[Bonus Episode] Fast, Feast, Repeat with Gin Stephens

Hey JJ Here. Every year around this time, I get the urge to make my home feel a little extra special. A space that feels just like the holidays. And Wayfair is my go to for that. Think cozy textures, twinkly decor, warm lighting, and all those little touches that make you want to curl up with a good book and a blanket. You'll usually find my books stacked on a great little end table I got from Wayfair, proof that function and style give can coexist. Now, whether you're adding last minute hosting essentials, picking out gifts for loved ones, or refreshing your decor for the season, Wayfair makes it easy with beautiful finds, great prices and fast delivery. And when the holidays wind down, Wayfair has everything you need to tuck it all neatly away. Smart storage solutions for every room from the kitchen to the closet. Plus, with free shipping for any order over $35, that's fast delivery and a total peace of mind. It's the perfect mix of joy and order, bringing the holiday spirit in, then storing it all with ease. If you're ready to make your home feel as good as it looks, get organized, refreshed and ready for the holidays. For way less head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. Wayfair Every style, EVERY home that's W A Y F A I R.com hey, it's JJ here. You know, I've been talking about environmental toxins forever, and laundry detergent is a sneaky one. A lot of them contain harsh chemicals like dyes, preservatives, and even UV brighteners. Those brighteners don't actually clean anything. They just coat fabric so your eyes think things look whiter or brighter. That's more chemicals I don't want on my family sheets or skin. And if you've got sensitive skin or allergies around the house, this can be a big problem. That's what got my attention about Earth Breeze. It looks like a dryer sheet, but it's actually laundry detergent. You toss one in the washer and that's it. No pouring, no mess, and no heavy plastic jug. Their packaging is lightweight cardboard, which helps reduce plastic waste. And if you choose the fragrance free option, it's gentle, hypoallergenic, non irritating and non sensitizing. I really like how simple it is and how fresh and clean everything comes out without those unnecessary chemicals. Right now you can try Earth Breeze for up to 40% off with free gifts@earthbreeze.com virgin that's earthbreeze.com virgin for up to 40% off plus free gifts on your first order.

This episode is brought to you by Buffalo Trace Distillery. Powerful yet smooth. Contained, but never tame. Proudly going their own way, but never going alone. This is the spirit inside Buffalo Trace Bourbon. Made at Buffalo Trace Distillery. The world's most award winning distillery. Buffalo Trace is always perfectly untamed. Distilled, aged and bottled by Buffalo Trace distillery, Franklin County, Kentucky. 90 proof, 45% alcohol by volume. Learn more@buffalotrace distillery.com Please drink responsibly.

There's nothing positive to be said about a diet soda.

No, nothing.

There's not one thing. I mean the biggest failed experiment with us as lab rats.

Yeah, we really are very much lab rats in so many ways with this whole, you know, chemistry. Better living through chemistry.

Hey, it's JJ and welcome to Ask the Health Expert. But this isn't just any old Ask the Health Expert session. This is your bonus session. Yes, it's the weekend and cause it's the weekend we are gonna take take some time with an amazing expert. So be on the lookout for these.

Saturday Ask the Health Expert bonus sessions.

Where we're going to go deep into an amazing subject with an incredible expert to give you actionable items that you.

Can put into your life.

Hey, it's JJ and today we are going to be talking about Fast Feast Repeat. Yep, we'll talk Intermittent Fasting with Jen Stevens herself. She's a New York Times and USA Today best selling author of that book. Plus she's got delay, Don't Deny Living an Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle and Amazon number one bestseller and three top ranked podcasts. Intermittent Fasting Stories, the Intermittent Fasting podcast with co host Melanie Avalon and Life Lessons podcast with co host Sherry Bullock. Sarah so she's got a super interesting story.

I'm gonna let her tell it.

But basically Jen is an Integrative nutrition health coach from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition and she's got her doctorate in education and a master's in Natural sciences. So she really did a deep dive into learning when she was searching for how to finally lose the weight and landing on intermittent fasting. Since then she has become with one of the world recognized experts in intermittent fasting. And since we get so many questions about it, that'd be super fun to have her with us today. You're going to love this interview and you're going to want to hang out with her and you'll be able to do that and join her groups by going to jjvirgin.com G I N Jin. All right, I'll be right back with Jen Stevens. Stay with me.

Hey, jj. Virgin here. Okay, real talk. So often the holidays sneak up on me. Travel, gifts, hosting, you know, all the things, and suddenly it's like, wait, who spent what and where? And I know I'm not the only one who's looked at a bill in January and thought, wow, that escalated quickly. If you want to keep your finances under control this holiday season, you need to be using Monarch. It's rated the Wall Street Journal's best budgeting app of 2025. Monarch is the all in one personal finance tool that brings your entire financial life together in one clean interface on your laptop or on your phone. Monarch lets you link everything and gives you real time visibility so you're not shocked later. Right now, I've been checking the holiday spending category so I don't accidentally start the new year with that dreaded debt hangover. And honestly, just seeing everything laid out is already helping me stay more aware. This season, Monarch does the heavy lifting. It links your accounts in minutes, gives you smart categorization and super clear visuals. Yes, that end of your reset could be a real goal this time. Don't let financial opportunities slip through the cracks. Use the code virgin@monimal.com in your browser for half off your first year. That's 50% off your first year@monarch.com with the code Virgin.

Some people think nature is like this, but actually it's like this. That's why Columbia engineers everything we make for anything nature can throw at you. Columbia engineered for whatever.

All right, okay, so we are talking fasting. Intermittent fasting. Feasting. And what I'd love to start with. Yeah, like, who says, oh, my favorite is fasting? No, don't give me that. Feasting.

Well, you know what? There's a lot of good fast in the fasting, too. We could talk about that. But yeah, the feasting. The feasting we love.

If you had to ask me prefer faster feast, I think I'd say feast. So, but let's talk, Jen, about how you got into this, because weren't you, like, were you a school teacher? What were you doing? Now all of a sudden you're okay? So school teacher to, like, massive New York Times best selling author, fasting expert. What the heck happened?

You know, it's a crazy story. I struggled with dieting and being overweight, like so many of your listeners, I'm certain have struggled with. And you know, I'm a smart person. I have a doctorate in gifted education. Why could I not figure out what to do about my weight. A funny story. One of the books I read along the way was the Virgin Diet.

Oh, really?

Yes. In fact, my sister's best friend. Friend is a huge fan, and she follows it to this day. She loves the Virgin Diet, so I thought I would tell you that. Yeah. But, you know, I was always trying to figure out what I could eat, you know, what foods worked best for me. And yet I was getting bigger and bigger until, you know, in 2014, I weighed 210 pounds. You know, I was obese and eating.

Eating healthy and trying to do everything right. Sort.

No, well, no, no. I'm working on a new book right now, and I'm. I just wrote a section today where I talk about, you know, my. My past with dieting. I was raised on ultra processed foods, jj.

And you're Southern, so you got the Southern food thing.

I am. I am. And, you know, I ate a lot of things, like spaghettios, Ravioli, Chef Boyardee. Remember when. When you could buy those chicken pot pies that were in the aluminum pans and the frozen. Well, I remember frozen pans. Maybe y' all didn't eat those, but.

My nickname growing up was Poppy because of the amount of pop Tarts I ate. Okay, so. Right. Pop Tarts were pop Tarts, Frosted ones, or Cocoa Puffs. And then we loved those TV dinners. Oh, my gosh. TV dinners.

TV dinners. That's what they were called. TV dinners. And they would take 45 minutes in the oven.

Well, there were no microwaves.

No, there were no microwaves, and they were in aluminum pans. But my favorite was beans and franks by Morton's. I still remember this. Beans and franks. And it had cornbread, and it had this apple something or other. That was it. And I. Yeah, it was so good. There was my fruit, so. And I ate Flintstones vitamins.

Oh, boy. Okay.

So healthy. Right? But no, I was raised on ultra processed foods. And so I grew up as an adult with the palate of, like, a kid. You know, I. I just. You know, I found out I was a super taster, which is true, you know, so I use that as an excuse.

Well, actually, supertasters tend to be thinner than regular tasters because they're pickier.

Well, I was just able to eat all sorts of. Yes, I was picky in the wrong direction, but, you know, I had to do something, and I tried everything. I mean, when your book came out, I, like, desperately gravitated towards it, but I couldn't eat all those foods because I was, you Know, I was eating all the junk foods. That's what I wanted to eat. So really, I wanted a way to keep eating my ultra processed diet of junk and lose the weight. And intermittent fasting did that for me. So I was able to lose the weight eating the same foods I had been eating. Now to this day, I eat completely differently. I am like, okay, I was just.

Going to say, oh, my gosh. Wait a minute. Hold. Interview over.

I am writing a chapter right now in my book. My whole evolution of how I have evolved to who I am today over the years.

Yeah, it's like, is this the Twinkie fasting diet? Because we didn't sign up for this.

Okay, all right. Not at all. But my taste changed naturally. I really think embracing black coffee as part of a clean fast really made a difference there. Because suddenly my taste buds could tolerate black coffee. And then all of a sudden, vegetables weren't so bad either. And when I went on with intermittent fasting to lose First, I lost 75 pounds eating the standard junky diet. Although there was a period of time right towards the end when I wanted to lose more quickly when I cut out ultra processed foods. And I was losing like two pounds a week with intermittent fasting and no ultra processed foods. And this was at the end of my weight loss. So I hit my goal in 2015, lost those £75, went on to lose about £5 more. And I've been maintaining ever since 2015, which is everything. It really is. I've even been through menopause since then. I'm 51.

So that's even like you maintain through menopause. You should get a trophy.

My waist is smaller today than it was a year ago. Of course, I had a little pandemic puff going on, but is that what it's called?

The pandemic puff? I didn't know.

I don't know. I just made that up. But my waist is smaller today than it was a year ago, and I'm officially on the other side of menopause. But yes, intermittent fasting changed everything. It changed what I wanted to eat. Over time, the more I learned, the more I changed what I ate, the better I felt.

So. Because I remember when Sugar Impact diet came out, I went on the Today show and they had this segment. I thought, this is the weirdest idea. They put me and David Chinchenko together to do this segment.

He's the eight Hour Diet guy, right?

He's the eight Hour. But he was before the eight Hour Diet. He was eat this, not that.

Right. He's true. I had all those too.

Right. So he was doing eat this, not that. Now the eight hour diet is no, eat, eat that. But just only during this time I go, this is so confusing, David. Like, and, and how come I'm. And how are you with me over here saying just don't eat sugar and you're saying, don't eat during this time? You know, it's like ridiculous. So. So I think part of fasting, intermittent fasting's first allure to people was like, you know, when it first came out and it was that eight hour window, people were saying, as long as you eat it within that eight hour window, it's all good. I'm like, come on, I bought that.

Book and tried it. And an eight hour window with whatever I wanted did not work for me. A five hour window with whatever I wanted did work for me. But eight, no, no.

There's just way too much damage that could be done in eight hours. All right, so how did you move away from the ultra processed intermittent fasting diet to a healthy intermittent fasting diet? How did you make that shift?

You know, my second book I wrote in 2017, my first book, delay Don't Deny Living an Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle. I self published that in 2016. And my second one, I wanted to write about food because, you know, I had these Facebook support communities that were growing as, you know, more and more people were reading my first book, Delight on Deny, and then joining. And then people were coming in and they wanted to argue about what we should be eating.

You know, that's so fun.

The diet world, it was so fun. And then we had no, we need gluten.

That's what I got when I wrote virgin Diet. You're going to be nutrient deficient if you don't eat gluten. I'm like, huh?

Well, you know, people were like, everyone must be low carb if you're doing intermittent fasting and you're not low carb, you're just really dumb. I'm like, no, that's not true. Everyone does not need to be low carb. And then we had, you know, anyway, everyone was arguing over what to eat. So I was like, I'm just gonna read everything I can find. I'm a teacher. I was on summer break. I'm gonna write a book. And that was when I wrote Feast Without Fear, my second book, also self published. And I really dug in deep to gut health and also the blue zones during that time. And also, you know, a little bit of the DNA and how we're all different in that regard. Although we're learning now that it's more gut than DNA, you know, but this was 2017, and we've learned so much since even then. And just realizing the importance of food and the power of food. And all these centenarians that were living in the blue zones that were eating vegetables.

Yeah, they could. Those vegetables.

Yeah, they were feeding their gut. The food that your gut microbiome needs to thrive. And so I started changing what I was eating. And I also subscribed. Do you remember plated, the food delivery meal kit company?

No. But I was traveling so much that I could never have a food delivery kit company.

Well, plated. I was using plated at that time. And so I started getting more adventurous with what I was ordering. And, you know, I would. I was like, well, I don't think I like Brussels sprouts, but I'm gonna order this. Well, I did. I was like. Although there is a funny story that I shared in my. On my podcast before and with my Facebook group, your listeners probably haven't heard it, but it was the fish story where I ordered this Mediterranean meal. Cause I was so inspired by the, you know, the Mediterranean foods. And it was, I think, a green chef meal. And I was going to eat this fish. And I was sitting at the dinner table crying because I don't like fish.

You don't like any fish?

I don't like fish. I like sea, I like shellfish, I like lobster, I like crab, I like shrimp. But I do not like fish. No, I've tried. And so I'm sitting there in my one meal a day, you know, with my intermittent fasting, and I had this beautiful meal and it's fish. And I'm just crying and I'm like, I just don't like fish. So.

All right, I won't send you. I won't send you a fish present.

Don't send me a fish gift, please. But I learned that there really wasn't hardly a vegetable that I tried that I didn't like. And so now my diet is completely different. Very few ultra processed foods. Every now and then I'll have some Triscuits or something. But I crave vegetables. I don't eat as much dairy as I used to. I mean, it's just. It's amazing.

I'm jumping up and down over here in my seat. But it is true. You can totally retrain your taste buds. Yeah, I mean, you can, you know, I mean, the fact that I, like, grew up on Pop Tarts and Cocoa Puffs. You know, you can totally get rid of that stuff and retrain them and like. And like, these foods. You can.

I mean, I would not eat a Pop Tart now if someone tried to make me, but I would still probably eat a Dorito. I'm not saying I'm.

But you can have a Siete. There's a Siete version of a Dorito out there too. So there's still those healthy Swaps. And I will tell you, I tested. I had to test the. What would I think of a Pop Tart today? And yes, they do not hold that same allure as they used to.

They don't?

No, they just don't.

And it's sad because you had that reminiscent pleasure of childhood, and then you're like, this is so bad.

I don't know if you ever went to Disneyland as a kid, but only Disney World. So I went. I remember taking my kids to Disneyland, and I hadn't been there since I was a little kid. And walking in and thinking it'd be so magical. And you see what it really. You know, it's like the paint chipping and the big. It just wasn't the same. So you can't go back.

So we're just gonna let the same with the Pop Tarts.

So then we can just retire this whole idea that you can pretty much eat what you want within this eight hours.

So definitely not within eight hours.

No. What is this? What's the idea of a clean fast then? What does it look like?

Well, that is really something that I'm very different when it comes to. What do we have during fasting? Because I'm pretty much a fasting purist, because I have researched to figure out what do we want to have happening during the fast. Why are we fasting? It's not just so we can take in fewer calories over the course of our day. And of course, that's what we thought in the beginning. Early on, back when I started fasting, we all thought it was just a way of eating less food in an eating window. And so you had fewer calories. But, you know, then Jason Fung came out with the obesity code, and we learned about the role of insulin in a. In a new way and how, you know, having high levels of insulin keeps you from tapping into your fat stores efficiently. You know, insulin is anti lipolytic, so.

You can say fat stores here. It's safe.

I can, yeah. On Facebook, they're dangerous. We're getting in trouble on the Facebook group, and the moderators tell someone you're almost fat adapted. Facebook is calling that bully.

You're like, no, it was a compliment.

That's a good thing. Is a good thing. But artificial intelligence does not like that. Anyway, if you want to tap into your fat stores effectively, you do not want to have high levels of insulin all the time. And hyperinsulinemia, high levels of insulin all the time are very prevalent, and they're connected to so many of our diseases today. But they're also, if you're overweight, like I certainly was when I was £210, you probably have really high fasting insulin levels. So you want to bring your insulin levels down, and fasting is really the best way to do that. But also when I read the obesity code and learned that something called the cephalic phase insulin response is when you have a sweet taste. Like, let's say you're drinking a Diet Coke because it's got zero calories and it's the dieter's best friend. Well, your brain knows that sweetness is coming in. And the way that we were designed, whenever sweetness comes in, that's going to be honey or fruit or sugar or some kind of form of glucose coming to your body. So your brain says, oop, sugar's coming in, even if it's a diet soda and you pump out some insulin.

Oh, I'm so glad you mentioned this. I'm going to take a quick break. I want to share something about Hint Water that will just fall right in line with this. We'll be right back.

This episode is brought to you by McAfee.

I got a message that our flight was canceled, but they can put us on another flight and we just need to confirm our credit card info.

Wait, I got a security alert from McAfee. It flagged that message as a scam.

McAfee's scam detector automatically spots and alerts.

You to suspicious texts, emails, and deep fake videos. Learn more@mcafee.com online protection.

Okay, so when you're talking about the Diet Coke, I gotta share a story. Have you ever had Hint Water?

Yes.

Okay, so the gal who founded Hint Water, Kara Golden's a buddy of mine. And she was a Diet Coke addict. And she was a Diet Coke addict. And she couldn't lose weight, but she, you know, couldn't be the Diet Coke because it's got no calories, right? And just as an experiment, she stops drinking the Diet Coke because the doctors can't figure out why she can't lose weight. Blah, blah, blah, blah, drops. The Diet Coke loses the weight Right. And then she starts making these waters with a little bit of like fruit, you know, skin for the essential oils, and the rest is history. Now she's got this amazing beverage company, but, you know, I think people don't consider that these sweet taste could trigger this type of thing.

Well, I do have some bad news about the hint water also. Well, for fast, if you're fast and clean, you don't want to have fruity flavored water either.

Right. But you could have this when you're.

Not fast in your eating window. 100%. I actually love hint water.

BlackBerry, sparkling. Yes.

Yep. In my eating window, yes. So you want to keep your insulin low by not having anything sweet coming in. You know, diet sodas do a lot more than just make the sweetness because they also your gut microbiome, you know, so many things.

There's nothing positive to be said about a diet soda.

No, nothing.

There's not one thing. I mean, the biggest failed experiment with us as lab rats.

Yeah, we really are very much lab rats in so many ways with this whole, you know, chemistry, better living through chemistry. But, you know, to keep your insulin, to keep your body from thinking foods coming in, you want to avoid anything that's sweet or anything that your brain is going to think is food. So you want to avoid all the flavored products, flavored coffees, flavored waters. Don't put lemon wedges in there. Save all that for your eating window. You want to water that tastes like water. You want black coffee, plain tea, because the bitter flavor profile is not associated with, you know, you're going to need insulin to manage this. So that, that's why the coffee and the tea are okay. So plain water, plain sparkling water, black coffee, black tea, plain tea, green tea is also fine. Avoid the, like, fancy herbal teas with names like Apple Cinnamon Delight, because your brain's going to be like, oh, this is going to be delicious. And then again, you're anticipating that food. So the first f goals keeping insulin down. The second is we want to tap into our fat for fuel, because that's one of the best features of living an intermittent fasting lifestyle, is how much great energy and mental clarity you get while you're fasting. Your body taps into your fat stores. You've depleted your liver glycogen sufficiently over time. So now you're actually making ketones. Even if you're not ketogenic while you're eating, you're ketogenic when you're fasting. You're tapping into your fat stores and burning your own Fat for fuel, fueling your brain, great mental clarity. So to make sure you're tapping into your fat stores, you do not want to put fat in your coffee. You don't want to add the bulletproof MCT oil. You just want to drink black coffee because you want to tap into your fat source for fuel. You also want to avoid having, you know, exogenous ketones, that sort of thing. And then the third goal for the clean fast is you want to increase autophagy. And I'm sure you've heard of autophagy in the health and wellness world. And that's our body's self cleaning system. And it comes on in the background when we're not eating. So when we're fasting, our body has to scrounge around to see what's in the pantry. And so it recycles old junky proteins and that sort of thing. So you don't want to have anything like bone broth during the fast. If you're trying to have increased autophagy.

And in order to trigger autophagy, like how long do you have to go? At what point do you trigger autophagy?

See, autophagy is not so much like an on off switch as it is more of like a dimmer switch. And we, we, there are many things that we can do that actually lead to increased autophagy. For example, exercise. You know, every person experiences some autophagy, you just may not be having enough of it. If you're living the standard American diet, eating all the time, constantly fed, sedentary, you're going to have really low levels of autophagy going on. Your body isn't able to do much cleaning. But with intermittent fasting, you're able to ramp it up. You know, even drinking coffee is linked to increased autophagy. Exercise.

Like I said, anything you can say that's good about coffee, I'm just like, just keep it going.

Okay, go ahead.

Coffee's like my favorite food group.

I love coffee. It's very important to intermittent faster that good black coffee, organic, lots of polyphenols. But if you started off on day one and you'd never done any fasting and you were not fat adapted, you're not going to have increased autophagy. But I read a lot of the work of Dr. Mark Matts. Do you know who he is? He worked for Johns Hopkins. Do you remember that article that came out December of what year is it? I've lost track of time. December of 2019. It came out in the New England Journal of Medicine. Mark Matson wrote it. It was about intermittent fasting and all the health benefits associated with was big news in the community. Suddenly people were, it was on the Today show, it was on everything right after Christmas of 2019. And suddenly people were talking about the health benefits. So I've read Mark Matson's work for years. He does neurological type stuff for Johns Hopkins and he's actually an intermittent faster himself. But he has written a lot about how ketosis and flipping that metabolic switch, they're all linked. So when you're doing those things that flip that metabolic switch that you get into being fat adapted and in the state of ketosis, that's the same state where your body is going to be ramping up autophagy. So autophagy and ketosis are not the same thing, but they happen in the same state of the body. They both kind of ramp up at the same time. So if you're fasting enough so that you're getting into ketosis here and there, you can be sure that you're also having some ramped up autophagy. Just like anything, you don't want too much autophagy. You know, there's a, you don't want, you don't need to fast for seven days and you just, you know, intermittent fasting gives you those benefits day to day.

Well, here's a great segue then. So, because there, there are so many variations on how to do intermittent fasting, right? It's like, I mean, everything from just stopping eating after dinner and have a later breakfast to five twos and eight hours. So is there a best, I mean, how do you know what to do?

That's a great question. And in my book that just came out in 2020, fast, feast, repeat, I have sections on all those different types. We've got the eating window approach, also known as time restricted eating. And that's what the eight hour diet was all about, an eight hour eating window, which of course wasn't really enough for weight loss for most people because you're not really spending much time in that fat burning state with eight hours.

Well, especially if you could eat whatever you want to do.

Well, I know that's true, but fat burning starts to ramp up for most people. You know, around hour 18 of the fast. It really, you know, there's a graph that just really ramps up and starts to increase during that time. It's not just a straight up linear graph, it's like a, like a J, you know, it goes up faster after 18 hours. So depending on what your goals Are you can design a fasting lifestyle that will help you meet them. My husband never needed to lose any weight. He does a loose 168 for the health benefits. He's a PhD chemistry professor and he's sold on those health benefits and he feels so much better not eating breakfast. He just gets up, drinks a little coffee, doesn't eat breakfast, goes to work, comes home for lunch. He has lunch, he has dinner, that's it. On the other hand, if you're someone who has been obese or overweight for a long time, time restricted eating might not quite be enough for you. You may need an alternate daily fasting approach. Maybe something like 3612 where you're fasting for 36 hours, then you have a 12 hour. We call that an update in the fasting world. And that's your refeed day where you're eating well, feeding your body so that it doesn't feel like you're overly restricting and you could follow a program like that indefinitely. There's a lot of research on alternate daily fasting and the safety and how it's good for our bodies metabolically. You know, it doesn't tend to slow our metabolic rates but, and there's an in between area, you know, where you can have some days where you have eating windows and then maybe every Monday you have a 36 hour fast and then Tuesday is an update and then the other days you have five hour windows and you just really can design a program that fits your lifestyle and what your needs are.

I love that so much. You know, this has been my thought process in all this is, you know, I started out in this world as an exercise physiologist and one of the things that you are taught in school is that you need to cross train that, you know, you would never think, okay, you only do one type of exercise. You're always taught, oh, you need to do some flexibility and some strength work and some cardiovascular training. And yet in dieting it's like, well, you should eat. I've even read this, you should eat the same time every day. You should have your three meals. You should be. And I'm like, shouldn't you cross train your diet too? I mean, shouldn't you make your body go oh, it should be able to go, oh, we skipped a meal. All right. You know, it's just we should be able to do that and have caloric variability just like we had exercise variability.

It's true. Our bodies, you know, they love to adapt to anything that's the same day in and day out. You know that from the exercise world. And the same is true with eating. You know, if you eat the exact same amount of food every day, even with intermittent fasting, your body can adapt to that. I'm just one of those people. Fortunately, I tend to be great at listening to my body, especially now. And some days I'll be like, I need to have lunch and dinner today. I'll open my window at 11 o' clock and have something to eat and I'll have a two meal day or and then the next day I'm busy and maybe I don't have time to eat until five and it all just. I just really listen to my body and eat more when I need to.

So you tend to go between one and two meals a day?

Yes. I call myself a one meal a day person because I really only eat one actual meal most days. But you know, a funny thing happened. We had the first one meal a day group on Facebook. It's now archived. But we started that group in 2015 when I was still very much in early days of intermittent fasting for me. And it was the first. We were the first people really talking about eating one meal a day. But it was within a flexible approach. It wasn't like one plate, one hour, 23 hours of fasting, one hour. No, it was always. Think of it like a multi course meal. So I would always have my one meal a day and kind of a five hour window where I would start with like maybe an appetizer course, you know, my snack, and then later I would have my main meal. But it definitely wasn't two meals and you know, it wasn't at lunchtime. It was all kind of grouped around that dinner hour. So that's my loose one meal a day. You know that now though, people are like, uh, you're not doing one meal a day unless it's 23 1. Although I saw a really funny graphic. Somebody shared that, you know those crazy Facebook ads that they're trying to sell you plans and things? So there was one like look at your foot shape to determine your, your best intermittent fasting plan. It was the funniest thing I've ever seen. And there was one foot shape where you had to do 24 0. I'm like, what is that? Do you fast until you die? You're doing 24,0. That doesn't even.

Well, is it that there is no one with that foot type. So that's how they're getting away with it. So. But, but that brings up. All right, you know, since we Know that men are not hairy. Women, men and women are different. You know, what are the different considerations for women in fasting?

You know, I think that there's a lot of confusion there, even among people that I really respect and listen to in the intermittent fasting world about women. We do have different bodies. We do not react well to over restriction. But intermittent fasting is not equivalent to over restriction. And I think that's where people get confused. They assume that a woman who's doing intermittent fasting is also being overly restrictive within that paradigm. And that's not true. We don't do well with over restriction. Whether we're eating for 16 hours a day in an overly restrictive format or whether we're eating five hours a day in an overly restrictive format. Women should not over restrict their diets and over exercise. That is bad for us. But if you are doing intermittent fasting, even with a four hour window, if you're nourishing your body well and you're not living in a restrictive way, your body is going to be fine. It's the people who have trained themselves to eat diet meals and they eat a little diet dinner and they say, I'm intermittent fasting. That's not going to be good for you.

Yeah. And then they go do CrossFit.

Yeah, your body's going to freak out about that. But your body would also not like it if you were eating, you know, all day long, tiny little amounts and oats.

Oh my gosh, I can't even tell you. So when I first came out and said we shouldn't be snacking, it was like, you know, it was, it was, you know, you would think that I was a crazy person. I know. I mean, you know, it was like, I go, no, really, I'm thinking about what happens every time we eat. This doesn't make sense, you know, so I just underscoring that if all you get from this right now is that I think we focused for so long about what we should be eating and then we went to when we should be eating. And you know what? You got to look at both what and when you do.

It all plays a part. Yep, it absolutely all plays a part. You need to put the nourishing foods in because literally they run our whole bodies. We can't do the things we need to do, you know, at the cellular level without the nutrients.

And what are your top favorite nourishing foods? Hmm.

I love avocados and I really love beans.

Which ones?

I like black beans, but I really, I don't think there's a single bean I don't like.

Huh?

Honestly.

You like lima beans?

I love lima beans.

Holy. Well, you are so.

Even when I was a kid. Yeah. See, my grandmother and she made butter beans, which are not exactly like lima beans. They're brown. Yeah.

I don't want that.

And they're even better. I like black.

I like black beans. Yep. And garbanzo beans. I'm always in a fight. Dave Asprey is one of my closest friends, and he is just completely anti garbanzo beans. So I'll tell you a story. I'm always messing with him with this. I gave him this birthday present. I like, wrapped all of these cans of garbanzo beans. And he got those. He came over and spent the night. And in the guest bedroom, I put hummus in the bed. He's like, unbelievable. It's the running joke. So if you see him, get him.

Well, listen, next time you talk to Dave, tell him I would like to challenge him to try the clean fast for one month.

Oh, boy, that's a throwdown.

I just would like for him to try it. I tried the bulletproof. I did all that back in the day when it first came out. I read the Bulletproof diet. I don't feel well with all that fat. And I would like him to try the clean fast and just. See, I bet he would be amazed, but he would have to give it some time.

All right, I'm gonna. I'm gonna not touch that one.

Okay.

I'm just gonna leave that right where it is.

Le is.

I do drink. I drink bulletproof coffee every morning, but I just drink it black. I just drink the.

Oh, you drink the brand?

Yeah, I drink. Yeah.

Yeah, you're drinking the brand, but you're not putting the. The oil in there.

No, I don't. You know, I think too, for women, like, there's a lot of fat in these diets that will work for a man, that will not work for a woman. So.

Well, I also went through a very interesting study. Do you know Tim Spector? He's from the uk. He's the author of Spoon Fed. He's a researcher. He has done twin studies. He's a big gut guy. He wrote Spoon Fed. He's associated with the British Gut project. Well, he's doing a study now, the predict studies. And I took part in that. And basically, long story short, my body doesn't clear fat quickly.

Ah, well, that's why that would feel rotten for you to do that. Now, what about. Does taking something like lipase help or it just.

Well, it just. I just need to eat less fat at a concentrated period of time. It just takes my body longer to clear it out. So I don't avoid fat. I'm not low fat. But, you know, my personalized dietary recommendations based on. They analyze your gut microbiome. You were a cgm, they look at, you know, they feed you these test muffins and you have to test your blood and they look at how you clear the fat, how you clear the blood glucose, all that. It's really very cutting edge. I think something was just published in Nature from his group. So they're awesome, doing some awesome work. But it didn't surprise me that I cleared fat slowly because I never did well with a ketogenic approach where I was eating really high fat foods. I always felt very inflamed and turns out that's why.

There you go. Yep.

I bet Dave clears fat quickly.

I bet he does too. That'd be my prediction. I've been around him enough. I'm much more of a better protein person. That's the one where I remember trying to be a vegan and I just felt terrible, terrible. So, you know, and I'm going to leave us with this. I really think that one of the things that a lot of the diets take us away from is connecting the dots between what we eat and how we feel. And it is so critical. Like one of the single best tools is to keep a food journal, keep a diary and just really connect those dots. It doesn't matter if someone says something's healthy if you eat it and you feel crappy, you know, so, you know, don't take yourself out of the equation. And that's what I love here, is that you can design an intermittent fasting protocol that works for how it makes you feel and your lifestyle, which is the most important at all.

It really is. Because that's when you're. You're going to be successful. You know, it has to fit your life.

Yes.

You have to enjoy it.

Amen. So people can go and hang out with you. Get into your groups. I'm going to. And I know you have a couple different ones, so I'm going to give a link and we'll make it easy. It'll be jjvirgin.com gin G I N and that will link up to your groups, which right now is on Facebook. We'll see. We'll see. And we've got another one off Facebook. And we'll see what's happening out there in the world as Things get weirder and weirder. Yeah. That's all I can say about that.

There you go.

There you go. So yeah. Jjvirchin.com Ginny G I N and gin then tonic gin. How many times have you said that? Just like me saying virgin like Virgin Mary, you know.

Yeah. Yeah.

It has been such an absolute pleasure. I'm so excited I ran into you on Clubhouse.

Oh, me too.

Yes. And hopefully we'll get to hang out in person one day.

Definitely.

Awesome.

I'm gonna count on that.

Me too. All right. I had so much fun during that interview. I'm trying to figure out how to get Jen to come to my house as soon as possible and hang out. I can tell this is going to be a long time girlfriend and if you'd love to hang out with her, reminder, you can join her groups and you can do that by going to jjvirgin.com forward/gin G I N and if you love this podcast as much as I did, you don't want to miss the other ones. So go to subscribe to JJ Garbage so you never miss a show. See you next time.

Hello listeners, this is Anne Bogle, author, blogger, and creator of the podcast what Should I Read next? Since 2016, I've been helping readers bring more joy and delight into their reading lives. Every week I tag all things books and reading with a guest and guide them in discovering their next read. They share three books they love, one book they don't, and what they've been reading lately. And I recommend three titles they may enjoy reading next. Guests have said our conversations are like therapy, troubleshooting issues that have plagued their reading lives for years and possibly the rest of their lives as well. And of course, recommending books that meet the moment, whether they are looking for deep introspection to spur or encourage a life change or a frothy page turner to help them escape the stresses of work, school, everything. You'll learn something about yourself as a reader and you'll definitely walk away confident to choose your next read with a whole list of new books and authors to try. So join us each Tuesday for what Should I Read Next? Subscribe now wherever you're listening to this podcast and Visit our website, whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com to find out more.