Live Like a Girl with Dr. Mindy Pelz - Ask Me Anything – With Dr. Mindy & Cynthia Thurlow

Episode Date: January 30, 2023

For full show notes, resources mentioned, and transcripts, go to: www.drmindypelz.com/ep158/. To enroll in Dr. Mindy's Fasting membership, go to: resetacademy.drmindypelz.com. This episode is about women and fasting, improving your metabolic health, and the different measurements for metabolic health.  Cynthia Thurlow is the CEO and founder of the Everyday Wellness Project, nurse practitioner, international speaker, and globally recognized expert in intermittent fasting and nutritional health. She has over 20 years of experience in health and wellness and is a 2x TEDx speaker. Her 2nd talk, Intermittent Fasting, a Transformative Technique, has over 9 million views. Cynthia has been featured on ABC, FOX5, KTLA, CW, and in Medium and Entrepreneur. In August 2020, Cynthia was listed in Yahoo Finance as one of the, "21 Founders Changing the Way We do Business." She's also the podcast host of Everyday Wellness, which was listed as "21 Podcasts To Expand Your Mind in 2021," by Business Insider. Cynthia's mission is to educate women on the benefits of intermittent fasting and overall holistic health and wellness so they feel empowered to live their most optimal lives. Please see our medical disclaimer.

I remind people all the time when you're craving certain types of food, that your body's way of telling you you're missing something in your diet. Hey, Dr. Mindy here. And welcome to season four of the Resetter podcast. Have I got a lineup for you this season? Lots of deep thinkers, a lot of brilliant minds, all with one focus to move the needle forward on your mental and physical health. So please know that this.

This podcast is all about empowering you to believe in yourself again. And I want you believing in your body. I want you believing in your mind. I want you believing in your spirit. If you have a passion for learning, if you're looking to be in control of your health and take your power back, this is the podcast for you. Enjoy. On this episode of The Resetter podcast, I'm bringing you back, Cynthia.

Thurlow. So if for those of you who are not familiar with Cynthia, she has been on this podcast before. She has written one of the other books that is out there in the world on fasting and women. It's called intermittent fasting transformation, where she dives into one fast, 168 style fasting for women. So phenomenal book. She is a nurse practitioner, an intermittent fasting expert. She has a podcast called the Everyday Wellness Podcast, and she knows her metabolic health for women. So what you have to know about this conversation is that Cynthia and I have truly geeked out on each other's work. We're both in the arena of women and fasting, trying to help women improve their metabolic health through the principles of fasting and fasting variation.

So you're going to hear us really collaborate on that particular topic. But also we took it to the next level, which is just metabolic health in general. And Cynthia really knows her stuff when it comes to metabolic health. And it's really interesting to hear her perspective, especially when we dive into lab work and different measurements for metabolic health. And she has some incredible food hacks. And it just was a really enjoyable experience. So this really is the podcast for you, both men and women. If you're wanting to understand metabolic health at a deeper level,

because Cynthia and I both are having this really unique bird's eye view as to what fasting is doing for women, you're going to hear two minds coming together talking about what we're seeing in our communities, and no doubt you're going to learn something phenomenal, because I even learned something phenomenal in talking to her. So Cynthia Thurlow, last time I brought her to you all, this was one of the most popular podcasts we had, and I just hope you enjoyed as much as I enjoyed talking with Cynthia, but more importantly, I'm such a fan of we are more powerful together. And when Cynthia and I geek out on metabolic health for women, and we shout it from the rooftops, look out world, we're going to change women's health.

That's how passionate she is. And her mission matches my mission. And together, we are going to change the way that women approach health. So you're about to enter into an incredible. paradigm shifting conversation. So enjoy. I'm super excited to bring you back. First of all, to congratulate you on your new book, which is do out any day. And by the time this podcast releases, it'll have been out for about a week. But I thought it might be fun because we've recorded together several times and do kind of a Q&A. And some of these, some of these questions

are really quite honestly are funny. And I thought to myself, I was like, this is fantastic because I can't think of anyone else I would prefer discussing them with other. than you. So so good to have you back, my friend. How is the like pre book launch phase going for you? Oh, God. Well, okay, so this is my fourth book. So we have an idea of what we, you know, how the game that needs to be played. And so we've been going strong for six months. And I would say that we're a week out. And like this weekend, I hit like a moment where I haven't had a day off in like, you know, starting in September, I think I maybe had four days off total. where I just didn't do anything. So you, as you know, it's a lot to launch a book of this magnitude out into the world. And it's not just you, right? It's every, it's your publisher. It's your agent. It's like your team. And so it's a loaded question how I'm doing other than we've done a lot and I'm excited to get out into the world. Yeah, absolutely. And I remind people, people think of it like

it's just a sprint to the publication date. And I remind them it's a marathon because it's not just the leading up, it's, you know, you don't want to abandon your book. So it's understanding it's like this long process of publishing. And so I, my heart goes out to you. I know that you've been through this process before. This was my first time. And I can honestly tell you that it was very humbling. I would encourage you to find an opportunity like set up a vacation or something in the distance so you can look forward to it because that was one of the best decisions I made was three and a half months after publication. I had a vacation with my family. And it was like the first time I had exhaled in probably nine months.

And it felt really glorious. So. Yeah, we're going to go. We have Hawaii on the calendar for March. Perfect. I think we're just so. Yeah. It's hard.

But like to your point after launch week, like I look at January and February, it's all booked. And so, but it's all good. I mean, I love writing. I love the process of writing. And, you know, as you know, women need all the resources they can get right now. So I'm excited to, you know, to launch it. Absolutely. And I'm so glad.

I'm so excited to have you on the podcast. podcast. So we'll start with the nutrition questions because there were so many of them. In fact, my team was laughing last night when they shared things with me. They were saying it's heavily nutrition focused. And I said, that's not a problem. And then, you know, the typical perimenopause, menopause, miscellaneous, lots of miscellaneous. I was like, I don't even know where to put this. But let's start from the very beginning. Many listeners know that you are very, you know, keto probiotics in general, fermented foods, how important they are. Someone asked, when adding some, Sourcrow. And I apologize to those that submitted questions, but my wonderful team did not add

the person's name. So I can't say, Lindsay asked, we'll just do. This is question number three. When adding Sourcrowd to a meal, is it best for gut health to eat it first or at the end of the meal and why? Oh, that's a great question. Yeah. I've never gotten that question. You know what? I would say that you're either eat it with the meal or before the meal because it's your microbes that help regulate blood sugar and break that food down and pull the nutrients out of it. I think that's the biggest thing that people don't realize that we put so much focus. If we just even take the mitochondria, like how many thousands of hours of conversation about the mitochondria have you had and how many hacks out there to like hack the mitochondria? But really, it's your microbes that are going to

determine what happens to your food, which is why sauerkrauts amazing. So we typically do like, we'll do like a grass-fed steak with a sweet potato and then a cup of sourcrow. That's a pretty common meal. And I just eat it all together. I don't know about you, but that's, I just, you know, it's not my favorite. So I either eat it before or with the meal just to get it down. Yeah, it's interesting. There's a manufacturer of a locally grown trout.

And they have all these kind of more exotic crouts, you know, things that have got curries in them and, you know, coriander. And so I usually will stand at the refrigerator with a fork. and I'll take a couple bites of my crout as I'm like reheating because usually I'm like in reheating mode as I'm, you know, reheating something for lunch or I'm cooking dinner and I'll use it preemptively. But I agree with you. I think taking it with a meal or prior to a meal is the way to do it. And the other thing that's the kind of second part of this question was someone on social media underneath actually added, well, if your guts healthy, why do you need

probiotic rich foods? Which I thought was this is a common perception. I think for a lot of people, they're like, it's just not important if your gut is healthy. But I would probably argue that most, if not all of us, have gut health issues we need to work on, even if we're not aware of it presently. Yeah. Oh, my God. Again, such a good conversation. I think what we have to realize is that, yeah, we always talk about the trillions of bacteria in our gut.

But if you look at species-wise, how many species of bacteria are in there? The statistics I've seen have been anywhere from a couple thousand up to seven thousand different types of bacteria. And each one of these bacteria are going to do something different and they each have a food that they're going to resonate with that the other set of bacteria may not. So my experience has been, and I'd be curious, your opinion on this as well, has been that people eat the same foods over and over and over again. Sourcrow can be the same thing. You eat the same sauerkraut over and over and over again. And so you create a monoculture. And I think what we've got to get back to is understanding that the name of the game,

is to keep diversifying your foods so that you can keep neurotransmitter production up. You can keep your immune system up so you can feed the bacteria that break estrogen down. And so those become massively important, whether you're trying to repair your gut or not, I don't have any gut problems, but feeding these microbes is on my mind every single day. I always jokingly say that monogamy is a good thing in relationships, but food monogamy is not. We want to try different things. and I'm as guilty of it as the next person. Like I love steak.

I love bison. I love eggs. I incorporate them throughout the week, but I'm always trying different fermented foods because I'm dairy-free. So for me, it's really like leaning into those fermented vegetables. But I have fermented okra. I mean,

I have crowd. I have multiple kinds of crowd. In fact, my husband told me the other day, he thinks we have science experiments going on in the top shelf. And I'm like, no, no, they're all healthy. But, you know, he's like, anyone wants to eat fermented okra. He's like, only my wife.

And I said, no, but it's good to try different things there. every day because I fervently believe, and as someone who, you know, three and a half years ago, I was on six weeks of antifungals, antibiotics, and then got another round of antibiotics when I had my appendix out. And so I remind people that just one dose of antibiotics can impact your gut microbiome, I think, anywhere from 18 months to two years. And so for me, I'm still actively working diligently on my gut. And you just think about the average person probably needs more fermented foods, beverages, etc., then they're probably consuming right now. And on that point, I also, if you eat out, you're getting glyphosate.

And if you eat wheat, the wheat right now has, you know, in America has BT toxin in it, which is going to affect those microbes. So it's just there's just so, we live in this world where there's so many things trying to deplete our microbial health. Let's make a stand for always helping to grow it. Yeah, absolutely. I think, and especially, you know, as we are getting older, understanding that, you know, as we have less hydrochloric acid production, as we could potentially be, you know, no longer

making as vibrant digestive enzymes as we are exposed to more estrogen-mimicking chemicals and our food, environment, personal care products, just understanding that we diligently every day want to be doing, even if it's small things that are going to benefit the gut microbiome. I always say I humbly bow at the temple that is the gut microbiome, because the more I learn, the more I just kind of am fascinated that we humans kind of bumble through life and don't even think about it. Yes, amen to that. Next question is about if I indulge in something sweet from time to time, would organic sugar or maybe honey be better than say agave or should I use pure stevia? Oh my gosh. These are good questions. I love it. Okay. Well, I think A, you got to look at what

personal preference. So I personally do not like stevia. So I don't gravitate to stevia type foods. So there's that and then you could look at the glycemic index and say, well, okay, stevia's got zero, supposedly. Agave's, I think under like 10 on the glycemic index. It's a little bit lower. Honey's around a 30 or a 40 in organic sugar, even though it's organic, is up around a 70. And the higher the glycemic number, the more of an insulin response you're going to have. So you choose, you're going to have to think about that if you're concerned about your sugar

addiction or craving. Now, the nuance on that is stevia sometimes can trigger that same sort of desire for more sugar. So it's a really tricky one, but I would say I choose mine off a personal preference and I choose it off glycemic index. And I too, I don't know about you, Cynthia, but I've spent a lot of years as a sugar addict. And for me, I know if I eat sugar like three days in a row, there becomes like a point of no return where now I have to really hunker down to make sure I don't have sugar again. So I'm very, very careful to not have it too much for fear that will trigger that old pattern back. Yeah. And it's interesting because I would imagine most, if not all of us, are actually mildly, at least mildly addicted to sugar because it just proliferates. It's in our condiments.

It's in our ketchup. It's in our salad dressings. I would agree with you that for each one of us, we have to decide, you know, can we tolerate one square of high quality dark chocolate? Can we tolerate some of these items? Like, I really don't use honey. I mean, maybe in the past I might have used honey, but I really tried to avoid using a lot of sugars personally. Because as you mentioned, you start getting this dopamine hit. It feels good. You want more.

Obviously, we're heading into Christmas at my house and New Year's. We'll have family here in a couple days. And I was actually saying to my kids, you know, for me, I have. have to plan. Like if I'm going to indulge in something, I know what the net impact will be the following day. So it's finding, I tolerate a little bit. Personally, I find that a lot of the artificial or the contrived sugars, monk fruit, a thyritol tend to be perhaps a little bit better tolerated people can tolerate some of the sugar alcohols like with a thyrotol. My 15 year old has been experimenting with swerve, which has been interesting to watch. With that being said, I generally

say agave is a no-go because agave is straight fructose and it's metabolized very differently. And I know a lot of people still think of it as being very benign. I watched a friend pouring it all over her pancakes and I kind of just cringed watching it, thinking that this is not going to have a good end result. And I've talked quite a bit and I'm sure you probably have seen that paper about non-nurturture sweeteners that came out probably two months ago that was talking about the net impact of sucralose, Nutrisweet, saccharin, which I don't know where. anyone is using any saccharine at this point in time. And then looking at stevia and just for a 28

day period, using those sweeteners, again, some are artificial, depending on what type of stevia, it wasn't identified, change the gut microbiome as well as impact oral glucose tolerance. And so I think it really speaks to the fact that all of us need to examine our relationship with sugar. Yeah. And, you know, again, if we can get to sugar that has more fiber in it, like an apple. It's going to have a different blood sugar spike. And then like one of my favorite things since I know this is going to come out in January, but one of my favorite holiday things is I make a wicked pumpkin pie. And I put so, I use coconut sugar and I use so much full fat in it. So if you pair and it's so good and it fills me up and it's not like I'm craving sugar the next day. So I think pairing a fat

with your favorite sugar is also a trick that seems to not for me as an X sugar, addict, it doesn't seem to cause me to crave it the next day. That's a really good point. It's interesting. I really like dark chocolate. That's like my one. Me too. My one vice left, but what I've been trying is doing some dark chocolate with, you

know, maybe a teaspoon of MCT oil because then I'm satiated because I think that's part of the problem is that when we eat some of these foods, if there's not enough fat associated with it, that it can kind of trigger these desires to continue eating it. Like if I'm eating a piece of dark chocolate, sometimes I'll have a scoop. of high quality nut butter. And that's usually what I will pair together that I find is really impactful. And I agree with you about the fruit. You know, fruit in its whole form, whether it's an orange or some berries or if you have an

apple, preferably, you know, not one of the ones that's engineered to be super sweet. I was trying to explain to my kids when I was talking about how modern day farming has really continued to evolve and to mature, quote unquote, this sugar desire. because honey crisp apples, gala, Fuji apples are apples that tend to be a bit sweeter. You know, it's not like the Macintosh that I'm sure you and I had when we were kids. Because there weren't a lot of options. Maybe there was like a golden delicious. I mean, there were very few options, you know, back then in the 70s and 80s.

But now there's this proliferation of very sweet apples. And understanding that furthers that desire to eat more sugar. We just don't recognize it as such. Yeah. Yeah. Well, said, isn't that fascinating? I was sitting there thinking as you were talking like, If we look at the trends in nutrition, we jumped all into the low fat movement back when you and I were growing up, you know, in the 70s and the 80s. And then we had to course correct by adding sugar because nothing's really good without fat. And so we changed everybody's taste buds to the point that we're now even highlighting the more sweet fruits out there because everybody's taste bud is so is so conditioned for that. So I over time, I would say the majority of my diet is,

meat and vegetables. I love sweet potatoes, probably because of what it does to my hormones. I love me some good dark chocolate for the same reason. But I think as you change your food habits and you're using foods that are more nutrient dense and they are feeding your hormones, they're feeding the cells in such an efficient way, you start to see that sweetness is not really something you crave. And I know that's impossible for people to think about if that's all they can think of, you know, want is sugar. But I promise you, over time, it just all of a sudden goes away. And I say that as an ex-sugar addict.

Yeah, I think that transparency is super helpful. It was interesting. I was stuck in a very long delay at Chicago Airs Airport on Saturday coming back from L.A. And ironically, my gate was across from McDonald's. And so I was watching this group of people. They were like going to room McDonald's and getting a meal. And they were come back and then getting ice cream.

And then, you know, it was so bad that United have rolled out a cart. essentially to apologize for all these, you know, lengthy delays, a seven-hour delay. And I just watched this crowd of people, no judgment, but I mean, everyone like woof down all the cheez-its and the goldfish crackers and, you know, the fig Newton's and all the other things that were there. And I walked over, grabbed a bottle of water and sat back down. And someone said to me, well, it's been so many hours since you last eight, you must be starving. And I was like, nope. Nope. Oh my gosh. Every time I'm in an airport, I am so grateful that I've trained. myself to fast because I watched the people or even like I recently got off coffee watching the people

in the lines. It's like, wow, it's hard. And I say this with love and compassion, but I also say it is you can do it yourself as well, but there's nothing worse than waiting in line for food or coffee in the airport, especially if you have to catch a plane. So that was, yeah, totally get it. Yeah, yet another benefit of fasting is that if you need to fast, you can, you know, effortlessly do that. Now, because you were just speaking about balancing hormones, we got questions specific to progesterone as well as estrogen. And you do a really nice job in your book talking about this. Let's unpack which foods, because a lot of questions around this, what foods are beneficial for progesterone production and the body? And for many people that are in perimenopause,

understanding physiologically what's going on in the body and why this can be very helpful. Yeah. So here's in the book, I have a line. It's probably my favorite line of the book where I say that we have to look at estrogen and progesterone as like twin sisters with vastly different personalities. And so we need to feed them something different. And I would say when you look at just the basics, when you look at estrogen, in general, when estrogen is coming in, the lower glycemic, the lower glucose foods are going to be great. This is where your meats and your vegetables. Oh my God, estrogen, if she could talk to you, She would say, feed me more leafy greens than you could possibly handle.

I think also some of your beneficial oils like flaxseed oil. She really thrives with those healthy oils. A little more of a ketogenic diet is really what estrogen needs. Gastron is completely the other way. She's like, don't give me low glycemic foods. I need glucose to be a little bit higher to be able to show up and be produced. So again, the sweet potato, I feel like is the hero of the progesterone day. I have sweet potatoes all the time.

And by the way, I do back to the microbe thing, we do variety of sweet potatoes. We do, have you ever wondered like when you're at the market? Like we call them all sweet potatoes and yams, but what are they really? Because some of them are purple on the inside. Some of them are white. Some of them are yellow. Some of them are orange. The skin color's different, but they're all in the same section.

And so we did some research a couple years back and found out. out that the purple ones actually have a specific, well, purpose, not that anybody really knows this, but to feed the bacteria in your large intestine down deep into the large intestine, whereas the other vegetable, other sweet potatoes tend to go in the, not the small intestine, but a higher, the more entry point in the large intestine. So I never looked at different foods feeding different microbes along the transit process, which is really interesting. So sweet potatoes are great. dark chocolate. I don't think we should fear chocolate, but I'm not saying go out and, you know, Hershey's chocolate. So you got to be really smart about your super, super dark chocolate is incredible.

The other thing progesterone that in the keto world, everybody's scared of, and I've actually brought this back in, is bananas, you know, tropical fruits, mangoes, bananas, great for progesterone, citrus fruits, great for progesterone. Grass-fed meats are still really good. Kewa, right? So they're very, it's very much when we want to bring progesterone up, we got to bring glucose up, but do it with nature's carbs. Don't do it with other carbs. That's such a good point. And it's interesting. I have always been a just green banana person. And so it's whenever we buy bananas and they come home, I will, you know, enjoy on a day that I've lifted. I'm like, I'll have a, you know, half of a small like just green banana. But it's literally just turned, you know, from green to yellow. So it has a very different flavor. profile, a lot less sugar than the brown bananas that my husband loves to eat, which I think is a byproduct of the fact that no one else will touch them. But I'm glad to hear you say that, you know, leaning into some of those tropical fruits, obviously portions are important. So it doesn't mean that

you eat five mangoes and a pineapple and a bunch of bananas. But leaning into and kind of intuitively eating, I think this is important. I know not everyone's necessarily at a point where they're able to intuitively eat or intuitively fast. But if you are at that point, you're metabolically healthy. I do encourage people if it's a higher carb day, you know, lean into those starches that you talked about, just being mindful of portions depending on, you know, where you are on the metabolic flexibility spectrum. Yeah.

I was on a podcast interview a week ago with a, it was a sugar addict podcast. And the woman told me that she had been for 90 days eating for her cycle and fasting for her cycle and that she came in heavier with the carbs I just talked about the week before her period, which would be appropriate for progesterone. And what she noticed was the rest of her cycle, she actually craved carbs less. So I actually have outside of the microbes idea, my actual gut sense, no pun intended, is that when we actually feed our hormones appropriately, oftentimes the craving goes away. So we definitely have to look at the microbial issue.

You know, if you have like candida or something like that, it's going to make you crave it more. but this is your and I, you know, our message that we're trying to get out is eat and fast according to your cycle. And you'd be amazed how some of the things that we have said are genetic or they're normal or I just, I never can get over this hurdle are just because you're living out of accordance with your hormones. I think that's such a good point. I remind people all the time when you're craving certain types of food, your body's way of telling you you're missing something in your diet. And as the example, there's a lot of us in this low-carb ketogenic space. And I have women that will say, well, I'm not supposed to have more than X number of carbs a day. And I'm like, listen, if you allow yourself to have more discretionary carbohydrate in that luteal phase,

especially the week before your menstrual cycle and you adjust your fasting schedule, you are going to have much greater success rather than white-knuckling it, which is what I see a lot of women doing. And I always say we don't want to be rigidly dogmatic about anything. I think that is one of the things that I find personally can be, you know, confusing. I mean, you and I are both clinicians, but for the lay public, when people are, you know, looking us for information, we are not rigidly dogmatic. And we encourage our patients and clients not to be rigidly dogmatic because you may go through

a period of time where you're doing carnivore-ish, then you may go back to low-carb or ketogenic. You may do paleo. I mean, just understanding that our kind of preferences for nutrition can evolve throughout our lifetime. It doesn't have to be just one, you stay in one lane and you never deviate. Yeah, I have come to this conclusion that one of the things we need to embrace as women is that we are rhythmic. We have cycles. Like, you know, as I am starting to enter more into my menopausal time, I'm actually looking at the moon cycle and timing a lot to the moon cycle. And when I go back and I research that, there's a lot of history showing that women, if we didn't have all this blue

light that we would actually all sync up menstrually, our cycles would all sync up with each other and it would be synced to the moon. And so we have a natural ebb and flow. If you look at our personalities in a month period, when you're menstruating, you're going to have times where you're supercharged, your brain feels incredible and you're going to have, and you feel very social. And then there are other parts of the cycle where you're like, I'm going to sit on the couch here with my sweet potato and my box of Hugh chocolate. And I'm going to watch a Netflix series because that you might shame yourself or say that, you know, you shouldn't be doing that, but certain hormones demand that you do that. And so I think we've, I love this idea of like letting go of the rigidity.

We as women are meant to be in flow and we're meant to be in rhythm. It's just that it's a little harder to find that. And so once you start to practice the principles that you and I are teaching, you find your natural flow and it gets much easier. And I think that's really important. And this is one of the things that I value so much. is that we're both committed to the same population of individuals and women and helping empower them. I jokingly always say, I know more about the menstrual cycle now than I ever did when I was still getting a menstrual cycle, which is really sad and really speaks to the fact that we aren't taught enough about our cycles. And I'm not even sure, you know, I have friends who are GYNs. I'm not even

sure they feel like they understand, they understand the textbook, you know, conceptualization of you know, menstruation, follicular phase, luteal phase, ovulation, etc. But on a level that is very kind of, you know, in a sense that, you know, they're trying to control like, oh, if you have short cycles, then we lean this direction. You have heavy cycles. We lean this direction without even really understanding that there's likely an imbalance that is driving some of the symptoms that their patients are experiencing. And so I'm grateful that we're talking more about it so that younger generations will be more

empowered, they won't feel like there's such a mystery about their evolution through peak fertility, perimenopause and menopause, and kind of getting back to the cravings piece. I did an interesting question. This young woman said, I'm not sure if it's a bad habit or a craving, but I'm great eating wise for lunch and dinner. Before my window closes, I want treats like chips or sweets. I'm trying to get enough protein at lunch with eggs and chicken with a salad and then dinner is usually fish or meat with vegetables.

I'm not insulin resistant because I just had labs drawn and I only need to lose five to 10 pounds. How can I drop those night snacks or do you have any options for something healthy? So again, leaning into these cravings that we were just talking about. So let me make sure I understand this. Her big hurdle is she is the night habit. The night habit because she's craving salty, sweet stuff after her last meal. Well, based off of what I heard from her dinner, the first thing I would say is make sure you're getting some good fat in there.

So because even just meat and vegetables can often still leave you craving something. So make sure you get some drizzle some oil on the veggies, like try to get some good fat. The other trick that I've done immediately following dinner is I'll just have like a little square of dark, dark chocolate just to kind of pacify the brain. And then I'll move to like a cup of tea. So that might if my brain wants something to snack on, I'll move to that. So I think she's got to dial in that. dinner with a little more fat to make sure that the next day is going to be a little bit smoother

for her and then she'll lose that five to 10 pounds. The second thing, and I know you'll love this one and agree with this one, and I'm doing this for myself now that I don't have my kids at home, is eat a little earlier in the evening. If you want to lose that five to 10 pounds, you want to make sure that you're eating a little bit earlier and eating within the, like the sun goes down here. like six o'clock, I've been trying to eat my biggest meal, get it over with by five. And now that's going to take a little more strength when you go into that nighttime snacking. So get yourself some good tea, something that's not going to spike your blood sugar.

But if you eat earlier, once melatonin's on the scene, you're more insulin resistant. You could drop five to 10 pounds just from that. And then the last thing I'll say is you might throw a longer fast at it. You know, in fast like a girl, I mapped out six different lengths and one of them is the 36-hour fast. And I have found that just once you've trained yourself to fast, if you can throw one of those 36 hours at it, it can be enough to drop that extra five to 10 pounds. Those are some really good suggestions. What I would add is making sure you've got enough protein in that last meal because I know

if I eat 50 to 60 grams of protein in a meal, I am way too full to be thinking about more eating. I would additionally add, I know that even for myself, if I'm by myself in my house and I'm like maybe I've got a busy, busy week. I'm thinking of a thousand things. Sometimes I just, I'm in my pantry and I'm like, what am I doing? So the interruption of that habit. So that's sometimes, you know, it's like 20 degrees this morning when I got out.

But last night I took my dogs for a walk, took them for a walk when I was thinking about something in the pantry that I didn't need to be eating, took them for a walk. And I interrupt that activity. I actually went upstairs and took a bath and went to bed early because I was dealing with some jet lag. So understanding there's definitely different ways that we can address this. but thinking about more fat with your meal, thinking about more protein, understanding that we're more insulin sensitive during the day.

And as it gets, you know, here it's like 430, 445. It's starting to get dark on the East Coast. So understanding that sometimes closing that feeding window a little earlier than normal. And then also considering an extended fast, I think is a really great strategy. Yeah, agreed. Okay. I got a question about electrolytes, which is completely timely. I'm taking a brand with zero carbs, zero sugars, and it says it's suitable for fasting.

However, it does have a sweet taste. So this is she was saying in the book I'm reading about how any sweet taste spikes insulin, regardless of whether or not it's actually sugar. I'm glad she's making that association. Can you possibly shed some light as I've been drinking these during my fasting hours? And now I'm not sure if it's breaking my fast. Yeah, I mean, in that dilemma, I would get a continuous glucose monitor. and no for sure. And if you don't have the financial resources to get the kind that plugs on to your

arm, just get a little small one, like a that you can get at your drugstore or a keto mojo. And then I would just make sure that you, you know, test the sweetener and find out. We did this in my Resetter Collaborative, our free fasting group on Facebook. We did a test. And it was with like tens of thousands of people. And we tested Stevia. So I was like, okay, everybody, I just want to see, and this was both men and women, I want to see what happens to stevia with your blood sugar. And I gave them the blood sugar test, you know, do a test your blood sugar and then just put some stevia right on your tongue, like without anything and then tested a half an hour later. There was no consistent certainty. Everybody had a different response. So, you know,

again, we're back to the microbes. They determine your blood sugar. So I think you got to make it personal and do n of one. Absolutely, that bio-individuality rules. And it's important for people to understand this whole cephalic phase insulin response. It is very unique. And I do think having a glucometer or a continuous glucose monitor can allow you to see how you're best served. A lot of those products, when it says zero calorie, zero sugar, they typically have some type of an artificial sugar. And so going back to that non-nutrative sweetener study, we'll make sure we put it in the show notes.

important to understand that specific ones like sucralose, aspartame, even stevia in the context of this particular study impacted the gut microbiome, impact an oral glucose tolerance, which is a totally different test. But just to kind of keep that in mind that if you're concerned about it breaking your fast, breaking a clean fast, eat it during your feeding window. If you're at all concerned about it, that's an easy way to like not even have to go to those extremes if you don't want to, but I'm a data nerd and I love to test things all the time. Agreed. Okay.

Let's move on to some hormone questions. What are some good ways? So this is in the context of someone who's still getting a menstrual cycle and has pretty severe PMS. So she has PMDD, which is this premenstrued disorder. What are some good ways to relieve those symptoms? Have you had experience with your patients in PMDD? Well, the first thing I would say is make sure you're eating.

enough carbs so that progesterone can actually make her appearance. The second thing I would say is make sure you're not pushing through, like stressing that week. I mean, these are really like simple kind of basic things. Sometimes I find questions like this. Somebody wants the fancy supplement or, you know, the fancy trick, but really let's go to foundational. Make sure you're getting that glucose up and then make sure there's not, stress isn't high.

So that would be the second thing. magnesium, I would be, if you want the magic supplement for that time of your cycle, it really is magnesium. And actually going back to the stress, I would even take in like if you're working out really hard, yoga is an amazing thing. You want to be in recovery that week. And I think this is the biggest thing that I would love to get out to the world because how many times have we bitched and moaned about like, oh, like I feel horrible. I'm tired. I crave carbs. I want to sit on the couch. It's like, I don't want to talk to anybody. And progesterone's like, yep, that's what we do. And yet we push through that. And so as women have become more in the workplace and having to do work and families,

there's this push on through that is not serving us during that week. So make sure you're giving yourself plenty of nurturing, maybe get a massage during that time and up your magnesium, lather yourself in magnesium. Yeah, such an invaluable response. And I think that it's really important for us as women that white knuckling it, whether it's in a certain time in our menstrual cycle, during fasting, et cetera. That is not what we advocate for. Being kind to yourself is so important. And it's taken me a long time to learn this. It's like I had to keep learning it over and over and over again. And I sometimes think about the fact that the times when I had the worst PMS were the times when I was taking the least good care of myself. I'd push through

those really hardcore workouts. I would be going really low. carb. I mean, I just didn't know any better. Obviously, now I do. I wasn't getting my sleep that I needed. I wasn't saying no enough. So when you're dealing with significant PMS, really understanding that is the time your body is really encouraging you to slow down, lean into some more carbohydrates, be more gentle. That's not the time to be doing these crazy fast, you know, maybe 12 hours of digestive rest. I love that answer. And magnesium, I always say everyone needs more magnesium in their life. Yeah. And the other thing that I've been thinking about lately, that we don't talk enough about as women, is that what is the actual, the action of your period?

Like, when you shed blood, it's actually a bit of a detox. And it can detox toxins. It can detox emotions. So if there's any point in our cycle where we have got to take better care of ourselves, it's during that time. And when we look at PMDD and we look at, you know, other hormonal situations, even PCOS, infertility, like we really have to get to know where our behaviors have to change at different points of our cycle. And then honoring that menstruation, I loved what you said about like, you know,

I almost wish I had a cycle again. Like, now that I understand it at 53, I'm like, shish, I wish I understood it at 33 like I understand it now. And but it's really that, you know, in the book, I call this the nurture phase that week before we need to nurture ourselves. No, it's such a good point. And I think every woman listening needs to lean into nurturing themselves more. There are very few people I meet that nurture themselves enough, really and truly. And I say that from the most loving perspective, myself included, I'm a work in progress. Okay. Well said. Another progesterone question as it relates to perimenopause. This young woman says, I'm 50. I still have a regular period. But that week before my period, when I pause my intermittent fasting, I feel very very very. very anxious and annoyed with everyone. I just bought progesterone cream and used it the week before my last period, but I'm wondering if I should be using it throughout the month.

Thank you for everything you do for women's health. You and Cynthia are my gurus. Oh, I love it. Well, yeah, anxiety at that time of your period is definitely low progesterone. So as far as the progesterone cream, that's really a question for your doctor. I think the big thing on any kind of creams or bioidenticals is there's an art to mastering it you. So I think one of the misconceptions is I'll just rub some cream on myself. And actually, I'll give you a story about progester and cream that I did as a 53 year old woman. As I test this,

all this stuff out on my own, and I put progesterone cream on this summer. You know, I still was having a bit of a cycle this summer. And I literally went crazy. I was like, everybody was agitating me. I was my kids had come over. I was not kind to them, which I apologized a bit later. And I couldn't understand what was going on with me. And what I figured out was that at 53, I have low estrogen too. So when I rub the progesterone cream on me, it took estrogen even lower, which my ability to handle stress became even more difficult. So I think for this woman at 50, we've got to, you know, you find a good practitioner,

can help you with dosing that. But again, I would go back into everything we've said about progesterone, soften that week, and make sure you're eating more carbs. and the magnesium, like it's really about slowing down, which is probably the hardest thing to do. Absolutely. And such a good response. You know, I would add to that that bioindividuality rules, you know, definitely have a conversation with your medical provider. Get your hormones tested. This is one thing that I really encourage women to do. Nothing makes me more angry. This is tangentially. I'm just going to say this one thing because I know you appreciate this, Mindy. A woman said to me recently,

my doctor told me, I don't need to check my hormones because I'm, in menopause. And I said, you need a new provider. Like that was my standard refrain. So knowledge is power, work with someone that's going to work concurrently with you, work as a team so that you get the information that you need. I do find for younger women, sometimes that progesterone cream, if needed, can be helpful that week before. I agree. I do think for other women, they may need oral progester. And if that's what they're interested in doing, and you would obviously want to make sure that you're working with your provider. But I would get tested because the fact that you had this exacerbation of just being

irritated, much to Mindy's point, if you're at the tail end of perimenopause, your estrogen levels are probably pretty low to begin with. And it would really be a value to know exactly where you are, get your labs tested, work with someone that will consider all the options that are available to you. Yeah. Well, well said. Okay. I need some clarification.

I'm still foggy with perimenopause and fasting for my cycle. If I don't fast week of my expected cycle and then my period does not start, do I keep a 12-hour fasting window until my period starts? What if I skip and cycle completely? I want to work with my cycle, but in a season of unpredictability, I am not able to get into a good rhythm. I typically have a 30 to 35-day cycle and I would like to do a 16-8 at least two to three days per week.

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. So the perimenopausal woman, you know, we've been there. We get it, and it's hard, and it's probably the hardest age range to explain how to eat and fast because there's no predictability. So here's what I say is a couple things. You want to get to know the personalities of your hormones. And this is how I look at it, is that when I would all of a sudden, like, I'm actually 90 days into

no cycle. And so what I, you know, I don't have anything to map it to. So I usually go, okay, if I'm anxious, I didn't sleep well. And low back pain is one that shows up for me with progesterone. I go, okay, and I'm hungry in the morning. Those are signs that I need to feed progesterone. So I won't fast that day or I won't fast as long and I'll lean into more foods like we've talked about.

When my skin is really dry and mucosal membranes are really dry, my brain can't hold on to information, you know, that's when I'm like, oh, I need more estrogen. Okay, estrogen likes me to fast and likes me to go into more of a keto diet. So I use their symptoms that they give me to help myself understand that. The other thing is, again, I'm back at the moon cycle. This woman could just chart her cycle according to start when, you know, the new moons on day one. You could go around that. And then the last one is that I'm actually having some perimenopausal women do ovulation kits,

which is so silly. But this woman, what she could do is, you know, do honor that week before her cycle. So I think she said you had a 34 day. Yeah, 30 to 35 days. Yeah, so make sure you're eating more carbs and you're not fasting. And then it's the 35th day, go back into more of your fasting, more of your keto. And then maybe 10 days after that, do an ovulation test. You can get them really cheaply off of Amazon and see if you're ovulating at that point.

So you almost kind of have to make your own cycle up, which is why I like the moon or I like the ovulation kit, otherwise you got to get to know the personalities. Yeah, that's such a great way of thinking about it, Mindy. It's funny, I had pretty regular cycles till maybe the last two years before I was hospitalized in 2019. And I remember being so frustrated when you think you're going to get your cycle and then it doesn't start. And so I completely understand how frustrating that is, but you really gave us some good

tips. Okay, we're going to shift gears because there were so many questions about parimenopause and menopause, but like let's shift gears a little bit. Can you please share your opinion on the latest Ozzymp craze? So this is semi-glutide. This is this GLU-Tide. This is this GLP Agnes. This is the drug that a lot of people, a lot of celebrities, not just people who are obese or diabetic are using to help lose weight. Do you have any experience with it? I don't have any experience with it. I recently heard about it a couple a weeks ago, and I would actually flip this one and ask you on this because the way I look at every single drug is there's always a consequence. And so you can't ever a drug where people are dropping

weight finally, there's a consequence to it. So make sure you know, read what the adverse reactions are to it. The other thing that I would say about drugs like that is that you are really pulling yourself out of your natural rhythm. And the whole goal of what you and I are trying to teach is how to eat and fast according to your natural rhythm. Now you've forced the body to do something. And where is the it? It's just like birth control. We're manipulating the body. So you may see your friend use it. And you're like, oh my God, they lost so much weight. But just sit tight with this drug. I promise you a couple years from now, we're going to start to see the dark side of it because there's no perfect drug out there. No, it's very true. And I do have clinical experience with this drug and

certainly have read a lot about it. There's different ways that can be utilized, kind of the standard ways. It takes a couple weeks to get to a point where you're at a full dose. But the two main side effects that I see with my patients, and I don't prescribe it, let me be very transparent. Sometimes I work with people who are already on it. Number one is nausea, significant nausea, like pregnancy nausea. And if any woman that's been out there that's been pregnant, that's not fun.

No. Number two is constipation because it's slowing gut motility. And so imagine you are trading. Maybe you don't have the healthiest lifestyle. maybe your weight loss resistant, you're feeling desperate, and this seems to be this panacea. And this is not to suggest there aren't drugs that you may need a drug and there's no shame in that. Like, let me be very clear. I take thyroid medicine every day because there's no other way my thyroid's going to be optimized

because I've done all the other things. But I think it's important to understand that when we introduce these kinds of drugs into our body, there are side effects. And right now, the two main ones that I'm seeing are constipation. Like I had a woman who said, I just don't even get hungry at all. all, which is concerning because you're missing out on opportunities to hit your protein macros. You're very likely you're dysregulating normal hormonal communication within the body because your brain thinks you're full, but your stomach could still be very hungry.

And I just think about when we're looking at predominantly women north of 40, we're already at risk for sarcopenia. The more muscle mass we lose, the more insulin resistant we become. And that really sets us up for a lot of health issues. So if you use semi-glutide, if that's what you choose to do, just be very aware of the side of the net impact of not getting enough protein in the muscle loss piece. And lastly, I just interviewed Dr. Amy Killen. And she was mentioning that now people are kind of microdosing semi-glutide so that they get the

benefits, but they're not not eating and they're not losing as much weight. But she and I were talking about how there's this very fine line of just being careful understanding like the point is not to never eat again. Like we're not looking to developing eating disorder by virtue of medication. But I think that my dogs are agreeing. I think by virtue of that question, it just speaks to the fact that we're seeing a lot of information in the media. It's very confusing. People are trying to make sense. And because a lot of celebrities are using the drug, people then assume that if it works for that celebrity, then it work for them as well. Right. And the sarcopena thing is big because, A, you know,

You and I've talked about this, that you know, you need more muscle as you age. But what most people don't realize is you need muscle to be more insulin sensitive. So if you're losing muscle and you're losing weight and you're like, oh, I feel great. I'm like, yeah, a couple years from now, like there's going to be a boomerang effect. So it's new, if it's the hot new thing, typically I back away from the hot new things and say, okay, let me just see how this is going to play out. Yeah, and I really think, you know, one thing that I know we both really speak a great deal on is the lifestyle piece, like really leading with lifestyle before we start adding supplements, before we start adding medications, if that's the direction you need to go in. And I say this with love, but it's really important to be that methodical.

I think for a lot of people, we've kind of conditioned our patients to ask for the drug first and then maybe consider the lifestyle piece after the fact. And I always say start with lifestyle, then move forward. you know, if you end up meeting a medication, then so be it. Okay. I feel like too on that point, that you can apply that to everything. Bioidenticals, HRT, cholesterol medication. Like, ask yourself, have I done everything with my lifestyle first before you go on to that? So really well said.

Well, what's interesting is Dr. Mindy does not know the next set of questions that I have. But ironically, she just touched on them. Oh, nice. Psychic. Exactly. Exactly. See, it's all this synergy between us. Okay.

I know. So, cholesterol. Fasting. Okay. When people who's high cholesterol, so I'm going to paraphrase, when people have high cholesterol that cannot be explained, what information should we be looking at in terms of nutrition? Okay. So if you have high cholesterol, the first thing I want you to think is your liver needs some love.

Like let's support the liver is making cholesterol. It breaks it down, gets it out into the body. So when we look at what we see, and I've seen this so much in my community, that when we look at the liver, we got to look at. at the gallbladder, we got to look at the common bile duct, and we have to look at the small intestine. So the easy first thing to do is make sure you're eating enough bitter foods. That would be like, let's start there. Second thing is, you know, I'm a fan of fasting for anything that's going on in the small intestine because sebo, not that this person has sebo,

but if you had any dysbiosis in the small intestine, to date, there hasn't been a lot of great supplement remedies for that, but fasting will fast, will bat that stuff down. So make sure that you're cycling your fast and maybe even go in. I like for gut health, I like a 24-hour fast. Outside of that, then you've got your castor oil packs and your coffee enemas, which I think are good. But in general, we need to think liver when we think high cholesterol, especially before we get on a statin because we know that the brain needs cholesterol. The other thing I want to point out, and you and I've never talked about this, is I've seen. some research showing that at different times of our cycle, we actually have different cholesterol

surges. So if you're a cycling woman, make sure that you're looking at where you are in your cycle, like in the follicular phase and that like day one through like day 15, it's natural for total cholesterol to go up. Now, it goes up in HDLs, which is great, but you need cholesterol to make estrogen. If you're a perimenopause or menopausal woman, you know, your body might be trying to make more cholesterol in order to make estrogen. If you go on a statin and you shut that down, now we've got a hormonal problem. Oh, it's such a good point. And you're right.

We have never talked about this. But yet it makes complete sense that where we are in our menstrual cycle, vis-a-vis having lab testing, can be incredibly impactful. And obviously, I used to prescribe a lot of statins. And because that was traditional evidence-based medicine, let me be very clear. I was following the party line. talking about statins. So I had this wonderful researcher from the NIH. And when she explained to me physiologically what's happening when we take statins and the net impact on cholesterol synthesis

and how that impacts cellular membrane health, it took me back like a hundredfold. And I immediately that day called my parents, both of whom were taking statins. And I said, I want you to talk to your doctor about what other options are available. And then I had one parent who went off in conjunction with her health care provider. We're not telling anyone to stop their statins, talk to your health care provider. My dad has remained on his statin and has been on that for probably 30 years. And in no way are we recommending you stop medication. The point of why I'm sharing this is that if we understood the net downtward effect of statin therapy, I think most people would do everything they could to avoid being placed on a statin. Has that been your experience when you're working with people

helping them understand what statins do? I think they are. age group and the younger than us, I feel like they're waking up to statins and they're asking, I think in general, I feel hopeful that a lot of people are saying, what can I do before medication? It's the generation ahead of us that I'm concerned about. And this is where we're looking at Alzheimer's, one out of three women. I just want to say it's the women are getting Alzheimer's right now in their 70s. And this is the 70 and 80 year olds. Well, let's go and look at what they did because if we don't want Alzheimer's, let's try to not do what

they did. They were low fat, the low fat movement, and almost all those women are on statins. That was the thing you did is you went on to statins. So I feel like it needs to be, it's written like the prescriptions are written like, yeah, this is what you do. You're aging, you have high cholesterol, you go on statins. I think we really have to put a stop to that because there is more damage than good. And if you're on one, go back and do the lifestyle changes necessary. and then go work with your doctor to get off of them. I think we need to look at them like antibiotics. They should be done only if you've tried everything else.

Yeah. And unfortunately, you know, we live through that low fat, non-fat craze. And so much of the information, I was telling my patients not to eat fatty meat, not to eat saturated fat, to avoid and fear fat, to use these, you know, fake brummel and brown. And I can't think of, you know, there's like a myriad of seed oil spreads we used to suggest in the interim. And we're wondering why we have a whole general.

generation of people that were never satiated. They were never full. You know, they became addicted to sugar very easily. They're eating too many carbohydrates. You know, it's really understanding that that has had a really profound negative net impact. Okay, a couple last questions because I want to be respectful of your time. These are like a grab bag. These are like the troubleshooting questions. Love it. Where is your starting point when someone starts fasting and they tell you they are fatigued or tired? When they start fasting. Yep. Well, okay, so the first thing is think of it like if you went to the gym for the first time and you're like, I'm going to get on the treadmill for 30 minutes and you haven't been on

the treadmill and you haven't been walking at that length and you get on at 15 minutes and you're like, oh my gosh, like I'm exhausted. Then it's time to get off the treadmill and not do it. You just want to push it to that hormetic stress so that your body can start to adapt. So whatever hour you're at, if you're getting tired, just then bring food back in. Let's eat. Next day, try it again. Let's say it's 13 hours.

You're at 13 hours. You're tired. Next day, try 13 hours and five minutes and just push your body so that you're gently causing it to adapt. We don't need to grit it, but it's the small little pushes of stress in fasting that's going to improve that mitochondrial health. And then the other thing I would say is again, I thought where you were going to go with this question. This is one I get all the time is where do I start with fasting?

And my recommendation is you start with food and you change your food out. And the number one change you need to make is get the bad oils out and the good ones in. So it could be that maybe you need to clean some things up with your food in order to make fasting a little bit easier. No, that's such a great point. And I would add, the only thing I would really add is the hydration piece. I think a lot of people think it's not important to hydrate, that electrolytes aren't important. And I remind them that if you're making these nutritional changes and you're eating within a compressed window and you're losing electrolytes, we lose them every day. We breathe, we sweat, we poop, we pee, all those things, we lose electrolytes.

But if you're also going low carb, you're going to have renal loss of sodium. So that means you're going to lose salt in your urine. And that can mimic a lot of the fatigue, muscle aches, just feeling not particularly clear, cognitively. So electrolytes are your friend. Don't be afraid of them. We'll link a couple in the show notes as well so that you'll have them available to you. But I think that fatigue is one of those kind of vague. It can mean so many different things. If it's persistent, obviously you need to get things checked out. But if it's transient, I think just, you know, as you stated, adjusting macros, kind of leaning into that, get the junk out of your diet, understanding seed oils,

which I know we both talk about a lot. They impact the health of our mitochondria and our cellular membranes for a long time, read every food label because they're in everything, unfortunately. Unfortunately, for sure. Okay. Last question. I had many, many questions about hair loss. If I start fasting and I start losing my hair, what does that mean? It ties so well into what you just said. The first thing I would say is my shock in watching millions of people fast is how mineral depleted of a world we're in, and especially here in America, our soils are so depleted of minerals that I would say anybody as they embark upon a fasting lifestyle needs to assume that they need more minerals. So to your point, mineral packets and water, I think is incredible.

Second thing I would say is you also have to look at, well, what might be blocking a mineral receptor site, how the mineral's ability to get into a cell. And a lot of times we've noticed heavy metals, especially thallium. And thalium is in more fish than ever because of the fallout in Japan years ago. I'm on the West Coast and, you know, I will never eat a fish coming from the West Coast because of the amount of thallium that's in there. And we've done a lot of heavy metal testing in our community. And I will tell you that about 70% of the time, if somebody has hair loss, they've got high thallium levels as well. And then the third thing would be to check your thyroid and make sure that you've got proper thyroid function. I know you

and I, we haven't talked about this, but I'm pretty sure you and I agree on this, is that if you have a thyroid problem, you just have to make sure when you open up your eating window that you're eating, eat. Like, you know, it's the studies have shown calorie restriction is hard on the thyroid, not time restriction. So you've got to open up. When you open that eating window up, you might need to eat more. Yeah, it's such a good point. And, you know, in terms of proximity, you are closer to Fukushima. That's where that nuclear meltdown was.

and I can completely understand the hesitancy about eating a lot of fish. What's interesting is we used a thallium tracer on some of our stress testing and cardiology. But it was, I mean, when I tell you, it was handled in such a careful way, even though people were giving minutes amount of thallium as a tracer. So to back up, nurse practitioner in cardiology, we used specific type of chemical stress testing. And we use this isotope to be able to trace, you know, the heart to see where the profusion issues were. if they were at all there. But very interesting about thallium in terms of, you know, seeing, you know, high levels of thalium correlated with hair loss.

I would also add, you know, mineral depletion absolutely looking at thyroid, but also sometimes I will see it's a normal byproduct of weight loss. People will actually get this hair shed. We're seeing significant amounts of it post-COVID for people that have had, have had the virus that they're having very, very significant hair loss post-COVID. And just understanding that there's something, whether it's iron, thyroid, testosterone, post-COVID, whatever is going on, get things checked out if it's really significant. The other thing is for people who are breastfeeding or have been pregnant, sometimes you'll get a hair shed as well.

So just understanding where you are and time and place. Well, Dr. Mindy, I hate to turn off the conversation because I know that we could go for hours and hours. But I do feel like we covered quite a bit of territory. And I hope we'll be able to have a round two because this has actually been really fun. to do with you. I agree. Yeah, no, I agree. And thank you for asking me food questions, because you know, and getting a book out there into the world. Like, after a while, you're like, can we talk about something else? So this was really mind candy for me. And yeah, let's do more. I think that, you know, one of the things that I've been really emphasizing with Fast Like a Girl is that as women, we need to

come together and collaborate. We need to support each other and have discussions like this. And what I hope the listeners will do is take what they learned here. Now go have that discussion with your girlfriends because hormones have been like this, almost like this dirty topic that we're not allowed to talk about. And we need to bring it back into the light and have and talk about it from whatever angle we can. So I love this. Thank you for having me. Of course.

Of course. And let listeners know how to get your book. By the time this comes out, the book will be out, how to connect with your amazing podcast, which I've been blessed to have been a guest on twice. how to connect with you on social media, etc. Yeah, for the book, you can go to fast like a girl.com.

And I will tell you, one of my pleas has been, because, yeah, the book will already be out. Booktopia.org is like a great place to tap into your independent bookstore. Go to your local bookstore. Let's bring those local indie bookstores back.

So if you have the time and the resources to do that, go do that. Otherwise, go to fast like a girl.com. Everything's there on how you order it. And, yeah, YouTube's my biggest social. So I put out two videos a week, lots of great fasting and food information there. And then, of course, Instagram, Facebook. And if you forget all that, you can just go to Dr. Mindy Pells.com.

Well, thank you again, my friend. Good luck with the launch, although I know you're doing really well. Yeah, thank you. Appreciate you. Thank you so much for joining me in today's episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we'd love to know about it. so please leave us a review, share it with your friends, and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.