Coachinginterview

WHAT 99% GET WRONG ABOUT WEIGHT GAIN & HOW TO FIX IT | CYNTHIA THURLOW

with Cynthia Thurlow

27:07·20 July 2023

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CYNTHIA THURLOW

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TOPICS

Cynthia Thurlow challenges everything you've been told about meal frequency, weight loss, and metabolic health. She breaks down why fasting works, how it triggers cellular cleanup (autophagy), and why the push for constant eating and quick-fix drugs has made us sicker—plus how to structure eating and training around your actual lifestyle rather than dogma.

Key Takeaways

Autophagy (cellular garbage disposal) is triggered during fasting periods and helps remove diseased cells and dysfunctional mitochondria—focus on feeling better (less joint pain, bloating, brain fog) rather than fixating on exact fasting hours
The migrating motor complex in your digestive system needs 4-5 hours between meals to work properly; eating too frequently prevents this natural cleaning mechanism and increases disease risk
Lean, active adults should cap fasts at 24 hours to avoid muscle breakdown; longer fasts (3-5 days) require medical supervision and aren't recommended for young women due to hormone depletion risks
Breaking a fast matters: the longer you've fasted, the lighter your meal should be—bone broth, light salads, and lean proteins are better than heavy fatty meals that can cause digestive distress
Athletes can use carbohydrates strategically without insulin rollercoaster crashes if they're metabolically flexible; the key is eating enough protein, timing carbs around training, and avoiding processed hyperpalatable foods
88-93% of Americans are now metabolically unhealthy; lifestyle changes (sleep, food quality, movement, stress management) prevent chronic disease far better than medication alone

Expert Quotes

"Autophagy is when your body goes in and gets rid of diseased disordered cells... it's like effectively your body is taking out garbage."

"If you want to be different, if you don't want to be the common narrative—because the common denominator right now is you are not metabolically healthy, not physically active, not sleeping well—you have to make different choices."

"I spent 16 years in clinical cardiology writing hundreds of prescriptions a year until I couldn't do it anymore because I kept saying: why are we writing prescriptions for things that are lifestyle mediated?"

KEY QUOTES

“Right now the latest statistic prior to the pandemic was that 88.2 percent of Americans were metabolically healthy and now it's 92 to 93 so we're heading in the in the opposite direction.”
Cynthia Thurlow — Nurse practitioner, intermittent fasting expert, TEDx speaker

“I don't fast more than 24 hours because you have this this point to which you will start to break down muscle and I'm so protective of muscle at this point in my life that I'm not willing to run the risk of having some degree of catabolism so right around that 24 hour mark I think for lean active adults if someone's obese or overweight you can do two or three day fast sometimes as long as four or five days.”
Cynthia Thurlow — Nurse practitioner, intermittent fasting expert, TEDx speaker

“If you're a younger woman let's say you're under the age of 35 and you're not getting a menstrual cycle because your hormone levels are just so depleted you're putting yourself at risk for the same things that menopausal women are at risk for bone issues heart health brain health cognition.”
Cynthia Thurlow — Nurse practitioner, intermittent fasting expert, TEDx speaker

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT3 SECTIONS

Why Fasting Beats Breakfast Dogma

What if I told you that breakfast being the most important meal of the day was wrong and so you know that's kind of the common prevailing theme of oh well don't change your diet just take this drug these drugs that have really kind of taken off diabetic you know here in the United States right now these glp-1 agonists and because in many ways people don't have to change their habits autophagy is when your body goes in and gets rid of disease disorder cells so it's getting rid of where's the where's the quote-off point yeah and this is a highly personal issue so I always say foreign hey everybody welcome back to the channel this week's guest is the amazing Cynthia turlo we're going to talk about the power of fasting how it can prevent disease and reverse aging all very exciting if you're new here my name is Anthony Walch and my goal with this show and this channel is to introduce you to people and ideas to optimize your health your happiness and your longevity so take a second and hit the Subscribe button because we're bringing new videos every week now let's get into the show Cynthia welcome to the Rockman cycling podcast thanks Anthony I'm glad that we were able to coordinate our calendars to make it happen I want to take a little bit of a U-turn and talk about fasting I know there's a large portion of our audience that are curious about it because it's something I've mentioned that I do on the podcast quite a number of times for me there's maybe a a dual benefit to it there's the benefit which I'm sure you're going to explain much more than I can and much more eloquently cellular autophagy it's something that's invisible and I don't know what's going on there it's I'm just told it happened so I believe it's happening well for me the big one especially when I was trying to shed some weight was the compressed feeding window if you're fasting for 16 hours so I wasn't really having my lunch until two o'clock and then my last meal at like eight o'clock even as a very undisciplined person it's difficult to do very much damage in such a small window like your your Society levels are pretty good like I'm pretty I'm feeling pretty fulfilled after a meal it needs to be a big gluttonous to exceed your daily caloric intake in that compressed window autophagy is when your body goes in and gets rid of disease disordered cells so it's getting rid of diseased organelles mitochondria mitochondria are powerhouses of ourselves there's something called mitophagy which is recycling of disease disordered mitochondria but it's helping people understand it's like effectively your body is taking out garbage it's things that have the potential to go on and create um cellular injury um they can be things that um have the potential to go on and be pre-cancerous cells and so one of the reasons why we see so much metabolic disease right now it has a lot to do with this meal frequency so autophagy Improvement in biophysical markers you know when we're in this unfed state we'll get improvement in our blood pressure lipids so triglycerides HDL LDL typically will improve more often than not if people are new to fasting they may actually require less medication for blood pressure for diabetes Etc helping people understand that when we're in an unfed State we're lowering intrinsic inflammation in the body so this is when people may report I have less joint pain I have less bloating I'm less constipated there's something called the migrating Motor complex and this is an intrinsic mechanism that's in our digestive system and when we're eating too frequently it doesn't allow this janitor of our digestive system to actually push food forward in a way that is getting rid of pathogens things that do not belong but we actually need four to five hours in between our meals and that's so contrary to that's interesting yeah it's like my migrating the MMC is really really cool but helping people also understand that we're lowering our likelihood of developing neurocognitive issues just by eating less frequently so Parkinson's dementia Alzheimer's Alzheimer's admission marginal returns at any point on this like if I don't eat for 16 hours I'm experiencing it but what if I don't eat for 18 days you know it's an extreme example but where is the where's the quote-off point yeah and this is a highly personal issue so I always say my lean patience and I include myself in this I don't do long fast anymore I don't fast more than 24 hours because you have this this point to which you will start to break down muscle and I'm so protective of muscle at this point in my life that I'm not willing to run the risk of having some degree of catabolism so right around that 24 hour mark I think for lean active adults if someone's obese or overweight you can do two or three day fast sometimes as long as four or five days fast when it's over five days I like it to be medically supervised which means you just have the oversight of a healthcare professional because you may likely need less medication for your blood pressure you may need less diabetes medication and so you know that's kind of the cut off for me personally like you could do a five-day unassisted fast making sure you're well hydrated with electrolytes Etc but I find you know getting up to that five day point the other thing is there are clearly people who should not fast and I'm pretty outspoken about these you know if you're pregnant or breastfeeding maybe talk to me a little bit about dolls to the compressed feeding window and the cellular autophagy yeah no I I think autophagy is like one of these one of these topics that for me is probably one of the biggest benefits so for your listeners this is talking about this waste and recycling process that goes on in an unfed State obviously the longer you fast the more up regulation in autophagy and there's a lot of discussion slash arguments about we can't measure it how do we know how many hours we have to be fasting and so I always caution people like don't get so fixated on the hours but focus more on the benefits that are going on in an unfed state so um if you have a disorder relationship with food you know whether it's anorexia bulimia binge eating although I do of course have exceptions I've met women in particular who have healed from their eating disorders and have been able to fast effectively but that again is really dependent on the input of their therapist clinical psychiatrist or psychologist and then also thinking about you know someone that is over fasting over training over exercising I do see that Triad quite a bit and these are the individuals that are they're exercising intensely all the time without any rest days and rest days are important these are individuals that are fasting you know 20 to 24 hours a day maybe they're eating one meal a day chronically habitually and then on top of that they're super restrictive with their diet almost to the point of true orthorexia or they don't need anything that they consider to be unhealthy and they're just chronically under nourishing their bodies and and that Triad is something that I've started to speak more openly about because I I do see on social media there are people that I suspect actually have a pretty significant any disorders but they'll hide it under the guise of oh I'm intermittent fasting so if you're not nourishing your body um you're you're eating one meal a day kind of habitually you can't hit those protein macros you're over exercising without rest days and you know somebody's specific to women if women lose their menstrual cycle that is absolutely a sign that it's too much stress for their bodies even if they're at a position in their lives where they don't want to have children with such an unhealthy relationship with food and cycling I've had a lot of female Pro cyclists on the sport and just like show you how up their relationship is some of their their relationships with diet that it's a badge of honor to not be getting your menstrual cycle yeah it's scary I mean I I remind people that it's a barometer of our health so just like blood pressure just like pulse just like temperature um not getting your menstrual cycle is not a badge of honor is actually a sign that your body perceives it is under way too much stress and I have met and spoken to many female athletes who shared the same thing with me and I was so troubled because what many women don't realize is if you're a younger woman let's say you're under the age of 35 and you're not getting a menstrual cycle because your hormone levels are just so depleted you're putting yourself at risk for the same things that menopausal women are at risk for bone issues heart health brain health cognition so those are things I worry about like it's very different if you're a 55 year old woman versus a 25 year old woman that's essentially in a state where you're you're in premature ovarian insufficiency very very different but could potentially be catastrophic for their health long term and if you're to go on the longer side of these fast so long do we need to be fast and to start seeing benefits like Stem Cell Activation you're really looking at four and five day fast I mean some some people will say three to five days but if you really if you follow Walter Longo's work or if you look at a lot of the information on telomere activity and Stem Cell Activation you're really looking at the longer fasts and you really have to buffer that with what is in your best interest like obviously if it's someone that's that's dealing with a cancer diagnosis in conjunction with their oncologist blessing those longer fasts may be of benefit to them versus someone that's really lean and very young um I would not be pushing people to do especially women in particular because there there's so many things that are going on in terms of their body's awareness of nutrients depletion and you know reduction in in reserves so I think it's if you were to say to me you know Cynthia twice a year I want to do a four or five day fast that's probably okay but you're also not going to be doing heavy training at that time you might go and take a walk but you're not going to be getting on your bike and doing 100 mile bike ride or 100 kilometer bike ride for that matter you're going to be conscientious about um you know what activities you're doing around those longer fasts I don't do longer fasts anymore uh and without you know boring you with too much information prior to that second Ted Talk I spent 13 days in the hospital and lost 15 pounds and so since that time it has been you know an uphill battle to put that muscle back on and so for me I I've had the longest uh period of not eating and I I don't ever hope to replicate that again so for me 24 hours is about where I where I hit so when you're breaking that fast I think I definitely figured out the way not to break the fast I went on a three-day fast last year and then broke it by just like Panic driving to Subway with two foot long meatballs I just didn't feel good about it like you shouldn't fast for three days and then feel like you're fat after it just because you had to be Paul Mariners yeah typically I will say that the longer the fast the lighter the meal so if you're doing a three day fast um actually thinking about the fact that you could conceivably you know sit down and have some bone broth maybe you have a light salad maybe you have a small piece of fish you're going to think about leaner non-fatty proteins that's probably an easier way to kind of acquiesce into re-establishing you know kind of an eating ritual you know a very heavy fatty meal can for many people cause diarrhea or because their small intestine has kind of gotten had a couple a couple days of reprieve and then all of a sudden it just hasn't caught up with the fact that this massive bolus of food came and I do find that you know smaller meals and I think this is a degree of experimentation but it's been more my clinical experience that the longer the fast the lighter the meal and just really being thoughtful about cooking the vegetables if you're going to have vegetables eating a leaner piece of meat or fish or even just eggs like I find for me A lot of times just making like a couple eggs without the bacon I do really well with if we look at the predominant narrative that's been pushed for the better part of a decade it's the idea of easing adding small amounts of frequent meals to maybe keep the metabolism fired up now we could probably speculate for the rest of the day about who pushes this narrative but there's definitely some hard stats that are on ignorable like I think America makes up less than five percent of the world's population but consumes over 65 percent of the world's pharmaceutical products the link between diet and health is kind of unescapable yeah I mean and right now the latest statistic prior to the pandemic was that 88.2 percent of Americans were metabolically healthy and now it's 92 to 93 so we're heading in the in the opposite direction and unfortunately the way the kind of prevailing allopathic medical model is here or in the United States is that it doesn't matter if you have to be on more medication to treat your blood pressure or your diabetes or your cholesterol we don't spend time talking to our patients about lifestyle as medicine and so we just condition our patients to believe that high blood pressure is inevitable they're going to get obese they're going to sleep really poorly they're going to have achy joints and I'm here to say it should be completely the antithesis of that I see hundreds and hundreds of women that come through my programs and and in my practice that we kind of flip that narrative and they start to understand like your quality of sleep the foods you choose to eat whether you choose to exercise or not how you manage your stress those four variables have more impact on whether or not you'll ever have a chronic disease than just about anything else and so I kind of feel like in a lot of different ways I've I've gone back to my roots um you know certainly I spent 16 years in clinical Cardiology you better believe all I did was write prescriptions hundreds and hundreds of scripts a year until I couldn't do it anymore because I kept saying why are we writing prescriptions for things that are lifestyle mediated and I remember my colleagues thought I was crazy and I kept saying really really if we could teach people how to sleep how to eat how to move their bodies how to manage their stress they would need a lot less medication and so here in the United States it's completely normal to have the pharmaceutical industry that really heavily influences providers and the way we prescribe and they heavily Market on TV so for anyone who still watches TV I don't know many people that do um because most people stream because it's so easy to have instant gratification I think on a lot of different levels you know you start to see the pharmaceutical industry as hijack medicine and that in and of itself has had a very detrimental effect on our our health overall I rewatched your Ted Talk last week in advance of our choice four years ago now and there's over 14 million views on that which is crazy but you open that Ted talk with the phrase what if I told you breakfast being the most important meal of the day was wrong that statement then was quite Against the Grain and it had some Shock value even when you dropped it to the audience that was there do you think people still have the same Viewpoint about that statement you know it's a great question I know there were a lot of Snickers in the audience when I said that people were like what I think we're there's growing awareness about when we choose to break our fast so that's what actually breakfast represents breaking our fast but I think many people are starting to realize that the gimmicks the potions the pills the powder especially here in the United States that you know these temporary fixes for a long-term problem are not effective and I think that is why people are probably there's growing awareness around the foods we choose to break our fast with when we choose to break our fast I think there's growing awareness I think there's less you know people think of it as being new and novel but I remind people you know the concept of fasting dates back to Biblical times but having said that I think that with this growing awareness I think with the pandemic if people didn't walk away from the pandemic with a different perspective about their lives either re-prioritization um jokingly a friend of mine said you know that with the pandemic people either became a chunk a hunk or a drunk uh but I think there's a lot of Truth in that that many people were like hey I there's no time but the present to start prioritizing my health taking care of myself thinking about how I want to live my life and I do think that there is there are more people that appear to be embracing out of curiosity the concept of fasting and certainly it's not weird anymore like when I started talking about it you know eight years ago people thought I was again crazy but I realized I was just ahead of my time and so I think for a lot of different reasons I'm glad that it's not such a A New Concept for so many people and it's encouraging people to think against the common narrative I always say if you want to be different if you don't want to be a common narrative because the common denominator right now is you are not metabolically healthy or not physically active you are not sleeping well and then I can add in your stresses not well managed and you're not going to end up living a a great life you're going to be the person that is going to be starting with high blood pressure medication you're probably going to cholesterol meds you're going to to be diabetic you know here in the United States right now these glp-1 agonists you know osempicuegov these drugs that have really kind of taken off and because in many ways people don't have to change their habits and so you know that's kind of the common prevailing theme of oh well don't change your diet just take this drug I think that's we're starting to see some shifts and I think that's certainly really encouraging so I'm on board with so much of what you're saying so I wake up in the morning and if I wake up in the morning and I have you know I'm thinking back to when I was a kid and my mom would feed me these like really high sugar cereals for breakfast and I inevitably get that elevated insulin levels the slump and then you know I'm sure my college Years I relied heavily to almost self-prescribed during that slump with energy drinks or caffeinated beverages of some kind to pull myself out of that slump until the next meal and Beyond just this roller coaster of energy all day and I've heard you talk and you've characterized people into kind of fat burners and sugar burners but what I still struggle to understand and this is where do athletes fall into this because we've overwhelming evidence that carbohydrates are beneficial for performance and neutralizing Insulin effects during performance so it's how can I how can I have my cake and eat it almost as a question how can I get the benefits of carbohydrates and insulate myself from the negative effects of this insulin roller coaster well ideally we want to be able to use different types of fuel substrates whether it's carbohydrates or stored glycogen fats or fatty acids or even ketones when we are metabolically flexible we can use any of those so even in an athlete they want to be able to you know if you're sprinting you're going to use a different type of fuel than someone that's doing a long endurance race and helping people understand that the average person isn't able to effectively use different types of fuel substrates the average person is the person that has that is using predominantly glycogen or stored sugar as their fuel source and that's why they deal with being hangry you know that's why they have to eat with greater meal frequency that's why they struggle to lose weight they become weight loss resistant you know they have energy slumps like you mentioned you would self-medicate with energy drinks because you had this slump probably from too much carbohydrate so I think when I obviously this is not my area of expertise but when I talk to people that are athletic or are athletes it's helping them understand like I don't want anyone to walk away thinking that oh if I use carbohydrates as a fuel substrate that's bad no we want to be able to use fats ketones we want to be able to use glucose as a fuel substrate and we don't want to be stuck in this Paradigm of thinking we eat to stoke our metabolism that we lots of you know we call it heart healthy grains here which couldn't be further from the truth but understanding that someone who is flexible in terms of what types of fuel their body uses are the ones that are going to be able to you know show up and perform athletically intellectually psychologically so for somebody that's training bdot cycling running Triathlon GM going whatever in the evenings but something that's not a steady stage aerobic that there is periods where there's a glycogen Demand on this activity and they're doing that in the evenings how would you structure a day would you still be fasting up until lunch going we're kind of a 16 a fasting protocol and then breaking that and maybe transitioning to something lower glycemic carb just before the activity or how would you structure that dietary day I think so bio-individuality rules and I I mean this like from very much from a medicine perspective but also my clinical experience that you could take 10 men and women and they may all be people who really enjoy working out at night and some of them may say to you I can eat like a hearty size lunch a smaller dinner and then I can go to the gym some people feel like they need a little bit of fruit before their workout other people don't feel like they need that I find for me that the individuals that have been doing fasting for a period of time do absolutely fine if they're in a fasted state or if they've had a meal three or four hours before I think that a lot of it is really dependent on their degree of physical activity like do you have a job where you're sitting on your butt all day long or are you someone that is a day laborer or are you someone that's a tennis coach and you're running up and down you know running up and down the court you know training your clients and so you're very physically deactive and so I always say that you know that that carbohydrate load for me in particular obviously most of my clients are middle-aged people so we'll talk to them about protein every meal is focused on protein and you're either protein and healthy fats or protein and carbohydrates because you know from my perspective you know the low carb movement in many ways has gotten a bad rap because people have kind of overdone overdone the low carb thing and and there are individuals who do benefit from a little bit more discretionary carbohydrate they're usually my younger leaner patients that are more metabolically flexible but when I think about someone that's transitioning from we call it a standard American diet but someone that's eating six to ten times a day and that is the average which is really surprising but as you're transitioning from that to maybe you're having three meals a day maybe you're having a snack in between taking away the snacks really making sure you're eating enough protein like I'm very protein Centric because we recognize our protein needs change throughout our lifetime but especially north of 40.

Protein, Carbs, and the 16:8 Window

Um making sure that individuals when they're sitting down to have meals have enough protein adding in the carbohydrates if they've earned them meaning if you are Physically Active you're doing demanding work you're really depleting your glycogen stores because you're doing either um you know very heavy lifting you know intense lifting in the gym or you're doing high intensity interval training or a lot of Tabata um you know you've really depleted your glycogen stores and I have some clients that will actually tell me they can tell when they're at that point where they need to be more conscientious about replacing their carbohydrates but I think a 16a you know going from not snacking to three meals to making sure you've allocated enough protein and then you know if you can get enough protein in your feeding window that's really key if you can get an eight hour window two or three meals and you can have ideally one gram per pound of ideal body weight then I'm okay with someone doing a 16-8 I do have clients right now that are actually having wider feeding Windows because they just can't get enough protein in and at that time frame so I think if it's largely dependent on what life stage you're in how Physically Active you are and understand that carbohydrates aren't intrinsically bad it's really more about the quality of the carbs so not the cakes and the cookies but maybe you have sweet potato or low glycemic berries or some citrus fruit and that's you know the fiber and everything else will fill you up it's not the same as these highly processed hyper palatable carbohydrates that most people are attracted to because they're easy to overeat you know to be totally transparent a lot of it's like what's someone's motivation some people just want to look great naked some people have an event coming up they want to look good for and other people have more kind of substantive perspectives that they're like okay I want to I don't want to age in Reverse but I want to make sure that I can chase after my kids eventually my grandkids I want to make sure I can still hike I want to make sure that I can still you know do these long cycling rides and that piece is really interesting because I listened to Peter Tia talking about this where if you Baseline your physical strength your enjoy levels and a bunch of different markers now and then you map the expected Decline and then you cross-check that against a list of stuff you hope to be able to do when you're 60 years old you can say what pretty decent certainty no you're not going to be able to play on the floor with your grandchildren that requires quite a lot of physical strength to be on the floor or core stability so you can rule that out unless to use your phrase you start pushing back against that muscular decline now yeah no and it's interesting I mean I I have um on social media and I'm an introvert so I hate taking my phone into the gym and taking photos no it's I mean I'm such a like I always say like I'm an open book about a lot of things but my gym time is my time I mean I'm not on my phone other than to like listen to a podcast or a book ironically enough I was listening to Peter ortia's book this morning but helping people understand that you know when I look at my peers like I went to my 30th High School reunion a few years ago and I was looking at my peers I was like wow like the choices we make have a huge net impact not just on the physicality and the body composition stuff but just looking at people who looked inflamed and Haggard and tired and so I remind I of all boys and I remind them all the time this is why your dad and I still like are very physically active and you know make sure we go to the gym and you know I just saying to my husband last night we really should start doing pickleball because there's a lot of benefits of that hand-eye coordination and he was kind of laughing like oh my God we're like every middle-aged couple you know wanting to find new activities and I said no but actually it's so good for brain health so I think to your point understanding like we don't want to lose strength or we want to do everything we can to maintain it we want to maintain muscle mass we want to ensure that we are um you know clear cognitively there's a UK study talking about just step count I mean something that is so seemingly benign but like step count contributes to um you know reduction in cognitive decline for people over the age of 65.

Daily Steps and Tracking Metrics

And so something as simple as walking every day that people don't even think anything of um I remember I'm like always trying to get my patients like I want you to walk more I want you to park farther away and there's a reason for that like there's a minimum amount of steps that I want my patients to be hitting on a daily basis because it gives us a sense of are we sitting on our butts all day long which we know is you know problematic in and of itself so I agree with you that you know kind of tracking those metrics that's why you know glucometers continuous glucose monitors I have an ore ring I have an Apple Watch I mean I like to track to track metrics and I encourage patients you know within their budgets to be able to do the same so they can determine you know what is working well for them or what is not Cynthia I absolutely love chatting in a pretty insane world you're a welcome Saiyan voice across the internet and you're a resource that I return to again and again so I'm going to link up your various social platforms and your book and everything else in the show notes and encourage everyone to go and check that out thank you very much for the time shot me today yeah absolutely thank you if you enjoyed that episode press here for a selection of the best podcast conversations I've had don't forget to subscribe to the channel see you next time

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

What does intermittent fasting actually do to your metabolism?+

Intermittent fasting reduces chronic insulin exposure caused by frequent eating, which Cynthia Thurlow identifies as a primary driver of metabolic dysfunction. A 16-hour fasting window triggers autophagy, the body's cellular clean-up process, and activates the migrating motor complex, a digestive clearance mechanism that requires four to five hours between meals to function properly.

How long should you fast for weight loss without losing muscle?+

Cynthia Thurlow recommends capping routine fasts at 24 hours for lean adults to protect muscle mass. Extending beyond this regularly increases the risk of muscle breakdown, which undermines long-term metabolic health and body composition.

Is intermittent fasting safe for women who exercise a lot?+

Thurlow specifically flags over-fasting combined with over-training as a common and damaging pattern among female endurance athletes. Loss of the menstrual cycle is a key clinical warning sign that the body is under too much cumulative stress and that the fasting or training load needs to be reduced.

Why am I gaining weight even though I'm eating healthy?+

According to Cynthia Thurlow, meal frequency is often the overlooked cause. Eating frequently throughout the day keeps insulin elevated chronically, which blocks fat burning regardless of food quality. Reducing how often you eat, not just what you eat, is central to reversing this pattern.

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Key Takeaways

Autophagy (cellular garbage disposal) is triggered during fasting periods and helps remove diseased cells and dysfunctional mitochondria—focus on feeling better (less joint pain, bloating, brain fog) rather than fixating on exact fasting hours

The migrating motor complex in your digestive system needs 4-5 hours between meals to work properly; eating too frequently prevents this natural cleaning mechanism and increases disease risk

Lean, active adults should cap fasts at 24 hours to avoid muscle breakdown; longer fasts (3-5 days) require medical supervision and aren't recommended for young women due to hormone depletion risks

Breaking a fast matters: the longer you've fasted, the lighter your meal should be—bone broth, light salads, and lean proteins are better than heavy fatty meals that can cause digestive distress

Athletes can use carbohydrates strategically without insulin rollercoaster crashes if they're metabolically flexible; the key is eating enough protein, timing carbs around training, and avoiding processed hyperpalatable foods

88-93% of Americans are now metabolically unhealthy; lifestyle changes (sleep, food quality, movement, stress management) prevent chronic disease far better than medication alone

Expert Quotes

"Autophagy is when your body goes in and gets rid of diseased disordered cells... it's like effectively your body is taking out garbage."

"If you want to be different, if you don't want to be the common narrative—because the common denominator right now is you are not metabolically healthy, not physically active, not sleeping well—you have to make different choices."

"I spent 16 years in clinical cardiology writing hundreds of prescriptions a year until I couldn't do it anymore because I kept saying: why are we writing prescriptions for things that are lifestyle mediated?"

KEY QUOTES

“Right now the latest statistic prior to the pandemic was that 88.2 percent of Americans were metabolically healthy and now it's 92 to 93 so we're heading in the in the opposite direction.”
Cynthia Thurlow — Nurse practitioner, intermittent fasting expert, TEDx speaker

“I don't fast more than 24 hours because you have this this point to which you will start to break down muscle and I'm so protective of muscle at this point in my life that I'm not willing to run the risk of having some degree of catabolism so right around that 24 hour mark I think for lean active adults if someone's obese or overweight you can do two or three day fast sometimes as long as four or five days.”
Cynthia Thurlow — Nurse practitioner, intermittent fasting expert, TEDx speaker

“If you're a younger woman let's say you're under the age of 35 and you're not getting a menstrual cycle because your hormone levels are just so depleted you're putting yourself at risk for the same things that menopausal women are at risk for bone issues heart health brain health cognition.”
Cynthia Thurlow — Nurse practitioner, intermittent fasting expert, TEDx speaker

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

What does intermittent fasting actually do to your metabolism?+

How long should you fast for weight loss without losing muscle?+

Is intermittent fasting safe for women who exercise a lot?+

Why am I gaining weight even though I'm eating healthy?+

WHAT 99% GET WRONG ABOUT WEIGHT GAIN & HOW TO FIX IT | CYNTHIA THURLOW

Key Takeaways

Expert Quotes

KEY QUOTES

Why Fasting Beats Breakfast Dogma

Protein, Carbs, and the 16:8 Window

Daily Steps and Tracking Metrics

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

NEVER MISS AN EPISODE

READ THE GUIDE

RELATED EPISODES

99% GET IT WRONG: HOW TO CORRECTLY OPTIMIZE YOUR GUT FOR WEIGHT LOSS | PROF TIM SPECTOR

JONAS ABRAHAMSEN: 18KG WEIGHT GAIN & PRO WINTER TRAINING

LOW CADENCE TRAINING: 8.7% VO2MAX GAIN | ROADMAN CYCLING

RELATED CONTENT

99% GET IT WRONG: HOW TO CORRECTLY OPTIMIZE YOUR GUT FOR WEIGHT LOSS | PROF TIM SPECTOR

6 HABITS BEGINNER CYCLISTS MUST AVOID | RIDER SUPPORT

BEST ROADMAN EPISODES FOR MASTERS CYCLISTS

WANT THIS APPLIED TO YOUR TRAINING?

WHAT 99% GET WRONG ABOUT WEIGHT GAIN & HOW TO FIX IT | CYNTHIA THURLOW

Key Takeaways

Expert Quotes

KEY QUOTES

Why Fasting Beats Breakfast Dogma

Protein, Carbs, and the 16:8 Window

Daily Steps and Tracking Metrics

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

NEVER MISS AN EPISODE

READ THE GUIDE

RELATED EPISODES

99% GET IT WRONG: HOW TO CORRECTLY OPTIMIZE YOUR GUT FOR WEIGHT LOSS | PROF TIM SPECTOR

JONAS ABRAHAMSEN: 18KG WEIGHT GAIN & PRO WINTER TRAINING

LOW CADENCE TRAINING: 8.7% VO2MAX GAIN | ROADMAN CYCLING

RELATED CONTENT

99% GET IT WRONG: HOW TO CORRECTLY OPTIMIZE YOUR GUT FOR WEIGHT LOSS | PROF TIM SPECTOR

6 HABITS BEGINNER CYCLISTS MUST AVOID | RIDER SUPPORT

BEST ROADMAN EPISODES FOR MASTERS CYCLISTS

WANT THIS APPLIED TO YOUR TRAINING?

WHAT 99% GET WRONG ABOUT WEIGHT GAIN & HOW TO FIX IT | CYNTHIA THURLOW

Key Takeaways

Expert Quotes

KEY QUOTES

1.Why Fasting Beats Breakfast Dogma

2.Protein, Carbs, and the 16:8 Window

3.Daily Steps and Tracking Metrics

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

NEVER MISS AN EPISODE

READ THE GUIDE

RELATED EPISODES

99% GET IT WRONG: HOW TO CORRECTLY OPTIMIZE YOUR GUT FOR WEIGHT LOSS | PROF TIM SPECTOR

JONAS ABRAHAMSEN: 18KG WEIGHT GAIN & PRO WINTER TRAINING

LOW CADENCE TRAINING: 8.7% VO2MAX GAIN | ROADMAN CYCLING

RELATED CONTENT

99% GET IT WRONG: HOW TO CORRECTLY OPTIMIZE YOUR GUT FOR WEIGHT LOSS | PROF TIM SPECTOR

6 HABITS BEGINNER CYCLISTS MUST AVOID | RIDER SUPPORT

BEST ROADMAN EPISODES FOR MASTERS CYCLISTS

WANT THIS APPLIED TO YOUR TRAINING?

WHAT 99% GET WRONG ABOUT WEIGHT GAIN & HOW TO FIX IT | CYNTHIA THURLOW

Key Takeaways

Expert Quotes

KEY QUOTES

1.Why Fasting Beats Breakfast Dogma

2.Protein, Carbs, and the 16:8 Window

3.Daily Steps and Tracking Metrics

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

NEVER MISS AN EPISODE

READ THE GUIDE

RELATED EPISODES

99% GET IT WRONG: HOW TO CORRECTLY OPTIMIZE YOUR GUT FOR WEIGHT LOSS | PROF TIM SPECTOR

JONAS ABRAHAMSEN: 18KG WEIGHT GAIN & PRO WINTER TRAINING

LOW CADENCE TRAINING: 8.7% VO2MAX GAIN | ROADMAN CYCLING

RELATED CONTENT

99% GET IT WRONG: HOW TO CORRECTLY OPTIMIZE YOUR GUT FOR WEIGHT LOSS | PROF TIM SPECTOR

6 HABITS BEGINNER CYCLISTS MUST AVOID | RIDER SUPPORT

BEST ROADMAN EPISODES FOR MASTERS CYCLISTS

WANT THIS APPLIED TO YOUR TRAINING?

Why Fasting Beats Breakfast Dogma

Protein, Carbs, and the 16:8 Window

Daily Steps and Tracking Metrics

Why Fasting Beats Breakfast Dogma

Protein, Carbs, and the 16:8 Window

Daily Steps and Tracking Metrics