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Menopause Weight Gain and Discovering Fasting 0:00

I had suddenly gained 50 pounds in menopause. Like, boom, I didn't change anything about my food, I changed nothing and I gained 50 pounds because of the hormonal chaos. And that night I tucked in bed and up popped intermittent fasting. But I didn't know that you could incorporate a daily pattern, a daily regimen of abstaining from nutrients and flavors and sweetness. And so was fasting hours, healing hours, and eating window hours. I didn't know you could live like that. This is doctor talks. All right, everyone, welcome back.

We are joined today by Laurie Lewis. Thank you for coming here. What a joy. Thank you. It's going to be a joy because we're going to talk about, well, a few things. First of all, you're kind enough to open up and you're going to be telling us your story and how you got to where you are, which is awesome, but also a unique perspective on fasting and how to implement it and how it affects menopause, etc.. I think it's something that people need to hear because not everyone's journey is the same. You know, and yours got you to where you are.

You look incredible. You know, you look like health is not something you have to worry about, although it took work to get you there, right? So we're going to dive in and discover it all. So starting with, you know, your own challenges and how you used. During menopause I use fasting to sort of turn that around. So maybe dive into us and tell us about that. I love this conversation with you. Thank you. Kashif. I imagine being a grown woman, 54 years old, in your mother's kitchen, throwing a completely complete temper tantrum like you were five years old, losing your mind.

That was me. And what caused this meltdown at the age of 54 is I had been really struggling with perimenopause and menopause, pushed me down a dark hole for about ten years, but they don't send us to biology class for older women, so we don't know what's happening. Don't put the dots together, right? And so there I was, after ten years of struggle, and I went home to Colorado, where I grew up. I was in my mom's house. I had suddenly gained 50 pounds in menopause. Like, boom. I didn't change anything about my food.

So I've been a healthy eater since I was in my late 20s studying nutrition. It's my personal passion. I changed nothing and I gained 50 pounds because of the hormonal chaos of perimenopause and menopause. And my mom said, let's use this time that you're home to turn the weight around. I lost it. My daughters did not hear that is helpful okay. So I had my wailing and butt stomping and she was such a loving mom.

Laurie Lewisu2019s Menopause Story and First Results 3:00

She's past that since then. That was six years ago. And, she listened and she said, let's pray for an answer, because I was telling her I had tried everything not only to lose 50 pounds, but to feel better. I had brain fog and memory loss. I was aching, had just like every joint, every muscle was hurting from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. And that night I tucked in bed. And, you know, we all know we shouldn't get on our phones or our computers and batteries and turn the lights off.

But I googled the same thing I always had, which was something like menopausal, hormonal, stubborn fat. Help me. And up popped intermittent fasting. Now, I've been studying nutrition for since my late 20s, and I knew about long term therapeutic fasting, but I didn't know that you could incorporate a daily pattern, a daily regimen of abstaining from nutrients and flavors and sweetness and so or so fasting hours, healing hours, and eating window hours. I didn't know you could live like that, so I stayed up all night studying it, and it just made perfect sense to me.

And I went downstairs in the morning and I said to my mom, thank you. I think I found an answer and she inquired, and she said, that makes perfect sense. How may I support you? And that was the first day, six years ago, where I had an eating window, and I've never missed a day. And, I love that. I've never missed a day because then people can see as an example that you can either in the evening when you close your eating window, look ahead and decide when you're when is your eating window going to be tomorrow or when you wake up in the morning.

You can see what the day holds. Some people love having it the same every day. Some people love moving it around. It's all customized. So every day for six years. And so, you know, quickly two aspects of that I that I think are really important. It took 15 months to lose 51 pounds. I didn't change anything about my food. I only incorporated intermittent fasting and 15 months of healing and repair and fat burning and being in ketosis and autophagy and all the great healing that happens. But the most amazing thing was that I felt better in three days.

Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah, I was standing in that same place in her kitchen, and all of a sudden I had the thought, there I am, there I am. It was. I was suddenly clear again, I was grounded, I felt like myself. I was back in my body. I didn't feel anymore. Like I'd been abducted by some sort of alien and that the alien disappeared. I've never quite said it like that before, but I was myself, and that was very motivating. It's truly awesome. And it it really paints a picture to how close we are to good health.

You you feel horrible. And this thing that you think you have, whether it's fibromyalgia, endometriosis or rocky menopause. And if in three days you can start to feel amazing, that's how close to good health we actually are if we start to have the right habits. Right? I just need to lean in that direction a little bit and you proved it yourself. You don't hear that very often, but that's if you if you start doing things right, you can unwind it pretty quick. So I guess that speaks to like what's the drive or is it a metabolic issue.

Like why, why is it that all of a sudden this one thing, wow, everything's alleviated, comes crashing down and you feel amazing? I well, that is a big question. What's the driver? You know, we're a very complex system. And I also hear in your response to me and in your question the importance of mindset. Everything you just said was so hopeful. And so, you know, if a person holds, oh, I just feel emotion. If a person can hold that, it's so close to their body. You know, I have this dream that each person develops, every human, that it become part of our way of being human, that we develop a reverence, a communion, a beautiful partnership with our body, and that human beings would never dream of saying, I hate my body or my body is my enemy.

It's like, no, we're so close. And so what? What are the most important aspects of this complex system for balancing those hormones? And, you know, getting the fat off our liver and and healing the gut and, and inflammation, like one of the wild things that happened for me, it was within 3 to 4 months. It was somewhere like September, ish. I noticed that my debilitating plantar fasciitis had disappeared, that I'd had for ten years. I didn't wake up in pain anymore, so I book that helped me a lot was Doctor Ben Beckman's book Why We Get Sick and the premise of his book is that the underlying, you know, you keep getting lower, digging deeper, deeper, deeper, the underlying cause of all metabolic diseases are high circulating insulin and high inflammation.

And strangely enough, those are tests that they do not include in our conventional lab work here in the US. Like you have to beg for fasting insulin and for the inflammation to see RPE and ESR and so forth. It's what's amazing is, you know, you see all sorts of articles about lowering inflammation with this food and that food. And step one, my people start fasting, clean and have an eating window and inflammation is going to come down. You're going to lower your circulating insulin, which will then affect your blood sugar.

Why Fasting Helps Metabolism and Inflammation 9:00

And I think one of the things that people get concerned about is elevated cortisol, because we live in very stressful, fast paced times and people are sleep deprived and they're worried about, you know, yeah. One more thing, raising cortisol. Well, if you're discovering for yourself a fasting rhythm, a fasting sweet spot and eating window that works for your goals, your body, your life, your family, your work commute, your work, your fitness that feels delicious to the body. That is not a stressor at all.

There is a moment where you'll have a hunger wave, and you just ride it on out and you're burning fat and suddenly you're not hungry anymore, and you open your eating window later. So, this idea that fasting is a stressor. I tend to disagree because I coach my people to have it be yummy for you and your life and something. Yeah, yeah. The way you approach it, where it doesn't have to be so rigid, you know, and regimented like, here's how, what you have to do. But I don't feel like that today. Right.

And I have to work out today or I didn't sleep properly today or whatever and just understand that that window is the key, right? That the time timing is and it can it can be adjusted. I feel the same. Like there's days where I know I can fast longer. When I workout, I lose my hunger, right? I start training, so I'll try and work out later in the day to be able to extend my fasts, because it's one tool that allows me to keep going. You would think that's counterintuitive, like, oh, you need food to work out.

No, there's plenty. I still have a little bit of a tire here, you know? So there's plenty of us are zero fat. We have plenty to burn. And so I suspect that maybe then the next day you're hungrier in your eating window. Do you feel like you need more? For sure. If it's a big workout. Yeah, it's if it's a big one. Now, if I do this consistently right, if I do it for like 30 days straight, it becomes routine. And I don't even have an appetite, right. It's like, but I'm also using minerals and other things.

But that being said, for sure, in a regular week, yeah, I'll get hungrier. Like today, for example, you know, yesterday I did a big workout, so I'm hungry. And you said something in there. Little nuance thing. I don't know if people caught it, but you said fasting, but you said fasting clean. Yeah, and that was a very purposeful word you use. So what do you mean? It is a purposeful, purposeful word and concept. So fasting clean. The idea was coined by Jen Stevens who her first book was called Delay, Don't Deny.

And it was a runaway hit because it felt like reading an informative book by a smart friend. And then her next book was called Fast Paced Repeat. It was a New York Times bestseller, and Jen's idea of fasting clean is really that's a purist fast. That's actually fasting. But we have to differentiate between fasting clean and fasting with eating things or taking in nutrients or flavors, because you can find anything on the internet to give you approval to do whatever you want. So the clean fast requires a bit more, dare I say, rigidity during the fasting hours.

But then this idea of her first book, which is delay. Don't deny your eating the foods that you love later in your eating window. So save the nutrients, save the flavor. Party people are like, but the lemon is going to lemon in the water is just going to get me through. I'm losing my mind. Okay, that's really just during the adjustment phase is that people are getting bored or antsy, or they're not used to having no flavors in their mouth. They want to be entertained by flavor. It's like, oh, well, that's just interesting to notice, isn't it?

So save the flavor party till later. Now, why would fast and clean and I'll say what it is plain unflavored water, plain unflavored black coffee. Plain. Unflavored. Bitter black or green tea. Not with lemon grass and ginger and all the, you know, all the things plain unflavored minerals. So electrolytes, magnesium, sodium, and then your prescriptions, your medications as prescribed by your doctor. So again plain water, plain unflavored is the theme here. Now why would we do that. It's counterintuitive.

It actually makes fasting easier when we take in food flavors whether it's lemon or cucumber. Then the body is anticipating incoming food it aligns to receive. It's like a little taste, a lemon, the body's like, well, you're going to feed me. And it aligns to receive that food. Hormonally, digestive tract is revving up, ready to go. And you don't feed it because you think you're fasting. The body gets grumpy. That makes fasting harder. So make it easier on yourself. Plain unflavored water. Plain. Unflavored. Black coffee.

Plain. Unflavored. Bitter black or green tea. Then the other thing is, is we want all the healing benefits of the fasting hours. So we want to put our body into a full digestive rest. We want to go through the glucose and glycogen and shift into fat burning, and be metabolically flexible and become fat adapted and go into ketosis and fueling our brain on ketones. And there's nice, bright, clear, clean energy. We want a deep cellular repair of autophagy. We want to boost human growth hormone. We want all the healing.

We want our body to be addressing cancer cells. We want our body to be reducing inflammation and boosting immunity and healing our gut lining. So fasting clean is very simple. It allows for all that deep healing. And then we get to eat the yummy foods that make us feel really well that we're anticipating, which is very exciting for the human chemical. Make it like human beings are happier who are who can wait later for gratification, who are able to delay gratification. There's been enough studies, scientific studies, and research on human beings being happier who know how to delay gratification.

And that comes, you know, eating later is, makes for happy people there. Ultimately. I mean, people don't realize what they're the same things you're giving up pleasure, but you're getting a sensory reward for achieving giving it up. And both of those things are a dopamine hit. They're both satisfaction. Right. So and the sense of satisfaction from the reward is much more satisfying than pleasure. Pleasure. You need more and more and more. There is no satisfaction and pleasure. Right. And so I think you can replace the pleasure with reward.

And that's what you're describing. That's right. And it's really, win win. It's really a scenario where, like you said, you kind of get to have it all,

Clean Fasting, Minerals, and Avoiding Triggers 16:00

but in very short order, usually within two weeks. My clients are saying way a suck. I feel better when I'm fasting. Fasting isn't the problem. It's the eating window that becomes challenging for people. I've found Kashif that within the first few weeks of people taking on a clean fasting and eating window schedule that they say right away, really within the first two weeks, that the fasting hours are not a problem. They really like it, actually. And then the eating window becomes their their issue where they're like trying to figure out what foods are satisfying.

I'm eating too quickly or how do I get enough nutrients. And so once the fasting becomes your daily practice, which is pretty quick, yeah, people realize how well they feel. Then we can focus on the food. I do it a little backwards than many doctors and coaches. Many say that you need to get the food sorted and then start the fasting, and I could not disagree more with that. I feel like the easiest thing for people to do is to look at their life and decide when they're closing their eating window this evening, what time are you going to stop eating?

And then you'll drink plain water after that, and then you'll go to sleep, and you'll wake up tomorrow and you'll drink plain water. And if you like coffee, have a black coffee. You won't die. Then later, open your eating window whenever feels right for you, and then you're gradually going to shrink those eating window hours and gradually extend the fasting hours. And people discover very quickly how well they feel. It's just so motivating for people to be able to stop. Especially women, especially women over 44 is kind of the cutoff for me.

As I say, I help women aged 44 to forever. We all want to stop this street brawl with the cravings and the hormones, and the best way to do that is start establishing a clean fasting regimen, and then we get to sort out the food together. Yeah, I agree with you there. I've seen that where the habit formation is that the structure is important versus like here, frantically thinking about the food and what I'm going to eat, what I'm not going to eat. When the structure is innate, it makes everything easier.

But you start thinking that way and then you're automatically you're thinking about your food cleaner, you know, because you've got this habit, you've changed the way you approach your food. You're not going to shove a bunch of cookies down your throat because, you know, there's limited time to get what you actually need in, right? And once you get it in your full quicker, the satiety hits faster. You mentioned something earlier about, you know, when it comes to eating clean and a kind of light bulb went off because I didn't realize and think about it, that all these people would be adding flavors and things that are not necessarily calories, but just to feel good, right?

And to feel satisfied. And the body is very intelligent, so even just tasting something sweet will trigger an insulin response. You don't actually have to have sugar in your blood. You're right. Yeah. The genes start expressing and insulin is triggered. And that leads to where's the food? I'm hungry and it screws up. You're old fashioned. I literally never even thought about that until you just brought it up right now. But is it the same? Do you also say nothing salty? Because I know some people will take like, literally like mineral salts and like, lick it to keep themselves going?

No, salt is different if people are taking in a very high quality, natural, you know, not over processed table salt in the blue container as if it's a real good salt. I don't believe in taking in too much salt, but when insulin is low, especially for new fasters, when insulin is low, the kidneys tend to dump magnesium and sodium. So the other piece of plain unflavored water plain unflavored black coffee if you like coffee, tea if you like tea. But real actual tea leaves, not mint or camomile. And then the fourth element there are minerals.

So magnesium, sodium. I find that a lot of people do become reliant on that sodium, just like it's another trigger thing, like an entertainment. We have been conditioned in our society to use food to resolve all of our emotions anger, fear, resentment, hurt, you know, boredom. They feeling like we need a break we deserve. Yeah. And so even then, shifting, even if a person is keeping an eating window and delaying their eating until later, I encourage people. And this is part of my coaching too, that people start to notice what how they're using, what they're using for comfort.

And so I also don't believe in licking too much salt. So I started, you know, the other thing that people talk about a lot is putting fat in their coffee and that that could possibly be part of fasting. It's like, come on, people, you're all smart here. Just think of it this way. People are like, oh, but the fat in my coffee gives me this nice, sustained energy all morning, and then I can eat later and it's no problem. But. But wouldn't you rather burn the fat on your belly than the fat in your coffee cup?

If you're utilizing fat as an energy source to give you a nice, beautiful, sustained energy until you eat later, wouldn't you want that fat to be on your body? Yeah. Yes. I do not want the fat in my coffee cup. I want my body burning my own fat. And so now, for all these years I've been at my ideal weight. I'm fueling on fat most of my own body, fat. Most of the time. I'm 60 years old and I have had my biological age tested, and I'm the biological age of a 40 year old, and I'm working to make that younger, which is not because I'm chasing youth, but because I'm very interested in my deep cellular health that my mitochondria and the telomeres and pay.

I'm very interested in this idea of longevity for people. It's, you know, all the rage. But what I've discovered pretty quickly is that people, normal people like you and I, we just actually want to feel better. Like, at the top of our conversation, you were saying, we're so close. We get so close to good health. We're so close to feeling well, and people want to wake up in the morning rested and look at the day ahead and and have no aches and pains and fatigue in their body and be sharp and clear and get through that and be able to sit on the floor and stand back up again and feel flexibility in their body and strength and stamina.

That's what people want. And so that that is the most important thing to me, is that people keep an eating window and look for ways throughout the day and throughout their life to take really good care of themselves so that no matter what is happening in life, whether it's good times or bad, you're a person who naturally takes really good care of yourself. No matter what's happening in life. That is really important to me. Yeah. And there's from listening to you, I mean, there's there's so many benefits to fasting.

And if you don't understand all of them, then to me, you may think it's okay to adopt some habits that you shouldn't for example, if you don't understand that it's not only about autophagy and killing off cancer cells or whatever, but it's also about burning your fat. If you knew that, then you wouldn't need fat, right? So there's a whole list of benefits. So understand those will help you understand the habits. Now there's a famous Laurie Lewis quote. Yeah, I have a few. I'm going to read it word for word.

And you're going to explain why this is not a typo, but this is for real. You said intermittent fasting isn't a diet. It's a quiet. Yeah. What does that mean? Well,

Appetite Correction and Relearning Hunger Cues 24:00

let's start with, you know, all of human history and evolution and so forth. Survived, thrived as a species by having no food. Human beings get stronger, brighter, clear in the fasted state. And if we in fact got tired and lethargic and couldn't move, we would not have had the strength to go out and find food. So the opposite is true. We get stronger and clearer. It's also been part of all spiritual religious meditation traditions as far back as recorded history. That prayer and fasting. Why would those two things go together?

Because fasting actually creates an environment emotional, cognitive, physical, spiritual environment where we can connect more clearly to you could say to what your body's telling you. You could say to what the divine is communicating to. People can interpret that however they please. But what is very real for people when they're fasting is it gets quiet, the noise gets quiet. You can actually start communing with your body in a way that it is in the driver's seat. So with dieting and following a list of what you should and shouldn't eat, and eating little amounts of food all the time and never feeling completely satisfied and getting on the scale every day in this frantic like, am I doing it right?

And I must be doing it wrong and it's not working. All that noise gets really quiet when you're fasting clean and eating later and turning inward. You know all this noise of like, how am I doing? How am I doing? Is it working? Is it working well? How do you feel? And people start feeling better and better and the noise goes away and it's amazing. And my coaching calls because people will come to me with a new curiosity. It's like, oh, where'd that come from? Now, if it's from their friend or the news, that's interesting to note, that's an external.

But when a new curiosity arises, like, I wonder if I should eat more of fill in the blank or I wonder if now I should really start reducing alcohol or sugar, or I wonder if I should sign up for a Pilates class or what? Where'd that come from? That came from the quiet. And so to diminish the outside noise and increase the inner communion is part of what happens when a person fast, clean, and keeps an eating window and you learn to trust yourself and you learn to trust your own body. And it's a beautiful thing. Yeah.

This. Yeah, it truly is a beautiful thing. And you just put, two and two together for me because I. So I've always fasted, but not as consistently as I have been in the last sort of year and a half. And there's a definite spiritual change that I didn't put the two together. And I think it's pretty clear that when you make that shift from pleasure to reward and you make that shift from, like, you know, reactive and call it impulsive to very purposeful and caring for yourself and saying no to something that you really could enjoy.

Right. And enjoying the no more saying no more that gives you more satisfaction, completely changes the way your brain's wired. And we we're our brains are always rewiring themselves. So neuroplasticity is a constant. And you're developing new neural pathways and you think differently. You become a different version of yourself. But what you just said makes it so much more clearer how I why I feel the way I feel. And I don't have a menopause problem. That's why we're not what we're talking about.

But I definitely feel what you're saying, which is like, get rid of all that noise. Imagine your cells, the the mitochondria, the DNA. These are communication tools. They're not just what we think they are. They literally communicate internally, externally. And if they're constantly burdened with metabolic mess and you're eating 3 or 4 times a day and you're not eating the right stuff, so it's burdensome in that regard. Also, then how are you communicating not only externally but even earned internally?

Right. So clean that up and give your chance to breathe in. You know, the cells can start thriving and communicating from I feel it I feel exactly what you just described. So now. But you you put it into words which will allow it to make sense for me, which is awesome. I love that, and let's call it a menopause awakening instead. Yeah, issue. It is an issue. And, it really can be an awakening. It's it's something new for a woman to experience and every woman experiences it differently for different amounts of time and years and, you know, certain degrees of how it affects them.

But, it really is a pleasure to be able to help people get this noise quiet. Because what I'm listening for is where are people? Where's the struggle, stress or strain mentally, emotionally, physically. And wherever there's a struggle, stress or strain, we're gonna make it better. And then that allows, as I said, this quiet, there's a doctor. Bert Herring coined the phrase appetite correction, which is one of the aspects of when you're fast and clean and have an eating window, it's a different length of time for everybody.

That appetite correction kicks in. But what appetite correction is, is kind of, again, this quiet discernment of the body is very smart. We're like a wild animal. A lion knows how much to eat and when to stop eating, even if the carcass of the animal they just killed isn't finished, they don't like the whole thing clean because their bodies like I'm done. And our body can do that too. It's just with the constant eating and with the ultra processed food, our body has lost that communication. So with daily clean fasting, we can then start getting the messages from our body that we can stop eating.

Now we've had enough. Now people wonder, you know, when they're new investors, how do I know how much to eat? It's all right. Just eat normally in your eating window what's normally eat what you normally eat and then over time, usually a few weeks, sometimes a few months for people, the body start saying stop now. So appetite correction affects us in two basic, you know, simplify it two ways. The first is the quantity of food. And so you want to slow down and eat mindfully and pay attention to when hunger is gone.

And stop eating when hunger is gone and your body feels satisfied. And the second aspect is the quality of food. Your body starts saying broccoli, brussel sprouts, salmon as opposed to, you know, chips and crackers and and fruity sweet yogurt and so forth. So the quality of food so that quiet, you can actually hear your body say, stop now, eat more, eat this. Not interested in that. The way it shows up is, let's say you're going to a restaurant. You used to go to all that. Whenever you go there, you order your favorite thing.

You haven't been in a while, and now you're an intimate investor and you get there. You don't even need to look at the menu. But all of a sudden you're kind of like, I don't think I want that thing that I always get when I come here. Then you look at the menu and your body's going, not that, not that, not that, that, that is what it's interested in. So it's it's starting to tell you what it's interested in and not interested in. And so then your friends might be like, oh, you, you know, you're trying to be good.

It's like, no, I'm not trying to be good. This isn't a diet. I'm tuning into my body. This is not about being good. It's about feeling good. And my body just told me what it wants me to eat. So that's what I'm eating. That sounds delicious. So it's a subtle shift. Could be an obvious shift between diet culture, diet mindset, diet brain, which is all about being good, and I'm trying to be good and that food is bad. If I eat it, I'm bad on it.

Who Fasting Helps and How to Work With Laurie 32:00

Fell off the wagon? No, that's more of the noise. There's just this quiet. Yeah. That's beautiful. And yeah, I evolved to also experience that. I feel like, this is a therapy session for me. Great. Yay! Tell me more, tell me more. You've actually worked with thousands of women now. So is there a context or a problem that you've been trying all where this doesn't work? Or is it like all the time? This has been the one thing like, wow, that changed by like when I meet people newly and they are like, oh, they either know someone who's intermittent fasting and they're like, oh my God, you know, so and so they say, or they say, oh, I tried that.

I never felt better. I'm like, oh, what happened? You're not doing it anymore. And you know, they took a trip or they had a crisis in their family. They're like, I never got back to it. Or they say, I tried that. It didn't work for me. I want to talk to all those people. But I'm especially curious about the people who say it didn't work for them. So I want to know where they fast and clean. I want to know how long they tried it for. Did they even get through the adjustment phase? I want to know what working means.

Are you just looking at the scale? Like how many hours? Like, sometimes people are like fasting. They have a lot of weight to lose or health to turn around, and they're having a ten hour eating window. Okay, well, that's a great place to start. But we got to shrink that eating window. If you've got to turn around some health stuff or conversely, people will say, yeah, I did it for two and a half weeks. I had a one hour eating window. I'm like, Lord have mercy. That's like, maybe you needed a longer eating window.

So I really want to dig in and figure out what you were doing. Were you fasting clean? What was your pattern? How long were you doing it? What medication are you on? What's your fitness? You know, the whole big picture. To answer your question, it's most challenging for people to take very good care of themselves every day when they're addicted to ultra processed food and refined sugar, that it becomes the biggest challenge because that addiction is a really strong word. But when something's got its claws in you, when you have the thought that it would be a very sad or impossible life without that thing, that's really something to take a look at.

Fasting clean and keeping an eating window helps a person with a stability. Once we find that, you know, clean fasting, curious and customization, and then we're in the continuing phase, and then we've got to look at all the other aspects of health, whether it's sleep or hydration or movement, food quality meditation, quiet time, time in nature, reducing stress. And the biggest issue seems to be shifting towards real whole foods and away from refined sugars and ultra processed food. Because it's pretending to be our friend.

It's pretending to make us feel better in the moment. Is pretending to solve a problem of I'm so busy and rushed and I just got to eat something. So it's that. And, I don't demonize food. I just want people to start to consider that that isn't food. Yeah, I demonize food, I don't mind. Well, I think they're all the things that should be called food. Let's say that. Yeah, it can make me kind of mad too. It's the trickery involved in it. Right? The whole aisle of of energy bars in the grocery store.

It's like, I don't know if you ever noticed, but I have it. Anecdotal evidence that when people eat energy bars, they are ravenously hungry. An hour later, for more ultra processed food, energy bars are ultra processed, food cake powders are ultra processed food. So we got to be very discerning about the quality of those foods if we choose them, because they are not the same as an orange or an apple, or a sweet potato or a steak. So I just am really committed to people feeling better and feeling in control of their choices and what gets in the way of, you know, people.

People come to intermittent fasting, usually first and foremost for weight loss. And so you ask like, does this work for everyone? For sure. Everyone will feel better for sure. Your health markers, you know, if people are testing for fasting insulin and inflammation, but then your AST and Alt and a onesie and fasting blood glucose and your HDL go up and your triglycerides will come down, like those numbers for sure will be affected. And still some people, especially women in menopause, experience weight loss resistance.

And so then we absolutely, in a gentle, consistent way, need to have a daily investigation of what's happening in your body that it's not feeling 100% comfortable yet releasing this excess fat. And there's nothing wrong with people being whatever size they are. What's not awesome is feeling like a person is struggling to move and feels weighed down and lethargic, and we want I want people feeling really good in their bodies. So sometimes that takes a lot of time. And the work you do, somebody that's listening, that wants to work with you, is it strictly around women that are in menopause, or is it anybody that wants sort of help with fasting?

It's interesting. I would say 5% of my clients are men. Most of them are dealing with a serious health concern, turning around, you know, dealing with cancer, turning around type two diabetes or hypertension. And most of my women clients are over 50. I'm realizing more and more that more younger women, I say younger women, you know, 39 to 50 are finding me because the confusion and for many women, how upsetting it is that their bodies are, they feel out of control. And, you know, the list of the checklist of issues that a woman can face in perimenopause is long, and we don't necessarily connect the dots.

We just know we don't feel like ourselves. And what the heck is happening? And then, I don't know any doctors who are trained in menopause. In medical school. Our OB GYNs are mostly trained in fertility and the menopause is just treated as a condition you got to get through. I always joke with people, I'm like, yeah, erectile dysfunction is also a condition that people throw a lot of money and energy towards. So let's pay more attention to what women are going through as they are shifting and these transition years into what Doctor Lujan presenting calls to upgrade it is it's just another phase.

And it was taken for granted that it's supposed to be problematic when it doesn't have to be, you know, are we have this shift is happening in an environment and food context and stress context that isn't what we are wired for. So then it becomes a roller coaster. So you have to understand what those habits are supposed to look like, what you're supposed to eat, how you're supposed to sleep, what chemicals you're not supposed to breathe in. You know, what pills you're not supposed to take, and then all of a sudden you can feel good, you know?

And that's amazing. The work that you're doing helps people with that. So how do people find you if they want to sort of are you working with any more new people or you're oh my goodness, yes. Oh, I just have amazing I have clients around the world in Kuwait and New Zealand and Japan and mainly in the US and Canada. My business is called Fast Forward and my website is fast forward wellness.com and people can go there and poke around and you can sign up for a checklist if you're like, wait, how do I start again?

So it's check check check check check. Step one is decide today what time you're closing your eating window. What time is the best time? No. Whenever you want. It's like you get to say. And, so you can download that checklist. It's fast forward wellness.com. And I love it when people write to me there. So if you have a question or if you want to set up a free little consultation, if you're like, oh, I like your style, I think you could help me. I would be glad to talk to you, and I would be glad to help people.

And then I really work with people for a year. We can establish a foundation within 6 to 8 weeks. Yeah, but then it is the that fourth pillar of my coaching, which is the clean, fast curiosity, customization and then continuing. It's the continuing the hard and it's all done in a in a spirit of celebration and care. And that's so important because that's, that is where people fall off. It's like, okay, here's some information, here's what to do, but are you actually going to do it? It's unlikely.

And this is this is what health care should be. It's not so much okay, I met you and I told you some stuff. Now I'll see you in six months. It's. No, we need to work together for six months as a minimum. Because how do you unwind 45, 50 years of habits in a phone call? You know? You know. Yeah. It's impossible. We are an animal, if you will, that's designed for community. And we do better together. We really are better when we're sharing and uplifting. You know, one of the downsides of being together is comparison.

So it's just that makes us feel can make us feel awful about ourselves. But when we're in an uplifting community, you know, one, if I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say, I know exactly what to do, I just have to do it alone, right? Like I just got to get it together alone, and then I can. I just got to get. I know exactly what to do. I just have to do it. No, no, no. Well, I'm here for you, you know? And so one of the great things is I'm going to be leading my holiday program. I started my business five years ago, and this will be my sixth holiday program coaching group of people through, you know, I say Halloween candy to New Year's bubbly.

Really enjoying the holidays, not beating yourself up, having fasting clean, having an eating window, eating and drinking the yummy things that feel festive to you and never dieting again in January. So I always start planning my holiday program months and months and months in advance, because I really look forward to supporting people through that time. Very cool. Well, this is this is awesome. Great conversation. You opened my eyes to a couple things, you know, and I'm sure people are going to value this because we did a lot to talk about menopause and about fasting, but we didn't put it into context.

What you did for us today, which is amazing. So I want to thank you, and I think everyone should check out the website and see what you're up to, you know, and you use that checklist. Thank you for providing that. So it was a pleasure. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. Such a joy. Thank you for tuning in to Doctor Talks. We hope today's episode has enlightened and inspired you on your path to optimal health. Each day is a new opportunity to make choices but empower your wellbeing. For more insights and strategies, subscribe to our podcast and visit our website.www.drtalks.com.

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