Insights from the Couch - Real Talk for Women at Midlife

Ep. 104: How the Fasting Mimicking Diet Can be a Midlife Tool for Longevity and Wellness with Renee Fitton, RD

• Colette Fehr, Laura Bowman • Season 9 • Episode 104

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What if one simple nutrition strategy could support healthy aging, improve metabolic health, boost energy, and even help your skin look better? In this episode of Insights from the Couch, Laura sits down with Renee Fitton, VP of Growth at Prolon and a leading voice in nutrition and longevity science, to unpack the research behind fasting and the fasting mimicking diet.

We explore the growing confusion around nutrition in midlife, from protein overload to supplement fatigue, and discuss a more balanced approach to health, longevity, and wellness. Renee shares how fasting mimicking works, why autophagy matters, and what the science says about supporting your body through midlife and beyond. If you've been curious about fasting but overwhelmed by conflicting advice, this conversation is a great place to start.

Episode Highlights

[0:03] - Laura introduces Renee Fitton and the science-backed world of fasting and longevity

[2:13] - Why so many midlife women feel overwhelmed by health and nutrition advice

[2:52] - What Prolon is and how a fasting mimicking diet works

[6:30] - The current protein craze: what's helpful, what's excessive, and what longevity research suggests

[13:36] - Understanding autophagy and the body's natural repair and rejuvenation process

[15:44] - The surprising health benefits linked to fasting mimicking, from metabolic markers to skin health

[17:28] - How long the benefits last and why fasting may improve your relationship with food

[19:30] - Renee shares her personal experience completing multiple fasting mimicking cycles

[22:19] - What you actually eat during a Prolon fast and how manageable it feels day-to-day

[24:02] - The real-world changes Renee notices in energy, sleep, skin, and mental clarity

[27:01] - Who should avoid fasting mimicking and important safety considerations

[28:24] - Fasting, cancer recovery research, and resources for survivors

[30:18] - Why a gentle 12-hour circadian fast may be more effective than extreme intermittent fasting

[32:35] - The hidden impact of skipping breakfast and relying on coffee

[34:03] - Why fasting mimicking can be especially beneficial for women in midlife

[37:43] - Where to learn more about Prolon and how to get started

Links & Resources

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Laura Bowman:

welcome to Insights from the Couch, where real conversations meet real life at midlife, where Colette and Laura, two therapists and best friends, walking through the journey right alongside you. Whether you're feeling stuck, restless, or just unsure of what's next, this is a space for honest conversations, messy truths, and meaningful change. And our midlife master class is now open. If you're looking to level up, get into action, and make midlife the best season yet, go to Insights from the couch.org and join our wait list. Now, let's dive in. Hi guys, welcome back to Insights from the Couch. We are without Colette today. She is knee deep in book touring and all that goes with that, but we're going to do a health one today. I'm really excited about I have Renee Fidd from Prolon with us. Renee is a leader at the intersection of nutrition, healthcare, and education. She is the VP of growth at Prolon, which we're going to tell you all about today. She shapes strategies, equips healthcare practitioners with cutting edge insights into nutrition and longevity. Her expertise is in evidence-based practices and nutritional science, and has made her a trusted authority. Renee is dedicated to advancing the role of nutrition and revolutionizing healthcare, blending scientific rigor with a compassionate approach to wellness. Thanks for hanging out with me today.

Renee Fitton:

Thank you for having me today. I'm excited to dig into some of my favorite topics in the world of nutrition and longevity, so I hope I hope we get some new information out to your listeners. I think nutrition can get a little stale, for lack of a better word, and or overwhelming,

Laura Bowman:

or overwhelming, you know, that's the thing I think about this age is like, I think at one point middle-aged women were not marketed to at all, we were like sort of forgotten about, and now we're like marketed to within an inch of our lives,

Renee Fitton:

exactly.

Laura Bowman:

And so, like, my clients are like the ones that care about their health, or like, what, what the fuck am I supposed to be doing now? What supplement am I supposed to be taking, and they're exhausted,

Renee Fitton:

and everyone thinks they need to, at this point, have like an entire closet full of supplements, because to keep track with all of the collagen, creatine, you know, and that's just the C's, you know, go through the alphabet, so it's

Laura Bowman:

like at some point you just like want to do nothing, but like, go sit and eat a bag of chips, but yeah, so tell me, tell for our listeners who maybe do not know about Prolon, tell us what is Prolon.

Renee Fitton:

Yeah, so Prolon is, it's actually the name of a company, but we're most known for the five day fasting mimicking diet, so it is, and it's kind of what it sounds like. It is a five day protocol that gives you everything you

need:

breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack, real meals, all plant-based. But here's the catch: it is designed, the food that you are eating is designed to make your body believe that you are in a water only fast, so as if you were eating nothing at all, but yet you are eating full meals, breakfast, lunch, dinner. This is based off of about 30 years of science trying to figure out the true definition of fasting that our cells, that our body believes, and we're able to essentially kind of hack the system and let us have incredible nutritious food that makes it easier, safer to get the benefits of water-only fasting.

Laura Bowman:

Yeah, and I was, I was talking to my mom about water-only fasting, and I said, yeah, you know, there's this guy named Dr. Alan Goldhammer who does have this place called True North, where he, like, will water fast people for like 100 days to help their bodies cure from, like, you know, type two diabetes and all sorts of disease, and she was like, 'No, Laura, no, that's not true, like that doesn't happen, nobody, nobody can survive that, but like, water only fasting is a thing, I mean, it really exists, right? It's an incredible healing thing for the body if you really need

Renee Fitton:

it. Yeah, and you know, there's.. there are some, and granted, I'm not a big proponent of really long water-only fasts, because of the science that we now have with fasting mimicking, and the incredible potential that it has, and the fact that you can do it with nutrition, but that being said, there are reports of people water only fasting for like over a year, and granted, you know, these are individuals like that example that I just shared of somebody doing it for about a year or so, that person was, I believe, like nearly 400 pounds. So, when we go into these really, really, really long water-only fasts, our body is, it has to get energy from somewhere, and you, so you need to have enough stores of energy in your body to accommodate that long fast, for you know, a generally healthy individual that doesn't really have a lot of weight to lose, you can still get incredible benefits from water-only fasting, and it's recommended that you only do it for about, you know, five days or so, maybe three to four times a year, so a very reasonable length of time.

Laura Bowman:

Yeah, like the average healthy person does not, this is, these are for like sick people or very like obese people that need a high level of support, but what you're saying is that, that in this five day fasting mimicking diet, which is the one that Walter Longo came up with, that he is the brainchild of Prolon, right?

Renee Fitton:

Yeah, he's his founder and original researcher, and also my mentor, so big big fan, yeah, his work's amazing, right? Yeah, I mean, it's, it's really the underpinning of longevity nutrition research right now. He is, he's generally recognized as the leader in longevity nutrition research, even outside of fasting mimicking alone, just because of the work that he's done, even with the longevity diet, everyday nutrition strategies, so yeah, he's he's a big guy, big name,

Laura Bowman:

yeah, and I feel like the longevity space is a little murky right now, just with like everything, I don't know, Peter Attia, and like the Epstein Files, and like the bros, the bros on the internet that I feel like, and this is a like, maybe for a little bit later in our discussion, but I just feel like it's so much like protein focus, and it, and so much like muscle building, and those are all the messages we're getting at midlife, which, and I think there's a lot to that, but I've come up maybe the similarly to you in the plant-based world.

Renee Fitton:

Yes,

Laura Bowman:

and I still rings in my head, like Caldwell Esselstyn saying that, like, you're not going to die of heart disease if you can keep total cholesterol like under 150 yeah, and like you can't do that with like all this animal protein that we're loading into our bodies, but, but, like, let's put a pin in that, because that's like a whole rabbit hole.

Renee Fitton:

Oh yeah, we could, we could talk for days about this, and I have plenty to say. Let me tell you, in

Laura Bowman:

right now, it's not in,

Renee Fitton:

no, no, it's really not. I mean, the what's in right now are, you know, the Gabrielle Lyons of the world talking about the one gram per pound, and you know, I think it's very honestly dangerous to be really excessively touting all of this protein mania, because we also know that excessive protein, protein is very important, by the way. Yes, it is critical for our health and wellness and nutrition, and no dietitian, plant-based or otherwise, will tell you to exclude protein or be on a very, very, very low protein diet, unless for very important reasons, you know, maybe some, you know, health conditions that they would make that recommendation, but for the average individual, what the recommendation is, is adequate protein, and I think that that's really like when I'm saying, "Oh no, we don't need one gram per pound of protein, like some of the kind of big protein proponents are saying. I'm not saying you should go low protein, I'm saying adequate, and there's something that has like become so bad about adequate protein, and what is

Laura Bowman:

adequate protein in your mind?

Renee Fitton:

So, so the general recommendation is usually about point eight grams per kilogram. Now, I would actually even say, and this is not Walter's recommendation, this is my recommendation, that for individuals who are doing weight-bearing exercise that are doing adequate exercise, and again, that weight-bearing exercise is very important. We probably want to bump that up a little bit. We want to build muscle, but the absolute most that you would really need, even if you were doing a ton of weight-bearing exercise, is probably closer to one to 1.2 grams per kilogram, which is still like almost half of what the gram per pound recommendation

Laura Bowman:

is. Yeah, I feel like they're even over a gram per pound these days.

Renee Fitton:

Oh yeah,

Laura Bowman:

and I listened to one of Gabrielle Lyons Lake breakfasts, and I was like, yeah, how do you eat that?

Renee Fitton:

It's, you know, you're starting your day with 50 grams of protein, and, like, to me, it's outrageous, but more importantly, dangerous, because, and this, this is where I really want to stress the importance here is that, yes, animal protein is one of the fastest ways to. Grow your muscle, yes. Because it is very growth promoting, yes. I'm not going to deny that, but those growth promoting amino acids, the building blocks of that, are also promoting growth all over your body, and that is also why we see increased levels of cancer and cell replication that are sometimes too dangerous levels with excess consumption, especially of animal proteins, and so you're really having to weigh the risk, and that's why too much of anything is inevitably kind of a bad thing, and protein is not exempt from that rule, and so, yes, make sure that you are having adequate protein, but in our world today, most people are having adequate protein. The place that people are getting into trouble is that they're over consuming all of these refined grains, and it's like I think that the where the protein people are kind of coming at this is like maybe if we eat enough protein it'll kind of move those refined grains out of the palette out of the diet because you just won't have room for it because you're gonna be so focused on protein but is that really the solution or is the solution that we are more mindful about the plate that we create and that we we you know we have a balanced plate

Laura Bowman:

and what we're really deficient in, as a, as the American culture, is like fiber, right? Like people are just not eating fiber, which means like plants and vegetables, and and fruit, where you're getting all these micronutrients, right? And this is where we're so deficient, and yeah, so that's like the foundation of health and wellness, and I would think that Walter Longo's longevity diet really supports that, and his sources of protein, is he does he fall in a camp on sources of protein, like is he okay with like salmon, and and things like that, or

Renee Fitton:

so he does actually include some fish in his, in his protocol, and that's because he's a big proponent of omega threes and a lot of healthy fats, but he's otherwise quite plant-based, so it, I would call it pescetarian, but I almost sometimes call it Pesca vegan, because he's also limiting dairy and eggs and things like that, so it is quite plant-based leaning, but you know, like people who are big proponents of the longevity diet, and the dietitians that are promoting this are also just helping steer people closer to that, you know, it doesn't have to be as with anything in nutrition, so black and white, like, oh, you can never have right xyz thing, it's really just, you know, this is kind of our gold standard that we're aiming for, and we're going to try and get as close to this as we can most days,

Laura Bowman:

yeah, and like whole food, right, just like start there, if you can't start anywhere, start there, but I just think it does bear repeating that culturally we're not in a moment where these voices, they should be front and center. I think they were about five to seven years ago, but suddenly we're in this moment of, you know, like load yourself down with like as much protein as you can, and that's just not really like great for longevity,

Renee Fitton:

no? Right,

Laura Bowman:

it's really back to like this to prolong and like its role, and and how this can really help somebody as as a tool in their health journey,

Renee Fitton:

for sure. So, what it's kind of a fun little offshoot from what we were just talking about, because what the body is really cool in that it does kind of pick its area of focus at any given time, it's either focusing on build, grow, grow, grow, which is what we do when we have a lot of nutrients, especially protein and sugars, and when we don't have a lot of those proteins and sugars. Our body actually shifts from grow, grow, grow to repair, clean up, rejuvenate, and so when we go into these fasted states or fasting mimicking states, we are allowing our body to shift into this repair and rejuvenation state. What is really cool is that there's actually a process that is turned on when we fast for about this three day mark, and that's something called autophagy. It is, it literally means self-eating. It is our body's ability to go in and hunt down the things that aren't working so well, that have built up junk over time, and you know, doesn't matter how healthy you are, you know, it's, you know, everybody has to take out the trash at some point, you know, you, you are going to accumulate little broken down cellular components, and you need to eat them up, get rid of them, and replace them, and that is what's happening when we go into these fasting mimicking protocols, we allow. This deep, deep cleanup at the cellular level, and given that our whole body is made up of cells, when we clean up our cells, so many things can improve, and that's what we see. There's now, and I'm going to focus specifically on the research on fasting, mimicking, because that's my area of expertise, but there are now about 48 clinical trials across so many different health conditions showing benefits of this deep cellular cleanup, and all of the wonderful metabolic changes that happen as well, along with this protocol. So we see people are reversing type two diabetes in as little as five days a month, about once a month, for six months, that's it.

Laura Bowman:

That's commercial type.

Renee Fitton:

We see improvements in skin health, so like significant improvements in fine lines, skin hydration, skin texture. We see improvements in biological age. We see improvements all of the things that your doctor is going to

test:

your cholesterol, your blood pressure, your triglycerides, your blood sugar, you know, all of those things that you're getting tested on on an annual basis, hopefully are also being impacted here. So, not to mention, and you know, I like to leave this one for last, because it really is kind of a cherry on top, weight management, beauty of what we see with fasting, mimicking specifically, and I will specifically distinguish this one from water-only fasting, is that we see that it is fat-focused weight loss, meaning it's targeting fat, it's targeting fat that we want to get rid of, and it's protecting our muscle. So this is where me and Gabrielle Lyons do align, muscle is so important for health and wellness and longevity, and so we want to protect it as best that we can, and through fasting mimicking protocols, we see that there is that muscle protection with

Laura Bowman:

how long does it last, so you do the five days, you get the bounce right, like autophagy has occurred. Your systems have reset. Maybe you burned a little fat, so I go back to eating. I'm hoping that, like, maybe I'm onboarding into, like, a cleaner version of.. I'm assuming that's what you do, right? Hopefully, you don't just go back to, like, a standard American diet after you've done all this beautiful work. But, like, how long are we seeing the tale of the fasting mimicking diet last in the system?

Renee Fitton:

So this is a really important question, and I actually have a bunch of little things to say about this one, being that in the studies, and this is important because this is not necessarily what happens in real life, but in the studies, the individuals were told to resume the standard American diet, go back to eating whatever the heck you want, you don't need to change your diet, because we really just wanted to see what was the fasting mimicking diet doing all by itself, even if that's all you did, and then you went back to a standard nutrition, and they still saw that after three months of completing this, is the three cycles, which is the recommended kind of starting point. You do once a month for three months, so five days a month for three months. Three months later, after standard nutrition in between those cycles and for three months, they still saw anywhere from 70 to 80% of the results maintained, and so that's why the recommendation is every three to four months you'll do your top up, and it kind of like fills up the tank back up to 100% and then you're just kind of staying on that cadence. Some people will do it more frequently, just because they feel so good, or you know, they are maybe indulging a little bit more in between, but generally speaking, what we do see, and this was the other kind of note and caveat that I wanted to make, is that studies have also shown that individuals, after completing even just one cycle, have a better relationship with food, have less sugar cravings, have a, you know, are more able to make other healthy lifestyle changes, including, by the way, increased physical activity. So it's pretty cool that this five day change is not just giving you kind of all of these lab marker improvements and weight management improvements, but also behavioral improvements that help you make changes to every other day of the year that you're not doing this protocol.

Laura Bowman:

So I'm assuming working there and being like attached to the research and everything, like, is this how have you integrated it into your life? And I'm just want to like kind of hear about your experience with doing this. How hard or easy has it gotten easier over time? Yes,

Renee Fitton:

17 times. So I am no newbie to the world of fasting mimicking. I started fasting mimicking. Working pretty much right when I heard about it, I was very lucky to study under Valter Longo and go to Italy and learn, soak up as much as I possibly could about this information, and then the moment you understand the science, it's like you can't not do it, and so then I started doing it anywhere from three to four times a year to as little as two times a year, it depended on how I was feeling, what, how I was able to just fit it into my life, but I'm currently at about a three times a year cadence. I do find that it gets easier, but every now and again I'll get one tough round where it's like, oh, that was that was not my easiest. I was like ready to be done on day three, but I have every single time made it through all five days. I can say with certainty that for me day two and or three are the toughest, and day four and five are usually a breeze. I like it's you get over the hump and you're like, oh, okay, I can do this, and you know now I've only got one or two days left, and it's pretty easy to finish. One of my biggest learnings is that even though I am more of like a like 14 hour intermittent faster on a regular day when I do my FMDs, I or my fasting mimicking diets, I will spread out the food as much as I can. I'm trying to make it last, like, yeah, I just, I just make everything last and have little snacks throughout the day as much as I can. If that usually really helps, I try and always have either my husband or one of my best friends or somebody do it with me, it makes it so much more fun, and I'm, I'm very lucky that I'm in an ecosystem where there's a lot of people that are doing the fasting mimicking, so I can usually hunt down one person to do it at the same time as me, but you know, there's tons of tips and tricks, I could probably spend 45 minutes talking about all of the things that I've done, make it easier, but I won't keep, yeah, it does

Laura Bowman:

help to have people around you. You went when some once somebody in the kitchen, like cooking a meal while you're drinking like herbal tea, like what? What is the food? I watched one of your videos where it was like soup packets you were making, and I'm like, is it food? Is it like what are you really eating on this?

Renee Fitton:

Yeah, so very importantly, this is food and real food, and actually the newest version I've done this one the last two times I've done it is fully organic, ready to eat soups that you just open and pour. It does, like honestly, kind of have a little bit of an astronaut food feel, but it is designed by a Michelin chef, it is really quite tasty. You're getting things like nut and seed crackers, you're getting nut bars, you're getting olives, you're getting the soups for lunch and for dinners. There's different flavors throughout the week, so you're not getting bored, you're having enough variety in there, there's also kits where they also change the bar, the bar flavor, the nut bar flavor, maybe it's macadamia coconut, maybe it's chocolate chip, I mean, yes, you can eat, there's even chocolate in this, there's at the end of the day a little dessert like quinoa crisp with chocolate, which I kid you not, people are clamoring for I bring them to conferences sometimes because they don't get, we don't sell them separately, but I'll have like a bowl of them and be like, can I take, can I take five or six? They're so good, they're so good.

Laura Bowman:

Okay, okay,

Renee Fitton:

real food.

Laura Bowman:

And then what do you notice, like after you do this, like what have you noticed anecdotally in your own body, and just like how you feel,

Renee Fitton:

yeah. Well, and I, so I've gotten pretty good at this point, and knowing pretty much exactly when it's time for my, my next round, because I'll notice some of the one of the biggest things that will change for me is my skin health, and not just even on my face, but like I get these little like kind of bumps on the back of my arm,

Unknown:

yeah.

Renee Fitton:

I think that it's maybe a little autoimmune type something going on there. And after I do my five days, clear syringes on the little bumps disappear. That's one of the biggest ones that I notice. Another one that I notice, again, I'm doing this truly just for optimization at this point, and I'll still notice drastic improvement in mental clarity, alertness, energy. I wear an aura ring, I'll notice my sleep habits are drastically improved, like very notably improved, even during the five day, but certainly after, so it's, it's quite, it's quite impressive. I have, in the last, like, probably 15 rounds, not weighed myself, but I do feel like through the five days I keep exercise really limited, and when I hit the gym. So afterwards I feel so much stronger, like I can just crush through a really intense solid core workout and be like doing the hardest level, which usually I'd pick like middle level, you know. So

Laura Bowman:

interesting,

Renee Fitton:

it's really quite impactful.

Laura Bowman:

I mean, that brings up another point, like when you're doing this, do you have to go into like low power mode for five days? I mean, can you work out and work with the same vigor, or do you have to kind of baby yourself?

Renee Fitton:

Definitely not baby myself, but I do have to pull back the throttle on my workout routine, like I'm a girl who goes to Barry's boot camp, and I'm doing like really intense running and lifting on most days, and I'm not doing that for these five days, so that's where I pull back a little bit, but I am, if anything, working harder than ever, like I will always plan my, my five days on a Sunday through Thursday, because I like to be really in the Sunday. Day one is always a breeze, like it's barely, it's barely a fasting day. Days two through five, those are your fasting days, and I love for those to be on my work week, because I'm busy, I'm distracted, I'm working on other things, and I'm absolutely able to do those things. I've my most recent round I did just this past December at a conference, so it was I was running around the conference floor all day, every day, and it was, it was awesome. It's great.

Laura Bowman:

Yeah, a little distraction might not be the worst thing,

Renee Fitton:

really, really is. And we have nurses, and you know, a lot of people doing this in their, on their feet a lot for the day, and you know, they, they find it seamless. So,

Laura Bowman:

so, okay. Is there anybody that this is not for? I mean, like eating disordered recovery people, like, is there are there people that it's like, now don't don't go near this.

Renee Fitton:

Yes, so anybody who's currently pregnant, breastfeeding, history of eating disorder, anybody who has any sort of muscle wasting, sarcopenia, or even if you're just really, really low weight, the cutoff that they use is BMI of 18.5 I don't love that cutoff, because you can be really tall and slim and have good muscle and still fall under that 18.5 bmi and you would be fine to do it, but you know that's why I like to use more of that muscle wasting, if you know that right now your goal is building muscle, don't focus on a fasting mimicking protocol, anybody who has a late stage health condition should speak, of course, to their healthcare practitioners, but that being said, I would also urge anybody, if you're like, I wonder what the fasting mimicking diet can do for xyz, just go into Google and type that in, and a bunch of PubMed articles, I guarantee, will come up. I have to be cautious about my making recommendations, so that's why I always send people to do their own

Laura Bowman:

research. Okay,

Renee Fitton:

but it's out there, you know, there's tons of research, and it's really cool what it can do. So,

Laura Bowman:

and I'm imagining, I mean, just because I've, like, listened to, I was reading the thing about autophagy, and how it can really impact stem cells, like, is this great for cancer survivors?

Renee Fitton:

Yeah, so I, so again, with Prolon, we can't make any recommendations around cancer, but what I can say is that there's over a dozen clinical trials of the fasting mimicking diet and cancer. They do use a slightly adapted version of the Fasting Mimicking Diet, it is designed by El Nutra, the parent organization of Prolon, but it is a little different, just specifically designed for individuals with cancer. So, anybody who is leveraging Fasting Mimicking for cancer, I usually direct them until El Nutra designs a program for this, which actually it is underway. Direct them to a nonprofit called Create Cures, and Create Cures helps individuals who either are currently struggling with cancer or are cancer survivors looking to incorporate fasting mimicking to support their longevity, their health, their wellness, etc. And they pair fasting mimicking with dietitian support, with biochemistry support, all of this additional support to make it really safe, and it's a fabulous cause and organization. So I

Laura Bowman:

love that

Renee Fitton:

would look inspired for sure. And Valter actually just recently published a new book called Fasting Cancer, and it talks about how to leverage not even just the fasting mimicking diet, but also everyday diet to support cancer both recovery and preventions.

Laura Bowman:

That's amazing resource for anybody who's interested in that. Yeah, I love all of this. So, when you come off, I just want to like kind of get the over. View, because I know people are hearing about, you know, intermittent fasting, time-restricted eating. I think people are incredibly confused on that. So, when you're not doing prolonged, like, how do you incorporate some of those principles into just your life?

Renee Fitton:

So, outside of just about three cycles of fasting, mimicking my everyday, and this is a general recommendation for most healthy individuals, is to follow a circadian fast. Now this is not what you might think. It is not like we're saying fast for 1618, etc. hours, which is generally what people think of when they think of intermittent fasting. The intermittent fasting that I recommend, and that Valter recommends, is a 12 hour fast. So, this is something - believe it or not - most people are not doing this. It sounds like, oh, that's not even a fast, but that's that most people are eating pretty much around the clock, from the moment they wake up until the moment they go to bed, and what we really want to see is essentially following the sunlight. The moment the sun comes up, that's when you're having your first meal, and when the sun goes down, that's when you're having your last. So, what that typically looks like, and that's not always going to be, you're not going to be able to follow the sun all of the time. So, usually what that looks like is you want to eat your first meal within an hour of waking, and you want to stop eating within three hours of going to sleep, and so a lot of people, when they think about intermittent fasting, they think about skipping breakfast and waiting, waiting, waiting as long as they can to have their first meal, and in the way that our body works, it actually all of our cells follow their own little clocks, actually, and they work really well at certain times of the day, and they don't work as well at different times of the day, and when it comes to managing our blood sugar, our body does the best at doing that in the morning, and it doesn't do so good at it in the evening, and so that's why you really do want to, if possible, front load your intermittent fasting, and not make it so long as to create additional stress. So that would look like, again, starting your meals within an hour of waking and discontinuing about three hours before bed within a 12 hour window.

Laura Bowman:

That's so gentle. I love that approach. Now, I think a lot of women are like, I'm not hungry in the morning, or they think it's like there's something virtuous about trying to push it to lunch, but I mean, that's not a great, that's not a great plan.

Renee Fitton:

It's not, and especially for women, because we are especially sensitive to cortisol in the morning. What happens, and this is this is our body being incredibly intelligent when we wake up. Our cortisol, our stress hormones increase, and it helps us get out of bed, get active, get our day on the road, you know. And, and it's, but what it's also doing is it's staying high to tell us, hey, go get food, hey, go get food, and if we continuously, and what we, what we can learn is to suppress that, and suppress that. So, if you go long enough without having breakfast, you eventually think, now I don't need that, but what is still happening is this increased cortisol, so your body is remaining in this stress state for a long period of time until you consume food, and that is, that's chronic stress on your body, and it can lead to a lot of negative downstream effects. So it's really not ideal to be skipping breakfast, even if you're like, I'm just not a breakfast person.

Laura Bowman:

It's called I'm a coffee person, like I'm fueled on coffee, and you know, like going for hours without eating,

Renee Fitton:

and I'm sure I mean this is one that is all over social media, and I do have to agree with, is you know, the adding coffee to that morning fast is just making that worse

Laura Bowman:

cortisol, right? So

Renee Fitton:

at least throw a banana in there, and I think you'd be in significantly better shape. So,

Laura Bowman:

this is such a great tool. This is, is really good for women at midlife. I'm assuming

Renee Fitton:

fasting mimicking, especially because in midlife we start seeing declines in muscle, we start seeing declines in bone density, we, and this is all, of course, associated with the decline in estrogen, progesterone, etc. that happens in midlife. So, what we need to make sure that we're doing, if we are going to make a change to our nutrition, is that whatever change we're making is not also potentially declining muscle bone density, etc. which unfortunately, for like general blanket calorie restriction diets, which is usually kind of where we lean towards when we start seeing this, the weight on the scale creep up, and we start seeing, you know, these things that make us think, oh man, I got to do something, it's really important that we choose solutions that are holistic. Exactly, good for our bodies at this time, and that's why I love the fasting mimicking nutrition protocol, because it gives you a good kind of like push in the right direction without taking away some of these really critical parts of our body composition that we need to maintain, so

Laura Bowman:

right, and that's something I'm sure you see as a nutritionist, is like that women, like, are all about weight management and calorie restriction, and then they end up like really screwed up metabolically because they're just not fueling a level of fitness or anything, and they're just like, why am I existing on, you know, 800 calories a day, but like I'm gaining weight or the scale isn't moving, and it's like that's a whole other conversation about really fueling the body, yeah, yeah, and again,

Renee Fitton:

like with with this conversation of muscle protection, muscle is our most metabolically active tissue, or it's one of our most metabolically active tissues at bare minimum, and so the bigger they are, the higher your metabolism, and therefore you are better able to consume more food. It's just kind of like you're actually helping yourself, you know, not need to be so calorie restricted. And so when you restrict calories, what ends up happening is you drop your muscle density, because your body's like, well, we can't keep this muscle big and strong, will just pull from there, and then you're kind of creating this vicious cycle, because now your metabolic rate has gone down, and now you have to eat less and less and less and less to maintain the same, so it's really, it's really not ideal.

Laura Bowman:

Yeah, yeah, we have to re-educate ourselves, and we have to get in the weight room. That's the best thing I did was the wink like three times a week in the last few years is just really sticking to that, and it's been such a game changer. Yeah, but I want to try Prolon, I want to see if I can like make it through. I'm very dramatic about food, I'm very emotional about food,

Renee Fitton:

you're gonna, you're gonna find that this is going to make you even more excited and more in love with the food that you love. You know, it's like it's, it's a beautiful thing to see how your relationship with food evolves and how you learn to really love certain things, and you realize, like, maybe some of these things I didn't like so much, I, oh, turns out I didn't need this like candy that at the end of the night every night, like, oh, I actually don't even like that anymore. It's really interesting. So, okay,

Laura Bowman:

I'm here for that. I'm gonna check it out. So, tell us, like, where can people find, get access to Prolon? Where can they get access to more about you. Where can they find you?

Renee Fitton:

Yeah, so if you want to connect with me, please find me on social media. That's probably the fastest way at Fitton Nutrition, that's F I T T O N N Nutrition. If you're curious to learn more about Prolon, I would check out the website Prolon life.com P R O L O N life.com I think we should also get a link for you guys where you can get some additional discounting, so we'll make sure to throw that into the show notes. Yeah, I mean, I didn't

Laura Bowman:

even ask you what the cost was.

Renee Fitton:

Yeah, it's actually quite reasonable, because for five days you have all of your food and nutrition paid for with that cost, right? So keep in mind you're taking out your grocery bill for that week. It is anywhere full price between 199 to 299 depending on the box that you are getting. And then we'll have a, I believe, like a 20 25% off discount code for everybody. And then there is also reduced pricing if you do a subscription, so the pricing is is flexible, but the absolute most, most people are paying is like about 200 bucks for a kit,

Laura Bowman:

that's not bad, it's doable,

Renee Fitton:

very doable. Yes, and again, most people are, because food is so expensive these days, I

Laura Bowman:

know

Renee Fitton:

it's, it's kind of crazy, and so for five days, you know, you're you're typically spending more than like 50 bucks a day at this point, so especially if you're living in Los Angeles, New York,

Laura Bowman:

Miami,

Renee Fitton:

major cities, it's like crazy.

Laura Bowman:

All right, well, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna report back to our audience on what it was really like for a dramatic eater to do this, but I'm excited, because I think these are like game-changing tools, and you know, you sold me on the skincare piece, just the vanity alone. I'm like, okay,

Renee Fitton:

honestly, and it works. Let me just tell you, I'm so excited. That's one thing that I always tell people to do is take a picture of your face on day zero, and take a picture of your face on day six, and you will see, like, I mean, inflammation, even that's not something that they did in the trial, but I see it in the pictures, the before and afters, it's like it's pretty amazing, so do that,

Laura Bowman:

I love. This all right. Well, thank you so much for sharing this with our audience. It's something a little different that we don't usually talk about, but I love this, and I'm so happy that we got to go deep on it. So, thanks so much for being here, and we hope you guys got some insights from our couch today. Take care.

Unknown:

Bye.