Intermittent Fasting: Solution or Sabotage Emotional Eating?

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Biting your tongue and swallowing your emotions can sabotage emotional eating issues. For emotional eaters, the problem isn't knowing what to eat. It's often the inability to express big emotions, and it's complicated by patterns created over time.

Consuming too many calories can wreak havoc on health and weight.

Consuming too few can do the same. Midlife can complicate everything further by making weight loss more challenging and health risks more long-lasting.

Intermittent fasting can be very sexy, but does it help or does it sabotage emotional eating? Avoidance of food for periods of time isn't actually dealing with the problem. Does it fit?

Some emotional eating experts Experts we posted have strong feelings about intermittent fasting, and those who have emotional eating anchoring their relationship with food feel very, very definite emotion about this. In this episode, we tap into if intermittent fasting, how, and how not to potentially.

My guest Lori 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, Lori offers the chance to break free from the diet model so many live in. Lori guides people to tune into their body's inner intelligence and experience improvements in every aspect of their lives. Having personally lived with an eating window every day for 7 years, Laurie exemplifies the transformative effects of intermittent fasting. At 61, Laurie boasts a biological age at the cellular level, which is what we're talking about, so not your birthday candles, but biological age of 40 years old. From her menopausal struggles to vibrant health serves as inspiration, embodying the potential for profound change through intermittent fasting.

I'm Debra Atkinson. You're listening to Flipping 50. I started this podcast over a decade ago to answer questions about fitness in menopause and beyond before you knew to ask them. The goal to to help accelerate your results with science and the practical application of proven protocols while living your best life. There's no more powerful health influencer in the world than a midlife woman, and it's not just about you but the 3 generations that you influence. My unique 40-year career, including being a university senior lecturer in kinesiology, an industry subject matter expert, and an international speaker, to founder of the first and the only exclusively made-for-menopause and beyond fitness membership in the world. Every week I interview experts behind the scenes and the science optimal hormone balancing, fitness, and longevity, and share answers to our community's questions so you can have the vitality and the energy that you want, need, and deserve.

Lori Lewis, welcome to the Flipping 50 Show.

Thank you, Debra.

You, you, thank you so much for being here. All right, and I say this over and over, I'm kind of talking out of school about my audience but we do like to know the dirt. So tell us the story beyond the bio. What, what got you here? What got you here talking about intermittent fasting, emotional eating? Were either or both of those a part of your past or present?

Well, I never wanted to be the food police. And so when I was in my late 20s, I, I felt foggy all the time. I didn't feel great. And yet it was just kind of low grade. The thought I had was, I think this Diet Coke might not be good for me. And I actually— how many cans a day?

Whistle. Yeah.

Well, I grew up in Colorado and that was a test market for Diet Coke. So I used to— we got it before everybody else when everybody else was drinking Tab. What's astonishing to me is I actually listened to that thought. It gave me pause. And in that moment, I actually decided to stop drinking all soda. I actually decided to stop eating sugar. I made a lot of decisions in one moment, and I got very curious about how to fuel myself well. And so then suddenly, nearly 20 years later, when, you know, I was fit and lean and running marathons and felt like I again did not want to tell other people what to eat, didn't want to be the food police, but I just wanted to stay in my own lane and take care of myself. I suddenly gained 50 pounds in menopause, and that didn't feel good for a lot of reasons, especially though all the other aspects of menopause, of brain fog and memory loss. And I was aching head to toe, and I had frozen shoulder for 5 years. And I mean, it was— I was a hurting pup. I dealt with depression for the first time.. And nothing I did made a difference. I couldn't feel better. I couldn't lose the weight. And people in my life were like, wait, you're the healthiest person we know. How did this happen to you? And so I was really shocked when one night I Googled the same thing I always had, which was like menopausal stubborn fat, help me. And I had been studying nutrition. I had an interest, a deep passion and interest in it for nearly 20 years. And I'd never heard of intermittent fasting. And it popped up one night. I knew there was therapeutic long-term fasting, which is a whole different thing than taking the 24-hour day and dividing it in two parts, the fasting hours and the eating window. And I didn't know a person could live like that. And I didn't know all the health benefits. And so I started that very same day. And within 3 days, I felt like myself again. I remember standing in my mom's kitchen and I felt clear and grounded and brighter. And I had the thought, oh, there I am. 3 days. And then I slowly, gradually, healthfully, methodically lost 51 pounds in 15 months. Which is nice and slow. But the whole time I kept doing it because I felt so well. And I'll never forget someone asked me, I was about 3 or 4 months in, they're like, what are you going to do when you, you know, reach your goal weight? And I guess that's a normal question in diet land, in the dieting world, as you reach your goal weight and then you go back to doing whatever you did before. And I thought, well, I feel so well, so I don't know why I would ever stop doing what I'm doing. And I'll, I'll think about that when I get there. And so as a result, I kept an eating window every day for over, well over 7 years. And as a woman in menopause, to set out to lose weight, to effectively do that, and then to maintain that weight loss. And at 61 years old, my metabolic age is 40, and I just keep getting healthier and healthier. So my relationship with my body has grown more and more astonishing. Like, I am in awe of it. And so that is really the, the foundation of the work that I do, which is how can I be a person who, through all of life, who takes really good care of myself, right now, no matter what's happening in life. And for me, the foundation of that is intermittent fasting and having an eating window. But once that's steady and peaceful and grounded, then people have the space and the curiosity and the interest to take on what's next— upgrading food, moving more, hydrating, sleeping well, you know, all the other parts. But yeah, in my world, it starts with having an eating window.

So for a lot of people, I think— and I love this, we say this a lot with our Flipping 50 Fitness specialists— that, you know, structure gives freedom.

It does. Yeah, it does.

We push back on it, I think, but then—

sure, yeah, human beings push back on structure. Like, look at little kids, right? They learn that right from— like, I'm gonna push back, but I love the structure.

So true. So let's back to this. So 3 days you felt better. So what were you doing? And this is where we'll really unpack, I think, first of all, what is intermittent fasting? Because there's such a wide continuum. And there is, you know, if you're eating around the clock, there's what some of you might never consider this being intermittent fasting. It's like, well, I do that anyway, right? But what is it for you? Or what was it even in those 3 days?

So what's important to me is that the fasting hours be as easy as possible and as effective as possible and quiet the noise. So with those three goals, I have adopted what Jim Stevens coined the term the clean fast, which to me makes perfect— there's fasting is fasting and consuming flavored drinks and nutrients is not fasting. And you can find anything on the internet and plenty of fasting gurus who will say this is allowed and that's allowed. The minute we start introducing stuff, it becomes entertainment, it becomes a distraction, and it becomes something for the body to process that if you weren't ingesting it, you'd actually be fasting and you'd get all the healing benefits. And then later in your eating window, people are like, but lemon's good for you. It is, it's a nutrient. It excites the system. Have it in your eating window. What I say to people when they're— they ask, is this allowed? Is that allowed? I say, yeah, in your eating window. So intermittent fasting is the opportunity to purposefully, deliberately, consciously allow your body to heal in a fasted state for whatever percentage of the day you choose. So it's been proven by Dr. Satchin Panda and others that if you keep a 12:12 schedule— 12 hours you're asleep for 8 of it, hopefully, you know, plus a little at the beginning and at the end— 12 hours in a fasted state, 12 hours eating will extend your life. So from— will that help you turn around type 2 diabetes and reach your weight goals and normalize, you know, lower inflammation and so forth? Probably not. So you may need to fast longer and have a shorter eating window to reach your health goals. But the idea of being purposeful about honoring those fasting hours, much like we do sleep— fasting and healing, fasting and sleep both contribute to the repair process that our body really needs, and we just didn't know that fasting was imperative. So I felt like myself within 3 days. I was keeping a 16:8 schedule, which means I had an 8-hour eating window. And pretty quickly for me, that felt like too long, you know. And everybody's different. That felt like, well, that's, you know, 2 meals really spread out. I could— I learned pretty quickly I could really enjoy 2 meals in 6 hours. So I kept an 18:6 schedule for a while. And, you know, each person, depending on these 3 elements, have to be in place to choose your eating window. That you have to feel amazing, really good. Second, that it has to work with your life and the people in it. And third, that it helps you reach your fitness, health, and weight goals. So all 3 of those elements need to be in place to have it be right for you.

Love that. So what about— so you were doing an 8-hour eating window. When did it start? Did that matter for you? And have you played with that, you know, starting to eat at 8 AM versus starting at 10 AM?

Or—

yeah, so I have a few clients who really love a morning eating window. For me, I think back even when I was a teenager, I was not hungry in the morning. I was forcing myself to eat. And so eating in the morning has never appealed to me or felt good. Now, scientifically, we're more insulin sensitive in the morning, which is actually a good thing, and it could be beneficial for a person to open their eating window in the morning. But most people prefer an afternoon or evening eating window because that second factor of it working with your life is really important. But if a person It's like, you know what, I love, you know, having my coffee the way I like it. And I love waking up and having breakfast and then having lunch and then closing my eating window. Go for it. But most people prefer a later one. And you asked also, have I played around with it? Absolutely. In over 7 years of every day having an eating window, I've definitely moved it around a lot, but I discovered The timeframe again, that feels great for me, works with my life and has helped me maintain or reach my health and weight goals. And I stay there most of the time. I keep it steady.

Do you rotate your fasting schedule? Like it's 8 sometimes, it's 4 others, it's 10 others. It's.

12, others. I love doing that. It's very helpful for the body to keep it guessing.

Yeah.

You know, sleep is one thing that we really need to keep steady and the same with not, not a lot of variation. But our eating window and length of fast and length of eating window, we can move it around. The thing is, when people are new, newly creating a habit and you haven't quite yet figured out what has you feel your best and what's ultimately going to help you reach your goals. Human beings, we all know, have a hard time creating new habits. So in the beginning, I would say the first few months, it's very helpful to keep it the same every day. It's like, this is what— yes, we're doing this. And then, so yes, now after all these years, I've got my sweet spot and what just feels so good every day, but I don't even give it a second thought if I want to open my eating window early or have it be later or slide the whole thing forward or slide the whole thing later. Or it's very flexible. And people will say, I help people work through scheduling things and work trips and conferences and vacations. And one way to avoid jet lag is to fly fasted, water only, and you get right into the new time zone. No problem. It's a miracle.

Yeah. I hear a lot of people talk about that and actually I think the, the healthier you are, the easier that is because there's really nothing good for you at the airport. No.

Once you're fat adapted, which means your body has dug around for all the stored sugar and it's used it up, and then it says, ah, there's another fuel source here, we've got body fat we can munch on. Once you're fat adapted, that takes about 3 to 4 weeks of consistently having an eating window every day and fasting clean every day. But then you're smooth sailing after that. And it really becomes a superpower. And our relationship with food gets so, um, it's an honoring, it's a savoring, it's a real enjoyment. And one of the things that's kind of a miracle that happens— Dr. Bert Herring coined this term appetite correction. We have an appestat, an appetite center in our brain that regulates our hunger and satiety hormones and forth. And once you become a consistent daily faster, that turns on, and it's very clear what the body is asking for and what the body would prefer that you not have anymore. And, uh, the food quality upgrades. And we get— everybody I know who's an intermittent faster, and that's thousands and thousands of people, improves our relationship with food. Because we have an eating window.

And I'm so glad you said that. And I think that is where there's some conflict for, for some people who are like truly driving home and working with emotional eaters who maybe find they're in their 50s or 60s before that term ever comes to them. They didn't realize this is it. This is why I haven't been successful. This is why, you know, and it solves a lot of questions, you know, or about a lot of feelings of failure, maybe, you know, in terms of, you know, we weren't using the right way of healing what was wrong, you know, in trying it the way you did. But is there in your mind, is there any conflict with, I mean, it would seem to me if I played devil's advocate that by having an eating window or having a fasting window. If we simply are working on fasting, we're not actually working on our relationship. It's like saying to your husband, you go have your vacation, I'll have mine, we'll come back together and now we'll have a good relationship. If you don't talk to each other, how's that happening?

Oh, it works so beautifully. Okay, so imagine, let's say someone out there decides today— this is how you start, everybody— you decide today what time you're closing your eating window. Window, and it's entirely your choice. And after that, you drink plain water and go to bed, and you wake up tomorrow and you drink plain water. You might have a black coffee, and you add 12 hours. So let's say you closed your eating window today at 7:30. 12 hours would be 7:30 tomorrow morning.

Hey, this is Debra Atkinson, and there is one thing you can't do in the gym at your age, and that's get all the protein that you need. You've got to do that in the kitchen. To make it easy for myself, not only to get the protein but the fiber, the fruits and vegetables I want daily, I started drinking a smoothie a day 30 years ago. But when I realized all the junk, the sugar, and the extras that you don't want that I don't want hiding in most protein powders. That's when I finally caved in after years of saying I will never ever ever sell supplements. Stop skipping, skimping, and sabotaging yourself in the morning after workouts by always being prepared. Look, yep, I agree, real food first. But it's just not convenient to carry a turkey sandwich. Sometimes the protein, and don't forget the fiber. They kill cravings and they boost satiety. And you've got to make it easy to do the right thing. You can use code PODCAST for 10% off your first order at Flipping50.com today.

If you're not hungry, Don't eat. If you are, eat. Your eating window's open.

Eat normally.

Eat what you normally eat. Okay. Then over 10 to 14 days, you're going to gradually extend those fasting hours and shrink the eating window. So let's say you gradually get to 16:8 where you have an 8-hour eating window. And so let's say you're going to every day practice opening it at 11 and closing it at 7. Because that's your choice. Let's say something upsetting happens at 9:00 AM. You will notice what you always do, which is want to eat something. And then you will, because you're practicing extending this fast and shrinking the eating window, say to yourself, it's 9:30. I eat at 11. What else can I do to comfort myself? And this is the practice of people start to notice how much they are relying on food for self-soothing and comfort that our ancestors never had. This is, you know, most people these days describe themselves as emotional eaters, or they might not self-describe that way, but they are, you know, and unaware of it, how automatically we gravitate towards drinking or eating something or even constantly entertaining ourselves with what we can prepare for ourselves next. What little tea, what little this, what little that, what little snack. It's constant. And so when you are eating later, I now need to deal with those hurt feelings, loneliness, grief, anger in another way, like our ancestors had to, because there's, there's never been food around 24/7. An abundance of highly crafted, highly addictive food that's designed to keep us wanting it. So the cards are stacked against us. And when we can give ourselves a little space from that and be really gentle with ourselves and think, I am so happy that I noticed that. And, you know, if a person really wants to eat now, guess what? They can. We live in a time where food is abundant, but people very quickly realize how much better they feel eating later, keeping the eating within an eating window, physically, emotionally, cognitively better, that it's worth dealing with that upset that I'm having right now by taking a walk, meditating, snuggling with my pet, talking to a friend, shaking, you know, getting— sweating on some good dance music. So It's very supportive for people to break the habit of emotional eating when I eat later in an eating window. I'm going to take care, good care of myself in another way right now.

It's a great description.

Okay, so talk to me about exercise.

So this is always a conflict of interest for me. So I'm a believer that for the right client with the right things in place, that intermittent fasting has a place that it can certainly help Gut issues, digestive issues are so rampant for midlife women. It's huge for that. And I also find super beneficial for sleep. Yeah. Women who struggle with that think the irony is I'm gonna be so hungry. I'm like, I bet you're gonna sleep really well. We'll see what happens. Let's just not plant that seed. But exercise becomes a real issue. And it, I think there may be a continuum here. Personally, of women is my hypothesis that if you're exercising for simply checking that box and hitting it versus you are a very active enthusiast and/or you're performing or doing endurance, we have to avoid that low energy availability. We have to have protein there coming back to preserve muscle loss and not promote muscle wasting or get into a, problem with adrenals and cortisol. So talk to me about your eating window and your exercise, and maybe your exercise plan.

I feel like if I— if we started talking about that, we'd go in a different direction. But I exercise every day hard in a fasted state, and then I keep burning fat all day long. I have discovered for myself that I am performing better, clearer, brighter, sharper, stronger, more productive when I stay in a fasted state most of my workday. So I know that I'm burning fat when I am exercising and I make sure that I, I wake up, I have a black coffee, I drink a ton of water, I make sure I have plenty of minerals. So magnesium, sodium in my system. I never feel lightheaded. I always feel strong. And I know that I'm burning fat all day long and feel amazing. And one of the ways I monitor that is through an InBody or DEXA. And I just keep getting stronger and my bone density has improved. When we're in a fasted state and exercising, our human growth hormone cranks up. And so that's really exciting. So with fasting and movement, the human growth hormone. Improves. So what each person needs to do is once you're fat adapted, well, you want to gently exercise until you're fat adapted, right? And then again, it comes down to what has you feel your best, what works with your life, and what's going to have you reach your goals. And so for me, I never give too many details about what my personal eating is and what my personal, you know, fasting, my personal fitness, because people always want to do what the expert is doing. And I don't want you to do— the only thing I want you to do that I'm doing is fast, clean, and have an eating window. From there, it is 100% customized based on your medication, your age, where you are in perimenopause or menopause. So I think it would be great, Debra, if we had opposite schedules, if you and I did it completely differently from each other, because what that demonstrates is we're honoring what has us feel our very best, and that's what matters most.

Yeah, and measuring. So I love that you're measuring percent body fat, you're looking at total skeletal muscle mass, because that real estate we never ever ever want to go down from this point forward. Yeah, so that's right, that's, it's a really important distinction. But where a lot of our audience get in trouble is they're fasting so much with such a short window that they're also not just fasting. So we haven't just changed the window so we have autophagy, but we are still depriving. So we're, we're dieting in the 80s along with having a window and exercising. So we're, you know, foot on the brake, foot on the accelerator.

That's really rough for a woman over 50 to continue that because what what happens to us— this huge generalization, I can't certainly speak for every woman's body over 50, but the days of the hard push are over. Gentle is the way. And we've been pushing hard all the way up until our late 40s, and it doesn't work anymore. So we've believed that everything worth attainable is worth pushing hard for. And what I've seen and experienced for myself and countless others is that when we stop and breathe and tune into what has us feel our very best, gentle actually is the way. That is the access to the fitness and the strength and the longevity and the feeling bright and alive and making the food choices that serve our body, we get more courageous and I think we get gentler. So pushing hard is over.

So say a little more about that, cuz I'm all about pushing hard. We need intense, we need heavy, we need stimulus for muscle and bone. So say, say a little bit more about pushing is over.

Yes. The, the, and I'm with you. I think we'd have a good time working out. I, What I'm saying is the constant push, the, the over— the life thing. Yes. Yeah, yeah. The mindset of the only way to achieve anything is by struggle and pushing hard.

Yeah.

Yeah, I love that. Yeah. And for listeners, so I want to make sure that you got that clarification. And this is also, I think, a great example of something we deal with here. So when when women in midlife come to fitness and we've— you've had a great relationship with it in your past. I think so many of us, well, I want to get back to what I was doing and how I was feeling when I was doing it when I was 30, you know, and we're never going to do that again. I mean, we're number one, if you think about it, we were probably on Diet Coke and getting sugar. Exactly.

You know, I never want to be that foggy ever again. Exactly. Much better right now. It's the 61 than I did at 29, right?

And so the challenge is we're trying to work harder to attain something because we keep thinking we're supposed to shrink, we're trying to burn something off, or we have to earn something that we're going to eat for dinner. And that gets us into this adrenal thing. And those of you that are tired all the time but think there's some virtuous Girl Scout badge waiting for you as you push through the exercise that really you shouldn't potentially be doing anyway. Because that's what I think Laurie's saying, and tell me if I'm putting words in your mouth. It's like you're listening to your body, it's saying actually maybe you need a rest or yoga instead.

That's right. Yeah, sit quietly for 15 minutes with your eyes closed. So yeah, what I'm saying is the hard push. I put it into what I call a punishment model of paying very little attention to how I feel. And what I'm asking people to do and coach people in is identifying those components of the punishment model and then stepping into this world of tuning inward to our inner intelligence, which is quiet and which is gentle. And we can actually develop a beautiful reverence and extraordinary awe relationship with our body where, where, where, how much we love it has nothing to do with what it looks like.

Yeah, I love that. And I think that we should say this too. So you describe this, you know, this eating window and this fasting window. Makes you— if you have a relationship with food and you've relied on it for the wrong reasons, you know, not for fuel, not, not even for pleasure really, but correct, you know, it's, it's your drug. It was your cigarette, you know. And some of you would think, I've never smoked, but you kind of have been, right, in a different way. But some of you listening don't have this relationship maybe with food. You haven't resorted to that, or have not allowed yourself to go there. Also, that may have willpowered and disciplined your way. I don't do that. But some of you I see flirt with this, with exercise like this. It's your drug of choice. You need to be in motion so that you can— maybe I do believe that there's a part of us where moving can help move emotion through us. But I think we do abuse that sometimes, you know, and overdo it as opposed to really just get better at dealing with that emotion, sitting with it, being with it. So I think it could go either way. But such a great timing, you know, because you brought that up.

It's—

I mean, that, that emotion is really what it comes back to, and quieting down you know, when it is that you do your exercise versus just fitting it in because you have to catch up or make up something that you quote unquote missed.

Interesting concept, right? Yeah, it is. And I think everything you just said falls into this domain of being good and trying to be good. And what I'm asking people to step into is into the world of feeling good. And people are afraid, like, if I'm gentle and if I focus on feeling good, aren't I just going to I'm going to, you know, lose my edge or become slovenly. And, and actually the reality is that when you have your attention on feeling really well as your priority, your body starts— honestly, in the quiet of fasting, your body can effectively— there's a heightened discernment, a heightened clarity. Your body can effectively tell you what it needs and wants and, and what it would prefer that you stop doing and, or eating or yeah, doing or eating.

I love this. This has been just a very rich conversation. So listeners, I'm hoping if you see this posted on Instagram, you see it posted on Facebook, it's that you're adding comments and we so appreciate your ratings, by the way, on iTunes, if you are so moved to do that. It's one way you could thank us. Lori, where's the best place for listeners to stalk you and get more information?

Thank you. My business is Fast Forward. It's Fast Forward Wellness on Instagram, and my website is Fast Forward Wellness. And I love it when people sign up. You can get a checklist if you're like, wait, I, I want to follow the points of how to start. And, um, then you can write me there and tell me what any questions that you have, how you're feeling. I really want to hear from people who say things like, oh, I tried intermittent fasting, it didn't work for me, because whatever didn't work means I want to know what was important to you to achieve, what technique you are using. And I want people to feel well and achieve your, your health and weight goals. So I love hearing from people. And of course, I love hearing from people a year later who say, I heard you on this podcast and I started the very the next day having an eating window, and I'm just feeling so much better. So I love that feedback too.

So good. And I hate to open up a new concept, coming back to it, but if you're like me at all, I, I can start and finish dinner fairly early. But, you know, I'm also an early riser, so unless I'm consciously thinking about it, you know, I like to doctor up my matcha or my coffee. I'm breaking a fast, and I'm not always doing 12 hours. So just encourage any of you to really get thoughtful. Are you really fasting? Because you may think you are unless you really unpack that.

Yep. No flavors, no food flavors, no sweetness, no nutrients, because the body has to process that. So really be a purist with your fasting and you will, you will feel it. It's, it's remarkable.

So good. Thank you again for being here, Lori. Thank you, Debra.

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