Oct. 2, 2024

Intermittent Fasting and Women's Health: The Impact on Hormones, Digestion, and Circadian Rhythm with Jillian Greaves [Ep. 115]

Is intermittent fasting right for you? If you’re a woman, you may want to think twice. My guest today is Jillian Greaves, Functional Dietitian and Women's health specialist. We discuss why a one-size-fits-all approach—like intermittent fasting—can be harmful, especially for women.

You’ll learn why the research behind intermittent fasting often doesn't apply to women and how ignoring your body’s signals can disrupt hormones like cortisol and kisspeptin, affecting everything from insulin sensitivity to appetite regulation.

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About Jillian:

Jillian Greaves is a Functional Dietitian and Women's health specialist, the owner of the private practice Jillian Greaves Functional Nutrition & Wellness, and the creator of the PCOS Root Reversal Program. Jillian provides comprehensive nutrition and lifestyle counseling to women, with a special emphasis on hormone balance and digestive health. Jillian and her team help women identify and address the root causes of their hormone and digestive symptoms using advanced lab testing, personalized nutrition, and supportive lifestyle therapies as the first line of intervention. It's her mission to empower women to take back control of their health, reclaim their confidence, and to experience life at its fullest potential.

More from Well with Lisa:

Schedule a free session: wellwithlisa.as.me
Your Go-To Meal Guide: grab it HERE
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Transcript

WEBVTT

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This is the eat well.

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Well live well podcast.

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I'm Lisa Salisbury, and this is episode 115 intermittent fasting and women's health.

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The impact on hormones, digestion, and circadian rhythm.

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Jillian Greaves is here with me today and she is a functional dietician and women's health specialist.

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Today, we're going to discuss the difference between how men's and women's bodies respond to fasting in particular.

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I intermittent fast.

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And why skipping breakfast or delaying meals can negatively impact women's health.

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We also discuss by aligning your eating schedule with your circadian rhythm is optimal for metabolism and hormone balance.

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Jillian is big on tools, not rules.

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So be sure to be thinking how you can incorporate these suggestions as tools in your health tool bag, and not as strict rules we are giving you.

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Welcome to Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well; the podcast for women who want to lose weight, but are tired of counting and calculating all the food.

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I'm your host, Lisa Salsbury.

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I'm a certified health and weight loss coach and life coach, and most importantly a recovered chronic dieter.

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I'll teach you to figure out why you are eating when you aren't hungry, instead of worrying so much about what you are eating Welcome back to the Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well podcast.

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I am delighted to have Jillian Greaves with me today.

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She's a functional dietitian and women's health specialist.

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And from the little bit that we've already chatted over email and just a little here, she is a wealth of information.

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So I am super excited to welcome her to the show.

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Welcome Jillian.

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Thank you.

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I'm so excited to be here.

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So I'm going to let you introduce yourself, give us a little bit of background on what it is that you do, and then we're going to jump into our conversation about, well, just a lot of women's health stuff.

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Awesome.

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So I'm, you know, Jillian Greaves, as you mentioned, I'm a functional medicine dietitian that specializes in women's health.

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And essentially what, what I do is, uh, really support women with understanding the why behind their gut and hormone symptoms specifically.

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So, I take a root cause approach towards supporting women with.

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really identifying and addressing their digestive health and hormonal symptoms naturally, utilizing advanced lab testing, personalized nutrition, targeted lifestyle therapies, supplementation, mind body techniques, and really supporting women and bringing the body back to balance and ultimately getting back in the driver's seat of their, their health.

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So, we work with a lot of women that, struggle with, uh, polycystic ovarian syndrome, endometriosis, uh, fertility challenges, uh, IBS.

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That's kind of our, our jam.

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Okay.

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I do not work with that population.

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So I definitely work with, women who are probably a little bit more on the, the norm side, but just have like weight issues.

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But I imagine that a lot of the things you find with the, that population translates easily into those without those sorts of diagnoses.

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Yeah.

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A hundred percent.

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And, and many women we work with too don't have a specific diagnosis.

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And we always say at the end of the day, the label is less important and understanding, you know, symptom root, root causes is.

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And, we actually, you know, a lot of women we work with have.

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weight loss goals or body, you know, body composition goals.

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And ultimately at the end of the day, we always say that, you know, weight loss resistance or, you know, increases with weight that feel, like not, you know, comfortable and optimal in terms of where an individual, feels they're, they're healthiest and best at.

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This is a symptom at the end of the day is, is kind of how we describe it.

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same thing like bloating or, You know, acne.

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And so we really, look to get to the bottom of the why and to kind of support women with the root causes and also the habits, right?

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To help their bodies shift and respond naturally in a way that.

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It doesn't feel like you're fighting against yourself at the end of the day.

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Yeah, yeah, for sure.

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something that you said, and this isn't even the topic that we're going to cover today.

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So this is just like a little bonus question for you already.

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when you said you, you know, you take a root cause approach and there were several tests.

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I, I just came off coaching a client.

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We were talking about her little bit of resistance to keeping a food journal, and it was feeling a little bit diety to her feeling a little bit like restriction, which I totally get.

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And we, We coached through that, but I'm just curious.

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We were talking about all of the reasons why we keep a food journal and the benefits of it that have nothing to do with the hijacked approach of counting calories in an app that the diet industry has stolen from us and, and how valuable that information is.

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And, and when you said root cause approach, I thought, I bet you, one of the first things that you do is ask for a log of people's food.

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Like it's such good information.

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such good information and, and I love that you use the word information because we talk to our clients a lot about, you know, food, food logging or, you know, bowel movement logging or, you know, lab data that we're collecting.

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This is all data at the end of the day and what we try to really encourage clients to do is, to be very observational, and to kind of remove the emotion and the judgment from, you know, uh, kind of the, the tracking of food or, or any of these, different indicators and ultimately to just get curious, right?

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To approach things with curiosity, and to, see, you know, see this as a potential opportunity to create more awareness and to ideally get a sense of how you can better show up and, and, you know, support your body, versus, you know, how, how I think a lot of us approach it in terms of, you know, the diet culture approach in, in terms of, just beating ourselves up and looking for the, the negative versus the opportunity.

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Yeah, yeah.

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And looking to that food log or that calorie count to know how much can I still eat today or, you know, it becomes a real outside of your body situation when you're asking permission of the diet app to eat again.

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It's, it's.

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Crazy.

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Anyway.

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Okay.

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So that was like a side note already to what we're already going to talk about.

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So the first thing that we really, we really wanted to hit on today and really discuss is intermittent fasting.

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This is such a huge, huge deal in the dieting world right now.

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And there's so many people that are like, Oh, You know, it's the best way.

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And if you're eating, you're aging and all of these like mixed messages.

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And it's honestly, it's super confusing.

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It is just super confusing.

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And I know from my own research that a lot of the intermittent fasting studies have been done on men.

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And so then you get authors that are like, no, here's how to do it as a woman.

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You know, like a girl.

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I'm not, not naming any names, but, you know, Where, where does that information come from though, because the studies haven't been done.

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So tell us where, why intermittent fasting can possibly have, negative health repercussions on women and, what you know about that and what you advise for that.

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Yeah, I love this topic and you're spot on.

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The large majority of research we have on intermittent fasting has been done on men, you know, and or animal models.

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And that's a problem because, you know, these studies aren't accounting for female physiology and female hormones.

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And at the end of the day, women and men are very different.

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Well, as Dr.

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Stacey Sims says, women are not small men.

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women are not small men.

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Exactly.

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Exactly.

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And, you know, ultimately at the end of the day, women's bodies respond very differently to stressors than men's do.

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And, you know, At the end of the day, also, you know, intermittent fasting is a stressor.

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It's a hermetic stressor, meaning in the right context, a tool like intermittent fasting or time restricted eating could have some potential health benefits for the right population.

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in the right context.

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In the wrong context, this is going to be, you know, like throwing, throwing gasoline on the fire.

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And something I also want to point out is that there's a lot of different formats when it comes to how intermittent fasting has been studied in research.

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What I see, I'm curious if you see this as well, but what I see in practice with women is a lot of women just interpreting intermittent fasting as skipping breakfast or, you know, delaying eating for, you know, the first part of the day is, do you see that also?

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Yeah.

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And, and the different models, you know, especially the most popular, well, I think it's the most popular is like the 16, eight eating window where it's eight hours of eating and 16 hours of fasting that came about because of a research assistant schedule.

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That was the most convenient time for them to come in and be eight hours on.

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So that's when the subjects got fed.

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Like there was no.

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It's like the 10, 000 steps a day was a marketing gimmick when a pedometer came out in Japan.

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Like, you have to look at the source of where these numbers came from.

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It wasn't because it was a magical, good for you number.

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It was based on convenience and paying an hourly employee.

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Which is, is wild when

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It is

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that down, right?

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And, and in terms of the, the, you know, kind of skipping breakfast piece in particular and, you know, delaying that overnight fast, we, we definitely still need more research here across the board, but in, in women in particular, with the small studies we do have, we are seeing different results than we are seeing in, you know, the, the men in the animal models.

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And, it's thought that you know, different responses to fasting in men and women may be due to, and Stacey Sims is actually someone who talks about this research a lot, it may be due to something called Kisspeptin, which is a neuropeptide that plays a really important role with the regulation of the menstrual cycle and, you know, our fertility, our sex hormones.

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And it also plays a really important role with appetite regulation and insulin sensitivity.

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So in some small studies, Kisspeptin secretion is altered or decreased when women are skipping breakfast or delaying breakfast.

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And this is having a negative ripple effect on, you know, the communication between the brain and the ovaries, and kind of having a snowball effect on hormones.

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It's also, Leading to, dysregulation with appetite hormones as well as decreased insulin sensitivity.

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So ultimately,

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that's also wild, because your intermittent fasting people tell you that it increases your insulin sensitivity.

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right, right, and, and there are animal studies and there are, you know, studies on men that do show that, that benefit.

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But again, these, you know, studies are not meant to be, you know, kind of translated to women where our physiology is very different.

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And I also think what's important to note is that we also have to remember that, you know, thing, nutrition science is, is tough, right?

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Because, you know, we, we don't live in a bubble where these, these, you know, kind of different concepts and, and tools and diet formats are studied.

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And, you know, We have to think about context.

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I always say to clients at the end of the day, context is king.

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And, you know, in someone, again, that's maybe a male with really optimal metabolic health and, you know, very minimal stress in his life.

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Sure.

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Could intermittent fasting be possibly a good helpful tool for, you know, achieving some, some things there.

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Maybe.

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Yeah.

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You know, that's something that person could explore women have completely different.

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Hormone makeups, and we have our infradian rhythms, women of reproductive age, where we're cycling, hormones are, you know, cycling all month long.

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And then we also have different phases of the life cycle for women where the body's going through various different types of stressors with changes hormonally, right?

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And so we have a lot to account for there, but then we also have to think about, like, life stress and, you know, emotional stress, and what other types of stressors are going on in our life that might impact it.

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The context of whether or not this tool is going to be healthy, if that makes sense.

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Yes, for sure.

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So here's, here's the question then if we're like, okay, intermittent fasting is probably not great for women but also, we're not expecting women to get up and have a 3am snack.

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So we do intermittent fast in a way and that we.

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Don't eat while we're sleeping and I prefer just as far as my sleeping goes I prefer to go to bed with a not full stomach.

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Like I prefer to eat around, you know I typically stop eating around 7 or 7 30 and And then I go to bed around 10 and that window just allows me to process the food in my in my stomach and whatnot, so that I feel a little lighter going to bed.

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That's a more comfortable way for me to sleep.

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So I'm already extending my fasting window because I choose not to eat late in the evening.

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So there is fasting going on.

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How do, what do we do?

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Like, what's, what's correct?

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You know?

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right.

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And so what I will say is my analysis of the research and also just experience, you know, working with hundreds of women in practice, you know, ultimately What I do recommend is generally kind of aligning your pattern of eating with your circadian rhythm.

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And we do know that there are a lot of benefits to that hormonally, metabolically, you know, on weight.

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And, you know, that generally is going to mean, you know, eating breakfast within, a couple hours of waking up, eating consistent meals throughout the day, and maybe having a little bit of an earlier dinner so that your body does have some time to digest and to shift into kind of sleep mode and producing hormones that help us fall asleep and have, you know, good deep restorative sleep, you know, at the end of the day, which is, you know, kind of, misaligned in terms of how a lot of us are operating in our modern world where, you know, women are waking up, they're, they're, you know, Skipping actual food, they're fueling on caffeine and, you know, kind of stimulating beverages, and then they're eating the bulk of their food later in the day.

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The second half of the day, they're hangry because they didn't eat enough, you know, the first part of the day.

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And, you know, that's creating hormonal chaos and dysregulation and metabolic dysfunction, ultimately, in my mind.

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And when it comes to the fasting window, You're right.

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You know, we are typically naturally fasting overnight.

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And I think what, what women need to, you know, kind of remember too, is that there's a benefit to just a gentle 12 to maybe 14 hour max, you know, overnight fast.

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It doesn't have to be 15, 16, 17, 18 hours to, to have a benefit.

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you know, 12 to 14 hours is generally what I, I recommend for, You know, sort of that gentle overnight fast, but always at the end of the day, we have to remember, you know, all of these things we're talking about, these are tools.

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These are not rules.

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And, you know, life does its lifey thing, right?

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And, you know, there might be things that disrupt our ability to follow that schedule and that's okay.

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big advocate for tools, not rules.

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And always remember that we have to respond to internal biological cues over external rules always.

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So, you know, if there's a day where, you know, your eating pattern got a little wonky and you're hungry in the evening before bed, Have a snack.

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Have a well rounded snack.

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Respond to that.

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That's going to help you to sleep better, right?

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and if there's a few days a week where you're having that nice gentle 12 to 14, you know, hour overnight fast, you're having that, you know, earlier 7 p.

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m.

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dinner, amazing.

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You're going to get a lot of benefits from that.

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You don't have to do it every single day with rigidity and turn it into an emotionally charged diet.

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Yeah.

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I love that.

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I, and I, I love that tools, not rules.

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That's so great.

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okay.

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So a little bit more on the logistics on this then.

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so obviously good to have dinner, not eat in the evening to just prepare for sleeping.

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I like to work out in the morning and I think many of my clients find that that is their best time as well.

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And it's tricky because For some exercises, I can't eat.

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If I'm going to go and lift weights, I totally can eat a little snack before.

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And so I'm not, you know, I'm not fasting for much longer because I'm having a little bit before I work out.

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But if I do hot yoga, like there's no way.

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I cannot have anything in my stomach or I absolutely will be so nauseous.

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So, and then, you know, cardio is kind of somewhere in the, in between.

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I can have like a tiny bit, but for the most part, I don't love it.

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I don't love food in my stomach.

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So that pushes my fasting window.

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Like yesterday I went to a 9 AM hot yoga and I was hungry before, but I'm like, okay, well, if you eat, you can't go to yoga.

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Like that's just it.

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I've done it and it's a bad idea.

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Yeah.

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So then I'm not eating until, you know, 10 30, almost 11.

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And that feels late to me.

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So talk about, exercise morning exercise and how we can kind of find a solution

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I love that you, you bring that up because the, the morning workouts are, are challenging.

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We're navigating sort of the appetite and the, the movement schedule and, and all of it.

00:17:19.654 --> 00:17:38.484
And, you know, ultimately what I will say to kind of build on the, the conversation around the kisspeptin, you know, secretion disruption and how that has sort of a snowball effect, you know, on blood sugar, on appetite, on sex hormones, if we're also, you know, layering in a workout and, and there's.

00:17:38.654 --> 00:17:46.525
you know, I'll give you kind of some, some rough benchmarks here because I think, movement can, can kind of fall into a number of, of different categories.

00:17:46.954 --> 00:17:57.355
If we're doing something light, say it's like a 20, 30 minute, you know, we're going on 20, 30 minute walk or 20, 30 minute, you know, kind of, slow yoga flow, something that isn't super intense.

00:17:57.355 --> 00:18:00.154
I think often, you know, we, we can get away with doing a little bit.

00:18:00.694 --> 00:18:02.095
you know, something fasted.

00:18:02.565 --> 00:18:09.575
however, if it's, you know, an hour long, you know, heated yoga class, where again, the heat aspect also is going to put more stress on the body.

00:18:09.585 --> 00:18:27.654
If we're, you know, strength training, if we're doing, you know, cardio that's longer in duration or higher in intensity, we're We are absolutely going to want to figure out a way that we can have a little bit of fuel, to replenish those, those glycogen, those carbohydrate stores, that signal to the body that, hey, you're safe.

00:18:27.654 --> 00:18:28.855
You have enough resources.

00:18:28.865 --> 00:18:36.144
So you can actually focus on things like muscle protein synthesis and building lean muscle versus, you know, being in kind of conservation mode.

00:18:36.164 --> 00:18:50.444
And what, what we are seeing in research is, Fasted exercise, and again, there's that threshold there depending on the duration and the intensity, but fasted exercise is leading to, in women, a very, very amplified cortisol response.

00:18:50.825 --> 00:18:58.545
So in the morning, we typically experience something called a cortisol awakening response, where we get this big burst in cortisol soon after waking.

00:18:58.924 --> 00:19:02.980
that's a very, you know, kind of healthy part of our diurnal you know, cortisol pattern.

00:19:03.460 --> 00:19:08.269
but cortisol is already going to be high in the morning and, you know, our energy stores are depleted.

00:19:08.339 --> 00:19:19.470
So when we start putting more demands on our body without any energy and we're stimulating cortisol with movement, we're going to get huge amplification with this cortisol, first thing in the morning.

00:19:20.089 --> 00:19:26.220
And that is going to potentially, again, in, in a repeated sense, have some negative implications for women.

00:19:27.019 --> 00:19:29.609
Definitely negative implications on, you know, blood sugar.

00:19:29.672 --> 00:19:31.382
balance and insulin sensitivity.

00:19:31.711 --> 00:19:37.821
It can also have negative impacts on thyroid function, specifically impacting, thyroid hormone conversion.

00:19:38.162 --> 00:19:48.821
I'll see, uh, in, in practice a lot with my women that are my clients that are, fasted kind of, morning movement people and kind of doing higher intensity stuff in the morning.

00:19:49.071 --> 00:19:52.011
I'll see a lot of low free T3 values.

00:19:52.481 --> 00:20:02.761
and obviously there's, you know, likely more pieces to the puzzle there, but ultimately we do know that it can negatively impact, you know, thyroid function, and sort of work against us at, at the end of the day.

00:20:02.761 --> 00:20:10.291
And what's tough is sometimes with that big burst of cortisol and kind of adrenaline from the fasted workouts, we can feel really energized, right?

00:20:10.291 --> 00:20:12.182
It's like, Ooh, man, that felt great.

00:20:12.422 --> 00:20:15.811
when ultimately our body's going to perceive that stress a little bit differently.

00:20:16.372 --> 00:20:23.152
So, My recommendation would be, and I think everyone's different and, and is gonna need to play around with this a little bit to see what feels best.

00:20:23.481 --> 00:20:30.682
But using your hot yoga example, and, and you know, I know that's like a, a tough thing to, to get down like real food before and have that feel good.

00:20:31.092 --> 00:20:32.801
maybe playing around with something liquid.

00:20:33.301 --> 00:20:36.061
even if, a client was able to, to bring in.

00:20:36.636 --> 00:20:48.487
you know, drink like a coconut water, you know, coconut water, put like a pinch of sea salt in it and at least get like a little sugar or carbohydrate, from, coconut water, that would even be better than just a fasted workout at the end of the day in my mind.

00:20:48.896 --> 00:20:59.596
Or if we could do, you know, a little bit of like a simple, you know, protein shake, even if it's like small frozen banana, scoop of protein, a little bit of liquid and have something like that.

00:20:59.997 --> 00:21:02.196
or something that's super easy to digest.

00:21:02.196 --> 00:21:06.527
I actually love the, I don't know if you've heard of those like fuel for fire, like pouches.

00:21:06.737 --> 00:21:09.807
They're great little kind of convenient pre workout.

00:21:09.856 --> 00:21:12.777
it's basically like blended, you know, fruits.

00:21:12.787 --> 00:21:16.436
Some of them have like a little sweet potato or something in them, but just some whole food carbohydrates.

00:21:16.807 --> 00:21:24.406
And, I think they each have like 10 grams of, of protein added, but just sort of like a quick, easy to digest pre workout fuel.

00:21:24.406 --> 00:21:32.487
So, that's what comes to mind for me, but definitely, you know, everyone has to play around with it a little bit to sort of feel figure out what feels good for them during their workout.

00:21:32.801 --> 00:21:33.142
Yeah.

00:21:33.582 --> 00:21:45.471
So for a first recommendation, then in terms of energy, if you're, if you're looking at the package, we're looking for probably, it sounds like somewhere in the range of like 250 calories, something like that in terms of energy needs,

00:21:45.521 --> 00:21:53.741
yeah, I would say like 150 to 200, even just, yeah, I mean, it could be higher, but I'd say even, even lower is, is fine.

00:21:53.741 --> 00:21:57.551
I think if we could get like 150 to 200, that'd be great.

00:21:57.866 --> 00:21:58.237
Okay.

00:21:58.517 --> 00:22:03.317
I just think even though, my listeners, my clients, We're not really strictly counting calories.

00:22:04.037 --> 00:22:06.547
It's still a form of energy management measurement.

00:22:06.586 --> 00:22:13.007
And so it just helps as a guideline, even if you're not going to count all day long to say like, Oh, okay, this makes sense.

00:22:13.007 --> 00:22:16.717
This is kind of the amount of food that Jillian's recommending.

00:22:16.997 --> 00:22:20.346
So this morning I did, an hour long pool swim.

00:22:20.737 --> 00:22:23.616
And before I had like a, just one.

00:22:23.616 --> 00:22:25.356
Don't know what to call it, like an energy ball.

00:22:25.366 --> 00:22:30.507
It's like oats and a little bit of chocolate, you know, it was primarily carbs and nut butters, that kind of thing.

00:22:31.027 --> 00:22:33.217
And I felt like, great.

00:22:33.287 --> 00:22:34.057
it was packaged.

00:22:34.057 --> 00:22:36.267
And so I know it was 110 calories.

00:22:36.287 --> 00:22:37.946
I probably could have used a little more.

00:22:38.797 --> 00:22:41.646
I think that's kind of along the lines of what we're talking about.

00:22:41.832 --> 00:22:43.152
Yep, absolutely.

00:22:43.152 --> 00:23:08.672
And, and, you know, I think even to, to give another guideline, if you were able to get like 30, you know, 30 grams of carb for, you know, a workout that was like an hour, you know, in duration, if it was a little shorter, you know, even getting like 15 grams of carb, something is going to be better than nothing in terms of, again, kind of giving your body some of that, energy and really kind of telling the brain that you're safe and you have resources that you can use here.

00:23:08.932 --> 00:23:11.951
But I think like 30 grams of carbs would be a good goal.

00:23:12.422 --> 00:23:13.221
Okay, good.

00:23:13.281 --> 00:23:14.342
Thanks for those guidelines.

00:23:14.811 --> 00:23:15.102
Yeah.

00:23:15.102 --> 00:23:19.902
And it's because even just this small amount of food is breaking your fast.

00:23:19.912 --> 00:23:22.211
It is saying, okay, we're okay, body.

00:23:22.211 --> 00:23:32.741
Like there's, there's food here because I'm always like saying our brains have not caught up to the fact that we have refrigeration, that we have food on every corner.

00:23:33.122 --> 00:23:38.711
Like it's not been very long in the history of humans that we've been able to save food.

00:23:39.432 --> 00:23:43.122
In the way that we can save food now and have it readily available.

00:23:43.442 --> 00:23:57.251
And so, we are still working on these rhythms and these You know, hormonal processes that were built on more of a hunter gatherer society, really, and a tribal and just not abundant.

00:23:58.148 --> 00:23:58.469
Yeah.

00:23:58.868 --> 00:24:05.558
So let's get into, you mentioned before about the circadian rhythm with the fasting.

00:24:05.959 --> 00:24:09.929
Tell me more about that and, and how we want to follow that.

00:24:10.179 --> 00:24:22.909
You, you kind of briefly touched on it, but I just wanted to circle back if you will, to that and, Understand that a little bit more and maybe even start with a definition for those of us that aren't, quite familiar.

00:24:23.269 --> 00:24:23.798
Yes.

00:24:23.838 --> 00:24:34.999
So circadian rhythms essentially refer to the, roughly 24 hour schedule that all internal biological processes kind of operate on.

00:24:35.608 --> 00:24:44.788
So at the end of the day, circadian rhythms are kind of how The body makes sure that everything is happening in the right place at the right time of day.

00:24:45.209 --> 00:24:47.528
So our hormones are circadian.

00:24:47.548 --> 00:24:49.749
Our digestion, you know, is circadian.

00:24:49.759 --> 00:24:52.818
The production of neurotransmitters, you know, is circadian.

00:24:53.338 --> 00:24:55.328
Everything in the body is, is circadian.

00:24:55.719 --> 00:25:08.348
And circadian rhythms are regulated by a, a master clock in the brain that communicates with all sorts of peripheral clocks or cellular clocks that we have throughout the rest of our body.

00:25:09.088 --> 00:25:17.064
And The master clock in the brain is influenced by just a couple kind of core external factors.

00:25:17.453 --> 00:25:28.104
and these external factors kind of signal to the clock in the brain, what, what to do, and the, you know, clock in the brain communicates that with the rest of the body.

00:25:28.594 --> 00:25:36.723
the core factors that sort of, synchronize or entrain our circadian rhythms or influence that, clock in the brain include our sleep wake schedule.

00:25:36.723 --> 00:25:41.074
So when we sleep, when we wake up, when we go to bed, light and dark exposure.

00:25:41.074 --> 00:25:51.584
So light regulation being the absolute, probably biggest, factor that influences circadian rhythms when we eat and also, when we move, when we exercise.

00:25:52.384 --> 00:26:04.243
So, to kind of break this down even a little bit more, so talking about, you know, hunter hunter gatherer, kind of ancestral nutrition and, looking into the past, people used to wake up when it was light out, right?

00:26:04.243 --> 00:26:16.804
They would wake up with the sun, they'd be outside for the large majority of the day, they'd get this exposure to natural sunlight, they'd be moving their body physical during the day, and, you know, in the evening, when it got dark, they, they'd go to bed.

00:26:17.903 --> 00:26:25.473
In our modern society, a lot of us are waking up and the first thing we're doing is we're on screens in the morning.

00:26:25.473 --> 00:26:29.304
We're on our phone, we're on our computer, we're outside very little.

00:26:29.854 --> 00:26:35.544
so we're exposed to a lot of artificial, you know, blue light throughout the day, very little natural sunlight.

00:26:36.118 --> 00:26:46.368
we're often skipping breakfast and, you know, eating late into the evening when it's dark out and the body, you know, wants to be preparing and getting ready for, for sleep, for rest.

00:26:46.898 --> 00:27:00.624
so just to kind of give you an example of our, our modern world kind of works against us from a circadian rhythm perspective, but, you know, having, consistent light and dark exposure, having a consistent eating schedule, kind of aligned with circadian rhythms, having a consistent sleep schedule.

00:27:01.034 --> 00:27:06.273
This is what helps the body to, again, make sure that things are happening in the right place at the right time.

00:27:06.713 --> 00:27:09.334
So for example, our thyroid is circadian.

00:27:09.344 --> 00:27:17.624
So getting sunlight exposure in the morning is something that's really important for, you know, stimulating the production of, thyroid hormone, thyroid hormone conversion.

00:27:17.993 --> 00:27:26.374
getting sunlight exposure in the morning is the primary kind of stimulating factor for producing cortisol, that cortisol awakening response.

00:27:26.913 --> 00:27:38.223
Getting sunlight in the morning is one of the biggest things that, actually, uh, tells our body to produce melatonin, a hormone that helps us sleep later on in the day, in the evening.

00:27:38.773 --> 00:27:43.384
but again, what happens in our modern world is things are, are working against us a little bit.

00:27:43.394 --> 00:27:56.794
So it can be confusing for the brain, and we We end up, with, you know, hormonal dysregulation, you know, digestive dysregulation, metabolic dysregulation that can occur when the body and the brain is confused.

00:27:56.923 --> 00:28:00.953
and the secretion of all of these, you know, different hormones and the communication is off in the body.

00:28:01.604 --> 00:28:12.223
I want to share just like a really quick, really interesting study that I think might, resonate for your community and a lot of your listeners, especially from like a, a weight and metabolic health perspective.

00:28:12.923 --> 00:28:27.473
There was a small study that was done, I think it was done in like 2012 or 2014 that, had a group of healthy individuals and, took this group And, uh, they had healthy metabolic parameters, and they disrupted their circadian rhythms for three weeks.

00:28:27.824 --> 00:28:31.374
So they kept them up, later at night and exposed them to blue light at night.

00:28:32.054 --> 00:28:33.003
At the end

00:28:33.223 --> 00:28:35.913
So it's primarily through their sleep that they disrupted

00:28:36.064 --> 00:28:40.064
yeah, so this was through sleep, one of those big, sleep, sleep and light exposure.

00:28:40.453 --> 00:28:43.663
so, you know, two of those big, you know, kind of external factors.

00:28:43.723 --> 00:28:57.153
And at the end of three weeks, this group of individuals, on average had pre diabetic levels of fasting glucose, pre diabetic levels of fasting insulin, and had an 8 percent decrease in their metabolic rate.

00:28:57.358 --> 00:29:06.308
Without changing anything about what they ate, they're, you know, all of the confounding factors, calories, what, you know, what they ate was, accounted for.

00:29:06.308 --> 00:29:12.378
And this was just related to keeping them up late and exposing them to blue light, artificial light into the evening.

00:29:12.388 --> 00:29:29.259
So I highlight this to really kind of emphasize or call out the fact that, you know, circadian rhythms really run the show in the body and I think for, particularly for women that are looking to optimize their hormones, their digestion, their metabolism, circadian rhythms, it's, it's a very overlooked opportunity, right?

00:29:29.259 --> 00:29:32.538
We're getting so zoomed in on calories that we're forgetting habits.

00:29:32.858 --> 00:29:41.638
Like when we eat, the light exposure, when we wake up, when we sleep, these things are having a huge influence on how our body functions.

00:29:41.709 --> 00:29:42.548
Yeah.

00:29:42.548 --> 00:29:43.388
Yeah.

00:29:43.638 --> 00:29:55.669
I got to say that I'm just naturally in my life cycle in, in the time of life that I'm in, I'm naturally able to sleep for more hours of the day now because I have teenagers.

00:29:55.699 --> 00:30:02.259
I live in California and they made a law that high schools can't start before, a certain time now.

00:30:02.259 --> 00:30:07.278
So my high schoolers actually start much later than they used to cause they, they used to start really early.

00:30:07.278 --> 00:30:17.763
Now they don't start until eight 30, uh, It's kind of a crazy thing, but I used to get up at like five or 530 with my high schoolers.

00:30:17.763 --> 00:30:21.604
They would go to an early class and then school anyway, point being.

00:30:21.653 --> 00:30:25.034
And then before that I had littles and they were getting up at six.

00:30:25.453 --> 00:30:32.144
And so I am now sleeping much later in the morning till like six 30 or seven.

00:30:32.703 --> 00:30:33.354
And.

00:30:33.354 --> 00:30:42.433
I think it is having a huge impact on my metabolism because you think like, Oh, well, you're getting to be older now you're 49.

00:30:42.443 --> 00:30:44.433
Like certainly your metabolism is slowing.

00:30:44.443 --> 00:30:57.134
And I feel pretty good about it because, and I think that sleep is one of the things that is just so overlooked and it's rough for, moms of young kids.

00:30:57.483 --> 00:31:02.308
It's rough because Like, their circadian rhythms do not match ours.

00:31:03.368 --> 00:31:06.878
My little ones got up so early.

00:31:07.259 --> 00:31:10.058
So early! Every day! It did not matter.

00:31:10.088 --> 00:31:11.598
It did not matter it was the weekend.

00:31:11.608 --> 00:31:12.328
They got up.

00:31:12.419 --> 00:31:13.209
They were up.

00:31:13.868 --> 00:31:14.548
And,

00:31:15.919 --> 00:31:16.868
that's, that's so tough.

00:31:16.868 --> 00:31:24.909
And I'm glad you bring that up because I think ultimately, you know, in talking about these things, I never want them to feel discouraging to someone that's in a phase of life.

00:31:24.909 --> 00:31:27.578
They're in the trenches where there's things that are out of their control.

00:31:27.578 --> 00:31:37.108
And, that's where I think we have to think again about tools and how we can, can sort of, you know, apply some of these things, you know, to work with in the context of our life.

00:31:37.118 --> 00:31:46.509
So like, you know, for example, you know, if you're in the trenches and in a phase of life where your kids are getting, you know, you up super early and, and that's sort of what life is right now.

00:31:46.798 --> 00:31:51.159
what I typically recommend is, okay, you know, that's sort of our, our schedule, our wake up time.

00:31:51.459 --> 00:31:56.189
one, how can we, we make sure that we're ideally getting enough sleep when possible?

00:31:56.419 --> 00:32:03.588
I know that's, you know, can be a variable too, but also how can we make sure that we're getting, you know, sunlight upon waking.

00:32:03.618 --> 00:32:06.338
If we're waking up way before the sun, that might not be an option, right?

00:32:06.338 --> 00:32:14.798
So maybe we grab, you know, an inexpensive full spectrum light box that we can pop on as soon as our alarm goes off in the morning that sort of simulates the sun.

00:32:15.179 --> 00:32:22.048
We absorb it into our eyes, and it helps with entraining and regulating and synchronizing, you know, our internal clocks.

00:32:22.108 --> 00:32:22.568
Yes.

00:32:22.788 --> 00:32:24.439
That's not just like a gimmicky thing.

00:32:24.844 --> 00:32:29.403
No, it, it, you'll want to make sure it's a full spectrum light box, but yes, a hundred percent.

00:32:29.423 --> 00:32:30.104
Absolutely.

00:32:30.104 --> 00:32:40.634
And, women will notice too, upon using something like that consistently, just big improvements with, their energy and mood in the morning and even their ability to fall asleep a bit better at night.

00:32:40.634 --> 00:32:45.703
Again, since that's a regulatory factor when it comes to producing hormones that help us to sleep in the evening.

00:32:46.203 --> 00:32:51.374
So maybe we're utilizing that tool cause we can't get natural sun, you know, when we wake up in the morning and that's okay.

00:32:51.753 --> 00:32:59.653
there's another population we didn't talk about, which is just the women that get up early for work, regardless of what your, what your kids are doing.

00:32:59.673 --> 00:33:04.074
If you're up at six to make it to, to work, you've got a commute or whatever.

00:33:04.513 --> 00:33:06.324
I think that could be really interesting.

00:33:06.324 --> 00:33:11.953
The light box, you know, while you're doing makeup, how long would you need exposure to that to have an effect?

00:33:12.203 --> 00:33:17.574
Yeah, ideally 20 minutes, but if you only have 10, 10 minutes is going to be better than, than no minutes.

00:33:17.963 --> 00:33:18.703
Absolutely.

00:33:19.074 --> 00:33:21.124
so, you know, do, do what you can.

00:33:21.124 --> 00:33:23.054
I'd say, you know, 20 minutes would be the goal.

00:33:23.324 --> 00:33:36.443
Even if it's, yeah, you know, having that on while you're, you know, getting ready, putting makeup on while you're eating breakfast, you know, whatever it is, or, you know, maybe you set your alarm a few minutes early and you kind of pop that on and you hang out in bed, let it, you know, shine right on you for a few minutes.

00:33:36.894 --> 00:33:38.034
same thing with the evening.

00:33:38.044 --> 00:33:38.394
If.

00:33:38.624 --> 00:33:46.753
You know, the evening ends up being a time where, you know, we're exposed to a lot of blue light at night, and a lot of things are happening later in the evening.

00:33:47.144 --> 00:33:57.088
Can we grab a, you know, a pair of, you know, amber, good amber blue light blocking glasses that we can throw on a couple hours before bed that's going to filter out some of that artificial light?

00:33:57.098 --> 00:34:08.659
help with, you know, melatonin production, or maybe we can kind of turn off some of the big overhead lights and put on, you know, some table lamps or floor lamps that sort of, work with our circadian rhythms versus against.

00:34:09.148 --> 00:34:19.639
And these things might sound really small, but they make a big difference at the end of the day in terms of, you know, keeping our body regulated and supporting optimal circadian health.

00:34:20.072 --> 00:34:29.112
Yeah, I, I've talked to, uh, some sleep specialists on the podcast before, and I've asked specifically about TV watching compared to phone usage.

00:34:29.512 --> 00:34:39.271
And it seems like the general consensus is the problem with the phone usage, especially at this late, late night is the blue light at such a close distance to your face.

00:34:39.811 --> 00:34:43.161
Even if you're holding it in your lap, like that's really close.

00:34:43.211 --> 00:34:46.672
Whereas if you're sitting in a room with a TV, you know, at a.

00:34:47.101 --> 00:34:52.842
At a comfortable distance from the couch, that's not going to affect the light source into your eyes.

00:34:52.851 --> 00:34:55.032
I'll tell you like around eight o'clock.

00:34:55.072 --> 00:34:56.762
I'm like overhead lights.

00:34:56.822 --> 00:34:57.342
I'm done.

00:34:57.351 --> 00:34:58.851
I am done with the overhead lights.

00:34:58.871 --> 00:35:00.572
I turn on my under cabinet lights.

00:35:01.161 --> 00:35:06.202
Sometimes I'll watch a little TV happened to be the premier of dancing with the stars last night.

00:35:06.202 --> 00:35:19.132
So I had to watch Ilona Maher obviously, You know, so I was watching TV last night until like 10, but then I make a real point to not turn on my phone when the, when the show is over, it gets turned off.

00:35:19.762 --> 00:35:25.442
I'm not saying I'm perfect at this, but I'm also making the effort not to scroll on my phone at that point.

00:35:25.722 --> 00:35:29.211
Not to go, you know, get in bed and then start scrolling.

00:35:29.731 --> 00:35:32.762
That's what we want to really, really avoid.

00:35:33.012 --> 00:35:33.931
A hundred percent.

00:35:33.931 --> 00:35:34.831
Could not agree more.

00:35:34.831 --> 00:35:46.512
And I think the, the phone use and, and I'll, I'll share too, I'm by no means perfect here, but what, what I've found, you know, for me and, and is really helpful often for clients is, you know, really.

00:35:46.827 --> 00:35:53.177
putting some, some hard stops in place where, you know, at a certain time each night, I actually just put my phone on airplane mode.

00:35:53.407 --> 00:35:59.567
So if I pick it up, I can't mindlessly, you know, kind of open, open the app and start scrolling because I'm on an airplane.

00:35:59.867 --> 00:36:03.436
And that feels really good to me now, you know, at first it was like, Oh, this is a little weird.

00:36:03.436 --> 00:36:05.947
And now I'm like, Ooh, this is my like, I'm disconnected, you know?

00:36:06.242 --> 00:36:13.512
Yeah, I love that idea because that keeps you from checking email and yeah notifications love it.

00:36:13.572 --> 00:36:13.871
Okay.

00:36:14.097 --> 00:36:17.817
Yeah, and I'll leave it on in the morning too for the first hour that I wake up.

00:36:18.126 --> 00:36:21.746
So again, I'm not, you know, opening my phone, you know, popping open the email.

00:36:22.117 --> 00:36:28.257
And even, I think what's, just interesting too is that even if there's nothing, you know, kind of like stressful coming in, it's, it's still there.

00:36:28.411 --> 00:36:33.411
You know, there's the circadian, you know, rhythm disruption piece, but it's also just stimulating, right?

00:36:33.612 --> 00:36:37.931
Where you're, you know, getting, sucked into a work email or whatever it is.

00:36:38.572 --> 00:36:54.581
So I think having those hard stops, you know, something I, I always encourage clients to do too is to consider with the phone, you know, either plugging it in across the room so it's not on the bedside table or getting it out of the room and getting, you know, old, old fashioned alarm clock to, to wake us up in the morning.

00:36:55.041 --> 00:36:56.012
yeah, perfect.

00:36:56.961 --> 00:37:04.572
Okay, I want to touch I know we're almost out of time but you did mention a little bit about regulating your blood sugar to optimize hormones.

00:37:04.601 --> 00:37:09.521
And I think what you're probably meaning here is like your hunger hormones.

00:37:09.521 --> 00:37:09.851
Yeah.

00:37:10.831 --> 00:37:39.376
So, I would say hunger hormones, stress hormones, thyroid hormones, I typically, you know, share with clients that balancing blood sugar is kind of step, step number one in terms of hormone health, balancing hormones in a really foundational way, imbalanced blood sugar really disrupts most hormonal systems in, in the body, but definitely you know, regulation appetite hormones for sure.

00:37:40.302 --> 00:37:44.251
And so what are your tools specifically to regulate your blood sugar?

00:37:45.396 --> 00:37:45.706
Yeah.

00:37:45.706 --> 00:37:52.166
So I, I always, I think there's always an order of operations or kind of a hierarchy of, of needs when it comes to things like this.

00:37:52.166 --> 00:37:56.146
And I, I always recommend, you know, starting with the foundations first.

00:37:56.376 --> 00:38:01.117
we don't want to get too zoomed in on, you know, micro strategies before we've kind of laid the foundation there.

00:38:01.117 --> 00:38:10.297
So Ultimately, meal timing, which we've obviously talked extensively about today, I'd say is so, so overlooked when it comes to blood sugar regulation.

00:38:10.637 --> 00:38:15.757
so really ironing out a supportive pattern of eating that works for you and your schedule.

00:38:16.056 --> 00:38:25.436
I mentioned circadian eating, so ideally, you know, having something to eat within the first couple hours of waking, eating consistent meals, you know, every three to five hours throughout the day from there.

00:38:26.106 --> 00:38:27.396
so kind of nailing that down.

00:38:27.496 --> 00:38:35.887
When we go really long stretches of time without eating, that's where we can end up with blood sugar crashes, which are going to result in, increases with stress hormones like cortisol.

00:38:36.407 --> 00:38:38.516
so kind of nailing down that pattern of eating.

00:38:38.527 --> 00:38:52.507
And then I would say next foundational step would be really emphasizing and focusing on, you know, meal composition, which I know you, you know, talk, talk extensively about and, ultimately aiming to have, a really solid protein source consistently.

00:38:52.606 --> 00:39:01.847
Consistently at meals, aiming to have a good fiber rich carbohydrate source, you know, half plated non starchy veggies, some complementary healthy fats in the mix.

00:39:02.217 --> 00:39:16.146
So our protein, our fat, our fiber, our big blood sugar stabilizers, so, aiming to kind of have all of these components at meals consistently, along with meal timing, I would say that's sort of step, step number one for, for blood sugar balance.

00:39:16.507 --> 00:39:17.047
perfect.

00:39:17.536 --> 00:39:19.896