ATHE_Transcript_Ep 621_Gin Stephens
JJ Virgin: [00:00:00] I’m JJ Virgin, PhD dropout, sorry mom, turned four time New York Times best selling author. Yes, I’m a certified nutrition specialist, fitness hall of famer, and I speak at health conferences and trainings around the globe, but I’m driven by my insatiable curiosity and love of science to keep asking questions, digging for answers, and sharing the information I uncover with as many people as I can, and that’s why I created the Well Beyond 40 podcast. To synthesize and simplify the science of health into actionable strategies to help you thrive.
In each episode, we’ll talk about what’s working in the world of wellness, from personalized nutrition and healing your metabolism, to healthy aging and prescriptive fitness. Join me on the journey to better health so you can love how you look and feel right now and have the energy to play full out at 100.
A few years ago, I got introduced [00:01:00] to this Amazing author through my agent and she came on the show and we became fast friends and she is now back with her new book. So if you’ve wanted to play around with, experiment, try out intermittent fasting, Jen Stevens new book, The 28 Day Fast Start Day by Day is the one for you because she literally walks you through how to do this.
So, let me tell you a little bit about Gin, you’ll learn more about her as we go through this interview, but she became an intermittent fasting expert after she lost 80 pounds and kept it off, now it’s been a decade. When she found intermittent fasting and that was after trying pretty much everything.
She’s the New York Times and USA Today best selling author of Fast Feast, Repeat and Delay, Don’t Deny, Living an Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle and she is also the author of Cleanish, Eat Mostly Clean, Live Mainly Clean and Unlock Your Body’s [00:02:00] Natural Ability to Self Clean and she has a great podcast.
She is also heads up a really cool intermittent fasting group, which we’ll link to all of that in the show notes and we’ll link to our past podcasts in the show notes. I’m going to put all of that at jjvirgin.com/cleanfast. And I’ll be right back with Gin Stephens. Stay with me.
Gin Stephens. I’m so excited to have you back on the show. It’s so great. When I first had you on the show, I didn’t really know you well, and I’m trying to, I mean, I didn’t know you at all. I think our book agent said we had to connect up, and I was like, oh, I love this gal. And then I sent you a stuffed fish for some reason, I think, because you won’t eat fish.
I don’t like fish.
Gin Stephens: Now, I like shellfish. I eat lobster. I eat crab. I eat shrimp. But I do not eat fish.
JJ Virgin: So I was trying to inspire you, so I sent you a big fish. I guess it didn’t work. And now you’re out. So I’m going to refer, I’m going to put in our show notes and the show notes will be at [00:03:00] jjvirgin.com/cleanfast.
And if you don’t know why you’ll understand in a moment, everyone listening, but I’m going to refer also to our first podcast where we talked about fast feast repeat. So that we’ll touch a little bit, but I want to go deep on some things with your new book, 28 day fast start day by day, which is awesome.
I was so excited to get this. This morning and have time to go through it, which was. They got it
Gin Stephens: to you fast. I’m really excited. Doesn’t it look great?
JJ Virgin: It’s fantastic. And you know, what strikes me here is you are such a teacher. So I know, like, you look at your background of your doctorate in education and you’re a certified health coach and you have your master’s in natural sciences.
I’m like, it’s just the perfect setup. And you were a teacher for 28 years. Every time I talk to you and then I see what you put together, I go, you’re such a teacher.
Gin Stephens: Well, and I was obese and I lost 80 pounds.
JJ Virgin: Right. Let’s start there. Let’s start with you were obese. And, and I know we talked about this on the other podcast, but for those of you who haven’t heard [00:04:00] it yet.
You were 80 pounds heavier and you’re a little bitty thing, like a little bitty thing.
Gin Stephens: Well, I am now, but underneath all those 80 pounds, I guess I was always itty bitty, but I just struggled, JJ. Like so many people could relate to the story. You know, I have a podcast, Intermittent Fasting Stories and. You know, we’ve done over 390, 380 episodes of that.
People tell them their story and we all have a unique story, but we all have so much commonality and that we tried so hard. You know, you might look at someone who’s obese like the 210 pound me and think, well, she’s not trying at all, but we literally have tried so hard. If someone is obese, they have tried and tried and tried.
They’ve just not found the thing that has worked for their bodies yet. It was finally intermittent fasting that worked for me after all those years of trying, and I lost the 80 pounds. I’m now going through my 10th holiday season as an intermittent faster. I mean, that’s a lot of years as an intermittent faster, [00:05:00] and I have never had to buy bigger clothes.
Since I lost the weight, I haven’t yo yoed or regained. And the first time in my adult life that I’ve ever maintained a weight from season to season.
JJ Virgin: That alone, when you look at the recidivism rates in dieting of like 95%, and I think it really lends to this idea, diets are tools and you’ve got to find the tool that’s going to work well for you.
And every diet, when you look at it, it’s going to restrict in some way. And so this one, if it fits your lifestyle, and I think this one’s a pretty easy one to make fit your lifestyle, then boom, look at what’s happened. And what I love about the book that you’ve done here is that it really takes people through the process and gets them into forming new habits so that they can celebrate their.
Anniversary too. So I look at this and I go, okay, this makes a ton of sense. It’s like the manual of how to be successful at [00:06:00] IAF. Was that why you wrote this book?
Gin Stephens: Well, it really is. And it’s kind of a funny story, JJ. You know how it is. You’re an author. How many New York Times bestsellers do you have? Is it four?
Four. Can you remember, can you, did you lose count after?
JJ Virgin: You never lose count. I don’t even think our buddies Mark Hyman and Daniel Lehman have lost count. They know exactly how many. Well, when I wrote
Gin Stephens: my first book, Fast, Feast, Repeat, it came out in 2020, it was a New York Times bestseller. And I remember talking to my, we have the same agent and also my editor, and they’re like, what’s your next fasting book going to be?
And I’m like, I’m not writing another fasting book. I’ve written the fasting book, and that was Fast, Feast, Repeat. And it literally, you know, the subtitle is, you know, the comprehensive guide. It is comprehensive. It is literally everything. It is the manual you’re going to want to look at when you have a question you don’t even know you have yet.
That’s the book’s greatest strength, but it’s also the book’s greatest weakness. If you’re somebody who’s busy and you don’t have time to read, you [00:07:00] know, a book this thick, straight through, or if you’re not going to remember what you read when you get to page, I don’t know, whatever it is, 390 or whatever, you’re not going to remember what you read on page whatever.
So, people would just be overwhelmed with too much information that they weren’t ready for. So, I realized that we needed something a little gentler to get people started. So, in the Fast Feast Repeat, in the comprehensive book, we have the 28 day fast start. And, you know, people choose their intermittent fasting approach that they want to follow and then they just are supposed to get started.
But then they would kind of flounder and sometimes people would forget some of the stuff that was in there. People would also hand Fast, Feast, Repeat to a friend who wanted to start and the friend would not read it. Because it was just too much. So the teacher in me realized how many people were struggling with making intermittent fasting a lifestyle or they would come back.
I have a community and it’s a very active community, but people would be in the community and then they would disappear for like, you know, a year. And then they would come back and they’d say, I’m [00:08:00] back. I’m starting over. So that was one of the reasons why I thought, you know, we need something that helps people build habits.
For 28 days, it’s not overwhelming. It’s just what they need to know when they need to know it. No more, no less. So that you’ll understand why am I having trouble sleeping at the beginning, or why am I overeating in my eating window on day seven? This isn’t gonna work if I keep overeating. You know, biologically, why is this happening?
Because people want to know what’s happening, but they don’t want to know everything at once. So, it’s got like the little journal component in there where you just, you set your intentions for the day. You see how the day went. A little bit of lesson from me. And again, the school teacher really does come
JJ Virgin: out.
Yeah, I was totally, I was like, she is such a school teacher, but it’s fantastic because it is overwhelming. And most people don’t want to become an expert in intermittent fasting. They just want the results. And so that’s what this is. This is 28 days. This will give you the results. And what I like in here too is you talk about your version of habit [00:09:00] forming, which I’d love you to share with, because you know, if you’ve now been successful for 10 years, clearly you’ve formed some habits.
Gin Stephens: Well, it’s true. And you know, the, the book Fast Feast Repeat, we talk about the magic happens in the fast and it’s really important that you nourish your body well when you feast, but the magic really is in the repeat. And that is the whole point of 28 Day Fast Start Day by Day. The subtitle, The Ultimate Guide for Starting or Restarting Your Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle So It Sticks, because that’s the goal.
You want it to stick. We want to live a lifestyle that allows us to have a flexible way of living, that feels good, that’s enjoyable. We don’t want to feel like we’re miserable and deprived and intermittent fasting can get you where you want to be and you can really enjoy it. That’s what I hear the thousands of intermittent fasters I’ve talked to can’t believe how it has changed their life.
But you have to make it stick. [00:10:00] And see, that’s the difference, you know, people might understand this, you know, anyone who’s ever done keto, for example, you know, I’m, I’m a carb girl, keto didn’t work well for my body, but if anyone’s ever tried low carb or keto, they understand there’s an adaptation process where your body has to become fat adapted.
The thing about fasting is we also become fat adapted, we become what’s called metabolically flexible and you have to give your body time to do it. So that first 28 days, you’re not going to feel your best. You might feel sluggish, you might not have good energy, you’re going to have a hard time and you’re like, I hate this.
But understanding that it’s going to get better. So many people that struggle are those starters and stoppers and they basically live in the hard part. They never get out of the adjustment period. It’s like someone who wanted to do keto, but they only did it for one day, and then they ate carbs for a month, then they did one day.
You’re never going to get fat adapted with that. And the same with intermittent fasting. If you’re a dabbler, you’re living in the hard part. So, knowing from the beginning that you’re going to give yourself 28 [00:11:00] days, and it is not going to be a breeze every moment. But once you flip that metabolic switch, you’re on the other side, your body’s adapted, then you’re going to feel so much better.
And you’re not going to want to stop because you’re going to be like, yeah, it is hard to get started again. But if you just keep doing it, then you just keep going. I don’t think I’ve ever
JJ Virgin: heard anyone talk about really needing to go through those 28 days. That’s, yeah. That makes so much sense. You’ve got to set people up.
I know in the Virgin Diet, what I tell people is the first four days, you are going to crave those foods you’re pulling out. Like that’s actually a good thing. It’s a sign they’re not working for you, but you’re not going to be happy. It’s true. You’re going to feel like you could go postal to get your cheese.
So just know it, pay attention to it. Now when you start, you have people pick their speed. So talk through that because I thought that was very novel and
Gin Stephens: cool. Well, that was the school teacher came out again, because I have a quiz that you can take. You can skip the quiz and just pick a plan. But there are three plans, [00:12:00] starting from the easy one, where you’re really easing in, and you’re just taking it slow, and you’re working very slowly to gradually ramp up your fasting time for the 28 days.
And then there’s one in the middle, and then there’s the rip the Band Aid off approach. And someone that chooses the rip off the Band Aid approach is going to start a little more ambitious than someone who’s doing the easy does it approach. But at the end of every week, you have a chance to sit back and like you reassess, well how did my week go?
Like maybe you started with easy does it and you’re like, this is just too easy. I need to ramp things up. So next week you’re going to ramp it up a little bit, or maybe the first week you were rip off the band aid and you’re like, Oh, my body is not ready for this. You’re going to backtrack a little bit.
So you’re always checking in and say, you know, this is right. This is working well, or no, I need to ease up or no, I need, I can go a little harder. But the reader, the faster is always in control of the, the pace at which they go. I mean, we’re all different, you know, people that you’ve worked with, someone who is very metabolically [00:13:00] healthy to probably start with rip off the Band Aid, the week four plan on day one.
But if someone has been obese for 40 years and they’re, they’re changing their life, they need to ease in a little bit more because they’re reversing decades of metabolic issues. That’s just the reality of where our bodies are all starting at different points.
JJ Virgin: Well, and also when you are that person and the best thing is, is it doesn’t matter where you’re starting.
It’s just awesome. You’re starting. Exactly. So that’s it. It’s just like in fitness. If you are super fit, it’s even harder to get more fit. If you’re just starting and you haven’t been doing anything, holy smokes, can we make a difference? And I would imagine it’s the same here. If you’ve been used to eating what Sachin Panda’s like, you know, we eat 14 hours a day and right before we go to sleep, if you just even start with 12 hours, you know, and kicking out some snacks, it can make a difference.
And that’s the
Gin Stephens: easy does it approach. They’re literally starting with 12.
JJ Virgin: That’s perfect. Now you talk about kind of midway through, you start to discover your apostat. [00:14:00] Yeah. What do you mean by that?
Gin Stephens: We all have a built in satiety signal when we’re born. Think about a baby. You have had babies. You have two sons.
Is that right? We both have. We are
JJ Virgin: both boy
Gin Stephens: moms. I got two sons. Now men moms. Yeah. I know. Grown men. Where did they come from? I know,
JJ Virgin: and they’re bigger than me. Only 30. How could they be? They’re getting old and we’re not. I can’t figure it
Gin Stephens: out. It’s true. We’re aging backwards, JJ. But, you know, when we had our babies and we’re feeding our babies, they know when they’re hungry.
And they will tell you that they’re hungry, and it doesn’t matter how much you feed them, if they’re still hungry, they want more. And they also know when they’ve had enough, and they’re not going to have any more. Once that baby has had enough, that baby is done. We are all born with functioning satiety and hunger signals.
But over time, we lose touch with that. For whatever reason, ultra processed foods are a big problem. Eating all the time, getting on that blood sugar roller coaster where we’re just feeding the lows, you know, again, then we go high, now we’re feeding the low again. [00:15:00] But when you become an intermittent faster and you become fat adapted and metabolically flexible, all of a sudden, you can reconnect with those hunger and satiety signals.
And, you know, it’s like shocking. Someone in the community will say, I know that you said that I was gonna know when I had had enough. And it happened, and I left half my salad or half my burger, half whatever it was, and I couldn’t eat anymore, and I said, well, and, you know, people are amazed that finally they’re hearing their sodiety signals.
I tried so hard to hear mine for so many years, you know, the intuitive eating movement. And they told me in that movement that if I just asked myself, am I hungry? Then I would know when to stop. Well, the problem was when I was eating all day long, if I asked myself, am I hungry? The answer was always, yeah.
JJ Virgin: Well, and if you’re insulin resistant or if you didn’t sleep well, yeah, you’ll be hungry.
Gin Stephens: So, well, I was hungry all the time. Now that I’m an intermittent faster. I finally understand what those [00:16:00] intuitive eating people were talking about because I now, I can ask myself, am I hungry? And I know if the answer is yes or no.
And you understand it so much differently. But I just want people to understand you can reconnect with your hunger and satiety signals, not on day one, but eventually. And also the more nutritious food you eat, the more you connect
JJ Virgin: with them. Yeah, we know for sure. Like, I mean, the research is so insane on ultra processed food and satiety.
And how much you overeat. It’s like 500 calories a day if you’re eating a higher.
Gin Stephens: You know, the guy who did that research, I’m kind of like a research nerd with the people who are like the research scientists. Kevin Hall is his name. He’s the same guy that did the biggest loser study. Do you remember that one?
Oh, I just realized recently that it was the same guy, but I’m like a groupie of Kevin Hall now, but he actually. Did not think it would make a difference and I love nothing more, you know, my, my master’s degree is science and I taught science to kids and the scientific method, but he actually had a hypothesis that the only thing that [00:17:00] mattered was calories and the distribution of your macros.
He, that was his hypothesis when he did that study on ultra processed foods. So he carefully designed the experiment so that people would have the exact same number. of macros, and the calories would be offered the same way, and he did not think that the processing would make a difference. So when someone designs a study with a hypothesis, most of the time they prove their hypothesis to be right.
But for someone to prove their hypothesis wrong, It was a good study.
JJ Virgin: And a great open minded scientist. Cause usually they’re like, hold on the sandwich study. Was this the one that he did with American cheese and, and what my mother sent me to school with, I will tell you American cheese and wonder bread versus the whole grain bread and the cheddar cheese and just the difference in the thermic effect, even though the macros were exactly the same, but it brings me to another thing here of, you know, someone’s coming in.
And I like that you [00:18:00] brought that up about intuitive eating because it always struck me that you must be very metabolically healthy and not an emotional eater to be able to do intuitive eating. You can’t do intuitive eating if you’re insulin resistant. And you’ve got issues with ghrelin and leptin and all your appetite signaling’s off because there’s no way that you’ll be able to read the cues correctly.
But I’m assuming people coming in are coming in and one of the things they’re hoping to do is improve their metabolic health, improve their insulin sensitivity, but at the beginning they’re not there. So what do you do? Are there any tips or things to deal with the cravings or the hunger that could come up?
Gin Stephens: That’s a great question. And one of the things that I tell people when they’re starting is, Do not try to also change everything that you’re eating at the beginning. Like, you’re not going to be like, I’m going to start intermittent fasting and I’m only going to eat clean and I’m going to do everything and I’m going to run a marathon and I’m going to, you know, those New Year’s resolutions and they’re going to change everything at once.
Then they crash and burn. So I want [00:19:00] people to keep eating how they were, whatever that was. Whether it was really clean, keep doing that. Whether it was standard American diet, keep doing that. And you’re only going to focus on working on the fasting right now. We’re just going to try to build your fasting muscle, as it were.
And then over time, you can start figuring out what foods work best for you and bringing down the ultra processed foods. But I call myself clean ish. You know, I have a book by that name. I’m clean ish because there’s always room for some of what you really want as long as you’re mostly nourishing your body.
But when people are starting with intermittent fasting They’re usually excited, right, because they’re doing something new. So for those 28 days as your body is adjusting and you’re, you’re feeling excited about it, they can do it and they feel themselves feeling better as time goes on and that motivates them.
And they understand that when their window opens, they can eat till they’re satisfied and you’re not counting and you’re not dieting. You’re just eating till you’re satisfied. And [00:20:00] at the beginning, that might look like overeating because you’re not in balance yet. You haven’t gotten your satiety signals.
You’re not well fueled during the fast because you’re not fat adapted. And just giving yourself grace at the beginning. And, you know, if you have a day that’s an oops day, we’re not starting over. You don’t start over on day
JJ Virgin: one. Oh, yes. That whole starting over thing is, no starting
Gin Stephens: over. If you have trouble, even if you like go out of town and blow it over the weekend, you’re not starting over.
Maybe just if you left on day seven and then the weekend was a wash, come back. It’s now day eight. We don’t want to start over because that is that diet mentality that we’re trying to get out of. Yeah. And
JJ Virgin: that brings us to another thing that I’ve heard about intermittent fasting is. And it may be more with, say, the one meal a day or the every other day is this concern that intermittent fasting can trigger or exacerbate eating disorders or some kind of weird relationship with food.
Do you see that at all?
Gin Stephens: We actually don’t [00:21:00] because we’re, we’re focusing really on honoring your body’s satiety cues. And I talk about that in Fast Feast Repeat. I have a section in Fasting Red Flags in Fast Feast Repeat. And in it, I talk about, you know, when should you be concerned? You know, yes, intermittent fasting is a tool that people with eating disorders can abuse, right?
But, you know, so are, Laxative, so is broccoli or celery. You know, there, there are many, many tools that someone with an eating disorder could abuse and fasting is one of them. So, if someone has a diagnosed eating disorder, you should definitely try intermittent fasting along with your counselor being there with you to help you through it.
I’ve never known anyone in the community without an eating disorder history who fasting caused them to develop one. We haven’t seen that. Yeah, that
JJ Virgin: doesn’t seem like it makes sense
Gin Stephens: to me. But if someone has a history of an eating disorder, they have to be extra vigilant because, you know, you don’t want to misuse any tools of dieting, but that would come about with literally any diet plan if you’ve got that, [00:22:00] that brain that tends to go towards eating disorder.
It’s just a matter of being aware of it. And yeah. You know, when it comes to having an eating disorder, it has to do with, with unrealistic body expectations or over restriction and that sort of thing. And when you’re using fasting in a responsible way, whether we’re fasting, we’re feasting, we’re nourishing our body well, that’s really the key.
You feel better and better as time goes on and I think that we can all look to things we’ve done in the past that didn’t work well for us, whether it was an overly restrictive diet or someone with an eating disorder, doing something that didn’t work for you. As time went on, it gets harder and harder to do that.
You feel worse and worse and worse. And the thing about intermittent fasting that’s, that’s pretty much universal is if you’re doing it in a way that feels good to your body, it’s going to feel better and better over time and not worse and worse. And that’s how you know it’s good for you. So
JJ Virgin: with the end of the 28 days, cause you, you also talk about in the book mastering the delay.
So I’d love to explore what that is and then [00:23:00] also how they could expect to feel at the end of that 28 days.
Gin Stephens: Those are two great questions. The delay comes from my first book that I self published in 2016 called Delay Don’t Deny. And the whole idea of fasting is that you’re delaying. You’re just delaying whatever you want to have.
You’re delaying it until your eating window, or if your window is closed, you’re delaying it until tomorrow. And when you can master the power of delay, it’s not ever no, it’s just not right now. I was a teacher for 28 years, and I was a teacher when I was doing intermittent fasting. I retired in 2018, but I had several years of being an intermittent fasting teacher.
And, you know, we would have Sweet Treats Day one Friday every month, and the parents would send in all these JJU What is it about,
JJ Virgin: what is it about, like, elementary schools and treats? There’s
Gin Stephens: always something, like, in the workroom, like, the insurance company would put donuts in there. Or, but We always had people like to reward us with food, but I would go [00:24:00] in there and look at the sweet treats, and I would look, and I didn’t want anything that wasn’t good.
It had to be completely window worthy, but like, let’s say someone made a homemade blueberry pound cake. Not something they picked up at the grocery store, they still have the sticker on it, but like a really good homemade southern blueberry pound cake. I could take a piece of that, put it in a Ziploc baggie, because I had Ziploc baggies in my classroom, and I could take it home, I could delay it, and I could have that cake.
And, you know, that whole idea of I have permission to eat this cake later if I want to. You just don’t feel like you’re, you’re restricting. It’s when you don’t have permission to do what you want to do that suddenly you’re like, I wasn’t going to eat any of these sweet treats, but I’m just going to eat them all right now.
And then you’ve blown it, right? Cause I’m never going to do it again. Oh, but just today, tomorrow I’ll start again. Right. But with the delay, I can have that later. I’m just delaying it until later. So when someone gets to the end of the 28 days. They’re going to feel so good about what they’ve just accomplished and because they understand that they’ve just, you know, [00:25:00] helped their body adapt, you don’t want to throw all that away by going back to how you were.
And so you’re going to be feeling so much better and you’re going to be excited to keep going. And so part of the, the book is having people write down their non scale victories. In fact, you probably noticed every day they check off what they did for the day. Like I fasted clean, I didn’t get on the scale because we don’t expect weight loss during the first 28 days.
You might have some weight loss, but it’s, you might not, because you might be overeating a little bit as your body is adapting. But you’re really recognizing all the non scale victories of how much better you’re feeling and, and how much more relaxed you feel around food. You start losing the guilt. And it’s a funny thing.
When you start losing the guilt around food, Suddenly, those doughnuts in the break room, you don’t even want to put it in a baggie for later. You’re like, I don’t even like that doughnut. Whereas in a moment of like during the school day when I was stressed and I’d run into the bathroom and my class is in there and I’m in a [00:26:00] hurry and I’m eating the doughnut just because it’s there and I’m feeling stressed, instead, you’re like, well, my window’s closed.
That doughnut doesn’t look very good. I don’t even want to delay it. It’s not window worthy. And so it just kind of changes your whole mindset. When you have permission to do what you want to do. Do I really want to even do it? Surprisingly, the answer is no. I’d rather go home and eat Brussels sprouts.
Well,
JJ Virgin: you keep mentioning clean fasting and I know this is a huge, it’s a huge area, like this is a huge debate. I love the debates on social media and
Gin Stephens: clean. I don’t debate on social media. You can fast clean or not, but who
JJ Virgin: wants to do that? Like who’s spending their time on these like. Wars on social media, but they are.
And they are, and fasting is one of ’em. So yeah, maybe explain what clean fasting means and what to do with
Gin Stephens: this. I’ll give you the quick and then a slightly longer. The quick is what can you have? You can have [00:27:00] black coffee with nothing added. Plain tea, and I mean real tea, actual tea with nothing added.
Plain water or plain sparkling water. No flavors. So that’s it. That’s what you’re having during the fast. Piece of cake. Now why? It’s because we have three fasting goals, and when you understand So, if fasting, what our three fasting goals are, you understand why you don’t want to have those other things.
Because if you’re fasting, you might as well fast if you’re going to do it. Because if you’re not fasting, you’re really doing a low calorie diet, and fasting and low calorie diets are not the same thing. And we all know that. Like, I was trying to explain it to a phlebotomist one day, and she’s like, yeah, what about a little milk?
And I’m like, well, would you do a fasted blood draw? And she’s like, no. And I’m like, now you get it. Alright, so let’s think about the three fasting goals. One, we want to keep insulin low. Insulin is antilipolytic, meaning it actively keeps your body from burning fat. When you have really high levels of insulin, your body is [00:28:00] not burning fat well.
And you might be thinking, I’ve never heard that before. Google it. Google insulin antilipolytic PubMed or whatever. You’ll read about it and you’ll be like, I didn’t even know that. So if someone has it. Hyperinsulinemia, meaning chronic high levels of insulin all the time. They’re having a hard time tapping into their fat stores for fuel.
Well, what causes your body to release insulin? Well, eating. So, of course, we don’t want to do that. But also, we have this little thing called the cephalic phase insulin response. And that is when your brain thinks Glucose is coming in or fuel is coming in. Your brain thinks something’s coming in. And so it says, Oh, you know, I know what’s happening.
So it causes your pancreas to pump out some insulin. They did some studies with rats. Where they painted the rat’s oral cavity with an artificial sweetener. So it was zero calories, zero calorie artificial sweetener. Their little rat pancreas pumped out some insulin just because it thought sweetness was coming in.
Cause our brains [00:29:00] know sweetness means sugar, honey. We’re going to have a high blood sugar. We’re going to need insulin. Our brains don’t understand zero calories. So. We have that insulin response. Then they took these poor little rats and they severed the rat’s nerve from the tongue to the brain, painted the oral cavity again with the sweetener.
No insulin response. It was the taste of it that caused them to release the insulin. So that is why we don’t want to add the fruity flavors. We don’t want to have the, you know, the sweet herbal teas or the water enhancers. You can have all of that in your eating window, but during the fast, we do not want it to be a taste bud sensation.
So, people are like, well, then why can’t we have black coffee? Well, black coffee and plain tea have a bitter flavor profile, and a bitter flavor profile is not associated with insulin response. Our bodies don’t think that we’re having sugar come in, so it doesn’t do anything. Alright, so that’s fasting goal one, keep insulin low.
Fasting goal two is we want to tap into our stored fat for fuel. That’s the fat we want. And that [00:30:00] is why we’re not adding butter or cream or NCT oil or all these different fuels to our coffee, for example, because our bodies are going to use whatever fuel source is the easiest for them to get to. If you’re putting a lot of fat in your coffee cup or cream in your coffee or whatever it is, your body’s going to go to that fuel
JJ Virgin: first.
And by the way, we burn sugar, we burn Fat. We burn both. Right. But if you’re eating fat, it’ll burn fat. But it’s not burning your stored fat, it’s burning fat. You just put in, you wanna be a stored fat
Gin Stephens: burner . Exactly. That’s our goal. So if you’re putting fuel in, basically, if you’re putting fuel in, your body will use that.
It’ll use it all the time. It’s always gonna use what it can get to first before it goes to, you know, stored glycogen or the, the stored fat or whatever it is. And our third fasting goal is we wanna have increased autophagy. And autophagy is our bodies. Self cleaning mechanism. And what would halt that would be eating and also protein.[00:31:00]
So you don’t want to take in any sources of protein during the fast. We are fasting clean. So that’s why we have plain water, plain sparkling water, black coffee, plain tea. So
JJ Virgin: on that note, cause I have seen so many different comments about this and I’m not sure if we really know cause I’m like, how would we
Gin Stephens: know?
I know what you’re about to ask. Are you going to ask when we get into autophagy? Yes. I love this question. I was running Facebook groups for years and there was this crazy, someone had written it on like notebook paper and like taking a photo of it and was sharing it around and it was the craziest thing, but people shared it like it was gospel truth.
I’m like, somebody wrote that on notebook paper. Why are you sharing this as gospel truth? And it said crazy stuff like what happened by the hour. One of them was like, insulin is no longer produced. I’m like, that doesn’t even make sense. Our bodies always have insulin. Yeah, you die. Exactly. So, I mean, it
JJ Virgin: would vary.
I saw a YouTube video of something similar to this. [00:32:00] Like at hour four, at hour eight, and I’m like magically at hour eight, this happened. I’m like,
Gin Stephens: our body doesn’t work on a timetable like that. But autophagy is not exactly like a light switch that’s on or off. This is the most important thing to understand about autophagy.
It’s not light on, light off. Instead, it’s more like a dimmer switch. We all have had those dimmer switch, light switch, it’s where you’re turning it up and you’re turning it down. And so, our body can have autophagy going on no matter what, right? But, when we’re fasting, autophagy is increased. But, fasting isn’t the only thing that increases autophagy.
Actually, black coffee increases autophagy. Exercise increases autophagy. Exactly. So, that dimmer switch is going up and down and up and down. And so, when does it turn up? Well, it depends on a lot of individual factors. I do have a study. I have it saved in my notes. I can send it to you if you want.
It was time restricted eating with humans, and they [00:33:00] did find markers of increased autophagy with time restricted eating, which is the daily eating window approach. So, no, you do not have to fast for 24 hours, 36 hours, 72 hours to have increased autophagy, because think about it. Would our bodies have an amazing cellular housecleaning tool that required you to fast for 72 hours to activate it?
That makes no sense.
JJ Virgin: No, we’d be full of gunk. What were the markers of autophagy? How can they? Oh,
Gin Stephens: I don’t know. I can’t, I’d have to look at it to see, but there’s markers. They can tell when it’s, you know, ramping up or ramping down. And you know, one thing we know is that as we age. Lots of things happen when we age that we don’t want to happen.
We want to age well. We want to stay vibrantly healthy. But most people have a huge decrease in autophagy as they age. The older they get, the less autophagy they have. And that’s one thing that’s so exciting about fasting is because if we’re going to have increased autophagy, we can then have the theory that we’re going to be aging [00:34:00] better.
JJ Virgin: Yeah, it may be part of why they found caloric restriction was helping some with extending lifespan. Yep. But what I like about time restricted eating is you can still get in the protein that you need so that you aren’t going to have the loss of lean tissue. We
Gin Stephens: see that all the time, JJ. We call it body recomposition in our community because people who are fasting, because we’re fasting clean, we’re preferentially burning the fat during our fast and we are accessing our fat better than when we did those low calorie diets in the past.
So we see people, anecdotally, we see people every single day in the community who are like, you know, my goal weight was gonna be, let’s just say 125. But I’m actually at 135 and I’m fitting back into the clothes that used to fit me at 125, but I weigh 135. That’s because with fasting, their muscle was preserved because their body was able to actually use the fat.
So we have a lot of body recomposition.
JJ Virgin: That [00:35:00] was one of the old myths back when I was in grad school was you either had to put on muscle or burn fat, but you couldn’t put on muscle and burn fat at the same time. And we now know, yes, you can, you just make sure that you have the protein that you need and that you’re getting into those points where you don’t have the calories coming in and your body has to go use stored fat for fuel.
And you can do both and it’s amazing. And it would be cool to do some DEXAs. What are you seeing? you know, or recommendations. Because this was another one that I saw, it was like, you need to eat within a five hour window. You have to eat it this time. And I’m like, huh. Okay. So what are your recommendations?
Like at five hours, you have to go that much time or you don’t trigger autophagy. I’m like, it is not a switch. So. What are your recommendations for eating windows for people? This
Gin Stephens: is where people might get a little mad at me because I don’t believe there’s a one size fits all or universal best. And that is where we say in our community, tweak it till it’s easy.
And we also really recognize [00:36:00] bio individuality. Now someone like you, JJ, you are a lean machine and you work out a lot. And your body has different fuel needs than someone who is more sedentary. So me telling you what to do for your eating window would be very different from what someone else might need.
So it’s all about finding the balance that works for your body. You know, the eating window that feels right to me might not be the one that feels right to somebody else. I’m somebody who likes to open my eating window late afternoon, usually around 2 to 4, usually at some point. I’ll open it and I’ll have a really hearty snack and then I have a meal later.
And that allows me to get in, you know, everything that I need. Some days my window is a little longer, some days if I’m busy, it ends up being a little shorter. But my eating window is not like the gold standard, universal, aspirational eating window. We have people in our community who like to get up, their eating window is 9 a.
m. to 1 p. m. And then they [00:37:00] stop eating for the day at 1. We have people who like alternate daily fasting, which is a very well researched approach to fasting. And everything in between. So it’s all a matter of letting your body adapt. And then when you’re adapted, now you’re experimenting with what works for you.
That is where you’re going to go to fast feast repeat. And we have all the tools in there that you can use to craft your own really individualized plan. Because you know how one size fits all never really fits anybody? It’s the same with intermittent fasting. You don’t give everybody the same workout program.
Everybody has different workout programs based on their body. How fit they are and also their goals,
JJ Virgin: their health history, their injury history. Like I’m actually trying to work on a SAS product. Cause I’m like, Oh my gosh, how do I, like, can you get up off the floor? Can you balance on a leg? Can you jump? I mean, there’s just so much on all these things.
When you really get into it, because what you’re saying is the most [00:38:00] important thing. This has to work for you. And that is usually my problem with anything that I see out there. It’s like, it’s this rigid thing you do. And I’m like, yeah, but no one, there’s going to be that tiny percentage that actually, that fits their rigid lifestyle too, and the rest of the people are out of luck.
So this makes a ton of sense. I love the fact that they go through 28 days, they learn it, it goes through the process, they go through the, that little struggle, the struggle’s real, to get to the other side, and then they can create the plan that works for them, which is the whole point of this, which I totally dig.
But I’ve got to ask because. You mentioned exercise and I also like the fact, like for me, when I’m taking someone on any kind of program and my tools are diet and exercise, right? But I don’t do both at once to start cause then they don’t do either. So I love that you said that and everyone wants to do them all at once
Gin Stephens: for a day.
And then they’re like, well, I’m done with that. That’s yeah.
JJ Virgin: They’re like, that, that was awful. And I’ve learned myself, like, if I’m going to do something, like right now I’m really focusing on improving my [00:39:00] VO2max because I will default and throw weights around all day long so happily and then I’m like, I don’t want to do that cardio.
So I’m like, okay, I’m just going to test it and focus on it and improve it. Do my HIIT training like a good person over here, but I’m not doing that and 12 other things because then I won’t do anything. It was like that with yoga and that with meditation. So I asked this because where does exercise fit in?
Because we know that if people are trying to sustain, maintain their weight on diet alone, their TOPHI But then outside, fat inside, what we call the normal weight obese is pretty darn high. So exercise has to factor in. So how does it factor in
Gin Stephens: here? During the first 28 days, you actually might need to take it a little easier than you’re used to.
Like if someone has like a HIIT practice, they might need to just do some walking or some yoga or something as their body is becoming adapted. But once your body is adapted, [00:40:00] if you already have been active, you will be able to resume that. So yeah, we had someone in the community. Not that long ago, who came back and did a follow up post.
And she’s like, you know, when I first started, I said, what should I do about exercise? And you told me, try it and see, see what happens. And she’s like, and I was like so I did. And she found out that her endurance is better now that she’s adapted than it used to be. She can do more, she can lift heavier, she in the fasted state.
And she’s like, I was shocked to find that out. But you know, you have to really experience it to see. So when you’re new to intermittent fasting, you’re not going to be able to work to the same level of endurance that you did until your body is adapted. And then you’ll be able to figure out when is the best time to work out and what’s when it works best for you.
Find that in your day. Experiment. You are your own study of one, and that is something that is really, really important. I believe we must stay active, especially as we age. Now that I’m 54, I understand that a lot better. One thing that [00:41:00] people have in their minds right now is, if I just eat more protein, I will build muscle.
Wouldn’t
JJ Virgin: that be amazing?
Gin Stephens: You know, Jason Fung has a blog post about protein where he said, if the only thing required to build muscle was eating protein, we would have a muscle epidemic in America right now. But we don’t. We have an obesity epidemic. You must work your muscles to build them.
JJ Virgin: It was very interesting.
I did fasted workouts. Gosh, I think for two months. I approached. And I discovered that for me, when I don’t do a fasted workout, my workouts are about 30 percent harder. Like I can really up my volume and intensity. And I was like, okay, that
Gin Stephens: one doesn’t That’s your study of one. Other than the clean fast, if you’re fasting, we fast clean.
That’s the one non negotiable in my community. If you’re fasting, fast clean. But when it comes to everything else, you get to decide, you figure it out that you do better exercising, not in a fasted state. [00:42:00] And that’s your study of one, and you can
JJ Virgin: trust it. Now, I loved you that you have all the resources people need now.
Like this is, this to me completes, completes the thing. Although I’m sure that everyone’s going to be, what’s your next book? I’m always like, it’s nothing.
Gin Stephens: I’m never writing a book. We finished my audio book today. I did all the pickups for it today for the audio book for this. Oh, by the way, my audio producer.
She had started fasting.
JJ Virgin: I would think these audio producers, they must be like, okay, I’m in.
Gin Stephens: Hearing me read the book to her and now she’s editing the book. She’s like, I started fasting. I’m drinking the black coffee. It’s not as hard as I thought. Anyway, I was very excited.
JJ Virgin: So cool. That’s a good testament.
So you also have a group, which we’re going to link to all of this in the show notes and the show notes will be jjvirgin. com forward slash clean fast. We’ll link to the first podcast we did and we will link to all of your books. So you have a private community that people can join that you are going to now do a whole fast start together.
You’ve [00:43:00] got support in there. You go in there a bunch. So you really have great resources for everybody. It’s super cool. Plus you’re giving people, let me just make sure I have it here.
Gin Stephens: It’s a PDF of the CleanFast for you to have as a reference and it’ll really help you. If you have any questions, you’ll just look at that reference and it’ll answer it for you.
So you won’t have to wonder, is this part of a CleanFast? You’ll just know. So there it’ll be.
JJ Virgin: I bet you get asked for that all the time.
Gin Stephens: Yes. All the time. Yes, I do. I do. And people ask all the
JJ Virgin: time. Cool. Hence the CleanFast. You’ll get the sheet. You’ll, there’ll be no questions. You’ll know exactly what it is.
I get DM’d on all these things all the time and I’m like, oh yeah, this is not my world. Ask Gin.
Gin Stephens: Yeah, there we go. I’ll tell you and I’ll tell you why you might not like what I’m going to tell you.
JJ Virgin: But yeah, I always say it’s not like this is science. It’s not me. Don’t get mad at me. It’s true. And
Gin Stephens: it’s knowing, you know, how people have, you know, loved the experience.
So often I’ll hear from people, they’ll say, I didn’t believe you about the clean fast. And then I tried it your way, and darn it, you’re right. [00:44:00] Some people don’t want me to be right, but I, in Fast Feast Repeat, you know, being the teacher that I am, we’ve all got those rebels in our classroom. And I’m sure someone listening right now is like, well, I saw that YouTube that said I could put 50 calories of milk in there and it doesn’t break the fast.
And I’m like, do the clean fast challenge. Just do it. Do it for your first 28 days fast clean. Give yourself a month of fasting clean. Nobody ever goes back after they have adapted to the clean fast. That’s the thing.
JJ Virgin: I think I know where some of this came from was I was listening to a podcast where they were talking about the digestive process and the minute you stop eating, you’re not fasting, you’re digesting, right?
I think people don’t get that. I’m like, yeah, you stopped eating at six, but you’re not fasting. You’re not eating, but your body’s digesting. So you’ve got to give that time. And so they were like, well, if you haven’t eaten now for 10 or 12 hours and you have a little something, it’s not going to start the whole process.
And I went, you know, you can’t do that with people because how on earth could you sort through that? Yeah,
Gin Stephens: people don’t, they, they hear that, but then they cling [00:45:00] to it like a life raft and they’re like, well, I heard that you can have 50 calories.
JJ Virgin: It’s so much easier. Just don’t do it. Right. I agree. All right.
This was amazing. I’m thrilled for your new book. Thank you. I guess when you don’t have babies anymore, then you can write books, right? It’s true, but I think
Gin Stephens: I’m done. I don’t want to write any more
JJ Virgin: book. After every book I say, I’m done. But you’re writing a new
Gin Stephens: one though, aren’t you? I’m writing my last one.
Yes. Can you share what it is or is it
JJ Virgin: still a secret? We are still playing around, of course, with the titling, but it really is all Powerful aging. And as I was looking at this, you know, it’s, you write the book for yourself. Hello. But here’s the big idea is I’m sure you’ve heard the statistics and we’ve all known this, like as we age, you lose fat, put on or lose muscle, put on fat and starting around age 30, we can lose three to 8 percent of our muscle a decade.
Wow. At 60, it starts to double, but they talk about muscle loss, but [00:46:00] what’s actually bigger than that is you lose about twice as much strength and then you lose about three times as much power. Wow. And if you just think about it, you build muscle with really volume of stuff, like you go to the gym and you do repetitive exercise more than what you’re used to and your body adapts and gets How strong you are is like how much you can pick one thing up one time, and strength is different.
Like once you’ve gone through a normal training routine, say eight to weeks to three months to where you’ll get stronger, just because you’re doing something at that point, training for strength’s a little different than training to build muscle. There is some crossover, but the big difference is power and power is explosive speed.
And just think about it. It is you being able to run up the stairs or run to the gate at the airport, dragging your carry on. Like it’s the thing that you can do fast, get out of the way. And you [00:47:00] know, you look at age 60 plus and if you break a hip at age 60 plus, 30 percent of the people who break a hip at age 60 plus die within a year.
And why do we break a hip? They’re like, Oh, your poor bone density. Well, first of all, if you fix your muscle, your bones are a lagging indicator to your muscles, right? So fix your muscles, you fix your bones. But you start to look and go, when was the last time I chased a ball? I was listening to one podcast and he said, after the age of 30, like most people will never sprint again.
They don’t, yeah, they don’t jump. They don’t, they just don’t do these things. It makes sense, JJ.
Gin Stephens: Somebody, a friend of mine told me the other day, she’s like, we sold our house and moved to a one story house so we wouldn’t have to climb stairs as we age. I’m like, that’s the worst thing you could do. That’s a mistake.
JJ Virgin: My mom Buy a three story house. Right? Buy a three story house with higher stairs. My mom, you know, was 93 when she passed. She was completely independent till the last two months. Why? She lived on a house with lots of stairs. She did all of her groceries, all of her, like, carried [00:48:00] everything, did all the tasks.
Didn’t have this rumba or whatever the thing is that, like, she did all the stuff herself and went walking pretty much every single day. And I would say walking is activity, not exercise, but it all counts. And so I look at this and go, you have to train in the gym, whether it’s your home or at a gym to get better at life.
And if you can train in a controlled environment, jumping, bounding, skipping, throwing, then in life. When you go to grab something cause you might drop it, you don’t fall over, you correct yourself. And so that’s what I’m really focusing on. And it also strikes me and it was funny. I was just listening to another podcast where the guy had two book titles and one was for the guys and it was bigger, stronger, bigger, leaner, stronger.
And the girls was. Thinner, leaner, stronger. And I went, women, their whole lives have been taught to be smaller, skinnier, thinner, little. Growing up, I was always the six foot girl in class. And they’re like, you’re so big. And [00:49:00] I’m like, I’m not big. I’m tall. Cause no, God forbid a woman’s called big. And I thought, this is it.
This is our time. We got to step into being powerful.
Gin Stephens: Well, this is the time we’re aging differently, JJ. And I like to think we’re leading that path, you know, with the whole, you know, hormone replacement therapy is no longer taboo, right? Thank goodness. Tabitha Barber got me going on that.
JJ Virgin: Thank God. What a difference.
Everyone has to do that. And I go, oh no, hormone replacement therapy for the win. Are you kidding? You know, so that’s what, that’s what I’m really focusing
Gin Stephens: on. That sounds great. And there’s an audience for that because we’re aging and we want to age well. We don’t want to be like our grandmas. No,
JJ Virgin: and we did not work this hard to get to this point, to downsize into a one story house and to start shrinking our lives.
This is, this is the time of expansion, not shrinking. So that’s
Gin Stephens: fabulous. JJ, I can’t wait.
JJ Virgin: Well, we’ll get you on the big power training next. Cool. Thank you so much. And again, everybody listening, it is [00:50:00] jjvirgin.com/cleanfast to get all of those goodies and be sure to grab Gin’s new book.
Thank you. Be sure to join me next time for more tools, tips, and techniques you can incorporate into everyday life to ensure you look and feel great. And more importantly, that you’re built to last and check me out on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and my website, jjvirgin.com and make sure to follow my podcast.
So you don’t miss a single episode at subscribetojj.com. See you next time. Okay.
Hide Transcript