with a community of amazing folks, sign up for the Waitlist to join the Eat to Live family http://www.nourishyourlifestyle.com/family We’d love to welcome you in!
YouTube auto-generated transcript:
what if there was one thing you could do that would
single-handedly slow the aging process improve your
insulin sensitivity lower your blood
pressure optimize your body’s repair
mechanisms otherwise known as autophagy
or like that cellular repair
reduce inflammation reduce your cancer
risk reduce caloric intake automatically
and is super flexible and it even made
it easier for you to eat to live now i’m
not just talking about eat to live in
general here because it does all that
stuff too but what if there was one
other thing that you could sort of add
on top of your nutritarian eat to live
healthy eating that would do all that as
well and sort of double up on your
healthy properties of your diet
we’re going to talk all about that in
this episode of the watering world
podcast and this is intermittent fasting
everything you need to know
hi i’m sheri alberts and this is the
watering mouth podcast and i’m going to
teach you to eat to live lose the weight
and love the process for good
episode nine
okay so today we are jumping into all
things intermittent fasting now i gotta
give you a little disclaimer ahead of
time first of all i’m not a medical
professional so this is not medical
advice and second of all i’m only gonna
be talking about intermittent fasting
from an eat to live nutritarian
standpoint there’s a lot of other diet
modalities out there that use
intermittent fasting and i just want to
give you a little piece of advice in the
beginning here because i get this
question so much about intermittent
fasting and i think that the questions
come so much from the fact that when you
google intermittent fasting you’re going
to be receiving information from a ton
of different sources you have a ton of
different perspectives okay so there’s
going to be a lot of conflicting
information and i would like to say this
about intermittent fasting but also just
about your diet choice in general when
you choose a diet to eat in your life
like long term you should be choosing
based on longevity potential as well as
possibly weight loss if that’s
interesting but of course those two are
you know uh sort of tied together so
these are the kinds of things you want
to be
thinking about a diet for not just the
weight loss potential but also for the
longevity and the disease reversal and
disease prevention and all that all of
these things being important at once now
when you choose that diet what i like to
say is
we interrupt your programming for a
special interlude of my daughter
interrupting this podcast while i was
recording it and i just wanted to give
you a little heads up that i left it in
so that audio was going to sound really
weird because she came in asked a
question and then i thought we were done
but then she started making spider-man
hand gestures and pretending like she
was shooting webs at me and so of course
i could not let that happen and i had to
shoot webb’s back and she made a little
cameo onto the podcast if you’re
listening to the podcast obviously you
wouldn’t be able to see that but
um if you go to my youtube channel and
you watch this podcast on youtube you’ll
be able to see our little spider fight
okay back to
the spider fight and then
our original topic
yes love downstairs okay
i love you bye bye have fun
okay bye
oh we’re having a spider fight
come over here
[Music]
we’re having a spiderweb fight
okay downstairs please
i love you close the door when you go
out okay when you choose a diet
lifestyle choose based on these factors
and then just decide to be done choosing okay
we we’re very interested in weight loss
in our diets right but we should also be
super super super interested in the
health effects of our of our diet so
once we’ve found one
that checks off these boxes just be done
looking okay so then what i like to say
is every piece of information that you
look for going forward
look for the answer to the information
in the context of that particular diet
style right because if you just google
you’re going to hear from so many
different sources so that’s what i just
want to say in the beginning of this
podcast that i’m going to be giving you
information from my perspective which is
strictly a nutritarian eat to live
perspective and some dr really good dr
greger stuff mixed in there as well very
similar to the you know nutritarian high
nutrient whole foods vegan plant-based
type lifestyle okay so that from that
perspective we’re speaking i’m going to
give you all the information i can okay
so first of all let’s just talk about
the definition of intermittent fasting
so fasting of course we know is just
that’s real that’s an easy one right
it’s just the lack of calories like not
in taking of calories right but
intermittent what does that actually
mean intermittent fasting so according
to webster intermittent means occurring
at irregular intervals not continuous or
steady so it’s something we just do for
a short period of time we’re going to
talk all about the different types of
intermittent fasting on this podcast
we’ll get into all that
but just knowing first of all this is
something we don’t do all the time
that’s going to set up this little
context here okay but i want to first
get a little bit meta about eating in
general and this is a concept that we
talk about in my life coaching school
but we also talk about it dr greger
talks about this in his book how not to
diet and i think this is such an
important concept just to sort of frame everything first
as humans as a species we haven’t been
having three meals a day
every day like continuously and and we
know this right because we look back at
say the medieval times or even you know
scarce for folks like they have to grow
their own food they have to get there
you know they haven’t have enough money
to buy the food and all that so it’s
more feast famine kind of a thing it’s a
natural human way of surviving right you
live in a very harsh climate you have to
preserve the vegetables and the fresh
fruit as much as you can so you can
things or you dry things or you smoke
things so that you can preserve them for
being able to eat them later right
techniques that we’re using in order to
deal with the sort of famine side of
things where you don’t where food is
scarce and then when food is abundant
using that food to you know maybe during
the summer time using that food to
save as much as possible use what you
have right now that sort of thing being
very creative with supply and demand in
this respect right but this is a very
like this is the base of humanity is not
having food be around on every corner
right it’s food is scarce as as a
resource food has always been scarce for
humans and it’s just like the last 50 to
every corner and starbucks are up on
every corner and we have an
overabundance of food now we have way
too much food so this is a very
short-term thing that we’ve been dealing
with trying to figure this out but what
is created is a pattern of this three
meals a day and now we all just consider
three meals a day as normal but for the
whole of humanity intermittent fasting
has actually been the norm okay so
actually not even intermittent like just
fasting you know this would be something
you do on a regular occurrence based on
factors around you that were out of your control so
something to just i want you to just
frame it in your mind this idea of three
meals a day is not even necessarily
normal from this historical perspective
okay and i think this is important
because one of the things that i think
people get scared of when they hear the
word fasting is oh my gosh this is an
eating disorder right this is something
wrong with this you should never be
hungry you should never
have you know a lack of food and first
of all you’ve got a biological component
here in your brain that tells you that
for sure because the food is scarce oh
my gosh we’re going to die right
so your brain kind of gives you these
alarms it’s that that
that primeval that that primal side of
your brain that is kind of freaking out
when things like this happen right but
there is also just the side of it that
we are just conditioned to believe that
three meals a day is correct and right
and it is what we need and so i want to
just i want you to first kind of start
to loosen up that a little bit right
like imagine you’re like unscrewing a
screw out of your brain you’re like oh
i’m just going to take this one out and
just loosen my concept of that a little
bit that i don’t have to have three
meals a day and and and even further i
don’t have to have five or six meals a
day like so many diet styles tell you
that you have to snack all the time you
have to be eating every two or three
hours or whatever
that is not the case this is not true we
don’t we don’t need this for any
biological reason and we know this
because humanity has survived without
that for millennia right okay so that’s
first of all let’s start there
but let’s move forward then and talk
about the different types of
intermittent fasting and then we’re
gonna zone in we’re gonna hone in on
just one of them in this podcast okay so first of all
there are a lot of different types of
intermittent fasting and i’m going to
give you a few of them this is based on
a really really awesome infographic that
dr greger has i’m going to put all this
stuff in the show notes so different
options for intermittent fasting
fasting for weight loss so you have
calorie restriction which is just just reducing
average daily caloric intake in general
right you have fasting which is not
eating at all or severely limiting
intake during certain times of the day
week or month then you have alternate
day fasting where you can back and forth
fast up to you know 100 calorie
reduction if you like and then you can
have a feeding day so one day is fasting
one day is feeding however you want to
do it there’s a 5-2 diet eating five
days of the week and fasting for the
other two there’s fasting mimicking
which is five days a month eating a
specially designed low calorie
plant-based diet or a time restricted
feeding which is what we’re going to be
talking about fasting for periods of at
least 12 hours but less than 24 hours
okay so so these are different ways that
you can fast for weight loss now these
are all options but i’m going to
actually tell you later on in this
podcast why i think fasting for weight
loss is a terrible terrible idea so
stick with me on that one but these are
some options now there’s no um food
police let me just say this too there’s
like nobody’s gonna come around and tell
you can’t do what you’re doing i mean
maybe your mom might tell you maybe your
best friend might tell you right but
this is actually your body so you
actually get to create whatever kind of
diet style and whatever kind of like you
know pattern you want to create for
eating that works for you
except of course if it gets to the um
eating disorder kind of place right if
we’re if we’re fasting just for weight
loss and it gets to a place where
you know we’re ignoring our nutrient
needs and our caloric needs and things
like that it gets to a place where we’re
doing it
because of a psychological issue then of
course we want to avoid that but
save for that kind of stuff if we’re not
talking about eating disorders you get
to do whatever you want with food this
is your body you get to feed it however you want
so i’m going to be talking from a
strictly like nutritarian perspective of
what is the best for
longevity potential and you know of
course weight loss potential as well but
longevity and disease prevention and
reversal as a first priority and you can
decide whatever you want you get to make
up your own protocol for any of this
stuff and what i think is best is if you
choose you choose anything you want and
then you tailor it for your particular
needs when it comes to just like where
you are in life and where you are
emotionally and mentally and when you
make up something that works for you
right now not like what some doctor
tells you to do or some health guru
tells you to do it’s you make up what
works for you at this moment in time in your life
and you kind of like go with the flow as
you’re aging and as you’re learning
things as you’re finding out what works
for you and what doesn’t you you be you
are fluid right like there’s no there
are no like eating police there are no
nutritarian police there’s like i’m not
gonna come to your house knocking and be
like hey i can’t believe you’re doing
this right this is for you this is for
you to always create what is best for
you so take everything i’m saying
and create something for yourself okay
so the first thing i like to say is um
of all those things that we talked about
and when dr greger was mentioning
time restricted feeding that is
intermittent fasting and that’s what
we’re going to be talking about today
time restricted feeding
so for me i feel like this is the
easiest place to start because as we
said in the intro
it actually automatically reduces your
caloric intake um if you do a smaller
eating window during the day so instead
of for instance so so intermittent
fasting in general what we’re what we’re
honing in on today is this idea of a daily fast
and you don’t have to do it every single
day we’ll get into that in a second but
where you do it on a daily basis so in a
period of 24 hours there’s a fast and
then the next day the next period of 24
hours you have another fast now we all have
everyone has a fast every single day and
that’s when you’re sleeping okay so
that’s why we call it breakfast right
because we’re breaking our fast from
overnight now some people for instance
might be eating in the middle of the
night and so their fasts are going to be
much shorter so during the day like
let’s say someone is eating five six
seven eight times a day you might only
be having one to two hour fasts per day
right in between meals um and so what
when we’re talking about intermittent
fasting we’re talking about is
lengthening those periods of time that
we’re fasting for so a typical
intermittent fast would be and the one
that you normally hear about nowadays
and the one that i’m kind of going to be
focusing on in this podcast is a 16 8
fast meaning you fast for 16 hours and
you eat all your food for the day within
an eight hour window so for instance if
you wake up at 8 00 a.m you would be
done eating at 4 p.m for the for the day
that’s it you know you you have
breakfast maybe at 8 00 maybe you have
lunch at 12 and then you have dinner at
three four perhaps right and then you’re
done or let’s say you begin eating at 10
and you stop at six you know that’s a
done eating at 6 p.m you do not eat
again anything besides water until the
next morning at 10 a.m that creates that
fasting state for you so you got this
period of 16 hours where your body is in
a fasting state now we talked about
in the beginning all the benefits of
this right so we know we like we know
why this is important it does all of
those things it lowers the information
reduces your cancer risk improves your
insulin sensitivity your blood pressure
slows the aging i mean so many things
like it’s like why wouldn’t you do it
right but let’s just talk about how can
you create a protocol for yourself of
intermittent fasting that works so
for intermittent fasting the 16-8 one or
even a little bit less too if you wanted
to do like a um a 14-10
or something or you want to start with maybe a 12-12
like just start with a 12-12 for
instance so that would mean like you
start breakfast at 8 and you’re done
eating by 8 pm that’s a very typical
eating window for folks anyways that’s
kind of like standard american diet-ish
right where maybe you eat at 6 7 p.m and
you have breakfast at eight something
like that or maybe you had breakfast at
seven and you’re finished eating by you
know five or something like that so you’ve got this
wherever you are right now so take where
you are right now now consider that if
you’re eating overnight or you’re eating
really late into the night so let’s say
you have breakfast at seven and then you
eat until maybe you have some snacks or
something at 9 10 11 p.m that window is
only you know seven eight hour window
and then for some folks who might get up
in the middle of the night to eat as
well now you’re cutting that window in
half where you’re only getting three or
four hours worth of a fast during the day which is
you know the health benefits are null
and void at that point the you know the
benefits of fasting don’t exist if you
if you’re not fasting for an extended
period of time so what we want to define
is sort of at least 12 hours okay so
we’re saying at least 12 to 20 24 hours
of a fast so that means if your eating
window is 12 hours that could be eight
to eight that would be a start maybe be
like okay this is where i’m starting and
you can gradually work your way towards
a 16-8 if you want or even further than
that you can get your way towards even a
fasting and four hours of eating
and this is something you could do in
the future it’s not something you ever
have to do but these are options for you
right the one meal a day camp the omad
camp is the same kind of an idea where
you only just have one
very large meal during the day and
that’s it so that would be like you know
for that one period of time that you can
get all that food in and then you don’t
eat for the rest of the day which is
actually a very typical
human species way of eating right so
and that’s sort of
the option for you and that’s kind of
how you start so you choose a window
that you want to intermittent fast for
so the kind of the general idea here and
you hear dr fermin talk about this a lot
is that when you intermittent fast what
you’re actually doing is
you eat for this period of time and then
when you’re done eating the body goes
through all of its digestion process
right so it’s digesting maybe two three
four hours or something it takes a while
to kind of like get that food moving
through and then once it’s finished
digesting or it might even take much
longer than that but once it’s finished
digesting it goes into a fasting state
or the catabolic state meaning
this is the state that the body is in
when it doesn’t have to digest then it
starts to go to work okay so i like to
like imagine the body
as having like a janitorial staff right
it’s got the the mop and the bucket kind
of a thing but that janitor can’t come
out while there’s a pep rally right so
the pep rally would be the digestion it
would be the fun everything’s going on
we’re eating a lot of things there’s a
lot of new input everything’s happening
and this pep rally is going on and not
until all the students have cleared out
of the gym can the janitor go and clean
right so you’ve got this custodial staff
that’s like just waiting around like oh
i know there’s something we need to
repair over there that doorknob is
broken and this you know the bleachers
are messed up over here and there’s so
much trash under here and so many things
to fix but it can’t fix anything until
all the students are out and they quit
littering all over the floor breaking
doorknobs and stuff right so imagine it
like this you’ve got this body that’s
sitting around waiting for you to allow
it to clean itself and that’s kind of
how it works that’s what this catabolic
state is and when it’s in that catabolic
state is when the most powerful disease
prevention and reversal are occurring
right so not only do you get all this
amazing antioxidants and vitamins and
phytochemicals and things from your
plant foods that you’re eating when
you’re on the nutritarian diet so that’s
like you know one half of the equation
but then if you add in a little bit of
fasting every day
then you have the added bonus of your
body having the time to be able to get
out that custodial equipment and you
know the mops and the buckets and the
heavy duty cleaning products and things
like to actually start to do some repair
okay so think of it kind of like that
and this is why you would do it so what
is the best time to intermittent fast
this is something that comes up all the
time if you ask dr fuhrman and you ask
dr greger they will say that the studies
in the literature show and that it is
proven that the best time to do this the
best time that your body is prepared to
be able to get out its mops and buckets is um
early in the evening to the next morning
so you want to be fasting during that
period meaning you want to be eating
early in the morning too early in the
afternoon early in the evening so for
instance a good fasting window might be
really great fasting window where if you
have your breakfast first thing 8 a.m or
let’s say you have to have it early
because you have to go to work or
something 6 a.m and then you’re done by
like that depending on what your work
schedule is like or how you can get that
food in right so maybe you have um maybe
you have a a meal at seven before you go
to work maybe you have your lunch at
noon and then maybe three four pm you
have a smaller meal or you just don’t
eat all together so then that becomes a
two meal per day kind of a day um so
that’s some some ways that you can do
that but scientifically you know the
research shows that eating um in this
period of time that’s earlier in the day
is much much better for
your um for that custodial system right for the
autophagy and the cleaning and the
repair and all those mechanisms to be
occurring overnight while you’re
sleeping now i have heard dr fuhrman say that
it’s best to end your eating window
around four or five
six pm at the latest okay so you can
kind of like do the math there on what
time you might have breakfast but if you
end your eating window at six he
mentions that for people who are going
to bed at like nine or ten right so you
can have at least like three or four hours
of digestion period before you go to bed
so that you’re not eating right before
you go to bed because that’s worse for you but
let’s say you’re somebody who stays up
until 11 or 12 or 1. then you could eat
a little bit later if you needed to
you’d have a good three four hours
before you went to bed to start that you
know to get that digestion going and to
be ready to do the um
the autophagy and the cellular repair
and all that all the catabolic processes
at night if you go to bed later that’s
totally fine too so this is really
really dependent on you and what’s
happening in your life and what’s going
on right one interesting thing in my
research that i came across
from dr greger was that they found
they took two groups and they were both
eating the same exact diet and the ones
who ate more food later in the day they
ate the heavier stuff later in the day
now these people are eating the same
exact diet remember okay the ones who
ate the heavier food later in the day
they were they didn’t lose as much
weight as the people who just ate the
heavier food earlier in the day which is
super interesting because that could show
that having a heavier breakfast having
having your biggest meal of the day be
breakfast and then maybe your lunch
being sort of this mid-range you know
they always do this like king king
prince thing so like your breakfast is
the king meal your lunch is the prince
and then your popper your poppers meal
or no meal at all is dinner okay i mean
this is just the size of the meal we’re
talking about so if breakfast is the
sort of heavier bigger meal with the fat
and the you know just super heavy then
maybe your lunch is a nice salad and
then dinner you either skip completely
or you end up having you know maybe a
juice or a smoothie like a small
smoothie or something like that just
something real easy on the body maybe a
small salad or some veggies and hummus
or whatever
something really small for dinner that’s
kind of the best way to get the most
results out of this weight loss wise and also for
just the catabolic phase and that repair
stuff having less in your tummy to
digest in the evening is such a better
way to go as far as getting those benefits of
intermittent fasting anyhow okay and dr
greger mentions that this is
everything to do with
a lot of things our circadian rhythms
are the metabolic slowing that occurs
later in the day are hunger patterns as
well as carbohydrate intolerance your
triglycerides and what’s really
interesting too is that insulin
sensitivity is higher in the morning
meaning that you’re going to have better
you’re going to have better insulin
control in the morning no matter what
you eat so if you were to eat like for
instance if you had more carbs higher
glycemic food in the morning your body’s
going to deal with it much better than
if you have that in the evening so
that’s something to consider too which
supports this idea of having dinner be a
pretty light meal that’s you know heavy
on vegetables possibly and light on fats and
you know especially
carbohydrates simple carbohydrates
things like that so now i want to skip
into a little bit of the mindset here
because to me what i do so that’s all
the facts about intermittent fasting
right what i do is i help people make
this a part of their life you know so
i’m going to give you all the facts and
usually that’s what you get from dr
furman that’s what you get from dr
greger you get the facts but i’m
interested in how to actually get you to
do anything that you want to do that
works for you so as i was talking about
before creating your own protocol for
this let me help you to sort of figure
out and wrap your mindset around this a
little bit okay so the first thing i
want to say and i said i was going to
mention this earlier
do not use intermittent fasting for
weight loss only okay do not fast for
weight loss now it is a given we know
this and i said this before it’s a given
that if you do intermittent fasting or
not you’re for sure going to lose more
weight if you do intermittent fasting
that’s just how it works that’s the
benefit of it as i said folks with the
same exact caloric intake automatically
lose weight or do you know
have a as if they were having a caloric
deficit just by intermittent fasting
okay so that’s fun that’s exciting right
but the issue with fasting this is the
the big huge point i want to make and i
if i could like you know have a flashers
going on or something while i say this
because in my experience this is true
and i’ve heard this from so many
different people as well
fasting should be never used for weight
loss because when you fast
you are throwing a lot of things out of
whack now we’re talking specifically
here like water fasting or these kinds
of heavier fats that you do like zero
caloric intake for a period of time
using those kinds of fasting measures
throw everything off metabolically
because your body is doing so many other
things now instead of digesting it’s
dealing with so many other things you
have so many things going on mindset
wise and emotionally and mentally
without food that you have to deal with
that in order to break a fast properly
you really have to do it under doctor supervision
and especially if you have medical
issues to be fasting in order to lose
weight can create so much imbalance in
your body with what type of
prescriptions you need now because your
your numbers are changing so quickly
your blood pressure your triglycerides
your cholesterol all these things are
changing so differently so quickly you
don’t want to be overdoing it your heart
medication whatever you got to be very
careful with that stuff so there’s that
but there’s also just the emotional and
mindset aspect of fasting that when you
get used to not eating for a while your
brain oftentimes what it will do when
you’re fasting is will start to make you
crave a lot more and so in the very
beginning of a fast you might have a lot
of cravings and then you might actually
deal with that emotional lack of food by
you know continuing to crave throughout
the fast or continuing to imagine what
are you going to eat when you get done
or whatever right that’s something that
a lot of i know i did that when i fasted as well
so you kind of have this little bit of
an obsession about food going on while
you’re fasting or while you’re dieting
that’s why like massive caloric
restriction it’s important not to do
that kind of stuff because then what
happens is when you’re done with the
caloric restriction or you’re done with the fast
you have to reintroduce the body slowly
to food right so that means like
starting with maybe a little bit of
juice for a day and then the next day
right you starting with some cooked
vegetables you starting with some soup
perhaps you maybe you add a little bit
of fruit and then the next day you do
this and you do that and you just add
things in slowly slowly slowly right now
that control that ability to control
your refeeding as they call it
is tough especially for folks like me
who are coming from a sort of emotional
eating food addiction kind of background
binge eating whatever to be able to come
off of a fast in the proper way
almost impossible for somebody like me
actually i was never
you know that never worked now for sure
i lost a ton of weight during the fast
that i had done i’ve only done one or
two of them possibly in the past when i
was like in my early 20s but i quickly
learned like fasting is not for me when
it comes to weight loss
it is a bazillion times more effective
to lose the weight using your food like
learn how to use food to lose weight
than to do something totally unnatural
which is not eating to lose weight and
then figure out how to eat again after
that okay so that’s my first thing i
want to say about using fasting for
weight loss not a good idea but let’s
talk about using intermittent fasting
for weight loss this is a different
animal because as i said earlier in the
beginning of the podcast it’s so much
easier to intermittent fast as this like whatever
it’s so much easier to intermittent fast
than it is to just stop eating all together
so doing a full-on fast where you’re
only having water or something like that
not advisable especially not for weight
loss it’s only advisable usually dr
frerman would say you would only use a
fast like this if you’re medically
supervised and you’re already at your
goal weight right so that’s when you
might use a fast like that but an
intermittent fast for instance so much easier to do
and you get to kind of control how many
hours you’re eating and not and still
get some really great benefits obviously
okay so consider that
intermittent fasting is sort of the easy
way to do it but it still gives you some
really really great benefits so when
we’re talking about using fasting for
weight loss you automatically get those
benefits but it’s not as taxing on your
mental state kind of a thing but we are
going to talk a little bit more about
mental state here too
so i have some questions here from
people in the audience i have a question
from someone on instagram and then i
have some questions from some folks in
my coaching membership the eat to live
family so i’m going to start with a question from
from instagram that came in from
somebody named michelle schiff and maybe
it’s maybe it’s michael schiff not sure
but i think it’s michelle so her
question says she’s read doctor from his
books and understand that he’s all for
intermittent fasting but not to overdo
it she says i find myself starving
sometimes but still wanting to stick to
the program i would love to hear your
thoughts about it on the podcast so this
is an interesting question first of all
i would love to get some more
information about this but i’m actually
thinking what you’re referring to i mean
you said intermittent fasting
but certainly if you’re starving then
there’s something you can adjust earlier
in the day when you’re eating all right
so that’s the first thing i want to say
if you ever find like yours but but i
have to make a little just a little side
note here too because
starving this feeling of starving which
is perhaps actually toxic hunger do you
know what i mean like i don’t know if
you know what toxic hunger is and we’ll
talk about this enough on a future
podcast but toxic hunger is actually a
symptom of withdrawal from standard
american you know diet type processed
foods we’re getting too much sugar oil
and salt so you start to have this you
just have so much processed food you know uh
simple carbohydrates things like that
your body is actually in withdrawal from
that if you start to eat um this way
like let’s say you start to intermittent
fast you’re not used to having such a
long window of not eating when you’re
pausing you’re eating in this way your
body actually starts to go through some
really intense detox which is called
toxic hunger that’s what we when we feel
irritable and feel shaky and crabby and
angry and all these kinds of things
you know headaches and stuff like that
that’s actually withdrawal from
processed food that’s actually not
hunger and when we get our bodies as
we’re talking about this detox this
catabolic phase where the body is
cleaning itself out and getting some of those
things like nitrogenous waste products
excess protein that you are getting from
the standard american diet etc as the
body’s cleaning that stuff out over the
days and weeks you start to feel a lot
better about hunger and hunger starts to
become a lot easier so the first thing i
want to say is possibly this quote
unquote starvation that you’re feeling
is actually toxic hunger and it’s worth
it actually to try to get through that
and that’s something you can’t fake
you’ve got to just get through that
meaning you’ve got to just keep doing
the nutritarian diet and get to that
place but you don’t have to fast in
order to get there you could say do six
to 12 weeks of the nutritarian diet just
by itself like the um the six week
program or whatever just the sort of
aggressive beginning program where
you’re 100 for a while learning the tricks of the trade
and then you can add in intermittent
fasting as you go which i think i highly
recommend actually because then you’re
not like compounding all the side
effects of that toxic hunger as well as
really not eating for 12 you know 14
hours or whatever your 16 hours kind of
thing you’re actually just doing things
step by step so it’s a little easier on
your body to deal with right
and i love to say also that if you’re feeling starved
just try to eat more during the day okay
so during that window that you are
eating try to have bigger meals and this
is a thing that i think
people have so much problem with in the
beginning of the eat to live diet
because they really don’t understand
that we mean like huge though we don’t
mean like you know a salad like you
might side salad you might get a
restaurant or like even any kind of
salad you might get at a restaurant we
mean like double that triple that
quadruple that for reals like a salad is
something that’s going to shrink down
crazy smaller size than what the
original salad was before you started
chewing it and you’re gonna actually
have so much more comfortable digestion
in that respect okay so first of all
make sure that the meals that you’re
eating are large enough so we’re talking
about like very large smoothies we’re
talking about very large salads
you know big quantity of food to make
sure that when you actually do
intermittent fasting and you try to stop
eating at three four five
six pm that you’re not like ravenous by nine pm okay
the other thing to mention is that
there’s a whole mindset part of this too
that like if you are struggling with not
eating at seven eight nine pm could it
be and this is what you wanna be asking
yourself at seven eight nine pm could it
be that i’m actually just craving and
i’m not actually hungry so a trick for
that is just have a huge glass of water
right like just go drink like 8 12 16
ounces of water and you know wait 15
minutes and see what happens you know do
you feel starved again afterwards if you
do then you just didn’t eat enough food
during the day or you’re going through
this toxic stuff right and you’re just
detoxing kind of a thing i suggest that
you eat more food and give this some
time to work this through and then also
consider maybe intermittent fasting just
isn’t right for you at this moment maybe
you want to wait a few more weeks for
your body to calm down a little bit
after eating you know a ton of nutrition
foods for a few weeks get that body
really like in fighting shape and then
add in intermittent fasting okay now
what i want to mention too is there’s
this like mental thing that happens with
people who are like no i have to eat
this way right now because i have to
reverse this thing and this is really
bad already and whatever and i have to do this right now
and this is such a slippery concept
because folks feel like yes i’m sold on
this diet i need to eat this way now
but i can’t possibly
do this 100 i’m just not good at it yet
right and they start to get really down
on themselves because they can’t be
perfect and that is such a terrible like
um catch 22 to be stuck in so what i try
to teach and when i try to coach
especially in the eat to live family is
let’s do small shifts okay let’s do
small shifts we’re just doing one thing
at a time this thing now this thing now
let’s try to tackle this thing in this
thing because when you try to do
everything all at once our perfectionism
kicks in and we’re like no we got to get
it all right and then when something is
off in real life and we can’t handle it
then we think oh i’ll never get it right
right and it’s this total catch 22. so
my thought is more and the way that i coach folks is
let’s do one thing at a time let’s add
in another thing when we’re truly ready
okay and you’ll know that you’re ready
for intermittent fasting because you you
know you’re getting through toxic hunger
you’re really familiar with the cooking
techniques and how to make these salads
and and you also i would actually say
and i’m just formulating this idea right
now but i would actually say that
understand how to create nutritarian
weight loss with three meals a day first
first of all the first small shift is no
more snacking okay so if you’re still
snacking you know that’s not really like
the nutritarian protocol okay so so
figure out how you can learn to not
snack anymore so let’s go to three meals
a day and then once you can get a good
protocol of foods that keep you satiated
during the day but also create weight
loss which by the way this is what we do
in our our 21 and five day challenges
and the free 90 challenge on my website
or on my what i eat in a day videos on
the youtube as well when you can learn
what foods you need in order to be
satiated and lose weight
that’s when you move on to the next step
right so i would like to suggest that if
you haven’t cut out snacking first
figure out how to do that get good at
that and be comfortable with that then
figure out how to have only three meals
a day and learn how to lose weight on
those three meals a day
maybe you like to just do two meals a
day anyways like that’s what i was like
in college it was just kind of always
natural for me to intermittent fast even
though i was doing the later in the day
intermittent fasting which brings me to
another point later in the day
intermittent fasting so what i’m trying to say is
do things that work for you now and just
work on getting towards that kind of
ideal of having everything
in in the nutritarian kind of um you
know perspective like try to get all of
those things under control over time
like add in this then at you know cut
out snacking then have you know three
meals a day only or and then go to two
meals a day and try intermittent fasting
or spread those meals out or have really
big meals and then work on not
overeating ever and having the right
amount of nuts and seeds and you know
making sure there’s no
salt anymore and these things you you
learn to incorporate into your lifestyle
as you go instead of trying to do all
the things perfectly at once is
typically what happens to people and
causes them to fall off the lifestyle
and think that it’s impossible but when
we are doing these things little by
little and going like okay now this
month i’m going to be working on trying to do some in
intermittent fasting or this month i’m
going to be working on cutting down my
salt intake or whatever right
when we do it in this way it’s possible
for our brains to kind of wrap itself
around what’s even happening instead of
having all this stimulus around us okay
so consider those things um
and that was a long answer to your
question michelle but um but yeah so so
i would like to say that um
if you’re finding yourself having
trouble sticking to the program because
you’re starving then you’re not doing it
right right you have to find ways to eat more
and lose weight which typically means
i mean if weight loss is your goal but
typically that means you need to
increase the amount of non-starchy
vegetables learn how to make those
things taste amazing so that you really
like doing that we have a billion ideas
on that on my channel and in the eat to
live family and our challenges and all that
learn how to do that stuff first figure
that out then add in the other parts and
see you know reach out for help too find
out why these things are aren’t um
aren’t working for you and what you
might change and there’s so much
information out there okay now we have
some questions from some of my eat to
the family that’s my group monthly group
coaching membership so debbie says how
much does an ounce or two of plant milk
and a beverage affect the fast different
experts say different things so this is
a really great question i get all the
time can i have coffee in the morning if
i’m if i’m not i’m going to fast until
you know 12 1 pm or whatever i choose to
do the later day fast idea which by the
way remember you get to choose whatever
you want here so if you want to be doing
the later day fast which is maybe a
little bit less benefit for longevity
and things like that but maybe helps you
with the you know the cravings and the
weight loss and things like that maybe
that works best for you cool so a lot of
people always ask can i have coffee in
the morning or how much
creamer or how much plant milk can i put
in the coffee to not break the fast and
i would like to unfortunately break it
to you that zero
that’s unfortunately the answer here
from dr fuhrman i was reading it in the
member forum dr fuhrman has a member
forum where you can ask i mean you can
just search for anything in the member
forum from the from i think it was like
questions in there and there are like
you know tons and tons of answers on
there and unfortunately in several
places he says that coffee is actually not
it will actually break a fast then
because it contains caffeine caffeine so
it’s actually a stimulant which probably
he says probably interrupts the detox
process of the fasting state right and
so he says the only thing that you can
really have in the morning in order to
maintain a fast or any time you’re
fasting is uh no caffeine herbal tea or
water right so those are the two things
that you could have so no amount of
plant milk is going to be okay no amount
of you know i know a lot of people say
that like oh you can have whole milk in
your coffee and that doesn’t make a no
there’s tons of calories in there that
totally affects the fast and it totally
affects the whole point of the
intermittent fasting which is to get
those detox benefits right and the detox
benefits occur when the body is no
longer digesting having caffeine
stimulating the body or having some
plant milk some calories running through
your system is like still having some
kids in that pep rally like kind of you
know making their way home but still
hanging out in the gym right that’s what
that’s kind of like so it’s going to
affect it i mean how much it affects it
i have no idea but
it definitely is part of that so i want
and that will break that fast unfortunately
so another question here from christy
so christy says is it really um who is
in the eat to live family as well is it
really a good idea to fast for 24 hours
one day a week i hear mixed reviews
so this is the thing about this so this
is in line with the you know other fast
that dr greger was talking about on that
infographic that he has which is linked
in the show notes
i personally think that there’s actually
nothing wrong with a little bit of
fasting like that every once in a while
if you’re good at it okay so like i was
talking about before like for me
personally i’m not a very good faster
because i tend to get really cravy i get
a little irritable and cranky and i
don’t really like how i act when i’m
like that and my thought is like
why fast if i don’t need to right like
why not continue to flood my body with
these wonderful nutrients if i can get
to my goal weight and i can stay at my
goal weight and things like that
wouldn’t i prefer to learn how to do
that and do that consistently than
putting in 20 hour fast 24 hour fast in
order to do that now i don’t think that
there’s anything wrong with doing that
can handle it right
but it is more of the like idea that
most people can’t handle it because of
the mood effects that they have because
the energy it’s kind of tough to
maintain your energy if it’s just a 24
hour fast like you notice if you do a
longer fast after about day three four
is when you start to get more energy but
those first few days you’re just dealing
with detoxing a bunch of stuff right so
especially if you’re not like 100
no processed food like you know
nutritarian you’re going to have some
stuff to detox in that first day which
will probably make you feel a little bit
poorer just in that first day and then
most folks would end up overeating the
next day to kind of make up for that so
you want to like this is such a personal
thing you really want to be able to be
creating a protocol for you that works for you and
most importantly i think
looking at what your
intention is for the fast is the
intention weight loss because if it is stop it because
you can learn to lose weight as dr
fermin always says and this is a hundred
percent true weight is lost in the
kitchen and gained in the gym so if you
want to build muscle and gain weight go
to the gym lift some weights right if
you want to lose weight 100 do that with
your food it is so
simple to do if you learn to follow this
lifestyle it’s so simple to do it’s not
easy when you’re coming from sandrick
and diet it can take a little while to
learn this process but it’s so easy to
lose the weight once you get that dialed
in and so i say why not do it that way
if you can if it’s just about weight
loss then do it with your food instead
and you can save the fasting you know
once you get really good at it if you’d
like to do some type of a fast and
you’re already or go away that’s totally
cool right or just use intermittent
fasting to get those detox benefits okay
chantal in the eat to live family says
due to the kind of work i do i could
easily do intermittent fasting for a few
days a week like three to four but
mostly most likely not the other days is
it worth it if you cannot consistently
do this yes a hundred percent you’re
still going to get those amazing
benefits no matter how many days a week
you do it so do it as much as you can or
as little as you can there’s nothing
wrong with doing it all the time if you
want to just do two meals a day all the
time that’s totally fine there’s nothing
wrong with that um and if you want to
just do it every once in a while that’s
fine too i personally will do just a few
days out of the week just like that
chantal and and then you know we’ll end
up the other days just having three
meals or whatever kind of works for my
schedule so totally fine and jessica in
the italy family asks is a pattern of
overeating after incorporating
intermittent fasting in a 16-8
iaf schedule for a female who’s
pre-menopausal linked to thoughts or
hormones um so this is a great question
and certainly there could be some
hormonal you know involvement in this
but i would say that definitely as i was
mentioning before this is a thought
thing happening here so it’s the way
that we think about it the way that we
crave and the way that we think about
food that is at this point where oh no
i’m about to cut off my eating for the
day it’s going to be a long time before
i get to eat again i’m worried about
that i’m worried about my hunger right
we have all these thoughts about this
like what’s going to happen if i stop
eating i can’t really do it and then we
end up overeating because of those
thoughts right where if we could go into
it with a very calm countenance like
this is all good i can i’ve had hunger
before i don’t care about hunger it’s
fine like i can be hunger i’m not hungry
i’m not gonna die you know if we had more of a
perspective or a mindset like that
intermittent fasting would be a breeze
right and even if you got hungry a
little bit afterwards you know you
wouldn’t be overeating because you knew
that hunger was not an issue kind of a thing okay
all right and the last question comes
from my brain because i know
many of you are thinking this and i’ve
actually seen this asked so many times
this idea about intermittent fasting in
dinner time so how is it and we’ve had a
lot of people who’ve had this question
come up on our challenges as well
because typically when our challenge is
up the dinners are very small there’s
that sort of proper mentality of just a
very small dinner just to get you
through until bedtime right so
this question of what do i do if my
family is used to a regular dinner and i
want to start eating less i’ve had
people talk about how they’re worried
their kids are going to think they have
an eating disorder or their kids are
going to start to have their own eating
disorder because they see mom not eating
and this kind of a thing right so
i would like to say from my perspective
as a mother i have a four-year-old and i
have two one-year-old twins
the way that we eat with our family
certainly does teach our children things right
but to be fearful that eating for health
is going to teach them negative things
is just that it’s just fear okay
we have the ability to educate our
children on whatever topic that we want
to and so education in this way can be
very important because if we’re doing
something because it creates the best
health health outcome for us wouldn’t we
want our kids to learn about it too okay
so yes of course we want our kids to
learn about it too because maybe when
they’re 18 24 36 whatever they’re gonna
want to be able to do something like
this as well and understand these things
and understand why they’re useful right
i don’t recommend fasting by any means
for a child or for a teenager or
anything like that they need like the
opposite they need tons of calories to
you know keep developing and things like
that but for them to be able to see that mom
can take control of her own eating and
does something that’s best for her body
at the point where her body is right
like mom is 48 and she doesn’t need to
eat as much food right now and it’s
important for her to eat for her own
hunger and her own you know these are
all healthy concepts to teach a child
it’s all healthy to have a child understand that
this is within their own control their
eating habits are in their own control
and we should do it based on what we
feel is going to help us with longevity
and you know healthful outcomes right
and then there’s the practical aspect of
how do you actually do this when you
need to prepare a big huge dinner for
your family or you need to um you know
eat with them and you’re just having a
green juice and they’re having this
wonderful mashed potatoes and meat or
whatever right so yeah that’s a huge
that’s a huge question and that’s
actually the question that we answer
this kind of
how do i do this when the world around
me isn’t doing it we answer that in the
eat to the family it’s all mindset it is
our thoughts how do we
how does one
use discipline how does one have
discipline in the face of things that we
don’t want to have discipline about right
that is mindset that is using the
techniques that we teach in the eat to
live family and the techniques that we
teach in my coaching programs
we even talk about this a little bit in
the challenges as well using these
techniques to learn how to
do something for our health in the face
of a world that does not do things for
their health okay and especially if we
have a family that has always eaten
standard american diet perhaps or you
know may be helpful but just not as
helpful as us or or maybe they eat these
beautiful wonderful nutritarian meals at
night and you really want some and you
want to have some nuts and things like
that as well but you know on the menu is
only you know a green juice or something like that
or maybe you just want to skip dinner in the face of all that
learning to control your mindset around
that and create discipline in these
moments is what creates that longevity
for us because it ensures that we’re
going to be eating healthfully for our
particular bodies our particular
metabolisms what our needs are
calorically and weight wise and all that
kind of stuff when we can get that stuff
figured out and learn how to do it in
the face of all those other things
that’s when we truly gain control and
when we have had led a lifetime of being
out of control in this respect i know i always had
when we start to learn this control we
can apply it in any situation that we
come across in our life not just with
food but with many other things that we
need discipline for okay so this is what
we teach this is how this this mindset
component of it is everything
and so i just want to mention you know a couple things there
you can do this anyone listening to this
podcast right now has the tool that they
need in order to do what i’m talking
about which is your brain everyone has
one of those i know because you’re
listening to this podcast right and also
the other the last note i want to make
about it is with your family
when we equate love with sitting down
and having a meal with somebody
let’s question that for a sec okay what
is love actually and what do we actually
want our definition of love to be with
our families now maybe it always maybe
you’re italian right or maybe it always
has been the sit down dinner at night
who’s to say that you can’t shift over
time the idea of that love what is that
love right love is actually the together
part it’s not the pasta right we have erroneously
tied them together this whole time but
it’s actually that’s actually not love
when we know that’s actually the
opposite of love because it doesn’t
create longevity it doesn’t create you
know long-term being around it creates
disease and things like that right so
what is love actually how do we actually
show love so that’s what we work to this
is all mindset stuff right this is what
we’re talking about in the intelli
family we work to rework that idea what
is our idea of love and do we have to
have do we have to like
do we have to be eating the same meal as
the person next to us in order to be
loving each other no that sounds silly
when you say it that way right do we have to be
on the same diet plan in order to be
connected with someone no that sounds
silly too like that’s not true so can we
redefine the way that we show love and
the way that we experience love can we
redefine it for our kids too can we
redefine it and now these things can
take time but can we redefine it for a
husband as well like we don’t have to be
eating the same foods to be loving or
enjoying a moment we what is enjoyment
come from it comes from
just actually physically sitting next to
each other and experiencing a memory at
the same moment right that can be our
definition of love and so we can shift
our idea of dinner time all together
right or sunday supper we can shift the
whole thing to what we want it to be and
what actually incorporates our health as
well so those are the questions you
start to ask yourself especially when
you get in my world you start to ask
yourself that kind of stuff and i will
be asking you that stuff too especially
if you join the eat till the family
that’s all we ever talk about is how can
we shift from those beliefs and those
thought patterns that we have to create
beliefs and thought patterns that create
the results we’re looking for okay whoa i think i
i think that’s everything i had so much
to say in this one because there’s
there’s just so much wonderful research
about this now and i’ve gotten so many
questions about this over the years so i
hope that i got most of this if you have
any other questions
you know feel free to reach out to me on social media or
join the intelli family because this is
the place where we talk all about this
nitty gritty you could imagine it like
facebook um but only for nutritarians
only for people who want to eat to live
you didn’t you don’t have to be 100
nutritarian by the way you can be like
any you can be like one percent
nutritarian or it can be like zero
percent nutritarian but interested to
join the utility family and understand
just how to eat healthfully right
imagine it’s like facebook um with
hundreds of folks just like you who want
to eat to help want to eat healthy who
are anywhere on that healthy eating
spectrum but more importantly want to
learn the mindset over how to do it long
term and consistently and there’s so
many like i have so many courses and
programs and free 21 day challenges and
and me i’m in there too every single day
answering questions and helping folks
with their issues and all that so
consider joining the italo family
because this is where we dig into this stuff
and you can go to nourishyourlifestyle.com
family to learn more thank you so much
for hanging out with me on this podcast
i hope you loved it and i will see you
in the next episode
