Live Like a Girl with Dr. Mindy Pelz - The Biggest Fasting Mistakes That’s Blocking Your Fat Loss

Episode Date: September 16, 2026

Fasting gets a lot of attention for what happens while you’re not eating, but what happens when you start eating again deserves just as much attention.In this solo episode, Dr. Mindy breaks down one of the most overlooked parts of fasting: the refeed.She explains why longer isn’t always better when it comes to fasting, how the eating and fasting windows work together, and why protein, carbohydrates, fiber, fermented foods, and plant diversity can all have a place in your fasting rhythm.She also takes on some of the biggest conversations happening around fasting right now, including thyroid health, muscle loss, the gut microbiome, fasting after 45, GLP-1, autophagy, meal timing, and whether women really need to eat protein first thing in the morning.In This EpisodeWhy fasting longer isn’t necessarily fasting betterWhy your first meal after a fast deserves more attentionWhat happens to thyroid hormones during extended fasting and refeedingWhy carbohydrates and protein matter after longer fastsWhat fasting may change within your gut microbiomeWhy plant diversity and fermented foods matter during your eating windowThe debate around fasting for women over 45Why Mindy cycles fasting rather than using the same fasting window every dayWhether you really need protein immediately after wakingHow to experiment with an eating window that works for your body and lifestyleThe difference between your sugar-burning and fat-burning statesHow nutrients can stimulate your body’s natural GLP-1 responseFor more resources related to today’s episode, visit the podcast episode page: drmindypelz.com/370 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.

I have done thousands and thousands of videos on fasting. I have written a whole slew of books on fasting, and there is a major lie out there that needs to be brought to the surface, and we need to talk about it because I am seeing it all over socials, and it's time that we roll up our sleeves, and we understand that fasting is only one part of the healing experience. So many people think that fasting is where the healing happens, but they forgot that actually it's as equally as important for the refeed and what that first meal is that it will amplify any healing that started in the fasting window or it will dampen it. So on this video, I want to break down some of the key things you know,

need to know about your breakfast meal. Some of the key things you need to know about what's happening to your thyroid. There's a lot of concern that it's tanking your thyroid when you fast. I want to show you the research on that. And I want to talk about what's going on at a microbe level. Because fasting isn't this a tool left in its own toolbox. It goes with other tools. And so we need to be looking at fasting as one piece of the metabolic equation and that refeating what we eat when we go back into our food as equally as important as the length of the fast. What I'm seeing with a lot of people is that they don't get a great result with, I don't see that often, but when people don't get a great result with fasting, they double down and they

fast even more. That's not the answer. If you are not getting a great response with fasting, then we need to have a conversation about the refee. Are you ready? Let's have that conversation. So first, if you're in the mindset, well, if I went 16 hours, then that was great.

24 is better and 48's the next and 72. More is not better when it comes to fasting. There is a reason that I have written three books that all have fasting in them because there is a rhythm to fasting that will work for you and it's unique to you. And this rhythm involves refeating and eating food that helps support the healing that happened in fasting. So here's a prime example. There's a 2014 study in cell stem cell paper that showed that prolonged fasting depletes old immune cells

and switches stem cells into regenerative cells. I put this out in Fast Like a Girl. I talk about stem cells. And I also talk about it, this study in the book, but everybody forgot this part, which is that when you refeed after a long fast, a prolonged fast, that those stem cells generate new, healthier immune cells

or they called it immune population. Okay, so how do we look at this? I go into a 72-hour fast because I heard it's going to clean my system. I heard it's going to regenerate my immune system, but I forgot to read the nuance that said, but when I go back into food, that that food is going to stimulate and energize

the stem cells that were created in the fasting window. You're going to see the same thing with thyroid. This is, this goes, they go hand in hand. They're not meant to be used in isolation. So, fasting opens the door and refeating lets you walk into a state of health. Now, one of the criticisms that we hear a lot is about thyroid. Oh my God, fasting is going to damage your thyroid. The same situation as I just explained with stem cells.

your thyroid produces T4. T4 has to go to the liver and to the gut to be converted into T3. Inside every cell, T3 has to get into the cell, it has to be T3 to get into the cell to activate your metabolism. So most T3 is not made by the thyroid. It has to be converted in liver. And recent studies, research, human studies are showing that extended fast lower T3. Okay, that doesn't sound good on the surface, right? That's what everybody's talking about.

When you hear people go, oh, it's tanking your thyroid. I'm like, no, it's not, because we're not talking about the refeed. You have to look at the refeed in combination with the fast. And here's what it shows that when we go into a fast, state there's an evolutionary survival mechanism. Yep, that's why we fast to get this evolutionary survival mechanism and that the body deliberately downshifts metabolism during this perceived scarcity. And so, but what happens is once you bring food back in, all of that T3 goes up. I have seen multiple studies showing it goes up.

I've even seen studies that show it can actually double if you go into the refeed. And here is what they're showing is that it's primarily, I'm going to come back to one key thing here, which is for your thyroid in that refeeding needs to be carbohydrates. Because carbohydrates restore T3. So let's put this in use to you. I go into fasting. I love fasting. I'm doing great, but now I'm losing my hair.

Now I'm having a thyroid storm. And every time I go back into my refeed, I'm just eating protein and maybe I'm on a keto diet or on a paleo diet. Nope. You need some carbohydrates to bring that T3 up. So if you're losing your hair while you're fasting, you're getting heart palpitations while you're fasting, while you're fasting super important that we bring carbohydrates back in. You may have also heard, those of you have more sophisticated with thyroid, know that when you go into a fasted state,

you can see an increase in reverse T3. Reverse T3 is not a bioavailable version of T3 for yourselves, and it only shows up when we're under chronic states of stress. Well, guess what? Helps to bring up the normal T3 and shut down reverse T3 is protein. So if I had a thyroid condition and I loved fasting, but I didn't want to tank my thyroid, I didn't want to lose my hair, I didn't want to have challenges with my thyroid, but I loved fasting, then I would start to make sure that every refeed had some carbohydrate

and some kind of protein in it. I found a 24th systematic review in front tiers in endocrinology. that synthesized over 16 human studies on extended fasting and thyroid hormone. And they confirmed that the drop in T3 in fasting is reversible when you refeed with carbohydrates and protein. So again, we need a more complete picture here and the refeed becomes incredibly important. So these short-term dips in T3 are adaptive.

They're an evolutionary process, but they're coming back if you're intentional about the foods that you eat. Okay, another part of this story that came out a couple of years ago was about the microbiome. And it was started by some very influential male podcasters who shall not be named, who scared the whole world and said, when you fast, you destroy the microbiome. And as I was listening to those podcasters, I was like, no, no, it doesn't work like that. When you go in the fasted state,

you're getting rid of the bacteria that you no longer need, the bacteria that is creating a disruption of creating gut dysbiosis. And then when you go back into food, you repopulate the good bacteria. But it goes even deeper than this. So here is the microbiome. story with fasting and why refilling rebuilds this when you fast you stop feeding the bacteria that

depend on dietary fiber so there are three of them i'm not even going to try to pronounce their names it's their well let me try i'm going to say f uh pronutzi bifel bacterium and roseborough there you go for my bacterial friends or my bacterial nerds but at the same time, this is so key. I wish I could reach through the camera and be like, do you get this? Because I'm hearing this all the time. At the same time, there are certain bacteria that thrive in the fasted state. And one of those bacteria is the most important bacteria for GLP1 hormone production, for neurotransmitter production. It is the hero bacteria that you may have heard a lot about, and that is acromancea. People are taking acromancea. People are taking acromancea,

supplements to get their neurotransmitter production up to get their GLP1 production up. And you can get it for free in the fasted state. So one, this is based off of a study that we have been looking at Ramadan for years. Ramadan has provided us with so much fasting information. And it shows that acrimancia and Bacteroids both rise during the fasted in the fasted. window. Now here's an interesting catch. Acrimancia feeds on the mucus layer. Ooh, that's kind of cool. So if I have been eating a lot of foods that are mucus producing, those of you who don't like, who eat dairy and you get all mucusy, those of you have been an ultra-processed foods.

When I go into a fasted state, I make acromancea and it feeds, it starts to break down that mucose lining. And then at first, that might sound rough, but when you go back and you go into your refeating and you eat a good meal, what you're actually doing is you're rebuilding that gut lining, that lining that keeps the toxins out, that keeps the undigested food out. So you make acomancia in the fasted state, it starts to naturally break down the mucosal lining. It starts to after mucus, it starts to start the beginning of the repair, just like a home remodel, right? You have to break down what's not working before you rebuild it. So it goes in and it breaks down the, gets the old appliances out, it breaks down the walls,

and then you go back to food. And when you eat good foods, specifically things like fermented foods, fibrous foods, you start to rebuild that lining. They go together. The fasting window and the eating window go together. So there's a really interesting study done by Zoe Health Data, and it was done on 10,000 participants. And one of the things it found is that the most important part of repopulating and redesigning your gut microbe is the diversity of plants you eat. and it suggests that we should be eating at least 30 different plants every single week. Now, we always encourage our audience and our community to try to get 100,

but this means every vegetable, every fruit, every spice, every fermented food you eat, make sure there are 30 different types of vegetables. That diversity is what will start to repair this mucosal membrane. So now let's address another concern that many people have about fasting, that women over 45 have less margin for air. So some of you have maybe seen other health influencers out there, say women over 45 should not fast. I want to give you more nuance than that. So yes, the thyroid is already vulnerable. But we talked about carbohydrates and how important that refeed is.

Yes, you've lost your microbiome diversity. We already talked about how important that you're adding in the diversity of plants are. Yes, sarcopena and losing muscle is a thing after 45. But you can break muscle down while you're fasting and you can build it back up immediately. It's not a long-term breakdown that is going to build your muscle back up by adding in protein. By the way, in the fasted state, what they aren't saying is that when you make ketones, ketones preserve muscle. So again, let's go low.

Let's go into the nuance. So, and then we've got the cortisol access. Well, let's look at your eating window because it's not, this is not an issue. of women over 45 should fast less, it's an issue of we should refeed better. We need to be re-feeding better. So some of you may, and I'm just going to call her name out because I'm getting a lot of questions about it. And some of you have been concerned about what Dr. Stacey Sims has said on podcasts like Huberman and on Mel Robbins that women over 45 should not fast. And her concerns are based off of what I just told you. Thyroid, microbiome, muscle loss, hormone production is another one.

And one of the things if you go and listen to her is that she specifically talks about uncycled, chronic, indiscriminate fasting with women who have high baseline stress. That is not what I'm teaching. I really hope you understand. I am teaching you how to cycle your fast. I'm teaching you how when to fast, when not to fast. And I'm here, right here, teaching you how important the refeed is. Yes, if you're Stacey Sims and you're looking at the research, you're not necessarily in the day to day with patients seeing how potent the refeed is, you could easily see that it might be tanking the thyroid. It might be harming hormones. It might be destroying the microbiome. It might be breaking down muscle. but when you're in the day-to-day with people and you're teaching people how to refeed along with fasting, you don't see that.

You don't see thyroid problems. You only, you see the opposite of that. Now, we're also seeing that there's a lot of experts out there who are talking about how important protein is first thing in the morning. Some of them are some of my friends, Dr. Maritza Snyder, Dr. Sarah Sezal, they've all been on socials talking about how, important that protein first thing when you wake up in the morning is. Now I want to say I've dove into the research and I haven't seen as much evidence that we need to eat within the first hour. But I want to say that it's really a personal choice because if you are wanting to eat first thing in the morning because you're thinking that it will balance your hormones out, that it will help your

HPA axis, which is your hypothalamus pituitary adrenal axis, then you control your eating window. You control that eating window. So if you don't, if you want to eat first thing in the morning, then do a 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. eating window. That would be a hell of an eating window to lose weight. You would lose great weight. you would you would balance you would build muscle it's an incredible eating window so and you know a 14 hour overnight fast ending at 8 a.m. is can be really metabolically different than a 16 hour fast

that ends at noon so play with it test it I test my eating and fasting windows all the time I'm not advocating for one eating window and fasting window I'm advocating for you being your own end of one that you decide what works best for you. So here are your five action steps. One, treat your refeating window as it was sacred. It's not a pause between fast, it's a part of the fast. So thyroid, we're gonna add in more carbohydrates. Muscle loss, we wanna build more muscle,

we're gonna add in more protein. Replenishing the microbes in our gut, we're gonna add in more plant. You can do all of that, but be intentional about that refeed. Okay, second, after your longer fast, this is especially fast after 16 hours, make sure you are including carbohydrates. This is for your thyroid.

So the fastest way to signal to your thyroid to resume its T4T3 production is a meal with 30 grams of protein plus carbohydrates, like a sweet potato or squash or berries or beans or lentils or oats or fruit. This is not a bowl of cereal. This is real nature's carbs that will help to tell your thyroid, hey, hey thyroid, let's make T4. Hey, liver, let's start to convert that into T3.

You can tell your thyroid to make that hormone again through your meal. Okay, action step number three is eat 30 different plants. a week and track them. So this, it's fun, it's a fun game. Try just for a week. 30 plants a week. Vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, herbs, spices, legumes, legumes, whole grains, a hand of pumpkin seeds,

just grab it. I have bowls of nuts on my table that I grab as I walk by all the time. Number four, add one fermented food in daily. So this is really interesting. This is Stanford Research. that showed a single dietary change. One daily serving of fermented food

produced a measurable diversity gains and inflammation reduction in the microbiome over a 10-week period. So let's just add fermented foods every day. You don't need an expensive probiotic supplement. You need food. You need Greek yogurt. You need with live cultures.

If you can get it that way, You need kiefer, you need sauerkraut, you need kimchi, you need some kombucha, you need some miso. I've done so much on fermented foods. Again, if you're needing ideas, there's a ton here in Eat Like a Girl. And number five is your cycling, your fasting length, and your refeating length together. Longer fasts require more deliberate refeating. This is why in Fast Like a Girl, I gave you guys a whole chapter on brain. breaking your fast. And so, you know, when you do a 12 and 13, 14 hour fast, it might not be as

critical, but when we go into 48 and 72 hour fast, there is a reason that I did these five-step process so that we could get ourselves back into the proper refueling state. So fasting is a tool. It is not a destination. It is a part of a protocol of, of you, of you, healing you. And when I see the comments out there, God, it's like, it drives me crazy because there is nobody on the planet that has watched and sat next to more women fasting than me. And I am here to tell you that it works, but it works because the women that I train are cycling fasting. They are choosing their eating window and they know how to refeed pot properly. So don't fall pray to clickbait, don't fall prey to one guru telling you one thing, thinking that another

guru is telling you something different. There is truth in all the women that I mentioned. They all have some truth in what they're saying. They just have to put it together in a complete picture like this. So here to support your fasting journey, I want you to see how miraculous fasting can be. I am not here to tell women over 45 they should not fast. I'm here to say we need to have a deeper discussion about it. If you've been fasting the way that I've taught on this video and the way I've taught on all my videos and all my books and you've had a tremendous result with it, put in the comments so people can see.

Because I'm going to be really frank with you. I'm starting to get beaten down by all of the comments out there that are saying no fasting for menopausal women. I'm just like, don't take that tool away from us. It's so important. let's make sure we have it in the conversation with refeating. I'm going to challenge one of the biggest weight loss myths that we have ever been taught.

And that is, I need to eat less and exercise more in order to lose weight. How many of us have bought into that thought? And on this video, I'm going to walk you through why that no longer works and that fat loss is a hormonal issue. issue. This is incredible news because if fat loss is a hormonal issue, hormones are like a big chemistry experiment. If you move one, then you start to signal changes to all the other hormones.

So when we start to realize that it's not about eating less and exercising more, it's about creating a different chemistry in our body. Weight loss becomes effortless, and I'm not joking. So let's break this down so that you understand it. So, and it was, by the way, it was never about eating less. This is why, oh my God, like how many years have we been talking about eating less and working out more? And we still have the biggest obesity problem we've ever had. So here is what I want you to know. So weight gain for my midlife women, it hits us harder.

We do start to hold on to weight more. Are we eating more? Think about that for a moment. Are you eating more? If you're 45 and you are starting to gain weight, eating the same food you ate at 35, are you exercising less and eating more? No.

Estrogen, as she goes down, she starts to make you more insulin resistant. We also know that as estrogen goes down, all the fat starts to go towards our midsection, which is why we start to get belly fat. So that is chemistry. That is not input output. So no, and it's not willpower. You didn't just gain weight at 45 because you didn't have enough willpower.

It's because the chemistry in your body changed. So here's what we're going to do is we first have to start with this idea that you've got to reframe the goal. The goal is not a smaller plate of food. The goal is not I need to go move my booty more, which is exercise is great for so many things. The goal now is I need to create a condition in my body that turns on a fat-burning switch. And that condition needs to lower insulin because insulin's out of control, especially with the loss of estrogen. and this is so big, it has to be mixed with a safe nervous system. If you are trying to lose weight and your life is completely stressed out,

your nervous system might not feel like it's safe enough to drop that weight. So I'll teach you how we can do that. The moment you start realizing that eating less is not your ticket to a thin body is the moment you are set free. So here's how we're going to look at this. And I've taught it to you all in a lot of different ways. I have new ways of looking at it and new language that might be helpful.

Sugar burner. You have two metabolisms. One is a sugar burner metabolism. One is a fat burner metabolism. I want you to start thinking about the sugar burner metabolism as your GLP1 resource. We are talking.

so much about these weight loss drugs right now. And what I want you to realize is that there is a style of eating that helps you make the GLP1 hormone. You have been making that weight loss hormone your whole life. And the reason that it has potentially diminished is because there's been some damage to your microbes in your gut. It is the microbes in your gut that make GLP1 hormone. So when we are in a sugar burner mode, when we are eating food, we want to eat to rebuild this hormone.

And what that looks like is every time we sit down to eat, we are putting fiber, protein, and fat together. Carbohydrates can be a little sidekick here. I'll talk about that in a second. There is an order in which you eat that brings back the microbes. it reinvigorates the microbes that will make you this satiety hormone, GLP1. So when you're eating, we used to say in the sugar burner world, we used to say eat low glycemic foods. I'm not saying don't do that. We've also talked about keto.

We've talked about carnivore. If you are trying to lose weight, I want you to think of your sugar burner system through the lens of I am going to make more GLP1 horn. And that means I make eat put eat fiber first protein and then fat and that is going to be the combination of food that I put together. I am not counting calories. I am not counting macros. I am I'm a big chemistry experiment and I am putting this order together to change my chemistry. So the satiety hormone can kick in. So I'm not as hungry. Simple, right? Okay. When we come over here to find fat burning. This is what I've typically taught you all that this metabolism is your fat burning metabolism. And you can reach this by going typically 12 hours without food. Somewhere between 8 and 12

hours without food, your body switches over to the fat burning place. When you're over here, at 12 hours you are stimulating growth hormone. Growth hormone is a fat-burning hormone. It is chemistry. We're back at chemistry. So I can make the hormone when I eat that shuts, that helps me shut off the hunger cues, and when I fast, I can make the hormone that burns fat if I am conscious about what I'm doing. So 12 to 15 hours, you're going to get more growth hormone. If you continue on to go 17 hours over here in fat burning, you stimulate something called autophagy. Autophagy is mean self-eating.

It's where your cells start to recycle the damaged parts. I've done so many videos here. It's like a spring cleaning. And it's really interesting because there's a phenomenal study that I never brought to you. I'm bringing it to you now. It's a human study, which is even better. It's probably done on men, though. A 2025 study found that four weeks of intermittent fasting measurably turned up the genes that run autophagy.

And alongside these genes getting turned on for cleaning up your cells, it also started to see fat mass loss. I didn't say muscle mass. That's the problem with the drugs. I said fat mass loss and lower inflammatory markers. Okay, we have two tools now. We've got, I'm gonna make GLP1 when I eat and I put my stuff, my food together.

I'm gonna be a chemist that is changing the chemistry of my body when I eat. And then I'm gonna go at least 12 hours periodically and I'm gonna intermittent fast and I'm gonna make sure I get more growth hormone, so I lower the, that, I turn my body into a fat burning machine, and I stimulate autophagy. And I'm not even done with the possibilities of how you change this chemistry.

But those two, you're off to a phenomenal start. Okay, we're going to talk about a very popular fast that is taken over YouTube. I did a whole video on it, and we're about to do a fast training week on it, and it's sardine fasting. Now, those of you, because I've seen a lot of the comments, and on the YouTube live, I do with you all on Tuesdays, I see so many of you like going, ugh, no, sardine fasting isn't for me. But let's unpack what sardines are. So sardines are protein. They are omega-3s, and they are mineral dense. They have so many minerals in them. So they kind of act as the perfect food. So a lot of people who are sardine fasting are noticing better energy. They're noticing weight loss.

seeing a massive change in their body because this food seems to have all the right nutrients in it to be able to accelerate fat loss. Okay, now how does it do that? We're back at chemistry. So I've talked about this before. I've got so many videos on it. I really want you to understand this. So we need in order to slow down fat accumulation, in order to stop making more fat. You need your omega-3s and your omega-6 fatty acid balance in your body to be at a ratio of one-to-one. Most Americans are walking around with a ratio of 18 omega-6s to 1-1-1. And when you have that ratio skewed, what happens is you turn on the fat accumulating switch. So if you want to turn on the fat burning switch, then you want to make sure that you bring your omega-3s up.

This is why sardine fasting has been so powerful because you've got people going into a fat-burner state. When you sardine fast, you have mastered everything you need over here in sugar burner, and you are getting the benefits of fast-burner. but you're not just, you're eating something. So know that it is the perfect food for balancing this ratio out. Okay, now we have three chemistry tools. I just want to make sure we're all on the same page here. We've got, I'm going to eat in a food order to make more GLP1.

I'm going to fast in a way that I can improve my fat burning hormone and I can stimulate my detox system and get rid of the old junk that may be slowing down my metabolism. Okay? Now I have another tool. I'm going to start eating in a way that is going to allow me to bring my omega-3 and omega-6 ratio back into balance. And if you don't like sardines, I'll leave a link to some of the videos I've done on virgin olive oil and how it can bring it back. I think it's really important that you get off the ultra-processed foods and you get on to the omega-3 rich foods. And you can join me in my sardine fast.

So we'll all have fun together. Okay. Now, the next piece that I want you to know is when you move between these two metabolisms, how you move in between them matters. So if all of a sudden I'm over here in my sugar burner system and I'm eating whatever I want, and then I decide, oh, I'm going to fast, and I start to fast and I come over into my fat burning system, it might be a little difficult to switch from sugar burner to fat burner. So this is why I always say the first step to fasting is to clean up your sugar burner system. Well, the other way is also really important that when you go from your fat burner system back into your sugar burner system,

that first meal matters. And you're going to see this more and more on my videos. The first meal matters. The fast is only as good as the first meal you eat. And you want to make sure that you get enough protein. You need 30 grams of protein, and you want most of it to come from leucine-rich types of protein. I have lists of leucine-rich protein.

and eat like a girl. I got recipes in there for you. So you can reference that book if you have it. So loose protein, losing rich foods, phenomenal. That's great. Okay. Second thing, you want to make sure you have 30 grams of fiber. And if you can get at the first meal, great. But once you open up that eating window, from the time that you open your eating window until you go to sleep, let's get some fiber in there. And let's make sure that fiber acts like a net. It slows down the absorption of glucose into your system. So we want it to be fiber rich and we want it to have more good fats. So it could have olive oil drizzled all over it. I just had a breakfast that I broke my fast with, which had duck eggs and it had microgreens.

And it had garbonzo beans and lentils. I ate that first. Put a little bit of sauerkraut next to it. ate that first and then I went and I had a piece of toast because I wanted a piece of toast. I didn't have the toast first. I had the other meal first so that I could get that satiety hormone going. And then I had my piece of toast. It's a really good loaf of bread that I know if I unleashed myself on it, I would probably eat the whole thing.

So I followed the rules I'm teaching you. So the breakfast meal is massively important. and just if you can just nail the breakfast meal, that would be great. So the ultimate fat-burning formula is that we have got to have food that is rich in minerals, that is high and good omega-3s. And we need to make sure that we're getting enough of that protein and fiber and fat so that we are rebuilding the microbes that make this satiety. hormone. Okay, we're going to add that to autophagy and to growth hormone production through

fasting anywhere from 12 to 17 hours. And then we're going to balance our omega-3 and omega-6 ratio. That's it. That's it. It's not bad, right? Like, there's a lot we can do with that. Now, let me give you five action steps so that you can, if you're confused or you're overwhelmed, I know this is like this is like I said this is not the way we normally talk about weight loss because weight loss is a chemistry experiment and you get to constantly experiment on yourself and you get to change the chemistry within yourself. So here are your five action steps first pick one eating window that you're going to do over and over again in the beginning if you're not if if if it feels comfortable to you one window I personally like the 16-8, it's a good right in the middle, maybe you go 16 hours most days,

mind your menstrual cycle, mind your stress levels, but if you can do 16 on a consistent level, then we're talking fat burning here, that can be really great. Number two, you're gonna break every fast with protein and fiber and fat first, getting that 30 grams with the loosing at 2.5. Number three, this is a very fast, is a really important one. Every single day you are going to add fermented, a fermented food into your

diet, whether it's sauerkrautia, which is kind of a weak fermented food, but let's have fun with it. A fermented yogurt, kimchi is the hero of all fermented foods, but every single day you are going to have, add in one fermented food. Number four, you are going to protect your sleep like it is the greatest fat loss tool you have ever had. If you are really adamant about losing weight, let's get you on a regular sleep schedule and let's protect that sleep because it will downshift stress. And when you bring cortisol down, you will stop gaining that menopausal belly weight or just any belly weight goes both ways. And then number five, I really like this. So you've set this foundation and you're like, okay, I'm fasting on a regular basis.

I've got my breakfast meal down. I'm rebalancing my omega three and six. I'm protecting my sleep. Every once in a while, layer in a strategic challenge. Maybe your strategic challenge is the sardine fast. I'm going to do it. I don't love sardines, but I'm going to do it with you all just to see how I feel and what my body can feel like doing that. So again, if you want to join me in my sardine

fast, just put companion guide. Every once in a while, I'll do a 24-hour fast, maybe once a month, depending on where I am in my stress levels. And I'll do a three-day water fast a couple times a year. So number five is you are going to layer in a strategic challenge periodically. Once you have the first four steps down. And then from there, you're going to start to see results. So you don't need to do this all perfectly. You can take those five steps and you can pick them, pick one or two. You can make it small and sustainable.

You can change up your eating window. You can change your fasting length. You can decide you don't love sardines, but you might love salmon, which is another smash food. you have the choice. You can make this choice. You have agency in your own health. You don't have to sit and listen to a health guru say, you've got to eat breakfast or you've got to not fast or whatever. You be the health agent for you. You have flexibility. But what I do know is that if you and I went on vacation for a month together and we press. these strategies right here every day for a month, you would lose weight. I absolutely know that. So I'm going to keep bringing you these tools because I know so many of you are trying so hard and I'm really cheering you on and I want you to understand that weight loss is chemistry.

So let's get the chemistry experiment right. So as always, I hope that helps.