We’re excited to announce that episode 2 of The D.I.E.T. Podcast is available for download on iTunes! In this week’s podcast, Allison, Dr. Bert, and Dr. Judi talk about the surprising bonus outcomes of intermittent fasting and an appetite-correcting lifestyle…and we’re not just talking about weight loss and other health benefits. We’re talking about things like decluttering, reducing our carbon footprints, saving money, buying a new wardrobe and going on vacation!

We hope you enjoy this latest installment of The D.I.E.T. Podcast. Please subscribe, and if you like what you hear, please leave a review!

Episode 2 Transcript

Judi: Hello, and welcome to the D.I.E.T. podcast, where we explore an important question for those who are pursuing a whole, healthy and happy life! And that question is “Did I enrich today?”  I’m Judi.

Allison: I’m Allison.

Bert: And I’m Bert.

Judi: We’re your hosts. Today, we’ll be talking about some of the surprising and very enriching outcomes that people have noticed as they experience their AC/Fast-5 intermittent fasting lifestyle. And we’re not talking about the obvious things like a healthier body, better checkups and weight loss. We’re talking about things like decluttering and saving money—and who doesn’t like to save money, right? So, sit back, take another sip of your coffee, or if you’re in motion, carry on and enjoy the view!  

Whatever you’re doing, we’re thrilled that you’re here and we really hope that you enjoy today’s conversation. Okay, let’s just jump right in. Bert or Allison, do you want to tell us about some of the surprises people have shared with us?

Bert: I think we should look at decluttering, because that’s one of the most consistent things that people report, but also one of the totally unexpected ones that comes with an intermittent fasting schedule. It just doesn’t seem like there’s any sort of connection to the domino chain where you get from, “Okay, I’m going to eat less,” and then “I’m going to feel like cleaning up my place.” It’s not really predictable. So, it’s really unexpected, but so, so consistent—so many people report that, it’s kind of amazing.

Judi:  So, have you noticed that, Allison?

Allison: I have, and I think that part of that is due to maybe having more energy and more focus to be able to deal with those things. But also, it could be a part of just not needing so many dishes to make all that food! You don’t…you don’t need all the place settings. You don’t need all of this kind of

infrastructure in the home to deal with the constant cooking and meals and sitting down and everything that’s involved. And, I know that when people about decluttering they’re talking about more than just their kitchen or their dining room. They’re talking about getting rid of clothes that no longer fit them or suit them or just kind of realizing that they can get by with less in life.

Judi: I think that probably that’s part of the key, and for me, certainly, the simplicity of the eating schedule just kind of bleeds in, in a very—what do you call it? Not predictable way. I guess it’s kind of unpredictable. But it bleeds in, in a smooth and natural way to simplifying in other ways. It feels like it just is a natural extension of taking in less and engaging with the environment in a different way.

Allison: Mm-hmm.

Judi: And, you know what? That that actually reminds me that another thing—one of those surprising things that people report—is an

appreciation for how much less they create in the way of waste. I mean packaging waste.

Allison: Mm-hmm

Bert: That’s a big one. It was pretty dramatic to see how much less garbage we produced when we started cutting down the meals, because most of our food consumption comes in some package or another, and that all winds up in the garbage stream and when you cut it by two-thirds or so, then it really shows up. We just produce less trash!

Judi: That two-thirds number—It’s an interesting number because there’s not a clearly defined study that has looked at intermittent fasting—the Fast-5/AC lifestyle—and translated that into how much less do people actually eat when they follow that lifestyle. But it…it really appears that, in the conversations we’ve had with thousands of people over the years, that on average, people seem to eat about two-thirds of what they would typically eat in a three-meals-a-day kind of pattern.

Allison: So, when you say it’s 2/3 less, would that be—and just kind of being a nerd here—

but it would that be 2/3 less by calories? Or 2/3 less volume? Or what…what kind of measure is that?

Bert: I was saying that most people eat one meal a day or two meals a day instead of three, and so if they’re cutting out eating two meals a day, then they’re cutting out two swipes of packaging stuff. Obviously, it’s not like you have the same packaging for every meal, but for those people who eat in a fast-food restaurant, then there’s packaging there. If they’re eating some kind of packaged food for breakfast, there’s packaging there, and so, the change can be pretty dramatic. If you go to one meal a day plus snacks, or whatever, then you’d be cutting two meals a day, and with that, two-thirds of your packaging.

Allison: Mm-hmm.

Judi: Now, that’s the packaging difference, but my impression has been that people eat about two-thirds of what they would typically eat. They only really cut their food intake by volume or calories or their impression. I didn’t ask anybody “Are you talking calories or volume?” and really just got a—an overall impression that they tended

to take in about 1/3 less—

Bert: Mm-hmm.

Judi: —than they would with that three-meals-a-day pattern. But, the packaging, like you say, because we discreetly portion our meals in the typical three-meals-a-day pattern into this package of meals, that package of meals, another package of meals, that the packaging savings or decrease is probably higher than the food decrease—the consumption decrease.

Bert: Right, and one of the changes that we notice and lot of people have reported is a shift in the appetite towards healthier choices, which often means dropping packaging and going with fresh foods instead. And, I think that’s where a lot of the packaging drop comes from—just going with fresh choices instead.

Judi: Yeah, people report all the time that their tendency is to eat less processed, more healthy foods, and I think it’s not surprising, if you think about it. When you’re going to have all of your meal content within five consecutive hours, then that time you really

want that to be an experience that’s worth taking the time for, and investing in.

Bert: Right, and because you save time on the other meals, you can afford to invest a little more time and money on making something that you really like, and you know it’s good for you.

Allison: And I know for me, when I have been fasting, in the beginning, I would try just to cram anything that I wanted into that one meal, but I quickly realized when you’re only doing it once a day, you realize how that food really makes you feel. And so, having unhealthy foods, or sweets and candy, and cupcakes with lots of frosting, it made me feel so horrible that I didn’t want to do that the next day. And also, waking up the next morning after I’ve had an evening where I just feasted on things that I thought I really would want, I just felt so horrible. So, you really learn very quickly the effect that food has on you. It’s really put into focus.

Judi:  Yeah, and when you say you felt horrible, did your body feel horrible? Or you just felt

badly about it?

Allison: Both, actually. In the morning, I would feel bloated, and I would wake up immediately thinking that I was hungry. I don’t know about scientific reasons of why, other than an insulin drop, but I would feel so hungry in the morning immediately. And then, also, just the mental thought of “Why did I do that? Why did I do that to myself?”  There’s no reason that I needed to indulge in that way, because the fact of it was negative.

Judi: Yeah, that’s interesting.

Bert: Let’s touch back on the schedule. We’re talking about eating one meal a day and this goes back to our last podcast where we were talking about “What is intermittent fasting?” Intermittent fasting schedule is the schedule that works for you, and we’re not saying that there has to be a specific one meal a day, or two meals a day. It’s whatever is working for you. And so just because we’re talking about one meal, we’re talking about our experience and not saying that that’s the way it has to be done.

Judi: Right. And the other thing that you said at the last podcast was that that metric for what is working is

when you achieve appetite correction.

Bert: Right.

Judi: So, we’ve been talking about time savings and money savings and that brings to mind the survey we did in 2016. We asked over 300 people to complete a survey and one of the questions was “How much money and how much time do you save, or does it cost you in a week when you are living an appetite correction/Fast-5 lifestyle?” And the average savings per week was $50, which, if you think about that, that’s $2,600 in a year. That’s a lot of money!

Bert: More than I expected people to report, but it does—

Judi: Yeah, me, too.

Bert: —It does add up, especially if you tend to buy a few meals out each week.

Judi: And what’s interesting—when we were saying the thing about the quality of the food: If you’re saving $50 a week because you’re eating less, then if you choose to, you can spend that money on more interesting foods, if that’s a budgetary concern. But the hours, too, were significant.

The average number of hours saved in a week was ten, and that means 22 days in a year. And so, as we’re talking about the surprising benefits of this dietary lifestyle, I think it’s probably worth saying “What would you do with 22 extra free days in a year?”

Bert: Yes, it’s like a whole ‘nother vacation—

Allison: Mm-hmm.

Bert: Big vacation.

Allison: With the time and the money, that’s a vacation!

Bert: Yeah.

Judi: Yeah, you’re right! $2,600 and 22 days!

Bert: And it’s not something that you would really think about individually, but when you add up the…the time it takes for meals—to plan, to do the shopping, to pick up the stuff, to prepare it, and then to eat it, and then to clean up after it, we are talking at least a good couple of hours a day and for most people, more than that—it depends on who’s doing the shopping and the cleaning, but it really does add up to a big chunk of time.

Judi: Yeah, it does. It really does. So, what

other things have people talked about?

Allison: Well, we talked a little bit about having more energy, but I think for me that is one, aside from the reduction of inflammation, for me, just having more energy is a huge bonus, because it allows me to really enjoy the things that I’m doing, and I have the energy and, actually, the desire to work out. We have a stationary bike at home and when I’m not eating several times a day, I feel light, and I feel energetic, and I feel a desire to “Let’s get that done. Let’s just do it!” There’s no reason not to, whereas if I were eating breakfast and lunch and snacks, I would feel like “Uhhhh—I’m just kind of tired from having a turkey sandwich at lunch and I just really don’t feel like jumping on the bike and sweating a lot and getting a stomach ache and all that.”  So, it’s a different feeling, that’s for sure.

Bert: It made a big difference for me, too. I felt the energy and it made me feel like going and doing something, not just sitting still. I didn’t feel like I wanted to sit still anymore.

I wanted to get up and do something, like you were saying, but also the evenness of my mood throughout the day, when I stopped eating lunch, it got to be really even in that energy was just so level, so reliable all day long. And, I used to have kind of an evening down slump where I just felt kind of grody at the end of the day, and didn’t feel like doing much and that went away and hasn’t come back.

Allison: I think part of that also is that eating no longer is the default activity. So, when eating isn’t a default for any time that you’re moving from one chore or task to another, a whole new world of opportunities opens up. Exercise actually becomes an option, rather than just, “I’ll just grab a candy bar, some chips or lunch.”

Judi: It’s interesting because we talked about “It becomes an option.” So, there is time savings, but it’s not like it’s all in one space, but it is—it is almost opening up a space—this opportunity

for this huge potential of “What are you going to fill that with?”

Allison: Mm-hmm.

Judi: It’s interesting with the energy and with the feeling of moving through space in a different way. A lot of people report having more confidence—not just from dropping weight, but just being in control. The words that most often were reported, particularly early on, when we were talking with people who adopted this lifestyle, were “freedom, power and control.” Those were the three words, over and over again, we would hear. So, when feeling in control, and the space opens, it’s almost as if people who live this lifestyle feel empowered in a very different way.

Bert: Well, yeah, they start the day and don’t feel like they have to face a full day of using their willpower to fight and make choices—to choose not to eat all the time. Once that’s off your shoulders and your body’s taking care of it instead, that’s a big freedom right there.

Judi: It is. It’s exhausting. Using willpower is something that fatigues, no question. Like you had mentioned

earlier, in the conversation we had a couple of days ago, Allison, decision fatigue. Can you say some more about that?

Allison:  Sure. For me, waking up in the morning when I’m not on an IF schedule and thinking “Okay, now I have to make some decisions about when I’m going to eat and what I’m going to eat and so much brain space is taken up by those decisions and that time that I feel like I’m a slave to that constant pull for eating—the constant pull to food. Whereas, when I’m on an IF schedule, that’s not even a consideration. I’m not having to exercise willpower. I don’t have to make the choice over and over and over again throughout the day or deny myself. It’s more of “Right now. It’s just not the time.” Then, the thought goes away. I move on. So, it becomes a much easier way of just, mentally to move through life, for me.

Judi: Yeah, and it’s more fun. There are folks who love to cook and to prepare food and to be involved with food—you know, “foodies.” And then there are those for whom food is more of

a peripheral thing that’s just something to manage. And I’m kind of in that something-to-manage type. I certainly enjoy cooking with somebody, when someone has us over and they’re having a party and we’re all preparing food together. That’s fun. That’s a nice time. But just the joy of being in a kitchen and chopping things doesn’t have an intrinsic pleasure for me necessarily. Now, I like chopping.

Allison: Judi, you are so good at chopping vegetables! The salads that you have prepared for me in the past have been some of the most perfectly cut diced/chopped/julienned vegetables. I mean…you could have a second career just being—What is that? A sous chef? Is that what they call?

Bert: Or prep chef?

Allison: Prep chef.

Judi: Yeah, that’s pretty funny. Well, I do like chopping, so I have to set that as the only thing in the day-to-day food preparation that’s kind of fun. You know that little clunk and all that stuff and I like a sharp blade! But the process of all the rest of it, of standing over

something and stir-frying and stuff—that’s not that’s not intrinsically pleasurable. So, for me, it is way more fun to do it less often. Now, for people who really enjoy that, I would imagine—and in fact people have told us that it becomes this entirely different experience to do that once a day—to devote time and energy and pleasure, and to take that in—not just zipping between breakfast, lunch and dinner, but really putting that focus into one time, really enjoying it.

Bert: We talked about the packaging waste earlier, and the fact that most people are eating about a third less over time, and that’s a gradual change and it’s just an estimate and it varies, but what we’re talking about is a lot smaller carbon footprint for an individual. I think as a community, there are some things that we can do. Some people choose not to eat beef to make their carbon footprint smaller. Intermittent fasting is one thing that people can do to make their carbon footprint smaller. One person may not make a difference, but when we’re talking about seven

billion people in the world—some of them definitely don’t need to be fasting, but there are millions who can and could make a smaller carbon footprint that way.

Judi: Yeah, absolutely, and it feels good. Every time we take an action and it extends beyond ourselves and there’s some benefits outside of ourselves, it can feel really good. And when we take the trash out and it’s a smaller bag than the average bear, it’s pretty cool. I like that. These changes don’t necessarily happen right away. Some of them do. Saving money, saving time—those happen right away, and there are lots of things that happen immediately. But things like the mood—I was going to ask you earlier, Bert—when you said the evening slump that went away—Was that something that was quick? That you noticed it right away, or that was over time?

Bert: No, it was over time. It probably took me a while to notice because it was kind of a subtle change, but I think it was probably over the course of six weeks or so that I kind of looked back and thought “Wow, I haven’t felt like that in a long time.” And, there are other changes that we talked about they may take months to appear.

Some can show up quite quickly, like there was a recently a Facebook post that mentioned she felt like her skin was glowing. That’s also a frequent comment. Skin tends to clear up and look healthier. And, she hadn’t seen weight loss yet. She’d been doing a Fast-5 schedule for about a month and those changes were encouraging enough for me to say, “It sounds like this is working for you, just hasn’t kicked in the timeline that it does for most people.” So, I encouraged her to keep going and give it more time. But that is such a typical response— that skin improvement—that I think it is an indicator that it is working for her and it will and she just needs more time to let it do its thing.

Judi: One of the things that people report that one could consider a negative outcome of the AC/Fast-5 lifestyle is the need to buy a new wardrobe. But, we have packaged that in the broad category: non-scale victories. Among the non-scale victories that people report is they

have to buy some new clothes. And as we often say, or as they often tell us, it’s a great problem to have.

And, they have the opportunity to buy clothes in another section of the store. This is not a surprising outcome, but for people who embark upon this lifestyle and have been disappointed time and time and time again by other endeavors they’ve undertaken to lose weight, they are surprised. And it is so, so rewarding to hear the exhilaration that people express when they start to see that it’s working.

Bert: Yes, and in our conversations with people who’ve had to deal with a lot of excess weight, we know how troubling that can be and how uncomfortable it can be just to eat in public when you’ve got a lot of surplus fat. And so, for that to start to go away—both the fat and the feeling—it makes the person lighter in many ways—mentally is just a very big part of that.

Judi: It is. We talked the last time about the walk

that I took with Gary Long. He described to me the public experience of being overweight. He said it was demoralizing at times—the way that people interacted with him. One of the benefits that he expressed was how comforting it was, and peaceful it was, to just be out among people and not have this sense that people are judging the way you are.

I remember he and I went into a place where there were seats that were fixed to a table. It was a McDonald’s. We were getting a soda. It was before our break-fast. We were getting a diet Coke. He asked me to take his picture. He said “Take my picture! I’m sitting in this seat!” And for him, it was—and for me, it was a beautiful moment. He didn’t feel self-conscious. That loss of self-consciousness—no matter if someone is losing ten pounds or a hundred pounds—we all experience our bodies in different ways but self-consciousness—I think it starts in adolescence or probably even before that. We become very aware of the world’s interaction with our space and our body and it’s wonderful when we hear people who live the AC/Fast-5 intermittent fasting lifestyle say, “I’m beginning to feel way confident just moving around and being who I am.”

Allison: Being worried about the way that you perceive people are judging you and thinking about you is such a heavy burden to carry, aside from actual weight that you’re carrying around.

Bert: Mm-hmm.

Allison: That’s a lot to think about and to constantly worry about, so that’s really neat.

Judi: Yeah, it is. In the U.S. culture, there is this chaotic and gruesome relationship that we have with body image and the media management of body. I mean, there is effort underway to create safe spaces—a more comfortable, welcoming space for everybody of every shape and every size, but that is an aspiration that we haven’t gotten right as a culture.

And so, I do love hearing when people—and myself—

the times when I have been less self-conscious, it feels really good.

Allison: Well, that’s one of the reasons I love our AC/Fast-5 community is that it is a safe space for everybody. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, how big or small you are, what your experience has been or what your fasting hours are. Everyone is so supportive of one another’s journey throughout life.

Judi: That’s really true. We hear that time and time and time again, and it’s gratifying because the community is so responsive and so warm and so helpful. There are lots of questions that come up—we call them the evergreens—they come up again and again and the patience with which the long-time veterans of the lifestyle share their experience and gently and lovingly answer questions is just remarkable to me. I really like that.

Allison: Well, while we’re on this topic—and this was not planned—but I will do a plug for Dr. Bert’s AC/Fast-5 community on Facebook. We’re nearly 10,000 strong right now. If you just do a search for Dr. Bert’s Fast-5

AC group, you’ll find it on Facebook. It’s a private group and just ask for permission to join and come on in!

Judi: Yeah, absolutely! And if you have any trouble accessing the kinds of resources that we provide for our community and for those who’d like to be a part of the community, there’s a place to leave a comment and engage at bertherring.com. So, ask a question. We’ll answer a question. We love questions!

Allison, you mentioned reduced inflammation. Can you share something about that?

Allison: Sure. I think I might have a family history of inflammation. I don’t know if that’s a thing, but I know that both my dad and my mom have had problems related to inflammation. It could just be what they were eating and consuming, but I have degenerative disc disorder, which means that the disks in my back, and specifically my cervical spine, are degenerating. And that causes a lot of pain. It triggers a lot of inflammation.

So, one of the reasons that I love intermittent fasting

and particularly the Fast-5 schedule is that I can see an immediate change in my inflammation and the way that my joints and muscles feel. I had ACDF surgery about a year ago and prior to surgery—I’ve been in and out of the fasting world, but about 6 months prior, I said I need to get this inflammation down. I was trying to avoid surgery just through fasting. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out, but I was able to reduce my inflammation, which reduced so much of my joint pain in my neck. At one point before I started fasting, I wasn’t even able to hold a pencil and I’d lost all feeling in my arm. So, the weight loss is one benefit, but the reduction of inflammation is just like a godsend.

Judi: Yeah. You mentioned that— I loved what you said, “I was trying to avoid surgery altogether with intermittent fasting,” and that’s great. Taking conservative steps—steps that are reversible, because surgery is obviously one-way highway. You can’t “un-surgerize” yourself. Taking

reversible steps early to try makes a lot of sense. And then moving to something else when it doesn’t work makes a lot of sense too. And that’s back to that old Study of One.

What it made me think of when you were saying that is that there are those who make claims and promises about, “intermittent fasting going to solve all the problems.” It is a lifestyle and everything has its upsides, its downsides and its subtleties and nuances and intermittent fasting is no different than anything else. Now, I will have to say, when we first—back in ’94 when Bert first made this discovery, and then in 2005, when we started sharing it with people, it was interesting because, every time we would share it, we would kind of hold our breath, thinking “What if it doesn’t work?” After a while, we just got bored with being worried about it! It just seemed to routinely work. So, it does offer an enormous number of benefits, but if anybody’s telling you that it’s the one-size-fits-all

panacea, perfect solution for everything out there, then it’s snake oil.

Bert: We have encountered a couple people who, despite their very best efforts, the appetite correction did not kick in, and we are still looking to help that sort of person. We haven’t yet been able to figure out any way to tell one from the other, so the only way to know is to try.

Judi: Right. You have answered this question for a lot of people in the community, Bert. When someone says to you “I’ve adhered to this lifestyle. I am not losing weight. I have done some tweaks. I’ve narrowed my eating window. I’ve tried some low-carb time and nothing’s working.” You have fairly often made some recommendations and I’d like you, if you’re up for it, share those here, because I think they’re wise steps forward in how to try to conduct the study of one when this isn’t working.

Bert: Well, the big jump there is that Fast-5 has been so reliable that if it’s done right and done well, consistently

for at least three weeks starting out, and then tweaking it maybe two months or so—if you’re doing everything right and it doesn’t work, then it’s time to ask for a doctor’s help to see if maybe your thyroid is off or something else is going on that might be causing weight gain. It could also be due to things like supplements—medicines that you might be taking. You can look into those to see if that’s where the issue is. Like I mentioned before, a couple of outliers who weren’t taking medicines and went through all the steps, did the right stuff and the appetite correction effect and the weight loss just did not kick in for them. Other than those very few, it’s been so reliable that, given that few weeks of trial, it almost always does work.

Judi: Right, and if it doesn’t work, it is really time to engage with a doctor and say, “Let’s see if we can work together and figure out why this is not working for me.” Not every doctor in the world is a fan or an advocate for intermittent

fasting. There’s still a lot of dogma that endures that brings some skepticism from doctors. Not most, but many. If your doctor is not someone who can work with you, then it’s certainly worth exploring possibly finding one who can.

That’s our D.I.E.T podcast for today! We appreciate you listening and look forward to seeing you next time.

Allison: Visit DidIEnrichToday.com for more information about IF and links to purchase AC: The Power of Appetite Correction on Amazon and Audible, and don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast! Sign up for the newsletter, and we’ll let you know about upcoming events, and when new episodes are available. We promise not to spam. And finally, leave us a note. Tell us what you want to hear on the next episode. Bye, everybody!

Judi: Bye!

Bert: Bye!