She's Brave Podcast - Kristina Driscoll
She's Brave Podcast - Kristina Driscoll
Reverse Aging and Menopausal Weight Through Intermittent Fasting with Laurie Lewis
Host Kristina Driscoll and Wellness Coach Laurie Lewis, discuss how Laurie defied the odds by reversing the effects of menopause and aging. Discover how Laurie, at 61, achieved a biological age of 40 through the power of intermittent fasting and transformed her health, shedding 50 pounds and regaining vibrant energy.
Laurie shares science insights behind intermittent fasting, its transformative effects on women, especially during menopause, and how to implement it successfully. Learn about the clean fast, the concept of an eating window, and how to curb sugar addiction naturally. Laurie also talks ancestral wisdom, the importance of listening to your body, and practical tips for beginners.
Tune in to hear inspiring stories, actionable advice, and discover how you too can embark on a journey to better health and vitality.
Laurie Lewis Bio:
Laurie Lewis, Wellness Coach, shows how it's possible for people to take exceptional care of themselves while dealing with life's complicated and fast-paced circumstances...
With Intermittent Fasting as the foundation, Laurie offers the chance to break free from the diet model we all live in. Laurie guides people to tune into their body's inner intelligence and experience improvements in every aspect of their lives...
Having personally live with an eating window every day for seven years, Laurie exemplifies the transformative effects of Intermittent Fasting. At 61 years old, Laurie boasts a biological age (at the cellular level) of 40 years old. her journey from menopausal struggles to vibrant health serves as an inspiration, embodying the potential for profound change through Intermittent Fasting.
Connect with Laurie Lewis:
www.fastforwardwellness.com
www.facebook.com/fastforwardwellness
www.instagram.com/fast_forward_wellness
www.linkedin.com/in/LaurieLewisNYC
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(Intro) Hey everyone. It's Kristina Driscoll, host of the She's Brave podcast. Let's go...
Kristina Driscoll, Host: What would it be like for you to turn back your biological age by 20 years? What? That is so crazy, right, you guys? How would you like to lose 50 pounds of menopausal weight? Today's guest, Laurie Lewis, has done just that.
At 61 years old, Laurie's biological age at cellular level is 40 years old! What? We are going to dive deep today, you guys. Her journey from menopausal struggles to vibrant health serves as an inspiration, embodying the potential for change through, are you ready for it? Intermittent fasting.
Hey, Laurie! How are you?
Laurie Lewis, guest: I'm doing great. I hope everybody's staying on the edge of their seat. It's going to be a really Awesome conversation.
Kristina: It is!
I just want to say to everyone in my audience, I don't know anything about intermittent fasting. My stepdaughter has done it. I think she still does it, but I never even asked her.
So, I thought this would be kind of a perfect topic because Laurie, you're such an inspiration. And this is proof that Intermittent fasting does work. And yet I know nothing about it. So, I'm the perfect person to be like, hey, let's find out about this. Let's find out how it's work. And we're even going to try applying it today, you guys, which is super exciting, but I'm going to talk a little bit more about Laurie and then we're going to dive in.
So, Laurie Lewis, menopause dealt you a crushing blow. Brain fog, lack of balance, memory loss, intense joint pain, and the sudden gain of 50 pounds. So, Laurie tried everything she knew to feel better. After years of struggle, Laurie read about intermittent fasting and started that very same day.
Not only did she shed the stubborn 50 pounds, but the menopausal fog and pain lifted. She had more energy and felt more like herself again. Now at 61 years old, Laurie's thriving coaching programs guide us with a dream come true, keeping an eating window and enjoying life, feeling vibrantly well.
Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Well, let's start out with that very first question. What the heck is an eating window, Laurie?
Laurie: That's so great. I do, um, love sharing about the simplicity of it and there's a lot of confusion out in the world. And I think the confusion comes from, um, we have been trained to follow a plan that someone else creates, then that Plan is in conflict, either with our happiness or our body or other people are like, there's a perfect list somewhere to try and adhere to.
And we also love cutting corners and seeing what we can get away with. So there are a lot of mixed messages out in the world about what is intermittent fasting or time restricted eating or keeping an eating window. And basically, what it is, is there are two parts to every day, the fasting hours. And the eating window, and you get to say when it is.
So, if it's that simple, then we get to figure out, here's how I say to figure out what your ideal eating window is. And then I'll talk about what is fasting and what isn't fasting, but these three components need to be in place. The first is you've got to feel really well. Okay. So, with dieting, we mostly don't feel well, we eat little, tiny unsatisfying meals all day long and we feel deprived and, - usually when we're dieting, it isn't about feeling well.
So, this is not a diet. I say intermittent fasting is not a diet. It's a quiet, things get calm, things get simple. It's not a diet. It's a quiet.
Kristina: Things get calm. Things get simple. I like to repeat things that are super powerful. That was super powerful.
Laurie: Thank you. So here are the other two parts. We've got to feel well.
So the first thing I'm always checking in with people on when they're figuring it out is how do you feel? Okay. So then the second one is the timing needs to work with your life. Your schedule and the people in it, it's got to work with your life. And the third element is whatever protocol you settle in at does need to help you reach your health goals, health and weight goals.
So if you're type two diabetic or you have fatty liver, or you've got high blood pressure, high inflammation, whatever the issues are, people are dealing with, we want to move towards. Reversing that in a therapeutic way. So it's got to feel it. You've got to feel amazing. I believe don't keep doing things, if we don't like them.
So, I'm always trying to figure out how to get people to feel so well, you wouldn't even think of ever stopping. It's got to work with your life, and you've got to be getting healthier. And so, you just start with the foundation of their two parts to every day, the eating window and the fasting hours.
Kristina: Wow. Wow. Okay. I'm just dying to hear a little bit about this because in the information that I read about you, I like this part where it says by tapping into the ancestral wisdom of our forebearers, people can overcome health challenges while also experiencing weight loss.
Laurie: Yeah.
Kristina: Wow. So, tell us a little bit more about that. Like what did our ancestors do?
Laurie: They didn't have food. Okay. Okay. So, all the longevity experts, you know, I think of David Sinclair from Harvard saying human beings have survived through all of human history, being cold and hungry. Okay. So, what has happened to our bodies evolutionarily is that when we are in a fasted state.
No food, we get sharper, brighter, stronger, more focused, more stamina. Imagine if our ancestors got tired and lethargic when there was no food, they would have no energy to go get food. So we brighten up now. The cool thing about living in our society that we do is we get to actually choose when our eating window is.
When we will be eating, our ancestors did not have that luxury. So, we get to choose. And even up until I think the time that they figured out that human beings in America lived the longest in the U S was during the great depression when food was scarce. So, we have been in this snack culture is what I call it since the late seventies.
Early 80s. And up until then, people were trained to eat, you know, three square meals a day. But even before that, there were not three meals a day for people. So then we shifted into three meals a day. And then the Kellogg's company invented breakfast is the most important meal of the day, which I call medical mythology, because now.
People actually believe that. And it was a marketing campaign. You know, if you feel better with breakfast, you should eat breakfast, but most people don't. And the breakfast food people eat, is pretty scary.
Kristina: I have a question about breakfast. So, this was one of my burning questions. Why I was, I'm like, I'm ridiculously excited to have you here because I'm 56. And you know, the menopausal stuff and everything I, you know, so I also was brought up like, hey, hey, hey, you know, you always have to eat breakfast. Oh my gosh. Like it's a disaster if you don't eat breakfast. And I actually was hungry in the mornings. Like I did really want to eat breakfast, but I've noticed in my fifties that getting up and eating right away doesn't feel good anymore. So, something in me has shifted.
Laurie: So you're tuning in to what has you feel well, and a lot of times that hunger, I call them hunger alerts are going to come and go. They, um, are reminders. Imagine again, back to that ancestral wisdom, our bodies needed to remind us. To go find food, we have turned hunger into an emergency.
The minute our stomach growls, we think, Oh my gosh, I'm starving. I have to know we're not. So , however much percentage of body fat we have on us, that's fuel. Our body is so smart. It's packing on the fat to save for later for a famine that is never coming. So what we do in the first month. Is we train our bodies , to flip a metabolic switch, to become what's called fat adapted.
And so the body, um, will definitely ask for food. You'll feel you'll experience hunger, but what's so cool about those hunger feelings is they don't build and build and build. Now, if you're having a blood sugar situation, You should eat right. And then gradually we increase the fasting hours and shrink the eating window and settle into a zone that has you feel really amazing.
So, um, that morning hunger could indicate for a person that they really love eating in the morning for other people. It could be, Oh, the hunger came and it went. That's interesting. I just went about my day. I kept fasting and I eat later in my eating window that I figure out. My favorite eating window. So the other thing about ancestral wisdom is if you think of spiritual and religious traditions, prayer and fasting go together, why would that be?
Because when we're in a fasted state, again, it gets quiet. Decision fatigue goes away.
Kristina: Wow.
Laurie: We have a heightened discernment and clarity. We have more creative thoughts. You could call that an alignment with the divine, or you could just call it being in super touch with your own self and your own body.
But, um, when we are not on a mental level distracted by entertaining ourselves with food and calming ourselves from whatever upset just came our way, calming ourselves, soothing ourselves with food. One of the most amazing things that happens for people when they start is they realize how often they had been eating and the degree to which they're eating emotionally.
And how exciting it is to think, oh, something upsetting just happened and I opened my eating window later. So now I get to discover new ways to soothe and calm myself when I'm upset other than eating food that I don't need. And that is usually not broccoli. When you're upset, our food choices, when we're upset, our end, emotional eating are not nutritious generally, and not the foods that serve us.
So, um, it's really exciting to see the mental, spiritual, emotional, and physical improvements that people experience very quickly. When I started, I was a hurt and pup. And for years, 10 years of suffering through perimenopause and then the weight gain and four and a half years with the weight gain and the menopausal struggles and within three days. I felt better.
Kristina: Wow. That's crazy. I want to ask one quick question that I think our listeners might have that I also have. You mentioned something about like, you know, you can usually kind of power through or get through the hunger unless it's a blood sugar issue. How do you know it's a blood sugar issue?
Laurie: That's so good. Okay. So, I'll distinguish between hunger alerts or a hunger wave. and real actual hunger. Okay. So, our body might give a little tummy grumble, or we might have thoughts of food. For me, it usually sounds like, when do I get to eat? My brain says, when do I get to eat? Where's the, when's the food coming? But usually for people, it could be a nine or a noise. Right. That alerts you, that's like, oh, don't forget to eat later. Now, if, what accompanies that is any wooziness or dizziness or strong, you can't shake it. It's literally like, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat. You should eat even if it's hours before you intended to break your fast.
This is a beautiful journey. Of a partnership between you, your consciousness, you, that's you and your body, this house we get to live in for hopefully at least 50 more years and. It is always communicating to us and in the fog of constant eating, ultra processed food, eating, emotional eating, we're not getting the communication from our body.
So the difference between a hunger wave and hunger alerts is it will roll in. It's probably going to go away within 10, 20 minutes and you'll lose track of it. You'll be like, oh my gosh, I was so hungry an hour ago. I forgot about that. But real actual hunger. Which is usually a blood sugar thing. You can't shake it and you should not feel bad about that.
You should feel, you should celebrate that you paid attention to what your body needed and didn't push it in a place that was hard for it.
Kristina: Yeah. That's super, super clear that. Thank you so much. Cause I think that clarified, you know, for everybody, cause it's otherwise it's like, oh my gosh, should I be eating?
I'm feeling hungry. Like that's very, very clear about when you should be eating and when you. Don't need to. So, if you're not in a blood sugar situation, um, your kind of feeling a little hungry, tell us a little bit more about your personal journey.
Like, how did you get through all of this?
Oh my gosh. My eating window is this. I'm feeling kind of hungry right now. What were some of the tools that you used, um, to get your body adapted?
Laurie: Okay. So, it's different in the first three to four weeks than it is from that point forever. Let's just talk about the first three to four weeks.
I would love to. So, but here I am seven plus years later, having had an eating window every day. And it's not the same every day. I mean, it's mostly the same because I figured out the one I like the best, but I move it earlier, move it later, make it bigger, make it smaller. So it's very flexible way to live.
Here's the thing for everybody. You can't screw this up. You can't. So in the beginning for me, I decided that I wanted to jump right into, uh, fasting until noon on my first day. I thought I'm rarely hungry. I'm not, don't have much of an appetite in the morning. I don't mind black coffee. I love guzzling water.
So, noon was my question. Yeah. This is, this is for those of us who drink our coffee with cream.
Kristina: So, you're not supposed to have cream. Is that correct?
Laurie: So, we'll push pause on the other thing, and I'll talk about what the elements of fasting are, and you can find anything on the internet to the contrary.
Kristina: Okay.
Laurie: So, I'm going to try and make a very good case, inspiring, motivating case for the clean fast.
Kristina: Okay, so you're saying there's a lot of conflicting information fast out there. So please don't go out there, guys and Google it because you're going to get like conflicting information. Well, what you'll
find is if people are like, if you Google, what am I allowed to consume while I'm fasting?
It, uh, you will come up with bone broth and pickled juice and fat in your coffee and cream in your cup. People will say you can have anything as long as it's not this many calories. I mean, okay. Interesting. Just right. And that's a lot of noise and we want this to be simple. The beauty is you can have whatever you want.
Whatever you want later in your eating window, you get to choose what you eat. So this is not about deprivation. This is about putting our body into taking advantage of this opportunity to be in a full healing repair state.
I love that means healing repair state. I love that.
So I want people to think of this like sleep.
Most people are sleep deprived. But sleep is not optional. Like it would be weird if you were like, I think I'm not going to go to bed tonight. I mean, it'd be like, what, what extreme thing is happening in your life that you're not going to go to bed tonight? Yeah. Fasting is the same. We just didn't know it.
So we got to be hungry for that level of steep cellular repair, healing our brain, our skin, our liver, our gut, like head to toe inside and out balancing blood sugar, normalizing blood pressure. So. The clean fast is a purist fast. . Here's what it is not. It is not taking in nutrients or food flavors or sweetness.
You could say sweetness is a food flavor, but I really like to underscore that because people will say, for example, well, Stevia doesn't raise my blood sugar. That's right. Maybe it doesn't, but the sweetness raises insulin, which stores fat. So anything you were to ask me that falls outside of the elements of the clean fast, which I'll make really clear.
I will say save that for your eating window because that's nutrients. It's a food flavor. For its sweetness, and we don't want any of that we want boring, boring, boring, boring during the fasting hours for the most healing and. The most quiet, because if we're constantly entertaining ourselves with a little mint tea, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, that's more of the noise and we want it.
Okay. So you're saying even, even things like mint tea. So basically it, you know, we could do hot water, obviously, like if we're feeling like a need for a cup of tea, I'm that person who love, love hot. I like hot water sometimes just about anything in it.
So here are the elements, plain, unflavored water of any temperature and any sparkliness.
So you can have a sparkling mineral water. It's plain water. Plain though. Okay. Plain. So if people are like, what about La Croix? Okay. Blue can, plain, unflavored, not the lime, not the lemon. Not the lime. But it excites that food flavor sends the communication to your body, that food is incoming and it aligns to receive food.
And then what happens is you don't feed it because you think you're fasting and it gets very grumpy. So it makes fasting harder. We want it to be easier, right? So plain, unflavored water, plain, unflavored black coffee, plain, unflavored, like bitter black or green tea. So English breakfast or, you know, sencha.
So green tea is kind of nice to, you know, green tea, but with no lemongrass or ginger stuff in it. Okay. No food flavors, no nutrients. Then. All right. Plain minerals, electrolytes, so plain magnesium, plain high quality salts like under your tongue can give you a moment of brightness and then your medications as prescribed.
So, plain water, plain black coffee, plain black or green tea, plain electrolytes and your medication then. The way you start is the easiest thing ever. Every diet that everybody's been on ever, you have to eat everything in your fridge or throw it all away or plant, you know, prepare for Monday and do food prep on Sunday.
It's like all this planning. This is not a diet. This is a timing. Where you're restoring your own health and you're doing it. The only rule though, like I don't, I'm not the food police. I'm the clean fasting police because I want it to be easier for you. And I want you to get all the benefits. So you decide today.
So Kristina, what time today do you think you'll finish your last meal and close your eating window?
Kristina: Wow. That's such a great question. I'm going to say 7 p.m.
Laurie: Great. So that'll give you enough time to enjoy your dinner and then to check in with yourself and be like, I'm good. Hey body, is there anything else you need right now? And it'll be like, no, I'm satisfied.
Kristina: At 9 p. m. If I, you know, start craving a popsicle out of the fridge or something, it's like, no, I'm not going to feel so good if I do that.
Laurie: Well, you weren't hungry. It's not actual hunger.
Correct. It's pure entertainment. There's zero hunger in that case.
Kristina: It's just entertainment.
Laurie: That's right. So, then we get to confront our evening habits that do not serve us. And we know that intellectually, but there's something really powerful that you decided what time you're going to. Close your eating window tonight. And then I recommend that people have a closing you're eating window ritual can be three things that you always do the same. You wipe off the kitchen counters, you turn off the lights, you high five, someone you live with. And you say eating window closed and you pour yourself a glass of sparkling water, like, or you go out.
Kristina: Love that you high five somebody in your household. And if you live alone, high five yourself in the mirror, like the way Mel Robbins does.
Laurie. Yeah. And so, then you're going to drink plain water. If you're bored, you're like, I'm used to munching late into the evening. Well, sit in a different chair, do something differently and go to bed early. Then you'll wake up tomorrow. Have a little black coffee, have a plain water and 12 hours.
12 hours after you closed your eating window, if you're hungry. So, for you, 7 00 AM, 7 PM to 7 AM, you can have your candy coffee the way you like it, or you can have your breakfast. But if, you're out there going, oh, , I could be fine with a black coffee. I don't like it so much, but sure.
I'll have a sip of it to wake myself up and then I'll have my coffee the way I like it later. And then you gradually, you start with 12, you gradually increase the fasting hours and you gradually shrink the eating window. And so you asked , um, how it was for me in the beginning. And so I was aiming for noon and.
The way I dealt with hunger was I just kept aiming for noon, but something interesting in the beginning, I went out to a health food store and I bought all these fancy herbal teas. Remember, right. that's not part of a clean fast, but I didn't know that then it was seven and a half years ago. But what I noticed was every time I had a cup of that tea to kind of get me through the fasting hours, I would.
I got ravenously hungry. The team made me hungrier. And so just on my own, I was like, that's bad. , I don't want that. And so then what happened, Christina was, so my eating window was from. Noon to eight, and then I realized, well, I, I don't want to eat that late. And, I can eat two meals in six hours.
So then my eating window was 12 to six. And then I went for, I don't know, a month and a half like that. And then I started experimenting with longer and shorter. And I found my sweet spot where I really stayed for 15 months and I lost the 50 pounds in 15 months, which is very frustrating. Healthy and slow.
It's about three quarters of a pound a week. Now people in diet worlds will think that sounds awful. You know, that's so slow, but guess what , because of this deep cellular cleanup, my skin shrank along with, as , the fat was getting eaten up , by my own body, my skin shrank up. And one of the things that people, um, have a problem with is feeling really droopy.
When they're dieting and losing weight very quickly is not healthy for us in a lot of ways, emotionally, cognitively, physically. So the 15 months had me feeling so well that. When I hit that number and I fit into my clothes again, I couldn't imagine ever living any other way. So , it started with feeling really well and losing the weight that just did not feel good on my body.
And what it became very quickly was feeling like myself, bright, sharp, grounded. Energized and knowing that I will have an eating window every day forever because I feel so well. And so in the beginning of your introduction, you said, you know, the longevity and so forth and my biological age, , that's like the cherry on , you know, the fact that I'm 61, I have no medication and no illnesses and keep getting healthier and healthier.
My lab work just keeps getting better and better. But what I believe For myself and for others is that people just want to feel better. It's like, we could talk about longevity, you know, and think, Oh, wow. What if I lived until whatever age, you know, but that is irrelevant if someone feels horrible today.
So I want you feeling amazing. Today. Yeah. And having an eating window and getting through those first three to four weeks, which are not that bad. I have to say people are like, Oh, the fasting is so easy. Now I have to work on the eating window part, but people feel better right away.
That's amazing. So, when you say right away.
Kristina: How soon?
Laurie: Well, I was on day three and I remember standing in my mother's kitchen in Colorado. It was a sunny afternoon, and I had the thought, Oh, there I am. Now that was weird because for 10 years of suffering through perimenopause and menopause, the way I described it was I felt like I'd been taken over by an alien and my body was not my own.
And my, energy was not my own. In such short time, I was back , to myself, and that's impossible to describe. I try really hard to describe what it was like, but, um, there are moments in the beginning as the body's becoming fat adapted. What it's doing is it's digging around looking for the stored sugar that's on your body, and it's using up the stored sugar in your liver and your muscles and so forth.
And It gets a little grumpy sometimes and it's like, feed me. But again, it rolls in like a wave. It doesn't build and build and build. You aren't starving, you know? And I really encourage people when they open their eating window to food on a plate and sit down, take a load off, give yourself a breath, take a minute and enjoy your food.
Kristina: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, I got a burning question just because this is about me personally, but I think a lot of women and men, people in America, a lot of us have serious sugar addictions and I've been severely addicted to sugar. They say it's harder to get off than cocaine.
Laurie: Correct. Um, so I accidentally got off sugar last about six months ago, and it was hard, but I did it. And I kind of wanted to talk about that experience and then kind of to ask you a couple of questions about, about how that all plays into the intermittent fasting. But for me at that time, I was working in a store. And it was right by a hospital and there were so many sick people, people that, you know, just like having COVID, like COVID would just come in and just like ravage everybody.
Like there'd be like six people calling in sick, you know? , and I, just did not want to get sick. And I've heard that sugar really does compromise your immune system. So, you have a whole bunch of sugar and then, you know, you're, you're talking to somebody who's got a cold, um, you know, there's a pretty good chance you're going to get the cold.
So, I just made a decision. Yeah. You know, and I was very busy. It was very busy with work and this podcast and a bunch of things. And I just thought, you know, I'm just going to try just not doing sugar. And I don't even remember how long it wasn't very long. Um, but I was busy, and life was good.
And. Suddenly I realized like a month had gone by. I didn't crave sugar and I'm still that way to this day, but it goes back to the same thing that you're saying. Like I noticed this huge difference in how I feel.
Yes. My energy level, everything. My body just feels Much, much better, and then, the cravings just go away.
Like you just don't even, so like, you know, my husband and I were at an 50th wedding anniversary a couple of nights ago and, um, you know, literally order anything, on the menu you want kind of a thing, and then dessert comes around, and there's desserts right in front of me and I'm just like.
I don't crave it at all. And it's not even like I'm trying to like punish myself or back or nothing. Like it was just like, if I eat a bunch of sugar, I don't feel so good. So now I just don't even bother really eating it, you know?
Kristina: I really do you; you and I share a similar experience with sugar and in your, more recent past, you remember how it had its claws in you.
Laurie: Oh, big time.
Kristina: And so, to compare then maybe a year ago and now where you could order anything you want and you're looking at it and you're like. I don't want it. And it's not like you're trying to be good. It's that you're actually not that deep in your bones want to feel good. So, it's not about being good.
It's not about being disciplined. It's not trying to be good. It's just like, I don't want that. I don't even if somebody out there thinks that the sugar monster has its claws in you, and you cannot. You can't shake it. You cannot get off it. And even the idea of getting off sugar is very upsetting to you.
Like most people who are addicted to sugar feel like, I can't imagine a terribly sad and unhappy life without it. So you keep doing what is making you miserable and sick because it's so good in the moment. Okay. So I have found that the easiest way to break a sugar addiction. Is through having an eating window, what happens is this magical thing that doesn't have anything to do with willpower, um, called appetite correction.
It's an idea that was coined by Dr. Bert Herring, and he is a metabolism expert. He was working at the National Institutes of Health, and he realized as he aged, he was putting on some extra pounds and he thought, don't want to be lugging this around. So, he and his wife, who's also a doctor, they figured out for themselves that having a 19 hour fast every day and a five-hour eating window restored their health and had them feel amazing and at their optimal weight and so forth.
So he wrote a book called the fast five, and then he wrote a book called appetite correction, the power of appetite. Correct. So we have an app, a stat and appetite center in our brain that regulates our hunger and satiety hormones. They don't work right now for us humans, because we eat all the time and we eat ultra processed food, wild animals know exactly what to eat and how much to eat and when to eat.
They are tuned in their brain, their hunger and satiety hormones are working and ours are not. So the way we get it to work is we pause from eating, put ourselves in a fasted state, eat later in the eating window of our choice. And , the miracle is that our body starts telling us how much to eat today.
It'll be like, okay, stop. I'm good. I got enough where it'll say I'm super extra hungry today. Eat more. And then the other aspect of appetite correction, isn't just quantity. It's what you're eating and it will start saying to you, your own brain will start saying to you, okay, I have a client just last week.
She was puttering around her eating window was open. She's like, what do I eat? What do I eat? I don't know what to eat. I don't know what sounds good. And all of a sudden in her mind, and she's definitely a standard American diet, ultra processed food eater. All of a sudden her brain said, I want an apple.
She didn't have any apples. So she sent her husband out apples. My body's asking for apples. And so people will suddenly start thinking broccoli, broccoli, broccoli, brussels sprouts. I know it sounds crazy, but it's true. And then the other thing, conversely. Your body and brain will lose interest in the foods that are not serving you that are not totally agree.
I have felt like that even with the sugar thing. Yes. And, you know, at COVID has , come through and wiped out all the employees twice. And both times I didn't get it.
That's right. I got COVID for two days and had no symptoms. And the only reason I knew as I was going somewhere, so I had to test and I'm like, I feel fine.
How do I have COVID? I was so bummed. And then literally two days later, my cravings and my eating patterns have changed somewhat just, just from doing the sugar. But it was hard. I have to say, well, yes and no, I was very, very busy at that time. So the busyness probably helped me through it. I was very motivated because who wants to be sick?
I hate being sick.
I know. And I've read some studies that intermittent fasters had less incidents of COVID and shorter run of it and less long term. So I know for sure that when we lower inflammation, our immunity is boosted. And I used to get sick every winter. And I would say in seven plus years, I got COVID once for two days and didn't feel it.
And I had one cold that normally would have lasted seven or eight days, but it was just three, three and a half days. So, so healthy.
Yeah. The other thing that I want people to really hear. Okay. Is I recommend. Starting with fasting first. So let's say our brains are like, I've got to start eating healthy. I got to get to the gym.
I got to sleep more. I got to hydrate. It's like, no, no, no. I know you should do all those things, but we're going to do one thing. We're going to decide tonight. What time you're closing your eating window. You're going to drink water and change your routine. You're going to sleep. You're going to add 12 hours, if you're hungry, 12 hours later, you're going to eat. Otherwise you're going to kick that out a little ways. You're going to shrink your eating window. You're going to get to 16, eight in about a week, 10 days, 14 days. You're going to settle in there after about three to four weeks, you're going to become what we call fat adapted.
And from there, when appetite correction, well, let me just back up. And in your eating window, you're going to eat normally. Put food on a plate. Eat you normally eat. Mm-Hmm. . This is not a diet. Then what people don't understand is they hear you can eat whatever you want when you're intermittent fasting.
Well, that's true. In the beginning, you eat normally, eat as you please. And I promise you at some point down the road, your own body will say, yeah. You gotta stop that. I would like to have more greens. I would like to have a steak and a sweet potato and yep. And so together when I'm coaching people, we put food into four categories.
Your trigger foods, the things that really set you off. Foods that make you feel poorly and feeling poorly is lethargic and puffy and achy and, you know, and gassy and all feeling poorly. Then the third category is I want people to get really in tune with what you eat when you're rushed and exhausted.
And that feeling like you don't have any energy to put together anything. What do you eat when you're rushed and exhausted? Like a bowl of popcorn and think that's dinner. And then the fourth category is the foods you love. That love you back that you are excited to eat. That sounds delicious to you. And when you eat it, your body's like, thank you so much.
That was really yummy. I feel so satisfied. So we're building that foods. You love that. Love you back. And we're identifying the trigger foods, the foods that make you feel poorly and the foods you eat when you're rushed and exhausted. So I don't tell people what to eat. Do I think that people should stop eating ultra processed food that's making us sick and holding us captive and move towards real unprocessed whole natural food?
Yes, but we got to start by fasting clean and having an eating window and being a partnership with your body and holding it in high regard and your innate curiosity. Will drive whatever the next step is for you, whatever the next thing is for you to tweak or adjust or change or experiment with that will arise naturally in this quiet of fasting clean and having an eating window.
Yeah. So , what would you consider the bravest part of this fasting journey?
That people start today and that you start standing up for yourself in terms of how good you want to feel. Oh, wow. And , nothing will shake you from that. You will feel so good and feel better and better and better.
In the beginning, people are like, oh, I can't go to a conference when everybody's eating. Well, it's really easy to skip breakfast. Nobody blinks an eye if somebody is drinking coffee and everybody else is eating, you know, but to say, if someone's like, let's have brunch at 11 and to say, you know, it works better for me, can we meet at one instead?
You know, and you could say. My eating window opens at 1230, or you don't have to tell anybody anything. I have a client who's been intermittent fasting a year and a half, and her husband has no idea she has an eating window. She just, she doesn't make a big thing about it. She just drinks water, has her green tea, eats lunch, eats a tiny dinner.
And she keeps moving the dinner earlier because that's what makes her feel better. So, the brave is I'm going to do what has me feel really amazing. And not feel bad about that. And it's not what everybody else is doing, but it's what human beings are designed to do. So, it's brave to go against the grain and it's brave to hold yourself in such high regard that you do what's the best thing to do for your amazing body.
This is so freaking awesome. So we're starting, like you already said to me. What are you gonna close your food window? And I said 7 p. m. So I, I need to be done by 7 p. m. tonight. Um, so let's go on this journey. Let's do it.
Let's do it. And. You don't have to turn it into a big thing. It's just like eating window closed.
And, um, you know, I'm traveling tomorrow and I'll have a long flight across whole country. I'm in Portland, Oregon. I'm going to Boston and I'm just going to tell my friend, I'm the easiest guest ever. You don't have to feed me when I get there. My eating window is already going to be closed. I'll wake up on, Oh my goodness.
What day is it? Thursday. I'll have my black coffee. I'll get lunch later. It's it's you don't even have to work. I think the other thing, Christina, you can't believe is that marker when you fly fasted water only, you have no jet lag.
Ah, yes. , I've heard that the studies are all out there too. And by the way, you guys, , we talked before hitting record and Lori did like all these You know, a legit medical test.
So this is not just like nonsense, you know, but like they did all the tests and found out that she really had like a 40 year old body. So it's really, really, really cool. That's my mitochondrial health.
Yeah. Yeah. That's super cool. And I've heard that, and I've actually experimented with that myself with flying and I agree.
Um, you know, just drinking water when you're on a flight, like you just, doesn't mess you up. You don't get all, the weird. Jet lag and stuff. So, what I think I want to do is, let's try this. We're going to try to check in, in about a week and I'm going to like talk to you about how my week's been.
And this is going to be like a bonus where you're going to get bonus episodes. You guys who doesn't like bonus episodes. I just started doing that recently. Cause I had an author and it was really long, but bonus episodes are fun. Right? Like we'll keep it short. It'll probably be on Thursdays instead of Tuesdays.
And we'll just do like a check in. It'll probably be a 10 or 15 minute call. And we'll talk about what things I'm struggling with as a new intermittent faster. And all you guys out there, give it a go, because listen to all the scientific data that proves what Laurie's saying actually works. Works. Now I got one last question for you, just to help us get through this first week, which I know is going to be the hardest week for all of us.
We're all going to have to be really brave in trying out this new thing. And. I just want to know, you know, how, if you have any tips or tricks as far as life doesn't always go so smooth, like, let me just tell you a story, a few months into me launching my podcast, a family member of mine, a close , family member of mine became very sick for a couple of months.
You know, I could have done 1 of 2 things, right? Like there was, there was a side of me that just wanted to say, well, I guess it's podcasting just isn't meant to be for me. Right? Because, you know, this is really, this is really hard to try to, launch this podcast thing and be dealing with personal issues on the side.
Right. So a lot of people just want to say, well, then it's just not meant to be. That's one of my things. It's just, yeah, that's a very human. And yet I said, Instead I did something different this time. I said, maybe I'm not perfect. \, my guests, my episodes aren't going to be as good, but I'm not going to stop.
So, which makes you better actually.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, do you have a couple of hacks that you could give us for this first week as far as, um, not quitting? Number one, number two, if we do slip up, what do we tell ourselves like you can't slip up? You can't slip up. That's right. I love that answer.
You ate when you ate and I hope you enjoyed it. Okay, so here's the context for my coaching is how can I, you, us together, how can I be a person? Who takes really good care of myself right now, no matter what's happening in life.
I love that phrase. Say that again. How can I be a person who takes really good care of myself right now, no matter what's happening in life.
Oh my gosh. And we women, I mean, we're going to have to talk about this every time we get together and talk, because this is the biggest issue I see in women is that, you know, things come up, life happens and we're taking care of everybody else. And we're not taking care of ourselves when life gets hard or extremely joyful.
Everything gets easier and quieter when you have an eating window and every client who I help, you know, I coach people for a year, usually minimum. And we carry on together. I have people I've been coaching for five and a half years and through all of life, imagine so much life happens in a week or two or a month life happens that I will say to them when they're going through an especially hard time.
If you hadn't been intermittent fasting and keeping an eating window right now, how would this stressful time in your life had actually, gone down? And they would have been , you know, eating chips all the way through and staying up late and eating and drinking and feeling awful.
So what stays steady? Is you have an eating window and you have already discovered the eating. You will discover the eating window that has you feel amazing. And you will love it so much that nothing's going to mess with it. , but in the beginning you asked for, , tips or tricks through this first week is you want to notice.
When hunger arises, realize it's not an emergency. It will pass. You can drink some water, take a magnesium, put a little salt under your tongue. We'll brighten you up a high quality salt, just a few grains. You'll feel bright and energized. Stay busy. You could say, I'm going to set a timer. And if I'm still really this hungry in 30 minutes, I'm going to open my eating window.
It's not a failure, but I promise you. 99. 9 percent of the time that alarm is going to go off and you're going to be like, Oh, I'm fine. No problem. So the mentality that I want you to carry forward is that you are not pushing hard. Okay. So you are stretching. It's like going to a hard yoga class. Imagine you're stretching, but you're not going to hurt yourself.
Okay. So gentle is the way we want to be focused and determined.
Okay. And gentle and respectful of ourselves. And just because hunger arises, doesn't mean it's going to take you can Notice how many hours fasted you are. Notice what time is it? And when will you be eating later? And what will you be eating later?
Have your food ready. That calms the nervous system. Actually, when you say, Oh buddy, thanks for the hunger alert. I'm eating at one 30 and the food's ready. It's going to be delicious. And then you drink some water, have a magnesium, put salt under your tongue and carry on. And you can't screw this up. If you decide to open your eating window early, you made that earlier than you were aiming for.
You made that choice to honor your body. That's beautiful. That's a big win.
Yeah. Love it. Love it. And I , love the idea of also just setting a timer. You know, if you're seriously hungry or if you're thinking I'm really hungry, I think I'm really hungry. I'm not sure. Well, yeah, let's set a timer for 20 minutes and see how we feel in 20 minutes.
If we're still starving, it's time to eat. That's pretty basic.
And sometimes the hunger arises because we did just get upset about something and can be like, Oh, this is an actual hunger. I'm just upset. I'm going to go for a walk or I'm going to close my eyes and put on a meditation app for five minutes and chill myself out.
Yeah. And the hunger will go away.
Wow. So good. This is so exciting, Laurie.
It really is. I just love the idea of people honoring our bodies and feeling so well and knowing that . You're a fat burning machine when you're fasting and you're experiencing this deep cellular cleanup called autophagy.
And People experience, uh, their relationship with food changes, their relationship with their body changes. Like it's actually possible to deeply love your body and it doesn't matter what it looks like. You just love your body.
Oh my gosh. I love this so much.
Yeah.
And so next week. You know, it might be a little over a week if we're doing a bonus episode on a Thursday.
I think we, we can start out by talking about noticing, you guys, - , let's think about noticing how we feel this week with doing this. Just noticing our body.
Stay off. Oh yeah.
No, whatever you think people are measuring. They're like on the scale, on the scale, on the scale. Okay. So in the first month, while you're becoming fat adapted, you could weigh here's what I did.
Here's how I deal with the scale. If people love to weigh themselves, weigh yourself for three days, add it up, take an average. You've got a real number. You've got a three day average. That's your baseline number. Then you put that scale away and all you're focusing on is how you feel.
I love that. Oh my gosh.
So, so good. Okay. Any last words of encouragement as we start this journey of week one of trying out fasting?
Well, I want people to keep in mind that this is working with your body. And that as we develop a deep reference. For it and an awe of it and a deep desire for feeling good, that it really is brave to keep an eating window.
And I just imagine a world where we say to each other, you know, Christina, once you're eating window today, oh, good. We could have, you know, we could go have whatever dessert together. And that people really feel enlivened. By being someone who's choosing to heal themselves every day and keep an eating window and enjoy the food you love.
Right. And the science is all there that it actually works. And it was the way our ancestors operated. Like what you said.
That's right.
So, so, and, and, and I love how you said, you know, when you're a little bit hungry, like you can actually feel better, get actually, your senses are sharper, you know, you that's right.
Yeah.
So apparently there was a study that came out in 2018 that said that when the hormone ghrelin reminds us to eat, you can think growling ghrelin when we don't eat because we're fasting, we're going to eat later. It sends a signal to the brain to make new brain cells. And there was a time when scientists believed that once we had all our brain cells, we couldn't make new ones.
And it's not true. And in a fasted state, we're actually healing every part of our bodies, which is very exciting.
It's super exciting, especially for those of us in the midst of menopause, where we sometimes feel like our body is not even ours anymore. So many things have changed and , how do we get through this?
This is amazing stuff. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, for women in perimenopause, it really starts in your late thirties. And when you shift into menopause, that's when you have not had your period for a year. So no cycle for a year. If it comes, you start the clock again. So you are in menopause or post menopausal when you haven't had your period for a year.
And what, um, one of the reasons this helps so much during , this Challenging time hormonally, the hormonal chaos of perimenopause and menopause is that we're layering on top of that being insulin resistant and being metabolically unhealthy. So if we can lower our inflammation, get metabolically healthy, burn our own body fat, have stabilized cortisol, stable blood sugar, stable insulin, then that is helping our body transition through this time.
When. Progesterone and estrogen are in a crazy whirlwind roller coaster. So, by fasting clean and having an eating window through perimenopause, and then of course, postmenopausal, we are really helping our body get through that.
Oh my gosh, this has been so, so good. So, fun for me too. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Lori, for sharing your wisdom because, I'm super excited to start this and try this.
And I just did not know any of this at the beginning of this hour.
The best part, Kristina, is that people will write me, or people will write you and say, okay, you guys convinced me. I closed my eating window on that first day. And I waited 12 hours. I even waited 13. And then I became fat adapted, and I did it.
And my life is. Different. I feel better. My health is turned around. I fit in my clothes. I have energy all day. And, we get to hear those stories from someone out there someday. They're going to tell us, and it's very exciting.
Oh, my gosh. This is so good. All right, Laurie, , we're gonna close it down.
We're going to close our window in a few hours of eating, and we're going to start this process and we're going to tune in next week and let's see how it goes. That's great. You just add up all your questions for me and everything you're noticing, and we'll schedule a time to chat and we'll just clear it all up and keep you going.
So the cornerstones, I'll finish with the cornerstones for my foundation of festing are the clean, fast curiosity, because we just got to lean in and observe what's happening. Then customization, you make it your own and then continuing. We want to figure out how you keep going and knowing you can't screw this up.
Yeah. And it's, yeah.
I love how we can listen to our own bodies. Cause you know, like, if you were to say to me, you -you don't get to eat until 1. PM. I'd be like, Oh, but it's not a punishment. It's a replenishment.
Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Lori, for. Having the bravery to try something new that actually has worked and changed your life.
Um, and that makes sense scientifically and was proven by our ancestors. So, I'm looking forward to connecting with you in a week , and all you listeners out there, let's do this. You guys, let's give it a go.
I'm excited.
All right. We'll see you guys next week. Bye.
(Outro:)
Thank you for joining us on the she's brave podcast with Kristina Driscoll. I hope today's episode inspired you to embrace your courage. And step boldly into your own journey. If you enjoy the show, we'd love to hear from you. Please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform.
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