Live Like a Girl with Dr. Mindy Pelz - Ask Me Anything - With Dr. Stephanie Estima

Episode Date: April 11, 2022

For full show notes, resources mentioned, and transcripts go to: www.drmindypelz.com/ep116/   To enroll in Dr. Mindy's Fasting membership go to: resetacademy.drmindypelz.com   This special Ask Me Anything episode is about working out, menstrual cycles, hormones, fasting, and weight loss. Dr. Stephanie is a doctor of chiropractic with a special interest in metabolism, body composition, functional neurology, and female physiology. She's been featured on Thrive Global, of the Huffington Post, has over 3.5 million article reads on Medium.com, and has helped thousands of women lose weight, regulate hormones, and get off medications with her signature program, The Estima Diet™. You can hear her every week on her podcast, Better! With Dr. Stephanie. Dr. Stephanie is changing the conversation around health, fitness, sex, intimacy, longevity, parenting, mindset, and pursuing excellence.  Her life's passion and mission are blending modern science with ancient wisdom to empower women's health and healing.  Please see our medical disclaimer.

It's better than diamonds. You don't need diamonds. You need magnesium morning and night. Like I love to take magnesium a little bit in the morning and then I backload a lot of my magnesium in the evening. Resetters, Dr. Mindy here. And I am on a mission to teach you just how powerful your body was built to be. This podcast is about giving you the power back and helping you believe in yourself again. Let's jump in. On this episode of The Resetter Podcast, I bring you something totally different, and I cannot wait for you guys to listen to this conversation. This is an Ask Me Anything with Dr. Stephanie Estima, and it came out of your requests.

So let me give you a little background on Stephanie and I and our synergy in how we approach women's health. She and I did a podcast episode, I think about a year ago. She came on to ours, the Resetter podcast. It is no doubt one of the top performing episodes we've had. So if you haven't gone and listened to that one, we literally went through the whole menstrual cycle, talked about how you should work out, how you should fast, how you should eat. We went like day by day.

So go check out that episode. But then I went on her podcast and same thing. Her audience loved what we were talking about. You all loved what we were talking about. We've been on Instagram together, and people have asked us over and over again to come together and answer so many questions that women want to know about how to look at your lifestyle and time it to your hormonal needs. So in this episode, we literally asked you all for what questions you wanted answered. We got over a hundred questions.

We tried that you'll hear us. I mean, we tried to answer as many as we could, but there's definitely a need for more. So in this episode, you're going to hear us talk about working out and how we can time that around our cycle. How is women? She is in 44. I'm 52. So you can kind of hear the difference of ages and how we approach our workouts.

We talked about hormones in general. And there was a really good question somebody asked about what she would, what a mom should talk to her daughter about hormones. which led into the emotional ebbs and flows of hormones that as women we should be aware of. Of course, we talked about fasting and how women should do it. We talked about weight loss. We talked about protein, what types of protein. You name it.

Like, we went down so many different paths. So this was a totally different podcast experience for me. If you guys love that, love this conversation. Please leave a review. if you're not following Dr. Stephanie Estima, follow her on Instagram. She has a great podcast called The Better Podcast. And this is actually our both of these, this interview is going out on both of our platforms. And you hopefully know that my number one tenant for women right now is we need to come together and support each other.

And this is what Stephanie and I did in this conversation. I know you're going to benefit from it. So absolutely from the bottom of my heart, enjoy this conversation. And no doubt there will be more like this. This is going to be fun. We are, I, you know, Mindy and I, we are doing an AMA. I will welcome you to my podcast. And I know that I am going to be on the Resetter podcast.

So this is, this is going to be fun. We're going to see how it's really fun. And for me, this is a first. And I love collaboration. Like, collaborating is my jam. So this is really exciting. Yeah, and we should just quickly on the origin story of this, I was doing some, I was doing like an ask me anything on my Instagram stories. And someone was like, can you and Mindy please do something together? And I was like, oh, that's so nice. And I was like, Mindy, I'm game if you are. And you're like, I'm up. I'm up for it. Let's do it. And so as you said, collaboration. And I love, you know, I always get a lot of positive comments about the podcast that when you were on my show, I actually think it's in the top 10. Same with us. Same with us. When you were online, it was like women came out of the woodwork. And I think it's in one of our top 10 as well.

Amazing. Yeah. So I'm happy that we're doing this again. And then, you know, if you all love it, so on the better podcast and on the resetter podcast, if you love this, then tell us and we will, we will, you know, maybe make this a little thing. Who knows how it's going to go. I love it. Yeah. Sounds good. And I also want to say that when we decided to do this, you and I both went to Instagram. and said what questions do we have. And when we got the, I was like, I wonder if we have a handful of questions. Wow. We have like so many questions. We are not at a loss for questions. No. And, you know, I was saying, I was saying to your assistant before we started recording, I was like, I was really surprised that we didn't get the what breaks your fast question. But man, did we get, we got so many questions on fasting, muscle building, you know, menstruation, like how do we eat according to our site, like so many great questions. So I'm really excited. We have a lot, we have very intelligent, I would say, listeners and followers. So they're asking really, really great questions.

Agreed. Agreed. I love it. So let's get into the first one, which I thought was really interesting. And I thought the way that we might do this, and I think we were already talking about this in the pre-chat, It's like we can just sort of banter. Like we'll answer, you know, the questions. We may or may not have, you know, the same answer for some of them. And that's completely fine. I think that, you know, you and I are very aligned on many things. But of course, there may be some extra color that I may add in a certain way or some extra

color that you may add in a certain way. Of course, which is great. I think that's. I think so too. That's the part of a good discussion is bringing new information to a topic. So I love it. Beauty. All right.

So first question, and I'll lob this to you. you and then I'll chime in. So one of the questions was, why is my blood sugar so high in the morning when I eat a low carbohydrate diet? Ooh, okay. So this is one that I have seen in hundreds of thousands of our fasters online. And it really, the statistical answer, I should say, or the clinical answer is something potentially called the dawn effect, where when at night you're in a fasted state and there hits a point where your body registers that glucose is going down. And so the liver dumps stored sugar into your bloodstream to keep the brain well nourished. You know, we love ketones. They're great, but they're only 50% of the fuel for the

brain. So when you wake up in the morning, I think it's a great sign because that liver is releasing that stored sugar. So I actually look at it as a part. positive sign. But for fasters, it's frustrating. And I also think you could think fasting isn't working for you, but it absolutely is. Yeah, I completely agree with you. I think that we do have to consider the dawn effect here. So of course, the dawn effect just as a little, you know, by way of history was first notice in individuals with type 1 diabetes, where the insulin that they were taking, let's say, the night before, wasn't sufficient to, to, let's say, counterregulate the glucose that was being released in the morning. And of course, when you think about your

physiology, in the morning, you have these so-called counter-regulatory hormones that are increasing like cortisol and epinephrine and noraphenephyrant, and those are designed to release glucose into the bloodstream so that you have energy to, you know, from an, you know, from an evolutionary point of view, go and hunt, you know, take care of the children, you know, gather and hunt and cook and all the things. But it's also observed in individuals who are following a low carbohydrate diet. And again, when you think about when your cells are primarily burning fat for fuel, as they would when carbohydrates are dramatically reduced, we have to also consider the muscle cells, right? So the muscles,

necessarily don't need glucose, you know, overnight, but in the morning they will. And muscle cells, well, and I'll say, as you mentioned, the brain always needs some base level of glucose. So you can run on ketone bodies, as you mentioned, but glucose is the molecule of life. There's always going to be a requirement for some base level of glucose. So this is often referred to as like adaptive glucose sparing, where you're basically sparing the glucose that you have in the system for the brain. And the idea here is that the lack of glucose uptake is happening, you know, in the muscle cell, let's say, is happening for

a beneficial reason. It's not, it's not a harmful reason. And I think that one of the things that we can look at in context, if this person is concerned with that number, is also to look at her HBA1C, which is sort of the, you know, the three month, let's say, average of glycated end products or the, um, uh, the average level of glucose that you've had essentially over the last three months. Yeah. So all that, you know, all that sort of like preamble to say that it is very normal in a person having a, following a low carbohydrate diet or someone who's fasting, of course, which is essentially the same thing. You're restricting carbohydrates and everything else.

To have higher blood sugar, blood glucose in the morning, what we do need to sift through is whether or not that's harmful, right? In a type 1 diabetic, you can make the argument that, yes, that's harmful. But in the situation where a woman or a man is following a low carbohydrate diet, is that harmful or is it just an adaptive, that adaptive glucose sparing that we were talking about. Yeah. Yeah. And the other thing I would say in Fasters, what I see is it's a temporary effect. It does not continue over time. And then the other part of that, the application part of that that I really like is this is where if you're concerned about it, I really would put a CGM on

and start to look at what's happening at two, three in the morning. That to me is so fascinating when you see blood sugar going down and then there's a spike at two or three in the morning. And there it is. That's the body starting to release. So, yeah, super interesting. But you're right for type one concerning, but for the majority of people, I think it's a temporary effect. And then the CGM is also going to give you other insight in terms of how your blood glucose and insulin dance, you know, happens over the course of the day. Like you're going to see, you'll see the spikes at 2 a.m. as you mentioned, you'll also see, you know, the variability in your response to stress, in your post-parandial glucose spiking and how long it actually takes you to get back down.

So I think that when we look at, and this is something that we're all guilty of, we tend to, we'll focus in on one thing. We're like, this is not perfect. Why? But you have to look at it. You have to zoom out a little bit and look at it in context. So if you slap on a CGM, you're seeing that 2 a.m. change, but also what's happening when you do start moving around or working out or,

you know, you're presenting or you're eating a meal, like what's happening to your blood glucose in those scenarios? And then with that context, you can deduce whether or not you are in a good or bad, you know, position. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Huge fantasy jams. Love that. What's the next one you want to go to? You know what I want to go to? Because this one is there's so much to talk about. And I get asked all the time. How long does it take for the weight to fall off with fasting?

I'm going to let you go first on that one. I'm going to give the worst answer. This person who asks is going to hate me. But the answer I'm going to give is it really depends. It depends on your aim. It depends on your physical, you know, your lifestyle, like how active you are, how much general movement, like that non-exercise activity thermogenesis that you're getting through the day, like just general putting or puttering around and walking.

Of course, structured workouts as well, like are you a cardio bunny? Are you lifting weights? What your, you know, your stress levels like, what your sleep is like, all of those things. In addition to fasting is going to be a big determinant in terms. And when she says weight loss, I also, I'm like a stick. for language. So I'm assuming she's talking about fat loss. Like she's not talking about reducing her bone density or reducing the size of her brain, right? We're talking about reducing her brain reduced. Yeah, exactly. So it's the adiposite, like she's looking at reducing overall adiposity on the body.

So I think that the first thing I want to say, and this is kind of more of a mindset thing, and this has just been my own experience with fasting, coaching other practitioners, is every, there's so much bio-individuality. And you have to give you. yourself way more time than you would like. Yes. We always are like, oh, you know what? I've been doing this thing for a week. You know, it's not working.

It gets fast and doesn't work for me. Well, it's, you know, in the same way. I remember one of my mentors in chiropractic, he said this beautiful thing. Shout out to Dr. John Menardi. He was saying, you know, when you are having, you know, you're caring for a patient and you have been caring for them, let's say for six months. And at the end of the six months, you know, they say, doc, I feel better. and then would you ever say to them, which adjustment was it?

Right. Which was the one adjustment that helped you? It's like, no, it wasn't the one. It was the cumulative effect of going to the chiropractor, you know, I don't know, one time a week, two times, whatever it is. You know, you're going to the chiropractor for this program. You're doing your rehab. You're doing your stretches.

It's the same with fasting. It's like you're not going to get where you want in a week in a month. And I'm going to say, you know, you can make progress. You can make progress in a month. You can make progress in three months, in a quarter, in a year. But sculpting the body that you want and reducing overall adiposity is a long-term game. Yep. That we see so often, and I see this all the time in the online space where I'm just like,

don't eye roll, like just, you know, respect everybody. But sometimes you'll see sort of experts say, oh, you can, you know, drink, I don't know, lemon water and you're going to lose 40 pounds in the next two weeks. And it's like, I would never want to lose 40 pounds in the next two weeks because that's all muscle. Like, that's cashexia. So I guess my, I'm not fully answering this because, you know, I'm a doctor, but I'm not her doctor. Right. But I would say that it, there's a lot of different things that go into losing weight when fasting.

What do you think, Mindy? Yeah, too many variables for sure. So let me start with the mindset. The first thing is that I would love. to redefine what extra weight means and why it's there. I really, our body is designed so intelligently that when it starts storing weight, we want to villainize it, but literally that extra weight is saving your life. It has to find a place to store extra glucose, store extra hormones, store toxins. And it does it around the back of your arms, your belly, your glutes. And it,

and it's doing that instead of putting it around the organs. So let's start. with, thank you, intelligent body. I appreciate you storing it there. Now, let me see what I can do to go after the storage. Now, with that, if we're going to use fasting as a tool, to me, the first step is get comfortable compressing your eating window. Get comfortable with like a 13 hour fast where you're, and then you're eating, what would that be 11 hours? And slowly work on condensing down that eating window, elongating the fasting window. When you get to about 15 hours of fasting, then my question to you would be, are you getting into ketosis?

Are you seeing signs that you're getting into making ketones? If you're not, then you got to do the, there's like 20 million different checkboxes that you got to think about. You got to think exactly what you were saying. How's your sleep? What are you doing workout wise? How's your food? Like we've got to go and that's where the bio individuality really comes in.

And for everybody, it's a little different. different. Now, if you say, I'm in ketosis, but I'm not losing weight, then my next step would be, if it's a woman, are we fasting according to our cycle? Because if you're fasting at the wrong time, you're actually harming your body, causing your body to hold on to more weight. So make sure you're fasting to your cycle. If she says, I'm fasting to my cycle, then I really go to toxicity. We've got to look at pulling toxins out. So I like to step. it out in that fashion. But it starts with not chasing a number on the scale and understanding why the extra weight is there in the first place and then creating short little steps and hurdles

that you got to get over to start to see where weight may drop off of you with fasting. Yeah, well said. And like that permission and that grace to say, I'm going to give myself a really long runway for this. Yes. Like I've budgeted three months, but I'm just going to like double or triple that so that we can, because you're also in that journey, there's going to be, everyone also thinks about, you know, weight loss or fat loss as this sort of linear journey. Like, I'm going to lose one weight this week. And then next week, I'm going to lose one pound. And then I'm going to lose one pound the week after.

And it's not like that. Sometimes you'll lose four pounds in a week and then nothing will change for two weeks. And then maybe another pound will come. It's very nonlinear. It's very, it's very, sometimes very disorganized or it can appear disorganized. organized to our sort of linear brains that are really, you know, designed to see things in like a stepwise fashion. But you'll notice over time the net net, again, like, which is the one adjustment, which is the one fast that, you know, that created the change. It's the accumulation of the healthy

behaviors and the habits that are going to get you to where you want to go. And this, this applies to fast, you know, if it's weight loss with fasting, you're using a tool like, you know, maybe a ketogenic diet or, you know, or otherwise, it takes a really long time. And I, you know, just I'll throw this in and we can, we'll move to the next one. But I often have women that I'll say, like, I've been working out and I don't understand like, where is the muscle? And it's like, you know how long it takes to build muscle? Right. Right. It takes a really long, like, you know, years to build mature muscle. Yeah. So I just want to say that. And I also want to just point out if it's a woman that asks this question, which I'm thinking it was, that if you start fasting with

your husband, your brother, a male counterpart, they're going to drop weight very, very quickly with intermittent fasting. And we are more complex than that. So also make sure that you're staying in your own lane and creating your own fasting journey for weight loss. Yes. Yes. What are the health books that you recommend or that you like to read, Dr. M. Dr. Pels? Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. I'm like a book hound. I cannot get enough. I don't even know right now. I would say that it really, I'm in mindset. I go through phases. So I can't just tell you one. Right now I am absolutely 100% obsessed with the brain and mindset. So currently one of my favorites is effortless.

Have you read that book? No. Greg McEwen, I think his name is. And it's all about living life from an effortless place. I've also been geeking out on Dawson Church's books. He has Mind Over Matter and the Bliss brain. So I've been diving deep into that. I would say, yeah, I would say when it comes to books, this is pretty funny as an author of

health books, I'm like, I go slant towards the mindset and the brain books for inspiration, and I devour more of my health information fasting keto in podcasts and PubMed articles and conversations like this. So I will say that my absolute favorite book that I think every woman needs to read is Rushing Woman's Syndrome by Libby Weaver. So if you haven't seen that, I would definitely, definitely do that. I have, you know, one book that actually really changed my life years ago was a book called Living in the Light by Shakti Gowan, which is a book about visualization. So I'm making notes as you're talking. Yeah, I have a really eclectic book behavior.

But I have books all over my house. I have, I sit down. I don't always read them cover to cover. Sometimes I just pick them up. I read pieces of them. So too many to really to highlight one specific one. I tend to agree with you. I like the, I think even when we're talking about nutrition and weight loss,

you know, one big pillar that no, like it's the. elephant in the room that nobody wants to acknowledge is how we actually relate to ourselves, how we view ourselves and our worth. So, of course, I'm going to give a shameless plug to the menopause reset. Great book. I know. I was like, I'm like, I should have said the Betty body. I'm sorry.

No, no. I'm going to shamelessly plug it. You should also pick up the Betty body. But to your point around mindset, I just finished. I actually just interviewed Gabby Bernstein. Her book, Happy Days, is phenomenal. And she talks about this principle, I guess, in psychotherapy or in psychology called Internal Family Systems, that we have all of these different parts to us.

We have like the protector part and we have the, you know, the little, it's kind of like the inner child who's really scared and then like, you know, the beast that can come out to sort of protect that inner child. So I thought that that was in reading that book and preparation. for our conversation. I loved Dr. Sheffali's radical awakening, I think, should be required reading for every woman. And then Nicole LaPera's How to Do the Work, I thought was a really good in terms of just becoming aware of our, just becoming consciously aware. I think so many of us sort of like wake up, you know, and we're asleep through the, I mean, we're, you know, we're awake, but, you know,

we're not conscious of the thoughts that we're having, how the past shows up in the present. And I thought it was a really good book on increasing your awareness, becoming aware of how to interact with yourself when you get activated and triggered and how to reparent yourself and the inner child. Like I thought those were, those have been books that, you know, that I've read in the past couple of years that I thought were just exceptional. Yeah. The other thing I would say is that how I use books is maybe different than just, oh, I need the information in my mind. So, and this might be why I gravitate to these mindset books. I have a morning ritual. I get up. I make my cup of coffee and I sit in the same chair. I call it my thinking chair. And when my brain is

just sort of in this daisy place, that's actually when I read. And the idea that I have behind it is that you're not in high beta wave brain state yet. You're a little more in that alpha kind of state, and that's when you can get information into your brain in a better way. I do the same thing at night. I'll pick up. I have a couple of books that I'll read, even if it's a paragraph before I go to bed, as opposed to sitting and looking at Instagram before I go to bed, I will take, pull out a book,

get into bed, and I'll read one or two, a paragraph. If I can make it that far. And then I have that positive information going into my brain as I'm going into a sleep state. And when you're in bed, do you make sure that those are mindset books that you're reading? So you know that they're going to be a positive, like you're not going to read like a horror, you know, like a fiction or something like that. Oh, you know, the one book that is like changing my world and I've read it a thousand times, but I always come back to it is letting go by David Hawkins.

And whenever I feel like I get into bed and the mom, mind is racing like, oh, tomorrow you got to do this and today this didn't go well. I read letting go. And I don't know what it is about that book, but it like instantly I can feel my whole body relax and then boom, I can fall asleep. I have a like four or five books sort of piled up on my nightstand. And I have the same thing. I'll kind of pick them up. And I'm, I pick off where I've left off the last time, but I don't necessarily do them in order. One of them, one of them that I have started rereading is a man's search for meaning, Victor Frankel. Yes.

And it's just, you know, when you think about the horrors that that man lived through and the perspective that he had, it's like, you know, if he can do something like that and maintain a positive attitude and hope for the future, you know, living in Auschwitz and living through Auschwitz and the several concentration camps that he survived through. and then the aftermath, like how he, you know, how he took that information and lived his life after and taught other. I think that that's, again, another incredible book. And I'll pick it up and it's so heavy. But I'll, you know, again, like read a page or two, as you were saying. And I'm like, okay, this is, this is good for me. That book, when we first went into the pandemic, I had read that

book already two or three times. But we did a book club in my reset academy. I was like, we're going to, We're coming back to this book because look at this man had a worse situation than any of us are in right now and look at what he did in that situation. But the reason that book really is so good and everybody should read it is he literally goes through the day to day. Like how did he stay alive? What did he do when he went back to his room and people were dying? And he talks about how the people gave up and they had no purpose. It's a classic. I'm so happy you said that one. everybody needs to read that. Yeah. Okay. Okay, I'll throw one at you. Well, let's let me, let's go to sleep because this is another one I've been working on mastering. The question is, what do you do when you wake up in the

middle of the night and you can't fall back asleep? But I want to also add into that. Do you have rituals around sleep and how to get a good night's sleep? Yeah, I have hard, I have sort of hard and soft rituals, let's say in the evening. So I always try to, especially now, the weather's getting, you know, really nice. And I try to get some evening sun. So I like to get early morning sun. Like for me, sleep starts, you know, in the morning. Yeah, it does. It really does. Getting early morning light, you know, you were saying you have a thinking chair. I have like a little cup of espresso. I go outside. It doesn't matter. I mean, I live in Toronto. So we have like full on winter. It's cold. And then we have beautiful spring, beautiful summer.

So it doesn't matter what time of year. I always go outside. It's usually like if you're watching this on YouTube, it's like with a tank top like I'm wearing now. And if it's in the winter, I don't last too long. But in the summer, I'll stay out there, listen to the birds and all that. And so I'd like to get that low solar angle sun. Like I'm trying to get to the sun for a variety of reasons that we can certainly unpack. But of course, that revs up the, it stimulates, you know, you stimulate the retinal ganglionic cells and the eye,

which connect directly to the supra-chaismatic nucleus, which is sort of the center clock, master clock, if you will, of the body. And that sort of rev things up. It helps you sink your circadian rhythm, if you will,

to the sun. So I do that. I try in the evening to get sunset light as well. So I try to get that, and that low solar angle, like in the morning, you know,

we always hear about blue light is bad. And it's true. That's true. Blue light is bad, but it's bad in the evening. It's actually really important in the morning. Yeah. We need to have that green and blue and like really sort of powerful light in the morning.

And then in the evening, I try to get sunset light. So, you know, in Canada, sometimes that's at four. Oh, God. And, you know, like it gets dark. And you're asleep at six. Yeah, exactly. But, you know, now it's, you know, now it's light until, I don't know, six o'clock maybe. So I try to get that sunset light.

And then, again, for that reason, right? Now you're getting like the red light, the orange light, which is signaling to the body, you know, like their sunset, you know, we're trying to not inhibit the release of melatonin, which is what the blue light does, which you need in the morning. You don't want to be sleeping in the morning. Yep. So that's what, those are sort of like my hard rules, if you will, like getting sunlight at specific times of the day. And then I would say the other sort of hard rule that I have is like no devices of any kind. So typically I will shut off, you know, sometimes, I can't always do this. You know, there's, I have a deadline that I have to meet. I'm in front of my computer, but I definitely have glasses on, uh, in the evening. But I try to shut down all work by six or seven o'clock.

Impressive. Yeah. Uh, that's, and for me, I have, you know, I still have young kids. So they're home at that time. So it's important that I'm prioritizing family time with them. So maybe that's, you know, walking or we're playing. We're, um, my younger one is into puzzles right now. So like we'll puzzle a little bit.

Um, that kind of thing. So those are some of the rules that I sort of set around electronics. Like you said, no Instagram in the evening. I really try to, I find that the more I'm on Instagram, the more negative my mood is. That's interesting. I have found the longer I spend on it, the crappier my mood is. So I generally will try to go on, let's say in the morning, or I try to update my community in terms of what's happening in my world.

but I try to get on once and then leave it. I mean, there's sometimes where I find myself like I've opened my phone and I'm suddenly in Instagram. I don't know how that happened. Like it just automated. I found it and I'm in it. I'm like, what am I doing here?

That totally happens to me. Yeah. So I'm trying to be a bit more conscious around that. And then let's see, any other rituals. Like I try. Oh, the other big thing I do is I try to make the outside, my inside of my home look like the outside. Again, trying to like sink with the sun. So in the wintertime, yes, we have dinner by candlelight because at that point it's dark. And in the summer, you know, we're up later. We're having dinner a little bit later because it's later. It's, you know, the sun is, you know, higher in the sky for longer. So I try to, you know, no lights on when it's dark outside, you know, especially from up above. And I try to be in complete darkness in the bed as well, like so blackout blinds, that kind of thing. Wait, wait. I just, I don't want to let this comment go by. You have dinner in candlelight?

Yeah. So in the wintertime when it's like I was saying to you, it gets dark at like four or five. So for having dinner, like my family usually has dinner around five or five 30. It's completely dark outside by that point. At some like in the sort of dead of winter, if you will. So we don't turn the lights on. I try to keep all the lights off. And we have dinner by Kendall. And it's this beautiful kind of, you know, like a little romantic throwback, you know, kind of thing. So it's nice for the kids. And then we have and then the only thing I'll do. when it's dark is I'll have those little night lights that you can plug into the, you know, the floor, like into the plug in the floor. So again, the light is coming from below, not above. And then, you know, that's also just so that we don't fall down the stairs. But all the lights typically in the house are off other than, you know, like nightlights that will illuminate like the hallway, let's say, or the stairs. Oh my God, I'm going to do that. I love that.

I love that. So do you, then my guess based off of what you just said is you don't wake up in the middle of the night. Not really. Yeah. Not really. Yeah. And remind me how old you are? I am 44. Double fours. Yeah. Oh, double fours. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's let's chat when you're 54. All right. I'm still cycling pretty regularly, like no hot flashes, nothing. Yeah. You probably, you probably, because that's what I've noticed is that when I play with all the principles that I need to be in alignment with my perimenopause, menopause hormones. When I'm really spot on with my lifestyle, I sleep great. And if I fall off cue with any of it, then I'm waking up in the middle of night. So a couple of things I would say on this topic, I agree with

you about light. If I am waking up in the middle of night, actually the first thing I think to myself is, did I see the sunrise today? Did I see the sunset? Did I get out in the middle of the day? So I start with light first. And oftentimes, you know what's the hardest? Sometimes I'm not getting out in the middle of the day. And like, so now I've put into my routine at least a 20 minute walk at around noon if I can do it so that I'm out without sunglasses on getting that direct light. Just trying to get my circadian rhythm. So I like that.

I'm going to take that and use that. I don't do that. I mean, I work, I can look up and I'm like, oh, it's three. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I think where I was fooling myself is like right now, we live across from a beautiful Rose public Rose Garden.

And I'm looking outside. I'm seeing the light, but it's not really fully registering in my brain. So I have to get out and get into it. So light is the first thing. We've been also trying to turn lights off at night. We haven't gone into candlelight, but I love that idea. We are actually officially empty nesters for the first time. So we used to be eight o'clock dinner eaters because the kids would come home from sporting events.

And this is the only time that we could get all four of us to sit down together. Now we're eating earlier. We're turning the lights down. I have a whole ritual around sleep. I'm doing my infrared sauna after dinner to calm my nervous system down. I have a PMF mat that I go from there to the PMF mat. My husband knows like no stimulating conversations. Like we started debating politics and pandemic.

And I was like, no, no, no, we can't talk about this at night because for me, I'm really easily wound up. And I had, I interviewed Ben Lynch on my podcast and he ran a genetic profile on me. And he said, oh, you are quick to make dopamine. You just can't get rid of dopamine. And I was like, oh my God, that's me. So I've learned about four o'clock, wind Mindy down. And so that's why I have all those different rituals.

When I go to bed, again, I'm going to keep going after this because I've had to hack it through menopause. I have a chili pad. I don't know if you have ever used a chili pad. I have used it. Yeah. Do you like it? I did.

Yeah. I don't have it anymore. Yeah. But I do like, I did like it a lot. I think that, and for many women going through menopause, it's like this was the thing that saved them, right? Because it gets so hot and bothered overnight. Yeah. It actually, my thing on chili pad is it saved my marriage too, because I ended up sleeping in another room at when menopause was really bad. And it was like a refrigerator in the room. And my husband's like, I can't do this. This is way too cold. Once I got chili pad, we had our own temperatures. We could do our own things. It was really cool as far as that. I also have a weighted blanket. I love weighted. blankets. And if I do all those things on and then read something positive before I go to bed, I'm really pretty good. Now, if I wake up in the middle of night, I've done some things around

like Vegas nerve stimulation where you can, and this came from a book called accessing the vagus nerve, where I literally will like look up into the right for what I think is about a minute, as far to the upper right corner that you can see. And then you go up into the left for a minute. and you keep going back and forth, and it stimulates parasympathetic activity. I've done four, seven, eight breathing at two in the morning, where I, in through my nose for four minutes, hold for seven, out through my mouth for eight. So those are kind of the hacks. The thing I absolutely do not do when I wake up, but I try not to do is solve all my problems.

That doesn't work at two in the morning. And I have to go to think of something happy, do some breathing, access the vagus nerve. And if I do all of that, by the time I'm figuring that out, I'm back asleep. You said something really interesting around eye position that I just wanted to highlight. And I think that this is why maybe sometimes I notice when I'm on Instagram, let's say, that I feel like I'm just getting like agitated. When you're moving your eyes across the horizon, this is very parisipathetic. So you said up into the like, you know, so the far reaches that your superior oblique maybe can, you know, can afford. You know, you can feel your eyes sort of like stretching.

chain. So yes. Yeah. Yeah. And that that horizontal movement is, you know, it's like the pontine. I forget the, I forget the nucleus, but it's in the ponds. And it's sort of at the pontine medullary junction. And there's a nucleus that my mentor is going to probably send me an email about and like, how could you have forgotten this? But it's in the, it's in sort of the brainstem, let's say. And then moving your eyes this way, like left and right is actually part of, you know, EMDR therapy, right? When you're trying to follow the light left and right is very, very parasympathetic and allows you to calm down. And that's why the scrolling on Instagram, like if you notice, you're like always going up and down. That's very sympathetic, you know, that eye, you know, that eye movement up and down is very sympathetic in,

in its nature. And so well, well said. I hadn't even thought of that. I love that thought. Yeah. Yeah. And the other thing I wanted to just mention when that, you know, that question was like waking up in the middle of the night, can't get back to sleep. I think that there's so much sleep anxiety, you know, around like having to sleep perfectly. And like we were talking before we started about, you know, how my HRV is sort of, you know, kind of always in the, you know, in the tank a little bit. And I have theories on why that may be. But sometimes it's, you know, just taking the pressure off like, okay, I need to get back to sleep. Because even just that thought process is going to be stress inducing like, God, I'm not sleeping right. And on my HRV is going to be wrong. So I think,

you know, just lying down in bed, knowing the closing your eyes. and you know, you're not moving your body in and of itself is resting and recharging. And, you know, if there's one of the things that I usually do as I, as I'm falling asleep is I find that I'm like thinking about, you know, things that make me happy, you know, like I'm dreaming about, like whether it's desires that I have or it's a, you know, a great memory, like I'll sort of relive like a memory, you know, these sort of things can also just help put you in a state of receptivity for sleep as well. Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree. What are your thoughts on deep sleep versus REM sleep? Because the other thing that I've done when I wake up in the middle of the night is the

brain spins to, oh my God, I have a busy day tomorrow. I better get myself to sleep because I got to, I got to be on point tomorrow. And now what I've started to do is say, I just need at least an hour to two hours of deep sleep. I need at least 90 minutes of REM sleep. I know I can get that even if I only get five hours a total sleep. And if you're waking up mid, mid, like if you're waking up at two, you've probably already gotten most of the deep sleep that you're going to get for that, that night anyway, because that deep sleep typically happens in the first half of the cycle. And then the non-ram tends or the sort of light stages, if you will, tend to happen in the, in the latter half of the night as well. So I would agree with you there. Yeah. But that calms me

down a little bit. It makes me go, okay, you're going to be fine. You'll be fine. Yeah. But the mind for me at two in the morning spins. So I've had to. when I wake up, I'm like, ugh. And so I've learned all these hacks so that I don't do that. Yeah, I love that. And I think we're, I think we're all like that. You know, when you're, when you wake up in the middle of the night, your frontal lobe's not online. You know, it's not like the, it's not like, okay, this is not a reasonable line of thinking. You know, you're like, oh, God. And like, I'm up and now I have this and I have that. You know, so I do agree with you. But I think that there's a lot of sleep pressure, if you will, and sleep anxiety, you know, and that's, you know, from where,

and from, you know, books that have been like the sort of. And we want to say, yes, sleep is really, really important. It's the one thing you can't really bottle, right? Yes. So it is, it is really important. But if you're not getting it, let's say you're running, you know, you're going through menopause, let's say. And, you know, maybe you don't have the chili pad or maybe you don't have, you know, the hacks that you're, that you're doing that work for you. I think being gentle on yourself and being open to finding the solution is just going to reduce some of that pressure, you know, that anxiety. you, that sleep anxiety enough, that's going to allow you to sort of drift back off into sleep. Agreed. Yeah. Yeah, 100% agree. All right. So just with the menopausal, you know, women,

there's a question in here around the best supplements for menopausal women. Do you have thoughts on supplements? Let's start with a foundation of a great lifestyle, especially when it comes to menopause. And that's really what the menopause reset was about is giving women five things that she can do. to change in her lifestyle as she goes through menopause. So let's start there. Now, having said that, when it comes to some like go-tos that I think probably every menopausal woman needs, my absolute favorite is magnesium. I mean, a menopausal women should just be like bathing themselves in magnesium. And talk about not sleeping. If I don't have my magnesium, like my sleep is definitely off. So magnesium would be, up there as a number one for me.

And then you've got all your herbs. You've got your maca and all that, you know, chase tree and things like that. But I feel like if you dial in your lifestyle and you add in things that you may not be getting the reason I love magnesium is you can't get it in your food as well. And I, even if you're eating food from regenerative farms, I just feel like we're not getting it as much. but then you're going to have to supplement. So magnesium is one.

I would say zinc is another one for menopausal women, just to maximize hormone production. So I go to the minerals, but I'd really like to see her do great work with her diet and her stress and minimize toxins and minimize stress and see if supplements are needed then. 100% agree. I think the supplement as the name suggests should be supplementing all of the other things that you're doing. So I, when I was, when I was sort of thinking about this question, the number one thing that I put as well was magnesium. I think that, you know, it's better than diamonds. You don't need diamonds. You need magnesium morning and night. Like, I love to take magnesium a little bit in the morning.

And then I back load a lot of my magnesium in the evening. And that actually, you know, coming back to that sleep question, the other thing I do in the evening is I take some magnesium. Yeah. Yeah. Because I find that it really helps. There's, and then the, I think if there's, you know, when we think about being a minimalist around supplements, like magnesium would be there. If you are someone who's doing low carb or keto or you're just training hard, I think that an electrolyte supplement is really important. So I don't know if you use or know this company, but I really like element, LMNT.

Yeah. Absolutely love them because when you wake up in the morning, you're going to be a little dehydrated. I always take a little element in the morning. and then that also helps with, you know, just the body to hold on to water. Because if you're doing low carb, of course, you know that. And of course, if you don't, I'll just say this because there's always a comment when I talk about a supplement.

It's like, you don't need to take that. You can also just do salt in your water. Yes. But element is there's like sodium. I think there's potassium. I think there's some magnesium in there. And I'm forgetting the fourth. There's four that are in there.

Yeah. I think it's the three of the three of the biggies in there for sure. Yeah. Our community uses Element all the time because when you fast, if you're not putting minerals back in, you're really depleting yourself. So you know what I like Element because they have so many different flavors. So like literally before this interview, I decided, even though it's early in the morning, I was like, you know what? I had an early dinner. I'm going to break my fast early.

So I had a little piece of gluten-free sourdough bread. I put some almond butter on top of it. and then I sprinkled the chocolate salt element on top of that. That is genius. And a little bit of ghee. It was so good. Oh my gosh. You're giving me life right now.

I didn't even think to put it in my, like to drizzle it as a little thing on your food. I do it on, cut up apples and I'll put nut butter. I'll put some like goat's cheese and then I'll take some of the chocolate salts, the one I love. I love the chocolate too. Yeah.

And I love it. And I love the seasonal, the watermelon. Oh, my gosh. Oh, yeah. The watermelon. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then you know the mango chili one and all of those.

Those were meant to be mixers, Rob told me. Oh, no way. Yeah. So you put them in club soda and then you put like tequila or vodka in there and you mix it up so that you're now getting the electrolytes that are being pulled out from alcohol. And it adds taste to it. But he literally made those as mixers. Genius. I have any I've always just been drinking them in water and now I have like a new way to use them.

I use like one or two of those sticks a day. I love that. Yeah. There you go. All right. Let's go into some of the cycle, some of the cycling questions. Do I, okay, so there's a girl, a woman here. Do I still try to figure out my cycle after a hysterectomy?

I thought this was a really good question. Ooh. Oh, gosh. I have so many thoughts on. this. And here's what I will tell you. So the first is I think we can never lose sight, whether it's a hysterectomy or postmanipause, we can never lose sight of the fact that as women, we have been cycling from the moment our period started, we haven't been in this rhythmic hormonal groove. So just because we've removed, you know, I don't know if she had the,

her ovaries removed from a hysterectomy, but just because organs haven't been removed doesn't mean we're not still cycling. So the answer is, yes, you need to pay attention to your cycle. But how do you do that becomes the next question. And you can do that for me. I can tell you as I'm 52 and just when I think I'm going to go into menopause, all of a sudden my cycle gets regular again. And so I've learned to know when estrogen is low, when progesterone is low, when I might need more testosterone. I've clued. into my symptoms and then I can shift my lifestyle accordingly. The other, and I'm curious your opinion on this, the other thing we've talked about in

my community with a lot of postmenopausal women is the fact that we for our, many of us, naturally cycle with the moon. So full moon being ovulation. So like if you take like the way I teach fasting, if a woman who had a hysterectomy, one thing you could do is just enter, look at what I recommend for ovulation for fasting, time that with a full moon and then follow the cycle of the moon. Beautifully said, I would say the exact same thing. And that's actually part of the, you know, in the betty body, I talked about that.

So, you know, we talked a lot about like you're in your reproductive years. These are the each week that you need to eat this way, train this way, you know, etc. But if you're someone who is no longer in your reproductive years, meaning that you've moved into menopause, you still are a cycling being just by nature of being a woman. So I think that the moon or the lunar ebbs and flows are a beautiful way to still modulate the way that you are training and eating and your stress. And even like I notice, you know, I don't always pair up with the moon, you know, in terms of like ovulate is full moon and I bleed on the new moon.

Like I, you know, depending on the length of the month or whatever, sometimes. I'm a little off. But I think that it's a beautiful way to start noticing in how the moon affects your energy. Because I always have way more energy around the full moon. Like that's usually the time where I'm like, gosh, I'm like up and I'm cleaning and I have so much energy and I have, you know, and I'm rearranging the furniture. And that's usually the time. I'm like, oh, it's the full moon. That's why that's happening. Yeah. I actually think on that topic, we don't give nature enough credit for how it, how synergistic we are with it, whether it's the moon, whether it's, you know, just what cortisol levels change when we're out in nature, the microbiome.

So I love that. And as women, I think we intuitively know this, that we're connected to these cycles, but we're, we don't have enough discussions about them. And we don't, aren't taught that by our doctor. And we're definitely not taught that in our sex ed. course, you know, class at 14 years old. But if you start to tap into the nature's rhythms, you'll see how as a woman you are so intimately connected with nature's rhythms. Yeah, I love that. And to your point, if the woman still has her ovaries, we also want to just,

like, and she doesn't have the uterus, let's say. Of course, we know that the ovaries are the things that produce the hormones and the uterus is, you know, the thickening of the endometrial lining and then the eventual shedding of it. So if she still has her ovaries, ovaries, there's still going to be those hormones that are going to be produced, but there's going to be no endometrium, you know, no endometrial lining to shed. So we want to be, and I don't think that was clear in the question. I'm not sure if she still has her cervix either, but I would say that the lunar cycle would be the best way to sort of just anchor yourself. So looking at the different phases of the moon, anchoring yourself to that. But also, if you do still

have your ovaries know that you can still have some of those like PMS type of symptoms, you can still run estrogen dominant or androgen dominant, let's say, depending on the activity of the or the balance or lack thereof of the hormones coming from the ovaries. So I wanted to just make sure that we. Yeah, I think that's super important. We even have a case in our fasting group where a woman had both her ovaries and her uterus taken out. Her doctor said, you're going to be in full menopause within three months.

months. And a year later, she was still making hormones. And it went on for almost two to three years before she fully went into menopause. And he was shocked. But this got me thinking that when you pull an organ out, what we don't realize is you don't get all the tissue out. Like there can still be some of that tissue in there. And the outer part of the ovary, the fecal cells, those are making these hormones. So if you pull out the organ doesn't mean that the, there's not a little bit of production that can still happen, especially with a clean lifestyle. Beautiful. Beautifully said.

I have one. I have one. I want to make sure, wait, since we're on cycle. And I love this question. My daughter just started her cycle. What should be something I teach her that most people aren't? This was a good question. I'm glad that this was asked.

I think that when a young woman starts cycling, one of the things that I don't think is discussed enough is the variations that can happen in her cycle in the first call it, like let's say she's 12 or 13, let's say, in the first five years of her cycling. And I think that this is true for any skill, right? Like you start, you know, you start learning to ride a bike. You're not just going to be, you know, you're not just doing BMX tricks. Like you've got to learn, you got to learn how it goes, right? So I think that it's, especially, especially true for teenagers, that you can look a little bit, at times, a little PCOS-e. Like, you can sort of look a little bit androgen dominant. And that's really just your body, you know, just the normal developmental process. And the reason why I bring up that one specifically is that it's so often that, let's say, a girl starts menstruating, she's 13 or, you know, whatever it is, 12, 13, 14. And then a couple years later, she's like, oh, that's weird.

Like I have these an ovulatory cycles or I have these really heavy bleeding. And then she goes to her, we'll say, allopathic physician because you might not necessarily think, like, I'll go to my naturopath. You might go to, let's say, your medical doctor. And this is usually the time where she gets a prescription for the birth control pill. It's like, well, you're 17, 18. You're probably going to be sexually active, if not already. And you have this wonky period. So here's something that's just going to fix that.

And of course, we know that that's incorrect. It doesn't fix anything. There's just some aberrant, you know, modulate, like just some variations in her cycle that is equivalent with her age. So I just want a lot more moms to be aware of that because your daughter is going to come to you and say, I've had the, I haven't had my period. Let's say for a month, you know, you take the pregnancy test. It's negative. And then, you know, the next. next time she gets it, it's really weird, then it's erratic. And then they go to the doctor and it's

like, well, you should probably be on the pill. And that's not what's happening. It's just sort of a, I see this so much so much with my teenagers, like these teenage women where the mom's like, we didn't know. Like we went to the doctor and they gave us the pill. And, you know, they, and this kind of bridges on the topic of informed consent, but we don't actually talk about the risks around taking the birth control pill because there's never. any game plan to get her off of it. It's just always like, well, you're 18 now. You should be on the pill. And then we on the other side of that, then we'll have women who are in their, let's say, mid-30s that have been on the pill since they were 16 or 17. They want to have a baby now.

And then they don't have their period because they essentially haven't had it for decades. And they're like, no one told me. So that's something that I really feel very strongly about. I think that there needs to be a conversation around, A, informed consent. And if you're going to take the pill, like, you know, love you and like no matter what, right? Like, take the pill. That's what you feel is the right decision for you right now, but also be aware that there's risks. And then just have an understanding going into those years where you're 15, 16, 17, 18, where your period can be a little bit of a, you know, it can be a little bit erratic and that's just very normal. Yeah. So well said. And what I would add on to that is I look at,

it like when you're creating a walking along new grass, you know, you have to create a path where eventually you can see where you would go and walk every day on this piece of grass. It's the same thing when the hypothalamus pituitary and ovaries are first learning to communicate through this amazing chemical system. They don't quite have their rhythm down. And to your point, it can take five years for that rhythm to really happen. So if we come in with any form of birth control in that first five years, you're really disrupting and manipulating that natural cycle and the body may not know what it needs to do. And then on the backside, when you are trying to undo that, because you want to have a baby and you're 29 years old, that can be very

difficult. So I think birth control in those early years, it needs to be so well thought out. Now, the second thing I would say that this is a big, big mission of mine right now is I feel like we need to have conversations with women more about how, if you look at our hormones, we are meant to be a little emotionally wild, is what I'm going to say, that we aren't, our hormones, because they're coming and going, makes it so that our emotions are going to be coming and going. And all of us are going to experience emotions differently. But I feel like we aren't given the platform to be able to be like, I'm teary today or I'm irritable today. And instead we go, I'm PMSing and we kind of blame it on our hormones. But you know, you're teary because of those hormones.

Or in ovulation, when you've got tons of estrogen and you've got this surge of testosterone, you're a freaking rock star and you've got great mental clarity and drive and go ask for a raise, go handle that conflict during that time. So I have a 22 year old daughter. If I could go back and give her advice at 13 when she started her cycle, I would want her to understand these hormones as they are ebbing and flowing and how to work with them and when to nurture them. And you bring up a really good point around like shame and really accessible. And accepting our physiology. I think that when I was, when I was, you know, a new menstruator, we'll say, like, when I was new to the club, like, the worst thing that I could ever imagine

was like bleeding through, you know, my pad or, you know, having someone, like someone passing me a pad, someone seeing me, you know, take a pad, let's say, and going to the washroom. And I, I love what you're saying because there's at least in, I think it's changing now because of the work that you're doing, the work that I'm doing, there's many others that are trying to bring awareness to the natural state of a menstruator, like what she looks like and how this impacts her brain, how this impacts her body, how this impacts the way she thinks. And if we can really start removing some of the shame, and I love what you said around like asking for a razor on ovulation, like if you can start planning your month around your cycle, how much better would we be? Oh my gosh.

How much happier is like, I'm going to do a podcast reporting. Like I'm in, you know, I am in my pre-ovulatory week right now. Like I am happy to be chatting with you because I'm like, people, I love people, you know. And like next week, not so much. Like I'm going to be a bit more into me, you know. I love it. Right. I love it.

Because that's what happens. Like we become just a little bit more introverted. And, you know, that week before your period, you know, things are annoying you and things that, you know, you're agitated, you're teary as you were saying. And I think if we can just begin to. except that we're not men, you know, that we're not these like, you know, smaller archetypes of men with like pesky hormones, that we are women and we have a different cycle, a different hormonal composition and honor that those, you know, different constituent, like those different hormonal landscapes, I think we'll be so much happier. And that's what I want like all the teenagers, like all the moms with daughters who are listening to this to share this with their teen, like to listen to it with their teenagers. And then start having conversations. around expectations because I think that one of the best things you can do as a mom or even the dads that are listening, you know, if you have that relationship with your daughter, one of the best things that you can do for them is to kind of let them know what's around the

corner. Like expect this to happen because when it does happen, you don't misinterpret it. You don't misinterpret it as something's wrong with me. I'm teary. Something's wrong with me. I'm emotional. It's like if you as a mother or a caregiver can say, honey, this is what's going to happen, and around this pre-bleed, like the week before you get your period, you may feel like this. So that when the time comes that she's not misinterpreting her experience as something is wrong with her. So well said. Yeah, you just elevated my thoughts on that. And this is really, again, why conversations like this is so important.

And one of the ways I use it in my own life and through my menopause journey is I let the people around me know. like, hey, I'm, it's the week before, you know, I'm supposed to get my period. I'm very sensitive. I'm super teary. I don't want to go out. I know there's a great party to go to on Saturday night with all our favorite friends. I don't want to go. I want to sit on the couch and I want to eat carbs and I want to watch Netflix. And the more I've been able to explain that, they understand where I am a little bit better. And I think that's, it's all in the, in the linguistics of this and being able to communicate at a deeper level with each other. But we, but instead we're not given that. We push, I think that week before our cycle is such a misunderstood week and we, we villainize it,

we bitch about it, we don't take care of our health in it and we plow through it. But really, we need to be nurtured. We need to nurture ourselves and slow down. When I first, I don't know if you track your cycle on a Clue app. Yeah, I do. Clues the one I use, actually. Yeah. Okay. So the first time I started doing that at 43 years old, which cracked me up that that was when I first started doing it. I was like, oh my gosh, you know how it has a little cloudy thing it shows there and like where your moods are? I'm like, I need to share this with my office staff. I need to share it with my kids. I need to share it with my husband and be like, if you just want to know what's going on with me, just go ahead and go to my Clue app and you'll know where I'm emotionally at. Yeah. And that week, you know, I wrote about this in my book. I know you talk about this a lot as well. That week before you get your period, I think is a is a sacred week. Yes. Like we in like modern society is like, oh, she's on the reg or oh, she's PMSing or whatever derogatory, you know, sort of slang that there is to denote that. But this is usually, and we talked about this when I was on your show. This is usually when, you know, you're probably getting a little bit more irritated with your part. partner, maybe your friends, maybe jobs bothering you. But that is really a message from your body to say that there is misalignment here. You are more, you are exquisitely sensitive in this

week to be able to pick up the areas in your life where you're not aligned. And so I talk about sort of the week before your period and then into the bleed week. Like these two weeks are so important in terms of problem solving because that week before you get your period, like, okay, I can see what the problem is. It's my relationship with my husband. Like there's some tension. There's like unresolved residue that's still there from three months, the fight we had three months ago or whatever. Or I can see what the problem is. This job is sucking my soul dry, right? And then when we move into the bleed week, we're now we're shedding. We're getting literally shutting the end of matriolining. We're getting rid of. We're making space. This is where we can now

problem solve. And I think I might have said this on the Resetters podcast, you know, when when guys say like, okay, I'm going to have a think about it, you know, like, I'm going to think about it and I'll come up with a problem. We need to bleed on it. We need to bleed on the problem because as you bleed, you will, as you shed, you will be able to come to the decision that is best, that is most aligned with what it is that you should be doing. Oh my gosh. I love that. I'm going to noodle on that one all day. The other thing I would say that I learned about my own self when I started to really dive into the hormones that were coming and going is the power of testosterone and how we really get

it in big doses for about four to five days. And then it chills out. And I feel like if I had known that in my younger years, I think I could have had better conversations with my husband about like my libido and like, hey, hey, guess what? It's day nine and day 11. Yep, I'm going to be ready. And you're it.

And I'm chasing you. And you're it. Oh, my God. That's so good. That's so good. But instead, you know, I didn't realize that my libido may have ebbs and flows according to my hormones. Instead, it was like, if I compare it.

myself to my husband, men are getting testosterone every 15 minutes. They're kind of ready to go. And then I started to sort of feel like what's wrong with me. And then once I understood when it came in, I could definitely be like tag you're it. Yeah, tag you're. And one of the other thing that I think is important for women to also know about testosterone. I mean, we talk about, it's like famous for libido. And it's true, as you were saying, it's like, you know, I'm chasing my, my husband around the kitchen counter. Like I'm like, you're it. Like, and I'm, and I want it. Right. So there's that. And then, you know, in addition to that, you'll see like increased sensitivity of the clitoris. So you're going to, your orgasms are going to be more, um, powerful. But the other

thing that I think is important around testosterone is, and I had this conversation with, uh, Sarah Gottfried who I know, uh, you know well. And she said this really beautifully. And I'll, I'll try to paraphrase what she said. It was like, it was, it gives you a sense of your, it's, it's like a sense of your personality. You know, it gives you that, you know, you were saying before, like, ask for the raise, you know, like you, you take more risk, you know, you are much more forward. You're more open. And I think that one of the things that I think women lose or they, they realize that they've lost, maybe if they're not, you know, lifting weights or doing some of the things that can maintain testosterone levels is as we age, our, you know, our proclivity for taking risks,

our ability to be open begins to shrink. Like, we have testosterone. receptors in the brain. So I think it's really, really important to note that testosterone, yes, libido and sex drive and orgasms. And that's really important as well. But it also has a profound impact on our personality. And I think that, you know, things like lifting weights. And I know that there's some questions around fasting and lifting weights and stuff, which maybe we can jump to next. But I think that trying everything that you can to maintain muscle, let's say, as a proxy for maintaining healthy testosterone levels, not only will help your sex life, which is important,

but it's also going to help your brain and your personality and the way that you show up in the world. Yeah, yeah. And very good point. I have to say that in my late 40s, my first real understanding of testosterone was when I stopped craving working out. I was like, and I was a competitive tennis player in college.

Like I've been an athlete my whole life. And it was like, why do I not want to work out? Like I would crave working out my whole life except for now I'm 46, 47, I don't want to work out. That's when I realize, oh, it's because testosterone's low. So motivation and drive is also a biggie that I think we don't talk about enough with testosterone. Yeah. Speaking of which, there was, let me find this question. It was around muscle.

Here it is. How can I burn fat without losing muscle? Oh, okay, well, I'll give you my favorite fasting protocol around this. And then I'm curious to hear what you say. I think you've got to find a really good balance between autophagy and mTOR. And my favorite hack is to actually be in a state of autophagy when you go and work out. So, you know, typically fasting wise, that's about 17 hours, but everybody's a little different. You go. into your workout in a fasted state. You then go in and do like a strength training workout. And then after that, when you come home, you protein load and you break your fast with protein, specifically 30 grams of protein to hit that amino acid sensor. And I have found that that on the days that I'm lifting weights is what will lean me out, but allow me to maximize my muscle growth. The second thing I'll say is that, and I will tell you again, as I age, I'm starting to really

wrap my head around this more, is that protein, protein, protein. I think in the keto world, in the fasting world, we villainized protein a little bit because we're like, oh, it spikes your blood sugar, but it's really such an important macro. And if you're not getting enough protein, you're not as good at not only building muscle, but you're not going to burn fat as much. So we need to make sure that we're looking at your protein load. Yeah, I love everything you just said. I would agree with that wholeheartedly.

I think that, you know, I've had, I used to, and I've done this for decades, train first thing in the morning, right? Because it was just the only time that it fit. Like it was the only time that I could kind of get it in. And I've had a couple of schedule changes recently where now, like right now, I train five days a week. So I do two, and this was another question. So I'm answering this at the same time.

I do two lower and I do three upper. Just because I'm trying to, as women in general, we are weaker upper, like we're weaker in our upper body. And I remember this from practice. Like I remember, you know, we would do a test like an intake for a patient. And I would say, okay, we're going to test your leg strength. We do a wall sit. We do like balance per preception.

And then I would get them to do toes only push up. No knees, which is, you know, they would call it the women's push up, which is like, Oh, yeah. I get like a little like nervous tick when I hear that because I can't. It's like it's not a woman push up. It's just a pushup on your knees. You know, it's like it's not a woman's push up. I do pushups on my toes. So I would specifically say I want you to do a push up on your toes. And most women like I would say, I don't know, out of a hundred women that I would see like 95 of them could only do one. And then with that very poor form. So I have for decades trained. as you said. And then I would, I would do a protein and a carbohydrate bolus right after. So that would be like the 30 grams of protein as you were saying. We want to, we want to, and you and I would say that it's 30 grams of animal protein. Yes, yes. So like two like, and, you know, some, I would say, like two and a half, maybe two to two and a half grams of lucine you're going to get with like a 25 gram, let's say serving. So you're going to get about three grams of that with, with 30 grams. So you're, you're you're stimulating muscle protein synthesis, which is you've just broken down, like the gym is where you break down your muscle tissue. And then you want to build it up afterwards.

So it's going to go through its own reparative process, but you can amp that up by giving yourself protein right after. Yep. And carbohydrates. Your muscles are very receptive post training specifically, though, so lifting weight specifically to take up the protein and to take up the carbohydrates. because what carbohydrates do, you know, they're anabolic, but they don't, they don't create new muscle protein. What they do is they prevent muscle protein breakdown. And if your goal, if you

are a 40-year-old woman, 50-year-old woman, 60-year-old woman, 60, 70, 80-year-old woman, one of your primary goals around your health should be to preserve muscle tissue. And the way that you do that, and even grow it if you can, right? And the way that you do that, of course, is to have a net positive muscle protein synthesis. So you do that with the protein bolus, and I like to also add in the carbs, because that prevents the breakdown of muscle proteins. So that would be what I would say is what I most typically do.

Now, just I've had a couple of schedule changes where I can't work out in the morning twice a week now. So now those, and that today just happens to be one of those days. Like every Friday, I will work out around 4 o'clock. And so it's an upper body day. And what I've noticed is I also am getting really great strength gains from that as well. And it's, you know, my body temperature is a little warmer. I've had a couple of meals, you know, whatever it is.

So I think that you can absolutely gain muscle, you know, and lose fat, like doing a fasted workout, but you want to be strategic about pulsing the protein, as you were saying, as well as the carbs. And in, you know, we all, there's this talk in the keto community around, as you were saying, like villainizing protein, they also villainize carbs, you know, like carbs are all. Carbs are good. You want to talk about mTOR, like what stimulates mTOR more than protein is too much carbohydrates. Right. So, and that's kind of where that fear comes from. But when you are strategically pulsing protein and carbohydrate, I think you can really make some incredible changes to your body composition.

So you can reduce the fat. Like if you're working out in a fasted state, of course, you're going to be going through a process of gluconeogenesis, but primarily you're going to be pulling on the triglycerides as, you know, the fat stores as your source of energy. And then afterwards, in that, you know, 24 to 48 hour, you know, depending on hard you work, maybe at 72 hour of reparative process, you can be increasing your protein. And as a woman, as even, this is true for men, too, we become more anabolically resistant as we age. Yeah.

This is where I, I don't mean to throw shade at other researchers because I think that a lot of good work. You know, people are doing this from the best of intentions. But this is where I tend to disagree with Walter Longo and Dan Butner around this like protein restriction as a marker for longevity. because we actually need more protein as we age to overcome that anabolic resistance that naturally sets in. So when I was 25 and I had a 25 gram or 30 gram bolus of protein, I'm going to be much more receptive to that at 25 than I am at 45. So you also have to be mindful that you are over time, you were saying 30 grams of protein.

So maybe at 45, you need 30 grams of protein. You know, maybe at 55, you need 35 grams or 40 grams. grams of protein in order to have the same response physiologically as you had with the 25 grams when you were 25. Yeah. Yeah, I actually just dove into some research on that, that just like we get insulin resistant or we can get insulin resistant. We age, we can get amino acid resistant and those muscles.

So you need more as you get older. So and to your point, I just want to point out, I'm not anti-vegetarian, but I do believe that it's really hard to get a complete array of. amino acids if you're a pure vegetarian. And that's personally why I eat meat. I spent 10 years as a vegetarian. So I'm not, again, anti it. But as I've moved into my 50s, like meat and eggs and all different kinds of animal protein is my jam. It's my go-to. Yeah, you can get there with plant proteins. It's just, you know, we want to be also like, you can, you can get to that minimum requirement of that two and a half grams of leucine in

order to stimulate the muscle protein synthesis if you're vegetarian. But you do have to be mindful of the calories that you have to take in in order to get there, because plant proteins are typically a, we'll call it a less robust source of that full complement of amino acids. So you typically have to have more plant proteins like the rice or the soy or the, you know, pea protein or whatever it is. You typically have to have more than the 30 gram scoop. You typically have to have one or two scoops.

So you also want to take into consideration your caloric intake as well because now you're kind of sort of, you know, maybe doubling in some cases, tripling your calories in order to get there. So you can do it. You can get there with plants. You just need a lot more of them. And diversity. I just read a study showing that if you are going to try to get all these amino acids, you really need to open up like the diversity of the plant sources that you're getting it from.

So yeah, absolutely, 100% agree. What do you do for, what do you do for, I know I was telling them what I'm doing right now for training and stuff. What do you do for your exercise regime? Oh, my God. Yeah, right? At 52, it's been, it's been different. So the first thing I would say is in my 40s, where I, about mid 40s, I actually had to stop the extreme working out. And it was just too much cortisol for me. So I was running marathons and, you know, lifting weights. So I, about 45, I switched to more hiking, more walking. My competitive brain has to call it forward movement because when I say walking, I feel like I'm being lazy. So I'm like, no. I'm just forward moving today. It's going to be good. And then I started adding in a lot of yoga and using that more as my strength training,

doing like a vinyasa flow kind of estanga, again, a little more of an aggressive yoga. But I will tell you now at 52, I'm back in the gym. I'm back doing muscle work. So I would say there's a combination. I work out five to six days a week. and three of those days is muscle building. I love TRX. I love the resistance type training.

One day a week, I'll do a short hit workout where I'll throw in some burpees. I love burpees for some strange reason. I'll do more of like just a cardiovascular up and down. One day a week, I will do yoga. I don't do it three days right now. And then I try to sprinkle in my hikes and forward movement. in between all that. That's great.

Yeah, that's really balanced. And I think when you're thinking about, you know, the pillars of exercise and fitness, like certainly strength is one of them, right? And, you know, let's just be honest. Like when you're resistance train, like you look better, you know, like you're a little tighter. You build out your curves, all those good things. Like, you get the aesthetic stuff.

But the strength is there, which I think lends to confidence. And, you know, it just, it feels good to be able to not need someone to, let's say, lift something for you or pick something up. like you can do it yourself. But as you were saying, you know, the yoga, I think is important as well. Because one of the things that I don't think is talked about enough is as we age, you know, we have to be careful of like proprioception, like our balance. Balance and proprioception and mobility.

This is really, really important. That's not discussed enough. And, you know, we lose. It's like use it or lose it. Like your body really will get good at whatever you're doing consistently. So if you're not doing something consistently, it's also going to say, well, this isn't important. So I'm just going to, you know, kind of dial this back. And, you know, as we age, of course, there's this, we were talking about anabolic resistance. There's also, if you're not, you know, training, we also become concerned around osteopenic or like, you know, the brittle, you know, the bones becoming more brittle and more pockmarked and leading to eventually osteoporosis. And then, of course, joints degrading as well. So not getting that feedback to the brain about where your joints are in space. So I think that what you're talking about with the yoga is really, really important. And I'm right now where we're, I know you can't see it, but I'm standing on a

treadmill that, so I'm at my desk. So I get a lot of my, and I'm not walking right now because the audio, it would ruin the audio for the podcast. I'm like, I don't look like you're walking. But when we're not, when I'm not recording a podcast and I'm working at my desk, I'm, I'm walking. So that's how I get a lot of my sort of low level, you know, that forward movement, as you were saying, like I get my forward movement working at the desk most of the day. But I think that the, I would say that if I'm being totally honest, like my proprioceptive work needs a little. I got a vibe plate. I got all the thing.

I got all the rehab stuff. Yeah. But I got to prioritize that. That's one thing I would work to be improving over the next year for sure. Yeah. The other thing I would say is that, you know, 52, the way I approach workout is so different than 32. At 32, it was I need to work out to be able to keep my weight where I wanted it. Right.

At 52, I'm working out for functionality. I'm working out for mental health. So when you start to change and you flip the reason you're working out, just to your point, like the reason I've gone back into the gym to start to lift weights is because I could feel after like sitting for so long, my body sort of collapsing and I wanted more strength to be able to, you know, perform normal life. The reason I do yoga is because mentally I feel a lot better after it. the reason I go for a hike is the same thing. So it stopped becoming this weight loss tool and was more

a total mental health tool overall. I would say that that's a useful tool. Like if there's any practitioners that are listening to that, that's also a really good, like, you just dropped a lot of gold. I don't even think you realize how intelligent that was in terms of, you know, when we, when we're trying to help our female clients, sometimes we want to shift the focus from weight loss to performance, right? And because a lot, I mean, so many women will say, I need to lose weight, I need to lose this, I need to look a certain way. And that's all fine. We all want to, we want to honor them where they are. Like, I still want to look, I still want to look good, too. Like, I'm not taking that away from you. But when you, when you focus the, um, the goal on performance,

like, how strong can you get? How many, how many plates can you put on this barbell or how high can we get you on these kettle bells or dumbbells or whatever? I think that that also starts to gamify it. And, you know, for those of us that are competitive, you and me would be in this group. Then you're just, then you're like, give it to me. You know, then you're like, I will get to those. I'm going to finish that rack. I'm going to go through the up to the 25s. And then I want to go to the 30s and the 40s and the 70s and whatever.

Yeah. So. Well said. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why I started calling it forward movement because what I finally got to in my late 40s was, I just want to walk.

I don't want to go for a run. And my brain would be like, well, that's. lazy. And so then I started thinking, I'm like, but I'm still out in the sun. I'm moving forward. It's helping the anxious brain. Like, there's so much benefit just because I'm not doing it at the same degree that I did at 32 doesn't make me a failure. And that's, so I renamed it. I'm going for a forward movement experience. And here I go. I love that. That's so great. It may look like walking. It might look like sprinting. I might stop and talk to a neighbor. I have no idea, but I'm moving forward. I love that. And that's a good. And that's a lot.

a nice parable for life, right? We always want to feel like we're in forward momentum. We want to feel like we're moving forward. So I love that too. That's great. I love it. Where do you want to go next, Doc? Well, I'm going to actually probably have to cut us off because I, because speaking of working out, I've got to go grab in 15 minutes. I got to go meet with my trainer. But I love this. And you guys, let us know, because if you love it, I feel like you and I could do this all day long. man, I just had such a good time with you today. Like it's so fun. Yeah.

And it's so, it's always such a pleasure. You know, sometimes in private practice, I was really quite aware of this and even more so now where I'm more in the online space. It's, you're not,

you don't have the opportunity to see people as much as you might like. So for me, this has just been a joy. So if you, you know, on the resetter podcast, on the better podcast where we're airing these both, we're releasing these both on the same day.

If you loved this, then please let us know. There's actually, we didn't get to like half of the questions. Oh, I know. We got like, we have like 50 more questions. Yeah. So we can certainly do part two and three, really, if there's, if there's interest. So I hope you crush it on your workout. I hope you do. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, have a great time. And then we'll see you. Maybe we'll do this again. Yeah, I agree. Agreed. Thanks. I love this as well. So and you can turn your treadmill on now and enjoy some forward movement in your office. I love it. Love it. 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.