Breaking the Fast: Health Beyond Dieting

The constant juggle of being a working mom sometimes feels like a pressure cooker ready to explode. That morning rush of getting kids to camp while managing work calls, racing to doctor's appointments, and trying not to melt down over forgotten insurance cards—sound familiar? These seemingly small moments stack up until we're ready to burst into tears over what others might view as minor inconveniences.

Why do we struggle so much with letting others care for us? I caught myself telling my children, "I wish someone took care of me as well as I take care of everyone else," revealing a deeper truth about control issues and possibly past trauma that many women share but rarely discuss. This isn't just about being busy—it's about the emotional toll of constantly managing everything and everyone while neglecting our own needs.

Beyond the daily shuffle, I've discovered something truly transformative for my health journey: intermittent fasting. After losing 150 pounds and then regaining 20, I needed a sustainable approach that worked with my busy life. What started as a weight management tool revealed itself as something far more powerful. Harvard and Johns Hopkins research confirms that intermittent fasting reduces insulin levels, increases human growth hormone, activates cellular repair through autophagy, and may even play a role in cancer prevention. Perhaps most fascinating is how fasting complements sleep—when we don't eat late at night, our brains can properly "wash" themselves during deep sleep, removing plaques associated with dementia.

My approach wasn't perfect at first—I bribed myself through the initial fasting periods with promises of treats during my eating windows. Yet even with imperfect implementation, I saw results that eventually led to healthier food choices and a more vegetarian lifestyle. The journey has been transformative, with my doctor recently confirming impressive health metrics that go far beyond the scale.

Have you tried intermittent fasting or found yourself overwhelmed by the invisible load of managing everything? I'd love to hear your experience—message me and let's continue this conversation about finding sustainable approaches to health while navigating the beautiful chaos of life.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Steel vs Podcast
• 1:39 The Mom Shuffle: Juggling Life
• 5:29 When Pressure Builds Up
• 7:44 Intermittent Fasting Benefits
• 11:07 How Sleep Cleans Your Brain
• 13:50 My Fasting Journey and Results

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello everybody, this is Steel vs Podcast. This podcast was created for women, by women, to elevate women's voices. I am very excited to welcome you to the show today and I have a special guest with me that would also like to welcome you to the show. Go ahead, welcome to Steel vs Podcast. Thank you for listening. Good job. So let's see here Still in August. Thank you all for hanging with me for the summer series. I feel like it's been a lot of fun, because we've gotten to go through a lot of episodes and topics that we don't get to go through in detail when I'm going through my guests. You guys do know that the format is changing for future guest episodes, so instead of doing series events, I am just pushing every episode live as I'm recording them 'm hoping. I'm hoping that it'll do a couple things. I do hope that one it's going to free up some time on my side. It's going to prevent me from having to do hours and hours of editing, which is going to be cool, and then I think it's going to also give um more diversity in a broad range for the show. The only thing that I do have to get to, which I haven't done yet, is I'm going to release a schedule of events, so I will start working on that so that that can be continuously updated, and I actually think I'm going to start pointing that towards on my website because I can update that pretty quickly. So more to come there. Please do make sure you're following me on YouTube or on LinkedIn, because that is where the live streams get pushed. I don't think it's going to get pushed to Facebook and for some reason, this platform doesn't push to Instagram, but in any case, I'm still very excited about that and I think I have some episodes coming out, being released this weekend, so it'll be really cool. They're all going to be live, so I have to get to posting about that. Now on to our topics of the day, our little thought starters. So, number one I wanted to call out that you know, you guys know I'm notorious and I think most of us are notorious for not taking care of our health, not prioritizing doctor's appointments and basically delaying things as much as possible until we actually have to go to the doctor. So I had a situation that had cropped up and I was concerned because I didn't know exactly what it was. Now I usually am pretty good. There's certain areas of my body that I'm like I can handle this, I can deal with it, I can deal with it. But there's some that I'm like this is hands off, I don't know how to deal with this area. I'm not an expert. I'm obviously not a physician, so can't really claim any expertise. But I had a moment where I was like I'm a little nervous and I need to go see an actual medical professional Now, like cue in the mom shuffle and some of you are going to get a kick out of this. This is, by the way, not the topic. I have a topic, but this is something I just wanted to share. So today, the mom shuffle, I had to work and also had this doctor's appointment. So I wanted to make sure I got myself to the doctor's appointment and my kids were home and I did not want them to come with me to the doctors, because that's a whole other can of worms, right. Come with me to the doctors, because that's a whole other can of worms, right. So I'm like they're going to be at camp. Well, I also had calls starting pretty early today, at like 8.30 on my side, so I had to orchestrate being able to start calls at 8.30, getting my kids to camp by 9.30, stay with me getting myself to the doctors by 10.30,. Getting back to my desk by 12 o'clock. You try to pull out all the stops when you're a working mom, so you have to be prepared for the unexpected. So I was prepared for the fact that I might not make it back to my desk by 12 o'clock like I'd like. So what I'm going to have to do is bring my laptop, bring my portable monitor, bring all the connections with me, bring my headphones basically bring my mobile office with me to go to the doctor in the event that I have to take calls from the car. So I had all that set up ready to go. Thankfully, the doctor's appointment was super quick. I'm in good health, guys, yay. But nevertheless I had this juggle and the car that I had today. I know, boohoo, what was me, but there was no air conditioning in it and I'm like sweating bullets running around as I'm driving to the doctor's office. So I get the kids to camp they were complaining, no one wanted to go got them dropped off. Then I start. I leave to go to the doctor's appointment. On my way there I realized I don't have my health insurance card I had to pull over and made sure I had it on my phone in the app so that I could message it to the doctor's office because they needed it, because it was a first appointment. So there was that and I'm like ready to cry, I'm ready to burst into tears right Now. Again, someone listening is probably like why were you ready to burst into tears? But it's the combination of pressures, because the only way I can think of it is like when you're boiling a pot of water on the stove, right, all right, so I'm the pot of water, clearly, and you know you turn the heat up a little bit. It just boils a little bit. It's a little, it's warm, you know it's getting warm, but you know it's still tolerable. But then the more flames you add which would be the pressure the more the water starts to boil and get out of control and pop the lid off and blow the lid off and everything. And so it was literally just truly like a. I had this morning call, wanted to make sure I'm showing up for that and that I'm listening and engaged, but in the background my children are not getting their socks and shoes on. That's triggering me. So I have to hang up the call super quick, get their socks and shoes on and eat back on a full by 9.05. So I'm doing the juggle right Then from the 9.05, and I already told you get them to camp while I'm on the call. Getting them to camp, and then while I'm doing that, I'm also trying to do the other things and it truly truly was just like a lot of little small pressurized moments that was pushing me right over the edge, on top of the fact that I was scared to go to the doctor. I don't really want to go, like in general, and so when I know I have to go because I'm nervous, it's like a scary thing for me. But again, all was well. But it was just that pressure of like stuff on top of stuff on top of stuff. And you all know how I feel about my job. I love my job, I'm very dedicated to my job. So it's just a lot. And I think this unseen part for everybody it's not just women, but you know we're women focused here. So I'm going to say that I'm going to focus on that, this unseen pressure that women have to deal with the juggling. And I actually said to my kids today I don't know if this is a proud I don't. I wouldn't say this was my proudest moment, but, like I said to them, I wish that someone took care of me as well as I took care of everybody else. Now that's probably a downfall on me to not set the expectation. If you guys could see my face right now, you could tell that I'm working this out as I say it. I think that's a fault for me, because I have never set the expectation that someone will be taking care of me. I just don't set that expectation. This is like a deep-rooted, deep-seated thing for me, where I not only am not expecting other people to take care of me, but in a way, I'm removing that possibility of anyone ever taking care of me in that way, because that would mean that I would be giving up some part of control. Oof, this went a lot deeper, a lot deeper than I intended it to be. It was supposed to be a funny thing, but now that I think about it, I think it's more of a inability to really, really give up control, and I think that's where a lot of us will start to falter, especially for folks who have had like trauma and past trauma, which, again, I think almost all of us have that. Why am I sharing this story? Because we all go through this and you're not crazy, period. Honestly, hand to God, half the stuff I talk about here is because I want you to know you're not alone. You're not the only one going through this. You're not the only one snapping over a bunch of little things. It happens. I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow. Not as scary, it's a chiropractor appointment because I have a bad lower back. I'm working on it so that it won't be a bad lower back anymore. Nevertheless, that's a different kind of appointment. At the end of the day, it doesn't disrupt my day. I don't have to really worry about anything, not as stressed out about that. That would be an easier one. Now onto the topic, because I don't want this to be a super long episode, but I want to talk about this topic with you. So I think I have talked about intermittent fasting before I started practicing it last year. One of my mom friends put me on it. I was explaining to her that I was really frustrated because I had lost a lot of weight and like about 150 pounds and paused. I was very, very, very overweight from my pregnancies and that's why I lost so much weight, but it took a lot. I had to go see doctors, like I mean, it was a legitimate like health crisis that I needed to address, so I lost all this weight. I was very proud of myself for being able to do it, and then, after we moved into our home, I started gaining weight again. Not a lot, it was about 20 pounds over the course of like three years or so or two years roughly like 10 pounds a year. It started freaking me out because I already know what that looked like and I already know what that felt like. Now, this is not a situation where I'm talking about body shaming. I'm definitely not of that mindset. However, for me personally, carrying a lot, all that extra weight that I had, was very uncomfortable for me and it was affecting my mental health and my physical health. It's just in my opinion, and in the opinion of some of the medical professionals I've talked to, it is not healthy to carry that much weight with you. I see some, unfortunately, some repercussions in my current body that are from when I was so overweight and now I have to deal with it. Nevertheless, I wanted to focus in on intermittent fasting because this was something that really really helped. But the reason why I want to focus on intermittent fasting is not so much because it was the only way that I was able to drop that 20 pounds again. The thing that I wanted to focus on here is what are the other benefits of intermittent fasting? So a lot of folks are doing it because it's like fad. Right, it's a fad thing. There's all these apps for it now and there's tons of diets out there that you can follow, like you know that have all this like fluff and fluff. Intermittent fasting is not a flash in the pan. This is actually really important. So I'm going to read to you some of the research that I found. I'm just going to reference it. I do want to assure you I am reading articles from Harvard Health, johns Hopkins Medicine and Portsmouth Regional Hospital. I just did a general search. I've also talked about intermittent fasting quite a bit with some of the medical folks that I work with. So there is true legitimate benefits to doing this kind of a diet. Now there's some risk involved. If you, obviously, if you're pregnant, I don't think this is like obviously something you could do If you are prone to eating disorders. If you have an eating disorder. This would not be a good fit because you already are not fasting. It's not the right word. You're restricting, so this isn't the right path. But if this is something that you can talk to your doctor about, this is something you want to try, I really do recommend it, not just because of weight loss. So, for example, intermittent fasting induces hormonal changesonal changes, so it reduces insulin. Insulin levels decrease, making your body more sensitive to insulin and potentially improving blood sugar control. Increase human growth hormones, so levels of hgh increase, which can aid in fat burning and muscle preservation. This next part is incredibly important cellular repair. So there is a process called autophagy probably not pronouncing that right Cells initiate repair processes, including autophagy, where they remove damaged or dysfunctional proteins, promoting cellular growth, cellular health, gene expression if it can influence gene expression, potentially impacting longevity and disease prevention. I want to pause there for a minute. I interviewed somebody for the podcast, amy Van Loo. She told me as part of her cancer prevention, her doctor asked her to do intermittent fasting. This is really important. Your body needs time, needs periods of time during the day where it is completely empty so that it can regenerate itself, and I know from a lot of people. This happens at night, but if you're a late night eater, when you're sleeping, your body is actually not at rest and it's not healing itself and it's not regenerating. When you go to sleep and you're in deep sleep, your whole body resets itself, including your brain, and this is a little bit like off of this topic. I had actually read somewhere else and I'm going to try to find it while I'm talking that your brain basically goes through a wash cycle. It clears any plaques off your brain that would promote dementia. It rinses and pulls any blood that was floating there, like I mean, truly look it up, google it. When you sleep, what happens to your brain? It's basically like a wash, rinse, repeat and then you wake up in the morning and you can go and do your thing. This is probably also why, when you were staying up for long periods of time and I'll use myself as an example when I have really hot projects that I'm working on and I need to lose sleep and I need to work really late, like consistently throughout the week, that plays, that takes toll on me and I can't think right, like my brain is foggy, like I start to make mistakes. That's not just the sleep deprivation, but your brain also has not had time to clean itself Like. This is a problem. Lean in more Like we need to really be focused here because we could be doing things in our daily lives that are helping our physical health. So, of course, intermittent fasting promotes metabolic shifts fat burning, ketone production, mitochondrial function, which are the powerhouse of cells, potentially leading to increased energy production. Other potential benefits are improved gut health, reduced cardiovascular risk factors and better sleep. I mean you can look this up. This information is not hidden, but I wanted to talk with you about it because people are looking for really quick hits for how can I lose weight super fast? And I'm not trying to put anyone down for that because, again, like I've shared with you my story a few times, I was desperate when I went to the doctor the first time and I was crying because I was so uncomfortable, so unhappy, and I felt like I had tried everything at that point and I hadn't. So I understand the need and I understand the deep desire I really do to lose weight. I've battled this my entire life. But there's a good way to do it and there's not a good way to do it and there's a way that you do it. That could affect you negatively for your whole life. But there's a way like this, like intermittent fasting, that could really have a huge positive impact on you. So I'm going to stop it there. I would love if anyone is really looking at trying to lose weight, not even if they're trying to lose weight. If you just want to shift your life around a little bit, this would be a great thing to try out. And I will say this one last thing when I first tried it, my willpower is awful in general Well, for the most part, and I'm prone to late night snacking. So I used to. When I first started, I would promise myself Jenny, if you get through today like an addict, I'm like. If you get through today like an addict, I'm like, if you get through this, you can have a donut tomorrow. So the first month that I did intermittent fasting, I ate terribly. During that window that I had available to eat, I ate whatever. I ate junk food, I ate sweets, I ate sugars I didn't care. I was like I'm just trying this out, what shakes what shakes out. And the first month I think I lost like five pounds and I was eating badly. And then I started to catch on and wise up and I was like, oh you know what, like perhaps I should actually just eat clean, like maybe I should just eat better. And then I started like really transitioning more into being a vegetarian and eating healthier and doing better things for myself, like in general. So with that, my physical body has gone through so many things and it is in pretty good health state at this point, as confirmed by my doctor earlier today. She was very impressed with my statistics, but I want to leave you guys with that thought we can do things for ourselves that are outside of like oh I need to lose weight, or outside of going to the gym. That really could have a positive impact on your overall health. I hope you found this episode informative. If you give intermittent fasting a shot, I would love to hear about it. So please feel free to message me and thank you for hanging out with me and I will catch you on the next one. Take care.