%20-%202.png)
Enjoying Life OTR
Enjoying Life OTR is a podcast for drivers who want to make the most of life on the road—without overcomplicating things. Hosted by Cindy, a fun and curious driver who’s always finding great guests to speak on topics that matter to drivers. Brian, an old hand with a new plan, brings irreverent humor, real talk, and plenty of life applications to the mix. Together, they keep the conversations engaging, relevant, and, most importantly, entertaining.
Some episodes feature drivers sharing their experiences—the good, the tough, and the downright hilarious. Other times, guests bring fresh insights, useful strategies, or just a great story to help make life on the road a little smoother. One thing’s for sure—this is a podcast made for drivers, by people who get it.
If you love a good story, want to pick up a few life hacks, or just need a reminder that you’re not out here alone—this is the show for you.
#EnjoyingLifeOTR #HealthierTruckers
Enjoying Life OTR
#64 Gin Stephens' Guide to Intermittent Fasting for Healthier Journey
What if one simple change could redefine your health and energy? In this episode of Enjoying Life OTR, we explore the powerful impact of intermittent fasting with Gin Stevens, NY Times best-selling author and expert on intermitten fasting. Gin shares game-changing strategies for incorporating fasting into the unique challenges of the trucking lifestyle—breaking down barriers and offering practical tools for real results.
You’ll hear stories of transformation, including Brian Wilson, an OTR driver who lost 85 pounds and hear more inspiring stories from OTR drivers: Lamar Myart, Gemma Ford, and Marie Ward. Whether you’re looking to shed weight, manage diabetes, reduce brain fog or simply feel better, we unpack the science of fasting. Gin explains the importance of a clean fast and why your zero-calorie sweeteners sabotage your efforts. We share ways to build discipline without overcomplicating the process.
This episode delivers more than advice—it’s packed with hope, community, and actionable steps to help you take control of your health. Tune in to learn about Gin’s "28-Day Fast Start" and "Delay Don't Deny" audiobooks and discover why intermittent fasting is more than a trend—it’s a sustainable way to thrive on the road and beyond.
This episode dives deep into how intermittent fasting offers truck drivers a lifeline in their health journeys, showcasing personal stories of transformation and success. With insights from Gin Stevens and real-life experiences from drivers, we'll gain practical tools and motivation for adopting intermittent fasting, regardless of our challenging schedules.
• Exploring the unique challenges of maintaining health as a truck driver
• Personal success stories demonstrating the benefits of intermittent fasting
• Gin Stevens elaborates on the importance of a clean fast
• Addressing hunger and maintaining energy levels during fasting
• Community support as a vital aspect of any health journey
• Practical tips to start intermittent fasting while trucking
Find more books and additional resources at GinStephens.com
Tune into Gin's podcast each week for more inspiration:
https://www.intermittentfastingstories.com/ https://www.fastf
Enjoying Life OTR—because LIVING WELL is worth the effort. We’re sparking curiosity, adventure, & resilience while honoring drivers and embracing a healthier trucking life. Discover creative life hacks & practical strategies to make the most of your time on the road. Join the movement!Explore, enjoy the food, snap the pic, and share tips on saving money along the way.
This podcast is for new and veteran drivers looking to stay mentally, physically, and financially strong while embracing the freedom of the road. We bring you real stories, expert advice, & practical tools to help you thrive, not just survive, in the trucking life.
Connect with Us: Join the Enjoying Life OTR Facebook Group – Share your journey, find trip recommendations, & connect with fellow drivers. Follow our Facebook page – Get the latest podcast episodes, trucking tips, & entertaining content. Visit our website – Explore our journey, see community highlights, and access resources for a healthier, more balanced OTR life.
For questions or to be a guest, email our host, Cindy Tunstall at EnjoyingLifeOTR@gmail.com #HealthierTruckers #EnjoyingLifeOTR #TruckerWellness #OTRLife #WorkLifeBalance
Welcome back to Enjoying Life OTR and Happy New Year. I'm Brian Wilson stepping in for Dino while he takes some well-earned home time. Now he left me some pretty big shoes to fill, but I'm going to give it my best shot Before we dive in. I got got to tell you if you haven't caught episode 48 yet, do yourself a favor and give it a listen. That's where I shared how I managed to lose 85 pounds while still out here driving over the road. If I can do it, anyone can, and I'd love to share some encouragement with you there. I might add, I started it at 63 years old, so you're never too old to get healthy as we kick off this year. Boy, do we have a great show for you today After the busyness and, let's be honest, the food overload of the holiday season. I don't know about you, but I did put on a few pounds and I'm ready to lose them. Luckily, we've got just the thing to kick off the new year right Today. We're thrilled no, I mean really thrilled to welcome Jen Stevens to the show.
Brian Wilson:Jen is a New York Times best-selling author and one of the world's top experts on intermittent fasting. Her books and podcasts are the gold standard for anyone looking to transform their health and well-being. If you've ever been curious about fasting or need motivation to start, buckle up. Jen's wisdom will inspire you to rethink the way you approach food and health. And that's not all. Be sure to stay tuned until the very end, because we've got a special treat for you. Several OTR drivers, including myself, will be sharing how intermittent fasting has worked for us, even while navigating life on the road. Trust me, you don't want to miss this.
Cindy Tunstall:Welcome back to Enjoying Life. Otr. My name is Cindy Tunstall and I'm your host. Today we have a fantastic episode. We are honored to get to have Jen Stevens on the show today. She is a New York Times and an Amazon's bestseller. She's an author, podcaster, influencer and she has changed the world of intermittent fasting. I personally am a big fan. I've done so much of her, devoured her content and I'm thrilled for you to meet her.
Gin Stephens:Welcome to the show Jen. Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm really glad to be here.
Cindy Tunstall:Well before we jump into the ins and outs of intermittent fasting. I know that a lot of our audience are not familiar with intermittent fasting and how that could benefit us as truckers. But would you mind telling us a little bit about your background and how you got interested in intermittent fasting and maybe say a little bit about who you are and who you aren't?
Gin Stephens:Absolutely. I love the way you said that who I am and who I am not, because that's really important. Who am I? I am a 55-year-old wife, mother of two adult sons, and my background is elementary education. I was a teacher for 28 years, so I am very much a teacher. I always knew I wanted to be a teacher, and you might think how in the world is a teacher writing and speaking about intermittent fasting? Well, it's because, like many people who are listening, I struggled with my weight and I had a really hard time with it. And you know I also have a doctorate and gifted education.
Gin Stephens:I'm a smart person, I'm successful at things, and so when I was having such a hard time with my weight and trying different things and nothing would work long term for decades, I was so frustrated and thought how can I be so smart and good at things and successful in so many areas of my life, but I cannot get a handle on what my weight does? You know, I was actually obese. At one point I was 210 pounds and I'm 5'5", and so that put me in the obese category, and so I, just out of desperation, kept looking for answers and, thank goodness, the answer that finally stuck for me was intermittent fasting, and I started. I dabbled in it for a while, from 2009 to 2014. It didn't stick, but finally, in 2014, when I saw that number 210 and I knew that I had to change. That was the time that I started intermittent fasting for the last time, and I never quit.
Gin Stephens:So you can see, it's been over 10 years now since I started and never stopped, and I went on to lose 80 pounds and I have kept it off, even as I went through menopause. And when you lose that kind of weight after so long struggling, you want to tell people about it, and that's really how it started. You know, I started telling people about it that were near me and then I started a Facebook group this was in 2015, you know for people who were wanting to do intermittent fasting where we could share together and work together as a community, and it just built and built from that, and so I realized that the resources that were out there about intermittent fasting were written by doctors or people who are scientists and or, you know, by someone who might be having a very specific diet point of view that they wanted you to follow, and so when people would ask me for help, you know where do I get started?
Gin Stephens:What do I read? What resources are there? You know, I found myself saying, well, you could read this one book, but ignore what they say about this. Or this book has some good stuff in it, but ignore the part about this, because now we know something else. And so the teacher in me got frustrated at the lack of resources. So, like any good teacher, I created my own, and that was when I wrote my first book in 2016,. Delay Don't Deny Living an Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle. And I just put it out into the world and there it went, and I didn't know if anybody would read it. I didn't know if people would say why is a teacher writing a book, this is so dumb, don't listen to her. But people started buying it and they started reading it, and they started living the intermittent fasting lifestyle and they started following it. And then they started telling people about it. And so, based on just word of mouth of one person having success and then telling the people in their life, the message got multiplied. And so that's, that's who I am.
Cindy Tunstall:Well, june, I love your books. I love your books. One of the things that I most enjoyed about your book I read Fast Feast Repeat, and I know that the Delay Don't Deny just came out with a second edition, so I'm eager to get my hands on that. You know I do audiobooks, so I'll be getting that for sure. But what I loved about your book is that you included the science, but it wasn't so much that I couldn't grasp it.
Cindy Tunstall:You know it wasn't over my head, so I love the way that you did that, and I also really love that you encourage people to look at the resources themselves if they want to dig in some more. So, and then also your attitude about you know, try what works for you, tweak it until it's you know, it gets easy, and so I just love all of that coaching. It was very inspiring and, of course, the sprinkling of testimonies of people whose lives have been changed. My life has been changed because of it, so I'm a huge fan and I'm really grateful for my audience to get to know a little bit more about this.
Gin Stephens:Thank you, and I really do think that pointing people to the resources for themselves if they want to learn more is so important. You know, as I said, I have a doctorate in gifted education, so I had to write a dissertation. I had to learn how to look at, you know, scientific journal articles and in my, you know, dissertation work it was educational journal articles. But you're the same kind of thing with health and and so going to the articles themselves, you'd be able to see it for yourself. I think think is so important and I've got all of that in the reference section of fast feast repeat so I people can learn as much as they want.
Cindy Tunstall:Yeah, I love that. Well, what is it about intermittent fasting that made a difference for you? Cause I know you described being on that rollerco coaster of dieting and getting frustrated that you can't make it work, and I think that's very common for many of our listeners, you know so. I mean for myself as well. So what is it about intermittent fasting that's different than those other? You know, diets, so to speak, or weight loss plans.
Gin Stephens:Well, there are so many ways I can go with this answer because it's different for many, many reasons, multiple reasons, but I'll see if I can put as many of them in here as I can. First of all, when I started intermittent fasting you're dabbling in it first and then committing to it in 2014, we really didn't know. No one was talking about anything other than, well, intermittent fasting you're eating within a period of time, whether that's five hours, eight hours, four hours, whatever it is. Whatever form of intermittent fasting you're doing allows you to eat fewer calories, so you lose weight. That was the initial. You know what everyone said.
Gin Stephens:Everything I read was like it allows you to eat fewer calories, so you're losing weight, but it's easier to eat fewer calories in your eating window, simply because you know you're just not having to think about food the rest of the day. So you go through the day, you have your eating window, you're eating through your calories, you lose weight. That was the whole idea. We've heard all of our adult lives calories in, calories out. It's just as simple as a math formula. You count your calories in, you take your calories out with exercise or just running your body functions. It's a math problem, so it's simple. A fifth grader could do it. But for any of us who have ever tried to live a low-calorie diet, where we're starting in the morning with a tiny little breakfast, having our tiny little snacks and our tiny little lunch and we're trying to eat 1,200 calories over the course of the whole waking day, we know that it is really unpleasant to try to eat a low-calorie diet throughout the day. So in that regard, you can think, okay, well, intermittent fasting does make it easier because you're just in a smaller period of time, you could eat a 1,200-calorie meal and you feel really, really satisfied. So on the surface, it feels like well, you know, intermittent fasting does help with calories in, calories out. Then I read the Obesity Code in the spring of 2016.
Gin Stephens:It was written by Dr Jason Fung, and he is a nephrologist, which is a kidney doctor, and in his work with patients, you know they come to him with kidney problems. But the underlying, foundational problem so common for many of his patients is, of course, you know, type 2 diabetes. Many of them are diabetic, many of them have metabolic syndrome. So many health problems that, of course, end up with kidney disease is one of the paths along the way. So he started really thinking how can I help my patients? They need to lose weight, they need to get healthy, they need to manage their diabetes, and he started using fasting with his patients, and he wrote about something called insulin, which everyone has heard of but a lot of people don't understand.
Gin Stephens:We think of insulin as well. It's the thing that you use if you're diabetic. If you have type 1 diabetes, you have to inject it every day because your pancreas no longer makes it, and if you're type 2 diabetic, it starts with insulin resistance too much insulin but then eventually with type 2 diabetes. If you don't manage it, you probably will become insulin dependent yourself. So that's everybody what we know about insulin.
Gin Stephens:But Jason Fung taught me that insulin is important for our health, for all of us. So he talked about he talked to me about the importance of having low levels of insulin in your body if you want to burn your own fat, which, of course, is what we want to do. If we want to lose weight, we want to burn fat, so we have to keep our insulin low while we're fasting in order to burn our fat. And so that was just a light bulb moment for me, and so I realized. Well, fasting really is different because if you're eating that typical 1200 calorie diet throughout the day, where you're having your diet soda and your little snacks and whatever, you're having constant insulin release throughout the day, whereas when you're fasting and fasting clean which I can talk more about and would love to talk more about in a few minutes your body has lower levels of insulin and you're finally able to tap into your fat stores. So you're tapping into your stored fat for fuel, just like you want to, just like it's stored there on your body. That's why it's there and it changes the whole experience. So fasting is so different from the typical low calorie diets in that regard.
Gin Stephens:Another reason that fasting is just so much easier has to do with our willpower. You know it's been. You think about willpower as like a bucket. We have a limited amount of willpower for the day and if you are constantly making food decisions all the time, like should I go ahead and eat that now? Should I have a snack, should I not?
Gin Stephens:Every time you say, well, no, I'm going to wait, I'm not going to have that now. You know I'm eating my breakfast, then I'll wait for lunch for another couple hours, whatever, you're depleting your willpower throughout the day. But when you are living an intermittent fasting lifestyle and let's say you know you're going to open your window at two o'clock and then it's going to stay up until seven, you no longer have to make any food decisions. Am I going to have that snack now? The answer is no, because your window is not open, you're fasting, so it takes away that decision fatigue and having to constantly rely on willpower. You just don't have to think about it. My window's closed, I'm not eating yet, and then when my window opens, then I'll eat.
Cindy Tunstall:And so that's another reason why intermittent fasting is so much easier. I love that because as drivers, we talk a lot about decision fatigue on the show, because for drivers, we're just bombarded with you know so much all day. We're just spent at the end of the day. So this really will resonate with our audience. We're familiar with that term and we're all any way we can reduce our decision fatigue. But that's true. I love not thinking about food. I usually do a three to nine window and that works great for me. I'm like I don't have to think about food. It's just one less thing. I just focus on the work.
Cindy Tunstall:One thing that was really surprising to me when I started I was worried about my energy level and I was like you know cause I would start my. I would want to eat later in the day and I do black coffee. So that was easy for me, and we'll talk about clean fasting in a minute. But I was so shocked that I could do physical hard labor. Um, things that were very intensive at the time when I was starting. I was doing touch freight, so I was physically moving pallets in and out of my truck and I was so shocked that I had the energy to do that while I was on my fasting time and it was just I was like, oh my gosh, this could possibly work for me. Yeah yeah, it was just shocking. And then the clarity of thought too. I was super focused, which was really great for when I was driving, and so I'm a big, big fan Do you want me to explain to your audience why we have the better energy during the fast.
Cindy Tunstall:Yeah, I'd love that. And then I want to talk about what. What makes a clean fast. So, yes, please tell me about that. I want to hear it again, for myself.
Gin Stephens:Why is that working? Yeah, well, it's so, you know, counterintuitive, because we've been told all of our lives that you need to eat so you'll have energy. Right, you got to eat, so you'll have the energy. Keep your mind sharp. But then we find, you know, we actually feel sluggish after we eat and our energy dips a couple of hours after we eat. Then we have to fuel up again. So it's, you know. Think about your truck.
Gemma Ford:I'm making a trucker analogy here.
Gin Stephens:What if you had to stop and fill up your truck every five miles for gas? You know you would stop, fill your truck up again. It could go for five miles. Then you had to fill it up again. Then you had to fill it up again. Then you had. You wouldn't get very far. That would not be very good.
Gin Stephens:Same with our bodies. If we're constantly fueling up every hour with a snack, we don't need to do that. Your truck has a really big gas tank, large fuel tank, and you don't need to stop and fuel it up all the time. You fuel it up, then you are driving on that stored fuel. Our bodies are like that too. So when we are eating food constantly and snacking throughout the day, it's like we're stopping for fuel every five miles. But when we are fasting clean our body, it might say, hey, you know what, I'd like to have a snack. You know my blood sugar is getting a little low. I'm used to eating snacks. And then you're like, nope, nope, I'm fasting now. So your body's like well, okay, fine, I'll turn to my stored fuel. And so first we burn the glycogen in our liver, we use stored glycogen, which is like a glucose source in our muscles. Then we turn to our stored fat and we've got plenty of stored fuel on our body at all times. Even someone who is in a normal weight and not overweight, you've got plenty of stored fuel on your body so our bodies are able to access it. Because we're fasting clean.
Gin Stephens:So while your body is adapting to clean fasting, you might have some of that brain fog, you might feel hangry. Your body is not used to tapping in to your stored fat for fuel. It doesn't really quite know how, because you haven't had a reason to, because you're fueling up with your constant snacks. But once your body flips that metabolic switch and says, okay, okay, I can, I can go to my fat stores now, then you know you might be. You wake up in the morning, you keep fasting, or fasting clean. You might have a little mild hunger wave and your body says you know I could eat right now. You could stop for some gas if you want to. But you say, nope, there's plenty stored away. And then everybody's like, fine, I'll use the, I'll use what's stored away, and then the hunger goes away. You have great energy because you have plenty of fuel stored on your body to fuel your body through the day.
Cindy Tunstall:I was surprised when I started that those I learned that you know, keep snacks away from me, because sometimes I was just eating when I was bored, I wasn't even really hungry. So that taught me like to listen to my body. I'm really not starving right now. I think I in the past I would go, I need to eat. I could feel a little rumbling in my tummy, but when I started driving and I started the fasting I was like I would pat myself on the tummy, I would go you're going to be all right. And I was reminding myself physically that you have plenty, you're going to get through. So it actually didn't, that's right. I was like you can do this. And I was like, anyway, you're not going to die here, you've got plenty to get us through till three o'clock.
Cindy Tunstall:So it was surprising that it didn't and it got easier, like it. I wouldn't even have to do that for very long. How long is it before you think you know somebody would make the adjustment? Where it gets to? You know, where it doesn't feel like it's even a big distraction to think about not eating. When does it get easier? What's the timeframe?
Gin Stephens:That is a great question and we're also very different with our metabolic health. So somebody who has been struggling with obesity maybe for decades and used to eating a lot, maybe someone who has a fatty liver, for example, a lot of people have fatty liver disease from snacking, not from alcohol. These days it's just from eating, and that's a real problem in our society. Someone who has a lot of metabolic issues, it may take them longer because your body's going to work on clearing out that fatty liver first before it can tap into the fat on your thighs or wherever else it might be. So you may have a lot more metabolic healing. For someone who is pretty metabolically healthy but just ready to get started with fasting, the transition could happen a lot more quickly. We say 28 days.
Gin Stephens:I've got my book 28-Day Fast Start, day by Day, which is available on audiobook for truckers who like to listen. It has a reflection component, but you can just think about it while you're driving and each day there's a different lesson. So 28 days is about um, maybe an average amount of time, but just keeping in mind that it could be. It could be less time or it could be longer if you've got, you know, more metabolic issues that your body has to work through, because we all start at a different point of health. You know, I think about it like going into the forest. You know if you're, if you walk into a forest and then you decide I'm going to turn and go out of the forest, you have to walk back the same distance that you came out. So you know, if you're a long way into the forest, you've got to walk back a long way.
Cindy Tunstall:Okay, that's a good analogy. Okay, yeah, that's helpful. Okay, well, I really like this. So tell us a little bit about a clean fast and I'll tell you my experience.
Cindy Tunstall:I had, um, I learned about intermittent fasting from my older brother and he had I'd seen him in a while and he dropped a bunch of weight. I'm like, what are you doing? You look great, he looks so fit and you know, and he goes. I've been doing intermittent fasting and he told me he had this six hour eating window and then he didn't eat the rest of the time. And my first response was, oh my Lord, I could not do that. And I was like, but I couldn't get over his he looks so great. And he said, yeah, I'm eating whatever I want during that time. You know I'm not going crazy, but you know I could still, you know, eat a good meal and it just sustains me, and I just have a little snack your book at the time.
Cindy Tunstall:And I was like, and I would eat, um, I was already drinking black coffee, so I that wasn't breaking my fast, but when I was having that little craving, I think it was just a habit of eating. I wasn't starving, but I was like, well, let me just pop in some sugar-free gum, cause that'll help me get me through, cause I just need to make it till three o'clock. I swear, jen, I would go to a whole pack of gum and I would be and I would feel like I was starving, anyway. Then, finally, somebody told me about your book. That's when I read um, fast, feast repeat, and I was like, oh, so I learned about the clean fast and what's it, what it means to eat clean and have a clean, you know, fasting window. So can you tell our audience really practically what that means and why that sugar-free gum was sabotaging my efforts?
Gin Stephens:Yeah, and yet again it goes back to what we all just believe, because we've been told calories in, calories out is all that matters. So if you're just going from the thought of calories in is all that matters, and I'm going to fast, and you might think, well, fasting just means you're not eating solid food, and obviously that's true. But then we're like, well, zero calories can't possibly make a difference. We've got diet sodas, we've got water enhancers, we've got the sugar-free gum, we've got sugar-free mints, all those things that didn't exist, you know, a hundred years ago, but we've got them all now. So we think, well, obviously if I'm just not eating, that's fasting. Well, obviously, if I'm just not eating, that's fasting. Well, there's a lot more to it than just calories, like I said before, and I really learned that when I read the obesity code. And you know I talked before about insulin and we want to keep our insulin low. And so there are three goals to the clean fast and when you understand the three fasting goals, it helps, you know. You know what would be a problem and what wouldn't be. The first goal is related to insulin. We want to keep our insulin low and, as I said before, having constant high levels of insulin keeps us from burning fat. Insulin is antilepilitic, which means it works against fat burning. Lipolysis is fat burning. So when your insulin is high, you're actually in storage mode, because insulin is designed to work in our bodies. We eat food and then our body, our pancreas, releases insulin to help us store away the blood sugar. That's how it's supposed to work. That's why diabetics have to take injections of insulin, because your body can't work without insulin.
Gin Stephens:Insulin's important, but here's a little sneaky thing about insulin. Our bodies release insulin in response to food, but also when our brain thinks food is coming in, there's something called the cephalic phase insulin response. Cephalic refers to your brain, a brain-based insulin response. When you're chewing gum that has a sweetness to it, when you're drinking a diet soda that tastes sweet. When you're putting water enhancers in your water that tastes like fruit, when you're putting lemon in your water, when you're having that sugar-free mint, putting that splash of cream in your coffee, the brain says I know what this is, this is sweet.
Gin Stephens:And your brain relates that to like sugary things, because all throughout history, when you had a food taste in your mouth, you were getting in some kind of sugar coming in right, and so your body prepares for that sugar that's coming in by putting a little insulin out for you. So by having that gum or that diet soda or that water enhancer or the lemon in your water, your pancreas pumps out some insulin in response to it, even though it's got zero calories. So that cephalic phase insulin response. I was like, wow, that explains, because I was not fasting clean. I was fasting but I wasn't fasting clean. I was having diet sodas, I was chewing gum all the time, I was drinking flavored water and I was white knuckling it every day.
Cindy Tunstall:That's exactly how I would describe it. I'm like, okay, you can do it. You could do it. It's supposed to get easier.
Gin Stephens:You know, I was motivated because I was losing weight, but it was hard and it felt awful. And so after I read the obesity code, I was like, all right, I'm going to do it. I took the stevia out of my coffee, I took the cinnamon out, I took all of it out, all the flavors, all the gum, everything, and I started fasting clean. And, oh my gosh, it was so much easier. I couldn't believe it. So that's fasting goal one Avoid anything that has a food flavor, sweetness, anything like that. That is going to make your brain think that food is coming in. So fasting goal number two is we would like to tap into stored fat for fuel. Well, in order to tap into stored fat, we should not be putting in any source of calories. And so sometimes people might say well, you know, I heard something about something called bulletproof coffee and they said it doesn't break a fast, it's got butter in it, it's got you know whatever coconut oil, and that's great because it's going to give you mental clarity. Well, you know, maybe you'll have some mental clarity from all that fat you're putting in your coffee, but you're not going to tap into your stored fat for fuel. So we want to tap into our stored fat and use the energy that's already on hand, so you do not want to put anything in your coffee or your tea that is going to be a source of fuel for your body. You want to clear the fat out of your fatty liver. You want to clear the glycogen out of your liver. You want to burn your own stored fat. So don't put in anything that your body could use as fuel while you're fasting.
Gin Stephens:And then the third fasting goal has to do with something called autophagy, and we want to have increased autophagy while we're fasting. And you know what in the world is autophagy? And it's something that I'd never heard of until 2016. And in 2016, the Naval Prize in Medicine was awarded to a researcher who was researching autophagy, which is our body's cellular housekeeping. Basically, it's like our body's recycling and upcycling process. You've got some old cellular junk sitting around, some junky proteins that are no longer needed. Your body cleans it up, and you know we have to have our bodies able to clean things up, but eating all the time halts autophagy. Eating protein halts autophagy. So we want to have increased autophagy during the fasting time. Our body can have that cellular house cleaning time, and so we avoid ingesting anything that has protein, like bone broth, for example. There are people who say oh, I just do a bone broth fast. Well, that's not fasting, because you're taking in protein.
Cindy Tunstall:Okay, and just so we're clear, you're just saying, when you're doing the fasting, not to eliminate protein during your eating window, oh gosh, yeah, okay I. To eliminate protein during your eating window. Oh gosh, yeah, okay. I just want to clarify we're talking about the clean fast, okay, okay, got it, we're fasting.
Gin Stephens:Okay, thank you. All of these things are for during the fast, Okay okay.
Gin Stephens:The food flavor. We don't want the source of fuel, we don't want the protein during the fast. Okay, so we want those three fasting goals. If you are fasting you want to. Number one keep insulin low. Number two don't put any sources of fuel. Number three don't have any protein during the fast. When your eating window opens, you're going to have insulin response and that's normal and expected and you want it. When your eating window opens, you're going to put in fuel or you're going to have protein, but just during the fast you want to fast clean.
Gin Stephens:So what can you have, right? Right, it's really so easy. You can have plain water and I know a lot of people listening are probably used to putting something in your water for flavor. We've gotten to the point now that people say, oh, I hate the taste of plain water and we got to retrain our taste buds to not be looking for flavor sensation all the time. Um, so plain water, plain sparkling water, with no flavors. That can be hard to find.
Gin Stephens:I know if you're stopping at the truck, stop, you look and you want to grab something and you look at the flavor, or you look at the sparkling water section at all, like lemon, lime, whatever. You can't have any of that, just stick to the plain, if you can find it. And then you want to stick to black coffee and plain tea, and this is another problem I think that you're going to find with your trucker community that's stopping at truck stops. You can probably find black coffee that's hot, no problem at all. But you may want to reach into the refrigerated section and grab some kind of cold brew coffee or some kind of bottled tea, and that is where you're going to need to read ingredients brew coffee or some kind of bottled tea.
Gin Stephens:And that is where you're going to need to read ingredients, because the only ingredients on your tea and coffee should be tea and water or coffee and water. And they like to put in a lot of sneaky things like citric acid, which adds a tangy lemony flavor. You might not even realize that, but it's that tangy flavor from the citric acid, or the coffee might have natural flavors added, which is going to make your brain think food is coming in. So you've got to read those labels. Make sure it's just coffee and water, that's it. Tea and water, that's it. So that's it. Black coffee, plain tea, plain water, unflavored sparkling water, and that's really pretty much all you should be putting in your mouth during the fast.
Cindy Tunstall:Okay, I love this. Very practical, very doable, um, you know, and also at truck stops there's a hot water thing, so people want tea rather than coffee. They can get. It's really easy to get hot water there and brew your own tea back in the truck, so that's a good option for drivers and can.
Gin Stephens:I pop in there real quick that it needs to be real tea and not all those herbal teas Like I used to drink before I learned about the Clean Fast. I used to drink apple cinnamon herbal tea. You don't want that. Anything that's got a sweetness or a fruit food flavor, ignore it. Just get your regular Lipton, plain old orange Pico tea, which now sounds even more confusing because orange Pico sounds like it's orange flavor, but that's just a grade of tea. So if your confusing because orange Pico sounds like it's orange flavor, but that's just a grade of tea. So if your tea says orange Pico tea, it's fine.
Cindy Tunstall:Oh good, I didn't know that. That's good to know. And the other thing at the truck stop there's lots of coffee flavors. So what about a pumpkin spice or a hazelnut pecan? What about those? Could those work or that's a problem?
Gin Stephens:I'm so glad you asked, because of course no, those are all going to be food-like flavors. You want to avoid any kind of flavored anything because your brain is going to be like, ooh, pumpkin, spice, yummy. And our brains have not adapted to the modern world where these are artificially flavored, zero calorie things. So you just want your coffee to taste like coffee, just plain old coffee. And for anybody who's listening, this is. But I hate black coffee. I can't do that. I promise you can.
Gin Stephens:When I read the obesity code and realized I was going to have to cut out my vanilla cream, stevia and I was going to have to cut out my cinnamon and my coffee that made it delicious. I was, I was mad. I'm like well, I can't, I can't drink it black, so I'm just going to have to give up coffee completely. And so, like for two days I didn't drink any coffee. And then I realized I missed it, Like I missed having my hot coffee, just the ritual, the smell of the coffee in the morning. I really enjoyed having it. So I'm like okay, maybe I can start to like black. I don't know. I didn't think I could, but I just started drinking it and it tasted so bad I was like mad and I was like this gross. But a funny thing happened that you know, after less than a week my taste buds had adapted to it and our taste buds turn over, like the taste buds you have today are not the same ones you're going to have in a week or two weeks. Our taste buds adapt to what we're putting in and so you will adapt to that bitter flavor profile.
Gin Stephens:And now that is how I prefer coffee. Like I'm drinking some right now while we're talking. And the old me who drank what I would call a hot milkshake you know it was. You know those lattes or even whatever those are hot milkshakes and I loved them and I had lattes all the time, all day long, before fasting, and I would never have guessed that I'd be drinking black coffee because that was a weirdo thing to drink. But now that is what I prefer. And can I say badass on your show? You sure can. And you know it just feels badass to just you go to a coffee shop and everybody's ordering their frappuccino with whip or whatever and I'm like just black, I just want it black. Like do you need room for cream? I'm like nope.
Cindy Tunstall:It's funny the response you get. I have that same experience too. They're like of course you're a truck driver and you drink black coffee. What else would I expect from you? I'm like what, it's good, you get used to it. Okay, I had a similar experience giving up creamer in my coffee and I had the same experience. I was also angry and I was like I don't think I could do this. This is the best part of my morning and but it did shift. One thing that helped me is I would not make my coffee quite as strong when I went back for the beginning. Now I can drink it a little bit stronger because I enjoy that coffee flavor, but I added a little bit of hot water. You know, when I was at a truck stop I would just add a little bit of hot water because I was used to adding creamer. So that really strong, strong coffee was great. But when I was transitioning, that was something that really helped me just to lighten up the brew just a little bit and wasn't quite so bitter.
Gin Stephens:Now I'm bring it on yeah, that is a great tip. As much creamer or cream as you put in, add an equal amount of water instead. I've actually heard people suggest that and that it worked for them because your mouth is used to that, but then you can gradually increase the strength. Now I drink a cuban roast right. It's really really strong and robust.
Cindy Tunstall:Well, this is so great and it's so helpful. Now, you know, with drivers, you know our nutrition, you know we have a, you know we're, we're busy and we're. Our work hours are very long but we're not moving. We're usually just driving for most of the day, so not lots of physical um. We don't have a lot of time for physical activity and working out. And then the other problem that we face is when we get to a truck stop, or you know, some people are cooking in their truck, which is great, but a lot of people. There's days you just don't have time to do that. You got to grab a quick lunch and so you're running into the truck stop to grab some. The food choices aren't always so great. Is intermittent fasting going to work when their nutritional choices are not as great? I mean, talk to me a little bit about the quality of the food that we're taking in during our eating window and how we transition to making changes.
Gin Stephens:Yep. So let's think about you know, the truck stop food and not fasting versus fasting. So just contrast how you might be living right now not as an intermittent faster for people who are listening the way you're eating right now, if you're not making great nutritional choices but you're eating all day, you're having issues related to eating all day that are impacting your health negatively. If all you do is shrink down the amount of time that you're eating to give your body that time for insulin to be low, for you to tap into your fat stores, for your body to have that autophagy where you're doing the cellular housekeeping, you just eat the same foods you were eating, but in a smaller period of time. That is going to give positive health benefits to you. So just making that one change will help. Now, over time, a funny thing happens for most of us.
Gin Stephens:When I first started intermittent fasting, I was eating the standard American diet. Like I said, I was 210 pounds. I was really going through a phase where I was sick of dieting because I had tried everything and giving up foods didn't work. Nothing that I had done, no diet worked or was sustainable. So I'm like I am never going to do that again. I just can't. That's why intermittent fasting was so appealing, because, literally, you just eat within your window and that's all you have to do. And so I just continued to eat the standard American diet and I lost my first 55 pounds, eating just the same exact way that I was. And then, you know, I wanted to speed things up a little bit, and I'd read a book that talked about not eating processed foods. So I gave that a try. So I gave that a try, and lo and behold, when I was eating real food, not only was it more satisfying, but I started to lose weight more quickly In my eating window.
Gin Stephens:I was eating nothing but real food and I wasn't counting fat, I wasn't restricting butter, I was putting lots of butter and sour cream on a baked potato and having beans with cheese. And you know I was eating plenty of food. But I started to lose weight more quickly. So for me, intermittent fasting plus real food just accelerated what was going on. But, like I said, the first 55 pounds I just continued to eat the way I had always eaten. But once I started eating better foods and again I started eating the better foods because I wanted my weight loss to pick up I started craving better foods. So the better foods I ate, the better foods I wanted to eat.
Gin Stephens:So if I were at a truck stop, I would look for the freshest things that were there. I would skip the chips you know there are a lot of snacky foods like that but I would look for, like you know, the boiled eggs and the cheese and the um. And they have the little wraps maybe you know, like turkey and cheese with lettuce on a wrap or something like that. And okay, you can have some chips with that if you want to. But I would center the meal around the freshest food that you can find. And you know, notice, I didn't say you have to eat the salads. Right, if you love salads, eat the salads. But salads just don't satisfy me the same way. That like a, a wrap would, or something like that, or a burrito, you know. Think about something that's going to really fill you up and be satisfying, but have real food in the center of it, like the beans and the cheese and the chicken and you know, whatever it is that's going to make you feel satisfied and your body's going to recognize that as real food.
Cindy Tunstall:I want to talk about the 28 days and kind of walk us through a little bit of that process. But, um, cause I'm I'm interested. As you're talking, I'm thinking, should we be thinking about how much we're eating then? And so why don't you just, rather than answer that question but that's rolling around in the back of my head as you're talking like should we be thinking about calories or no? Um, I know we're not supposed to do it, so I tried to break that habit. But tell us about practically in that first month. So somebody's been eating, snacking all day and having a snack before bed and we're eating creamer in the coffee and eating a big lunch. We've just been snacking, snacking, snacking as we drive. Give us how to get started and then we'll have more resources available for everybody at the end. Um, can you kind of give us an overview about what that first month is going to look like?
Gin Stephens:Yep, and I really do think that 28 day fast start, day by day the audio book is going to be such a good resource for your your drivers, to listen to their driving Cause every day.
Gin Stephens:There's like just a little bit something to listen to and at the beginning it walks you through choosing how you want to begin. You know there's like a little quiz that you can take and you can just take it mentally as you're listening to the book and you decide what approach you want to follow, and then it just walks you through every day. You have like okay, this is the approach I'm following for today and you just stick to it. And every day there's a lesson that goes along with what you're doing that day, and then time for you to reflect on the day and how it went, and you don't have to guess. You know how long should I fast on day one, because you're choosing it in the book and you're going to. You know when to adapt and when to adjust. That's all in there and you're just going to respond to what feels good to you. Also, every day there is an inspirational spotlight from a successful intermittent faster. That came on the Intermittent Fasting Stories podcast and I've now recorded over 440 episodes. So there is a lot. Y'all can listen to inspirational stories and but every day there's that inspirational spotlight where that person who was on the podcast is like here's how my life has been since the podcast. And then it tells you what podcast episode they were, so you can go listen to their original story too on that day. So you can listen to the daily inspirational spotlight and then go and listen to their whole podcast episode to know more about them. So there's lots and lots that you can listen to and really, just like you saw your brother being successful, just like I talked about at the beginning, it's word of mouth, it's people telling people. That is how this movement started and how it grows and continues.
Gin Stephens:You know, I had people say to me in like a health and wellness community I was part of. How did you do it? I'm like I didn't do anything. I just put some information out there and the people share it because it's good information and people know truth when they hear it, and so I didn't have to do anything. People just told each other about it and that's why this is so powerful so you can listen to the stories of others and let them share their success with you and then you'll be empowered to try it for yourself. So that's really what 28 day fast start, day by day, will do for you.
Gin Stephens:And I talk about some of the most common pitfalls along the way, like overeating at the beginning and why that might happen, like you talked about just before. You asked that question about calories and what can we eat and is it too much, and should we count them. Well, when your body is adapting during that first 28 days, you're not well-fueled during the fast yet Because, remember how I said, your body has to learn how to tap into your stored fuel and because your body isn't good at that yet, because you're still learning how to do that for the 28 days, or however long it takes your body, when you open your window, you might be starving because your body has just not really had a good tapping into fuel yet. So you overeat at first to overcompensate for that. But once your body flips that switch, once your body's like, okay, okay, I've got the stored fuel, I'm going to use that.
Gin Stephens:Suddenly your window opens. You've got your food ready, you start eating it. You're no longer just shoving it in, you're no longer feeling like you need to overeat and we call that appetite correction. Shoving it in, you're no longer feeling like you need to overeat, and we call that appetite correction. And it's when your body recognizes that there's plenty of fuel. You've got the stored fuel. You've been using that during the fast now because you're adapted and you don't need to eat as much during your eating window. And you'll be eating and you'll get through your meal and you will still have food left over, a meal that you would have finished before. And suddenly your body's like okay, I'm full. You're like what? How could I be full? I'm not finished yet, but you'll. You'll suddenly start tuning back into those hunger and satiety signals when your body's had enough. And that's why you don't have to count the single calorie. I guarantee if I had to count calories or count carbs or count fat for this to work, I would have quit a long time ago.
Cindy Tunstall:Yeah, that's a part for me. I'm like I couldn't do it. I'm like I'm not disciplined enough to do that. I've got so many things on my mind, I do not want to be thinking about how many calories in this apple.
Gin Stephens:No, and also you can't know. That's the funny part, you know when I would do those calorie counting diets in the past, before intermittent fasting, and I would try so hard. You know, if you're trying to count calories it's really hard. You look at an apple and you have no idea. You know, like one medium apple. Well, I don't know, is this a medium apple? I have no idea. So instead you're like well, I could get this a hundred calorie pack of Graham crackers. I know that's a hundred because it says it on the label. So I'm not going to eat this mystery apple that I don't really know what's in it. I'm going to eat this packaged food instead. And so counting calories actually steers you towards the crap, because it's easy to count the crap because it's on the label, whereas I don't know how many calories are in these grapes that I'm eating. But you know what? It doesn't matter, because my body recognizes those grapes as nutritious food versus the 100 calorie snack pack of graham crackers. My body's like what was that? That wasn't it Send?
Cindy Tunstall:something else down. Well, I love that you talk about this transition that happens in your body, because I remember that for me and I was like how is it possible that I am feeling satisfied eating this little tiny lunch when I just went 18 hours without food? Yeah, and it's incredible, and it's so. It feels so good. I'm like, oh my gosh, I felt I felt free, honestly, like I had been like constantly thinking about food and snacking and trying to um manage all the cravings that my body was having during the day. I felt I finally had felt like I made a switch over to like like I was in control of what was happening with my body and I was, I was being good to my body and I was like it was such a great feeling even before the pounds started coming off. So it was just such a great feeling and I still enjoy that very much.
Gin Stephens:Well, how much, how much weight have you lost?
Cindy Tunstall:Can you share that? Yeah, I've only. I've only lost about 10 pounds, 10, 15 pounds. But and I stopped fasting for a while I'm looking forward to doing I'm going to do a 28 day start again to get back to it. But, um, I didn't have, I wasn't, you know, really big, but, um, I was mainly just concerned cause I was eating really yucky foods and um, and you know, my energy was not great and um, you know, just constantly craving sweet things. So it was more a concern about, um, just the junk I was eating and I didn't know I needed to stop that cycle of the cravings and um, so that was more of the appeal for me than the weight loss and I put on a few pounds. So I want to, I want to get back to it for that reason. But, um, but I just love the way that my body feels when I'm I'm fasting, and the sharpness of my brain, the clarity of thought and then the sustained energy.
Cindy Tunstall:I have days that I, like I usually would start my fast at, my eating window would open at three o'clock, and I've had days where I was, you know, maybe doing a delivery at that time or, you know, having to do something with the truck and where I wasn't able to stop and have a meal and I ended up eating at six o'clock and I thought how could I? It's possible that I went. I've even had a day when I went 24 hours and I was like I wasn't doing it on purpose, just the scheduling was just working out and I wasn't even just felt like I was dying. I was starting to have some symptoms like okay, like I'm, I'm hungry. Now it's starting to feel a little bit like I need to eat. But it really was shocking to me that that could happen and I'm like I don't do that often, but when it happened I was like wait a minute, what is happening with my body? So just really exciting.
Gin Stephens:Yeah, our bodies are amazingly capable when we get out of the way and let them do what they need to do in the background. And the fact that you feel so much better after your body adapts, you know, know, illustrates that our bodies are meant to to be metabolically flexible. Because you think about, you know, ancient man back there and two thousand years ago, or three thousand, however many, how many thousands of years ago, there wasn't a place to stop and get some food real quick, couldn't have a little snack, you know. So they had to be able to hunt and gather and stay mentally sharp and have the energy to do it. So our bodies are designed to be able to flip that switch and be justified, because if everybody got real weak, if they weren't eating all the time, we would not have survived as a species, if you think about it.
Cindy Tunstall:Right. So when you say, when you're starting the 28 day, fast fast, and I'm going to get that on audiobook and listen to it when I do my restart, so when I'm doing that period, would you say that it's important to have a hard schedule for your eating window or should there be times where I'm like so in the beginning, it's very important to be disciplined, I think so that's the most important time and that's why I have the plans in there for you to follow, because you know, every day during the fast start, you know like maybe you start off with the in the middle approach.
Gin Stephens:That's probably the one I would suggest for you. I mean, although you might be able to do the bandaid off approach, where really, at the beginning, all you're doing is you're just skipping breakfast and pushing back and you're going to open at lunch. Right, you're just shrinking it. Maybe at the beginning you start with an eight-hour eating window, you're just skipping breakfast and then you're having lunch and dinner. But you really do need to stick to it because your body has to do some physical changes in order for you to become adapted and if you're too loosey-goosey, you're just extending the period of time that it takes.
Gin Stephens:You know I mentioned that I dabbled in intermittent fasting from 2009 to 2014. Of course, one of the problems was I wasn't fasting clean, but also, like I said, I was dabbling. I might would try to do it Monday through Thursday, but then Friday we had, you know, sweet treat day at work, and so I'm like, well, I'm going to eat these muffins because they're here and they're free, and then Saturday I didn't fast. Sunday I didn't fast. And so then Monday I'm like, all right, I'm going to try again.
Gin Stephens:I just was stuck in the hard part over and over. My body never adapted. Because I was never adapted. I was like, well, this isn't working. Well, it didn't work because I was not really doing it. And so when you give yourself the discipline to say, okay, I'm going to follow this for 28 days and I know that it's going to have some challenging moments and I'm going to have to say no to some stuff, but I'm really teaching my body how to do something and it will feel better. On the other side, you just have to keep in mind that you've got to get through that adjustment period and the more flexible you are, the harder it's going to get to adjust.
Cindy Tunstall:Okay, so it's just taking longer for your body to get in the habit of. Okay, I like that, that's helpful, so just press through. You got to just do it. Well, and I was, when I was having those cravings I was like, am I bored? And I had, I moved food out for way out of reach from the, you know, when I was driving. So that was helpful and I would have times where I'm like, am I really hungry right now or am I just bored and I would go, I would call a friend.
Cindy Tunstall:I'm like I'm like getting hyper-focused on wanting to eat right now and I'm not even really hungry, but I just can't seem to stop thinking about it. So can we just talk for a few minutes? And then those those times would fade, where it would be a little bit easier. So it got to be, um, where it wasn't such a preoccupation. During the fasting I wasn't constantly thinking about, you know, denying myself Exactly. So very encouraging, very helpful. Well, okay, you told us about you have two podcasts, so I want you to tell our audience about those, Cause I know that they're going to want to follow you. So tell us about those and then tell us about the books that you've written and how they're a little bit different because you've written a lot Well.
Gin Stephens:I have. I've written a lot, all right. So I've mentioned intermittent fasting stories before and that is a podcast where I talk to intermittent fasters who share their stories and they're all over the place as far as the different stories go A lot of different age groups, different reasons for fasting. I interviewed someone yesterday who never needed to lose weight. She was a healthy weight, very lean, but wanted to prevent weight gain and she went through menopause all the way to stories where people lost 140 pounds with intermittent fasting and that sort of thing. So everything on either extreme and in the middle.
Gin Stephens:I also have a podcast called Fast Feast Repeat Intermittent Fasting for Life and that's named after my book Fast Feast Repeat, and I have a co-host on that one. Her name is Sherry Bullock and she and I became friends through my intermittent fasting Facebook group, which I no longer have. I'm no longer on Facebook, but we met and she joined my Facebook group have. I'm no longer on Facebook, but we met and she joined my Facebook group and now we're really good friends and she's been doing intermittent fasting for a long time herself and so on that podcast.
Gin Stephens:We're very much a community driven podcast, so we rely on submissions from listeners. We share a weekly celebration. Each week we answer listener questions, we share book recommendations and other resource recommendations. We have our tweak of the week where someone shares what they're doing to help intermittent fasting work for them and in their lifestyle, and we also leave listeners with an inspirational quote or story at the end. So we really love doing that podcast and I think that your truck driving audience will enjoy listening to it as well. I love working with Sherry. She's very sensible, of course. I think I'm pretty sensible too but I love your show.
Cindy Tunstall:I think it's a great show. I highly recommend it. So it's a lot of fun. You guys have a good rapport together and I really love hearing the stories from people that are making it work. It's just, it's just like, yes, that could be, could be me. You know, I'm doing it, I'm on my path and we're all so different.
Gin Stephens:That's the thing that keeps coming out, really. Whichever podcast you're listening to, you know the lifestyle that works for me Jen Stevens might not be what works for you and the way that I have to adapt it to work for me, and the foods that work for me, and the whole idea from beginning to end. Every book I've ever written, every resource I put out, never forget. My roots are elementary school teacher, and so my life mission is to empower people to learn how to do things for themselves that work for them. Whether it was teaching math to a third grader, to teaching intermittent fasting to a 70-year-old, you know you have the power to learn from what you're doing and adapt and adjust and make it work for you, whether it's long division or finding your ideal fasting window. And so in my books, the first one I wrote was Delay.
Gin Stephens:Don't Deny, I wrote that in 2016 and self-published it, and I have just revised that one, so look for the one. If you're looking for a paperback, it's on Amazon only. The e-book is available everywhere, but you want to make sure you find the one. That's the second edition, published in August of 2024. The second edition is updated and it has more up-to-date stuff. Like I don't talk about the clean fast in the first edition, because we weren't using that terminology yet oh, I see, okay, yeah yeah, so, and the success stories have been updated as well.
Gin Stephens:It's like the success stories in the first edition. They um I'm so grateful that people shared them, but it was before I had written any of my books or had a podcast. So some of the success stories in that first edition there were just people who were doing fasting, and so a lot of the things that they did may not be what I would recommend now looking back. So that's why it was so important to get updated success stories and the second edition of Delayed On Tonight. The success stories in the back are my favorite part. They are just so inspiring.
Gin Stephens:So for someone who's just going to listen, I would recommend Fast Feast Repeat. That is my New York Times bestseller. It came out in 2020. And Fast Feast Repeat will give you lots to listen to and it teaches you from start to finish. It's really the comprehensive God which it says in the subtitle and it has you know questions you might not even think to ask yet, and it's also one that you can come back to. You know, after you've been living the lifestyle for maybe six months, listen to it again and you will hear things differently because you now have experience living it, you're like, oh, now it makes more sense. So the first time you listen to it you're not going to catch everything that you'll catch the second time.
Cindy Tunstall:Yeah, that was my experience with that book. I've listened to it several times and each time I'm like, oh, that's why it explains what's happening in my body. It's very encouraging because I'm like this is working. These are the signs that it's working.
Gin Stephens:The longer you've done it, the more sense the book will make Really, yeah, so helpful. The longer you've done it, the more sense the book will make. Yeah, really, you're like okay, now I really understand what she said there. I flipped it.
Gin Stephens:Yeah, that's good. 28-day fast start, day by day, is a great resource for anyone who's starting, or if you're getting back started again, like you, cindy, and you've been kind of away for a while and you want a little refresher. Okay, so it's the guide to starting or restarting your intermittent fasting lifestyle, so it sticks, and the whole way through. I really want to focus people on having a powerful why, because I say this every single week on the Fast Feast Repeat podcast but when your why is deeper than weight loss alone, you are more likely to consider intermittent fasting to be a lifestyle.
Gin Stephens:If I had just gotten to my goal weight in 2015 and like, all right, I'm done with intermittent fasting, I would have gained all the weight back, of course, if I'd stopped intermittent fasting, but I would have missed out on so many health benefits Like, for example, I haven't needed allergy medication since 2016. I used to have terrible allergies and I don't anymore, and I'm 55 years old now and I feel stronger than I did when I was in my thirties and I feel like, you know, the increased autophagy is going to keep me healthy. I haven't been to the doctor for an illness since, I guess, 2016 or 2015. I can't even remember it was early in my fasting journey the last time I had a sick doctor visit.
Cindy Tunstall:I mean I haven't been in an antibiotic.
Gin Stephens:That's great, I mean it's just. My immune system is working so much better Because think about it you have time for your body to attack what it needs to attack. Digestion takes a lot of resources and so it's just really changed everything. So when you're understanding why you're fasting beyond just the weight loss then you really just don't want to quit. I have a book also called Cleanish when someone's ready for a deeper dive and it's not a fasting book, although fasting is in it when you're ready to clean up your food choices and maybe the products you put on your body, like your lotion and your skin care and your shampoo and your deodorant, because, turns out, those things do matter. We want to keep our toxic load low.
Cindy Tunstall:You might want to take out the air freshener out of your truck for example, I know I tell people that I'm like it's not great for you to be breathing that in that little bitty space.
Gin Stephens:It really isn't and we're used to it because we grow up using our scented. My stepmother used Gain detergent and so my sister's like laundry isn't clean unless it smells like Gain and I'm like, well, actually clean has no scent. Yeah, Really clean. So sometimes you're ready for that.
Gin Stephens:But, like when I try to ride with my sister in her car, she's got the air freshener hanging down. It gives me a headache. And so she doesn't get a headache because her body's used to it. But I'm like, what is that doing? You shouldn't even know. Anyhow, that's my little soapbox there on clean-ish. But you know, notice the ish at the end of it. You know I just make the changes where I can and I'm not, you know, crazy about it. You know I'm not going to be at somebody's house refusing to eat something because I don't know what's in it. You know I'm clean-ish. I make good choices, the best that I can. In the situation I would totally eat at a truck stop and have a wrap and some boiled eggs, and you know I would. I would have that with no problem. I'm making the best choice for where I am.
Cindy Tunstall:Yeah, I really like that. I like that we talk about becoming healthier truckers. So we're not looking for perfection, because that's just always a pass-fail thing and you feel like crap all the time about that. It makes you crazy. Yeah, it does make you crazy. I'm not going to go that way. Yeah.
Gin Stephens:What's in this wrap, I don't care. It's the healthiest choice that's available to me and that's what I'm going to pick. I can make it an organic chicken and an organic wrap, but I'm not going to obsess over it if I'm out in public. Last night I had a hot dog with chili and trivia with my friends and fries.
Cindy Tunstall:You're not feeling too bad this morning. That's great. I love it. Well, Jen, thank you so much for coming on the show. I'm so grateful for your time. Do you have anything else that you want to share with our audience before we wrap up?
Gin Stephens:Any parting words I would just like to share that you can do it, you know. If you're thinking well, I can't do it because I can't drink black coffee, yes, you can. Or if you're thinking well, I can't do it because I have hypoglycemia, well, the reason you have hypoglycemia is because you're on that blood sugar roller coaster and you need to teach your body to find the fuel that's already there. You can do it, and just you can get out of your own way and let your body do what it's meant to do. So I just want everybody to know that you absolutely can, and it's never too late.
Cindy Tunstall:Well, thank you so much. We're going to be tuning into your podcast. I know our listeners are going to tune in and get your books and it's so encouraging hearing those stories over and over. So I just want to thank you for your time and thank you for making these resources available in a way that we can understand and grasp and make these apply to our life and our lifestyle as truckers. So thank you so much, jen. I'm so grateful for you.
Gin Stephens:Well, you are so very welcome.
Brian Wilson:Howdy folks, it's Brian Wilson here, your stand-in roadie and guide on the side. Just a quick heads up this conversation is meant to spark some great ideas, not serve as medical advice. So be sure to check in with your doctor before trying anything new because, let's face it, your doc knows you better than a podcast ever could. So stay smart, stay healthy and let's get it. Your doc knows you better than a podcast ever could. So stay smart, stay healthy and let's get back to today's show.
Lamar Myart:Okay, cool. Yeah, my name is Lamar. I'm a driver trainer. I've been driving for about four years now. I've been training for about three, so I started training kind of early in my career. I'm dedicated with basically Kraft Heinz, so the company I run with. I don't go into California anymore, I don't go into New York City anymore and I don't go into Wyoming. So I was like, yeah, I can take that route, I'll definitely take that. So I basically run from like Georgia to New York, to Texas, ohio, in the Midwest and the East Coast. So that's basically my run, drive a T680KW and yeah, so I've got a student with me now and keep a student for about three weeks and then they go to another trainer for the rest of their training time. So because I'm dedicated and don't go into California, they have to go to another trainer that takes them into the mountains of California.
Lamar Myart:But my fasting journey kind of started when I was a Christian minister, a preacher. I started preaching when I was young. I was a young, 18-year-old preacher and you know fasting is part of the Christian belief and you know fasting if you can. The belief behind fasting is if you can control what you put in your mouth, if you can control what you put in your body, you can control other aspects of your life. You know so, if you have control over how you eat, you have control over other areas of your life. So that's the way I look at it.
Lamar Myart:So as I got older, you know, I just fell off of it and I got out of it and years later I ended up being a pre-diabetic to type 1 diabetic. My A1C was basically 11. And the doc said, well, look, you basically, uh, in order to drive this truck, man, he was like I don't, you know you, at this level you should be on insulin. And I was like, nah, man, just he said, well, look, you got to do something. So they put me on a three month DOT, uh, instead of a year. So I went back to fasting and I looked at it and so I started doing the window and I did it in three months and my A1C went down to six, 6.5. My um average fasting blood measurement was like about, you know, 100 to 125, which is for a type one diabetic. They consider that controlled. So I noticed a big difference. I noticed a difference in my mood, my vision and stuff was getting blurry and stuff. So I was getting kind of scared about it and so I started back fasting again and I noticed a big difference. So I stuck with it.
Lamar Myart:But you know, again I go through things and you know you kind of struggle on the road, like you said. You fall off and you get frustrated, you say, forget it, I'm just going to eat whatever, drink whatever. Then you know the symptoms and everything come back. You know we spend years as children just eating carbs and eating sugar and that's where a lot of our health issues come from. As we get older. Especially a truck driver, you know you're sitting all day and so I just started cooking and I have an exercise routine. I try to show my students how I exercise.
Lamar Myart:So my fasting consists of I try to start eating at like noon and then I give myself about six hours, you know. So within that six hours I'll eat and if I want a snack, you know I'll try to just do trail mix, I'll do just almonds, because snacking is almost like smoking cigarettes. You know people smoke, but one reason why they smoke is because it's a habit. You know the habit of lighting the cigarette, the habit of putting it to your mouth. It becomes a routine, and that's the same way. Eating chips and everything is. It's not really that you're hungry, it's that you have that routine. So you want to get something, you want to put it in your mouth and you have that routine. So my routine now is, when I do smack out snack, I'll use unsalted peanuts uh, coconut flakes uh, unsweetened coconut flakes, with the peanuts and everything, just to add a slight little bit of sugar, but not sweetened coconut. So that's what I do. And then the rest of the day I just fast.
Lamar Myart:And if I do get hungry, you know I like again, I'll just eat some almonds or something like that, something very fibrous, um, eat fruits, you know things like that. So that's basically what I consist of. I consist of eating one meal and then sometimes my schedule depends on what happens. I may switch the time schedule so it's not always noon to, like, you know, six hours later sometimes I may stop at five o'clock or six o'clock and then I'll do it. But also what I try to do, I try not to eat anything after seven o'clock. So when I sleep or when I'm sleeping, you know I want to sleep on an empty stomach. So you know, I want my body to not have to worry about digestion a lot of times when I'm sleeping, because one of the things that I've also learned is that, you know, there's a lot of energy that goes into digesting and breaking down food. So, and that's basically what I've learned in my study, so that's what I try to do.
Lamar Myart:I try to exercise, I try to exercise, I do some deep breathing, you know, I do some meditation, and stretching, again, is real important because, you know, I'm 50 now and people think that I look like, you know, like you're 50, man, you look like you're 30. You know, I'm like no, yeah, I'm 50. So it definitely helps a lot. And I get some of these 20 year old students. They get in and out the truck. They're like oh, you know, they use like the old man grunt getting in and out of the truck. You know, and I'm like, man, you too young to sound like, sound like a grandpa getting out of a chair. But yeah, that's my fasting, my fasting, and again I try to do 12 or eight hours where I'll eat and again I'll cook.
Lamar Myart:And the one thing about hunger you know, a lot of times we eat, you know we're hungry and we'll keep eating, and then, you know our body triggers us to be continually be hungry. So what I do is after you eat about 15 minutes or so after you eat something, the hunger tends to go away, because it takes about 15 to 20 minutes for your brain to process that you've eaten and for your brain to process that you know you satiate it. So if we don't give ourselves that 15 to 20 minutes, you know may still be hungry, so then we'll eat something else. But then you know that triggers the brain again. So once you give your brain time to say, oh, okay, I'm eating and I'm I'm okay, now you know your brain will be satisfied. So it's kind of a balance between your gut and it's a balance between your brain.
Lamar Myart:But uh, yeah, that's basically how I like to fast. I do it in the window and, uh, it definitely. I definitely see the difference. Uh, I did lose my highest weight. Uh was like about two 60,. You know this was years ago and right now I'm at about one. I fluctuate between one 85 to about one 90. So I'm about the same size I was when I was in the uh ninth grade in high school. I wore the same size and everything. So the one reason why fasting is important is just, you know it gives your body time to heal. It gives your body time to heal your organs. It gives your body time to heal things inside of you. It gives your body time to rest.
Lamar Myart:And the thing about hunger what we don't really realize is that there's nothing wrong, in my opinion, with feeling hungry. There's nothing wrong with your stomach growling. That's basically your body processing. Your body always makes noise and that's what people don't realize. Your stomach is always making noise, but when you're full of food you don't hear it because the food muffles it. So you know to hear your stomach growl sometimes it's okay. You know to be empty sometimes it's all right.
Lamar Myart:And you know, I don't know about people's spiritual belief, but the way I look at the creator of God, the way God designed us, god designed us so that we put some food in, we store some fat, and so our body uses that fat and our body uses those stored minerals and stuff. So our body is actually designed to not always eat what's in our gut, but I believe our body is designed to eat the fat that we store. It's designed to eat the minerals that we store. So when you fast, you may be hungry but your body's like, well, okay, let me tap into the fat supply, let me tap into the stuff, and then, with your body consuming that stuff, different issues or different things that's in your body, your body consumes that too, so different. You know types of bacteria, viruses all that stuff is considered food to the body. So you know, if we're constantly full, the body is constantly relying on that source.
Lamar Myart:And what's in our gut instead of I think it's called compunction, if I'm not mistaken but your body looks to your own fat, your body looks to your own muscles, your body looks to your own, you know, things that are moving within your body is food. So you give your body a chance to just start kind of consuming itself, which is the way we're actually designed. You know, we're actually designed to for the body to consume some of itself, and that's another reason why fasting, I think, is important. It gives your body a chance to actually clean house a little better, you know. So I do notice a difference. My mood is better, you know. My headaches and stuff go away. My vision is better, I feel lighter.
Gemma Ford:Hi everybody, I'm Gemma Ford and I am an OTR driver with the mega company for going on six years. I team drive and I drive all 48 states Kind of getting into. Well, I've been intermittent fasting for our since July of 2023, I got a little health scare, um, and at that time I started driving in 2019 and, um, I weighed 140, 145. Well, fast forward to July of 2023, I now weighed 180 pounds. I am 5'3 on my license but you know, probably 5'2 now and at the time I only ate. I was thinking I'm doing great because I'm eating once a day, you know, truck stop food.
Gemma Ford:Yes, didn't know, I didn't have a rhythm, didn't know. I just wanted to work and get experience and be safe. So, forward to 2023, I failed my dot physical. My the doctor said they couldn't give me a dot, clear me dot wise. I need to see a cardiologist because I had an irregular rhythm. So I go to see a cardiologist and sure enough, it's an irregular rhythm. So I go to see a cardiologist and sure enough, it's an irregular rhythm.
Gemma Ford:Four months, a whole bunch of tests and I said, well, you know what I got? To take some weight off. So I did start exercising, I did look into keto and tried to. I did that for a strict moment, but a friend of mine told me about, uh, intermittent fasting, and so did my daughter. So I thought, okay, I'm not going to do. You're crazy, I need to eat. I'm hungry, you know. Um, I didn't think I would be able to sustain the energy to drive an 11 hour shift and but I said I'm going to try it. Let's see what happens. Um, and now let's fast forward to now. Um, I weigh 137 pounds. Um, my heart condition per se? Um was cleared. There was nothing. It was an irregular rhythm that possibly could have been born with. But he said I was fine, cleared me. I have a dark card, medical card, and I feel great. I intermittent fast. Now I don't eat or drink anything except for water after 8 pm. Now, mind you, I drive shifts because I'm a team driver, so I drive from 12 noon to 12 midnight.
Gemma Ford:Um so I don't eat anything or drink anything except for water, um after 8 PM, and when I get up in the morning I do have a nice strong black coffee. I break my fast anywhere, um from 2 PM pm. So it honestly just if I'm not hungry at 2 o'clock I don't break my fast. Or if I'm at a shipper and I'm dropping and hooking, I don't break my fast. Sometimes if I'm just driving, I break it at 2.
Gemma Ford:I found, besides the weight loss, which I'm very pleasantly happy about and surprised that it came off the way it came off, I love how I feel. I get a good night's rest. I don't wake up, you know, groggy and tired. It doesn't take me long to fall asleep. I, pretty much after I get done, you know, getting ready for bed and stuff, fall asleep about one, 32 o'clock in the morning. I get up at eight, 30, nine o'clock in the morning, start my day, um, but I have lots of energy, um, and I don't get the brain fog I don't get. Of course you get tired after an 11 hour shift, but I don't. It's not tired, it's just like I'm just ready for this to be over with Um and I have a a knee issue.
Gemma Ford:So, um, I wear a knee brace. I have found in the last six months I don't have to wear my knee brace. Now I will wear it if I know I'm going to go, you know, walk three miles, um, but as far as just getting out of the truck to pre-trip it, I used to not be able to wear my knee brace. It's not cured or anything like that. It just doesn't hurt as bad. Maybe the weight, the swelling Because of intermittent fasting. Me personally feel that that's made a huge effect, because I also know when I go home I treat myself a little bit, I'm not as strict about it. Um, I, joe, I enjoy more unhealthy carbs and, um, at the end of that week of home time I'm dragging, I'm like you got to be, I feel, just blah, my body, my, my, my feet are swelling, my hands are swelling, my knee is more achy, um, and I just don't have the energy. And then I so I realized, wait a minute, what's going on, you know, and I realized you know it's. It has a lot to do with how I used to be and, um, with my choices. And then, because I don't excuse me, um, because I did kind of treat, I call it treat, not cheat, because treat makes me feel, our cheat makes me feel guilty.
Gemma Ford:Um, I treat myself when I get back on the road. I do a hard fast. I'll do a hard 34, 48-hour fast to get back into the rhythm and just basically just do my cup of coffee and my water. And I strict. When I fast, I don't chew gum, I don't take a breath, man or nothing like that, it's just water and a straight black coffee, um, and it keeps me, you know.
Gemma Ford:And then when I break my fast, I break it with, you know, better good choices. I don't go get a hamburger, you know, I go and eat my some avocados or, you know um, fruit, and then I have my actual meal, um, which is carb restricted, but I do throw carbs in there, but it is carb restricted, um, cause I love pastas and I I love rice and noodles, and so I keep that out of there and I make better choices, um, but I have found for me personally, not just the weight loss, because I've lost it, you know, I I've, you know I'm good, you know, and I exercise, um and get in as many steps as I can a day, um park in the back of a truck stop to walk all the way to the front um shipper, look for an empty trailer. I walk it instead of drive it, um, to get my steps in. But I can say, for me, intermittent fasting has so many more benefits than just weight loss, so that's why I keep doing it.
Gemma Ford:It's all the other healthy, um benefits that I get from it. I I don't feel like I'm, you know, losing my mind at 56 cause I don't have the brain fog. So, um, yeah, it's worked for me and um, I, at this point I mean, keep doing it. I've brought it up with my other daughter who just had a child and, uh, you know, mentioned it to her. To, you know, look into it, look into it. It definitely, besides the weight loss, it definitely has other great healthy benefits.
Brian Wilson:Hey, this is Brian Wilson. I'm an owner-operator out of Michigan. Up here I run General Freight, reefer Freight with a company out of Kalamazoo called All Seasons Express company out of Kalamazoo called All Seasons Express. But at any rate, my fasting journey started, oh gosh, I guess probably a year ago. I used to go for hours on end without eating and didn't realize there was a name for it. And then I was doing some reading.
Brian Wilson:I, I'm uh, uh, I've been, I've been on a uh, uh, three year, uh, weight loss journey. Uh, I lost 85 pounds in about 11 months cause I just got tired of being fat and couldn't bend over and pull my boots on or tie my tennis shoes or anything like that. So I just I got tired of being fat and tired. So I started doing something about it and started exercising. Watching what I was eating made it a real colorful diet. But then I started this. I get busy at home and I wouldn't eat for 10, 12 hours, you know well, during the day it would be, you know, six or eight hours. But and I just then I would go inside and eat dinner or whatever. And I didn't realize there was a name for it until I started doing some reading about this fasting, intermittent fasting, and I got to looking at it. So, hell, that's what I've been doing all along. Well, I, I, I, like I said, I got through, I lost 85 pounds and I kind of slacked off a little bit on some of the things and fast forward another two years and I put about what I put, once I have, about 25 pounds back on. I was down to 170 and I got back up to 195 and I was mad. I was mad at myself. It was nobody else's fault but me, because I was eating, stupid. I wasn't doing this, this, what I come to find out, is called fasting, and so I started doing that again. But drinking and I've, ever since I started my weight loss journey, I drank a ton of water and I started doing that and I realized that drinking water keeps me full. Well, I would.
Brian Wilson:When I first started doing this, this, I kind of shied away from this fasting, because they're saying, for you know, 14 to 18 hours, and I went how the hell can anybody go that long without eating? Well, because eight of it, you're probably sleeping. Well then, I've got thinking about it and this is what I've been doing all along. So I started doing this on purpose, not eating and drinking tons and tons of water. Every time I feel a hunger pain coming on, I just grab a bottle of water and I drink that and the hunger pains are gone. I feel I have more energy, I have more stamina when it comes to working out and everything. When I've been doing this and it's just. It's really neat because now I've dropped back down to 180 pounds. I went to 195. Since I started fasting and keeping track of it and really watching what I was doing, I've lost another 15 pounds.
Brian Wilson:My schedule is really screwed up because, as we all know, we're truck drivers and we don't have a real set schedule. So I try to fast until at least three o'clock in the afternoon. Uh, that usually gives me from, you know, five, six o'clock in the morning until three, while during my waking hours then I'll eat a lot of salads, a lot of vegetables, uh, uh, cucumbers, celery. Uh, many, many peppers, many bell peppers and stuff like that, and then I'll eat one good meal at the end of my day. Sometimes that's seven o'clock at night, sometimes it's nine or 10 o'clock at night. As, like I just said, you know, we're truck drivers, we don't have a set schedule, but it really works for me. I've lost that 15 pounds again. I've lost that 15 pounds again.
Brian Wilson:Keeping it off, I feel really good about it and I don't.
Brian Wilson:I guess I don't go much for this cheat day stuff, but I occasionally I'll have one every once in a while, but I'm still getting at least a 12 hour fast in.
Brian Wilson:When I do that, then my calorie count might be a little high, but you know, I, I, I usually, I usually find that this, this fasting is, is the way to go. As far as for weight loss and maintenance, um, I've kept this off now for quite a while. I'm going to, I'm going to do my damnedest to, to, to keep doing it, but, uh, I really, I really enjoy it. Uh, it makes me, like I said, a lot more energy, uh, which I've been told I don't need that, but I get it. Um, and I don't, uh, I don't, uh, I don't find myself worrying about being hungry. It's okay to be a little hungry, it's not going to kill you. So a bottle of water takes some hunger pangs away and gets me to thinking of something other than food, and I usually go, like I said, I usually go between 14 to 18 hours on my fast. That's probably about intensity my name is marie.
Marie Ward:I have been driving otr for about nine years now, um, currently, I am working for a contractor and we haul for FedEx, so I am, uh, sometimes I'm driving single 53s. Um, most of the time, though, I am driving double pot trailers, so there's a lot of workout with that. Um. So I started, um, just uh, you know, when I, before I started driving a truck, you know I was at home with my kids, and um, just uh, you know, when I, before I started driving a truck, you know I was at home with my kids, and, um, what I would call my, my pivotal rock bottom moment was I went to a concert with my oldest son. He was he's, he's, he was playing in the orchestra, and so, after the concert, we took a picture together, and I just remember looking at the picture afterwards and thinking, oh, I just, I can't believe that's how bad I've let myself go. Um, I was horrified by what I look like. Um, just very, very puffy, very, very big. I just, yeah, it's not how I pictured myself. Um, when I thought of myself and, uh, I kind of decided at that point that you, I needed, I needed to do something, and yeah, I've been, you know, done the yo-yo dieting. Of course, over the years you lose 20, 30 pounds and then you think, oh, okay, well, I can go back to it. And you gain the weight back. And well, you go on those diets that you know, okay, you can't eat carbs or you can't eat this, you can't eat that. You know it was cutting out an entire food group and, of course, as soon as you cut out a food group, that's the only thing you want to eat. So, um, yeah, I started kind of taking bad things out, you know not eating. You know taking out the snacks, the treats and, um, focusing more on eating healthy food and focusing more on eating healthy food.
Marie Ward:About three months after that point I had decided that I needed to. I wanted to stop being a school bus driver and I wanted to get out and drive OTR. And I went to school and once I actually got into a truck, it kind of just gelled. At that point I really didn't even realize what I was doing was intermittent fasting. It was just I'm not a breakfast eater. I don't like to eat breakfast. I find that when I do eat breakfast, I'm hungrier much sooner and I'm much hungrier than if I didn't eat breakfast.
Marie Ward:So my routine kind of became and stayed where I would get up and maybe have coffee, um, have, have tea and drink water, and I would save my first meal of the day for when I would take my 30, 30 minute break, my first meal of the day for when I took my 30 minute break, and then I would drive my last three, four hours, cause like I typically drive, almost to the end of my eight before I take my break, and I'd have my second meal and I'd go to bed and a combination of just eating the right kinds of foods and what I came to learn was intermittent fasting. I found that the weight just kind of it came off. It was. It was slow but it did come off and it was. And it's actually something that I can keep doing. I don't have to, you know, keep track of what I'm eating, keep track of this, keep track of what I'm eating, keep track of this, keep track of that. In the end I lost about probably about 100 pounds total and it's something I've actually maintained it for close to from the time I got to my goal to now. It's been about seven years time I got to my goal to now it's been about seven years. So I find intermittent fasting is definitely how I maintain it, because it's it's, it's it's a rhythm that works for me.
Marie Ward:So, in I had my, my ex-husband actually pointed out that oh, you're doing intermittent fasting and I said, oh, I don't even know what that is, um. So that's when I did kind of started looking at it, doing research on it and, uh, so if I could, if I could point out or say exactly what it is I do, it would be the um. I believe it's the uh, 18, six um. Typically, everything I eat, all my calories, are consumed during a six hour window. Um, I would say, if I had to guess, um, I probably consumed between 15 to 1800 calories a day, um, and then I stop and I don't eat again until my, my break the next day. So I, I eat. It's usually um.
Marie Ward:I'm going to say when I have a meal, when I have my first meal a day, it's it's going to be something like oatmeal, um, or you know, during the winter it's going to be oatmeal with um, maybe a little maple syrup in it, maybe some nuts, maybe some some raisins or some some craisins or something typical like that. Um, during the summer it's usually going to be um the um, greek Greek, um Greek yogurt with some fresh fruits and maybe a little granola sprinkled on top of it. And I'll have that when I take my 30 minute break and take my dogs out for a walk and then I'll finish my drive day. And when it's time for dinner, it's going to be something that usually we cook on the truck. My husband and I are on the truck now and we, uh, we cook, um.
Marie Ward:I try to avoid heavy food because I don't like to go to bed with heavy food on. Um, we use the instant pot, we use an air fryer, uh, we do soups, um, chilies, um, a little bit of pasta every now and then. Like I said, you know, I don't like to cut out certain groups because, um, yeah, that's. You know. That's when you start craving that group and um group, and I love pasta and I love bread. I just try to keep it down to a minimum.
Marie Ward:When I wake up in the morning, typically I'm usually up pre-tripped and driving within half an hour of waking up. And I used to drink coffee I actually used to do energy drinks and I do not do those anymore because they just don't make me feel good, but I'll drink my black tea and then I've got my big mug of ice water and I'm drinking that until I take my break and then I start my six-hour clock. I don't really time it, time it, but I always take my breaks late and I eat my dinner as soon as I'm parked. So it does fall in with the six hours, probably closer to five. But then once I eat I don't usually eat again until I'm going for my next meal the next day. But I guess that's it.
Marie Ward:I do know, when I don't keep to my fasting, if I eat something in the morning, I'm sluggish the rest of the day. Um, and I usually spend if I like. Let's say I'll wake up and say I'm gonna have oatmeal when I first wake up this morning and I'll have that, and instead of being able to make it to my 30 minute break, to when I'm gonna have my first real meal, um, I'm starving the entire time and thinking I can't wait to stop. I can't wait to stop, um, but when I wake up, I have my tea, have my water and I'm not having that first meal until until I stop. I don't, I don't get the, I don't get the hunger, um, it's, uh. It's usually really easy for me to to my break and think, oh hey, it's break time, I get to have my oatmeal, but other than that, that's about what I do. It's pretty easy to sneak in there. We usually go shopping once a week when we're on our reset. We're in the hub in Cedar Rapids, iowa, and we actually live in Georgia, so going home is something we only do every two to three months, but I find that it's not that difficult to maintain this on the truck. I've never had difficulties with it. I've never had difficulties with it.
Marie Ward:I will tell you that my, my youngest son, he is, uh, he's he, well, he's 20, he's 20 years old and he was, he's always been overweight. He's a, he's always been a big boy, very big boy, um, and he was. He's about six foot three and up until about two years ago he was six foot three and he weighed over 300 pounds and he and I had talked about, about. You know. He said I just can't stand it, I need to do something.
Marie Ward:And he and I talked about intermittent fasting and I said you know what I know you're, I know what your dad says, I know he's against it and I know that he's going to give you grief over it. I said but look into it, and maybe look at that and you know what? He's still six foot three, so he's very muscular. But he looked into it and he said you know what, mom, you're right, it is something. And he says I want to try it. And he did, and he lost a considerable amount of weight. He still maintains it and so I mean it's not just works for me, it's inspired him and it works for him.
Brian Wilson:What a phenomenal episode. A big thank you to Jen Stevens for sharing her expertise and to our incredible OTR drivers for sharing their real world strategies for intermittent fasting. Now here are your key takeaways from today's show. Intermittent fasting is more than a diet. It's a lifestyle that can supercharge your energy, focus and well-being. Clean fasting is key. Say goodbye to zero-calorie sweeteners that could be sabotaging your progress. It's all about consistency, and small changes can lead to big results. Many start fasting to lose weight but keep going because of other benefits. For more on fasting, be sure to check out jen's podcast and books. They're perfect companions for those long hauls. You'll find them online or ass, so there's no excuse not to dive in Now. Before you go, mark your calendars for our next episode dropping on the 15th.
Brian Wilson:We've got a guest who's discovered some powerful ways to eliminate chronic pain for his clients, and he's going to share how you can tackle those nagging shoulder, neck and lower back aches and don't I know about the lower back aches, so I'm going to check this one out. Whether you're a professional driver or just someone dealing with chronic pain, it's an episode you don't want to miss. If you found value in today's show, the best way to show your appreciation is to share it with others. Spread the word and help us keep bringing you these great episodes. Until next time. This is Brian Wilson signing off. Stay safe, stay inspired and keep enjoying Life. Otr.
"Victory" song for Enjoying Life OTR:Resilience drives us through the night. Each mile we pass a story to tell Healthy living and doing it well. Victory's won. Pushing through, finding strength in all we do On our own. We're standing tall, enjoying life, otr, through it all, through it all, through it all, through being a horse Resilient and you Sharing our victory, shining through, enjoying life, holding on. This is for you. Victory's won. We're pushing through, fighting strength in all we do On our own. We're standing tall, enjoying life all day long, through it all, through it all, yeah, through it all, holding our hearts with resilience in view. Set our victory signing through. Enjoying life on sea. All this is for you.
