A Conversation on Friendship, Faith & Fasting

Welcome to the well and worthy life podcast. I’m your host, Deanna Pizitz a certified integrative nutrition health coach. This podcast is designed to inspire and motivate you to become a better you through sharing solutions, to your biggest struggles and concerns. In this second half of life, let’s change how we age by focusing on creating a positive mindset that allows us to flourish.

Nourishing our bodies for longevity, optimizing our hormone health for better balance movement that keeps us feeling young and active and managing our stress to improve our mental health. Things are different now in our second half, and we have to do things differently. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Well and Worthy Life. I’m so excited to bring my friend Melanie back here with me today and we have got a great topic for you. I asked you guys questions and what you wanted to hear about and I kept hearing friendship. And I kept hearing fasting because we’ve both been talking a lot about fasting and then I also decided to bring in faith.

So we’re going to talk about three topics, not in any order, but faith, friendship, and fasting, because these three things are important To both of us, aren’t they Melanie? So welcome back to the podcast. Well, thank you. I just feel like this is a normal conversation that you and I would have if we’re walking on the beach or if we’re just doing life together.

I call you all the time for advice and we help each other. So this is just, let’s just pretend like we are. walking and talking. Yes. I love that. I love that. And I do love our walk and talks. And spending time in person. I mean, right now, obviously we are, we are virtual, but there’s just nothing like spending time in person.

Don’t you agree? Totally agree. Guys don’t ever let just the phone or text or something like that get in the way. You really got to make time for your friendships and that means really getting together. At least at the very least once a year, I think but I know some friendships, you know, just for whatever reason you can’t.

And so that’s why FaceTime and zoom and all those things are so good. But so let’s first talk about our friendship, because I think that’s, first of all, where it all started for us is our friendship and our friendship has grown. And how many years have we been friends now? I was trying to think three years.

I’m thinking more of four. Is it? No, I don’t think so. That’s when we started. So you have about three, you’re better at judging time. I mean, I think it was right around this time, three years ago, which is crazy. Cause it seems like, I mean, I feel like you’ve been one of my best friends for years. I mean, I really do.

I mean, I feel like I could call you for anything, anything. And and there aren’t that many people like that in my life that I really feel that close to. So so it all started with our friendship even though, and I think this is what’s so cool. It really started on Instagram, kind of. And we, you live in Mississippi and I live in Alabama.

And we’d really never been together in person until about three years ago. And we were together in person and just really connected. You know, it was just that instant connection. And we were like, oh my gosh, this is so fun. You’re so fun. To which this is, this is why I circle back around when I think of our friendship, because, you know, I was a newly empty nester, right?

And my circle of friends had changed. I wasn’t sitting at the ballpark with the moms I had been sitting with for 12 years and I wasn’t picking up the cheerleaders and carpooling them to where they had to go and doing all the things that we do when we have high school children, right? Right. So I was in a new, a new arena, just, just a new change of life.

And when I met you, we had so much in common and our values are the same. Our faith, our eating, our putting our health as a priority. And I just was drawn to you because. There aren’t many people out there that like the same things that I like. No, I agree. I totally agree. And, and friendships that you’ve had for years upon years, I mean, they can still be your friends because they’re still my friends, right?

But at this stage of our life, we can really. Pick and choose who we spend our time with. And we want to find people who are into the same kind of things that we are, that are like minded, like, you know, it, we’ve talked about this so much, but it’s so easy to travel together. Cause we do like the same things.

We like to eat the same way. We like to go to bed early. We like to get up early. We like our quiet in the morning. We like to walk on the beach. I mean, there’s so many things, but yet we’re not. We’re not totally alike. We disagree on some things, which is great too, because it I think it’s, it goes back to this iron sharpens iron and we both encourage each other so much.

Right. I mean, you really encourage me. Well, likewise, I walk because of Deanna, everyone. I have never been a walker until I met Deanna. And now I walk all the time. And it is to me, but I do want to encourage people out there. I had, one friend reached out and said, said to me that her circle has gotten so much smaller.

She said, it’s really hard to find friends, you know, and I prayed for you, Deanna. I prayed for you because I knew my circle was changing. Now those people are still my friends. I’m just not around them like I was. Okay. Because some of them still have children and they’re still in high school doing high school activities.

And I’m out of that. And I haven’t been back to the football stadium or the, and you don’t miss it either. I love where I am. So I want to encourage you that I tell people all the time, you can meet some of the sweetest friends at two places. Do you know where that is? Where? Church and the gym. Church and the gym.

Yeah. Yeah. And I’ve really met some of my, some of my best friends at, it’s in those two places. So pray about it and ask God to send you. Friends, friendships, people you can connect with and do life with, and those two places you’ll probably meet them. Yeah, I agree. I think those are great places. And and you know, I do think though, one of the things that I find, I have found is that it is hard to make new friends at this age, but you, because especially, If you find somebody that you really want to hang out with, but they’ve got a busy schedule too, and you’re busy, and it’s really hard to connect and spend time with somebody because you really need to spend time with somebody to be really good friends with them.

And I think we’ve been lucky about that. Yeah, but we connected, but then our first trip, Solidified it, right? Yes. Yes. Mm hmm. And that’s the thing. I mean, I think that what we’ve done is we have spent a lot of time together, even though. Even though we live in two different states, but we have made a priority of our friendship to spend that, that quality time together.

And then we talk probably, you know, once a week, at least sometimes more than that, and sometimes maybe a little less than that, but keeping up that friendship because. I think that’s really important and so when you do see somebody that you, you decide, Hey, I like this person, you know, I have something in common with this person you know, really reach out and you may have to reach out more than once, right?

And don’t take it personally if, if they’re busy, I mean. Maybe they’re busy like you’re busy and, you know, and everybody’s got things to do at this age too. And we, we kind of have this established routine but, but friendships. At this age are so important. You know, I didn’t even realize it until I hit my fifties, how important girlfriends were.

I used to watch my mom, Melanie, and my mother moved. My father died when my mom was 54. And so my mother moved to Birmingham. She lived in Chattanooga when my dad died, then she moved to Birmingham. For just not even a year. And then she moved down to the beach. Didn’t know anybody, but that never stops.

My mom tennis, she played tennis. So there’s another area, pickleball, tennis. So she she met her group of friends playing tennis and they play bridge. And I remember thinking she had the best group of girlfriends. I remember thinking. Because I was probably gosh, I guess I was in my thirties when all that happened.

And I remember thinking, wow, I wish I had friends like that. But you know, I didn’t have time to have friends like that. I had three little boys and I was busy. So but now I am busy still, but I really try to make my friendships a priority. And I’m still continuously working on that friendship. You know.

Here in Birmingham, my friendships have stemmed from kind of like you said, the gym or pure bar for me pure bar running my Bible study, those have been really cultivating more new friendships, which I love and so important Bible study, what a great way to start some friendships. Have a Bible study in your home.

That’s what you’re doing, Deanna. I think I’m so, I’m so inspired by that. Well, it’s been, well, it’s funny because I’ve been wanting to have one for a long time. And then this friend of ours that we’d love that’s written a lot of devotionals that we’d love. She, I said, I really wish you would lead it.

And so when she agreed to lead it, and then it was funny cause she was like, okay, we’ll invite some people. I was like. Well, I don’t really know who to invite and that’s so awful. Right. I didn’t like, Oh, who am I going to invite? Thank goodness. She had a lot of people to invite. They’re my friends. And then what’s happened this year with it is.

We’ve all invited more new people. So we’ve gotten a whole new, I mean, a whole, we still have our, our other group, but then this whole new people have come into it. And I’m sure, you know, we’ll connect some with others. And, and, you know, how Bible studies are, how any group starts off, even if it’s like a book club, like.

People come to the first and the second one pretty good. And then it kind of fades off from there. So but the core group stays there and it’s a great, it’s been really, really fun. And you know, that goes back to our faith, right? And that you and I, our faith is really, really important. And one of the things that we did together was that retreat that we went on the Oh, what was it called now?

Purcell Farms. Yes. And it was called, it’s called Heart to Breast. Heart to Breast. And so we went on that, not this past year, but year before last. And remember we both were in there and we were like. Was it then that we decided to read our Bible? Yes. Okay. So Carol said, she gave her testimony and she grew up Jewish.

Okay. Remember this, this was so inspiring. And she said that she just couldn’t find the Lord. She couldn’t find that relationship. And one day after church her pastor said, I just want you to read the Bible, pick up the Bible and read it. And she started reading the Bible, and she found the Lord, her eyes were opened, she was forever changed.

And so now her mission statement is, Know Jesus and make Him known. Remember that? Yeah. And so, and, and, okay. How long have you been a Christian? Okay. Oh, let’s think. I don’t know. I remember exactly my age, to be honest with you, but for a long time, but what an awakening. That weekend. Oh, exactly. So, okay.

I’m 58. I became I remember when I accepted Jesus Christ into my heart. Because I remember the exact moment I was like, in, I had to have been in like third or fourth grade, probably fourth grade. And I remember that. So, I mean, you know, I grew up in church and so so, but I remember that particular moment that.

They told me, you know, you need to invite Jesus Christ into your life to make you so that he’ll be your savior. And, and I did that. And then I grew up Methodist and Oh, we had Bibles. I knew all the Bible stories and even through my years, and I have been there have been some times that have been so tough and I’ve done Bible studies and really read the parts of the Bible, but never, never everything in the Bible, never, ever, ever until that inspired, inspired, inspired, Both of us, and I’m still in the process of reading the whole Bible.

I haven’t, I still haven’t read it all, but I’m, I am almost there, almost there. You know, the Bible is not an ancient dead book. And Hebrews 4. 12 tells us the word of God is active and alive. And, you know, after that weekend, I remember saying, you know what, I like you. I had read, I had gone in my devotionals and read certain chapters, the feel good chapters, right?

The cover, the James, always flip to the feel good chapters. But the Exodus, the Genesis, the hard chapter, Leviticus, of etiquette, I mean, Leviticus, I can’t even say it all, I had a really hard time stumbling through those, but there were so many pearls along the way, and it just makes life make sense. When you start from the beginning and read the Old Testament, and, and, and it’s so eye opening.

So, but I’ll tell you, so I am reading it, and I’m, I am almost through, but I’ll tell you, like, when I’ve been reading certain chapters, And even when I’ve been reading the, the feel good chapters, I’m just trying to read it right now. It’s like, and I’m not trying to get anything out of it. I’m sure I am somehow, but, but Carol has said, you’ll just feel different after you finish reading it once.

And then you need to start. And again, and I, to me, I think what encouraged me the most is watching her and and knowing how she didn’t become a Christian until she was 40 years old. So she hasn’t even been a Christian. You know, not even half as long as I have, and yet looking at her and listening to her, she knows God better than I ever thought about knowing God.

Right? About the same thing. And so, yeah, I’m like, but it makes perfect sense. Like if you want to know somebody, what do you do? You spend time with them, right? Just like I was talking about friendship. Okay, this is so funny. I was on my walk this morning. I was thinking, I love spending time with you, Deanna.

Like I have so much fun when we’re together and I have to work on that relationship. We have to make time to see each other. We pick up the phone and talk. You bring me joy in order to have that intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. We have to make time for him. And that’s what I love that. You and I both make time in our mornings.

Tell me about your morning routine. What do you do? Oh, well, first I get up. I have to let my dogs out. I have to feed my dog, get my water, drink my coffee, or fix my coffee. Then I get in my spot where I’ve got my journal and my Bible right there. And then I read my Bible. Write in my journal spend some time of prayer.

I mean, that’s those are the first things I do every morning You know, I I told you I was doing the study on Revelation And I just want to share just one I just is stuck out this morning I was like so inspired by this verse and put on my glasses so I can read this one in Revelation 12 8 It says the dragon lost the battle and was forced from heaven.

Did you know that he was defeated Satan and he was cast from heaven. Cause he was an angel. Right. That’s what’s so crazy. He was defeated. Okay. De feated. Let’s don’t forget this, right? So where is the devil now? On earth, lurking around, trying to cause anxiety, fear, sin amongst us, doubt, worry. Think of anything that causes you…

Unhappiness. That’s where he is to creep in and rob you and steal you of joy, right? Mm-hmm. And take captive view. Mm-hmm. , this is his world, okay? Mm-hmm. , and he wants to own it. Mm-hmm. . And if we’re not reading the Bible, and if we are not seeking his wisdom, guidance, and discernment through his word, and if we’re not spending time with him, how are we going to cultivate that relationship?

I mean, I think that’s the biggest thing. It is. And I wish that I would have started many, many years before now. Although I do believe that we are. We are where we’re supposed to be. I mean, God, this is no surprise to God that I’m just now reading my Bible. He knew this was going to happen. It was like, I mean, he knew some of the bad choices I was going to make in life.

He knew I was going to be married three times. I mean, these are not new to God, but and there were times that, like I said before, where. Man, I mean, when I went through my divorce, oh, when my dad died, I mean, when my mother passed away, all those times that I grew closer and closer to God. But what I found is that it was in the bad times that I was really close to God, right?

And in the good times, I was like, I got it. Or at one point I was a 9 1 1 Christian. I need you Lord, please. I got to have this. I’m a test. Help me here. Help me here. Only when I needed him and the 9 1 1 situations, right? Right now it is a surrender. But do you want from me Lord today? How can I use this trial to glorify you?

It’s a repentance daily, repenting, forgive me, help me, show me your way. And you know, I just, he is my best friend. I can’t imagine not having an intimate relationship with him. And you know, delight yourself in the Lord, He’ll give you the desires of your heart. He is a delight. He’s a joy. He’s fun.

Is he not fun? Oh, it’s, I think it’s so fun. And I think that for me, because I do feel like probably this is one of the first times in my life where I really am seeking Him and trying to get to know Him when everything is good in my life. I mean, I don’t have anything that’s. Like a catastrophe happening like I have before I mean, I’ve had some real catastrophes real dark moments and bad moments and I I’m like to me this seems so different because I’m like Truly like, yes, yes, he is my best friend and I love spending time with him.

You know, wish I could even spend more time with him. But you know, there are so many hours in a day and, and I think that for me, I have this purpose of being here. You know, and part of that is living in this world and, you know, being in connection with other like minded women, you know, like yourself and, and having friendships, building those friendship, because I think we, we, you know, that even if somebody is not exactly like us, that when we do things, it’s kind of leads by example, like, like you help inspire me to continue reading that Bible. You know, I hit a snag with reading the Bible and I was just like, I can’t do it. We were, you know, we were trying to do that 90 day plan.

I was like, I can’t do this. No. And so I just kind of gave up, but you changed courses and you kept reading. And did it a little bit differently. And then you told me, and I was like, Oh, well, I can do that. So, so let’s tell people, what are you doing? How are you getting it in? And I’ll tell you how I’m getting it in because I had to change courses too.

So what I ended up doing is taking different books of the Bible and just reading those books. So I was trying to think, I think I had made it through a lot of the Old Testament in the 90 day plan, and I can’t, I want to say made it around Kings or somewhere around in there. Yeah, it was around Kings.

I remember you telling me, and I was like, okay, I’m close to you. Yeah. And then I just, oh, I just couldn’t do it anymore. So then I thought, I’m just going to start with the, New Testament, because I needed some of the New Testament. So I started with the New Testament, just all the books of the New Testament.

And then I went back and picked up and now what I’m doing, I am so I had made it all the way through and gotten to Psalms and I just didn’t want to read Psalms straight through. I don’t know why, but I didn’t. And so I went, I read, I was reading a little bit of Psalm, and then that next, I don’t have my Bible over here, but the next chapter was Proverbs, and then after Proverbs is, what you know I just finished it, it’s numbers, I have to think so you and I are close to each other then, so when you go back, we’ll be kind of I’m writing now.

I’m, I’m reading Proverbs and Jeremiah. Those are the two books I’m reading. So I’m, I read about a chapter of at least one chapter of Proverbs. And then I today I read two proper two chapters of Proverbs and one chapter of Jeremiah. So that’s where I am right now. So I’m close to being done with the Bible.

I’m not, well, I’m, I just started reading it from beginning. Okay. Okay. At least a chapter a day. Yeah. But now I’ve gotten sidetracked into this revelation study, but I made it to Ecclesiastes and now I’m in revelation. This Wednesday night Bible study and it’s reading it to that’s great. Loving revelation, like talking about prayer.

I did not know this. I cannot believe that I’m 54 and I just discovered this. I want to read this to this is like, okay, to me revelation five, eight. And it says, and he took the scroll and 24 elders fell down before the lamb, each with the heart and golden vials filled with incense, the prayers of God’s people.

So our prayers are collected in golden vials of incense in heaven. That’s how, how amazing is that? How powerful that is that God loves our prayers and we, when we talk to him, he has them collected. I mean, does that not just. Yeah. Everything. It really is. I mean, and I think that’s the thing that yeah, I mean, and I think that he, he does hear our prayers and he does, he wants us to know him.

I have envisioned him so much like this parent, like he is this like parent that. You have children like you want them to do what you want them to do, but you, you know, you cannot control them, right? You cannot control them and you love them no matter what, when they make stupid mistakes, when they do things that you have kind of told them, you really shouldn’t do this.

And they do it anyway. And they turn their back on you and they tell you they don’t like you at different times, you know, that’s what I envisioned and still up there. Like, I love you. I still love you. May not like you right now. I love you. I love you. I’m right here. But but anyway, I think that really, that.

Having somebody that encourages me to stay on track and let’s face it, you know, if I was hanging out with you and, and your faith was like, not as strong and my faith wasn’t as strong and, you know, we didn’t make that a priority. I mean, then we wouldn’t encourage each other. And so I think that, you know, whether it comes to our faith, whether it comes to fasting, which we’re going to get into in a minute.

When it comes to eating healthy, when it comes to, you know, the things that, that are important to us, like you said, our values are so much alike. That that’s why it’s so important to have these types of friendships. And I know you’ve got a question because, you know if people have been following both of us for a while, they know that we worked together for a while and and, and they, people think we broke up.

You know, and there was a little time where it wasn’t that we broke up. We had a little, it was getting tense for a little while. It was so much going on with with well and worthy life, like so many changes at one time. And I think that, and I know this, we were both. Just tired of being on social media and it was exhausting for you and me.

And there were a couple of times, there was one little time that we, and that’s okay. Yeah. You know what? I think it is okay. And there was a time where I would have been like pulled away tremendously. Like we had a little moment there. Some words back and forth that were not, you know, our best, wasn’t our best time.

But, but we, we stayed with it because. We knew our friendship was more important than anything. We started, remember when we first started, I’ll never forget walking down your driveway, going on a walk, and we said, if this ever gets in the way of our friendship, we’re going to re evaluate and change directions.

And that is how important you are to me. Oh, me too. I mean, it just like so important. And I think that what we did together was such an important time. And it, and it was really, it was great for our friendship because we got to spend a lot of time together. We helped a lot of women together. And yet it’s like you said, it was really too much.

It was way too much for both of us. It’s like, we got to have a time, you know, our priorities, right. It was interfering with our family. And it, and the thing that I love the most is that we stopped. A very, when it was very successful, it wasn’t that, yeah, , the program was peak. It was in my, it wasn’t, not exactly, yeah, it was, it was.

I mean, most people like Businesswise would say, y’all are idiots. , yeah. They would say, you what? But you know what I love now is I love how you’ve taken and you’ve made it so much easier and so much more affordable for everybody in revive. Mm-hmm. like revive is everything. It’s just the, I think it’s, you know, yeah, it, it fits more of my lifestyle.

It fits more this midlife journey where you know, it’s not so much all at once. And and so, yeah, I’m, I’m hopeful, you know, we’re still, still in the beginnings of, of it, but I really feel like revived. Now we’ve started out with a great group of women who are. Like you said, like minded women who are going through this stage of life, and we do it better together than we do when we’re not together.

So, but let’s go back and talk about fasting, because I think that’s a big part of what we wanted to talk about, because, you know, I’ve been intermittent fasting since, oh gosh, now, years, I feel like, I feel like for the last, Seven years. You know, I’ve coached a program before I even came up with balance revived Now in any of those courses I, I coached a course with, it’s called Fast Away to Fat Loss, and that was one of the components was fasting, was intermittent fasting.

And the way I was taught intermittent fasting was that the 12th. 16, eight protocol. I’m sorry. 16, eight protocol. So 16 hours of fasting and eight hours of eating window. And we’ll go over this a little bit more in depth, but that’s kind of what we taught all the clients to do, which now looking back, I was talking to another faster way coach the other day.

What a mistake that was. Because not all women should be fasting alike. There are so many different ways to fast and but. Anyway, this 16 8 worked for me for years and I did it. I’ve changed it up a little bit over the last Two or three years and haven’t been as a regimented. I was so regimented for a time.

And, you know, one of the things I know we’re going to refer to fast, like a girl, Dr. Hells wrote, and, you know, she talks about in there that this is not a diet, but I. Made it more like a diet for me because, and with it being so regimented, I felt like I had to do it for weight, not for health. And I think and every now and then with Fasterway, we would throw in these 24 hour fasts and I did them because Not because of any other reason other than the whole group was doing them.

And I thought I should do them. I mean, there was no real other reason. And now I know there’s so much more plus there’s been so much more research done on it and everything else. So so let’s talk a little bit about fasting and how, first of all, it’s been around forever. If this is not. Something new, right?

No. And you know, I get the question asked a lot too, is why do you fast? For me, I had that question. And, you know, for me, it’s health and healing. And what is an easy way to put it is that we, our bodies thrive on cycles. We have all these cycles, right? And two of the main sources, how do we get our energy?

From food, sugar, carbs, right? Mm hmm. And then the other way we get energy is from fat burning. Ketones. Mm hmm. Ketones. Yeah. So you got two energy sources. Food, sugar, carbs, the food we eat, are then, are the fat burning. So if you just look at 24 hours, your 24 hour day, and think, When am I going to eat? And when am I going to go into that fat burning mode?

Well, the fat burning mode starts at when? Eight hours. You have to, that starts at a minimum of eight hours. So we’re sleeping most of the time. Which is great. It’s great. So then the next day, like you said, I just extend it into I make it a 16 hour fast too, but anywhere between 12 and 16, it’s therapeutic, right?

When did you start fasting? About four years ago. I’m thinking about four years ago. And I did it. What made you decide? Hormone balance. That belly fat creeping in and here’s one thing that’s huge mental and just mental focus the cognitive, the brain health there, but at 3 o’clock every day for as long as I can remember prior to fasting at 3 o’clock around that time.

I wanted a nap. It was like I was dragging, like literally dragging. And I always thought, what is wrong with me? I’d always thought that. And when I started fasting, that afternoon law went away. Belly flat, belly fat shrinking. ketones.

A crazy. So, you know, that’s why I do it, but I tell everybody do it and see how you feel, how do you, right. And here’s the thing, and we know this, so if you have a cycle, there are different times of the month that you should not fast, and there are certain people that should not fast. And we’re not going to go into all that because I mean, Get the book fast like a girl.

I highly recommend that book Also, she did two podcasts after Mindy did two podcasts with Mel Robbins that were fabulous She just did those will link those in the show notes And I am trying to get, she’s working on a new book right now. So hopefully the first of the year I’ve been in contact with Dr.

Mindy’s assistant and hopefully I will have her on this podcast and we can talk about actually her new book coming out. But but let’s go through her different fasts that she has. She has six different length fasts. And I don’t know that these are hers, but these are the six different length fasts.

One’s the intermittent fasting, which is the 12 to 16 hours. That’s the most common. Right, right. And then the autophagy fasting, which starts at 17 hours. So really 17 to 19 hours right in there. The gut reset fast, which is 24 hours, which she recommends for people that maybe you’ve been on antibiotics or things like that.

So another one, another one that I think, stop right there. Cause I want people to the 24 hours. Also great. If you have been on birth control, because you know, that completely mixes up your gut health. And that this 24 hour resets that, which I think is huge. Oh, that is huge. Huge. Yeah. Okay, keep going. I just the fat burner fast which is 36 hours.

I’ve never done that. I know you have, and I wanna talk about that. The dopamine reset fast, which is 48 hours, and then the immune reset, which is more than 72 hours. So there are different. Ways to fast. Right. And I think the more common one that most people are doing is the intermittent fasting that 12 to 16 hours.

And I pretty much do 12 to 16 hours every single day. I usually get up in the morning. I usually quit eating at least by eight. I try at least to cut my eating off by eight because I like to be in bed by nine. So. I’m going to be in bed at least. And I want to have an hour. Sometimes it’s nine 30, but, and then I am, you know, it depends on how I feel in the morning, but usually I get up, I drink my couple of cups of coffee and then drink some water, of course, do my quiet time, and then I go work out and people are always surprised to hear that I work out, but.

It wasn’t always this way I didn’t always feel like I could do that and I want to talk about that too, because I do remember when I first started fasting but then I go work out and then usually I’ll come home and get busy, drink lots of water and then break my fast anywhere between 11 and 1, somewhere in between there, and then I try not to snack, I try to have a pretty large meal focused on protein and fiber when I break that fast and then so that might you know, Like I said anywhere between 11 and 1 and then usually about 4 I’m starting to get hungry again And I don’t want to wait till you know Jeff gets home because that could be 6 it could be 7 and so I might eat something around 4 It’s not going to be my biggest meal or anything if it’s going to be kind of a A larger snack, I would say, like maybe yogurt and some berries or something like that.

Maybe cottage cheese and some berries or something like that. And then dinner at least by seven, done by eight and start again. That’s, that’s a normal day for me. What’s a normal day for you? Okay. Before I go there, I got to say this. You know, I think it’s important for everybody to know you don’t start out when you, when you decide, you don’t say, okay, I’m going 16 hours.

Let’s roll. I know all the benefits. I want to be like Deanna and Melanie and I’m doing this. So you’ve got to work up to it. And the first few times you do it, you may feel bad for a day. Okay. Or, you know, it may take you a while to build up. In your brain actually trains you, right? Right. I mean, you might start having headaches.

You might feel nauseated. There could be all kinds of things. So this is the, the thing that, so we, we want to be metabolically flexible, right? And so metabolically flexible means that you can go from burning sugar, which our body is our number one fuel source that our body desires, is that sugar. for those carbs, right?

Or you’re going to be burning fat, ketones. Okay. So those are your two things. So you want your body to be able to go back and forth between the two of them. And that’s called metabolically flexible. Well, what happens is like for me, Before I started any of this, I would get that hangry. Like, if I do not have something to eat right now, my head would start hurting.

I would become so mad at everybody around me. Just get out of my way. And so you, you, like you just said, you have to start so slow. So how did you start out? Push it by one hour. Yeah, exactly. Just an hour, you know, let your body be uncomfortable. It’s okay to be uncomfortable, but you don’t have to be miserable.

You don’t have to have a raging headache. You don’t have to feel nauseated. You don’t have to feel like you have to lay down the whole day. You know, you just work up to it, just like when you would be training for a marathon, which I’ve never done that. So, but I know I, this, I wouldn’t just go out and run a marathon.

You got to train for it, right? So I was the same way. I mean, we grew up, think about it. Our parents said, you’ve got to eat your breakfast. I even train my children that way. You’ve got to have that breakfast before you leave for your energy. You’ve got to eat. What are you, what are we having? You’ve got to eat breakfast.

And I grew up thinking that way. Until I started this and I thought there’s no way I can work out on an empty stomach. And let me tell you something, you can, and you’re going to feel better and you’re going to have more energy. Just start out slow. Start by pushing your breakfast back one hour. Start, start for a week.

So do that for a week. Then push it back two hours, right? And then push it back three, but anywhere between 12 and 16 is that happy spot. And if you’re going to do this, go through the uncomfortable phase and do it for at least, how long would you say do it to see how your body responds and how you feel?

I say at least six weeks. Yeah, I definitely think six weeks, but if at any time you aren’t feeling good, then maybe you need to check with your doctor. You know, always remember, there are certain circumstances that you should not be fasting. And the week, I think it’s the week before your period. If you’re for your period, if you’re having a cycle, yeah.

Fasting. Estrogen loves fasting, progesterone hates fasting, right? So you still have your menstrual cycle. You need to not fast the week before your period. You need to eat healthy carbs. You know how we’re craving chocolate pizza. What all the things that we crave used to crave before our period. Okay, that’s normal to crave all those carbs the week before your period.

Because your progesterone needs to go up. All right. So, but what I challenge you to do is eat the healthy carbs, the potato. Bananas, bananas, bananas, bananas, bananas, all the healthy, healthy nutrient dense carbs. Eat those the week before. Also you want to make sure that you’re resting during that time because your cortisol level needs to stay down.

Day you start your menstrual cycle. You can go back to your fasting for people to know that still have their cycle. Yeah. So somebody asked one, one of our questions was is it beneficial to fast? Perimenopausal as it is menopausal and yes, yes, yes, and yes you just have to do it differently, right?

And even menopausal women we have cycles according to the moon still. In fact, I really want to research this a little bit more, but and she talks about that, that we can cycle according to the moon or or we can just. You know, listen to our body a little bit more. You, you don’t have to be like, when I did it at first, I was like, 16 hours every day.

I had to do 16 hours. No, I’m not either anymore. And you know, it goes back to this. I wait, I want to hear what your typical day is. And then I want to, we’ll go somewhere else. Just like yours. Just like mine. Okay. I get up real quickly. I get up, I have my 24 ounces of lemon water right by my vanity ready to go.

After I brush my teeth, I drink that as I’m doing my daily chores. Then I go to my back porch in my spot with my coffee and my Jesus town sacred that that that time is so sacred. And so I have black coffee. Now here’s something that you can add to it. This is important. We talk about this. I don’t do this, but Mindy says do, and I think I’m going to, I’m going to start.

She says to add everybody. A lot of people that fast do this. Add the MCT oil, it is natural fat burner, and it also curbs your appetite. So it shuts that off. So I may try to add. And she even said you can add full fat cream too. Yes. And you can have both of those together. Yeah. Mel Robbins asked her, can I have the cream with the MCT oil?

And she said, yes. Yes. So know that I just like the flavor of the bean. I train myself to do that. We won’t go there, but I just, but I may start adding some MCT oil just to see another thing you can have. It’s important. So people know what you can have. If you’re not a coffee drinker, you can have tea, green tea, black tea, other thing that you can have.

Are those elements that you and I love? No. And she didn’t say, I thought, I thought we could only have the elements if we got if we were doing a fast, if they were the unflavored ones, she didn’t say, say any of them. So go. If you’ve got element and coffee and MCT, you can go to 12 hours. If you slept 8 hours, you can go to 12.

Yeah, exactly. And we’ll put that link for the elements in the show notes too, because those are. Fabulous. We both love those. What’s your favorite flavor? Oh goodness. Grapefruit, citrus. Grapefruit’s my, definitely my favorite too. I love grapefruit. Then orange is my second favorite. So I go work out.

On that empty stomach. Love it. Have so much energy. I drink my water throughout my workout. Come back. Have my water. I like to eat like you early in the evening. So let’s say 6 o’clock. I’ve eaten in that next day. I’m going to probably have a piece of avocado toast with eggs on it. High protein. I always break that fast with protein like you do.

And that’s usually between 10 and 12, depending on what time I have my workout. I’m ill and I scheduled around my family. If John and I eat it, right. Okay. No big deal. I’d stem. Right. You’re not so regimented that it makes everybody miserable around you and everything. On vacation, I eat, comes with the room.

I eat the bus. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I think that’s the whole thing is like, you have to figure out what works best for you. And I think that that’s the really important thing. But one of the things that really kind of inspired this podcast was like I said, our faith, our friendship and then fasting and how Melanie inspires me.

And we had talked on the phone the other day and you said I said, what’s for dinner tonight. And you said, what’s funny, I’m doing a 24 hour fast, but I’m going to break my, it’ll be later. And I’ll break my fast with this. And I was like, gosh, I need to do a 24 hour fast. I should do it. And so, cause it had been a long time since I’d done a 24 hour fast.

I’m like, okay. I’m going to do a 24 hour fast and I did one and I was towards, I had like a couple of hours and you were like, keep going, keep going. You got this. And so it was another encouragement to me. And I was like, yeah, this is, I mean, I’m so thankful for my friendship with you because you encouraged me in so many ways.

And. You do feel really good, but, but you don’t wanna jump to that 24 hour fast. I, I wanna, again, lemme talk about that for a second. Thank you for that. But I, I, this is what I wanna say about your brain training. You and Mindy will tell you she loves fasting so much and she gets so much energy from it that she has to prioritize eating sometimes.

Mm-hmm. . And when she said in the book, your brain will train you and you’ll get used to it. Well, after that 16 hour fast. And I knew the health benefits of pushing it to 24, right? Those are my spiritual when I’m really, really, really need to do a dive spiritually. Like I need clarification. I, I need wisdom, guidance, and discernment.

I just need a break from the world. It just means to be me and you, Jesus, like. Me and you throughout the day, no focus on food or anything else. I’ve gone 48 hours thinking I was going to go 24 and extended it all the way to 48 hours just by doing that spiritual sitting down with my Bible and just crying out like, Lord, I gotta have you.

And it’s just amazing, amazing, the energy that he will give you and the, just feel your heart, which is. Everything you could ever need. So let me ask you this, cause I know everybody that’s listening, they’re wondering, okay, so, so you did a 24 hour fast, and then you’re like, I want to, I need God, and so that’s why I want to do another 24 hours, or, or you’re like, I knew the health benefits, so I’m just going to go another 24 hours, and so I’m just going to get into my.

My spiritual life, like what happened? What made you so 24 hours? I did my first 24 hours when my daughter went to college and I just was going through that time. You know, I don’t know. I’m emotional now just missing her and just avoid. So I did that 24 hours a day. So many women can support. Right now, it was, it was so spiritual and I got so much wisdom and just my heart just felt so joyful doing that.

So I knew how good that felt. And then, well, after you do 24 hours, it’s time for bed again. Think about it. So I was like, well, I’m going to just sleep on, push it to 36. All right. That’s easy to do if you’re going to bed next morning, get ups. It really is. It doesn’t sound easy to me, but I, cause I’ve never done 36.

I’m just saying if you start, if you do 24 hours regularly, right. 36 hours becomes nothing. Right. And then the 48 hours becomes easy. That’s what I’m saying. It’s all stepping stones. And I was just feeling so good. I just pushed it to that 48 hours. I love that. And that’s not something I can do. I don’t know when I will do that again, quite honestly.

I want it. And doesn’t she even recommend only doing that like once once a quarter, I think once a quarter, maybe, or twice a year, twice a year. I think that she does the 72 hour twice a year. Oh, 72. I cannot imagine doing the 72 hour, but I do to do that for stem cells, anti aging. That’s right. You know, I, you know, I, I just remembered this too.

I had a little scare, a little health scare, and I did that 48 hours cause I just was praying through some things, lots of things during that time. But anyway, you can do all things through Christ who gives you strength. So true. Submit to him and surrender. And I never got hungry. That’s I think that is the main thing I do think, but I will tell you this last 24 hours that I did never did get hungry and I didn’t get a headache.

And I have gotten headaches before I have done tried to do a 24 hour fast and started getting a major headache. And when that, I used to try and tough it out. Now I’m just like, I’m not tapping it out. I’m going to eat. I, I do suffer from headaches more than I should. I don’t really know exactly why I’m really trying to get to the bottom of it.

I really think it may have to do with my hormones and stuff. I’m not sure, but I have to read this because I think this is really cause this is going to air Melanie in October, which is breast cancer awareness month. And I want to read this study because I found this very, very interesting.

It says in 2016, the Journal of the American Medical Association released an observational study. Study that looked at more than 2000 women between the ages of 27 and 70, who had undergone conventional breast cancer treatment after analyzing this large group of women for four years. Researchers determined that when women fasted 13 hours, so only 13 hours or more, they had a 64 percent less chance of recurrence of breast cancer.

This is largely because fasting created a significant decrease in hemoglobin, A1c, an indicator of blood glucose levels, and C reactive protein, an indicator of inflammation. Very few drugs can offer that kind of result. This is how miraculous, miraculous the body can be when fasting. Think about Jesus, when did he go, how long did he fast?

Oh, what, he, he fasted for like 30 days, 39? No. 40 days. 40 days, Yeah, I’m like, he fasted a long time, yeah. He fasted and he prayed. He fasted and he prayed. And if he did… We’re no different. I mean, yeah. That’s amazing. That study, that’s huge. It’s huge. Everybody, every woman should. That within itself, but I do think too, it’s important.

And we, we say this over and over Deanna, but I want to stress this. Listen to your body. Start out. You may have a goal of saying, you know what? I’m going to try to go for 12 hours. And if you feel bad, stop. Restart. Exactly. This isn’t like a test that you have to pass. I mean, it isn’t. And my goal in that 48 hour, that was my goal, but I knew if I felt like I couldn’t push through, I was going to stop.

If I was going to stop after the 24 hours and went to 36 and then to 48. Right, right. You just listen to your body. And there’s some days. I don’t do a 12 hour. I’m hungry for whatever reason, or it may be stress. It’s usually stress related though. I’m like, I’m just need some food. Well, yeah, stress can, but you know what, I mean, or maybe it could be like, you don’t sleep well, which is stress right there.

Right. And so so yeah. And so maybe you do need to eat because we know that too much stress on our body is not a good, not good. So if you have. The stress of not sleeping well, and maybe you’re worrying about something. And then and then you try to exercise really hard and then you try to intermittent fat.

I mean, those are too many stressors. What can you control on that? You know, you can control, I can eat, you can control, don’t work out too hard. You know, I’m really, you know. Think about those kinds of things, but gosh, we’ve talked for so long and, you know, you and I could just keep on going forever and ever and ever.

But I’m so happy to have this conversation with you and share all of this with everyone. I feel honored. You would invite me. You have so many amazing women on your podcast. Nobody is amazing as you, girlfriend, nobody. We’re real life and it’s just me and you and I, I want us to inspire other women to, you know, things that have worked for us.

It’s worth sharing. So thank you for having me. I love you. And I love my Tuckie and yeah, if we can help anybody reach out to us but do your own research on the fasting read, I say, read, read, read. It took me reading and understanding it before I would make the jump. Yeah. Yeah. You need to read, you need to understand, dip your toe into it.

Always, you know, do it in community, you know, I will say community is key. Get into a community. You know, I, I do have the Revive Now community that I’d love for you to join us, but if you don’t, you know, if that’s not the right one for you, get a friend, do it with a friend. It’s always better to do it with a friend.

Oh, always, always. It’s always better. For that encouraged some days that you’re walking. I’m like, okay, I’m going for a walk now. And listen, people, you need to know this is so funny. Like I did, I told Deanna said, I’m coming off that 24 hours fast. And I look on her story and she was doing the next day. Yep.

I was because exactly because you encouraged me. So so anyway, so, Instagram website.

And males, healthy lifestyle. com. So males, healthy meals, males, healthy lifestyle. com. And thank you, Dee. I love you. Thank you. Love you so much. Bye. I hope you enjoyed the show as much as I did, but before we go, can you do me a favor and rate and review the podcast rating and reviewing the podcast? Not only helps others find it, but it’s also similar to that. No, like, and trust factor you have with your friends and family listeners, respect the reviews of other listen.

So your glowing reviews are like trusted recommendations for other listeners. Hey, and go ahead and hit that subscribe button. So you don’t miss an episode until next week. I hope you make those small consistent changes that lead you to your best to you