Fasting Doctor: Heal Your Body, Burn Fat & Have Better SEX! | Dr. Mindy Pelz

oh it's such a good question one I've never been asked before and here I'm going to make a really bold statement that I don't think a lot of women will love but it's part of living in a female body is that I think the biggest challenge I'm seeing and why we have all these hormonal problems is that just women need more rest and recovery so when women are in alignment with their hormones they are unstoppable bingo so men should fast differently than women yeah so this is actually really interesting how many women were coming you saying that this doesn't work hundreds of thousands really I was the first one my hormones were completely tanked literally I was like almost in menopause of 45 and my cycle came back how do we look and feel younger how do we burn the fact that we really don't want our bodies faster and how do we have the best sex of our lives through fasting okay let me let me start with a principle I think you got to have a dream the school of greatness really yeah please welcome L welcome back everyone to the school of greenness very excited about our guest we have the inspiring Dr Mindy in the house so good to see you thank you it's so great to be here you are an incredible fasting expert teaching people how to burn fat balance hormones and live better lives and uh my first question is we got to set you up how do we how do we look and feel younger how do we burn the fat that we really don't want our bodies faster and how do we have the best sex of our lives through fasting oh wow we're going to we're going to put all those together okay let me let me start with a principle and then I'm going to answer each one individually so here's the principle we have two Energy Systems one where we create energy when we eat and one Energy System that kicks in when we're not eating okay okay this is where every diet has ever failed this is where aging starts to speed up this is where you get your libido wrong is because because every conversation around nutrition has only been around what we should eat and what fasting is doing is I'm now and me plus many other experts are coming to the masses saying why don't we talk about when we eat so when you your blood sugar starts to come down usually around eight hours 8 10 hours without food you switch over into what we call the ketogenic Energy System it's also I like to call it the fat burning system because it's there that your body burns fat for energy we're like a hybrid car and so you switch over you start burning fat for energy you make something called a ketone Ketone goes up into the brain it shuts off hunger it it amps up Gaba so you get a lot calmer and it gives you incredible mental Clarity and insane energy if you never go 8 to 10 hours without eating if you never you will never tap into the system and so you never get that Limitless feeling that we're all getting from fasting and so you if all you're doing is working with the one Energy System you are absolutely accelerating the aging process really and every diet's going to fail you because what ends up happening is you're only focused on food and that's why we're hopping from diet to diet to diet you know this is great then this is great then this is great so you could eat all the right foods but if you're eating it too frequently you're still going to gain weight you you could potentially still gain weight if you're if you're not taking at least eight hours of rest if you're just constantly eating every hour right or every few hours constantly eating yes you could gain a lot of fat yeah so think of it like exercise what would happen if you just kept working out and working out and working out every day was like a hard workout a hard workout there's no recovery it's the same thing with fasting you're giving your body a chance to recover and the longer you let it recover the more healing switches turn on and that's why it slows down aging that and you're burning fat in the process it's the recovery that matters wow so if you're but but when I go a long time without eating I feel really hungry and sometimes I feel sluggish or tired yeah at the same time so when is it that we get this unlimited feeling or this burst of extra energy when does that happen after extending the window of not eating yeah so the first thing is it's a training process so it's just like you know if you're going to run a marathon you don't just throw on some shoes and go 13 miles you're going to feel pretty bad I I did that before and I got the flu right afterwards I ran a marathon without training well maybe it was like 3 weeks of three miles at a time training but it really wasn't training yeah and I was sick for days and I couldn't walk and I had the flu and it was just like miserable I finished it but my body said that was the a big mistake that's right yeah and I paid the price later yeah and that's the same thing that happens with fasting is that people go oh fasting is not for me it didn't work for me okay well I could say that you know that about a training that I didn't properly train for so what we've got to do is start to slowly work people into this fasted State and usually I tell people you want to get pretty much to like 12 hours in the beginning can you go 12 hours every day and then you might suffer a little bit but check this out in the suffering your body's healing so you're it's called a hormetic stress you're pushing your body just with enough stress that you're forcing it to repair itself it's the same thing you do every time you go into the gym you're stressing your body so the body repairs itself and makes itself stronger so when you go into this fasted State around 12 hours the body's repairing now what I tell people is if you're suffering at 12 switch back to food and then go again next day maybe go another 12 another 13 maybe and then when that gets easy you start compressing your eating window more and more leaving longer time for fastings so you just didn't train yourself right and is it better to fast in the morning or at night because some people wake up and they want to eat right away but they say I can skip dinner yeah and some people say you got to skip breakfast and then you can eat a little later yeah is it do have you seen the data on skipping breakfast versus skipping dinner and the benefits for fasting yeah this is hugely debated in the in the fasting world really yeah so I'm just going to give an easy principle that everybody can grab on to eat when it's light out when it's light out you don't have melatonin in your system the minute it goes dark we get melatonin because we're trying to prepare for sleep so when melatonin goes up you're more insulin resistant so the meal you eat at 8:00 at night is going to be stored more as fat than if you have it at 5: in the afternoon why is it so comforting to eat at night though I know it just is like have a late night snack you know a little extra bowl of cereal for some reason yourself train myself right yeah so when I eat when it's dark what is happening to my body when you're eating when it's dark you have a little bit of a hormonal dma going on because when it's dark the body's preparing for sleep and so if we're eating then two things can happen you're more insulin resistant like I mentioned but then your digestive system's shutting down because you're going into what we call a parasympathetic relaxed state so if you go to bed with a full belly and that food is not going to be digested as well really and so I mean there's a whole issue a bunch of gut problems that can happen you can that food can ferment at night which now starts to create more like you know we can go down the path of candida and fungus and that it's it's undigested food whereas if you eat at five go for a walk afterwards like you're using that glucose your body has the ability to digest so yeah night eating is not good so what did you say the the the digestion shuts down at night is that what it does it just slows down slows slows down so when you're sleep let's say you have a meal or a snack or even a few almonds or something an hour before you go to bed yeah let's say you've eaten something it could be ice cream something healthy something not healthy and within an hour you're eating it then you go to bed what is happening to the digestion during that process of sleep versus if you were awake at noon and you that food yeah so when you're asleep the body is repairing so the food is definitely not breaking down as easily at night so again it's sitting there it's not being digested as efficiently so from a digestion standpoint better digestion at noon than you're going to have at 9 o' now you said something about what if you had a handful of nuts what if you like I think what you eat matters okay so if I'll tell you something that I will often eat right before I go to bed is just just or at night if I'm craving it is just a piece of CH really dark chocolate one or two pieces helps that that crave craving that you get it doesn't Spike my blood sugar because it's really dark chocolate it's not a lot for the digestive system to work on it's more like the big meals that we're talking about got that's going to be a problem something tiny and healthy is not that bad that's right but if you have a big meal an hour before bed it's probably not going to digest you're not going to get the maximum nutrients out of that yeah yeah the digestion you're not going to get as many nutrients and you're going to create a real change in the microbiome you're going to see more of that candida show up that's that's going to give you sugar cravings and it's not going to help you burn fat at night either no no no don't we burn the most fat more sleeping yes really yes why is that yeah well think about what the body is doing when it sleeps it's getting rid of anything that doesn't serve it so like there's there's some really interesting research on like at 11 o'clock certain organs repair I know at two in the morning the liver repairs the adrenals repair like your body goes through this massive like reboot and so sleep is really important for that now this is something really interesting that I've thought a lot about and I wish we could reframe this what is fat so fat all it is is your body had to put excess somewhere so it put excess glucose it put excess hormones it put excess toxin so it stored it somewhere else so that it didn't store it in your organs your internal organs and when it stores it if it stored in your internal organs your life would be shortened so the body is so brilliant it stores it somewhere else but we do have fat in our internal organs right Vis fat yeah we do have visceral fat and we don't want that that's the wor yeah that's the worst yeah that's the body potentially had maxed out the other stores so yeah it went inward do we store fat first internally in our organs then accessibly on the outside or is it outside first then inward yeah it's such a good question so the the three the three patterns are first when glucose goes up it will be stored in the cells so it's to me fat is is a largely stored glucose so it goes to the cells when the cells are swimming and they can't take all that glucose in then it's going to start to go to the muscles because it's so brilliant the body's like hey I'm going to go pour in glucose because if we ever need to run from a tiger I need to have those powered up and ready to go for your survival then if the muscles are saturated it goes to the liver and then usually at that point it's also stored in his fat so it has a system of where it wants to store it based off of your survival because that's the number one priority of the body is right so what would you say is the the the differen was between how men should be thinking about burning fat versus how women should be thinking about burning fat unwanted fat yeah oh it's such a good question and one I've never been asked before and here I'm gonna make a really bold statement that um I don't think a lot of women will love but it's part of living in a female body is that a little bit of We're Meant to have a little bit of fat oh don't say that I know right like a little bit I'm not saying like but we're not meant to be Skin and Bones right we're meant to have a little bit of extra fat it's part of like the W female body and because here's here's what's interesting both men and women have the body has one major thing it's focused on which is survival but women have two we have reproduction so our body's always it doesn't want to be think about when we're too thin we bring calories down too much our Cycles stop right so we we need a little bit more padding to make the reproductive system work men don't need that and if a cycle stops for a woman is that a bad thing oh it's horrible thing why is that bad yeah it's and thank you for asking that I I will say that one of the biggest ahas I've had from this book going out in the world is how many 20 and 30 year olds don't have a cycle really so the this is what women need to know your cycle is H is a detox you are shedding the inner lining of your uterus and you are getting rid of what is not serving you so it's not just an A A A troublesome situation you have to deal with your body is getting rid of hormones it's getting rid of toxins it's how we detox it's recycling yeah it's kind of like a fast it's like a fast really so a cycle is detoxing and getting rid of toxic things in the female body that's right and it happens once a month right every 28 30 days roughly 28 to 32 no woman has the exact same I mean every woman's different but 28 to 32 does it usually go uh in the same time for for most women or when does it line up and why do you hear that some women in families or you know friends say oh where our Cycles are aligned yeah does it have anything to do with astrology or the moon does it have to do with what you're eating how you're sleeping your environment your mood Cycles your age what how does it all work it's it's kind of all of it really so here's something that I think women really need to know that is again different than men and that's that our bodies are always adapting to our environment women's are women's are so if if we're if too many if we're restrictive too much with our calories this is why I taught fast like a girl when to fast or when not to fast um if we're too extreme with our exercise if we're too extreme with our our stress levels whatever environment we're putting in our hormones are like navigating that and adapting to that and your cycle will change based on that your cycle based CH change based off off of that I'll give you a great example I had a friend who had she had three uh at the time she had two kids and was trying to get pregnant with a third and uh she was struggling to get pregnant with a third and she waited a year to go to this reproductive specialist who had her filled out fill out like you know mounds of paperwork she goes after a year of waiting she sits down with this guy and he says I'll tell you how you need to get pregnant you need to stop doing so much wow you need to stop stressing so much and she was so upset she left she's like I waited a year I filled out all that paperwork and then she was like and that's what he told me and she goes and then I decided to try it and within a month she was pregnant really why do you hear this a lot from you know women who who say they can't get pregnant and then you hear stories of well they were too much in control or they were stressing too much and the moment you let go and surrendered then they got pregnant why why do we hear that so frequently yeah so if you think about it if reproduction is a top priority for a female body if you're under so much stress the body is like it's not safe to house a baby interesting the body's always doing the right thing at the right time so if it's not able to have a baby you the first thing you have to ask is for the female is is does my body feel safe and sometimes this you'll love this because you're such a mindset expert I'm I was going to call you Guru you're mindset Guru um if if you are thinking toxic thoughts if you are constantly under like not dealing with traumas in your life if stress is really high um the body is always feeling like it's under threat your your hormones will go massively out of bound yeah so your hormones are connected to the way you think also absolutely do you think if a woman is subconsciously knows that they're in in a relationship with the wrong person they married the wrong person or they're trying to have kids with some man that subconsciously they know they're not supposed to do you think that their cycle will be off or they won't get pregnant because they think that way I I think it's very possible really there's there's some interesting studies I want to go back to the um I don't feel safe yeah wow you have to feel safe for your hormones to be balanced that's why fasting didn't work for women to do all the time because people the body was like too stressful it's too stressful but cycling fasting works for women because you're you're you're using the principles of fasting to heal and you're using the principles of food to nourish yourself so the body feels safe and you do that in accordance with your hormones and your cycle and the body's like I'm safe I can release weight I want you to talk about cycling fasting in a moment but I think I just cut you off from something you were going to say yeah so I wanted to talk about I wanted to go into the pheromones for a second because why do we cycle together and then I wanted to talk about one study about birth control that was really interesting so we cycle together women do because as as crazy as it sounds we we smell each other really yeah so there's a SC that we give off and it changes our cycle that's how powerful a woman's body is and how it will adapt to the environment it is in so when you smell another woman yeah who has it'll know when the cycle is happening and it'll sync up your hormones with yes but but it's when you're like in families and work envir you're constantly with that person yes it's constantly it's not like you go out into the world it's not like you see your girlfriend once a month and oh we're gonna sink up right now they're called phermones phermones isn't that crazy that's fascinating okay second interesting study is what is the reason behind that you know pairing of Cycles within families or communities is that is there a safety thing when you're both in the cycle at the same time is it that's a great question I always go back to our Primal caveman days I'm like why did they because that's where you can really see why did we do that I guess men back in the day used to spread their seed a lot you know that was it that was it there was a lot of who knows to multiple women you know at once yeah it's true I mean in tribal days was like okay the man with the most money or the the doctor or the whatever the person with the most resources was able to kind of spread their seed to as many people as possible to for survival yeah it's possible I I think um there's something I wrote in both my books called the hormonal hierarchy and it works it it works in women um because our hormones are more complicated so and the hierarchy looks like this wait you guys aren't simple we're not okay are you just fcking that out right now we're not I I it's so funny so many men say to me like you said it I didn't say it so and this is why love conversations like this let's just yes we're not simple and and our moods constantly change well I think you can be uh simple when you understand a lot of this stuff as opposed to feeling like I don't know how to understand why is why am I feeling this way why I feeling more stressed this time yeah when we have awareness and we have an understanding of our our body as a man as our body our hormones or a different environment things like that we feel more at peace doesn't mean it's going to give us 100% peace but we're going to feel like okay I have a sense understanding around it that's right and I think when women get understanding around their bodies their Cycles their hormones like why they're gaining weight and why they're losing weight and all these different things when they're aware of it they don't feel they don't to feel as bad or shameful or anxious or stressed about it yes right yes that's doesn't it's perfect but at least you have awareness that's ex you you nailed it and this is why I'm trying to open this conversation up so we can all talk about it if you look at what we've done historically in our culture is women don't we don't want to talk about our periods we don't want to talk about menopause we don't talk about it um it's like a shameful thing that we have to hide and that's now changing which is really great and but if we can bring it to the surface and talk about it men and women can understand each other women can understand each other better so it's so important that we bring it to the to the light um so but here's what I I want to go back to this Fair got off sobody different T I know but you've got me thinking and excited so here's what I think happens is is in this hormonal hierarchy in order for your sex hormones to be balanced you have to be insulin sensitive you have to have that system right which is why I think fast like a girl is so many women are getting their Cycles back they're getting pregnant for the first time because I help them them see how to do that interesting but what's in charge of insulin is cortisol so like we talked about well okay if cortisol is high you become more insulin resistant and and you have a harder time balancing sex hormones and cortisol is stress cortisol is stress and is stress based on food stress lack of sleep stress environment stress relationship stress all of it all of it fasting is raises cortisol right exercise raises cortisol which is why we have to do it differently as women interesting but at the top of that all is oxytocin and this is why I think perhaps we we would we smell each other and would cycle together because women are right women are meant to be in community because when oxytocin we're connected with each other then cortisol goes down this is why you should always let your gal go out on ladies night always yeah because now she gets oxytocin it brings cortisol down she's more relaxed and then when she's more relaxed now all the dieting and exercise that she wants to do makes her is going to work and when that it regulates insulin now we can balance her hormones wow so we're we're just humans in general but women are geared towards connection and so what about you know so you mentioned cycling fasting or fasting while cycling how do we know how does a woman know when to fast and how frequently to fast based on their cycle so in fast like a girl I created something called the fasting cycle for women and basically I walk through the whole menstrual cycle I'll give you the basic principles of it break it down for yeah and and showed women this is when you fast this is when you don't fast and then I timed it to six different level fasts give me the 101 of a menstrual cycle this is going be great when does it start or what happens the day it starts versus when it ends okay great and then you got to go home tonight like this what I learned yeah and let me know how useful this is yeah because it's really interesting if more men understood this I think you'd understand the women in your life more okay day one through day 10 day one is the day you start to a woman bleeds a lot of women don't realize that that's day one so you have to use feminine care products it's day one so your hormones actually are come crashing down at that point and for the next 10 days you're going to specifically build a hormone called estrogen estrogen needs you to be insulin sensitive so keeping your carb load down keeping fasting longer exercising more really those first 10 days a woman can do it then that's when you can fast yeah and exercise more yeah yeah day 1 through 10 1 through 10 and that's where keto works that's where you know the low whole low low carb situation worked really well in those first 10 days the other unique thing about estrogen is when cortisol shows up she's not she doesn't care as much she's a little she's a little tolerant of cortisol the other interesting thing for you to know with and anybody who's got a woman in their life um th those first 10 days when estrogen builds estrogen one piece of estrogen it's called estradi stimulates dopamine serotonin oxytocin bdnf acetylcholine glutamate so she's going to be happy focused um more out buing want to socialize more really the first 10 days the first yeah give her a couple days after she starts to bleed but as she gets closer to day 10 because usually when it starts you hear people say a little more moody right I think that's because we don't mind the back half of our cycle really and so when I go all the way through I'll explain that okay yes yeah because Martha my fiance she really doesn't get moody like she has excellent she doesn't get cramping you know it's really rare if she feels pain or feels she might for like a couple hours Be Like H I just want like to cut a little B more something like that but I maybe that's she might be doing this right though we're we're not meant to have PMS is because we're going against our our natural Rhythm really yeah bad menopause symptoms also going against Natural rhythms how many women do you think percentage wise have you know intense PMS oh I would say the majority of them really but think about it women exercise the same all month long women eat the same all month long women don't think about oh progesterone's coming in I maybe need to slow down my life a little bit right now we don't talk like that until this moment in time and this is what again another thing I'm trying to open up this conversation so we have been trying to diet and exercise and lift life very much like a man right especially in know the coastal cities you see you know I'm not saying this is a bad thing but you see women going to the gym five six days a week or getting up early and intense yoga hot yoga every single morning it's like you got to get it in and you got to work hard and it sounds like yes for a period of the month but not the entire month exactly or for part of the week but not the every day exactly that's what I'm hearing you say got it that and that is so important for women to hear and when I get to the back half of the cycle you'll understand why but we our hormones pulse in and out in a 28 to 32 day period you all have one hormone you have testosterone that's it that's it how many hormones do women have uh we have well sex hormones let's like so we have three but you also have estrogen but you make testosterone it goes up into the brain and converts into estrogen so the conversion happens in the brain so all you have to think about is make more testosterone and you get it every 15ish minut minutes every 15 minutes yeah just pulses in really hormones are always pulsing so they pulse in every 15 minutes and then it goes away then it pulses in then it goes away naturally yeah you're highest in the morning testosterone's highest in the morning women that's why men usually have you know extra sex driver the morning right that's exactly why men are have a higher sex drive in the morning right and it's a good time to work out is is it the best time to work out you think yeah because you have all that testosterone energy yeah right Y is it muscle building so it's better to work out for muscle building and fat loss in the morning for men than it is at night would you say it clinically now I want to be because I've done this yeah I've done this enough time and I know the men will be like work at a midnight and I burnt bad and I got a sixpack and like okay well yeah right if you look at the rules of hormones it for a man well all all of us it's better to work out in the morning because the other thing we both get is spikes of cortisol in the morning and if you use cortisol by working out you won't store it as fat right both men wom you feel relaxed you feel more calm you get more dopamine probably from the process of working out I'm assuming that's right but if you use testosterone for you all when testosterone comes in if you're lifting weights you're going to help build that muscle more we only get testosterone check this out we only get testosterone a big surge of it day 11 to day 15 you don't get it for 10 days yeah really it comes in in a big surge right in ovulation so it's a great time for a woman to build muscle it's you're going to noce her libido is going to go up to have sex during then she's going to want to have sex more then that one is like mind-blowing right how many men and women are a mismatch and again we're this is purely obviously a heterosexual moment um but you how many men and women don't feel like they're sexually matched right but yet do we understand that women get that surge of testosterone in that 5-day period that's interesting how do you time that up though it's like okay day one she's got her period she started bleeding right and you think okay 11 days from now let me put a mental note or put it in my calendar like okay this is going to be the day right that doesn't sound so like sexy though when you think about it let me like Mark this on my calendar and really be aware of when she's going to be available at the best time well so here's what you can do is I mean it's not I'm not saying don't have sex the rest of life I'm just saying you're you got a shot a big shot at that point like yeah like so just be aware of that sure sure she the woman woman may be more aroused that's right got she might have more desire naturally and she can't even control it she can't I mean well the body is surging with the hormones right yes yeah I mean I guess you can mentally block it but the body is naturally more turned on the body is naturally more turned on okay I mean yes you can control anything but I'm just saying the body you can't block the hormone I was thinking of like all these this visual of like all the all these women like jumping on a ripping their clothes off that's right it's not like that I can't control it it's not like that yes but the body unless you I guess medically or put some medication you can't block these hormones way you're saying that's right well I mean there are there are situations like birth control pill has blocking it Tak medic to block it's changed it it's synthetically directing it and when a woman has been on birth control for multiple decades what challenges might come up in their bodies with their hormones well there this is a big a major issue for women especially the younger women is because it takes a couple years for the pattern of the brain and the ovaries to get to know each other so if we come in with birth control a year after a woman started her period there's never an internal innate sense of the body and then we keep women on birth control until menopause and we take her off a menopause and now she has a a serious hormonal issue that because she never learned that pattern wow so that's one second one is horrible for the microbiome it it it decimates the microbiome and you need your microbiome to make serotonin you need it for immune system you need your microbiome to break down estrogen so so when you take that pill and it's like a daily pill for like what 10 12 days or something yeah it's on a mon like half the month you take it for two weeks y you have a cycle according to the when you take it you take it daily for like two weeks or whatever it is what is in that pill and what is it doing to your gut microbiome yeah and what it's doing to your brain yeah well so it's it's controlling hormones for you so you're adding in hormones into your body so it's it's make it's doing the controlling instead of the body and naturally doing it so is that good uh it my opinion is no but we have to really think about what the alternative is we don't have any here's a question for you I asked my 21-year-old son this recently um it's it it's what has become standard for women to be the ones in charge of birth control um and when you look at the birth control pill it is it is exogenously from the outside controlling our hormones which is setting us up for a whole bunch of hormon Al problems there's some new research where they're looking for a looking at a pill for a man that would change change this the semen the sperm right they change sperm huh now would you take it I wouldn't take it why wouldn't you take it why would I want to block my body's natural way of being then the same as goes for women yeah I'm not saying women should take it I know but but that that's the that's the de that is well and I also I wouldn't take it unless they were like listen there are zero side effects and right when you got off of it you would be perfectly back to where your body was in sync and your sperm would be just as optimized or healthy or powerful whatever it is and there wouldn't be you know you wouldn't hurt your sperm later yeah then I'd be like okay well if there's Decades of research and this is proven and and babies are still okay afterwards you know then I'd be like oh maybe I don't know if I was 20 or something but it's not something I would take right now so that's what's happening to women really is that we have manipulated our hormones and this is why so women's health is in is in a really disastrous place right now so I I totally hear what you're saying and I would agree like yeah your logic is right but we've been doing this to women forever why why I mean this is probably all whole another subject but why is birth control such a normal thing if it's bad for women's bodies yeah it's a why do we do it is because the alternative is nobody wants to have a child young young child yeah and um what's more what's more painful hurting your body for decades and maybe a lifetime you know having a child young I get it's a big risk and there's a lot of pain and pressure that could come to that along with a lot of beauty and wonder and Magic as well but at what price somewhere along the line we decided that the woman was in charge of the birth control process and and we didn't think and and I I will I I will say this with as much kindness as I can yes and I not here to judge people my sister my sisters were both on birth control for a long time it's one of the reasons why I asked because one of my sisters was on birth control I think for two decades yeah and she couldn't get pregnant right and it was devastating for like four or five years she was trying and she could not get pregnant to the point where she gave up she was just like in tears for months y sad that she wasn't able to have a child Y and there were some other complications I can't remember the terminology of things something she had um but it wasn't it wasn't in her cards anymore Y and she was in her late 30s and she was devastated Y and then she got off of birth control and just said okay well I guess I'm not going to be a mom and then four or five years later she was able to have a child like it kind of magically happened but uh and now she's gotten amazing you know one and a half-year-old son so it's a beautiful thing now but was really scary and painful for many many years and um you know it's sad to see and it affected her hormones and different things yeah it took time for the body to re-regulate that's it exactly I mean you you just painted the picture that so many women are struggling with and and so when we come in with an outside source to manipulate our hormones what it there when we get off of that outside Source are we don't have an natural Rhythm and and that's honestly one of the things that I'm seeing with fast like a girl when I go and read my reviews and see what how people are responding to it is I I just gave a lifestyle that allowed women to get back into routine with their hormones right so it's awesome she has it now took her four to five years but what I'm hoping is that we can use lifestyle as a way to give that Rhythm back right and you said between day 11 and 15 that's when there's a surge of testosterone for women in their cycle what happens after day and that's when they that's when they can be working out harder that's when you can go to the gym four or five days that week and push it a little more well so day one through day 10 you can do the hard workouts um day 11 to day 15 you get the most amount of testosterone you'll ever get you have the most amount of estrogen you'll ever have and a little bit of progesterone so let's talk about that period because it's a really cool period so testosterone is libido and motivation and drive estrogen is she's going to want to talk to you she wants to have a so if you if you if you want to have sex with her you better talk to her first because she's during that time she's got estrogen she wants to verbally process with you um so her brain especially late at night yes when you just want to sleep yeah her brain is like on fire and then she's got progesterone so she's a little bit calm so that is I call it I called it in the book The manifestation phase because I was like oh we are super our superpowers like we put on our hormonal super superpower cape and we could manifest a baby we could manifest a raise we could manifest some new project at work because all our hormones show up then so for those four days is it just you're sharper you're more focused you're more energized you're clear you're like go oriented during those days you know what you want to create that's how we should be so women listening that are like I don't feel like that I'm going to ask you to look at are you s are you living a lifestyle in accordance with your hormones okay so let's go to your fiance who is like this is kind of you know the her period and menstrual cycles easy she's probably if you if she looked at it is living in accordance with her H she is she is yeah she's doing amazing yeah she's got great family relationships great friendships she's got a meaningful work that she loves she eats very well you know very clean she rests well she's and she's positive and joyful she has an attitude of just gratitude and giving and thoughtfulness and I love that accepting she doesn't hold on to grudges yeah like she has a a Calm Mind in the sense that it's not a rigid mind yeah she lets go of things that's amazing she creates boundaries and lets goes of things right she give forgives people so she doesn't have a lot of stress and tightness internally yeah I think that allows her to flow and not be in pain or have PMS or be like cramping a lot or off cycles that you nailed it I mean you just gave the form for oxytocin really so she gets a lot of oxytocin is what I just heard all day yeah so it's it's balancing everything else out interesting yeah okay so that's day 11 15 yeah day 10 day 11 through 15 is that ovulation manifestation period um lifestyle wise this is something interesting that I've been really deep into thinking is if women have the most amount of testosterone then why don't we use that to build muscle so uh you maybe you've had a on your show do you know Tony Horton I know Tony uh I don't know him that well but I haven't I haven't had him on yet yeah you should bring him on he's a funny guy yes so he and I created a program together last year a fitness program called Power sync 60 oh and we we we took his genius of like putting workout programs together with my knowledge of hormones and so it's out there in the in the world you can you can find that but I I brought it to him I'm like why don't you have a monthly calendar for women's workouts why do we have a weekly calendar and so we put a lot of weightlifting in during that time heavy that's the time you want to live heavy weights for women so that you can build more muscle that's interesting okay so after day 15 then what okay so then after day 15 hormon and then also fasting during that that manifestation keep it low you don't want it really high you've got you know eat more like foods that support good g health be care be mindful of your liver maybe chill out on the alcohol a little bit so you can break all those hormones yeah okay then you come out out of ovulation and all the hormones crash again so it's kind of like this is you'll notice it in our attitude we have like we're up we're down we're up we're down because that's how our hormones go so when the hormones go low you can fast more so that's a time where you could go into some longer fasts you can do harder workouts like day 11 to day 19 I'm sorry day day 16 to day 19 longer so you can go what 10 to 12 12 hour fast or well longer is like 16 36 48 48 hour fast okay so during those days you can go longer you can go longer yep you can go two days without without wow yep and what do you consider a Fest uh anything that doesn't raise your blood sugar so what can you consume yeah so water uh mineral water uh Teese coffee uh you can do MCT oil if you want to do butter in your coffee that works yeah you just need to make sure it doesn't raise your blood sugar okay but so there's actually apple cider vinegar water if you want do electrolytes you can do electrolytes yeah it just can't have a sugar or a sweetener of any kind have salt like element salt is really element te is amazing you can do that dur your fast yes we re it do you know that element te was actually created for fasters really yeah oh wow so the idea was to I Love It I do too uh the idea was to put it in water when faster so that they're getting those magnesium sodium and and potassium so the body could can fast better interesting so you can do a few packs of that a day yeah okay all right so that's day 16 to 19 and then day 20 hits and everything end of CLE yeah so day 20 hits and progesterone appears okay so progesterone's the outlier she does not like stress so you shouldn't be fasting you shouldn't be pushing your workouts you should slow your social calendar down if you can um you should slow down your work workouts that's more yoga Pilates hiking make that your recovery time that's not a time to push extreme anything uh in the book I call it the nurture phase because I want women to nurture themselves but if we go back to the libido topic it also can be a great time if you if you want to connect with the women in your life during that time foot rubs kind comments shoulder rubs like gentle be Gent mental with us and you will get a better version of us right I mean if you do that every day with a woman you'll probably get a better version of that week is the one that really matters if you talk kindly if you rub it back every day it's probably G to be a better day um and so what is okay so this is the 20-day cycle menstrual cycle for women well and then you do that until she bleeds until she start so 10 or 12 more days or eight days later until she bleeds then it starts all over again it starts all over again so the women women that are having really heavy PMS the women a lot of menopausal women that get a lot of clotting when they start to bleed they have really bad periods it was the week before they didn't mind really yeah so that's if you if you bring and oh here's the other thing about progesterone you have to bring glucose up so this is why almost every woman I talk to um and I know there's a few outliers out there because I'll get that question um but We crave carbs We crave chocolate we don't want to we we want to sit on the couch we're not as like outgoing we don't and but we've taught ourselves to push through that time so there's a reason you crave carbs you got to bring that glucose up so that that you have enough fuel source for progesterone to be made so what are the key steps then during that 10day period or I guess really during the whole cycle to optimize your lifestyle for hormones yeah well it would be in the front half of let's make it as simple as possible the front half of your cycle all the extremes that you want to do okay whatever it is work working out dieting fasting typically does better in the back half of your cycle there needs to be more nurturing and more recovery it's interesting because you would think as a man um that when your woman starts her period That's when You' want to take it easy on her or like make sure she relaxes and chills out that's what I would think like okay she's on her period she's probably going to be moody or whatever that might be the the way of thinking but what I'm hearing you say is like that's the time to push things like more than normal yeah that's the time to like get organized work out you know fast and to be more in the drive phase versus the nurture phase the nurture happens before right before it right before it so like days or period starts like let's get in action well the first two days you give us give us a couple days trying to get clear here trying to get clear here like the first two days there remember the hor we went from progesterone really building a little bit of estrogen comes in and then our uterine lining sheds okay so the first two days we're detoxing yeah and we those are kind of magical days like we have access to both sides of our brain so we may still feel a little more inner okay but on day three we start coming outward more and that's when we can push it more so good to know so the so the day the menstrual cycle starts when she starts bleeding wait a couple days until you get things into action is what you're saying that's right okay yeah um all right this is good this is all is this very helpful I think I mean what else should men know or women know about their cycle I think the biggest challenge I'm seen and why we have all these hormonal problems is that just women need more rest and recovery and it's a it's a really hard concept because how do you tell women that in in the modern world today to say women you need more rest and Recovery you shouldn't be pushing as hard you shouldn't be as driven in certain days of the month and that's not what your body wants yeah it's hard for I would think that it's hard for a modern woman who is very independent who makes their own money who's got a great job who is in control of their life y maybe a little too much yeah for their homeown liking AG uh it's probably hard for them to hear that yeah it it is and I am one of those women just so we're clear like I'm not here like like proti a Puritan lifestyle I'm here saying that what we did to keep up with the patriarchal World which to me just means the power to be at the table with men and to be there where we deserve to be is we forgot that we do need more rest and recovery so we get to choose where that is so let me give you a couple examples um that week before your cycle for women maybe you don't if you have a lot at work then don't tack on a whole b a new workout and and really stretch yourself working out and don't tack on a fast don't tack on like rigid diet routines there needs to be something that's nurturing you during that time you don't go out every night of the week that's right yeah and if you do that then you can come into the front half of your cycle and you're going to be you're working with your hormones so you actually will be more powerful I mean and again let's just if we look at hormones we have three hormones and these three hormones are are are making all kinds of neurotransmitters in our body so on a neurochemical level we're a little more Superior just saying okay if you are in alignment with those hormones that's right but we've never been in alignment with it wow or maybe we have in the past right but maybe Primal days right exactly so when women are in alignment with their hormones they are unstoppable they Bingo but when they're out of alignment they're just hurting themselves absolutely a th% wow this is fascinating right so but we we do everything very similar in lifestyle to men and we need to we need to realize that we are living in a different body so I'm not lot of people don't want to hear that though they don't want to hear that so like you could do it could be as simple as the week before your period get to sleep a little bit earlier yeah you know do more yoga and then go to work and kick butt at work um but maybe if there's a big project that you're about that you have control over could you start it at the front half of your cycle not at the back half just goes back to know thyself that's right you know know thyself study yourself understand how your body your mind everything works be a student of yourself and your health for sure that's right so there's three hormones that women have right and there's one that men have well one you have two because you have estrogen to it just is made in the brain gotcha the main one that's been generate as testosterone and the three for women are progesterone estrogen and and testosterone okay so what I'm hear you say is that men should fast differently than women yeah and men can we fast daily is there a time where we should stop fasting is can we do intermittent fasting every day for years should we take a break day you know weekend what what should we be doing yeah so again let's go back to our Primal friends and let's think about them so you can fast you don't have anything to cycle it to you can you do really well with fasting and you just have to have moments where you're feasting too so let's go the man comes out of the cave in the Primal days he goes hunting for food he's now clicked over maybe it takes a long time to find a make a kill so he's clicked over into that ketogenic Energy System he finally makes a kill comes back home brings it to the cave and Cooks It Up and Feasts so if men stay in a fasted State all the time without stepping out and eating eventually it'll catch up with you so women we just have to do that according to our hormones because if we go back to our Primal friends that it was around right before the Peri we got our period that we were probably sequestered off we don't have documentation of this but I'm hypothetically we were probably sequestered off and we're more in a nurture phase so we were't out doing the kill right when you were bleeding you weren't like going off working the first few days that's right but probably once like the days leaving leading up to our bleed then we would bleed and then we probably went and perhaps joined the pack to go kill make a kill we're like so Primal it's fascinating yeah now I I wanted to go back to the the women having these superpowers and having this kind of manifesting Masters when you're in alignment with your hormones what do men and women need to do for their brains to be wired for abundance hormonally how can we wire our hormones to be connected to our brains to see the world differently yes to make better decisions and to attract opportunities abundance and good things into our life better oh I love this question that was this is so good um well let's start with women um for starters we do exactly what we've been talking about we have to know how to how to live a lifestyle that is in accordance with our hormones and do you have like key tenants of this lifestyle do you have like yeah it it would be um fasting food uh working out sleep and probably socializing I'm going to put socializing and work like those six things if you could time them and know how to do them with your hormones um you you absolutely increasing your ability to attract more abundance in your life and these six things kind of create your environment that's right everything within your environment of your day-to-day life yeah if those things are in alignment with healthy habits and healthy living and healthy choices I'm assuming you're going to feel better that's right but if one of them or a few of them are off or all of them are off your hormones are probably going to be off too that's right so what's the consequence of your hormones being off we you know there's like we can talk about PCOS weight gain menopausal symptoms I mean there's a lot pmdd is a New Concept that's just being talked about really bad premenstrual symptoms okay so so all of that that we have like fancy names for I equate to we're just living out of accordance with our hormones so when you're physically suffering you're not a you're not a a money magnet for sure but if we look at what happens to women when they go through menopause we lose we start to lose one one hormone or component of estrogen called estradi when we lose that we lose all those neurotransmitters that I talked about and we react to stress a lot more acutely our ability to hold on to information becomes more difficult because we lose bdnf because we lost estradi so again that's why the menopause reset I talk about per menopause and postmenopause because there's another level of lifestyle that needs to come in there to accommodate all of the loss of neurochemicals I mean it's really like wow it's intricate yes but once you understand it like you're un again you're a woman becomes Unstoppable does that make sense that's powerful yeah right and what's the best way that a man or a woman can clean up their insulin system fasting fasting fasting that's why it's taken over the world I know what's the downside to fasting if you do it too much for women it's changes to our hormones so that's why I wrote the whole book so it's almost like women need to be very mindful when they start fasting how the the time of the month how and when yeah for how long they need to test it a little bit more it sounds like don't just jump in and try to do it like men would try yeah because there's certain apps that might just say okay just go for 20 hours a day or 16 hours a day and just do it every day and you know rank yourself amongst your peers and try to you know compete yeah and that's probably not the way that women should be thinking about it right that's right nobody should be competing in fast right right exactly even men but there's a gamification of apps that are like okay your score is up keep going and go a little longer and see you know it's like that whole gamification can be tricky psychologically for people yes so for women if I'm hearing of fasting but be very Mindful and test it and track it yes track it test it experiment I mean I the fast like a girl has become the manual women so it's all in there you go to my YouTube I have a buch of things there and I'm just saying that because we just Consolidated it in one location um and then and then but then I will say this I say this all the time then test it like you said test it for youest test it see if it works you might find you can fast a little longer during ovulation than my recommendation if it works then great but the problem was is that we didn't have this conversation when fasting took over the world so all these people started lose weight and women started to lose hair they started to lose Cycles their thyroids crashed because they weren't given the formula and now they have the formula that's kind of scary right when fasting fasting kind of took over really in the last four to five years I would say it's got more popularized right and how many women were coming to you saying that this doesn't work hundreds of thousands really so this this is actually really interesting so um I was the f I was the first one so I found out about fasting loved it started and I was about 44 years old at the time I'm 54 now and I was like okay this is great and I all of a sudden I started dropping weight my moods improved like every per menopausal symptom I had went away and then I started to notice like anxiety crept up I started going into menopause at 45 and and I was like this doesn't seem right the later I go like the average age for a woman go going into menopause is like 52 so I ran a Dutch hormone test on myself and my hormones were completely tanked because I was fasting too much wow what were you doing at that time for how long oh I was doing like one meal a day I was doing three-day water fasts couple times a year like three four five times a year I felt so good and that's the problem you do feel so good that first year because your your body's getting rid of all the dead fat cells and the toxic cells you're flushing it out right yeah but then your hormones weren't feeling good right when did you start to feel the negative symptoms of fasting it was about a year of doing all that a year in yeah your body was like all right this is too much yeah so then I broke the menstrual cycle down and I was like okay wait wait progesterone doesn't do well with cortisol wait progesterone needs glucose up okay I got to change that and then I went to the ovulation part of my cycle and I was like wait I should be focusing more on my gut and my liver how can I support those with food I started to change that and then literally I was like almost in manopause at 4 45 and my cycle came back and then I I didn't you're almost in manopause at 45 so you just weren't having your your just it wasn't period anymore it was gone it was gone and for how long uh it was about three or four months okay so you're like uh this isn't I'm feeling good my body is looking good but I'm not something's off yeah and anxiety was through the roof um I couldn't sit on the couch to relax anymore um because progesterone makes Gaba and so I what I did is I killed progesterone and then progesterone's what allows that uterine lining to shed I wasn't making the neurotransmitter to calm me so anxiety was showing up for the first time in my life but I loved the weight I was yeah you were like I look great I feel strong that's right interesting so when did it start to come back like when did the cycle come back and you realize you started testing different things it was within 90 days wow and then I got really excited about it and I was like well let me test it on my patients so we started testing it on on the patient that were hormonal hot messes and they all started coming back within 90 days they're like oh my gosh all that stuff you had been giving me supplements for like they're all balanced now then I was like okay let me test it on women that are struggling with pregnancy that one blew me away so I had a couple of Staff members that were struggling to get pregnant and I was like I think this might be the the the the the Cure or the thing that will help you I don't know let's try it fasting or taking it off fasting um the fasting like a girl so knowing how to go in and right time at the right time um all of them got pregnant within a month wow and and again and you go to my YouTube my YouTube videos you go to my reviews on Amazon I mean that we've been able to reproduce this over and over again so that when then I started teaching it on YouTube that's cool and I you have a channel I I really looked at YouTube my YouTube Community as like an incubator yeah so I would say hey you all go this is what I think is working this is years ago go try it and then millions of women all over the world flooded our Channel and just started saying like hey this is working this is so we just took inventory of what was working and not working and and that's why I think fasts a girl is resonating that's amazing we tested it all that's so cool it's really cool it's really fun what do you think is the hardest thing about getting our hormones in alignment and healthier well the first is understanding it so this is why even if we have all this information because a lot of us understand eat less eat better things and we'll feel better but we eat poorly we eat sugar we overeat we over consume um you know we're influenced by marketing by abundance of it whatever it might be you know lack of motivation whatever it might be we're influenced yeah we're out at parties you know whatever whatever it is um it's the lot of a lot of us know we're not supposed to do certain things and we still do it yeah and I'm not here to judge because I eat sugar you know a lot just with the es but and I know I'm not supposed to do it right I know it's hurting me but I've eliminated so many other things that I'm like okay this is the only thing I'm going to allow myself to have every once in a while that's right but what is holding us back you know the most is it a lack of discipline a lack of motivation is it our environment is it our fam's habits that have passed down to us that now we're just in routine from what they've done is it our friends is just we have too much access to devices that are marketing to us these things and causing stress what do you is it everything it's all of that I mean this is why I say we're at a mismatch with the modern world but if we just take let's that's this is this is why I want to simplify it because it would be easy to listen to everything you just said and think well I'm screwed then like okay that's impossible and I'm saying that it's not impossible and you should take steps so let's start with the food step the the food the processed food is made to make you addicted to it so how do we change that alone okay well if I can get you to fast I actually can get you to start to feel better without food and your microbiome would change and your food choices would change if we start there we start to clean up the hormonal system because the food industry is working to keep you addicted to food yes so they have no incentive for you to not be addicted to their food to fast there's no incentive there's no incentive F make any money that's right but if I can get you to fast I can change your microbiome I can get you feeling good there you're going to make better food choices and there's tons of research my favorite story that I tell all the time right now is a man came to me he was 300 PBS and he said I really need your help and I said okay what tell me what's going on he said I need to lose weight I said okay why he said I need to stay alive for my family I was like I'm in how can I help you I said what's your biggest hurdle he goes I'm food addicted I can't I eat I drink 12 sodas a day I can't get off the buffalo wings I can't get off the fast food well those those are making you addicted they want you to be addicted so I took his addicted food and I just started to have him eat it within a certain period first month I had got him where he was only eating that horrible food within like a TW a 10 12-hour period the rest was fasting first month drinking 12 sodas eating buffalo wings he lost 13 PBS just by eating it within a window just by compressing it into one window second month I said to him can you just do the soda outside the house like just don't bring the soda inside the house stay with this eating window I think he was doing like an eating window of like eight hours by that time so he's going 16 hours of fasting he lost nine pounds next month I still haven't taken much away from him I had him add protein in he started protein he lost 15 PBS we did this routine and when then I got him into some longer fast we got him like it was it was just a a a process he I just saw him for the first time he's down 175 pounds wow that's incredible he and we started with when he ate not what he ate it's it's I didn't recognize him it blew me away when I saw him I was like crying we were both crying and all we did is change when he ate and that was the door in to change everything outse wow does he still eat certain unhealthy Foods or is he now like okay I know the value of these nutritional foods and I'm going to eat more of these and less of the bad foods so he still eats he's still every once in a while he he the majority of his diet is really good yeah 80 90% 89% because he started craving different foods um your taste buds Chang your Michael BR you're craving different things they want healthier things that's right but what H what we we came up with the help there was a team of us that were started like ring around him like an exercise specialist and a life coach everything and the life coach came up with this idea of like okay if you're going to go off your diet just don't do it two days in a row you can do it one but then the next day you have to clean up two turns into five that's right you know two just like well let me just roll into this the next day I thought that was a really good I was like that's a really good rule just don't do it two days in a row that's really good Dr Mindy I have so many more questions I want to ask you uh but but we've got to wrap things up here in a minute so we got a couple final ones um if you guys are fascinated by this uh listening on audio or YouTube and you want another episode with Dr M to go in deeper because I don't even ask most of my questions then leave a yes below for another episode or part two type in yes or another episode in the comments and share your biggest takeaway as well uh in this episode so far what has shocked you or what has helped you or what's the thing you've underlined the most from this conversation leave that in a comment below your book fast like a girl uh sold over 400,000 copies in the first year so far is helping so many women get healthier you know lose lose the right times types of weight balance their hormones um you know look younger feel better all these different things and so I want people to get your book fast like a girl a woman's guy to using the healing power of fasting to burn fat Boost energy and balance hormones make sure you get this for a friend get it as a gift for a woman in your life uh they will thank you and send them a link to this episode as well you also have the menopause reset get rid of your symptoms and feel like you're younger self again so make sure you guys check out this you've got a few other books on your website your YouTube channel has at the time of posting this we'll probably have a million subscribers by now you're posting five days a week great content so people can search over on your YouTube channel and on your podcast to get a lot more information on this we we barely scratched the surface um I'm fascinated this is inspiring stuff is there anything else we can send people to to support you to today before the final couple questions oh you're so sweet um yeah I mean again play with the principles so uh YouTube's my passion project I I I pour my time and soul into that so go there get the books um and and leave comments on my YouTube and and what you want to know more about because I do have a team there that's scouring that so I think that's probably the best place place to go that's exciting very cool um and the YouTube link is what's the the link there it's just my name Dr Mindy pels Dr mind p over on YouTube uh this is um a question I ask everyone towards the end called the three truths so imagine a hypothetical scenario it's the last day on Earth for you many years away you get to live as long as you want but it's the last day yeah you get to create and experience all the things you want to in this life for the rest of your life but for whatever reason on this last day you've got to take all of your work with you your books this conversation all your YouTube videos they all go with you when you pass away um but you get to leave behind one final message and this is all we would have of yours and this final message is your three truths the three lessons you would leave behind and we wouldn't have access to anything else what would those three truths be for you well the first one goes for both men and women but I really want women to hear this you are more powerful than you've been taught your body is a freaking Miracle it can heal it can adapt it knows what it's doing trust it that would be the first one my second truth would be people matter who you surround yourself with who you connect with don't isolate yourself don't surround yourself with people that that bring you down people matter hormonally they matter and then my third one would be be a lifelong learner just keep learning stay curious stay curious don't we live in a world where we want to cancel everybody out because they don't think like us but the people that don't think like us actually can help us deepen our thoughts so stay curious to all information oh those are great truce uh Dr Mindy I want to acknowledge you for a moment because you've been doing this work for over 25 years but it really hasn't been until the last year after 25 years where all this stuff has taken off into the world in a bigger way yeah so I want to acknowledge you for dedicating most of your life to this work to helping women oh and men but doing it where you know maybe you're only working with your local community for many of those years yeah and it wasn't being spread to the masses and it wasn't you know selling hundreds of thousands of copies of your book but you showed up daily to learn to try new things and to serve people yeah and that has made a big impact on the World by your commitment your dedication so I really acknowledge you for your lifelong service to healing and health it's really powerful and it's helping a lot of people right now so I'm grateful we got to connect and um I hope we get to do this again yeah I agree yeah I'd love to come back and and thank you I appreciate your kind words and like we started off I've been a fan of your podcast for years and apprciate I really feel like conversations like this can really impact people's lives if if you just sit with the information and see what resonates absolutely thank you for the opportunity of course final question what's your definition of greatness um trusting yourself trusting your own inner guidance there you go Dr Mindy thank you so much appreciate you thank you appreciate you I think food is one of the most important choices we make but I know at this stage of the game the other things I do are equally important so I would be the first person to say that it's a combination of eating an anti-inflammatory diet lifting weights getting enough sleep being happy like do we don't talk enough about this

Channel: Lewis Howes

Views: 29,614

Keywords: Lewis Howes, Lewis Howes interview, school of greatness, self help, self improvement, self development, personal development, success habits, success, wealth, motivation, inspiration, inspirational video, motivational video, success principles, millionaire success habits, how to become successful, success motivation

Id: lVVR2NAcDnc

Length: 71min 40sec (4300 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 11 2023