Boosting Military Spouse Resilience: Embracing Empowerment with 'Fast Like a Girl'

[00:00:00] Alison: What's up? What's up? Hello and welcome to the show today. So I've said before and I'm gonna keep saying it, what you feed your brain really matters. And I have just grown and educated myself so much through listening to audio books, reading actual hard copies of books, right? And I've said before I would just.

[00:00:27] Alison: Recently, I feel like in an episode that or reminded you anyways, that you are the sum of the five people that you spend the most time with. So you need to choose wisely, right? And, and then as military spouses, that our circle of influence might be made up of our immediate family and our kids. And that makes it challenging to level yourself up if that's what you're looking for.

[00:00:48] Alison: So, You know, how can we expose ourselves to other mentors when we're in this small little circle or removed socially, you know, and, and really level up our lives. And that's books, it's podcasts, it's seminars, whether that's in person or virtual, right? You can have these mentors. Have mentors and, and open your circle of influence to people that you might not meet in person, right?

[00:01:18] Alison: Just because you haven't actually met somebody doesn't mean that they can't be a mentor for you. And books are one, and podcasts are one of the best ways to open that circle of influence. So, I wanted to share with you today my latest read, well, actually it was my latest listen, I suppose, 'cause I've shared with you before, my kind of trick to personal development and listening to things that are educational for me.

[00:01:41] Alison: I've a, I, I'm gonna be honest, I have a really hard time. I actually sitting down with a hard. Copy of a book that's like personal development or education and staying engaged in it. Gimme a romance novel and I will sit there and read for hours. But like, if it's educational, I'm like, I'm just being honest.

[00:02:04] Alison: Within a few minutes. So what I have found works for me is I get these books on Audible and then I listen to them while I'm driving in the car, while I'm walking my dogs. That's at least a good 30 minutes every day that I get in when I'm walking my dogs. So it's just, it's a really easy way. For me to get that in.

[00:02:19] Alison: But actually with this particular book, I I listened to it on Audible and there's so many nuggets and information that she's referencing. I actually went and got the hard copy of the book too, so I could go back and reference all of all of these different things. So the book is called Fast Like A Girl by Dr.

[00:02:40] Alison: Mindy Pells. And I first heard about her on another podcast that I listened to called The Model Health Show with Sean Stevenson. I think I've mentioned it on the show before. I'll make sure that I link the episode with Dr. Pell's in the show notes so that if you wanna listen to that too, you can.

[00:02:56] Alison: And you know, if you have a science brain like I do, and you want the truth, right, you want, you want peer reviewed studies, you want the actual science behind. Different issues and things with health and wellness, then you really should check out the model hall show, because that's what he does, right?

[00:03:16] Alison: He uses peer review journals and it's the actual science behind things. It's not just, you know fads and things like that. So anyways, on the show, I. Dr. Pells was talking about fasting and how it's this, you know, really easy, cheap, and totally doable tool that most of us are not using, especially to help balance hormones and control weight and just, and battle lots of different chronic conditions.

[00:03:45] Alison: So I, you know, I, I, most of you I'm sure have probably heard about fasting or intermittent fasting. It's become really popular in recent years and you know, like a lot of health trends, I heard about it, right? 'cause I'm in the health and fitness space and I was like, eh, I, it seems, I don't know, I, I don't, I don't agree with working out and not after when you haven't eaten anything.

[00:04:09] Alison: And like, I was just very skeptical of the whole thing. So listening to the show, Really opened my eyes to how metabolically dysfunctional most of us are, honestly. And you know, we haven't really talked about health and fitness on the show so far. But a again, I think it's important the better that we can take care of ourselves, both mentally and physically, the better partners we're gonna be, the better parents we're gonna be, the more resilient we're gonna be, both mentally and physically right, to handle the constant chaos that tends to be our lives in military families, right?

[00:04:51] Alison: So, okay, Dr. Pells explained. So well, it, it just made so much sense to my brain, what happens to your body when you're fasting. This was the analogy that she gave that I thought was just fantastic. If you think of your body like a hybrid car, okay, so you have an electrical piece and you have a gas piece.

[00:05:13] Alison: The gas piece is the food that you consume. The electrical piece is what your body has stored as fat. Okay. And our body needs to be able to switch between sugar burner, which is the food that you consume, and fat burner, which is the food that you store, just like a hybrid car, right? But if you eat all day long, which is the typical American diet where you're just constantly consuming, you never give your body that opportunity.

[00:05:48] Alison: To access that stored fuel. Okay. And I, you know, I don't, I think most of us don't really realize that we essentially have two metabolisms, right? One, you activate when you eat, and then the other one you activate when you don't eat. Okay. And so you have to go, it's about eight hours for your body to make the switch from sugar burner to fat burner.

[00:06:11] Alison: And then one of the terms that gets thrown around a, a lot, especially with fasting, is called metabolic switching. And it's a, a shift from using glucose or sugar for energy to the fatty acid derived ketones for energy, which is what you get when you go into your fat burner. Okay, And the act of going in and out of those two fuel sources is what elicits that healing response, right?

[00:06:38] Alison: The longer that you go without food, different things, different processes happen in the body. , I think the first bit of advice is, well, number one is do your own research, right? I highly, I highly recommend. That you pick up this book and because you know, knowledge is power and you, you need to be your own advocate.

[00:07:01] Alison: Right? Be and just because we have, we have this thing as a society, right? Is like, oh my gosh. Wow, you're talking to, you know, someone you haven't seen for a while, or one of your coworkers or something. They look fantastic. Oh my gosh, you look fantastic. What are you doing? Oh, well, I'm doing X, Y, and Z. So then you're like, oh, great.

[00:07:20] Alison: She looks so good. She's gotten such great results. I'm gonna do X, Y, and Z, and then it doesn't work for you and you get frustrated and whatever. Right? Just because it works for somebody else doesn't mean that it's gonna work for you, right? You have to work with your own unique body and needs.

[00:07:39] Alison: To be successful. . And then number two is you have to ease yourself in to this type of li lifestyle, a fasting lifestyle. And she does a great job walking you into it with very specific protocol specific days and fasting parameters. So, you know, don't just jump in and be like, I'm gonna do a three day fast.

[00:08:02] Alison: It's. It is probably not gonna be successful, let's just be honest. . She recommends a two week intro phase of shorter fasts that sets you up for a 30 day fasting reset, which varies your fast anywhere from like 13 to 24 hours. So personally, I started off with 12 hours. It was easy for me to stop eating at 8:00 PM.

[00:08:28] Alison: And then go to bed. So you get to sleep through the majority of your fast and then not eat until 8:00 AM the next morning. This is a 12 hour fast, right? That's pretty easy. That feels very doable to kind of get started. And then there's, there's actually. Six different fasts that Dr. Pells talks about in the book, and she provides the research behind 'em and how to use them in your own, you know, for your own specific healing, whatever issues you might have.

[00:08:54] Alison: , the six different fasts that she utilizes in her 30 day fasting reset. There's intermittent fasting, which is 12 to 16 hours. There's autophagy fasting, which is 17 hours. So autophagy. Allows your body to break down and reuse old cell parts, right, so your cells can operate more efficiently. It's a natural cleaning out process , of your body, of your cells.

[00:09:19] Alison: That begins when your cells are stressed or deprived of nutrients. Hence, When they're in a fasted state. So this is 17 hours of the autophagy. Fasting is where your body, it. Lets go of all the, the, the crap cells, the toxins and things in your body. Okay? So there's that one. And then the third one is a gut reset fast, which is 24 hours.

[00:09:40] Alison: She recommends this fast if you've been on birth control for long term or birth control at all. If you've taken antibiotics at any time in your life, which most of us have, Because, you know, antibiotics, they kill the bad bacteria, but they also kill all the good Mac bacteria too. They just decimate your gut microbiome.

[00:09:57] Alison: And then the last three fasts are are actually not part of the 30 day fasting reset. They're, they're for more advanced fasters, I guess you would say, or people that have been doing it for a while. So there's. The a fat burner fast, that's 36 hours. There's a dopamine reset fast, which is 48 hours. So if you have anxiety, depression any kind of mental issues, a dopamine reset fast might be really beneficial to you.

[00:10:26] Alison: And then the last one is immune reset fast, which is more than 72 hours. Okay, so. A woman's body, and this is where the book is important in fast, like a girl, she gives an example. I can't remember if it was on the show or if it was in the book where you know, you can have, so you have a couple, right? You have a husband and a wife, they are both have decided that they're gonna start intermittent fasting, and so they're going for, you know, anywhere from 13 to 16 hours of fasting.

[00:10:58] Alison: They're following the same thing, right? They're fasting for the same period of time. They're breaking their fast the same way. They're pretty much eating the same diet. And in a month the husband drops 15 pounds and the woman gains two. And it's like, what? You know what's going on, what's going on is the male body is very different from the female body, and we have to take that into account, especially when you're doing something like fasting, which is where this book really comes into play.

[00:11:30] Alison: And the reason why right, is because we have. Unlike men, we have all sorts of hormones to think about, so timing our fast to our menstrual cycle is critical. Hence the name fast like a girl. And it's important to vary your fasting length with your cycle. I think this is huge because she talks about there's a section of the book that she talks about different issues that might come up, like you might hit a plateau or have some adverse effects when fasting.

[00:12:03] Alison: And a lot of times it's because you are just doing a straight up fast. Hey, I feel really good. Oh, I'm gonna go longer today. And you, you don't, you just fast. And just kind of randomly, there's no, there's, you don't time it with your cycle at all. And that can cause problems. And cause some of the, the issues that you might see, like hair loss and different kind of things like that.

[00:12:29] Alison: So you need to vary your fast based on your cycle and, you know, your, your body is programmed to always work and stay in balance. So if you fast the same way every day, your body is gonna get comfortable with it, right? That's why you don't do the same workout all the time. 'cause your, your body's gonna get used to it.

[00:12:49] Alison: You're not gonna start seeing you're, you're gonna stop seeing results. It's the same thing. So hence, you know, varying your fast. Okay, so, What if you're in perimenopause or you're postmenopausal or you don't have a cycle. If you don't have a cycle, you can start this reset, this 30 day reset anytime you want, and you go all the way through it for 30, 30 days.

[00:13:10] Alison: And this works fabulously for younger women who've lost their period and want it back as well as for post-menopausal women who want to balance hormones that might have gone. Wackadoodle throughout the menopause years. Okay, so then a couple of questions that I think a lot of people think of are, well, what about working out?

[00:13:33] Alison: What about exercising while fasting? So, according to Dr. Pell's, working out in a fasted state during shorter fasts can be helpful As a weight loss tool, your body will naturally elevate its blood sugar during exercise to meet the physical demands of a workout. Personally, I think lighter exercise like walking or yoga in a fasted state is great.

[00:13:55] Alison: I wouldn't do a strenuous workout fasted, and then you, you really wanna make sure that you break your fast with a high protein meal afterwards. And then she does mention in the book, she works with a lot of women who are over the age of 40 and. Women over the age of 40 tend to have a more difficult time maintaining muscle mass.

[00:14:16] Alison: And if that is a problem for you and you are introducing fasting, she has seen results where women who have done strength training in a fasted state and then followed by a protein rich meal afterwards helped them build muscle. So there is some evidence to that. It's really, you know, kind of a personal choice and again, Do your own research and make your own decision.

[00:14:42] Alison: Okay. So if you experience health issues, so she talks about this a lot. Like you've lost your cycle, you have thyroid issues, adrenal fatigue, diabetes. There's a lot of research to support the benefits and healing effects of fasting. And again, the different types of fasts will help different issues. So she talks about different autoimmune diseases and things like that, that fasting can help.

[00:15:05] Alison: It's just, again, if your body can switch. And, and start using the the fat burning system and you get into autophagy where you're getting rid of toxins and things like that. A lot of immune issues are toxic load that we have in our body, that we've gotten from the environment, that we get from our water, that we've gotten from our foods, from products that we put on our bodies, things like that.

[00:15:28] Alison: You, if you, if you don't, you gotta get that stuff outta your body. And fasting is a great pathway to help do that. Okay, so there's also. This was really interesting. There's also some compelling evidence that for fasting as you're getting older. And the benefits of mental, like acuity and the prevention of Alzheimer's and dementia, or the improvement of symptoms.

[00:15:54] Alison: It's, it's fascinating. There's some really interesting information out there that in a fasted state, B D N F or B brain derived neurotropic factor is increased. It's, there's a lot of research that's really, really interesting. So again, educate yourself. Okay. I, you know, I think, so kind of like summing it all up, I think.

[00:16:16] Alison: That, you know, we all know, and we talked about this with earlier in our PCs series, that, you know, diets are really hard and and a lot of 'em don't work, right? And the beauty of fasting is it costs $0 and anyone can do it. And. You can customize it to you and whatever specific issues you might have.

[00:16:43] Alison: You don't have to prep any foods, you don't have to follow a special diet, and that is really nice as it, it just makes it so much easier to fit into. The crazy, hectic life that a lot of us lead, regardless of if you're in the military or not. Military families I think take it to another level, but I think we experience that in everyday life.

[00:17:02] Alison: So this is something that's super easy to do. Again, it doesn't cost any money and you can fully customize it to you. And I think that that's, that's really a beautiful thing. So for me personally, I've been playing around with it with fasting since I started the book. And what I found so far is that I feel.

[00:17:20] Alison: So much better. I don't feel as fluffy. I don't, I don't actually weigh myself at a conscious choice that I make to not get on the scale. So I'm not actually sure of, you know, actual weight loss, but I just feel better in my skin. My clothes feel better. And honestly, that's worth more to me than any number on the scale is how I'm feeling.

[00:17:45] Alison: I also, I feel like I'm clearer mentally and I'm, yeah, I'm just, I've been kind of enjoying the journey so far. So I'm gonna do, I had, I got really sick, so if you noticed a couple of weeks ago, there were two weeks where no episodes came out that was not planned. I got sick, I was sick for like two weeks.

[00:18:04] Alison: I had a fever off and on and it ended up being a sinus infection. Because I did have a, a nasty cold for the first week, and then I felt better, but then I kept spiking a fever for a week and I was like, what is going on? So I ended up going on antibiotics and I'm feeling much better, but it was pretty rough there for, for a couple of weeks.

[00:18:23] Alison: So I, I'm going to start the full 30 day reset here shortly. And again, she gives you specific, you know, in your cycle from days one to four, you wanna do this type of fast. And then from days four to six, you wanna do this type of fast and then, and these are the foods that you wanna eat. She makes it really, really, really simple to follow this plan.

[00:18:43] Alison: So I'm excited to to do that and I will report back to you how it goes. So just again, I like to share what I'm reading, what I'm learning about. If you found any of it compelling, please pick up your own copy of the book so that you can learn about, you know, what type of fasting might be good for your specific body and your needs.

[00:19:08] Alison: And then, you know, hit me up on Instagram at the Mill Spouse Podcast, or email me at the Mill Spouse podcast@gmail.com. Let me know if you like this episode, if you wanna hear more about health and wellness on the show. Let me know. All right. Until next time.