I don't know if Intermittent Fasting is for me

Hello, I am Jennifer Dent-Brown. I am your certified life and weight loss coach, and this is another Jennifer Live. So I think you guys should be able to hear me okay. Got my fancy mic on and it's on. Okay, so the reason why I'm doing these Jennifer Lives— you guys send me your struggles, you ask me questions, I get them in my DMs, you send them to me in email. I love it. I want to know what you're struggling with. I want to know how I can help you, and I want to tell you how the Stop Dieting Forever process can help you lose weight for the last time. Okay, we want to get you off of the weight loss struggle bus, so my process will help you get to your forever weight, which is your— make your goal weight. Um, so what I've decided to do when I first started doing these Jennifer Lives, I was answering 3 questions, 3 or 4 questions in like 30 minutes. So I know your time is valuable and you are busy and you were like, all right, just get to the chase. What's the question and what's your answer? So this is how I'm going to handle these from, from now on. So I'm going to talk about one question, one single answer, and then if there's anybody live, if you have a question and you want to just post it in the chat, feel free to do that. Okay. All right. So the question I want to talk to— talk about today is regarding intermittent fasting. Oh, we have lots of thoughts about intermittent fasting. And the question came from Neha. She sent it to me on Facebook Messenger. And kind of a long message, but I'll just summarize it for you. She says, I am pre-diabetic. For years, but it's under control. Um, and she said she did intermittent fasting before and lost 15 to 20 pounds. It helped her when nothing else worked, including diet restriction, eating only 1,200 calories a day, using MyFitnessPal, and working out 6 to 7 days a week. She said she read The Obesity Code, which is a great book if you're interested in learning more about intermittent fasting and how it can support someone who is diagnosed as type 2 diabetic. So Obesity Code by Dr. Jason Fung. I'll put that in the comments or in the, the notes for you guys. Okay, so continuing with her message, she says she slowly put back on the weight that she lost. Ravenous eating after 36 hours— 36-hour fasts were the reason why she gained the weight back. Um, she started certification, she learned about No Flour, No Sugar protocol, and then she lost 20 pounds during 2020. And so fast forward, she said she's gained the weight back again. So essentially she lost 20 pounds, um, and now has gained the weight back in 2022. So she says, I got bored with the fasting, felt deprived, and her weight crept up. She also began stress eating when she began worrying about her business. So for those of you who are entrepreneurs, we know that if we don't know how to manage these emotions and if we use food to man— to buffer and deal with our emotions about our businesses, yes, we will definitely gain weight. So she goes on to say, I work out 5 days a week and now don't start eating until 2 PM. I don't know if I should continue intermittent fasting or if I should really just eat proper foods for me that elicit weight loss. And she said she heard me mention intermittent fasting on one of the podcasts, and she was wondering my thoughts because she trusts my approach. Okay, so I'm so glad that Nihal sent me this question. I have not done a podcast on intermittent fasting yet and what my belief is about it. I do talk about it in the Stop Dieting in 30 boot camp, which is coming up, by the way, May 2nd. So if you're not on the waitlist, you can go to jenniferdent.com/bootcamp to learn more about that. But I have never done like a full podcast on intermittent fasting, only because there's so many thoughts about intermittent fasting. So I'm just gonna give you my take on it. Okay, so I was just like Neha. I did intermittent fasting back in the day. I was like, oh wait, I'm not eating for hours? Like, of course I'm going to lose weight. And so as soon— I forget what book I read, like, initially, or how I found out about it. But you know me, diehard dieter. This is back in my dieting days. I was like, of course this is going to work. And so I went, like, headfirst into intermittent fasting and not eating for very long periods of time. Now, the problem was that I, at that time, I did not know how to manage my emotions. I did not know how to deal with the urge to eat. So I was like, willpower was rock solid because, you know, hardcore dieter here. Like, I could not eat for hours and it was all good. But as soon as that eating window opened and I had an opportunity to eat again, it was game on. And just like Neha said, I just overate. I just ate all the things because all day I'm not eating, I'm fasting, and I'm thinking, oh, I can't wait until 2 o'clock, or I can't wait until whatever time. Then I can break my fast and I can eat. So instead of focusing on, like, the benefits and tuning into how my body's feeling and focusing on the benefits that fasting has for your body, I was focusing on, like, when can we eat? So basically, for hours upon hours upon hours, I was just developing, um, this urge to overeat. I was creating deprivation for myself. So as soon as I was allowed to eat because of the clock, the clock told me so, I just would eat all the things. And I didn't have— there was like no plan. It was like all I knew was that when the clock hit this time, heh, I was eating. So of course, I gained weight. Because if you're thinking about not eating for hours, and then you finally get a chance to eat, you've created such a desire to eat that you're just going to keep eating and eating and eating. Because the whole time I was eating, my brain was like, "Oh, I haven't eaten all day. I got to make sure I get enough food to eat. I haven't eaten all day," right? So I probably did more harm during the eating window than good during the fasting window. Hey, Lenora. So I teach this in the, in the boot camp. But there's a right way to fast and there is a wrong way to fast, and that is definitely the wrong way to practice intermittent fasting. The other wrong approach about— other wrong thinking about approaching intermittent fasting in this way is that you're— I was using it as like a diet. I was using it as a way to lose weight. It is not a diet. Intermittent fasting is not a diet. So if you're approaching intermittent fasting like, hey, I'm doing this thing because it's going to make me eat less food, and that way I'm going to lose weight. That is the wrong way to approach it. Okay, so intermittent fasting can be a very helpful strategy in creating longevity, but there needs to be a lot of education before you make the decision to try intermittent fasting. And that is what I teach in the boot camp. So I've created— um, I actually did a challenge within my group, and I turned it into a PDF, like a little digital book. It's like 12 wrong ways to do intermittent fasting, like how to do it the wrong way. So everyone in the boot camp gets access to that, and that's the way you don't want to approach it. Been there, done that. And then I also teach what actually happens when you do intermittent fasting in a way that supports your health versus putting your body under a ton of stress, and how do you know the difference, okay? So a lot of people approach intermittent fasting, they're like, I'm just not going to eat for 18 hours. And they're completely ignoring their body. They're completely ignoring how they're feeling. And they're so focused on the clock, as if the clock is going to tell them more information than their body. They're like, nope, 18 hours. That's it. That's the golden number. Then I can eat. And that is simply not the way to approach intermittent fasting. The other wrong thing— there's a— I have a whole list of wrong things, but the other wrong way to approach intermittent fasting is believing there is a set number and you have to do that set number every day. That is still dieters' mentality. So if you're believing that you gotta fast for 21 hours every single day, then you're missing something, okay? You're missing something very important. Hey, Yusefa! Oh, hey, Maddie! It's a whole bunch of people on here live. Hey guys! So if that has been your experience in the past with intermittent fasting, then know that there is another way to approach it. But you want to approach it in a way that— when you're from a place of knowledge and understanding and knowing how your body works. So in the boot camp, what we do is I teach you first how to recognize all the reasons why you're overeating in the first place. We don't even talk about intermittent fasting as a strategy, I think, until like week 3. And I think I spend a day or maybe a day and a half explaining the benefits of it. And you guys also get that copy of the PDF where I talk about the wrong way to approach intermittent fasting. But if you're just approaching it like it's another diet, I can guarantee you're going to have the same result that Neha did. In this question, and also the same result that I had when I tried it back with the dieter's mindset. Okay, so if you know you still think like a dieter and you still believe that you're going to lose weight by just by changing all of your actions, just know that you need to undiet your brain, my friend. And you will have the opportunity to undiet your brain if you decide to join the Stop Dieting Forever— I'm sorry, the Stop Dieting in 30 boot camp, which begins on May 2nd. Or you can just go listen to my podcast. Okay, so that is my answer to Nihal. So Nihal's final question was like, I don't know if I should continue with intermittent fasting, or if I need to really just eat proper foods for me that elicit weight loss. So this is what I'm going to offer you if you have the same line of thinking that she does. This is what I want to offer you, and this is what I want to offer you just think about, because what she's looking for is like the thing that's going to change her weight loss result. Is it the fasting that I need to be doing that's going to change my weight, or is it that I just need to be eating proper foods, whatever that is, right? So she's looking for that thing, that, that what we call an A, an action, to create her weight loss results. So that's you, you're like, let me just find the thing that's going to like work for me and create a weight loss deficit, then that's like, oh, that's the thing. That's the wrong approach. That's how a dieter thinks, right? A dieter, person who diets all the time. So I want to offer that it's not the action, it's not the thing. What we want to look at in order for you to create your forever weight is what's up here. First, right? What's in between your two ears, that is what you're thinking. That is understanding how you're feeling at any point in time, understanding and creating what we call emotional literacy. Because those are the reasons— those emotions unmonitored, those thoughts unmonitored— are the reasons why you're overeating. And look, some of y'all are like, well, I don't overeat. But here's the thing, y'all. If you're overweight, you're overeating somewhere along the line. You may not be hiding in the closet eating a sleeve of Oreos every day, but if you're eating too much food for your body, too much food that your body can't burn in a certain amount of time, you're still overeating. If you're eating the kid— the fries off of your kid's plate, if you're tasting your food while you're cooking it, overeating. Okay, we call those the bites, licks, and tastes. If you find yourself like in the cabinet just grabbing a handful of snack or handful of nuts, a little piece of chocolate here, a little forkful of something from last night out the refrigerator— overeating. Okay, so if you're overweight, you just, just, just claim it. It's okay, just claim it. Say, hey, I'm an overeater. Doesn't matter how you're overeating, but just know you're consuming too many calories, too much food for your body. And what you don't understand are the reasons why that is happening, simply because of what you're thinking and how you're feeling. So we unpack all of that in the first week of the boot camp. And then once you understand that, you have a completely different approach to intermittent fasting. Now, all of my clients do not do intermittent fasting. I have a bunch of clients who are like, oh, hell no, I am not like not eating, like that is not a choice for me. And that is Fine, you can still lose weight and not practice intermittent fasting. But it's so interesting, I'll have some clients who are like, nope, not doing it. And then they just get curious. They just get like, well, what happened? What could happen if I approach it in this way? And so I explained to them in the boot camp how you can kind of like baby step, put your little pinky toe in the water and see like, is this something that I want to try? Is this something that I want to do? And I also teach you what to look out for as far as your thinking and as far as your feeling. So if you're— if you find yourself like snapping back to dieter's mentality of like, oh, I gotta go harder, longer, I gotta fast for like 25 hours— I think Nihal said she was doing 36 hours fasting and then she would be ravenous after that and she would end up eating all the food, right? That's— we gotta— that's a thought that we will catch in coaching. Okay, but that is my take on intermittent fasting. If this is something that you all are interested in, you have comments or you have questions about it and you want to know more about, you know, the, the wrong way to approach intermittent fasting or whatever, if you have questions about it, let me know because maybe I will do a podcast episode on it. I did have a couple people ask me about it. I just, I just haven't done it yet. I just haven't, like, felt the urge or the need to do it. Um, hey Pam! Hello Kimberly! Veronica says, I'm learning to notice how my body feels and adjusting from there. Yeah, so Veronica is a seasoned LuxeLifer, and so what we teach in the program and the process really is getting this connected to this. Right, getting your head connected to your body, because most of us are very disconnected. We don't know how we're feeling any given moment in time. Here's an example, right? If somebody's like, hey, how you doing? And if your automatic response is good or bad, or like, huh, meh, and you don't have any other language to express how you're feeling, then you know that your emotional literacy is very low and it needs to be improved. Hey, we'll talk about that in another Jennifer Live. Hey, Yusefa says, um, the hunger scale was the key for her for intermittent fasting to feel natural. I love that she said that. That's so good. All right. Okay, so that's Jennifer Live today. I will be back here next week. Um, if you're not on my email list, because I send out a reminder with a little link to add this to your calendar so you don't miss it. But you want to go to jenniferdent.com/bootcamp, get your name on the waitlist. Registration is opening up, y'all, on Monday for the next bootcamp. Comes so quickly. Super excited about the welcoming the new group of bootcampers to come in. But also you can go to jenniferdent.com/bootcamp if you just have like questions about the bootcamp. If anything is not on the page, any question that's not answered, send us an email and we will respond to you. We got a question yesterday. Somebody asked about the replays. They can't make the live calls. Yes, we have replays that you can watch. And she also said, I am 70, is this program for me? And I was like, absolutely, yes. There is no age limit. If you want to experience longevity, then you need to get into the Stop Dieting Forever process so you can get to your forever weight, because that's how we want to go out, y'all. At the end of the day, we want to go out at our forever weight. Okay, love you all. If you have questions that you want me to answer in a future Jennifer Live, please send them to me, jennifer@jenniferdent.com. You can hit me up on the DMs, that's where I'm getting some of them, um, or just, you know, y'all know how to reach me. Okay, all right, see you later. Good, glad you enjoyed it. You're very welcome. See you guys.