Part 2 - It's Not a Diet, It's a Quiet - Intermittent Fasting with Laurie Lewis
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September 21, 2021 - Episode #77 - Part 2 - It's Not a Diet, It's a Quiet - Intermittent Fasting with Laurie Lewis
You want to improve your health, you want to lose weight, you desperately want to just feel better….but everywhere you turn there is confusing and conflicting information. It’s ridiculous. Do you try to fast or is that starving yourself? Should you follow a strict diet? Do you need to eat differently as you get older? All of these questions are swirling in your mind. Yet at the same time, you have people depending on you for everything. The stress, the overwhelm is REAL. Listen my friend, this is why I started this podcast to begin with. To provide you with simple, easy to understand information so you finally take control of your health. Today is Part 2 of our series on Intermittent Fasting. It’s not a Diet-It’s a Quiet with Health Coach Laurie Lewis. Before I get into the details of today's podcast, if you are tired of spiraling and ready to overcome the overwhelm, why not get the personalized help you need? Book a one-hour, virtual, health coaching session at https://www.inspirehealthyharmony.com/coaching.html#/ Today's podcast is chock full of helpful info as we continue the discussion on Intermittent Fasting. During this episode you will hear us discuss...
Lots of great info!! Next week, I'll be answering your questions about intermittent fasting and weight loss! Click here to email me your question [email protected] or you can submit your question on the FB group page https://bit.ly/FMwomenswellness You can find Laurie Lewis at www.fastforwardwellness.com or on Instagram @fast_forward_wellness Read Full Transcript below Where else to listen: (note: Google is only available on android devices)
FULL TRANSCRIPT September 21, 2021 - Episode #77 - Part 2 - It's Not a Diet, It's a Quiet - Intermittent Fasting with Laurie Lewis Speaker 1: You want to improve your health? You want to lose weight. You desperately just want to feel better but everywhere you turn, there's confusing and conflicting information. It's ridiculous. Do you try to fast or is that starving yourself? Did you follow a strict diet? Do you need to eat differently as you get older? All of these questions are swirling in your mind yet. At the same time, you have people depending on you for everything, the stress, the overwhelm is real. Listen, my friend, this is why I started this podcast to begin with, to provide you with simple, easy to understand information. So you can finally take control of your health. Today is part two of our series on intermittent fasting. It's not a diet. It's a quiet with health coach. Laurie Lewis. Welcome to the Healthy Harmony podcast. I'm Jennifer Pickett, Dietitian turned Functional Medicine Health Coach. I help spiraling moms overcome the overwhelm through functional wellness coaching for the body, mind, and soul so they can transform their health and live a deeply fulfilled life of freedom and harmony let's get real when it comes to your health, you know what to do. I strongly believe that to make the shift from knowing to doing you must supply mindfulness, listen to your body address what's really driving that behavior. Be intentional and finally practice some self-compassion. The last 24 years of experience have taught me that the absolute last thing a woman needs is a lecture about self care and another unrealistic diet plan. I recognize the importance of compassionate and intentional health practices. So you can feel good because guess what? When you feel good, you are more likely to make better decisions for your health. If you're ready to take control of your complete health, address the obstacles standing in your way and live a life of freedom and harmony you, my friend, are in the right place real quick. Before I introduce our guests. If you're tired of spiraling and ready to overcome the overwhelm, Hey, I've got you. My friend book, a one-hour virtual health coaching [email protected]. Laurie Lewis is an intermittent fasting coach and author. As you heard last week, she lost 51 pounds in 15 months, and she kept it off for years nails. She coaches others. He is the owner and founder of fast-forward wellness and often says about intermittent fasting. It's not a diet, it's a quiet. So here is part two of our conversation. Speaker 2: Me and people who are really interested in having your goals met in terms of fat loss and restoring, especially women in menopause, balancing our hormones. I really encourage people to work up to an a gradual, you know, self-discovery customized way work up to 18 or 19 hours fasted. And that can take some time, or some people just want to rip the band aid off and go for broke from it's like, ah, I don't recommend that you're going to kick her out. Right. But I would feel so well, like I could it's as if I could feel my body healing after 18 hours. It's really hard to explain my skin kind of tingly. I felt like at, and a lot of intermittent fasters do report that, that in the big fat loss months that they feel like they can feel it. So that's amazing. Speaker 1: Now, obviously there's just some controversy with intermittent fasting. And I know you've heard the same thing that I've heard from clients. It just didn't work for me. I tried it, it worked for my husband. It didn't work for me. So let's talk about the difference in intermittent fasting for women and for men. Like what is the difference here and what does a woman need to keep in mind? Speaker 2: You know, I really feel like obviously we are different, but I know men who fast for 23 hours and eat one meal in one hour and close their eating window. And like my friend Graham Curry, he's from Australia. And he has a podcast called the fasting highway and a book. And that was his regimen. He is morbidly obese and had severe health issues. And for people who need to turn the corner quickly having, you know, I guess some people would call that extreme, but I would call it lifesaving for some. So for some men, 23, 1 is great for other men. They're like, you know what? I think I'd feel better pushing my breakfast till 10 and closing my eating window at six. And so they have an eight hour eating window and fast for 16 hours. And again, you're asleep for seven or eight of it. I, I know that 16/8 for a lot of men is a great way to live. So, and again, for men who have a lot of weight to lose, so we are all different. You could look at a checklist and say, okay, here's a 40-year-old man with, you know, 80 pounds to lose who has this particular level of fitness and this job and, and one fasting schedule will work well for one person and a different one for the other. So it's very much a personal discovery. And then for women the same. Now my experience is that with women over 50 and women in menopause, we do need to work up to a longer fasting hours and a shorter eating window. And that's throughout human history that women in menopause, we need less food. We don't need to eat so much. And there's a magical thing that happens. And when it happens, you'll recognize it up until then. It's just their radical right called appetite correction. Dr. Bert herring wrote a book called the fast five. He and his wife discovered they're both physicians that for them, or they're both doctors, sorry that for them, I'm fasting for 19 hours and eating in a five hour eating window. It was just a great way to live. Nice big snack. You pause, eat a big meal and window closed, right? And then you fast for 19 hours and you're getting into great fat-burning and autophagy. And it's just a great way to live. And then the next book that he wrote was, is called AC the power of appetite correction. So there's this wonderful thing that happens. We're like a wild animal. We have an appestat and up tight center in our brain that regulates our hunger hormones and our satiety hormones. And right now, because we eat all the time, it's broken, it doesn't work. And so we think every time our stomach growls and every time we have thought of food that we're supposed to eat, no, we are not. That is not how humans are designed. So when you have been clean fasting, fasting, clean for a considerable amount of time, day in and day out, and you become fat adapted and your body is, is lowering your circulating insulin and tapping into your fat stores for fuel. Your body starts our bodies start to tell us what to eat and how much to eat. And you will find, we will find, I have found that there are foods that I used to crave and be interested in that I have no more interest in. I will also find that something that I used to be able to eat up like a whole wrap or something, right. Or three pieces of pizza, whatever, whatever a normal thing used to be for you that, oh, I, my body's telling me I've had enough. So the feeling, the experience of appetite correction is kind of a quiet communication that, oh, we've had enough that you can stop eating. Now I don't need anymore. Like stop eating. Speaker 1: Yeah. Which is so very helpful. Right. But I think we have to develop that skill no matter where we're at in our, in our health journey, develop that skill of listening to our body. And we have ignored the signals that our body is giving us. And so part of this journey I see is really learning to become more mindful and self-aware, and listen to the body so that when you have this appetite, correction and the body saying, you know what, I'm good that you stop. Like, it's, it really can be that simple. Right. Speaker 2: Well, and you learn, you learn through experience. So I'm just love my coaching so much because I hear week after week, you know, my glance experiences, I know, you know how gratifying this is when they're like, oh, oh, it happened. The, you know, my, I looked at that extra slice of pizza that was sitting there and I just wasn't interested. And it's like, who am I? Normally I would suck pizza. Wouldn't last a minute. I, somebody has discard it down and it's going to be me. Right. But if you don't listen to the thought of, we've had enough, you can wrap that up or offer it to someone else. Right. if we don't listen and we have that when, after our body said enough, we don't feel very well. It's, it's a different physical sensation. Like we all know what it feels like to be stuffed. Like you go to a steakhouse for dinner and it's a celebration. Then you just eat way too much. And you have to unbutton the top of your, your clothing. Right? Well, that's feeling stuffed appetite. Correction is different. It's not a stuffed, it's a done like we're just done. Speaker 1: It's a pleasant, it's a pleasant experience, right. Is satisfied, Speaker 2: Satisfied, and it doesn't take much willpower. Now, what I've found does take willpower is especially for women, I believe women in menopause, perimenopause, women, over 50, you know, we've turned this corner in our lives that making a concerted effort to reduce or eliminate refined sugar and ultra-processed food and even reduce or eliminate alcohol and definitely reduce caffeine. We will feel better. We will have a higher quality experience of feeling good day-to-day and sleeping. Well, if we couple our fasting regimen with some food changes. Speaker 1: So let's dig deeper into that. So let's talk about cutting out, cutting out some of those things and how to do that. Maybe without ripping the bandaid off, what would that look like? Speaker 2: Well, you know, people are funny. They say, okay, Laurie Lewis, you say that fasting. Isn't a diet, but now you're telling us to change our food. I'm like, okay, let's look at it this way. Establish your clean fasting regimen, drink, plain water, plain black coffee, no flavors, plain bitter black or green tea. If you like black or green tea, plain blank, blank, blank, blank. And then when you make your decision to your eating window and you eat what you eat, you really want to pay attention to how you feel. And over time that again, the appetite correction, your body will steer you towards foods. You never liked like brussel sprouts. What you're thinking about scrambled eggs for days, you should help them. Your body is saying, eat that right? And that, that compulsion, that feeling drawn towards those foods is not like a craving. It's not a loud screaming like with its claws dug into you. It's a, it's a persistent, like, you know, scrambled eggs and spinach sends really good again. And again, and again, it gets kind of calm, but persistent. And so listening to the body in the communication with appetite, correction, but also make a concerted effort to listen to the body and eat the foods that you love. But the foods that love you back, and I'm not going to demonize sugar, ice cream is delicious. But if you notice that it keeps you up at night and you get restless leg, and then fasting is harder the next day and two hours after eating ice cream, you're absolutely ravenous. And all the, all the ramifications of fallout of like a sugar hangover. And maybe you're someone who hasn't even noticed the sugar hangover because you have it all the time. You just feel like generally unwell all the time. That once you step out of that and you have this, whoa. Now I know I have a glimpse of what it feels like to feel better. I'm not going back and I'm going to keep one of the things I really work with people on is eradicating diet, culture, diet, mindset, diet, speak, diet talk, and they don't even hear it. Like a lot of people say to me, oh, I've, I'm not much of a dietor, and then they talk about being good and these foods are bad. And if I eat them, I'm bad and I have to try and cheating and on the wagon and it's just pervasive. And so I am constantly encouraging people to step into the world of feeling good. Not being good. It's not about being good. You do not have to be good. Oh, you can't have that today because you're being good. No, I've actually discovered it. Doesn't make me feel very well. So I'm not going to eat that today. You know? So it's like a lightness. It's an awareness. It's a, it's just a, you know what, I'm 58 years old and I'm done doing things that make me not feel well. I'm living it out, looking up. Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think, again, it goes back to that. Self-Awareness that mindfulness it's, that's always the best starting point, no matter what you're going to try, just become more mindful. Okay. I ate this now I feel this way. And that goes both ways, you know, but if we can become more mindful, I'm such a firm believer in my clients hear this all the time. We become more mindful than we become more intentional. Wait a minute. I had this for lunch. I felt really cruddy. So maybe that's not the best choice for me. And to sustain the more we eat something, the more we crave it. And that is certainly the case with bigger and processed foods. The more we eat, the more we crave. And then it's just a horrible cycle. Speaker 2: It's yes. And the food, I say, food in air quotes, the food is designed that way. It is designed with the intense flavor and the perfect crunch. And we love the packaging and it's nostalgic and it's right there. It's convenient. And you know, something, you said Jennifer about feel like the food makes us feel unwell. I have noticed maybe you have too, that people aren't even aware of food, making them feel bad. So I have to break it down, like, okay, if you get ravenously hungry and you know, 30 minutes or an hour or two hours later, like really hungry, then that what you just ate did that if you have achy joints or you feel puffy or you don't sleep well, or you get moody and experienced anxiety or depression like that, all of those not, or you feel foggy or you feel sluggish and fatigued, all of that could be a fallout of what you just ate. Yeah. And I'm reminded too, of the question you asked earlier about if a woman says, you know, intermittent fasting is working great for my partner or my spouse, but it's not working great for me. I really think that's an opportunity to dig into what is your fasting schedule? Are you fasting clean? What are you eating? Are you also dieting in your eating window? Because that slows the metabolism, right? So there's this experience of needing to eat, learn, to eat, to satiety. So you know, how much is too much food and how much is enough food? That's a personal discovery. And yes, some people do well on 19 five. Other people do better on 17, seven, you know? And I would say an important tip would be that no matter what your eating window is, is that you eat and you pause and you eat again later. And so you eat a small amount to satiety. Hunger is gone. You're satisfied. Some days you need more food. Some days you need less. That's okay. If you eat more because your body asks for it, that doesn't mean you overate. If you're eating mindfully. So you open your eating window and you eat, sit down, pause, breathe. We all need a break. Right? Speaker 1: Slow down, slow down. Speaker 2: If you are standing at the counter or the fridge or the cupboard eating, I want everybody to hear my voice on your shoulder saying, Hey, put it on a plate. Yeah. Have a seat, take a breath. Speaker 1: Thank you. Take a pause. Just stop and enjoy. There's so much that goes into this. And there's, you know, these concepts, you know, we can pull in the science and make it sound all complicated. But I think what I love about talking to you, it's not complicated. It doesn't have to be complicated. It does take that very personalized individualized approach. And you referenced the diet and industry. And I want us to go there. Cause I know this is, you know, a soapbox for both of us being health coaches and helping people every single day. I think we have to get to that understanding that these industries have, they have no desire to support our health. It has nothing to do with health. They're just trying to make money. And you've made a very strong statement about how the diet industry has really led to this epidemic of obesity. I want you to talk about that a little bit. Well, Speaker 2: Well, it really hit me when I heard years ago, someone say we've dieted our way into obesity. So every, I don't know many people who have lost whatever weight they needed to lose to be healthy and to feel good and kept it off there aren't many, right? And I'm very interested in the people who have, because I want to know exactly what they did and what they're still doing. And most people experience freedom with their weight and their health when it just, it, they keep it very simple. And I, I love interviewing older people who seem to be naturally slender and they have a lot of rules for themselves. They don't eat in the car, they don't snack, they eat a meal and they pause. They often don't eat breakfast. And so there's a, a natural ease and, and not a compulsion to eat all the time. And we have been fed ultra-processed food now really since the late forties and to, as a convenience, as a way to empower women, you know, to have life be easier and cooking, be easier and, and work, you know, it's, that's great convenience. And and yet we've also been fed a lot of lies and we, you know, take xylitol. For example, people are like, oh, that's natural. Oh, when was it? Now? It has birchbark in it somewhere. Like, there's nothing natural about that. Stevia. No, there's multi dextrin in it. I mean, it's like, so we have been fed all these air quotes food that we trust our food that we imagine our body knows what to do with and our bodies don't. And so then when we're uncomfortable and unhappy and sicker and sicker, our doctors say, well, in order to regain your health unit need to lose weight. And it's like, well, are you gonna help me lose weight until you don't even know how to do that? Right. I had an exercise. Oh, okay. That's unhelpful. And so we slow our metabolism and we're miserable by eating little tiny meals throughout the day. And we're never experiencing satiety and the metabolism slows. And then we may be cling to some hope that we'll reach our goal weight. And then we go back to whatever we did before and we gain it all back and more. Yes. Speaker 1: And I hear this every single day from individuals, every single day, a lifetime of dieting Speaker 2: Right now, some people say to me, well, well, when I was intermittent in the beginning and losing the weight and restoring my health, I'll never forget the first time someone said to me, well, what are you gonna do when you reach here former goal, you know, your goal weight. I was really trying to get back to my healthful weight where I'd been most of my adult life. And so I had this box of clothing from 2012, that fit perfectly. And I liked those clothes. They were cute. I wanted to fit in them again. Right. And so this friend asked, what are you going to do when, when you reached that goal? And I thought, what kind of question is that? I guess that's a normal diet question. It's like, you reached the goal. And then, you know, you go back to, you know, you stopped drinking all the shakes and doing the diet things. And then it all comes back. And what was my answer was I've never felt better. So why would I change anything? Right. She was like, Laurie, you're going to keep fasting and keep eating and an eating window. And I'm like, well, science shows that it does match the design of human being to pause from eating and to eat mindfully in a concentrated amount of time and older people throughout. You know, you look at the blue zones, these places on earth, where, where humans lived to be over a hundred consistently, what are they doing? They're eating less and less kind of in a Kennan and a timeframe. And so why would I change anything? So I hit that. There was that fabulous day where I pulled down the box of clothing and I fit in everything. And I guess it's like, ding, ding thing, goal achieved. Fantastic. Didn't change a thing. Right. Just kept going. Yep. So here I am. Many years later, I am a statistic. I had a considerable amount of weight to lose and I set out to lose it. I lost it. That's a miracle. I reached my goal. That's a miracle and I've kept it off for years. That is the miracle. And I'm in menopause. I'm an older woman. Speaker 1: So I love it. I think this is just such an encouragement for women. And I think they've learned so much. So as we're talking about intermittent fasting, what would be your top three tips on how to get started with fasting? If someone's, maybe they've tried it before, or maybe they've, they're just trying to shift out of that diet mentality. They've tried all the things. What would you recommend is the best way to get started? Speaker 2: Well, I have my top 10 tips, so I'll grab three. Okay. So you I've said a few times fast and clean. I did rattle through what that is, but if you really want to understand the science and read the research, I recommend Jen Steven's book fast feast, repeat and read the chapters on the clean fast and what the claim fast is, is again, playing on flavored water. No squeeze a lemon. No, no food flavors, no sweetness. Okay. So the food flavors and the sweetness, even if you're like, but there's no calories or you know, that doesn't raise insulin there, all these, you know, ways to cut the corners. Okay. So food flavors and sweetness and nutrients stop a top of G raise insulin and stop the fat burning. So I have no interest in that. I have a complete interest in my body healing fully every day when I'm fasting. So I'm not going to cut corners. So it's plain, unflavored water, plain, unflavored black coffee, plain, unflavored bitter black or green tea with no ginger lemon grass. You know, not none of the things people say, what about detox? Tea? That's healthy. Well, that's getting your digestion going. If you want detox tea, save that for your eating windows. So the answer to, can I have this? Can I have that? Can I have this? Can I have, that is, yeah. You can have all those yummy things like lemon and that's good for you. Apple cider vinegar. Sure. In your eating window. Okay. So fast clean. The next thing would be that it's not a hard push. It's kind of like a yoga class. You would not overstretch yourself over, push yourself that it can be a stretch. It can take some concerted effort, like a tough yoga class, but you're not going to break yourself. Right? So this isn't, you know, the fasting Olympics that we really want to ease and listen to our body's signals, know what hunger wave feels like that you can get to the other side of really understand the physiology and, and have a nice stretch with fasting, but not a hard push and discover for yourself what eating window has you feel amazing? What works for your goals? What works for your physiology? What works for your family? Schedule your work, schedule your fitness, so ease and really relax into it. And that it, this is not, you know, fasting longer. Isn't better fasting in the way that's works for you is a beautiful discovery. And I encourage people to relax into it. And then I tip number three is to have more ways to measure your success than the scale. So I call it a scoreboard. It's like, what's on your scoreboard. What? So you could have the scale on there if you want to, but I'd also get an, a DEXA scan or an embodied composition scan. I would have your goal clothing with no stretch. I'd measure your waist. I'd take a picture of your face. You know, there, I would have a wins list of all the amazing things like my plantar fasciitis disappeared within three to four months of intermittent fasting. I didn't know that the inflammation in my body would have such a dramatic reduction that this debilitating pain would go away. So having more on your scoreboard than the number on the scale is my third tip. Speaker 1: Yes. So good. So, so good. I've just loved our time together today, as we kind of wrap things up, you and I could speak for hours about this topic. All right. So you give our listeners just kind of a final word of encouragement as, as we're signing off. Speaker 2: Oh, it's just the most natural thing in the world. And my word of encouragement would be to keep it really, all you have to do is ask yourself today, what time am I going to stop eating and then drink plain water and just note the time. And then what time am I going to eat tomorrow? And some people say, you know, intermittent fasting isn't for everybody. But it sure is. If you're aware of when you're going to stop eating and you're aware of when you're going to start eating, then we can all ask each other. What's your eating window today? And that would be as normal as you know anything. So, it’s not how did you sleep last night, how did you sleep last night? Right? We say, how'd you sleep? And yeah, when's your eating window? Speaker 1: Yeah, I liked that. I like that. Now I know our listeners are going to want to find you and connect with you. So give us all of that information on how they can do that. Speaker 2: Thank you. My business is called fast forward wellness and it's fast forward wellness.com. I coach people one-on-one, which is so customized and personal. And I have group programs. I've been leading group programs on zoom for three years. I was a zoom pioneer. I used to have to teach people how to use zoom and now I really do not need to anymore. Speaker 1: It's kind of funny, isn't it? Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. My group programs are called fast with Laurie and just join it, just go to fast-forward wellness and you can sign up to receive a two page PDF on just some details and benefits and how to start intermittent fasting. And I'd love to stay connected with people. It's important to me to support you. Speaker 1: So so kind of you Laurie, this has been such a enlightening conversation and just an encouraging conversation. You know, I think you went through such an intense struggle and you have brought us a lot of valuable information from your struggle. So I really appreciate you. Speaker 2: Thank you for the invitation. It's it's really a great joy for thank you, Jennifer. Speaker 1: You're welcome. I hope that you found the last two weeks informative and helpful that guidance does not stop there next week. I'll be answering your questions about intermittent fasting and weight loss for women. So you've got to get those questions to me as soon as possible ladies. So you can email me at [email protected]. You can DM me on Facebook, on Instagram @inspirehealthyharmony. Also, if you are part of our absolutely incredible Facebook group, functional medicine for weight loss, body, mind, soul wellness for women, I will have a post on there so you can submit your questions there as well. So I will put that link in the show notes. So you can be a part of that group. If you're not already, I can not wait to answer your questions next week. Thank you for being a part of this amazing listening community. I truly value your time and love just love being a resource for you my friend. |
