Live Like a Girl with Dr. Mindy Pelz - The 10-Minute Morning Routine for Cortisol & Belly Fat

Episode Date: September 29, 2026

Chronic stress can influence your metabolism, sleep, appetite, blood sugar, and where your body tends to carry fat—which makes your nervous system an important part of the belly-fat conversation.In this solo episode, I’m breaking down what happens to cortisol after you wake up and sharing the simple 10-minute morning routine I want you to try for the next 30 days.We’ll talk about morning light, your phone, breathwork, movement, hydration, exercise, and how to identify the stressors that may be setting the tone for your entire day. I’ll also explain what I mean by becoming “cortisol flexible” and how you can start working with your stress response instead of constantly feeling controlled by it.In this episode:Cortisol, chronic stress, and belly fatWhat happens to cortisol after wakingWhy morning light mattersThe problem with reaching for your phone immediatelyA five-minute breathing practiceWhen to move and exerciseHow to perform a morning stress auditBecoming more "cortisol-flexible"My 10-minute morning routineA 30-day challenge you can start tomorrowPlus: Take my free Nervous System Questionnaire below to discover your current nervous system state and the practices that may support you.Resources MentionedNervous System Questionnaire Reset Academy Who Are You Becoming? Card Deck  Sunlighten SaunaFor more resources related to today’s episode, visit the podcast episode page: drmindypelz.com/ep374 Connect with Dr. Mindy:Join Reset AcademyWatch the episodes on YouTubeFollow Dr. Mindy on InstagramSubscribe to Dr. Mindy’s newsletterDisclaimer: This podcast is intended for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, fasting routine, or lifestyle.

Can I tell you something I wish someone had told me years ago? If you've ever tried to fast or follow any health program and it didn't work the way you expected, I need you to know that it's not a discipline problem and it's not a willpower problem. It is an information problem. Most fasting research was done on men. Most dietary advice was designed for men. And then it got handed to women as if our bodies were done. work the same way. And they don't. You operate on a 28-day hormonal cycle. And the foods you eat,

the length of your fast, even your workouts, all of it needs to be timed where you are in that cycle to actually get results. That's exactly why I wrote Fast Like a Girl to teach you. It's a step-by-step guide to using fasting in a way that's actually built for your feminine body. This book has been out in the world for several years now. And it just hit the New York Times bestseller list. That tells me something. People are still reading it. They are still getting incredible results. And I want to point out, this isn't just for women that are in their menstruating years. There is plenty in there for perimenopause and postmenopausal women. Because even then, we have a new hormonal balance. We need to time our fasts too.

If you're finally ready to understand your body at a new level, you can find Fast Like a Girl wherever books are sold or at Dr. Mindy Pells.com slash books. Hey, Dr. Mindy here and welcome to the Live Like a Girl podcast where I bring you icons, disruptors, educators, scientists, and doctors that show you what can be possible when you love and celebrate the female body you are blessed to live in. Let's dive in. So many of you are really struggling with that extra belly fat, and I totally get it. And there are many reasons that we start to gain weight around our abdomen, especially as we age. I want to bring to your attention a real pivotal study that will help you understand one aspect of belly fat that you can change starting to

Today. Here's the study. It was a 22 meta-analysis, meaning they looked at many different studies, and it was published in obesity reviews. They looked at over 120 studies with 34,000 people. And here is what they found. The more long-term stress, the more long-term cortisol surging through your body, the bigger your waist size. So on this video, I want to start to break this down and give you some habits you can apply, especially in the morning, to stop the cortisol from surging through your body.

Bottom line, the more stress you have, the bigger that belly is going to get. And this isn't about you just avoiding stress. This is about you learning to become cortisol flexible. I have taught you all here how to become metabolically flexible. What I want to teach you on this video is how to be cortisol flexible, because cortisol's not necessarily the enemy. It's how cortisol gets used in your body, and this is what we're going to break down in this

video. So, here we go. First, let's talk about cortisol. Cortisol naturally comes into our bloodstream around the body. 45 to 90 minutes after we wake up. What happens, just so we get a general understanding of how cortisol works, is you get out of bed, your eyes see light, and that light gets censored by receptors in your eyes, and it tells melatonin to turn off. So it is light that tells melatonin to turn off that the day has started. As melatonin turns off, cortisol gets turned on. And within 45 to 90 minutes

from waking up, you are actually getting your largest cortisol spike, which means what you do from the moment you get out of bed until that 90-minute mark really matters, which is why we're just chunking this down into the first 10 minutes. Second, I really want you to think about is that every hormone in our body has an action that it's trying to create. So we've talked a lot about estrogen and all the things she was trying to create insulin's action is to pair with glucose and move glucose into our cells so that our cells have energy. Cortisol's action is to make you move. its purpose is to get you moving. And so when cortisol comes in, if you don't move, then what ends up happening is the body has to store that cortisol. You have the most

glucocorticoid receptors, meaning glucose and cortisol receptors in your abdomen. So what the body will do, the brilliant intelligence in the body, is it will start to move all that unused cortisol, into the abdomen and you start to gain weight around your abdomen. It is a thousand percent because of stress. I would even say that if you're really struggling with belly fat, I want you to address your stress levels first before you try anything else. Now, if you don't know how stress is affecting you, I've created a nervous system questionnaire. I'll link it below in the notes that will tell you what stress state you're in and give you micro habits you can do all day long so that you can pull yourself out of some of the more extreme stress states.

So just know that's available to you. It's a free offer that I'm just handing to you because I want you to fall in love with your body. And this is such a key piece that so many of you struggle with. Now, what was interesting about this study is that they tracked overall weight. So what was interesting is that they saw that when stress goes up, that everybody gains weight. That makes sense because your body is in a fight or flight reaction. When the body is in fight or flight, what happens is all of a sudden blood sugar would be pushed to our larger limbs like our legs and our glutes because we're supposed, and to our arms,

because we're either supposed to fight or we're meant to flight to run away. So the brilliant body of yours starts to move blood to those areas. This study looked at people who were stressed and saw that this relocation of blood also caused the body to become less metabolically flexible, which I've been here teaching you all about metabolic flexibility. So your ability to use glucose in a fight or flight situation becomes more impaired. So when they looked at the connection between increase in stress and increase in weight, they were absolutely convinced people would gain weight because of fight or flight. But what they didn't realize is that the majority of the weight that was gained went to the abdomen.

And this is when they were like, wait a second. That means that cortisol is at play here. And cortisol needed somewhere to go. so it went to the abdomen. Second thing that this study I want to point out because some of you, I don't know about you guys, but I get a little bit like crazy in my head when I'm like, well, now I got to not stress.

This isn't about not stressing for a day or two. They looked at people over 90 days and they measured their HPA output. So that is how much cortisol was being secreted in 90 days so that you can do it. You can test that easily in the, saliva. And so they tested it regularly through saliva and they could see over 90 days that the people with the most belly fat had the highest level of stress hormone. The reason I want to point this

part out of the study is because as I go through the five steps to show you how you can start to unwind this cortisol pattern, it may take you 90 days. This might not be a quick fix. But if you do it consistently, you will start to unwind the damage that cortisol has done to your belly fat. Second thing that I want to point out is they really talked about how cortisol also increases visceral fat around the organs. So this is an issue and this is why I wanted to bring this video to you because we want to make sure that this isn't just a vanity topic. And if it is great, but I want to make sure that we keep you healthy and happy and alive. And if cortisol is moving fat to our abdomen and it's moving fat to our heart and our lungs

and our liver, that is actually accelerating chronic disease and that is accelerating our overall health and well-being. So it wasn't just the belly. It went everywhere. Now, here's something really exciting that we're going to bring into these steps. They showed that light when you can. get light exposure early on in the day that those people had a lower BMI. So remember, it was in a meta-analysis. So they're looking at many different studies and pulling out the threads. And yes,

cortisol high, more belly fat. But people who had lower BMI, lower BMI means their body weight was lower, they were the ones that got exposure to light early in the morning. And we're going to talk about this in a minute because I want to make sure this is easy you guys can get exposure to like some of the mistakes I have seen you all make and I'm not saying you personally maybe some other other of my YouTube subscribers is that when you start to gain belly fat you cut back on calories it's not going to help you this is not a calorie problem and when we look at it through the lens of cortisol this is a cortisol problem and it doesn't if you If you actually, if you reduce your calories, then what's going to happen is you're going to actually raise cortisol.

This is why I want you to take the NSQ that I'm giving you as a questionnaire. Just look and see where your nervous system state is at. Because when people start to gain weight, what they often do is they double down more fasting, more exercise, more dieting. And that raises cortisol so high that you get more belly fat. put in the comments if that's happened to you. So I want you to take my questionnaire so that you can see what nervous state you're in and act accordingly. So belly fat is not a calorie issue.

The other thing I want to point out is that cortisol is not the enemy. You need to learn how to work with cortisol. So if cortisol is the hormone that is meant to make us move and it hits its peak, 90 minutes after we wake up, that is the moment to move. You want to go for a walk. I've even, I tell my reset academy members all the time, I'm like, put the freaking coffee machine on and do pushups on the countertop or squats next to the coffee machine when you first wake up. That you, if you can start to move your body in those moments that cortisol is rising, then it won't be stored. Another recommendation I've given you all here that I still stand behind is the moment a stressor hits you at any other time of the day, go for a walk, go move.

It's when we sit in the stress that the cortisol goes right to the belly because it didn't get used. So whatever you can't use, you will store. Another trap, a morning trap that a lot of people get into is they wake up, they get their cup, a coffee, they turn on all the lights, and then they go to their phone. I want to explain something to you about the mind in those early morning hours, because what happens is that sleep, you're in a delta brain wave state. This is where the brain is completely in relaxation and it's sleepy, and it's shut. It's completely in its dream world. When you move out at delta, you go to something called theta. Theta is a relaxed brainwave state where a lot of meditators will be in a theta brainway

state. And then after you wake up, maybe you're a half hour, 45 minutes in, you're now into alpha. And alpha is where you're insightful, but you're, but a lot more alert than theta. And then once you've had your cup of coffee, maybe talk to some friends, you've now gone into a beta state way, brainwave state, where we are right now. Cortisol gets secreted in a beta brainwave state. In fact, it gets secreted in high beta primarily. So if I wake up in delta and I don't ease myself through theta and alpha and I just go from delta straight to beta, I am turning that cortisol on earlier than it needs to be turned on. So what this looks like is those of you who wake up, you get your cup of coffee, and you pick up your phone and you start scrolling your phone. You start going on to social media,

you look at news, and now we've got the coffee stimulating cortisol. We have your phone stimulating cortisol, and then usually people will turn on bright lights in their kitchen, and now you have abruptly shut down melatonin. It is a startling way for your nervous system to start the day. It's a lot for your nervous system handle, especially those of you that take my nervous system questionnaire. If you're in a yellow state or a red state, I want you to listen to the five things that I want you to start to implement to change your nervous system state and get that cortisol spicket to turn off. For the past two years, I have been in a stuck nervous state. system. A lot of you have heard me talk about it here on this podcast. And I've been experimenting with

all kinds of ways to balance my nervous system. And I got to tell you something that's going to sound incredibly backwards. Because what I've learned is that sometimes the fastest way out of a stuck nervous system or out of fight or flight isn't more calm. It's not sit your butt down on the couch. It's actually a little bit of heat and light. Now, stay with me because I discovered something that I'm really excited to share with you. There has been something that my sunlight and infrared sauna has done to my nervous system that no other tool has been able to accomplish. At the end of a crazy long day, a few minutes in a gentle heat with some warm red light on me, and all of a sudden I feel myself coming down from the chaos of the day.

And let's be really honest, we could all use a way, a quick way, to get out of fight or flight, not only so we can feel better, but so that we can be our best. And we can show up in a very balanced way for the people that we love. For me, this is the rare kind of self-care that's actually doing something. And what I love about infrared sauna is that the heat is gentle and comfortable. It's like sitting in the sun and you instantly feel relaxed. But you're in your own home. There's no schedule.

There's no driving to a gym to share sauna space with anyone. Sunlighten has been the pioneer in infrared for more than 20. 25 years. And their science holds up, which you know me, I love the science behind a good health tool. If that sounds familiar and you're needing another tool, I can honestly tell you that this has been a game changer for me. So go check them out. Visit sunlighten.com slash Dr. Mindy and use the code, Dr. Mindy, to save up to $2,100 on your sauna purchase. And plus, the shipping is free. This is honestly self-care that I could absolutely get behind.

Sunlighten, thank you. I am so grateful for this tool. Here they are. Step number one. When you get up, it can't you, if you're, now, I will tell you, I like coffee first thing in the morning. So however long it takes you to make your coffee, could you turn on your coffee maker and go outside?

Remember, one of the studies they looked at was people who had more light exposure in the morning had lower BMIs. So turn the coffee on and go out into your backyard, go out onto your deck. If you don't have access to that, like you live in an apartment building, go to your window. outside would be the best, but you're doing several things if you go to the window and don't turn the lights on inside your kitchen. If you go to the window and the light is starting to come up, what you're doing is you're giving your brain time to register that day has started. And the whole manufacturing of hormones has time to gently start to shift in a kind way

to your nervous system as opposed to an abrupt way. So you get out of your bed, you go to the kitchen, you don't turn on the lights. If that's going to be too dark, then have one light on, not all the lights. You turn on your coffee maker and you go outside and you get lights. This is where we start to tell melatonin to turn off and we tell cortisol, hey, in an hour and a half, I'm going to need you. go ahead and turn the cortisol spick it on, but it's a soft, gentle way to turn cortisol on. Step number two, let's say you got your cup of coffee. Okay, you're sitting in a chair. I do this in

my house. I have one specific area that is my wake up spot. And there are books there that I meditate there. It's an area that I go to that I know is not an overly stimulating place. So find a place in your house where you can sit down. And for the first five minutes when you sit down, I want you to do breathwork. You haven't turned your phone on because, remember, the phone's going to have all kinds of cortisol surging through your body. So let's not turn that on. You haven't even really turn a lot of the lights on. If you have red lights, go ahead and you can put. a red light on or if you have something like sunlighten has a red light panel, we'll leave, we'll leave links for that and discount codes. You can turn red light on for sure. And again,

you're going to breathe for five minutes. And here's what the breath work I want you to do. And it's a breath pattern that tells your body to activate the parasympathetic nervous system. So you're going to breathe in through your nose. You can do it for like a countenipatement. of four or five, that's usually what I do, and you're going to exhale out of your mouth for a count of seven or eight. Shorter inhales, longer exhales. What that does is it primes your parasympathetic nervous system. Now, let's juxtapose that to the way many people wake up. The alarm clock goes up, they jump out of the bed, they think about the stresses of the day, they go to the coffee maker, they turn on the lights, they turn on their phone, and they're like, I got to do today. I got to conquer

today. In that state, you are activating your sympathetic nervous system and you are contributing to long-term fight or flight. In this new morning time that I'm recommending for you, you're watching the lights, you're waking up gently, you are doing breath work and you are easing yourself, you haven't turned your phone on. You are easing yourself into the day, and this is only, you're five, 10 minutes into your day so that cortisol can gently come on the scene. Step number three is I want you to move gently and hydrate. So when you grab that cup of coffee, I want you to grab water. You are the most hydratable in the morning. So even if you could drink a glass of water before your coffee, your cells are going to soak that hydration up.

I personally also do my bean minerals in the water in the morning. They sit right next to my coffee maker and I do a couple of shots of bean minerals to get my mineral count up. But hydrating in the morning is incredibly important. The reason I want you to gently move is because it tells you, your parasympathetic. When we move in a slow way, it tells your parasympathetic nervous system that we can stay calm. So when we move very quickly, what happens is that we start to activate this sympathetic nervous system. So this slow approach to the morning, including movement, is really important to make sure that you are sending a signal to the parasympathetic nervous system that you are gently waking up. If you do it the other way around, you are sending the signal there is a crisis

and you have started the day with cortisol pounding through your body. And where does cortisol go? If you have extra cortisol, it goes to the belly. Okay, step number four. I want you to start to run a stress audit of your morning. Now, this one is very personal because a lot of you and put in the comments, just I'd love to get to know my viewers, but a lot of you have a list of things that you've got to get accomplished before the kids wake up or before you get off to work. And it's like this to-do list that instantly puts you into a stressed state. So as I'm giving you ideas for a new pattern, what I would encourage you to do as you're hearing, the mechanism in the morning is what is stressing you out in the morning? Is it your social media?

news? Is it your spouse? What is stressing you out? And how do we start to change that? Because stress in the morning is the most harmful for your body. And again, what we're going to end up doing is we're ending up moving all that cortisol into your belly. Step number five, and this is one that I think is really critical, is I want you to start to care about cortisol flexibility as much, as you care about metabolic flexibility. So let me explain myself. Those of you who have read Fast Like a Girl, All of My Like a Girl's, Age Like a Girl, Eat Like a Girl, you know that I've spoke about something called the hormonal hierarchy. The hormonal hierarchy says that each hormone impacts another hormone in a very hierarchical way. So our sex hormones are on the bottom of the

hierarchy. This is estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. What impacts those hormones more than any hormone is insulin. This is, this was the whole premise of fast like a girl. Put in the comments if you bought that book, because that was the whole premise of that book was to make sure that you understood if you got yourself insulin sensitive, you would balance your hormones. This is my big take on menopause. your menopause symptoms won't be as bad if you balance insulin. But the part of the story that we need to talk about now is above insulin is cortisol. Cortisol will make you insulin resistant. And it is the morning time that is the most important to make sure that we are using cortisol the way that cortisol is been meant to use.

cortisol is not meant to come flooding in within five minutes of you waking up. Cortisol is not meant for it to come flooding in and for you to sit. So I'm giving you small little micro habits that you can do so that cortisol comes gently in. At 90 minutes, we get a cortisol peak. That is a great time to work out. So those of you who like to work out, do this tenter. minute ritual where you're going to get light, you're going to do some breathing, you can read some positivity, you can journal, things like that, you haven't turned your phone on. You can, by the way,

I've got a new card deck. You can journal on the questions in the card deck. I'll leave links for that. They're great for, it's called Who Are You Becoming, great for those of you who are going through transitions. But that first 10 minutes, you're preserving that so that your cortisol gently comes in and then at the 90 minute mark go for a run go for a walk go do things that are going to use that cortisol i am a big fan of working out in the morning i think that is the best time if you have belly fat you should be working out in the morning that is the big step to becoming cortisol flexible the second part of becoming cortisol flexible is that you want to make sure that anytime a stressor hits you, you move. Get up and move. Go for a walk. I often will walk around my dining

room table. I'll take my dog for a walk. I'll go out and move when stress starts to build. That will absolutely help you become cortisol flexible. And then the third way you can become cortisol flexible is to start to understand what's triggering your cortisol because everybody's going to be a little different. So understand those moments that attack you and know, oh, if I go into this situation, let's say you have a meeting at work and you go into a meeting at work and you know that meeting's going to stress you out. Build in time after the meeting to go for a walk. If you know you've got a really busy day, build in time at the end of the day to prime your parasympathetic nervous system through breathwork and reading and to start to bring you.

back into a relaxed state. That is what cortisol flexibility is all about. Now, if you need help with this, no, I have a membership group. I'll leave links. This is the kind of things we are coaching over there to the women that join there. Love to have you join us. Here are three action steps. I want you to think about taking immediately. Tonight, when you get into bed, where's your phone? is it right next to you? I want it on airplane mode or I want you to put it in the other room. And I want you when you put the phone down, I want you to tell yourself, I am not going to pick up this phone until I have been up for at least a half an hour. If you can make it an hour, great. Leave that phone there. That is a cortisol machine. Action step number two. When you get up tomorrow,

you're going to go outside within the first 10 minutes so your eyes can see the light. Light is healing. If you can't get outside, then get some red light, anything that brings in a new perspective to the eyes other than LED lamps. You don't want the LAD lamps. And number three, tomorrow morning, and I want you to put in the comments if you're going to do this, because, again, I'm great at accountability. I want you to put in the comments that when you get your coffee and you sit in a chair and your phone is turned off, that you're going to do five minutes of breath work and you're going to do it with longer exhales so you can tell your body it's safe

and that it doesn't need to overproduce cortisol. Try this 10-minute routine for 30 days. It's a challenge I'm offering you and come back to this video and let me know how you. how you're feeling. More importantly, I really want you to know that it is not your fault that that belly fat is there, but it is your responsibility to start on working on it. And this is not a, you know, this is not a moment to white knuckle it. It's actually the opposite. It's a moment to love your body and give it all of the nurture and care that it deserves. So as always, I hope that helps and put in the comments, your stories and your questions. I love reading them and I'm

cheering you on.