#62 How Intermittent Fasting Supports Weight Loss and Disease Prevention
Part 2

In part one of this series, you heard about my experience with intermittent fasting and the success I've had with weight loss, blood sugar control, and digestive issues since incorporating this popular diet strategy.

In today's show, Part 2, you'll hear the science behind intermittent fasting.

I'll tell you about why this dietary protocol isn't starvation and what studies are finding the difference between Intermittent fasting and traditional calorie-restricted diets.

It's time to start taking a serious look at the evidence supporting all of the benefits behind when you eat vs. what you eat.

Intermittent fasting has been shown to support weight loss, the metabolism of stored fat, including organ fat, blood sugar, and insulin regulation and cancer prevention beyond the benefits of calorie restriction.

I'll share several different ways you can incorporate intermittent fasting into your lifestyle...once you've discussed it with your doctor of course...and a few tips on overcoming challenges like timing and hunger while you're fasting.

If you're looking for a dietary solution to support your wellness, you definitely want to listen to this show.

Resources:

Fast Your Way to Wellness Program

Valter Longo on fasting, longevity and disease

Prolon: Fast Mimicking Diet

Studies:

Fasting and Caloric Restriction in Cancer Prevention and Treatment

Prevention of Tamoxifen-related Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease in Breast Cancer Patients

RCT of Caloric Restriction vs. Alternate-Day Fasting in Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

 Books:

Read the full transcript:

0:01
This is Laura Lummer, the breast cancer recovery coach. I'm a healthy lifestyle coach, a clinical Ayurveda specialist, a personal trainer, and I'm also a breast cancer survivor. In this podcast, we talk about healthy thinking and mindfulness practices, eating well, moving your body for health and longevity. And we'll also hear from other breast cancer survivors who have reengaged with life, and have incredible stories to share. This podcast is your go to resource for getting back to life after breast cancer.

0:38
Well, hello, and welcome to episode 62 of the breast cancer recovery coach. I am your host, Laura Lummer. And today is part two of our series on intermittent fasting and how intermittent fasting supports weight loss and disease prevention. And I'm super excited to bring this information to you because I just think intermittent fasting is a amazing dietary strategy. And I told you a lot about it in last week's episode, so I'm excited to share some of the science behind it with you today and see if it's something that may help you achieve your wellness goals, your weight loss goals, and your overall just healthy lifestyle goals. So before I get too far into this, I just want to say thank you so much to bear, Claire bear, Claire left a review for the breast cancer recovery coach podcast. And she said Laura's podcast, always full of golden nuggets of information and support. Great to remind you that you're doing okay. And can do things to help yourself, having someone on your side who gets it love it. Hugs and hugs back to you better. Claire, thank you so much for taking the time to leave that review. It means the world to me, it honestly does. And you bring it all the way from Great Britain. So that's really cool as well. Thank you again. And if you are a regular listener, or a new listener to the breast cancer recovery coach podcast, I would love it. If you could take a moment, go to the iTunes Store, go wherever it is that you listen to podcasts, and leave a star leave an art leave a star hopefully leave more than a star who leaves some stars leave an honest review. And that just means so much and really, really helps the podcast to be easier to find for other people who need that information. So that being said, let's jump into this because I know you want to hear it. I have received so many messages, so many DMS, emails, and people asking about intermittent fasting and anxious to try intermittent fasting. So I want to give you some more information. Last week I told you about my experience, and some fasting protocols that I've been using over the past few months with a lot of success. And today I'm going to tell you about the science behind intermittent fasting, why it is not starvation, and how it is different from following a low calorie or restricted calorie diet. So I'm at the point now where people are starting to notice and ask me and comment on the fact that I'm losing weight. And when they see that and they say, oh my god, what are you doing? And I tell them, I'm practicing intermittent fasting. And they say, oh, yeah, I've heard of that. So you're starving yourself? No, I'm not starving myself. But since that is such a common reaction. Let's clear that up right off the start. Now I like the way that Dr. Jason Fung states this in his book on fasting, which is called fasting. He says Starvation is the involuntary absence of food. It is neither deliberate nor controlled. starving people have no idea when and where their next meal will come from. Fasting on the other hand, is the voluntary withholding of food for spiritual health or other reasons. Now from a spiritual perspective, many religions and many spiritual practices recommend or regularly have a practice of fasting as a ritual to cleanse and prepare the body for a deeper connection with the Divine or to use fasting as a show of atonement for something. Now, as a kid, I was raised in a Catholic family in the Catholic Church, and I was always so happy when we got to go to church early on Sundays I wanted to go to the earliest mass we could because we were not allowed to eat after 5pm On Saturdays until we had gone to church. urge on Sunday and the morning masses the early early ones, even though I hated getting up for them as a kid, but then donuts outside and hot chocolate after the surfaces. And you know, if you've got a chocolate cake donut out there when I was a kid sold, I'll be there I'll show up. No much longer and more intense PFASs are a regular practice for other religions. For instance, Ramadan, where people fast from sunup to sundown every day for an entire month. Now, fasting is also popular in exercise and wellness. If you exercise regularly, you've probably heard of doing fasted state cardio, meaning that you don't eat before hitting the gym in the morning to do your cardio. So while you're doing your cardio, your body is accessing stored body fat for energy as the philosophy goes, rather than just your blood glucose that's elevated from a recently meal. So I do want to acknowledge that some people who suffer from eating disorders do starve themselves. But this is not a topic that's addressing those individuals. Okay, I'm just talking about intermittent fasting to support metabolic functions, as well as to attain and maintain a healthy weight, which also is a contributing factor to preventing disease. So that being said in this show, I want to talk about the impact that intermittent fasting has been shown to have on three specific areas of health. One, I want to talk about some of the science behind intermittent fasting and breast cancer recurrence to achieving and maintaining a healthy weight and three, reducing metabolic syndrome and the risk of or the severity of type two diabetes. So let's start with breast cancer recurrence. In March of 2016, the Journal of American Medical Association oncology published a study that was conducted at the University of California San Diego in the Moores Cancer Center. In this study, a team of scientists were very intrigued by all the results that they'd seen from rodent studies that showed when mice were subjected to a 16 hour fasting regimen on a regular basis. They were protected against some of the big indicators of poor cancer outcomes, including weight gain, inflammation, abnormal glucose levels. So these scientists decided to conduct their own study on a group of more than 2000 women, with an average age just over about 52. These women all had early stage invasive breast cancer, but none of them had type two diabetes. So these women fasted for an average of 12 and a half hours a night. And that's really not that tough, right? That's just not eating from 6pm to 6am, or 8pm to 8am. I'm sure you've done that before, if you don't do it regularly. So this group of women participated in the study for 12 years. And what they found was that those who fasted for less than 13 hours a day had a 36% higher risk of breast cancer recurrence compared to those who fasted for 13 hours or more on a regular basis. Now, the authors of that study acknowledged that studies on humans and intermittent fasting and breast cancer are virtually non existent. This was one of the first ones that was done, and that more information needs to be had and more studies should be done to confirm the findings that they had, but it's a really interesting study. Now, the MD Anderson Cancer Center also acknowledges that intermittent fasting has been shown to improve blood sugar control, promote weight loss, and that rodent studies have shown improvements in learning, memory and lifespan when they are subjected to intermittent fasting. But they also caution that intermittent fasting can be a difficult practice to maintain for some people. And they suggest that working towards a consistent, healthy, mostly plant based diet may be more sustainable. So I just want to put that out there for a little bit of balance. Now, let's admit as ladies, as much as we don't want to cancer recurrence, and we want to do all the right things to spare us from going through that hellish nightmare again, we also want to keep our girlish figure and yes, that's part vanity. But the truth is that in keeping close to that girlish figure, and keeping your weight at a healthy level, you also reduce your risk of breast cancer recurrence and that's a commonly known fact, the more overweight you are, if you have metabolic syndrome, pre diabetes or type two diabetes, you have a higher risk of cancer and a poor chance of positive outcomes from cancer treatment. So when I talk about weight loss, and establishing healthy eating patterns, it's not just about vanity here. Of course, that's always going to be a part of it, let's just be honest. But having a healthy weight is integral to a healthy lifestyle. So let's talk about the science behind intermittent fasting and weight loss. First, let's get clear on one thing when we're overweight, that is a simple fact that our bodies have an ample supply of stored energy. Body fat is stored energy, and it's there and your body can access it in times of hunger in times of a food shortage. However, if your body has stored fat on it, and you continue to feed it with ample amounts of food, regardless of if those foods are healthy foods, or unhealthy foods, their foods and they have calories, and your body is going to continue to use what it needs to sustain you and store the rest of that energy for the next food shortage, which may never come the way we tend to eat in the United well now around the world. Your body will store this energy in your butt in your gut, in your arms, and your face and your organs, your liver, your pancreas. And these are two really important organs when it comes to digesting food, and regulating your blood sugar and insulin levels. So you may be thinking, how is this different from eating a restricted calorie diet? Why would I go 1824 36 hours or more without food? Rather than just eat fewer calories every four hours throughout the day? Won't I get the same result. So again, I'm going to refer to a quote from Dr. Jason Fong in his ebook fasting, and I love Jason Fung because he's actually got a funny, he's a really smart guy who offers a lot of great information. And he also has a funny approach. So he says, falling from a building 1000 feet off the ground once will likely kill us. But is this the same as falling from a one foot wall 1000 times? Absolutely not. Yet the total distance fallen is still 1000 feet. And what he is referring to here is that a completely different reaction and response takes place in the human body in a fasted state, compared to when it is frequently fed a calorie restricted diet. Valter Longo is the editor and Jains professor of Gerontology at USC Leonard Davis School, and he's the director of longevity Institute, also at the University of Southern California. He's also one of the very first people to be on Time Magazine's list of 50 most influential people in health care and Valter Longo created prolong prolong is spelled P R O L O N, and it is a fast mimicking diet. Now he created this diet because he recognized that there were benefits that a calorie restricted diet had on the human body like reducing inflammation, increasing the production of human growth hormone reducing risk of cancer, diabetes and heart disease. But he also recognized the downside to calorie restricted diets, because he had a mentor who had a very severe, very restricted diet regimen. And he saw how hard that was and the stress that it put on this man's body. And not only are severe calorie restricted diets hard on the body. But as Jason Fung. I'm going to refer to this guy a lot in the show. But as Jason Fung puts it, calorie restricted diets have a failure rate of 99.5%. And that's a true number. It's a very serious failure rate. And therein lies one of the big differences between following a calorie restricted diet versus intermittent fasting. Now many people who are unfamiliar with intermittent fasting or like me, were trained in our current Nutrition and Exercise Science models. And they'll tell you, if you don't eat regularly, your metabolism is going to be ruined. Your body's going to break down your muscle to get the nutrients that you need because you're not eating enough. And the more muscle you have on your body, the higher your metabolism. So the theory goes that if you're not eating enough, you break down muscle and your metabolism slows In fact, since 1944, when Ancel Keys led a team of scientists to conduct the starvation study at the University of Minnesota, we've known that when you reduce calories through a calorie restricted diet, your body reduces its energy output to match the reduction of energy input, meaning you eat less, your body starts to burn less. And let me just clarify that the starvation study wasn't fasted, he wasn't giving people no food, he was restricting the amount of calories that these men were consuming. And it was about a 1500 calorie diet that he put them on most of the time. And what he found was that if you eat fewer calories, in just a short period of time, your body will adjust and it will burn fewer calories in order to preserve energy for maintaining the vital functions of your body. Now, of course, you can lose weight like this, and you probably have millions of people have, and then they hit a weight loss plateau. And then as you probably have also experienced, you start to gain weight back. And sometimes you gain weight back, plus more weight. Because when your metabolism drops in accordance with your calorie intake, your metabolism stays lower. So when you go back to your normal eating patterns, let's say you're reading a 2000 calorie a day diet in order to maintain your weight. But now 2000 calories a day has you seven pounds heavier than you were before you initially went on a diet and lost weight. And that's because your body adjusts your metabolic rate. And now it's keeping it there. Because it wants to store more energy for later in case you ever run out of food. Awesome, right? Like your body is completely working against you. So if you were a fan of the show The Biggest Loser, you know that that show took severely overweight people and put them on a very restricted calorie diet, and then worked them out literally until they dropped or vomited, or whatever in the competition to see who could lose the most weight. So in 2017, the journal obesity published a study that followed 14 of the contestants from that show. And they found that six years later, six years after competing on that show, all but one of those 14 contestants had gained back most or all of the weight, and then some. But more importantly, what was now making it even more difficult for them to lose weight is that their metabolic rate, the amount of calories, their bodies burned at rest had adjusted down as they lost weight, but never bounced back. So at their original weight before the Biggest Loser, there were burning an average of a little more than 2600 calories at rest each day. Then they lost this weight and they were burning 2000 calories a day their basal metabolic rate resting metabolic rate, then they gained back this weight. But six years later, they were still only burning an average of 1900 calories at rest. So you see the pattern there. Their body weight bounced back. But the metabolism didn't know if you listen to the show at all. You know, I am not a big believer in calories in versus calories out as the whole picture of weight loss. But it is a part of the equation and low metabolic rate stacks that odds against you. So you may be thinking, okay, crazy lady, if reducing calories ruins my body, why the hell would I go without eating for long periods of time? That's kind of even worse. And isn't it in fact also reducing calories? Well, it's a really good question. And because we lost is not just a calories in calories out equation, but a process that also includes many different hormones. Fasting, intermittent fasting changes that playing field by changing the way your hormones behave. So according to my favorite guy, Jason Fung and his book, The obesity code, the fastest way to reduce insulin levels, insulin being a hormone is by fasting. And by consistently and continuously reducing insulin levels, we increase our insulin sensitivity, and our blood sugar levels normalize, in addition to our body turning to fat stores for energy, unquote.

19:58
So what What about lean body mass? What about our muscle? Well, as I talked about, in part one of this series, losing muscle was a big concern for me when I decided to try intermittent fasting, because that's one of the big tactics that we talk about the scary thing, oh my God, you're going to lose your muscle if you're not eating enough food all the time every three or four hours. But what I found through measuring my own body composition through a very scientific method was that my muscle mass was actually being preserved, which is a very good thing. So my metabolism was not dropping, by practicing intermittent fasting in the way that the metabolism like I just talked about with the Biggest Loser contestants was on a restricted calorie diet. There was also a 2007 study that was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. And this study looked at a group of 15 Healthy middle aged adults, 10 women and five men. These people were randomly assigned either a three meal a day diet, or a one meal a day diet. Now, both options, whether it was three meals or one meal had the same amount of calories in the day and total, and the diets were not calorie restricted. So they were actually constructed and designed to be able to maintain the weight of each individual. So the only dietary change was meal frequency and not caloric intake. But after eight weeks, the group that ate only one meal a day lost both weight, and body fat, but they did not lose lean body mass, whereas the group that ate three meals a day didn't see any change. So Dr. Fung explains this, again, this hormonal shift to burn stored fat and preserve lean muscle is one of the body's mechanisms of survival. So studies on alternate day fasting, eating normally on one day, but every other day fasting for a 24 hour period shows that the body's adrenaline levels increase during a fast and that lean body mass is actually preserved so that we have the energy and the strength to move around and go hunt for more food. It's basically what's called the Thrifty Gene theory at work. And this is the theory that the body stores fat in times of abundance, and then it burns body fat in times of scarcity. So intermittent fasting creates that sensation and that reaction of scarcity, and the body starts to burn fat instead of food for fuel.

22:44
So this brings us to how intermittent fasting can help with metabolic syndrome and type two diabetes. So when you think of type two diabetes, you probably think of persistent high blood sugar because that's what we hear, right? Your blood sugar's high, your blood sugar's high. If you don't get your blood sugar down, you're gonna be diabetic. And that's definitely part of the problem. Now, insulin resistance is also a piece of that problem. Because when we become resistant to insulin, insulin is a hormone released by our pancreas, it's kind of knocking on the door of the soul and saying, Hey, I got some blood sugar for you open up and take it. But if we have that insulin high all the time, because we're eating all the time, whether it's snacking, or whatever it is, or just meals all meals throughout the day, and we keep having that insulin response, flooding our bodies with insulin, eventually, our cells become resistant, and they're like, Hey, do not open the door to that insulin guy. We've got enough glucose in here, we're full, and we don't want anymore, so we become less sensitive to insulin more resistant. And that's why the glucose levels the blood sugar stays high, because it's not being absorbed into your cells. Another piece of this equation is non alcoholic fatty liver disease. And this situation commonly occurs with both metabolic syndrome and type two diabetes. So a little side note, if you're not familiar with metabolic syndrome, go back and listen to episode 50, where I talk about it in detail. So non alcoholic fatty liver disease is the accumulation of fat in the liver, which is not where you want to be accumulating fat. And it ranges in severity from concerning to collect fat in the liver all the way up to becoming cirrhosis even without the consumption of alcohol. So we hear about cirrhosis. We think this person drinks a lot. But this has been going on now for many, many decades, that we are becoming ill with non alcoholic fatty liver disease because of food because of our diet because of being overweight. But as breast cancer survivors, we have another element to that, because studies have confirmed that Tamoxifen is associated with non alcoholic fatty liver disease, that it not only worsens the condition if it already exists, but it makes it more difficult to get rid of the condition and it contributes to the development of it. So when we have non alcoholic fatty liver disease, this has been strongly linked with obesity, metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance, and in fact, up to 85% of people who develop type two diabetes or who have type two diabetes have non alcoholic fatty liver disease. And if you've got a lot of extra weight on your gut on your belly, chances are you have fat accumulating in your organs as well. But there are two things that have been shown to have a tremendous impact and very helpful even at Vaughn tamoxifen to fight that non alcoholic fatty liver disease. And that is intermittent fasting, and exercise. In fact, the US National Library of Medicine in an article that looked at calorie restriction, versus intermittent fasting, and it's the impact of each of those on non alcoholic fatty liver disease, said that in animal models, intermittent fasting has been shown to have numerous beneficial effects, many in excess of those seen with calorie restriction. And in patients with non alcoholic fatty liver disease and type two diabetes. The alternate day fasting intervention has resulted in more favorable metabolic changes than simple calorie restriction. They go on to say that alternate day fasting will reduce more triglycerides or stored fat in the liver than simple calorie restricted diets. And that those levels will remain lower following a period of regular living. Once it's already been accomplished. They will also find greater improvements in the regulation of blood sugar following alternate day fasting compared to calorie restriction, and greater improvement in the metabolism of fats with alternate day fasting versus calorie restriction. So let's talk for a minute about alternate day fasting, and intermittent fasting. And what these terms actually mean. alternate day fasting, that's can be hard to figure out, right? It's the restriction of calories for a period of 24 hours every other day. And that freaks a lot of people out. Because when you're used to eating literally all day, all the time, whenever you feel like it, the thought of going 24 hours without food can be daunting, it's a little scary, it's intimidating. But fortunately, there are many ways to incorporate intermittent fasting into your lifestyle, and you can ease into it in a way that works for you, you can go hardcore go out if you want to. That's how I started. I didn't do every other day, I did two days a week of 24 hour fast. I'll talk a little bit more about that in just a minute. So first of all, you should always talk to your doctor first, especially if you have any preexisting conditions, if you're on any type of medication, because fasting can have a powerful and fast, like speedy impact on many systems of your body. So please, please, please be smart. Be careful, talk to your doctor work and be medically supervised. If you're on medications, if you have any kind of metabolic disorders, if you still are being treated for cancer, if you do decide to try intermittent fasting, and there are many studies that show that fasting and intermittent fasting actually make cells more sensitive, and seems to support the outcomes of chemotherapy. So definitely something to speak with your doctors about. So that being said, get all the clearances, do the right thing and be careful. And here are some models that you can test out when it comes to intermittent fasting once you know it's safe for you. So there's the plan called the 1410 which means restricting your eating to window of 10 hours a day. So you're only fasting for 14 hours right? So if you stop at six o'clock at night, you don't need again till eight o'clock the next morning. That seems pretty manageable, right? That's not a horrible, scary amount of hours to approach. And you can adjust those timings for whatever works for your lifestyle. If you work a different shift, if you sleep at odd hours or regular hours, you can adjust those times. But when you eat only meals, and of course, you want to try to eat as healthy as possible. But if just restricting to a certain window is a big step for you, then just start there and just eat whatever it is that you eat, then make sure that you don't snack in between meals, sit down, eat your meals, and try doing that fasting for a 10 hour window. There's also the 16, eight, fast for 16 hours, eat for an eight hour window, there's 18 Six, which means that you're only going to eat for six hours a day. So let's say that you eat between noon and 6pm. So from 6pm, each night, you go till noon, the next day before you eat again, there's the 20 and four, which means you're only eating for four hours a day. So maybe we eat from noon till four o'clock, there's called one meal a day, there's a lot of acronyms and the whole intermittent fasting worlds, they call it omad, one meal a day. And obviously, that's a consistent 24 hour fast. So if you made the decision to have a meal between 1230 and 130 each day, then you would be getting in a 24 hour fast literally every day.

31:26
There's also the five in too fast, which means that for two days out of the week, you fast for 24 hour period. And then the other five days, you eat and follow a healthy meal plan. And then there's the alternate day fasting that we talked about a moment ago, which is fasting for 24 hours, every other day. So if you eat on Sunday, maybe you stop at 6pm. And you would need again until 6pm on Monday. So there's lots of other protocols, too. I mean, it's fasting, you can make it work however it works for you. There are some people who take these protocols very seriously some people who have a lot of very severe obesity, and maybe other metabolic disorders or medications that want to make really drastic changes in their lives. And they work with their physician and do consecutive day fasting, or extended fasts. And they just find what works for them is what helps them to get their results as quickly as possible. So in short, you can find or create anything that works for your lifestyle, and you can tweak and change as your lifestyle needs change. So I spoke about this a little bit on the show that part one of the show, where here we are coming up to the holidays where most people get in that mindset of okay, I'm about to gain 15 pounds, and then January everybody hits the gym and tries to lose it. But you can actually begin incorporating these intermittent fasting protocols around all of your Christmas parties that are coming up. So if you have parties, of course you want to enjoy yourself and have a piece of cheesecake and have cocktails or whatever it is you're going to have. So you can work your intermittent fasting around that indulge on those days, and then maybe extend your fast a little or add an additional fast into your week so that you can manage your weight as you go along. You don't have to have that struggle of gaining a bunch of weight or of depriving yourself of fudge during Christmas. I mean, come on. Eat fudge. It's delicious. But be careful and manage that food intake with some very strategic fasting plants. Now, of course I hear all the time, okay, well, what do I eat, you know, what do I eat during the time that I'm eating, and a lot of people will tell you eat a low carbohydrate, healthy fat diet. Some people say follow a keto diet. Some people say follow a paleo diet. But really, the bottom line is follow a healthy eating plan that you enjoy, that you don't feel deprived about and adjust your fasting periods to compensate for your food intake. So what I mean by that is, if your goal is metabolic health, if it's a longer lifespan, more longevity, and you don't really need to lose weight, then adjust what you're eating. And when you're fasting in such a way that you find that sweet spot that maintains your weight. If you want to or need to lose weight, and you have a certain diet that you like to follow. Then you follow that diet and you adjust that fasting period until you get to the point where you say I can eat this way. And if I go for this many hours with fasting, then I lose weight and I can still eat the way that I enjoy to eat. So you can really play with it. Which is why I think that intermittent fasting is cool because it's not a one size fits all or a one kind of diet or measuring or calorie counting or any of that stuff. Find what works for your body and you Each of us is different. But I highly recommend doing your research. There are so many free resources out there. My guy, Dr. Jason Fung. He's got a ton of YouTube videos out there, where he talks in great detail about intermittent fasting fasting protocols, and the benefits on weight and diabetes. And there's all kinds of other fitness and fitness professionals, wellness professionals that have videos on YouTube about intermittent fasting. There are all kinds of books on intermittent fasting is one of the fastest growing dietary strategies, I think, since the beginning of 2017. So there's a ton of information out there, there's books, there's the diet doctor, which is I think, is a great website. And it has a lot of videos, a big video library that you can access and learn from. And the diet Doctor website also has a lot of really great recipes to help and support you along the way from low carbohydrate to keto, and everything in between and vegetarian ones, and just a lot of great choices. So some of the challenges that you may come across if you do decide to try intermittent fasting, or that you're going to be hungry. I mean, let's be open and honest about this, you're going to be hungry, you're not used to going long periods without food, you're going to be hungry. So some of the things that you can do, especially when starting off, is you can drink broth. I think I said in the last show, I make my own pot of bone broth every Sunday. So I have a big container of broth. And if I want to extend my fast or during my fast, I find that I'm really really hungry. And it's distracting me I have a delicious warm cup of bone broth. Some people say that you can consume vegetables or food as long as it's under 500 calories. And that it does, it's not considered breaking the fast. So opinions vary on that. But you can especially when starting out, eat small amounts of food, like veggies with a little bit of hummus or just something that say seats, you doesn't have to be a big meal, just a little something if you find yourself starting to panic, or started to lose it or freak out a little bit because you're so hungry. It's okay, use training wheels, put a little bit of heavy cream in your coffee, have a nice cup of tea, drink a lot of water, that really really helps. You know, I remember when I was a kid, when I'd be begging my mother for a snack because there was no snacking, right in between meals, you'd come home from school, no matter what you've done, or how many sports practices It was no snacks, you'll ruin your dinner, drink a glass of water. But oftentimes, if you drink enough water, you did feel a little less hungry. So hunger comes and goes it comes in waves. Another strategy to help overcome some challenges with intermittent fasting is plan your fast during busy times. Or you sleep as a part of that strategy started at a certain time and know wow, I'm going to be asleep for eight of those hours or nine of those hours. So really factor sleep into that. So you're waking fast and time isn't as much of a struggle. But the busier you are if you know you have busy times during the week or certain times during your day are busier than others try to plan your fast during those times because that distraction can really help you to get more hours under your belt. So in my experience, intermittent fasting has not only been an incredibly satisfying experience for me in that I'm losing body fat quickly. But I have antastic levels of energy. I have less heartburn, bloating, indigestion, I have deeper, more restful sleep, fewer hot flashes, no brain fog, I do not find myself going through that heaviness, especially in the afternoons. But sometimes it would just every certain amount of days, I would just feel this heavy brain fog, I have not experienced that. And all of these reasons or reasons that I want to share this information with you. Because when I find something that's made such a quick and drastic change, and helped so much, I want you to know that information and I encourage you to continue to look into it more to see if intermittent fasting is something that might work for you that might support your health and your healthy lifestyle goals. Now you know you can reach out to me with questions you can find me on Facebook as Laura Lummer You can find me on Instagram as the breast cancer recovery coach and I am happy to answer questions for you. So don't hesitate to reach out. I will post links to books and resources that I refer to in this podcast on the show notes for this episode which You will be able to find at Laura lummer.com forward slash 62. Thank you so much for listening today. I really appreciate your support. I appreciate you being here and I hope you found some little nuggets that are helpful for you in this two episode series. So remember to pop into that iTunes Store and leave a review for the breast cancer recovery coach podcast and then get out there and take good care of yourself. And I'll talk to you again next week.

40:33
Courage to the test laid all your doubts your mind is clearer than before your heart is full and wanting more your futures even you know has it you been waiting

41:02
this is your decision