Dr. Mindy Pelz On The Truth About Birth Control, Hormones, Cortisol, Fasting & Cycle Syncing.
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The following podcast is a Dear Media production. Hi guys, it's Mari and you're listening to The Pursuit of Wellness.

What's up, guys? Welcome back to the Pursuit of Wellness podcast. Today's episode absolutely blew me away. We had Dr. Mindy Pelz on the show, and she was so knowledgeable when it came to all things birth control, hormones, and

cortisol, gut health, fasting, cycle syncing, all the things us women are so interested in at this moment. Now, this is a very personal episode and I even questioned putting out some of the information I did.

because Dr. Mindy reviewed my Dutch test results live on the show. So a Dutch test is a test for hormone levels and for cortisol levels. I definitely had some surprising results from my Dutch test. And the reason why I ultimately decided to share is I think it's very eye-opening for all of you listening to

Even for someone like me who lives a healthier lifestyle, to see issues in my test results made me look at my lifestyle and question how I'm doing things. And Dr. Mindy gave me such a great plan of action on how to fix these issues. And I think it will be really, really helpful for those of you at home and hopefully even inspire you to go get tested and see where your body's at right now. So I really hope you guys enjoy the episode as much as I did. And

I hope that me sharing and opening up in this way is beneficial. You know, I'm very much on a journey to healing right now and focusing on my stress levels and my hormone levels. And you'll see in the episode as to why and how it's all connected. So I really hope you enjoy it, guys. And let's hop right into it.

Okay, guys, on the show, we have Dr. Mindy Pelz. She is a renowned holistic health expert and one of the leading voices in educating women about their bodies. She is on a mission to start a women's health revolution. Dr. Mindy has empowered hundreds and thousands of people around the world to harness their body's own healing abilities through fasting, diet variation, detoxing from chemicals in the body, stress management, and lifestyle changes. Dr. Mindy Pelz is a renowned holistic health expert and one of the leading voices in educating women about their bodies.

She also teaches women how to sync a fasting lifestyle with their hormones. I have recently been on a deep dive with my own hormones and I actually brought in my own Dutch test results here today for Dr. Mindy to look at and advise on. Thank you, Dr. Mindy, for agreeing to do that.

And I can't wait to learn more from you today. Welcome to the show. Oh, thank you for having me. I can't wait to dive into your Dutch. There's so much to say here. Should we start there since we already have it out? Yeah, for sure. I mean, I don't know if your audience knows why the Dutch is so amazing too. We might want to... Let's talk about that because I think a lot of women believe that blood tests are the best way to test hormones, but they're not. Yeah. And I also on that want to say that what we have when we go into our doctor's office and they do a blood test is...

It can often be the moment that a woman becomes disempowered because we're not often looking at the day of her cycle that they're being tested at. As we talked beforehand, hormones pulse in. So if the hormone was pulsing at that particular moment, it may show up as a certain level. So it's such a weak test.

which is why I love the Dutch because you did what four or five urine tests and spit all day. Yeah. I brought it to the gym. I brought it with me wherever I was going. I was like, guys, don't ask questions. I'm doing a Dutch test. And now I'm the biggest fan of this test. Yes. Yes. I run one on myself every year. And I think I actually the first time I ran a Dutch test, I was like,

oh my gosh, I think we could end breast cancer if every woman ran a Dutch test every single year. And I have no financial ties to them. I literally just think it's that great of a test. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. So mine look a little bit off balance here. So let's start with this. What it does is the first three categories it gives you are the major categories of your hormones. So estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone.

Now, estradiol, you're 28, so estradiol is like the functional piece of estrogen. So it's one slant of estrogen. So that's why you'll see that it says estradiol.

The first thing I did when I picked up this Dutch test is look at the age and go, okay, you can see that your estradiol, your progesterone are that, they actually look like mine and I'm 53. Oh, wow. So that gives you a little, like, you shouldn't look like me, a menopausal woman. You're in that menopausal range, which means you're not ovulating. And if you don't have enough progesterone, you don't have enough of the hormone that's going to let that uterine lining shed. Mm-hmm.

So the teaching moment that most women should know is that estrogen has to peak for the egg to be released from our ovaries. So we take you and we go, you don't even have enough estrogen to allow that egg to be released out of the ovaries. And is this because I was on birth control for such a long time? Birth control really messes up the whole hormonal system. And what age were you when you went on it?

I would say I was around 20 and I'm 28 now. Yeah. And so, and when did you start your period?

I was actually older. So I was around 16, 17. Okay. So this is what happens is that we have to form like a path between the brain and the ovaries. There's communication that's going to happen. So when you start your period, let's say at 16, 15, it takes, they say, up to 12 years for that path to just get reestablished. So

So when you come in with a birth control, what you've done is you've taken the job out of the hypothalamus pituitary and ovaries to communicate and you've added a synthetic hormone into the body. And so the body's never had to do it naturally.

So this whole system is super messed up. We can get into that later, but that just makes me angry. It should make you angry. And please don't want you like walking because anger is not going to help you here. We're going to get into your cortisol in a moment. But the teaching moment that I don't want women to miss is,

is that there's so much that we are exposed to from the medications to birth control to our beauty products to our foods that are disrupting our hormones. And it's affecting us more than men. And we are in such a hormonal mess. Your story is not unique. No.

But when we look at just birth control, you know, why is it our job to have the birth control? Why is it, you know, they're coming up with some really interesting new versions of male birth control beyond just a condom. But the actual birth control pill itself is a major disruptor of a natural cycle. And millions of women...

are going through what you're going through. They get off the pill, but they now don't know how to get their cycles back. I'm starting to see stories pop up more and more because women around my age are wanting to have kids and are not able to because they're not getting their periods back. Yeah. And so this is where I think collectively as women, we need to stand up and demand something different.

And that starts with hormonal knowledge. We have to understand, like we have to know that the birth control is going to have this long-term effect. And I'll give you the best example that I can give you is I have a 23-year-old daughter. And when we went to, you know, we have a great relationship and we made the decision of birth control together, you know, she asked me what I thought. I looked at it all and I decided that an IUD, we both decided, I mean, it was ultimately her choice.

that an IUD, the long-term consequence was so much less than the pill because the pill has this manipulation of your own natural hormones and then your body never finds its normal cycle. Now, there's no perfect birth control, but there is the aftermath of the birth control pill is greater than any other version that we have out there.

Which is just not a conversation that ever happens. I mean, I didn't have that conversation. It wasn't even brought up that this would have implications on my health down the line. I didn't even think about it. I mean, when you're 20 years old or younger, that's not something that you think of.

That's right, but shame on the doctors for not bringing that to your attention. And why are we not having a collaborative conversation with our patient? Again, I don't mean to go after the system, but the system is not supporting women. And the way that most doctors have been trained is that there's a superiority complex. They're up here, we're down there, whatever I tell you, you should do.

And they're not used to this collaborative connection that should happen between a doctor and a patient. And the reason I'm coming in strong is that I want all women to like, let's stop that. If we understand our hormones, then we can walk into the doctor's office already armed with knowledge to have a more educated conversation with the doctor. Now the doctor is forced to have to talk to us differently.

Yeah. And that's why conversations like this are so important. And for everyone listening, now you know, and now you can be armed with this knowledge. So looking at this, if my estrogen is super low, is my testosterone high? Your testosterone is high, but good for you. Like...

I wouldn't be concerned about that. I mean, it's on the higher end, but let's talk about what testosterone does for women. Of course, we always think of it as libido, and definitely there's a piece of that, but it's also motivation and drive. So we're going to get into your cortisol pattern here in a moment, but the first, just to fill everybody else in, the first thing I asked you was, man, you've been stressed.

But here's what I'm now diving into this, looking at it at a different level is with all that testosterone, you have a lot of motivation and drive. You're an entrepreneur. You want to take over the world like most of us do. And so that testosterone has been able to neurochemically propel you into these spaces where now the stress load is high because anytime you're trying to create something for

you know, on your own is, or it sounds like you do it with your husband, but it's a big endeavor. And so you had the hormone that could move you in the right direction, but at the consequence of things like cortisol. So,

The cortisol confused me because going into this test, I expected to see really high cortisol because I feel like I am stressed a lot. And then looking at it, it's super low. Yeah. Why would that happen? So when we move down to the next category, it's your cortisol pattern. So let's talk about the difference between just cortisol itself and the patterns.

So when we wake up in the morning, our cortisol should be at pretty decent levels. I mean, I'm looking at yours and yours is a little bit on the low end. So do you drink coffee? I do decaf usually. Okay. Do you wake up slowly or are you pretty good? I kind of wake up and roll into the gym. Ah, good for you. Like 6 a.m. I wake up and then I'm at the gym by 6.30 usually. Is that a time? Is that because of the most efficient for your...

Yes. Yes. Okay. So let me throw out some possibilities here for you. Most people with this low cortisol will definitely go for the cup of coffee first thing in the morning because they need that to bring cortisol up. Yours isn't completely low, but it's on the lower side. Within about 90 minutes of awakening, your cortisol peaks, which is this one right here. And it's the highest, actually. The highest cortisol we'll ever get is within 90 minutes of us waking up.

So actually, your best time to go to the gym is 90 minutes after you wake up. Interesting. Because cortisol was made to make us move. So if you don't use cortisol, often we will store cortisol. So for women that are trying to lose weight, when we see these cortisol spikes, it's like, go use it. Go use it because your body is otherwise going to put it in your tissues and it'll put it in fat. So you have a pretty good spike.

It's still, I mean, I want you in the middle of this graph here and you're on the lower end, but you would be best to work out 90 minutes in. I mean, FYI. Now, the rest of the day, it just tanks. What's your energy as the day goes on?

I would say it kind of gets a bit lower in the afternoon for sure. So we're supposed to go lower as the day goes on, which is why one of the things that I try to preach is can we as women front load our day? Like literally if you look at your cortisol pattern by four o'clock,

if you could like just chill out. That would be the time to just turn everything off and move into a more of what we call a parasympathetic place where you're just a little more relaxed. Now that's everybody's cortisol pattern, but yours, I mean, you, by the end of the day, you have no cortisol. So I don't know what gets you through. I mean, maybe it's just a good mindset, but. I think a lot of it's mindset. By five, I generally stop.

doing what I'm doing. And I think I struggle with anxiety in a big way. So I think it's the anxiety that kind of keeps me going, if I'm being honest. Okay. So this is the catch-22 you've got. Progesterone being low, progesterone is a precursor for a beautiful neurotransmitter called GABA. So if you don't have enough progesterone, you're not going to have enough GABA and you're not going to be able to calm yourself. Right.

So when you can't calm yourself down, usually that scenario, you'll maybe reach for wine or you reach for something to relax you. But also it leads to these high anxious states. Okay. And here's the catch 22 is that what tanks progesterone because yours is really low is cortisol. Okay.

So back to your question of why is it unusual if I've had so much stress, why is my cortisol so low? Because you've been chronically under stress for a long time. If you were acutely under stress, we would actually see it really, really high.

But without even knowing your lifestyle, I can tell you you've been chronically going at it for a long time. And if there was one piece of advice I'd give you so far, it's to really learn how to relax. Learn what downtime means for you. But without that progesterone, downtime in the beginning could be a little torturous.

Because sitting down without the neurochemical reserves, your brain is going to go, get up, go. What are you doing? And it's going to want to keep moving you. And you've got testosterone, especially during, we'll kind of go into where you may be. I know you probably don't know where you're ovulating right now. But during more of an ovulatory time, your testosterone is going to be like, go do something, go do something.

But without progesterone, what ends up happening is you are just doing but not relaxing. Yes, this is me. I'm relating to everything you're saying. Excellent. So how can I go about then raising, should I be trying to raise my estrogen and progesterone? Yeah, yeah. So we'll go into that. And that ties into like how I would teach you to fast and eat for your cycle. Okay. So, but to know, here's what to know is that estrogen loves when you fast. Okay.

So I want to train you to fast because it's going to be amazing.

And after listening to you, I'm understanding, okay, I need to take this more seriously. And you just released your new book, Fast Like a Girl. How did you get into fasting? Like, I want the full story. Yeah. So the interesting part of that is that I sort of stumbled into it and I found it in my early 40s. I was trying to, my general approach to health was I was a competitive athlete. I've always eaten pretty well, at least in my late 20s. And I started really dialing into my diet.

It's pretty much paleo at the time. I didn't see anything I needed to do differently for my health, but I went into my 40s and all of a sudden estrogen does this wild ride in your 40s. And as estrogen goes down, you become more insulin resistant.

And so I started putting on some belly weight. I started going, gosh, I guess I need to work out a little more. I'm not seeming to lose the weight that I want. My mental clarity started to go away. So I was searching for answers and I stumbled upon the studies on fasting. And I was like, oh, this is really interesting. Why don't I try it? And this is like what I'm 53 now. So that was like over 10 years ago. We were barely understanding fasting at that time.

So I started to fast and my mental clarity came back. My energy went up like everything you hear about fasting. But then all of a sudden I did it so much that at about 45, my period went away.

And I thought, okay, this is strange. Like, am I going into perimenopause? And what I learned was, no, I wasn't cycling fasting. For women, we got to cycle in and we got to cycle out of fasting. We cannot fast all the time, every single day, the same way like your husband can, like men can.

So and we can go into why that is hormonally. So I started playing with my for myself. I changed my fasting regime. My cycle came back. I actually still have a bit of a cycle at 53. And it was really interesting that I just course corrected and I kind of solved my own problem. So I then went to all my patients and I was like, hey, let's cycle fasting to you. I started to see all these hormonal situations clear up for women.

Then I went to YouTube and I taught YouTube and then my whole YouTube channel just exploded with women that were like, hey, I want to try fasting, but my hair is falling out. Or hey, I wanted to fast, but I'm so anxious and I thought I just couldn't fast anymore.

So for the last like seven years, I've been helping those women. And then I just saw book after book come out about fasting and nobody was showing what we were seeing. So that's why I put the book out was to help women understand exactly what you just did. So what are the benefits of fasting for women? Yeah. So I think we got to put it in the formula and the context of understanding that we have two energy systems, two metabolisms, right?

So you ask any woman on the street, like, do you want to speed up your metabolism? I don't know a woman that wouldn't say, no, I'm good. Maybe there's a few out there. But when we think of metabolism, we only think of food. And we've been taught, eat six meals a day. The more you eat, the more you speed up your metabolism. There's no science behind that. But we've only been having the conversation around this one sugar burner energy metabolism or energy system.

When you go a significant period without food, significant is anywhere from 8 to 12 hours without food where your blood sugar is not going up. What happens is the body, you're starting to switch over into this whole other energy system. And I call it the fat-burning energy system. It's also known as the ketogenic energy system. Usually about 12 hours, you're now switched over and your body is making a fuel source called a ketone.

And it does that by burning fat. The only way you can make a ketone from the inside of your body is by burning fat. And the major way you get there is by keeping your blood sugar down anywhere from 8 to 12 hours. Boom, now you're going to switch over into this fat burning system.

Once you're there, inflammation goes down, testosterone goes up, growth hormone goes up, microbiome gets repaired, the cells detox, the dopamine system reboots, and your whole immune system has the potential to reboot. So it is the most phenomenal healing system that nobody taught us, and it's inside of us, and it's free.

So when we look for women, we go, okay, well, I'll show you how we can use fasting to help estrogen. But then we're going to talk about how you use food to help progesterone because progesterone doesn't like when we fast.

When you say 8 to 12 hours, I have a couple of questions. Yeah, yeah. Go for it. When you say 8 to 12 hours, could that just be overnight? Yeah, we use sleep. Yeah, definitely. Oh, okay. Easy. Easy. So let me do 12 because I'd want to see you do at least start to do 12 and then we can talk about what it looked like to do more. Okay. But let's say you stop eating. What time do you stop eating dinner? Generally, I eat dinner 6.30. I'd be done by 7.30. Okay. So just for rounding numbers, let's say 8 o'clock.

like you're cleaning up, no food and no drink. Like you can't bring, you can, you can do water, you can do tea, but you can't bring your blood sugar up. So eight o'clock you're finished. Eight to midnight is four hours. The next morning, you know, you would eat like somewhere around nine or 10 in the morning would get you at a 13, 14 hour window. Okay. That I can do. Easy, right? Yeah. And actually there's a really interesting study. The one of the

only studies ever done for women was done on women recovering from breast cancer. And they found that if they did a 13-hour fast consistently every single day, they had a 64% less chance of a reoccurrence of that breast cancer. Wow. Wow. So my brain goes, well, why don't we all just make sure we're doing that so we prevent breast cancer? Yeah. Like 13 hours isn't hard. We just now need to make sure you mind progesterone. Yeah.

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Talk soon, bestie.

When you mentioned ketones and moving into that fat burning phase, is that what happens when you eat keto? Yeah. So what's interesting is, you know, in the book, I talk about the ketobiotic diet, which is what I recommend when in the front half of a woman's cycle. But you don't have the misconception of the ketogenic diet was that you had to eat all this fat and you had to bring down all your carbs.

That's not really my approach for women because I don't think that most women will thrive on a really low keto, low carb diet for very long. I like to keep carbs at a pretty good rate, like 50 net grams of net carbs per day.

And then I like to use fasting to get you into keto. Got it. Okay. Because I did keto for like three years. Yeah. And I can see it in my biome test results now because I don't have, I guess, the necessary bacteria, the good bacteria that would be feeding on carbs.

Mine are very low because I did go so long being on keto. So you're saying it's better to do keto and short windows. Short windows and cycle it. Like if back then I would have said cycle it with your period, with your menstrual cycle. Got it. Okay. So, but yeah, we are not meant to go on keto all the time, but let's take the soundbite again, because I'm here to empower women and get them to start to think for themselves on this.

is that the soundbite the media took, and many doctors still have, is keto is no good for women. Fasting's not good for women. Well, that's because we're meant to do both of those cycling them with our hormones. And it doesn't matter if we're 28 or 58. You know, if you don't have a cycle, there's a way to cycle it still. Okay. So with fasting, why is fasting beneficial for the hormones?

So let's use estrogen as an example. Estrogen likes insulin to be low, likes glucose to be low. So when we fast, we clean up that system. So let's go back to you. You've got, when I go over to this metabolite picture, your good estrogen, well, let me explain. An estrogen metabolite is what your estrogen is breaking down into.

And it usually breaks down into three metabolites. One is called 2-OH, 4-OH, and 16-OH. 2-OH is the healthy estrogen. You want a lot of that for the situation you're in. Okay. So one of the ways you can get that is by fasting because as insulin comes down, the good estrogen will go up.

Now, when I look at your other metabolites, you've got 4-OH is at 12.7%. We don't want it higher than 11% of the breakdown of estrogen. So there's a toxic piece here where you've got a little bit of some toxins that we all do have toxins in our body. So if I can teach you how to fast to 17 hours, that's where those cells start to mobilize and detox.

So now I can use, you know, a 13, 14, 15 hour fast for you on a fairly regular basis. And I can throw in a 17, 18, 19 hour fast, something around that on a periodic, like once in every once in a while basis. And I'm maximizing the good estrogen and I'm helping to get rid of the bad estrogen. So when you say...

a once in a while fast? Like how frequently? Roughly. So typically, because you don't have a period right now, right? So do you have any sense of ovulation? I do. Oh, good. Through my skin. My skin tells all the stories that are going on. So the last period I got, I had a slight one around November 23rd.

last year. So around the 23rd, I noticed my skin kind of gets dull right before and then it looks really good at a certain point. So I think I have a general idea of what's going on. Okay. So what I would say is use your skin and track it on a tracker. We actually have a Fast Like a Girl app. You could track it on that. Yeah. We just launched it. And so it'll tell you kind of different length fasts and different foods. Okay. Awesome. So track it so you see what your patterning is.

And the typical way that you would do is day one, which typically would be the day that you fully bleed, but you're not bleeding. You're just going to see it on your app.

Day one to day 10, I would have you just start by going into some longer fasts or do like a 15 hour fast. Okay. So let me give you a range, 13 to 15 hours. And generally people would do that overnight and then into the morning. That's right. Okay. Just the way you're just pushing breakfast back a couple hours. You can have your coffee in the morning or your decaf. That's fine.

Okay. Can you exercise? You can exercise. Totally fine. It might even move you there a little bit quicker into the fat burning place. So yeah, that's fine. And then, so I would have you do that for one month. I would have you the first 10 days. I would have you just do this 13 to 15 hour fast every single day. Every day. Yeah. Okay.

Now, on day 11, you're moving into ovulation. So this is where testosterone comes high. You've got a lot of great testosterone. We'll talk about her in a second. But you don't have a lot of estrogen. We're trying to get an egg to release.

But you have a little bit of progesterone and progesterone doesn't like fasting. So I like to keep women under 13 hours. I don't, like in a situation like yours, I don't want you to go more than 13 hours in that ovulation window. And I want you to focus on your microbiome. So we talked before going on, you have this microbiome test and you're missing two key bacteria that at least the test couldn't detect it. One is called L-Rominos. The other one's called L-Ruteri.

Both of these bacteria are key bacteria, a part of a whole set of bacteria called the strobilome. And the strobilome are a set of microbes that break estrogen down. So during ovulation, I want you doing everything you can for your microbiome. More probiotic foods, more prebiotic foods, more polyphenol foods. Fasting will not be your tool during that time. You used it in the first half of the cycle. That was your tool.

But now we're in ovulation. It's not your tool. What kind of foods would you recommend within those categories? Yeah. So do you like sauerkraut? You know, yeah, I can do a spoonful. I can do it. So sauerkraut's making a comeback. You know, artisan sauerkraut. Love that raw kefir. Okay. And it has to be raw. The pasteurized kills all the bacteria. Okay. So raw kefir is great. You know, there's a lot of drinks out there. Like people ask me about kombucha. Yeah.

It's kind of a weak probiotic, but sauerkraut, kimchi, kefirs, anything fermented is going to add good bacteria in. So I called it in the book three Ps. So that's one piece of it is we're adding in these probiotic rich foods.

But then we have polyphenol foods. And polyphenol foods are like all of the vegetables. So as many, and one of the things for estrogen, estrogen loves when you give her a ton of salads.

So if we want to break her down, I would say eight to 10 cups of vegetables every single day, mostly green vegetables, a lot of leafy greens during ovulation. And now we're going to start to break down the estrogen that we hopefully created more of in the front half of the cycle using fasting as your tool. Okay. And then the last piece of that is prebiotic.

which is nuts and seeds. So hemp seeds, you know, I put hemp seeds on all my salads. I'll actually take sauerkraut and like put it in a salad with a ton of like bitter greens, like arugula, maybe some radicchio. It's really good for the liver. I'll put some love nuts. I'll put some raw almonds in there and just take a bunch of hemp seeds and pour it in there. And that's like estrogen's heaven. It'll really help you break down estrogen.

Okay, so that's what I will be eating every day then. I do love a salad. So that's good. I eat salad every day, but I think I could add more vegetables and more variety in there probably. Yeah, so from day 11 to 15, day 10, let's just say day 10 to 15. And the reason I'm kind of giving you some fluidity with the dates is everybody's cycle is different. Yeah. So it's not like every woman ovulates on day 10. Okay. And what about that?

pre that PMS moment where everyone's having the cravings and the mood swings? Like, what do you recommend during that time? Right. So when you come out of ovulation, you're going to have another dip where your hormones go low. So from day 16 to day 19, you can go. I would encourage you to throw in a little longer fast. So I would say, could we get you now to that 17 hour mark where we're getting rid of some of the toxins that have accumulated in your body?

Now, the reason that I'm picking that part of the cycle to get rid of some toxic estrogen is during ovulation, your body makes all this estrogen, but now we got to get rid of it.

So if we can throw a 17 hour fast in at least one of those days, you can do, you know, there's it's a four or five day window. You could do 13, 13 to 15 hours most of those days. But one of them, I want you going above 17. I hope I didn't lose you on that. No. So most days I'll do 13 to 15. Yep. Which is just pushing breakfast a little bit. 17 hours fast.

Just one time. What time would that take me to into the morning? Like noon. Okay. Well, that doesn't sound too difficult. And so here's the crazy thing. This is why I love fasting. The more you do it, the easier it gets. I think the word fasting sounds really intimidating because when I was going to, you know, when I was planning my questions for you, I was like, well, how am I going to make it through a whole day of not eating? Right.

Do you ever do a full day of no eating? Oh, yeah. We do multiple full days of no eating. Oh, my gosh. OK, so what's the longest fast that you would recommend? Well, it's so funny. I just had this conversation with some colleagues last night. The longest fast I've ever done is five days. Yeah.

But it's a, we can chat. I mean, it's the most incredible spiritual experience. Really? Like when you think about, like if you ever get overwhelmed with the noise of the day and like your brain is just chatting at you, when you start to go longer and longer without food, the brain stops talking and GABA goes up.

And all of a sudden you get really calm and the insights that come in are so deep. So I've actually started to use three to five day water fast now. If I have any challenges in my life I can't quite solve, I'll just throw it, put in a three to five day water fast just to kind of quiet the noise so I can get really clear on what I need to do.

There's a reason every religion's used it. So, yeah. But then you would have to do it the right time of your cycle. And what is the best way to break a fast like that? Yeah. And how do you not eat everything in sight? Yeah. Yeah. And so there's I have a five step process that I that I explain in the book. You start with broth.

And then you go into like some, like one of my favorite meals to break a fast with is like avocado with some sauerkraut. And so you'll go into like some good fat with a little bit of a probiotic.

And if you're doing okay, then you would go into some vegetables. And we just watch your digestion and see how it's doing. And if everything's good with those steps, then you can start to go in more into some of the meats. And, you know, depending on each meat's going to be a little different. I usually have people start with eggs and then they can go into the grass-fed meats.

How do we handle building muscle while fasting? Yeah. So this was also a big, like the media took it and went with like, if you fast, you'll break down muscle. Okay. How you do it is that when you break your fast, you want to break it with protein and you want to make sure you get at least 30 grams of protein. The reason that you go after 30 grams, you can get more if you want in that first meal is it'll trigger an amino acid receptor site in your muscles that will build your muscles stronger.

So when you're fasting, your body is going to get rid of any of the stored glucose that it put years ago. It'll burn fat. It'll take it from the liver. Or it could start to pull it from the muscle, especially if you're working out in a fasted state. You're going to lose a lot of that glucose from the muscle. Totally fine. We just want to make sure we repower that muscle up.

So they're on the other side of the fasting healing effect of what we call autophagy, which is where the cells are getting stronger. Glucose is exiting out of the system. Lives this incredible cellular growth mechanism or pathway called mTOR. And mTOR is how we build muscle.

So when we pair a fast, we have to think about fasting as it's getting rid of what no longer serves us. That's the best way I can explain it. And then when we add protein back in, we're giving the muscle what it needs, which is amino acids.

So if you are a vegetarian, are you vegetarian? No. Okay. Yeah. So yes, I was for 10 years. I was like the sickest version of me. Yeah. So yes, agreed. I love meat too. So you want to go in with at least 30 grams of protein in that first meal because now think from your muscles perspective. Your muscles like, okay, we just got rid of the bad. Oh,

oh, here comes all these nutrients. Let's build ourselves stronger. And one of my favorite fasting hacks is to go into a workout in a fasted state, push your muscles, do a lot of muscle building, and then follow that, come home and power up on protein. And now you're building lean, strong muscle.

Love it. And so that's the part of the conversation that didn't get out into the world. Speaking of getting rid of the bad, let's say someone has candida, a parasite,

something of that nature, is a fast going to get rid of that toxin? Yeah. So the interesting thing about fasting for any gut problem is that the research shows that at 24 hours of fasting, we actually see intestinal stem cells produced. So what a stem cell is, is it is a cell that can go and repair basically any problem in there.

So it will go in and repair the whole internal lining of your gut. The other thing that happens at 24 hours is we see the microbes start to relocate. So they're not clumped together. So they start to spread out, which can allow you to start to pull more nutrients in from your foods.

And then the last thing that we see is things like candida, things like parasites. They don't like an environment where the mucosal lining is repaired, where the microbes have spread out, like you're literally changing the garden in there. And so they're like, we're out. This isn't a great place for us to live anymore. And so you naturally will start to see candida die off. You'll see parasites go away. If you dip into these 24-hour fasts,

thinking of them like you would any supplement, but you're doing it from the inside, putting yourself periodically into these fasted states. So is fasting going to be individual for everyone? It sounds like it is. Yes. You got it. Yeah, you got it. And especially for women. Especially for women. Like in the book, in the back, I put my favorite protocols where I show like how, you know, if you're listening to this and you're like, wow, I

I didn't really know there was so much to fasting. I show you some of the protocols that I know have worked. And this is why we created an app. This is why I love conversations like this, because we're all going to find our own rhythm with it.

And that gives us an opportunity to get out of this one-size-fits-all diet health care system we've been in and start to understand that there's my way, not my way could be completely different than anybody else.

I also love the fact that this is a way to improve your health. It doesn't cost anything. It's like it's just about simplifying. You're not adding anything crazy. It's not about some fancy program with soups and whatever. You're just quite literally not eating for a certain window of time. That's right. That part to me is so important because if we make every health care solution have to be expensive or cost money, what

What do you do with the single mom who's working two jobs and trying to raise her kids and is living paycheck to paycheck? So is she at a disadvantage? She's walking into her grocery store with those bad oils and the bad toxins, and that's the cheaper food she's going to eat.

But what if we teach her how to fast for 16 hours? What the research shows is that we will be able to help her body repair from the damage of that food. Wow. So now we've got a tool that everybody can use and it levels the healthcare playing field in my eyes.

And everything here is connected. I think that's the kind, you know, I kind of knew that, but to actually see the numbers and understand it is so crazy. Like our gut is fully impacting our hormones. Yep. And there's things we can do to improve the gut, which will then improve the hormones. That's right. That's right.

They're like a big team, right? And it's like, you need your liver, you need your gut, you need your brain. And then we've got to learn how to cycle with these hormones, which is why like my huge message is lifestyle. When hormones have gone awry, stop looking for the magic pill. That's been why we're in this hormonal mess is that we keep searching for the magic pill. Let's look at our lifestyle and try to balance that first.

So thank you so much for looking at the Dutch test results for me. It means a lot. And this is definitely a big focus for me right now. Kind of a somber question, but do you feel like this is repairable? Thousand percent. So two things I want to tell you, the microbiome, you can change the microbiome in three days. Wow. Those bacteria are turning over really quickly. These hormones,

I would say my experience has been 30 to 90 days is what I see. Okay. The one piece we should discuss is progesterone because when we come around day 20 of your cycle, you want to avoid all fasting and you actually want to bring your glucose up. So you want to go into more of the root vegetables. In the book, I call it hormone feasting foods.

So it's your squashes, it's your sweet potatoes, it's your potatoes in general, it's tropical fruits, citrus fruits. These are not keto foods. I do not want you in keto during that time. And here's what's fascinating. This is like the liberating moment I want to give all women, and I wish I had known this at 16, that week before our periods, there is a reason we crave carbs.

You are not undisciplined. Your body, your progesterone is saying, give me more glucose so I can make my appearance. And so your story about you were in keto for so many years, the biggest challenge you did is you didn't give progesterone enough carbs.

Now, I'm not giving women free reign to sit on the couch and eat a box of pizza and a tub of ice cream. I'm asking you to switch over to nature's carbs, which is why, like, bring the fruits in, bring the squashes, the potatoes. If you increase that, and we're talking 150, 200 grams of net carbs. It's a lot of carbs.

If you bring those in the week before your period and you really work on your stress, that's the biggest time. Just like ovulation is the time I want you to work on your gut microbiome the most. The week before your period, I want you to work on your stress the most.

So you add in these vegetables and the root vegetables, and then you start saying no that week. And how do we feel about dark chocolate? Oh, that's the other amazing piece is that dark chocolate is incredible because it has magnesium in it. So, I mean, think about it. Like, what have we said for years? Like, I don't want to go out. I don't feel like working out. I'm just hungry. And I just want to eat chocolate and sit on the couch. It's the week before my period. Yep.

Yep, that's progesterone. That's what she wants. Yeah. So it's time to actually sit back and chill a little bit. That's right. Okay. So yes, given your profile, give yourself permission. It's funny because that is really the hardest part for me. Yeah, I know. Which we can literally see and-

I live a pretty healthy lifestyle, which I think is, it's good we're talking about this. And I'm telling people that there are issues in my blood work because as healthy as I am, my stress levels are not. Yeah. And I still have things I need to work on clearly with my gut health. And that's why I'm so grateful to have you here. So what is the date today? It's the 24th. So it's a day after I would have technically have started my period. So right now I should be...

Day two. Day two. I should be fasting. Yep. Yep. You should start fasting. Yep. And you should go keto. You should go low carb. So let's bring glucose and insulin down. A great thing if you haven't put a CGM on. Do you know what a CGM is? Oh, no. Glucose monitor? Yeah. Put a continuous glucose monitor on because then you can start to see the patterns of your glucose. It's really interesting.

So you want to keep glucose low, like around 100 and a little under 100 pretty consistently throughout the day. Okay. Now you'll eat and there'll be spikes, but as long as it comes back to around 100 most of the day, you're good. Under 100 is great. 70, 90 is optimal. Okay. If you could give an overall message for all the women listening about this topic, what would you say?

Oh, God, I have so much I want to say, as you can tell. For starters, stop shaming yourself. Stop guilting yourself. Stop telling yourself horrible things.

We have been living in a patriarchal world. And I don't mean this as like a rally feminist cry. I mean this as we have to start to demand that we do health in a woman's way. This is why I named it Fast Like a Girl. So you have to eat like a girl. We have to socialize like a girl. We

And so, so much of the suffering that women have from the mood disorders to the weight gain to the lethargy is coming because we're living out of accordance with our hormones. So learn your hormones, get to know them, and then understand the lifestyle to match it to that. And you will never fall out of love with your body again. Wow. That was iconic. Thank you for that. That really summed it up.

Now it's time for the question we ask every guest.

I started this podcast because I believe everyone's pursuit of wellness looks different. What does wellness mean to you? Oh, easy. Loving the body you live in. End of story. Great. I love it. Like, do you literally every day enjoy walking around in this body? You have energy, you have mental clarity, like you're sleeping well, you put your clothes on, you're not, there's not like shame when you do that. You literally love living in your body. If you do, there's a good chance you're on, you have optimal health.

And wellness. That's what it's all about. Yeah. Where can people find you and the book online? I'm kind of everywhere now, but DrMindyPels.com is where you can find, is like my hub of information. The book you can find, you know, at FastLikeAGirl.com or anywhere books are sold. You know, if you have a little indie bookstore near you, please go try to support the little guy.

But my real passion project is my YouTube channel. So I put out multiple new videos every week that explains fasting in as much detail as I can. So that's also a great resource. I've been watching it. It's awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you. Loved this.

Thank you for listening to today's episode. Go comment on my last Instagram at Mari Llewellyn with the guest you want to see next. I'll be picking one person from the comments to send our bloom greens to. Make sure you hit follow so you never miss my weekly episodes. If you enjoyed the conversation, be sure to share and leave a review. See you next week.

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