Podcast
ZOE Science & Nutrition
The book was highlighted by its author Gin Stephens, with Tim Spector present, as a practical guide to intermittent fasting that emphasizes the “clean fast” of water, black coffee, or plain tea. Stephens shared anecdotal evidence that avoiding sweeteners or added fats produced markedly better results and invited listeners to try a 30‑day clean‑fast challenge. She also stressed gradually building fasting “muscle,” maintaining consistent eating windows, and nourishing the body well, positioning the title as a useful resource for both beginners and experienced fasters.
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This book by Gin Stephens was written in 2020 and explains that while intermittent fasting is important, it is crucial to nourish your body well.
My book that I wrote in 2020 is called Fast Feast Repeat. It's not fast, eat a little diet meal, repeat.
We want to nourish our body well.
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Gin Stephens' book discusses the clean fast, which involves only consuming water, black coffee, or plain tea during fasting periods. The author states that she has found anecdotal evidence suggesting that this type of fasting is more effective than fasting with added sweeteners or milk products.
I have a whole section in Fast Feast Repeat where I talk about the clean fast.
And there is at the end of that, there are two chapters about the clean fast.
And there's a section where I have, you know, anecdotal stories from intermittent fasters.
And, you know, I've been in the intermittent fasting community since well before I ever wrote any books at all or had podcasts.
Really in 2014, 2015, started with the support groups on Facebook.
And anecdotally, the difference between fasting clean and, you know, putting a little bit of this, a little bit of that, the bulletproof coffee, a little bit of butter, you know, all the things that people might be, you know, putting in there, the difference is night and day.
And you have to really experience it for yourself.
So anybody who's putting in a little sweetener or a little drop of cream or whatever and you're like, it's fine.
It works for me. I'm still losing weight. I feel okay.
I would challenge you to try it with the clean fast. Give yourself 30 days. I call it the clean fast challenge. Go to plain black coffee, plain tea, plain water, nothing flavored, nothing sweetened, nothing to lighten up your coffee.
I've never had anybody try it for 30 days and then go back to the other way.
So, you know, really just take that challenge and try it for yourself and see. Most people report that they can't believe the difference that it makes.
You've really got to build up to it. I like to compare it to couch to 5K.
You know, if someone wants to go run a 5K, you don't get off the couch on day one and run a 5K.
You have to build up to it.
And so fasting is the same way.
We're very much building up our fasting quote muscle, right? It's not technically a muscle, but you know what I mean with that analogy.
So you're building up to it. And that's what the 28 days is really for.
You know, you're learning how to fast clean.
There are going to be days where you feel hangry and you have to open your window earlier than you expected. And that's not a fail. That's just part of the process. We're learning to listen to our bodies.
You know, we never want to feel shaky like you're having a blood sugar crash. If you're ever shaky or nauseous, go ahead and eat. You know, forget about what the plan said to do that day.
Go ahead and eat. And, you know, gradually as your body gets adapted, you'll find, you know, what feels good to you.
Some people always feel better with a midday eating window. For example, they like to skip breakfast, eat lunch, have a little maybe early kind of dinner, close their window. No couch snacking on chocolate for them because their window is closed.
But they sleep better when they have that middle of the day eating window.
I'm not one of those people. I actually sleep better when my window is closer to bedtime. I've tried it all different ways.
I wait till afternoon, open my window, eat till I'm satisfied, close my window.
But only through experimentation have I learned that.
You're not going to learn that in the first 28 days. You know, I interviewed a longevity expert, Dr. Gil Blander.
He said he believes that one of the most powerful things we can do to increase longevity is intermittent fasting.
You know, just have that piece in there. Understand, you know, why we're doing it.
I don't want anybody to start intermittent fasting only because you might lose some weight.
That's not what intermittent fasting really is all about.
You know, of course, I came to it for the weight loss. I like to say, you know, we come for the weight loss, but we stick around for the health benefits.
The consistency means that you're doing something every day, right? It's consistency of the fact that you maintain a fasting protocol. That doesn't mean it has to be exact same timing every day. It's just a matter of like we don't like quote take days off. We don't have cheat days.
I mean, that doesn't mean though that you can't decide today I'm going out to brunch and I'm going to eat at 10 o'clock.
And what worked for me really well was the idea of keeping my eating window to like five hours and shifting that around. So if I wanted to shift it to earlier in the day, I could do that, just slide it to a different part of the day. And then one day my fast was a little shorter because I opened my window earlier, but then I closed it earlier. So the next day my fast was a little longer because I opened at the time I normally did.
So we don't want it to feel regimented and lots and lots of rules that you must follow.