Fasting For Women: Unlocking Fat Loss And Hormonal Harmony

Introduction to Meganu2019s fasting journey 0:00

Well, thanks for joining us here. Megan. So for those that don't know, Megan and I have worked together for, Oh, boy. Probably, like 10 or 12 years. It's been friends for quite a while. We started, you know, our our sort of, journey together. And the office, and with, intermittent fasting and it's probably probably 2014 or so that we started and, you know, Megan was very instrumental in bringing a lot of these, you know, ideas that I had to, to the patients and really, leading them through their fasting journey and probably has more experience than anybody else.

In, in getting people to succeed. And I think that's, really one of the things that is important. And, what I want to discuss more, in a minute is, is sort of not just the knowledge of, you know, what is fasting and the benefits and the risks. And so on, but also how to actually do it. And I think that's where the rubber really hits the road. And that's where your, really an expert, Megan and also, you know, the, issue being, you know, how do you get people to do it? Because it's not enough to just want to do it, but, you know, actually doing it's like exercise, right?

So everybody knows you should exercise. But actually getting people to exercise is a huge other, problem. And that's where, you know, Megan's really excelled. She built a, you know, very successful, business, the fasting method to help people with it. And it actually has various components, and wrote a bestselling book on intermittent fasting for women. So maybe you can just take us through a little bit of, your journey and then we'll get into the specifics of sort of how, the fasting method helps people sort of achieve their goals and do, what they set out to do.

Yeah. So for people listening, if I can do this, anyone can do this. It is, it's unbelievably simple to fast, but there are some nuances and there's a transformation that has to happen. And that's where the fasting method can come into play, to helping people with that journey. But like Jason said, you know, I was in my late 20s. My poor dietary habits over the years caught up with me. I suddenly gained a lot of weight after being someone who was always super skinny. I had these conditions called fatty liver and PCOS at a young age that no one really understood why I had them because I was quote unquote so skinny.

But then I was not skinny. And then I also started to have, like, glucose control issues and then A1 C of 6.4 and got sort of labeled in that pre-diabetic diabetic range. And my doctor said, you've got a few months to lose weight, or I'm going to put you on that for a minute and you know how the story goes. So just the the stars aligned. And I overheard Jason talking about fasting with patients, and I hung around in the back of the room and listened, and that was it. My life had changed. And it was a journey.

I learned a lot along that journey for myself. I had to not just change how I ate, but my relationship with food. And I was fortunate to get great results and then to be able to help others along their journeys as well. You know, when it comes to this, there's really three parts to it. I think there's some nuances with fasting. And that's why I work with a fasting coach who has experience, can help shorten that journey, like if you're a perimenopausal woman or a menstruating woman, if you're a man in your 50s or 60s, is actively trying to put on muscle mass while losing body fat, there's definitely fasting and nutritional strategies at these in these different scenarios that can really help expedite the weight loss and the metabolic health benefits.

But so much of it and what we've really learned over the last decade is that it's a real transformation that has to happen. Our habits, our mindset, our relationship with food.

Why community and accountability matter 4:17

And I always share with our members that in six months, I've lost all kinds of fat, I reverse all kinds of disease and, then had a really sort of figure out my relationship with food. Jason and I, we wrote a book called The, life in the Fasting Lane with our good friend Eve mayor, and he wrote the sentence, she realized food was her best friend. And I don't know why it hit me a decade later after I started my journey, but food was my best friend. I had to learn how to celebrate. Not necessarily always with food.

I had to learn how to, comfort myself. Still taking baths, connecting with friends, going for walks rather than leaning into food. And I realized, you know, this is really what is key for our our members, our participants, people out who are out there looking for change, trying to figure out this transformation adjusts their habits. And that's so much what we do. And then, of course, accountability is just really important. I again joke with our our team. I've been a lone wolf. You know, my my whole life I've not really felt like I need a support so much.

And then I went through my journey with this. I mean, I immediately started the clinic and I realized not only was I providing so much support and guidance to our patients, but they were providing me with that peer community that helped me be accountable. And that's why, you know, it's been 13 years. I started this journey. I got diagnosed with this prediabetes, diabetes, at my 27th birthday, my annual physical. I just turned 40, the other month, and, I've, you know, I know fatty liver. I've had excellent weight control.

I've lost a ton of body fat. And I'm a new mom. When this was something that I was told would never be possible, for me, now I've got this little baby boy who's about to turn one years old in the next week. So there's so much, so much that I owe a lot to our community for helping to keep me accountable. And I see it every day. And it's so great to see people who are like me, these lone wolves who realize, wait, I've got people here. I can connect with people who really understand and get this and can lift me up and provide me with support.

So I think it's those three components that really make the fasting journey so successful. Yeah, I mean, absolutely, it's we we talk about, you know, to be successful, you have to really have more than just knowledge, right? Because that's what everybody thinks. Oh, you tell them and then they'll do it like, no, that doesn't happen for anything, right? You can tell your kids to study. They won't write. You can tell your kids to practice piano. They won't. You know, you should exercise. You want.

So this is where you have to really be holistic. And this is where I think, you know, has has been super important and probably not talked about very much at all, for fasting. But fasting is actually no different than, any other, you know, any other pursuit, whether it's athletics or whether it's, piano or whatever. Right. And you have to set up not only the structures, right, the habits, that are going to lead you to be successful, the accountability and all that. And we'll get into that in a second.

But also the emotional part of the journey, which is your mindset and your attitudes, which is super important. And that's why, you know, one of the key things you did with the fasting method is bring in a, PhD of psychology to really say, hey, hey, you know, we we need, to help people with this. And, just just to go back a little bit. It's funny, because we did this, you know, ten, 12 years ago, we in our clinic, we had, like, you know, 4 or 5 people in a group. And we said, and we discussed things.

And you would lead that group. Megan, I still have people who come in and say, oh, man, those were the best. You know, like ten years later, 12 years later, I still have people coming into the office, because that all stopped during Covid, of course. But I still have people coming in and they're like, oh, those were the most helpful sessions. And it's like, yeah, because you're not just learning. Anybody can learn. You can go online, you on YouTube, you can watch, you know, you can watch my videos, you can watch anything you could buy a book, you know, and you've written a few I've written a few about intermittent fasting.

You can learn exactly what you need to do. It certainly doesn't mean you're going to do it or be successful at it. It's it's it's you know, the mindset is important. The group support. And that was one of the first things that we, decided was that group support, how important it really is. And maybe you can just, speak to that a little bit, sort of what the group brings in because that the fasting method, of course, we do have this, community that we're trying to build. And, sort of maybe take us through that, a little bit how that's going to help people with, fasting more than just saying, oh, this is why fasting is good for you.

These are the risks are things to watch out for, right? Because again, not that anybody can get that anywhere for free at any time. Like within three seconds. You can find information on on that online. Right. So what's, what's so what's so you know what's so great about this community that, that is, able to help people in such a profound way. You know, I think there's so many aspects to it. For a lot of people that have joined our community, they have a long history of weight loss, doing things alone, being given poor advice.

Stumbled. They not being successful, spending about, like, hundreds of thousands of dollars on the programs that don't work. You know, I always talk about all those different calorie restriction diets. They're all like different brands of toilet paper. Just, you know, some of them are soup based, some of them are fish based. They're all calorie restriction at the end of the day, and they don't work. And so people have tried all of the stuff and they feel so alone and so isolated. Nobody understands they're broken.

There's, you know, they hear about this fasting, they see some success stories online, and they're going to give it a try because they've got to do something for their health, but they don't think it will work for them. I mean, just bringing together like minded individuals is so powerful and you realize they're not alone, that you've got thousands of people who are in your shoes, who know exactly how you feel and are working through this journey at various steps. So, so often what I hear when I host some of these large group, meetings in our community meetings is someone new at the end of the meeting pipes up and they say they just sometimes we'll cry and say, I felt so alone until today.

And this is the first meeting that I joined. And I've heard people talk about being where I am today and how they're transforming, you know, whether they've just conquered an issue with emotional eating, whether they just came off of a medication, wherever they are in their journey. And it gives them so much hope and they get to hear how other people are experiencing this. Two different tips, different strategies, individuals used to deal with and say emotional eating or stress eating, which is one of the biggest issues that we're we see right now when it comes to food and behaviors.

And it gives them additional ideas about how maybe they can sort of where they are and what they're trying to do and how they might modify that, you know, throughout their journey to see. But the camaraderie, the peer support, knowing that they're not alone. And it's a safe space to talk about this, you know it out there. You tell people, you you fast and, you know, they can sometimes get quiet or think that

Building the fasting method community program 12:04

they don't have the knowledge about it and they can come down really hard on you. Not not the fast things become very popular, but not everybody in our own families and communities has really accepted it yet. And you just there are people who are doing it. They're going through the motions with you. And that's really important, I think, for success. And, you know, that. Support is important because of course, there you hear all kinds of stuff in the media, right? Remember a few months ago there was this big thing about the American Heart Association was saying it was a terrible, terrible study.

It was basically garbage. But they said, oh, it increases your risk of heart disease by 91%, which is ridiculous, right? The whole the entire thing was, just stupid, right? Basically, they're saying that if you fast for 16 hours a day, you're going to increase your risk. But it was an association study, so of course, that you couldn't actually make that conclusion, which didn't stop them from making that exact conclusion, which was so stupid. And they said even more stupid was, you know, oh, if you eat for I think it was like, if you have a 12 hour fasting, something like that.

If, you know, if you eat from like 8 to 8 or something like that, you're going to increase your risk of heart disease by like 60%. And so, like, that's just the dumbest thing I've ever heard. And online, of course, you hear all kinds of stuff, like all these so-called experts who are sort of turning against fasting. And it's like, yeah, because they're not real doctors out there. Right? So they have there's all these people who say, oh, it's bad for you. And it's like you look and they're like, okay, these people don't have any way to lose.

They don't have any serious disease. So what are you doing? The fasting for is pointless. So you got all these influencers who are super fatty, right? You probably you know, I've heard them. They're like, oh, they used to be pro fasting. Now they're against fasting. It's like, but what were you doing it for? Like really just doing it for fun. Like you don't have weight to lose. You don't have diabetes. You're not even really doing it for any reason. And you're doing these extended fasts, like, okay, that doesn't make any sense.

So you hear all kinds of stuff so that support is super important. And as you said, the groups, really are useful, for that. So how about the, like, you know, I know that, the fasting method has, sort of changed up the, the community program, a little bit. And I, you know, I've seen it. It's it's super exciting. I think what they've done with, you know, being very much more holistic about the whole thing, trying to get people together and then having these, sort of weekly goals to get people into a sort of a cohort, through.

And I think that's, you know, I think that's a real important to the success of people, just like, you know, when people go through school, like you go through in a cohort, you do stuff together. It makes things, you know, a hundred times easier than doing it lone wolf style. Right? So maybe and tell us about the, the community, program that you have, and sort of how, how it's, and the sort of new changes there. Yeah. We, can we we started the online community at around, 2018. And at that time, you and I were still in clinic and we were traveling just a crazy amount, over the weekends, try to educate people and other health care providers on fasting.

And then Covid happened and everyone was kind of grounded. And I then got very involved in the community. We didn't have the clinic going on. We didn't have all of the travel going on, and I kind of jumped in and what we saw was that people need to start, you know, ground zero together. A lot of people thought that they were real fasting experts, because they had consumed so much stuff online. But the problem, one of the problems with fasting becoming popular, as we just talked about too, is that there is so much stuff online and some of that's misinformation.

So people were out there, you know, not necessarily implementing the best practices, consuming a lot of like artificially sweetened beverages throughout their fast, not really fasting, much more than overnight. There are all these things so that people thought they were real experts and I assume they're saying, okay, you know, we need to do this group challenge where we start with point A, and this is we need to teach people how to do the fast method style of fasting. And so I started doing these challenges every week throughout the initial lockdown phase.

And the people who joined them like not only did they learn all of the information and how to do it properly, they connected with each other and they formed bonds. I, I had two, two ladies who were, in that initial Covid lockdown challenge, actually come and visit me, and meet my son. And a couple weeks ago, one flew across the country to meet another woman who is local. And they've got this great friendship and they travel all over together now, and it's great because they've got a buddy who lives the same lifestyle as them.

So people really form these connections with each other as well. And then we were able to sort of see where we had to, implement some of the strategies for the, you know, whole transformation, but habits and mindset and emotional eating. And that's where Doctor Terry lands on our team. This has been so instrumental, meaning us along the lines of that information. So we did these challenges and then we spun them off into something they called the masterclass. And we realized that the masterclass participants, those who are coming in and forming these relationships, being directed to the same community meetings, the same support, having the an exclusive forum thread where they could connect, having a lead expert like myself guide them through everything they they were just getting insane results in such a short period of time.

And we thought, okay, this is what we need to do. With the fasting method in the community, you know, we had a self-guided program before, and I mean, all that information is going to be there. You can always go back and go through it at your own leisure, once you've gone through it. But now we're essentially giving everybody that masterclass experience. They sign up, they're in a group, they can, you know, choose to engage with that group as much as they like. They have a dedicated key expert who's going to walk them through all the information every week.

They're being told, this is what you need to do and this is how you can do it. And here are the resources that are going to help you be successful. And these are the meetings that you're going to connect with, with these live experts who are going to help clarify any questions, provide you with that support and guidance that you need, and teach you the real fast method way of being successful at this. And again, it's holistic. It's not just do this fast and drink this, live fast or eat this when you eat.

It's actual strategies that are going to help make this stick long term. And now I just got back from two weeks in Italy. And I lost 7 pounds while I was there. I had a little bit of baby weight. I was going to start to lose weight. My son turned one because I've been nursing, and I went to places like Italy and lost 7 pounds, you know, at the sort of the start of my weight loss journey. You know, he's a year old. That's something that I think so many people out there don't think is possible. But you can really transform your habits and your mindset about food and, you know, you can enjoy food.

I love food, I love eating, but my relationship with it is so, so different and I've got so many other healthy habits now that really support that. So I get to love food

Habits, mindset, and emotional eating 19:48

without ever feeling resentful for it, for how it affects my waistline. And it's really those unique strategies that we're going to teach you every week and break down for you. That's going to help you not need a maintenance like, not not like not always be stuck in a cycle of having to lose 50 pounds over and over again. You're going to be able to do this. And then when you get there, we're going to continue to support you with those strategies because things are going to happen. Family emergencies, crazy work, travel, big celebrations, hopefully many big celebrations.

But you need to learn some strategies for navigating that. And that's really what the fastest method is going to do for you long term. Teach you how to transform. Yeah, I mean, I see that they have, you know, sessions during the holidays about how to deal with the holidays, holiday, weight gain, vacations. Right. So these are the real world things. Like the last thing you need somebody to do is tell you, oh, well, this is how you fast. So I was like, okay, but what about this? You know, specific period Thanksgiving or holidays or Christmas or whatever, vacations.

So, yeah, absolutely. And the other thing you mentioned that I think was, you know, super, super important, which can I just don't think people talk about it enough is all these other things that go into the weight loss because it's the, you know, you mentioned habits, you mentioned emotional eating. And I think that's, you know, so important because if you're eating, because of your emotions, whether you're depressed or whether whatever it is, right, or you have a food addictions or mindset, you know, your mindset, again, I just don't I just don't think people talk about the mindset enough, because the way you look at something changes completely when it's filtered through that mindset.

So if you think of fasting as a punishment and a, you know, something that's really hard, then you'll never do it. But if you if you just simply change your mindset and if there are tools for this. Right. And look at, at, at a as a free experience, as a liberating experience so that you can now enjoy your food, that you, eat it, it totally changes the way you see things. And so, you know, again, people talk endlessly about, oh, you should eat Greek yogurt. I was like, okay, but that's not so great is the point was your emotional eating was your habits.

So maybe talk a little bit about the habits, the mindset and the emotional eating because, boy, I mean, I've listened to a lot of stuff online, right? And there's a lot of stuff about a lot of things, but not about emotions. Group accountabilities, you know how groups help you like, it's it's like anything else, like Alcoholics Anonymous, like Weight Watchers is the group that's the power, not the the diet or the. You know, Alcoholics anonymous doesn't just go out there and say, drink less alcohol, right?

That'd be the they'd be the worst organization on earth, right? If they said that no, it's about that community, you know, emotions, emotional support. I mean, you know, maybe just talk a little bit about that because I think that's just really something that deserves sort of extra attention. Well, I mean, I have I have an 84, baby, but I think even many generations before me, when, you know, people were going through a difficult time, we were comforted by our, you know, elders, our parents, grandparents or food, you know, from such a young age, you know, from just being able to consume solids.

That's a lot of how I was taught to cope. I had a bad day at school. My mom would try to console me with food. We would have a birthday party. It would all be around food. And I mean, sometimes that that that's okay. I do definitely enjoy, certain things. I don't completely restrict anything for my diet, but it could just be a lot when it's just constant, constant family holidays, constant birthdays. Especially if you're fortunate to live so close to your family. But from a young age, like, this is how we're taught to deal with things, you know, positive and negative that pop up in our lifestyle and even still to today.

You know, if I have, a sleepless night, my and I talk to my mom, she's like, oh, make sure you make yourself something nice and comforting, you know, to eat for a dinner and enjoy your food. Like, that's still how she moms, me at 40 years old and we hear from so many other individuals. This is how society's told us that we need to deal with this. And it's just it becomes such a deeply ingrained habit. We do it are habits are things that you do automatically. So we feel we feel stressed or refilled down, or we get that job promotion and we want to celebrate.

And these are all automatic cues that, you know, we want to celebrate or we want to feel better, sort of the end response. So we have this event that happens and that triggers the cue of wanting to celebrate or wanting to feel better. And over the years, how we've gotten from point A to point B is through eating. And it happens automatically. And that's what makes us a habit. And it's so difficult to sort of figure out, alone, like how to navigate these habits or what else you can do, or what thought processes or anchor habits that you can develop that help guide you towards creating a better strategy.

You know, like we had, one of our patients in the clinic years ago. She was a widow with a young son. She was working a couple of jobs and just totally burnt out. So she was eating like garbage. Because life is so stressful. Her and her kids were at complete odds all of the time, and we decided that, you know something? She wanted to spend more time with her son and have a better relationship with her son. This is kind of her biggest stressor at the moment. That was forcing her eating to be awful, and she really believed going on a vacation with her son would be the game changing for her.

And so one thing that we came up with in the group and this was again, power of the group, is this idea that every time she she would cut this jar in her kitchen next to the pantry, and anytime she felt so stressed or trigger that she was going to go in the pantry, she would see this jar and she would be stopped. That would help break the cycle of the habit of her automatically going into the covert. And then she would put like a dollar or $2, into the jar. And over time it would be her way of saving.

So she didn't go into the cupboard. She saw this jar, stopped herself. She put whatever pocket change she had in it. And then over the course of a couple of months, she had enough money to take her son on a trip. They went to the Dominican Republic. As she kept doing this, they kept doing this, and she was losing weight and she was getting better health results. And she actually, you know, was ended up saving a ton of money because then her and her son stopped eating all of this junk food, that all of the soda, all these things she was spending extra money on.

She quit one of her two jobs that she had, and her and her son went on like four trips over the course of one year together. And it's just amazing. And this is something that we came out with, with the group, with people who had similar experiences or different ideas and, and came together and it was just so wild to me to see this transformation with her. And now we're doing that on a global scale. Like, you don't have to be in Toronto, you don't have to come to a clinic to have that. You can connect in your car.

Ellen, if you can connect on your public transport, you know, especially if like, you know, you're on the bus on the way home and you're going to pass, they have to walk, pass a drive through and you're having a day jump into a meeting, tell, you know, share it. Even if you can't speak typing in the chat box, there's going to be 15 people that come in there with an idea of how to get around that, how to circumvent it. And this is actually so important because you have to remember that this is it's not about willpower.

Everybody says it's about willpower. Right? But it was about putting that jar right there so that you could break it. And it's just a little nudge. Right. And there's so many of these, you have to identify what the trigger is, figure out what the cue is, and then see if you can break it somehow. Another, thing that I talk about sometimes is, you know, coffee, right? When you go to get coffee. Yeah, you go to, you know, whatever coffee shops. But there's always donuts and muffins and cookies, right?

And, you know, you don't have to be a genius to figure out that those cookies and those donuts, they're not not useful to you. So, you know, then you have to try and figure out, okay, well, I want to go get coffee, but I wind up getting a donut, too. Well, what do you do? Well, you know, you what you can do is just order on your app. So instead of being tempted, like when you're saying, I want a coffee, you can just go, I'm not going to stand in line anymore at the coffee store. I'm going to order it on my app.

That way when you go, you pick it up. You're no longer tempted by the those, those, those cookies that are sitting right there and, you know, the smells coming in and all this stuff. Right? So it's not about willpower, it's about that. Or, for example, one other fellow, you know what? What? Well, they decided to do was brush your teeth, you know, early. So after dinner, you'd brush your teeth that way if you wanted to eat something. Because late night snacking was was a problem, they'd be like, well, now I'm going to have to brush my teeth again.

I don't really want it that bad. And it was just like that little thing that just nudges you away from those things.

Coaching and personalized fasting support 29:38

That and there's no like, there's no denying it's bad for you. All those late night snacks, all those cookies and donuts, like, that's not controversial. You shouldn't be eating those. But everybody says, oh, it's about willpower. Willpower. You got gotta, you know, do that. It's like, no, it's not about willpower. This whole idea of of, you know, gutting it out is, is just so not the way we function as human beings. We function on these little nudges that push us this way and that way. And it's the availability, the easy availability of snacks, the, you know, the, the fact that food is everywhere, the fact that, you know, fast food is everywhere.

The smells, those are the thing. So those are the things that are really important. And I know you studied a lot about habits and those habits are tired. That's that's probably why you you are able to lose weight in Italy. I mean, it's the same for me too. I mean, I got in the habit of eating, sort of two meals a day instead of three meals a day, and now it just feels a little strange. So even when I go on vacation and, some, some hotels give you breakfast, and I don't normally eat breakfast, but, you know, if it's, you know, I'm with my family and everybody gets free breakfast.

I'll have breakfast, but then I don't have lunch. And now everybody's so used to that in my family anyway. So used to that, that when we have the breakfast, we just don't eat lunch. Which of course makes it super easy to not gain weight. Right. It's like it's it's a complete, change. So those habits are super important. And, you know, maybe also talk about, the coaching, that you offer because I think this is a really unique aspect of the fasting method. And again, to me, something that is completely under, utilized overall.

Because if you think about coaching, there's all kinds of coaching, right? There's personal trainers, there's CEO coaches, there's life coaches, there's business coaches. And why do they exist? Because they're useful. That's why they exist. So, you know, maybe talk about a bit about our coaching program. You know, the the fasting method coaching program because I think it's it's I don't see that anywhere. And I think it's it's like, boy, if you want to invest in your house, I don't think you'll get any greater return.

For for anything. Yeah. So the family method offers one on one coaching and small group coaching. I think both can be very powerful. It depends on where you are with your journey. If you're unsure which would be the best fit for you. We do offer complimentary intake assessments with one of our coaches so you can pick the coach or we can help, you select the right person to speak to, and you can figure out which of those two avenues is best for you. But at the end of the day, the coach provides so much that, you know, you get that accountability partner, someone that you've got to show up and say, hey, you know, this is how the last week or two have gone.

And that really makes a big difference. You know, even my very own, best friend gets all this. She understands all of this is a very successful guy. And he said, you know, and he has access to me, but is it wrong to bug me and say, you know, I'm going to sign up with one of your coaches because I it's not that I don't know what to do. It's like I just I need someone to hold me accountable at the end of the day. So he is working with the coach on our team, coach Bethany, and she messaged me on Monday morning saying he had just had it lifted the most weight that he's ever lifted at the gym, and his body fat.

So lowest body fat percentage that it's been and aches and pains that he had have totally disappeared. And also he had severe fatty liver. And now it's, you know, Miles fatty liver. It's barely a mile fatty liver. So he's made huge strides. And so this is a guy a very, very successful, lawyer. Toronto. I get all this, but life gets busy. And just having that person to be accountable to makes a huge difference. And, you know, he wouldn't bother me, but I just watched him kind of flounder for a year, and then I was so relieved.

I kept hinting at the coach, and I'm really glad he did it, because in a few months it's radically changed his life all around for the better. But then you also have the coach who's the expert, and everyone on our team has walked the walk. You know, we've all had our own journey and experience with this, which has led us to these career transformations. Really wanting to help individuals. So not only have we walked the walk, but we have experience working with tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people.

So, you know, if you're, say, a perimenopause woman who's been like, you're just thinking that you have to fast or five days a week, and that's the only way that you can lose weight and that you're barely eating any food on top of that and that you're gaining weight. At the end of the day, we can say, hey, do you know what? There's these strategies for perimenopausal women that work a lot better for this particular category. And maybe we'll shift into some 36 hour fasts. And this is how we'll maybe structure your diet so we can coaches with our knowledge on what to do.

You can definitely shorten your journey from point A to point B and get you to your goals a lot faster rather than you, you know, just sort of going through all this information and it's great. We've got so much free information and you can absolutely go through it. But if you just kind of troubleshoot all over the course, you know, I could take a long time. And we don't want this to take a lot of time. It doesn't need to take a long time, to get that fat off or to improve these metabolic health markers to a better place.

So that's something that the coach does. But a coach also, you know, again, we've been through this to ourselves. We can recognize these habits. We can recognize these mindset patterns and these emotional and stress eating patterns. We've got a whole tool chest, of ideas and strategies like keeping that jar next to the pantry, all these different things that you can do to help shift these habits, to help change the mindset around certain things, to help find new strategies, successful strategies that are unique to you when it comes to, emotional eating and stress eating as well.

So the coaching is really very sort of personalized. We look at you as an individual, you're in metabolic health and also just sort of your emotional health and where you are with food. And we can really personalize a program for you that leaves you at the end of the day, you know, really transforming not just your metabolic health and your weight, but also really transforming your relationship. And mindset and habits with food for long term success. Yeah, because habits are very individual, like everybody has different habits.

And the thing about the habit is that it you don't need willpower. Right. And and again, it's, it's so powerful because it's the things you do day in and day out that are going to make the difference. Right? Like brushing your teeth. Right. Who are you to even thinks about it? Right? We wake up, I brush your teeth. Good, bad. God, brush your teeth. Right? It's just a habit. It's not like I have to tell myself. Oh, what was I going to do again? Oh, yeah. Brush my teeth like, no, these are the habits.

So if you get in the habit of having a period of fasting, you get in the habit of walking after dinner. You get in the habit of these things. They're personal because not everybody will do the same thing. Like, and that's where the coaching really helps. So, yeah, so, so important. And really, you know, the idea is that it's an investment in your own well-being, and I don't know that, you know, people think a bit about it that way. But you see personal trainers, for example,

Fasting strategies for women and perimenopause 37:18

who needs to know how to exercise? Nobody. Everybody knows that exercise. You can find it in three seconds. But it's that person that's going to show up, and then you're like, okay, well, I don't want to let this person down. So then hold you accountable. They can change your, you know, oh, I, we should do this instead of this, and then you follow them, right. One other last thing I want to touch upon, because you're a real expert in this, and you wrote a book about, fasting for women, specifically is the, you know what what what's the sort of nuance?

Because this question gets asked a lot, about fasting for women. Because there are a few differences is and there's not a lot of, data because I've looked at there's not a lot of studies on it. So it's all comes down to sort of your experience. And you have probably more experience than anybody else. And so what are the things you have to look out for? And then specifically in Perimenopausal women, because that's of course, you know, a very an area, a period of time where a lot of women struggle.

I don't know if they know this, but a lot of women, like if you look at periods of time where people gain weight, perimenopause is actually one of the sort of big areas where women gain weight. It's just and if this is, you know, a phenomenon that's not one person. It's like when you look across millions of people in the United States, this is the pattern that you find in everybody. So how how is fasting? Different for women and how can they make it successful? Yeah. Well, first of all, if you're a woman out there, regardless of your age, you can have incredible success with fasting.

But like Jason mentioned, there are certain nuances at certain phases throughout the the female hormonal lifespan. So with postmenopausal women, we find that they could tackle any sort of fasting regimen, usually even if they want to be on sort of a more intense ketogenic diet, simultaneous, we, then get phenomenal results, very, equivalent results as well to our male counterparts, of the same age group. At that particular time, though, when women are cycling or women are going through hormonal changes like perimenopause, there's certain strategies that can definitely help.

Now, if we have a cycling woman who comes in with pretty severe PCOS, I do treat them like a diabetic. You know, we do seven more intensive therapeutic fasts, like 24 to 42 hours, 2 to 3 times a week. We do try to keep the carbs pretty low, but once we've sort of tackled the PCOS, largely, then we try to make the fasting sort of fit with the cycle better. And the reason why is that there are these different hormonal fluctuations at the different points, at different points in the female cycle. Some of them make it harder to lose weight.

Some of them make it easier to lose weight. Some of them make it easier to fast and more difficult to fast. The year that first phase of the cycle, before when, when your cycle starts is called the luteal or the follicular phase. During the follicular phase, women tend to feel a lot better hormonally. Our appetites tend to be a bit suppressed. We're much more insulin sensitive during that particular part of the cycle. Women will experience more fat loss, and it's easier for them to do longer fasts then our cycles punctuated by ovulation.

And then we enter into the little phase of our cycle and the hormones change. And this particular change, or the bit more, insulin resistant, our appetites are a little bit more substantial, during this particular time of the cycle and when women would try to force themselves to do longer fast during this part of the cycle, it would be more difficult. They wouldn't really be getting as much results as they would if they had done it earlier on in the cycle, and they just felt very defeated. And then some women that were striving for fertility were having issues, already previously having issues with lower progesterone levels from PCOS, that, you know, wasn't necessarily getting better.

So we focused with the cycling women on doing more intensive fasting during the first half of the cycle. That's where we really try to maximize fat loss. And the second half of the cycle, when women just aren't feeling as wonderful in general hormonally. And we're struggling with appetite, we focus on good time restricted eating, some shorter fasts. And I always say it's important to practice eating because you're not going to fast for, these crazy lengths of time forever like you do enter the world of eating.

And this is how we focus on building those habits and addressing those mindset. We have to have exposure to eating in order to do so. So this is huge. Like this is this part of the cycle. We're learning all these great eating things that we need to carry on long term for success. So women feel more successful and they tend to go along with their bodies and their hormones better. And they do see pretty good fat loss as well during this half of the cycle, too. Perimenopausal women we see them. It's a crazy time hormonally, you know, hour we end up, usually in this estrogen dominant state, which promotes insulin resistance and fat trapping just due to sort of our body's natural decline in progesterone production.

And we see a drop in testosterone production, but our hormones are still fluctuating all over the place. Our thyroid takes a bit of a kick during this time. Most women experience some degree of like hypothyroidism. During this time. It's not necessarily the true hypothyroidism that we see, but the thyroid can struggle. Sometimes we'll do longer fast, but then they end up getting a a low blood sugar here and there. So, we work with these women, you know, we take a look at where each one of them is in their hormonal journey.

Maybe sometimes we have periods of more consistent patterns with their hormones, that are punctuated with a little bit more erratic times and shifts happening. Or maybe they're kind of in the middle of the storm. Unfortunately that happens, and we customize a program for them, you know, making sure that they are eating enough, making sure that, you know, we're not consuming anything during the fast that might be limiting to it as well. So with these women in this group, we tend to do a lot more 36 hour fasts in general and focus a lot on nutrition and making sure they're getting adequate nutrition.

I think a big problem also in this demographic as well, is that they've done years and years of calorie restriction diets and those habits will kind of stick when you start to fast. And it is difficult to break in this particular, age group, right now. And so you're teaching them that good healthy foods, good healthy fats, good healthy proteins can be their friend. And consuming them and eating sensibly can really aid in their fat loss. Makes a big difference as well. We see it stabilize, their thyroid function a lot, and they're still doing 36 hours of fasting or 42 hours of fasting.

It's not that they're not do it. They're doing a quite, a quite a good amount of fasting. So it's not that they can't fast they're doing lots of fasting, but we're also addressing the nutrition just to help support the thyroid and support the hormones. So they don't see these weird changes in blood sugar levels or other hormonal things. And women can go to perimenopause without gaining weight or if they've gained weight or needed, never lost her baby weight and are now looking to lose it because their kids are 13.

And they've now got their time again. But now they're going through perimenopause. And they've got this roadblock. It's totally possible to lose all of that weight. Again, we work with people depending where they are and what their hormonal fluctuations might be at this particular time frame. Yeah. And I think that's, you know, a great, great way to see things because, you know, at some point you do have to eat, of course. Right. So the food is really important. And same thing with the, you know, like what you said about the celebrations.

People throughout history have always celebrated with a feast or whatever. Laughs. We're not trying to change that. Right? We're not trying to, you know, invent a whole new way of this and that. We're just trying to get back to those old ways. That is, you know, good food, unprocessed food with the fasting. That's sort of the basics. We forget that sometimes. And that's why I think the, you know, you know, that new that the new community program every week is there's eating goals, there's fasting goals, and there's mindset goals, right?

Covers all those things. Because, you know, sometimes people say, oh, you know, you join this diet and it's all about low calorie, which is sort of the dominant sort of paradigm, which I think is stupid, but, you know, it it is what it is. But the point is that certain calories are different, right? Certain calories say you eat cookies will stimulate different hormones. Therefore your body's going to respond differently. Certain calories. You know, if you eat an egg versus cookies, you'll have different hormonal response.

And that's important because that's what drives our body to respond. Just like with the women you have, you know, higher levels of certain hormones at different periods of the cycle, you have higher levels of hormones throughout your life, like estrogen versus, you know, perimenopause, you know, aspirin intensive, all, even for men, their testosterone tends to fall over time and stuff. So there are changes in hormones is how our body does it. So, you know, I think that's, you know, and if you want to change the way your body is working, then you've got to change the hormones because everything is controlled through hormones.

That's just human physiology. Gee, I don't know why everybody seems to find that difficult, that concept difficult to understand, but it's true.

Where to find the fasting method 47:08

And that's why I think it's such a powerful, you know, paradigm to be thinking about, like, it's the foods that you eat, it's the fasting periods, and it's the way that you, your attitudes, your habits and so on. It's not willpower. I think people have as much willpower as they always had. It's it's not different, right? It's about what's tempting, tempting you. It's about those little nudges and habits that can make a big, big difference. So, thanks. Thanks very much. Megan, just, if people want to, you know, find you online or find the program, where would they look?

Yeah. So you can go to the internet and search the fast method.com, and you'll find, online information about our community. All information for coaching program. We've got a billion blogs and blogs and podcasts that are all easily accessible. We've got some free quick guides for you to download as well. Links. So all of our social media platforms, if you want to test those out, get to know, our team of that better before diving in. But, you know, again, always setting up, you can set up a free consultation and take assessment with any of our coaches to learn more as well.

Thanks so much. Thanks, Jason. You know, I think we're good. That was great, guys. Thank you so much for your time. I think I, I didn't hear a single thing that we need to edit, so we're going to be smooth sailing. Megan, just so that, you know, this is going live in January. So it is. We got a little bit of time here. I'm probably going to ping you again. Late November, maybe early December, just to let you know about the promotion schedule and things like that. But yeah, I think I think we're ready to go.

Did you have any questions before I let you enjoy the rest of your Friday? No, no. Thank you so much, Renee. Awesome. Thank you both. Thanks, Renee. Megan, just before I leave, I'll give you a call. Okay. Okay. So thank you. Okay. Thank you, thank you. Guys, guys.