Dr. Pelz joins me for a fascinating conversation on the ketogenic diet for women, fasting for women, and how to thrive in menopause.
Bestselling author and women's health expert, Dr. Mindy Pelz joins the podcast today. Women's health is a topic that, I admit, is covered rarely on this podcast. Dr. Pelz joins me for a fascinating conversation on the ketogenic diet for women, fasting for women, and how to thrive in menopause.
Dr. Mindy’s career started 26 years ago when she opened up Family Life Chiropractic, now known as Family Life Wellness. Her unique approach has led her to work with multiple Silicon Valley Corporations, some of Silicon Valley’s top CEOs, Olympic Athletes, Academy Award-winning actors, professional musicians and, most importantly, everyday families.
She is now a public figure in the alternative health world and is commonly known as, The Reset Doc. She has created one of the most popular Youtube health channels out there, as well as creating a private facebook group consisting of over 30,000 members who participate in a monthly, Fast Training Week.
Currently, her local clinic ran by her highly-trained team, is one of the largest bio-hacking centers in the bay area. She puts out a weekly podcast episode, two science-backed you tube videos a week, three weekly newsletters, and leads people through heavy metal detoxing in her, Toxin Reset Program.
[3:15] The deficiency of studies on women
[9:00] Keto diet for women
[18:01] Meal timing
[21:40] The PROs of fasting
[25:25] Fasting for women
[34:30] Reaching fasting autophagy
[42:00] Fasting beyond 72 hours
[46:06] Fasting and auto-immune conditions
[51:13] Menopause
[1:03:02] Winding down
The Menopause Reset by Dr. Mindy Pelz
The Reset Factor by Dr. Mindy Pelz
The Reset Factor Kitchen by Dr. Mindy Pelz
Keto. Explained with Dr. Dom D’Agostino
Living in the Light by Shakti Gawain
Boomer Anderson: [00:00:00]welcome to decoding superhuman. This show is a deep dive into obsessions withhealth. Performance and how to elevate the human experience. I explored thelatest tools, science and technology with experts in various fields of humanoptimization. This is your host, boomer Anderson. Enjoy the journey.
All right, today, delving into women's health and menopausesomething. We haven't really covered on the podcast before with Dr. Mindy Pelzand Dr. Pelz is a best-selling author, keynote speaker nutrition and functionalmedicine expert who has over two decades helping thousands of peoplesuccessfully reclaim their health.
She's a leader in the alternative health field and a pioneerin the fasty movement, particularly as it relates to women. Dr. Pelz is thehost of one of the leading side's podcasts, the resetter podcast, and theauthor of three bestselling books, including the menopause reset, the resetfactor and the reset kitchen.
So today on this podcast, we are having a decodingsuperhuman first, not only are we delving into women's health, which is a topicwhich I should really delve into a lot more, but also we're getting intofasting and how fasting protocols differ between men and women. We're gettinginto cycles and how that relates to the types of diets you should employ,whether it be a ketogenic diet or having more carbohydrates in your diet.
And we're of course, going to tackle menopause at the end.The show notes for this one are decoding superhuman.com/mindy. That's M I N DY. Why lately? It's been hard for me to find time to exercise. I'm not afraidto admit that one of the reasons is I have multiple obligations across multiplecompanies, and I'm still trying to put together the best content in the worldfor you guys.
But on days when my time is short, I turn to the be strongin their blood flow restriction device. It helps me get a fantastic workout inunder 20 minutes, and I am able to maintain and gain muscle on those days whenI'm not able to put an hour or more in the gym. If you want yours, you can headto be strong.training.
That's B as in the letter B strong.training and use the codeboomer to get yourself a nice little discount, by the way. I'm not the only onewho uses this right. Mark. Walberg. You've heard of him, Marky, Mark, and thefunky bunch. If you will, is also a big advocate of the, be strong. Enjoy myconversation with Dr.
Mindy Pelz, Dr. Mindy. All right. So I have to start withthis question because as a person who loves to read the scientific literatureand has more than a few friends in the scientific community, why are there sofew studies. On women and women's health. Yeah. This
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:03:18]is the million dollar question. Um, I think the first thing to realize is thathuman studies in general are way more expensive.
So I just, I'm just start off with that idea that when we goand do a human study, the cost goes way up. So when we look at the cost of astudy on a human done properly, we also have to look at who funds thosestudies. And many times the people that fund them are the big arepharmaceutical companies. So we have to understand that.
Studies in general on humans are far and few between,although we have some great ones, second thing. Here's the, the hardest partabout helping women is that we need everything to be mapped to our hormonalcycle. So it's almost near impossible, but it needs to happen where we like thefirst half of our cycle, we have different hormones surging through us, thenthe middle of our cycle and the end of our cycle.
So I call it your hormonal lens. I feel like women need tobe taught to pick up their hormonal lens, but then a study would have to gothrough the eyes of a woman's hormonal lens. And that's very difficult to do.Yeah. How
Boomer Anderson: [00:04:42]many, how many women have the same cycle? Right,
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:04:44]exactly. Exactly or how many, like I get on, on our social media, I get peoplewho are women in their twenties and are like, I don't have a cycle.
How do I map things to that? It's this hormonal EB and flowneeds some serious attention from the research world. And I also appreciatewhat a daunting task that is.
Boomer Anderson: [00:05:08]So, I mean, in suffice to say, is the research world just kind of written itoff as like, Hey, this is too complicated or it's just exponentially moreexpensive to do so because you have this kind of multi-factorial
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:05:21]question.
Yeah. I think a lot of people are waking up. I'm having moreconversations about this with people that, you know, you have to go from, um,being aware that there's a problem to being able to fix the problem. And Ithink we're just in that awareness, like all of a sudden people are going, waita second, like autophagy, which is a cool concept of fasting, right?
Is it the same for men and women? Um, do, do women need tofast the same? Like when we see these studies, like Valter Longo study, he dida three day water fast study on the immune system. Okay. Well, w w did we ask wwhere their women, where their men, what was the breakup of that study? I amone of the, once you see that, like you look through the eyes of how were womentreated or how were women identified in the study?
You start to look at studies, totally different. Forexample, uh, here in Silicon Valley, We had a guy out of Stanford who was a,um, intermittent fasting specialist and he was a researcher. And he wanted tounderstand if, uh, if you could lose weight with intermittent fasting alone.And he took a group of like three to 400 people and he studied them for quite abit of time.
And it was appeared to be an impressive study. He came outof the study and said, uh, it looks like intermittent fasting is of no good topeople for weight loss. So, and then the headlines grab that. And all of asudden, all we saw across all the major news feeds was intermittent. Fasting isnot a tool for losing weight.
So I dove into the study in these three to 400 people. Hehad everything from 19 year old men up to 60 year old women. And I was like,wait a second. These guys, this
Boomer Anderson: [00:07:08]is like reference ranges in lab tests that just drive me nuts. Right?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:07:12]Yeah. Like you should never compare a 19 year old man to a, even a 40 year oldwoman like that.
So I think what the it's a difficult process, but I wouldlike researchers to first identify that they need to have more of a controlover, is it a man study? Is it a woman's study and not mix everybody together?And then we can't get as consumers of that information. We can't get caughtinto the idea that just because a headline throws it out there, that now I'mgoing to shut down my intermittent fasting routine, um, based off of a 19 yearold man.
So I think it's really awesome. We're having thisconversation because the public needs to be aware of it.
Boomer Anderson: [00:07:56]Yeah, absolutely. And I can tell you've done this before, because youimmediately are just sort of like gravitated to some of the points that I wantto get into today. Uh, whether it be fasting and just sort of how long youpotentially fast, uh, as a woman, but also looking at potential nutritionalsolutions, uh, for women and how they should be applied.
So I guess, uh, Dr. Mini, if it's okay, we can play likethe, if you've ever read those mystery novels, like goosebumps, we can do likethe, choose your destiny kind of thing. Uh, so fasting or ketosis, which onewould you like to go down first?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:08:33]Ooh, um, well I'm thinking of logical. I think ketosis is first because thenfasting sort of fits into it.
Boomer Anderson: [00:08:41]So I guess looking at the ketogenic diet and I've spoken to the likes of DomD'Agostino and a whole bunch of others, but never through the lens of. Women,the ketogenic diet for women in general. How do we, what is the best way for usto look at that I'm even hesitating or just sort of struggling to ask the rightquestion here, because it's, you know, from a woman's point of view, is theketogenic diet, right.
For everyone or whom is it
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:09:11]right for you? Yeah, it's such a good question. So I'll simplify it for you. Ifyou're under 40 and you still have a cycle, then you're going to want to mapyour kid agentic diet to your cycle. And let me give you sort of a generalidea. It looks like from the day your cycle starts until let's just go all theway until the week before your period, you will do really well with theketogenic diet, the estrogen.
Is a really is very insulin sensitive. If you get estrogenout of balance, insulin will go out of balance. If you get insulin out ofbalance, then estrogen will go out of balance. So when we look at a woman'scycle from day one, all the way, till about day, you know, after you opulate,so even like day 16 of her cycle, you need to be insulin sensitive.
And I do not know anything better that makes you in someinsulin sensitive than the ketogenic diet. So, and you match that with fastingand now you'll, you are really able to use the estrogen you're making. Here'sthe challenge. As we get closer to day 20. You make a hormone calledprogesterone and progesterone.
Doesn't really care about insulin so much. And progesteroneis very susceptible to hormetic stressors and hormetic stressors are anythingthat just any stressor that puts, puts a little bit of a, of a spike incortisol. You're going to have a decline in your progesterone. So women beforetheir cycle, usually around a week before their cycle need to actually carbload.
This is very difficult for women that follow a ketogenicdiet. They do not want a carb load. So I really go one layer deeper and say,you want to lean into the foods that will build you progesterone. These arebeans, potatoes, squashes, um, even some rice, although I don't alwaysrecommend rice. Um, some fruits, berries, citrus, fruits, uh, tropical fruits.
So, and then if you do that the week before your cycle, andthen once your cycle starts, the day you start bleeding, go back to a ketogenicdiet. You will find you're going to get a better result with your ketogenicdiet, because that's how you want to hormonally your, your hormones need thatebb and flow of your diet to be able to make those key hormones.
So go ahead and then I'll, I'll do women over 40, but that'ssuch an important point for women under 40 to know. Okay.
Boomer Anderson: [00:11:52]So in the women under 40 category, when you, when you're talking about aketogenic diet here, are you referring just sort of to, to ketogenic macros,uh, like 65% fat and above lower carb, et cetera, or are there specific macrosand, uh, I guess.
Is dirty Quito or something else. I think I knew the answerto that before I
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:12:19]asked, but I had to. Okay. So, and I'm glad you bring up dirty keto becausefats really matter. And chemicals really matter, especially when you're tryingto become insulin sensitive. So, um, to me, the ketogenic diet, there's twoways you can get into ketosis.
You can manipulate your macros or you can fast, or you cando both. So since we're staying in the food lane, when we get over to fasting,we can chat a little more about that. But I would say my macros for women isnot an extremely low Quito. I struggle with, you know, for short bursts, thestain under 20 grams can work for a woman long-term not good for women.
So I have a term I use called keto biotic, which is 50grams. Of net carbs, 50 grams of protein, and over 60% of your food coming fromgood fat, not bad fat. And then really making sure that your carbs, why I putthe biotic part in there is make sure your carbs are coming from plant sources,not from breads and pastas because women also have a microbial system in hergut called the estrobolome that will break estrogen down.
So a woman going completely, uh, PR plant free can be verydifficult for that system. So that's, those are the math one.
Boomer Anderson: [00:13:43]And the 20 going below 20 grams, what's sort of the long-term effects of that.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:13:47]You will, if you do it at the wrong time of your cycle, like, so if you did itthe week before, um, it would tank progesterone too much, way too low.
But if you did it like day 10 of your cycle, when you'retrying to make estrogen there, that it would be okay over there. So, but whatwe see on our platforms is a lot of women who gets incredible results withketosis and they do it by going under 20 grams and they stay under 20 gramsforever and ever, and ever, and ever.
And all of a sudden their hair falls out. They, they losetheir period. Uh, they might, maybe they're trying to get pregnant. They don'teven realize that they're making themselves in fertile. So thyroid gets thrownoff. This is not this isn't what we're looking for.
Boomer Anderson: [00:14:33]No, it doesn't sound like health optimization in that state.
Yeah.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:14:37]Cause, cause this, the scale says the number you want doesn't mean you'reliving in the body. You want.
Boomer Anderson: [00:14:43]Exactly. Exactly. That's really, really good to hear. Uh, Dr. Minnie, I interruptedyou earlier on, uh, over 40. So over 40, what does this look like?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:14:51]So then over 40 here's here's, what's crazy about over 40 is that our hormonesdramatically shift and it takes about 10 to 15 years where the ovaries start tolike kick out.
They're like, I'm done. I've been making you sex hormonesforever. Now I'm going to stop making them. And I'm going to hand the job ofmaking sex hormones over to your adrenal glands. So if a woman is highlystressed, as she goes into her forties, her adrenals now have to make all thosestress hormones.
Plus it has to start to make those sex hormones. So women intheir forties start to become very estrogen, uh, resistant there. The estrogenlevels will decline and she, as estrogen levels decline, she becomes moreinsulin resistant. So a woman is got to be more, um, she has to have moreflexibility and variation.
If she doesn't have a cycle, then actually she can do reallywell with like six days a week of ketogenic fasting. If there's no cycle totrack, then she's just, she can really do more like a man and Lee, and she'sgoing to want to lean into ketosis, fasting and bring that body more air thosecells, more insulin sensitive.
Um, and then one day a week do a hormone building day. LikeI mentioned, where the cycling woman has to do a week, the woman without acycle who's post-menopause or moving through menopause can get away with oneday, um, a week. So you just, the ratios change the protocol changes becausethe hormones are changing.
Boomer Anderson: [00:16:38]And so that one day a week is not necessarily like, let's go nuts on pizza andevery sort of doughnut out that it's just, as you said earlier, it's going backto release some of those, I mean, just healthier carbohydrates typically. Well,
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:16:52]right. Yeah. And then you have exactly that. They, I always say it's not eatinga tub of ice cream in a box of pizza.
That's okay.
Boomer Anderson: [00:16:58]Um, that's the cheat day that people are going to get upset right now and we
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:17:02]call it a feast day, but it's feasting on foods that nature provided for you tobe able to build hormones. So if you are through in menopause or through it,and you are struggling to lose weight, the ketogenic diet will be amazing for you.
Fasting will be amazing for you and just be mindful that oneday a week, you need to really mind your progesterone and step out of that andmake sure that you are, um, building using these hormone building fits.
Boomer Anderson: [00:17:33]Well, we're on the topic of sort of general nutrition before we get intofascinating, because there's certainly a lot of stuff that I have questions onthere when it comes to, uh, meal timing.
Um, and maybe this is actually the transition into fasting,too, uh, meal timing. How do you, how would, uh, sort of. I don't want to saythe average woman, but how should a woman look at sort of pre 40 poor post 40meal timing? Let's say if they weren't fasting in this case.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:18:04]Oh, so meal timing. If they're not fasting well, the first thing, regardless ofage, that comes to my mind.
Is, um, and we could actually put this in context with, uh,post PE women going through menopause is what's really interesting that I don'tthink is talked enough about is that we really should not be having ourheaviest meal at dinner. Yeah.
Boomer Anderson: [00:18:27]The American, the American dinner. And then. Throwing yourself in front of thecomputer or not computer, but like couch and watching Netflix and then going rightto bed.
And that's not very healthy. Why
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:18:38]is that? What's happening? Is your body is going into a state where it'sdigesting food and it's takes energy to be able to do that. And then if you goto bed, you shut down that process and that's stressful to the body. And so ayou're whacking your sympathetic nervous system out B I mean, or you take awoman over 40.
Most women are many women over 40 struggled to sleep well.So you're now going to have a difficult time sleeping and you have this foodthat doesn't get properly digested. So it sits in there. And if we really wantto get grips with this, it sits in your gut and ferments. And as it ferments,it starts to build yeast and fungi like candida increases your sugar cravings.
So you're whacking your nervous system out. You're makingyourself more prone to sympathetic dominance. You're creating an environmentwhere bad fucking guy can live, and you're really not getting the max out ofyour food. And so, you know, you're not pulling the right amount of nutrientsbecause you didn't give your body enough time to be able to actually digest allthat fit.
Boomer Anderson: [00:19:48]And so if we're looking at that gap between dinner and bedtime, uh, obviously,you know, if we could all move to Spain and have like the Spanish lunch saleand have a smaller dinner, albeit they eat pretty late there. Uh, but if wewere to have just sort of the ideal gap between dinner and bedtime, Uh, what doyou, what do you think that is?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:20:10]Two hours? It's two hours. And you know, what's been really fun. We've beendoing in my community a lot is in fact I just charged mine is doing thewearables. So I've been wearing the whoop or the aura ring is another greatone. And you can find I'm a big believer in and have one figure out what'sright for you.
Boomer Anderson: [00:20:29]Oh, that tickles my fancy button.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:20:31]It's such a good, it's like hormetic stress. It's such a good concept that weneed to talk more about. Um, but get yourself a wearable, get an aura ring, geta, a waistband. And then you decide what's right for you. I can tell youbecause it monitors my sleep. I can tell you that when I eat like at sixo'clock and go to bed at nine, my heart rate variability will go updramatically when I'm.
On a two and three day water fast where I'm not, you know,eating at all. My heart rate variability is through the roof because when Isleep, I'm actually doing what sleep is meant to do. I am repairing I'mdetoxing, my brain, you're stimulating a tough a G um, you, you are tappinginto these healing mechanisms at sleep that are supposed to happen, but when,and, and you can see it on the wearable.
So the next morning you can get up and you can be like, Oh,okay. That worked for me. So that's how you can decide what your window shouldbe.
Boomer Anderson: [00:21:33]Very, very cool. At this point, I want to talk. Um, about fasting because thisis just a fascinating subject. And one of the reasons why I wanted to have aconversation with you, uh, first, before we go into just sort of differentstrategies for fasting and, um, perhaps the cons, let's talk about the pros offasting.
Why should somebody listening to this care a lot aboutfasting,
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:21:58]because it's how you're designed to be. It's
Boomer Anderson: [00:22:02]that whole thing called evolution, right?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:22:05]It's in your innate cells and here's, here's the best way I can explain it. Ifyou go back to the cave person days. So this, this is something that's just,I've been geeking out on a lot.
Lately. We live in this crazy modern world where we haveaccess to food all the time. I mean, I can sit on my couch, pick up my phoneand have somebody deliver my favorite meal to me at my front door. And we haveour operating out of integrity with how our human body was designed to bebecause we are living in a very modern world, but we literally have the samehuman body that the cave people did with a few little modifications to it.
So what did the cave people do? They woke up, they look,when the sun came up, they looked out, they came out the cave. They didn't haverefrigeration, they didn't have a pantry. They looked around and they werelike, okay, we gotta go find some food. So they spent the whole day hunting forfood, gathering food.
Now let's stop and think about this for a moment. We wouldnot have X, we would not be existing today. If they were, if they were meant tocrash when they didn't eat, that was not the case. What happened is they tappedinto another fuel source and we call that the ketogenic energy source. Somepeople call it a fat burning mode.
And so it's almost like if you've ever been in a hybrid carand you like start off with the Evie and then it kicks into the gas and youget, you get another version of fuel. That's what happens to our body becausethat's what needed to happen. Back in the cave person day, we needed to clickinto another fuel source and this other fuel source, this ketogenic energysystem gives us ketones and ketones go up into the brain.
They make us mentally clear. They make us focused. They can,ketones will get gobbled up by the mitochondria in our muscles and they'll makeit so we can run faster. So you get like this limitless energy like boost, soyou could go find food and you can bring it back to the cave and then you couldfeast, well, that system didn't leave you today.
It's still there. You just haven't realized it because we'vebeen taught. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. We've been taughtthat six meals a day speeds up your metabolism. All of that is total bullshit.There's no, I can't find any research on that. So we bought into a way ofeating that is out of integrity with how our design is meant to be.
And if you don't come over to fasting, missing out on thiswhole other fuel source, it's like ready to serve you in the biggest waypossible. So to me, that's the best reason to fast.
Boomer Anderson: [00:24:56]Amazing that you did that, that was amazing because you even touched on thewhole six meals a day thing, which I, I religiously followed when I was in myteens and it worked well for me because I was keeping my portion sizes small.
But when, of course you get older, people start to do sixlarge meals a day and then they become large. And they're wondering why, andthis helps kind of clarify that. So let's, let's get an, a fast teamspecifically for, for women because, um, it's a topic I haven't covered on thepodcast before. And, you know, it's something that I sort of feel like I'mwalking around, uh, Sort of a field of landmines if you will, and trying tonavigate appropriately because we have this cycle that we have to deal withfirst, should all women consider fasting or are there specific types that
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:25:51]should have worked?
That's a really good question. So, um, here's what I wouldsay. If you want to keep your weight in a good place, if you want energy thatdoesn't, you don't crash. If you want to have memory, brain power and focus,like you've never seen before, then you should fast. If you don't want thosethings, then don't don't fast.
So that, that would be like the first thing I would say. Um,the Mo the people that I have some, some caveats for on fasting, firststarters, pregnant women. Never fast. In fact, uh, one of my staff is pregnantright now and we spent so much time where we spend so much time together thatwe used to always everyday check in and be like, how long are you fastingtoday?
And now I come in in the morning and she's got mounds offood around her and I'm like, perfect. That's what pregnant women should do.They should feast. They shouldn't be fasting. Um, nursing women need to, toreally make sure they don't fast over 17 hours. They don't want to stimulate atophus G and we can talk about that.
Um, women with eating disorders, I think should have some cohave involve whoever their health coaches in that process. And then the otherone is adrenal fatigue. Um, you just have to slowly work yourself into fasting.So those are the people that need to think about this a little differently inthe caveat of women.
Um, outside of that women just need to time their fast totheir hormonal needs.
Boomer Anderson: [00:27:20]Before we go on that last point, just because I know the people listening tothis show, uh, the adrenal issue is a very common one, right? Uh, if you'redriven executive, uh, and you know, you're really burning the candle at bothends that can get to you sometimes.
What is likely to happen to somebody who fast wow. Withwhile having sort of adrenal insufficiency as fuel.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:27:50]So there's something to remember about stress. We have good stress and we havebad stress. So, and, um, stress looks like a lot of different things. So stress,when you go to work out. You're you're raising your cortisol.
In fact, fasting will raise your cortisol, um, having atough day where you're just go, go, go, that'll raise your cortisol. So thetrick for people with adrenal fatigue is they want to have little bouts ofstress. We call it a hormetic stress and you can actually start to heal theadrenal glands. You can start to repair the HPA hope HPA access, which ishypothalamus pituitary.
So little bursts of stress can actually be healing tosomebody with adrenals. But if you are completely like your day in, day out,stressed over and over again, you're struggling with energy. You have to reallylean into some shorter, fast and do not go more than intermittent fasting. Andwhat, because now you've taken a hormetic stress and you put it to a stressfullife and you're creating this chronic stress.
So you're really just too much cortisol and the body canadapt short amounts of cortisol actually heals. So that would be the firstthing to say what I say just the more applicable answer is if you have adrenalfatigue, you start by just pushing your breakfast back an hour and just getused to that.
You know, maybe 15 hours seems completely undoable. That'sfine. You wake up eight hours. You've been fasting while you sleep or sevenhours. Okay. Could you just push breakfast back an hour and then kind of letyour body get used to that? And then maybe push it back another hour, a fewweeks later. And then another hour, could you stabilize your blood sugar bypulling the refined carbohydrates out and like adding in good fats and moreprotein?
Like you almost have to be very gentle with the process sothat you don't tip the stress into this chronic damaging stress spot.
Boomer Anderson: [00:30:02]Beautiful. Extremely less sad as a person who started fasting at the absolutewrong time when I was beyond burned out. Uh, I, I know some of the side effectsfrom this, so I really appreciate you saying that.
Let's talk about, uh, how would somebody get startedfasting? So let's say, uh, women under 40, right? How do you look at just sortof different fasting protocols for
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:30:28]these types of, yeah. So the first thing to know is that the longer you fast,the more healing mechanisms get turned on. So I call, I call them switches.
So, and we can chat about that in a moment. Um, so you'rewanting to train your body to be able to fast. And so w w I do want to look atthis like a training experience. If you were training for a marathon, youwouldn't just go out and run 12 miles and see how, you know, see how far youcould go. You would be injured.
So I want people to approach fasting very in the verysimilar manner. So you start actually with your food. And it's very much likewhat I mentioned for the adrenal people start by taking out anything that isputting you on the blood sugar roller coaster. So the cookies, the cakes, thecrackers, the breads, the pastas, the quick fuel foods that are high on theglycemic index.
We want to bring those down and lean into more of nature'sfoods. So you, I'm not saying don't get carbs, but get your carbs. Maybe fromfruits that have a little more fiber in them, uh, potatoes, yams, uh, squashes,like things that are more Carbridge, but they have fibers. So they stabilize yourblood sugar and then look at your oils.
So make sure you're not doing the bad oils, the bad oilsactually make you more on that roller coaster than anything else. So thecanola, the cotton seed, the corn, uh, partially hydrogenated, pull those out.Okay. So that's you do that for a couple of days, you got getting your, and youmight have to do it for a week if you're like a total junk food junkie.
So then, okay, now you're ready to fast cause you'vestabilized your blood sugar. So now let's do like what we taught the adrenalfatigue. People push your breakfast back or pusher your dinner up an hour andtry that for a few days. Now the adrenal fatigue person may have to try it fora few weeks. The normal, healthy person, couple of days now here's, here's, what'scrazy is when you go to compress your eating window and elongate your fastingwindow, we actually want there to be a little discomfort because in thatdiscomfort, we grow stronger.
So if we push you for a couple of days and you're like, I'mhungry, she said to go an hour, like I'm really hungry. Awesome. Like, I wantyou to sit there as long as you can, if you can go two hours amazing, but youjust are pushing your body to start to wake up to this ketogenic energy system.So I usually say do it for a couple of days, push it back an hour, a couple ofdays later, push it back another hour within a week's time, couple of weekstime, you should be the first ledge to get on is 13 to 15 hours.
And if when you can do that regularly, now you're in thefasting game.
Boomer Anderson: [00:33:33]And with so 13 to 15 hours first step in terms of fasting it. When we look atsome of the, you mentioned Valter Longo earlier, and some of his sort of threeand five day fast, and these sort of fast, fast mimicking diets. Are there anyof the sort of longer ones that you would say, uh, not for women or, uh, are,is everything pretty much fair game?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:33:59]Uh, everything's fair game at the right time. Of course. So a man could listento this podcast and be like, this is really interesting. I think I'm just goingto start fasting and let's say, I mean, it might be tough, but a man could goin tomorrow into a three-day water fast and there would not, I mean, it mightbe hard, but there wouldn't be a hormonal consequence, a woman at the wrongtime of her cycle or a menopausal woman.
If she rushes too quickly into those longer fasts, that'sgoing to be, you're going to tank your hormones. And that's what we're tryingto avoid.
Boomer Anderson: [00:34:34]Okay. You mentioned earlier switches and I'd love to hear just sort of whensome of those switches occur during fasting, is it at that 15 hour Mark or whendo we actually hit that beautiful word?
A toffee G, which, if you can explain that for people it'd
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:34:51]be helpful as well. Yeah, of course. Okay. So the first switch is what we callintermittent fasting, and it's 13 to 15 hours, um, just to stop and acknowledgethe research on some of this stuff is really profound. So there's two things Ilike to point out on intermittent fasting one, I'm sure you're familiar withthe new England journal of medicine are a meta analysis.
It's like the guru of, of publications for, for doctors willin December, 2019, they came out with a meta analysis and they had looked over1500 peer reviewed journals and they decided that intermittent fasting. 13 to15 hours. They had a few other versions of intermittent, but for the sake ofthis conversation was should actually, should be.
They say this in the article. And I, I CA this is why I haveto repeat it. So people understand the, how profound this was, that it shouldbe the first line of treatment for obesity, diabetes, Alzheimer's dementia, um,asthma pre and post-surgery, and a few auto immune conditions like Ms. Thatshould be your first line of treatment.
Now let's just stop there for a moment. How many of yourdoctors, if you have those conditions are telling you that that should be yourfirst line of treatment? It's not being said. Yeah,
Boomer Anderson: [00:36:15]unless you're working directly with the functional medicine person, which isvery, very rare. Um, You know, there's very few people that are saying
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:36:23]that for sure.
So why was it profound for this? Is that it starts to bringinsulin or, uh, inflammation down. It starts to increase growth hormone, whichis growth homerun for like women is really important because that willstimulate it. And men actually growth. Hormone is a precursor to testosterone.So we want more growth hormone.
It slows the aging process down. It helps you burn fat. Sofor the obese person, we start to get this new hormone. That's helping us burnfat. It's bringing insulin down. And at that Mark, you are moving from thissugar burner energy system over to the ketogenic energy system, the fat brainenergy system.
So you are making your first step in to being in this otherenergy system that will start to heal you. And it will make ketones is, is ameasurement that you're over there. Um, the other interesting study, I justwant to point out on intermittent fasting was done on women. It was done onwomen going through breast cancer, and they found that after a woman had donethe traditional treatment for breast cancer, uh, whatever version, chemo,radiation, mastectomy, whatever version that was for her that afterwards, ifshe just did 30, anywhere from 13 to 15 hours of fasting on a fairly regular,they didn't say how regular, but fairly regular basis that there was a 70% lessrecurrence of that cancer.
Wow,
Boomer Anderson: [00:37:56]70%. Like we're only talking about like stopping eating at 7:00 PM and eatingagain at 8:00 AM the next day. That's, that's incredible. 70%.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:38:07]So you know where my, as a woman where my brain goes to that as well. Okay. Ifit worked for women post post breast cancer treatment, what if I don't want toget breast cancer?
Maybe I should just do intermittent fasting again, mappingit to our, my cycle. Um, a little more regular to make sure I prevent breastcancer. So, so that's kind of the first step in now. The second step is onethat, um, got a lot of attention because of a man named Dr. Ohsumi. He is aJapanese scientist and he won the Nobel prize in 2016 for in medicine andphysiology.
Again, this is in their, their journals and their world.And, uh, he won it for a tophi G. And so autophagy is where in the absence offood, meaning the blood sugar is starting to go down. It creates a signal thatturns on an intelligence inside the cells. And this intelligence is calledautophagy. And the intelligence of the cell looks around the cell and says,Hey, I know food's coming.
I better make this cell more efficient. I better clean thecell up. So any bad bacteria and viruses from guy that are in the cell, it willkill it and push it out. Any mitochondria mitochondria is what's making us ATPfor energy that needs to repair. It will start to repair it and do a plasmicreticulum that gives us protein and gives us amino acids and helps to give useven some more antioxidants it'll repair that it makes that cell more efficientand it even will often decide if a cell needs to die.
And if the cell needs to die, it will be like the cells notfunctioning, right? It's about to go rogue like a cancer cell and it will killit. That's called apoptosis. All of that happens at 17 hours. So if you wantthe best detox on the planet, then you want to start stepping into a toffee Gand I even want to put one more huge point out there, because this has been mycry for 2020.
We have research showing that when of when a virus virusescannot live on their own energy system, they will live off of your energysystem. So if you're a sugar burner and a virus comes into your cells, it willactually take that, uh, fuel that is being created from being a sugar burner.And it will gain energy and can replicate at a higher degree.
Yeah, your cells are in a state of autophagy and a viruscomes in, it will kill the virus and the virus will not replicate. This was astudy done on COVID-19. So why aren't we all stimulating a tophus? Gee, ithappens at 17 hours. Why,
Boomer Anderson: [00:41:00]why not have their orange mocha frappuccino? Right?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:41:04]So this is why I get an opportunity to like educate people.
Like you're so powerful. Fasting will teach you how to tapinto that power. And the thing with the that I like to just point out for those people who are like fastingexperts is it's like a dial switch. So, you know, growth hormones, more like aswitch on this is more like a dimmer switch where at 17 hours it turns on andit can continue it peaks at 72 hours of fasting.
So between 17 and 72 hours of fasting, you are maximizingyour autophagy.
Boomer Anderson: [00:41:43]So let's talk about that 72 hour range. And then I have a couple of questionsaround auto immune conditions, but, um, that 72 hour range. So based on thepeak of autophagy being 72 hours, what's sort of the benefit for anybody thatwants to go beyond that, or should women in particular, uh, should women inparticular avoid going beyond that?
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Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:43:03]That's a great question. Uh, so STEM cells, we get, um, at 24 hours, we getintestinal STEM cells that reboot at 72 hours, we get a whole immune systemthat gets a surge of STEM cells and the immune system will reboot.
We're also finding things like musculoskeletal injuries canbe healed with a burst of STEM cells. So if you're not familiar with STEMcells, those are cells that can go anywhere in the body and start to healinjured body parts and injured cells. So would, why would you want to go beyond72 is because at 72 now you've got.
STEM cells. So the longer you stay fasted, the more STEMcells you get. And the story I always tell is I had an Achilles tendon injury,um, that I just couldn't make go away. I tried everything. So I threw a fiveday water fast at it. And, um, on the fifth day, the pain went away and thatwas two, three years ago, never came back.
So I spent two days with STEM cells and the body'sintelligence is so brilliant that it knew where to send those STEM cells. Andone of the major places that I know I can educate my educated brain can feel Igot it was in this Achilles tendon. So the longer you go, the more STEM cellsyou have, um, now having said that, I'm going to say this for both sexes, but Ireally want to point out to women that I see a lot of women, a lot of peoplethat want to go well, if five days is good, let me go 14.
Let me go. 21. Let me go, let me go out and grab a littlebit as good. Let me go longer. And that I want to warn you against, um, withoutsupervision you really need, because you lose perspective of what's right foryou. And you need a coach, not a friend. You need somebody who knows fasting tobe able to coach you through that moment.
Boomer Anderson: [00:45:01]Yeah. And there's, I know there's clinics and various places that do this evenCalifornia. Yeah. Um, and then as Siberia, and then I think there's onenotorious, one in Costa Rica that may have gotten it wrong a couple of times,but yeah, I completely agree if you're going to go down that path, like havingsomebody by your side, uh, is very,
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:45:23]very helpful.
Yeah. Yeah. And they, at those clinics, they're checkingyour blood work very frequently. Like they're making sure you're staying safe.It's possible. I mean, there's incredible stories of healing that can happen inthose longer fasts, but you really are putting yourself in danger. If you arestarting to go even three days and beyond, um, just encourage people to bemindful, check your blood sugar, look at your ketones and have an authorityoverlooking you.
Boomer Anderson: [00:45:49]You know, Dr. Mindy, I didn't expect this to come with this episode, but yougive me an idea on how to heal my VMO. So maybe I'll, uh, maybe I'll be waterfasting here in the near future, but let's talk about, uh fast-food and auto-immuneconditions. You already mentioned Ms. And it has a potential benefit there.
Is there any danger for something, uh, more thyroid related?Uh, like, well, I guess all of these in some ways have a connection to thethyroid, but let's say Hashi's or graves, um, any danger and fasting for peoplewith those types of autoimmune conditions.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:46:24]I wouldn't say there's a danger, but there's some nuances that you're going towant to be aware of.
So let's go back to what an auto-immune condition is. So tome, there's two things we've got going on. We've got a toxic load. Issue. Andwe have an immune system that's hyperactive. So I call it a mixed up immunesystem. So when we look at this mixed up immune system, so much of our immunesystem lives in our gut.
So I actually, with the, with my patients love using 24 hourfast to really start to bring back the health of the microbiome and the innerlining of the gut. A 24 hour fast once a week is an incredible tool for, uh, anauto-immune condition. So that, that would be the first thing. This, um, partabout the environmental toxins.
Um, and this is maybe going too deep, but pull me back, pullme back if, if we did go for it. Um, when you stimulate a tough Ajai, you alsostimulate apoptosis and APAP. Ptosis is cell death. What happens is that incell death, any kind of man-made synthetic chemical will get redistributed intoyour body. So if you're doing a lot of these fast and you know, you have anauto-immune condition, you're going to want to use things like binders, like,um, activated charcoal, where you can buy or a zeolite.
So you can bind to the toxins that might be gettingreleased. So that, that would be the first thing. Um, and then you're going towant to heal the gut and you can use the 24 hour fast to do that. So just bemindful that the longer fast, the more toxins are being spun off, the morebinders you're going to need to use to make sure those toxins don't go to theorgan.
That's already been damaged now with thyroid specifically. Iwould say that you want to be mindful. There's some incredible research showingthat in a fasted state, you will absorb your medication more. And there's someresearch showing that you will absorb your thyroid. It was specifically done onthyroid.
You'll be more sensitive to your thyroid medication. Well,what does this look like for you? And it's not all necessarily autoimmuneconditions, but, or a Hashimoto's it looks like a thyroid storm. Like it's likea, like, almost like a hyperactivity where your heart is fluttering. You feel alittle dizzy or a little woozy that can be an indication that you're absorbingyour medication really at a higher level than you've been before.
So this is where I just love to involve doctors in theconversation because we see over and over and over again, people who are ableto get off their thyroid medication by using the tools of fasting and, andhealthy eating. But it has to be a slow methodical process and you'll reallyhave to have a doctor that's willing to test you frequently work with you andmake sure that the, that the medications are being adjusted in a slow manner.
Boomer Anderson: [00:49:33]Just on the testing point. How frequently are we talking about here? If you'reworking with somebody who has, let's say Hashi's, how often are you testinghormones? Is it every three months? Is it every six months
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:49:45]more? Let six months go by. So anywhere from once a quarter to once every sixmonths,
Boomer Anderson: [00:49:52]uh, very, very helpful.
One last question on that. The fasting, before we go intomenopause, um, breastfeeding and fasting, you mentioned earlier somethingabout, uh, I think it was 18 hours. Was the max window or is it slightlyshorter? Uh, I would just love to hear from you sort of the implications ofgoing longer.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:50:15]Yeah. It's a great, this is a really good question.
And, and the nuance is important. So remember at 17 hours atoffee G hits and remember at a top when a toffee G hits, so does apoptosis. Sowe don't breastfeeding. We don't want you to stimulate in a tough a G. So Iwould go right up least in extreme ATAR autophagy. I always say, don't go morethan 17 hours if you're breastfeeding.
Um, because where's all the, those talks. When, when toxinsget released, they're going into your breast milk and now they're going intoyour
Boomer Anderson: [00:50:46]child. Yeah. That would be the unfortunate outcome there. Yep. Menopause. Allright. This is a, this is a decoding superhuman first year. We've never, I'venever even tried to tackle this.
So I want to set the stage for menopause first. So if youdon't mind going through some basics with us menopause, if you can just give usan overview when it occurs, what are some of the kind of onset symptoms, uh,roughly for, I know everybody's different, but what are sort of the generalizedsymptoms for people?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:51:18]Yeah. Uh, great question. And you know, like you and I spoke before, I justreally want to rebrand this idea of menopause. In fact, I'm 51 years old and Ialways hear, I have this book on menopause and I still feel like in my mind,menopause is something my mother went through. It's like, am I old enough to gothrough this?
This is really funny. So, uh, here's what happens at 40,around 40. Your ovaries will make this slow decline. And it, it doesn't happenovernight, but the ovaries have been responsible for estrogen, progesterone andtestosterone. So as the ovaries make the slow decline, you are going to feelsome symptoms that you've never felt before.
And, and my big plea to women is your lifestyle has tochange after 40 what you were able to get away with at 30, you will not getaway with at 45 because you're you're, you literally have a set of organs thatare on their way out. They're like, Hey, I've been giving you eggs every month.Like, I don't have a lot of eggs left.
I'm going to slowly check out here. Your adrenals are goingto take over. Some peripheral tissues are going to take over. So the lifestylehas to shift. And what if it doesn't, if you don't shift your lifestyle and wecan talk about what those five things are that I really recommend women do,then you're going to start getting hot flashes.
You're going to not be able to sleep. You're going to gain weightfor no reason. You're going to, um, find that, you know, you might have someskin issues you're you might notice the mucosal membrane start to dry out yourho your moods. You're going to be more irritable. I keep thinking about howmany divorces probably happen at this time, because they didn't make like theproper lifestyle shift.
You, you ask any, uh, menopausal woman or peri-menopausalwoman. Okay. It's an extreme sport. If you do not make a shift in yourlifestyle and what happens is these, these symptoms appear. And then what do wedo? We either medicate them with like HRT or even by identicals. Like we just,okay, let's throw some pills at it.
Or we tell a woman take an antidepressant, which is thething that drives me crazy, um, or worse yet. This is what happened to me waswhen I was trying to figure out my menopause journey. All everybody was justsort of put their arm around me and kind of went, okay, buck up little camper.This is going to be a hell of a ride.
Get ready for it. And I just refused to do that. So that'show I came up with these, these five lifestyle changes that need to happen.
Boomer Anderson: [00:54:06]I want to go into this five lifestyle changes. But before I do that, youmentioned HRT and HRT peptides. All of these things are very, very trendy rightnow. Um, do you think there's any possibility in that we can delay or eveneliminate menopause you using some of these modalities, uh, that are availablenow?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:54:32]Um, you can minimize the symptoms, but let me put a big warning side out. Ifyou look at all the, the, um, hormonal cancers that, that take that take awoman's life, the heart attacks that happen. I think we get a lot of, we give alot of press to the ones that happen at 40, but most of those are happeningafter menopause.
So the diseases that are coming and 50, 60, the dementia,the Alzheimer's, the heart attacks, the cancers. If you don't make thislifestyle shift, you are setting yourself up for those diseases. When you comein with HRT, for example, even, I mean, bioidenticals are the natural stuff.I'm a little more open to because they're just sort of a softer way of movingyou through.
But if you come in and manipulate too much of the, ofestrogen and progesterone and you don't change your lifestyle, I stronglybelieve you're setting yourself up for that disease later on in life. So now Iunderstand menopause is tough. Like I'm not saying that you, I don't wantpeople losing their relationships or, you know, walking around irritable all thetime.
So some of those can be nice crutches. And I'm saying dolean on those crunchy crutches and change your lifestyle at the same time. Andnow you're getting the best
Boomer Anderson: [00:56:05]beautiful. Let's go through those five steps that can help people transition.If you will actually insert the best word for me here have a better experience.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:56:19]Transition is a transition. Um, so the first one is what we've been talkingabout, which is fasting. So, and I mapped all these out in the menopause reset.So I'll kind of go over high level. And then what I did in that book is I gavesteps on each one of these five. So women could just easily move into it.
So we want to go from eating all day to really compressingour eating window and elongating our fasting window. You don't have to go on athree-day water fast. Um, you could try intermittent fasting. That could bejust fine. Um, but you're going to want to stop eating all day. So you want tohave some kind of fasting routine.
The second one is we really need to vary our diet. So thishas been baffling to me. And in the world of nutrition, we become zealots forone way to eat. We're like, I'm a vegan,
Boomer Anderson: [00:57:12]I'm a car. You touched a soft spot with me. This is like, I, I, the, thezealots are crazy.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:57:18]It's crazy boomer. You should see on, uh, on my resetter group, we have aclosed Facebook group where we fast together, 40,000 people.
And we have arguments probably every other day with thevegans and the carnivores yelling at each other.
Boomer Anderson: [00:57:33]Of course, of course, and then toss in a couple of people. And then it's sortof keto, paleo, uh, you know, Take your pick, right? Exactly.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [00:57:44]Yeah. So, so stop being as though for one style of eating and understand how tovary your food.
So we've talked a lot about that here. I think every womanover 40 needs to understand keto, um, I think she should definitely alsounderstand feasting on these hormone building foods and knowing how to do that.And when to do it is, is a whole other conversation, but I call it ketovariations and it's really learning how to use food to heal you.
So, and then the third one is another one that we don't talkabout enough, which is your microbiome. So we have this incredible set ofbacteria that breakdown estrogen. You're not getting a lot of estrogen after 40it's. You're going to have to fight for every little bit of estrogen you get.And if your microbiome is destroyed from antibiotic use from eating meats,packed with antibiotics from lathering, yourself, with anti, uh, septic, soapsand toxins that are killing bacteria everywhere.
Then you don't have the right bacteria to break estrogendown. And estrogen is of no use to you. So I really want people to lean intothe polyphenol, the probiotic, the prebiotic rich foods. Um, you can Googlethose that you can look in the book. I mean, I'm sure you probably talk a lotabout those types of foods, but plant-based foods like vegetables matter a lotmore over 40.
You may have gotten away with not eating salads at 30, butat 40, you're going to need to lean into more of the leafy greens and feedthose good bacteria. And the fourth one is detox. So a lot of toxins,especially heavy metals live in our tissues as led for example, lives in ourbones. And in our forties, we're getting this estrogen, that's doing this justgoing up and down that wild ride of estrogen and hormones, where it just oneday you have too much of it.
The next day, you don't have enough that will trigger therelease of toxins coming out of your stored tissues. And those toxins now willgo up into the brain and start to affect the parts of the brain that don't havea blood brain barrier, the parts that control sleep and appetite and yourhormones. So you're going to need to have some kind of detox behaviors.
And I put a bunch of them in the book. And then the lastone, which is actually probably my favorite, um, is what I call Russia. Well, Ididn't, I have to give credit to Dr. Libby Weaver, who I actually now have onmy schedule to interview on my podcast. I'm super excited. And it's called therushing woman syndrome, which is we are over-scheduled.
We are overdoing. We are not getting enough downtime. Andthat was fine at 30, that might've worked at 20, but at 14, five and 50, yourmenopausal journey will be her readiness. If you don't put in some, somemindfulness techniques, if you don't stop saying no to every social engage orstop saying yes to every social engagement, we've got to slow the rushing down,especially after 40.
Boomer Anderson: [01:00:58]Do you notice that the rushing woman syndrome I believe is what you call it isoccurring earlier and earlier in women? Cause I, I, or just in general, right?Cause I don't think it's a women only thing, certainly, but, uh, it's justfascinating to me that it's almost a habit that you can try to ingrain in yourtwenties and it would serve you if you were to almost be essential.
It's about it. But obviously a lot of us are career drivenand we make it to our thirties, forties, and then all of a sudden, so thetransition point is. Around that menopause time, if you will. Uh, it should be,
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [01:01:37]if not before, it should be at least an any, it doesn't mean that you have tolike, not perform at work.
It means you need some buffers and I'll, I'll tell you how Iuse it. So like Friday afternoon, nothing gets put on my schedule Fridayafternoon after about one. Damn, I can't get ahold of you. Then get a hold ofme. I like withdraw. And I know what's really cool is here. We're having thisinterview on a Tuesday.
I've got a really busy day and week, but in my mind, I knowby Friday at one I'm out, I'm done. I can rest. So I Friday I protect Fridaysand I protect Sundays. Those I, if you invited me over for dinner on a Friday,I say, no. Um, if you, you know, on Sundays, I have to, it has to be a prettyspectacular event or, or thing to go to in order for me to pull me out of myhouse on a Sunday
Boomer Anderson: [01:02:31]pool party on a Sunday, I'm going to persuade you
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [01:02:35]or like seminars.
You won't find me. I mean, unless I have to be out there ona Sunday, I'm usually the one that checks out or, you know, and making surethat I'm not there. So I have, and that's just my schedule, but you got to havetimes you can go, go, go, go. But then where are your buffers? Where are yourmoments of downtime?
And I think that is what women aren't being taught. Um, andto answer your question about younger and younger, I just feel like our societygives, um, gives people in general, so much positive reinforcement foroverdoing. You know, you get the rage, you get the title, you get the followerson social media.
You can post all the pictures of yourself doing all thesereally cool things. And we forget that we weren't biologically, as women meantto be doing all of that. There needs to be a chill out time for ourselves.
Boomer Anderson: [01:03:31]This is beautiful. Dr. Mindy, before I transition into sort of what I call thefinal four questions, because I need a more original name than that, but, uh,what would you say is your sort of top three ways of winding down on theweekend, top three activities that you
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [01:03:47]do.
Okay. So you want to know my new way that the pan? Yeah.Yeah. And it's, it's based on neuroscience and, um, it, the pandemic pandemicgave it to me and that is movement, but I'm not saying go for a run. So whenour brains are in a state of anxiety, which the rushing woman is often in thatstate where she's locked, that when we move forward, we go on a walk,especially out in may, in nature, you can get on your bike.
Those are really the only two ways getting in your cardoesn't necessarily do it. But movement forward calms the brain. So I'vestarted coming home at the end of the day and walking the dogs. And I do it atsunset because when the sun is coming down, it signals your eyes, register thered light, and it signals to your body to make more melatonin so that you couldstart to prepare for sleep.
That's going to happen later on. So get out and walk atsunset is an incredible way to wind down. My, my second favorite way is, uh,pet your dog or your animal that actually petting, uh, or snuggling with, uh,with an animal. I mean, it happens with a person too, um, releases, oxytocinand oxytocin will calm, cortisol down and cortisol.
Calm makes you more insulin sensitive. If you're moreinsulin sensitive, you can balance all of your sex hormones. So go get yourselfsome oxytocin. If you don't have an animal, if you don't live with somebody,find something that brings you joy or laughter. Um, and make sure that you're,uh, conscious about it.
I mean, I really I'll come home if I'm not, if I'm havingtrouble winding down, I grabbed my, I have two dogs and I'll sit and pet them.And that petting really is an oxytocin boost. Um, and then my third one, thisis not, I'm not so good at it, but I'll tell you what I'm working on, which isno electronics after like six o'clock, you know, just these things will windyou up and get you stuck in your amygdala brain.
Like nobody's business.
Boomer Anderson: [01:06:04]Yeah, it's one thing that I'm working on too. And, uh, we're, we're actuallyconsidering getting a dog. So that's, it's funny that you mentioned thatprobably mainly from my perspective, uh, the additional oxytocin is very, veryhelpful. So
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [01:06:20]I've even at night, if the dog's in bed with you and I can't sleep, I'll justput my hand on the dog and like just sort of, and if I need to pet the dog, butthat can relax me too enough to go back to sleep.
Boomer Anderson: [01:06:32]Absolutely. Dr. Mindy, this has been absolutely fantastic. And we're going toget to the book here in a second and where people can find that, but just goingover now into the final four questions, what excites you most about the healthworld right now?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [01:06:50]Oh, you have good questions, boomer. I love this. Um, okay.
Here's something that is deep in my heart, that I wanteverybody to realize 2020 provided us an amazing opportunity to take our healthseriously. And we are at a crossroads in the, for the human species. And if wedon't look at it, the fact that health matters above all else, we will die as aspecies. I have, uh, spoken with many experts who believe in this.
Um, just like we need to take care of our climate. Just likewe need to take care of our health. We are at a crossroads needs people to wakeup. So if we, he can wake up and say, Whoa, I had no idea that a new viruscould shut the world down this much. If we wake up and say, I refuse to put myhealth last. I refuse to be a consumer that only cares about my own wellbeingand doesn't care about the well-being of others.
Doesn't care about the wellbeing of the planet. You have tounderstand your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren may not have a worldto live in. So what excites me the most is the opportunity that is sitting infront of us right now, to care about our health care about our planet and careabout others.
If we step into that, this will be a world beyond any thingwe've ever seen that we've ever dreamed of. This could be the greatest planet.We could be the greatest species we could have so many gifts emerge from thismoment. If we make the choice to do those three things that excites me themost.
Boomer Anderson: [01:08:46]Got goosebumps, as you're saying.
And that whole shift in worldview, if people are looking forsort of a third-party source that echoes that and kind of walks people on howto do it now, seem hair mind has something that's pretty interesting on hiswebsite. That's free a second question and you may be biased here. Um, so I'mkind of curious how you answer this, but your top trick for enhancing yourfocus.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [01:09:11]Oh, I am totally biased. Yeah. Get, get yourself some ketones. Oh, my gosh.
Boomer Anderson: [01:09:18]Oh, okay. Then part B part B of this question then what do you, what is yourfeeling on exogenous ketones?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [01:09:23]Ah, yes. I have a strong opinion on this. Um, if you supplement from theoutside in too often, then the inner mechanisms that make ketones won't knowhow to do it.
So if you need an exogenous ketone to like have a, a betterperformance at, um, for a talk or for a workout every once in a while, I'mokay, I'm there with you. But if you are using exoticness ketones to get intoketosis, you're not allowing your body to figure out how to get into it on itsown. And then the last piece of that is we have no research showing whathappens when ketones are high and blood sugar is high.
Boomer Anderson: [01:10:04]Yeah. That's what I was going to say. That's some of those shakes out therethat kind of drive me. Yeah.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [01:10:11]We don't, we don't we're meant to have ketones and blood sugars low. So whathappens if I eat a lunch and then I'm falling, I'm falling asleep and I go andhave some exoticness ketones. I don't know. We don't know what that's going todo.
Long-term
Boomer Anderson: [01:10:25]of course, of course. Very well said. Okay. So ketones for enhancing focus.What is the number one book that has impacted your life and why?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [01:10:36]Okay, so this is a really strange little book that totally changed my life.There's actually two of them I'll give two of them. The first it was calledliving in the light by Shakti go in, and it was all about visualization.
And at a time when I was in my twenties and I had chronicfatigue syndrome, that book jumped out at me at a bookstore. And I learned inthat book that I could use my mind to create any reality that I wanted. And,uh, she's no longer alive. Otherwise I'd bring her on my podcast, but, um, itwas a profound book about visualizing the second book that I love, that thathas changed my life is the monk who sold his Ferrari.
Did you read that book?
Boomer Anderson: [01:11:17]I I'm familiar with it, but please.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [01:11:18]So Robin, Robin Sharma. And I read that book when I was first in practice andfelt like the jaw, my vision for my life was to achieve. And then I read thatbook and realized, Oh, that's not going to serve me well. And it's, it'sbasically a fable about a man who is an attorney and has a heart attack on the,on the courtroom floor.
And then he makes a dramatic shift and becomes a monk. Andwhat he learns in that process.
Boomer Anderson: [01:11:46]Beautiful Dr. Minnie, where can people find out more about you, the book andeverything that you're up to?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [01:11:53]So the, the best place to get all my information or kind of the hub is mywebsite. So you can go there. Um, the book links to the book, or you can justgo to the menopause reset book.com that those are, have everything for thebook, but otherwise go to my website, Dr.
Mindy Pelz, and you can see all the links there. Um, thecontent that I put out that I'm, I put really much that my heart and soul intomore than, I mean, my books, obviously there's a heart and soul piece there,but are my YouTube videos. So I spent all a lot of time researching listeningto what people need, what information they need.
And I put new two new videos out a week. Um, so you canalways go to YouTube, right? And, uh, binge watch the fasting videos. If youreally want to like, understand this at depth, I think I've got like 600fasting videos there.
Boomer Anderson: [01:12:46]Yeah. It's better than Netflix. And there's certainly a lot of content there.Dr.
Mindy, this has been an absolute pleasure. And I could talkto you about so many more topics even mentioned chronic fatigue syndrome, whichis something that I would love to get into some time, but thank you so much forcoming
Dr. Mindy Pelz: [01:13:03]on today. Oh, thank you boomer for having me. I, um, you know, really wantpeople to adopt fasting because it, it there's nobody that can do it other thanyou.
So you, you stop giving your power away to external sourcesand you start to reconnect yourself with a power you may never even realize youhad. So I just appreciate the opportunity to share what I know and to move thatempowerment out to as many people as possible. So thank you.
Boomer Anderson: [01:13:35]Dr. Mindy is so enjoyable to talk to you.
You can really tell when somebody comes on the show, if theybring the energy that you're just going to have a great conversation. And wedid, I learned quite a bit about women's fasting. I learned quite a bit aboutmenopause things I didn't even really know before, and I hope. Some of you willat least check out Dr.
Mindy's book. The show notes for this oneare@decodingsuperhuman.com slash Mindy, M I N D Y. And if you enjoyed the show,head on over to Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts andleave a five-star rating, leave a comment because, well, I love hearing fromyou guys have an absolutely Epic day.
Super .
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