Live Like a Girl with Dr. Mindy Pelz - What Women Need to Know About Metabolic Flexibility with Cynthia Thurlow

Episode Date: January 1, 2024

This special New Year's Day rerelease episode is all about weight gain, the nuance of autophagy, and fasting as a tool to heal your body and brain with Cynthia Thurlow. Dr. Mindy and Cynthia cover how your habits can save your life, how metabolic flexibility is the key to more muscle and less fat, strength training for women: why you need to lift more weights, why you need to stop weighing yourself every single day, the reasons women are gaining weight around their abdomen, and how building a fasting lifestyle will change your mental health To view full show notes, more information on our guests, resources mentioned in the episode, discount codes, transcripts, and more, visit https://drmindypelz.com/ep216. Cynthia is a nurse practitioner, CEO, and founder of the Everyday Wellness Project, and international speaker, with over 10 million views for her second TEDx talk (Intermittent Fasting: Transformational Technique). With over 20 years of experience in health and wellness, Cynthia is a globally recognized expert in intermittent fasting and nutritional health and has been featured on ABC, FOX5, KTLA, CW, Medium, Entrepreneur, and The Megyn Kelly Show.  Check out our fasting membership at resetacademy.drmindypelz.com. Please note our medical disclaimer.

On this episode of the Resetter podcast, I bring you Cynthia Thurlow. This is a super fun interview because if you're not familiar with Cynthia Thurlow, she and I are what I call in the trenches with women, teaching women how to fast and how to use fasting as a tool to overcome the plethora of symptoms that show up from hormonal imbalances. And she and I've had many conversations over the years. And I brought her on the Resetter podcast several times. I've been on her podcast. So some of you are familiar with her teachings.

But what's really fascinating for both of us is that because we're interacting with so many women and teaching fasting to such to hundreds of thousands of women, we have some really unique perspectives that we geek out on on this episode. So I really wanted to talk to her about weight gain. Why does all of a sudden a woman go from having a body she loves to packing on extra weight specifically around the midsection? We talked about why does the body do that and can fasting help that? We talked about everything to do with the brain. How do we look at fasting as a tool to help mood disorders, mental clarity, to avoid Alzheimer's dementia. We geeked out on that. We then went into different layers. strength fast and do we need to worry about stimulating autophagy at certain times of the month? And at other times, do we need to avoid stimulating autophagy? So if you're not familiar with autophagy, you're going to learn about it in this episode. So we really got into the nuance of what it looks like for women to use fasting as a tool to transform a woman's health. And it was such a fun conversation. So if you are

a woman and or you are wanting to support a woman in your life and you want to use fasting as a tool to heal your body. This is the episode for you. So Cynthia Thurlow, really fun discussion, excited to share it with you all. Hey, Dr. Mindy here and welcome to season four of the Resetter podcast. Please know that this podcast is all about empowering you to believe in yourself again. 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. So this is what I think would be really enlightening for people to hear and start with is this idea that not enough people are talking about women and fasting and really like women and food, we're getting a little more.

people are starting to see, oh, women might need to eat a little differently. We're starting to see some conversations around women need to exercise differently. I even had a conversation yesterday with one of our favorite oil companies, and we're looking at how we can use essential oils to map that to a woman's menstrual cycle. Yeah. So I'm starting to see this like bubbling up of conversation of how did we get stuck in this one-size-fits-all with men on all these, lifestyle tools. So I'm going to just go deep here and say, why do you think it's taken this long for books like yours, for conversations like this, for women to wake up that we need to do our

lifestyle different? Well, I think it's a byproduct of the patriarchy. And I say that with great reverence and love, like I have an all-male household. I'm the only female. But I think a lot of it's a reflection of research being focused on men because they're less complicated. They don't have to focus in on where someone is in their menstrual cycle. It's another, it's another variable that they have to control for. And you can't control everything. And so I think it really stems from us as a society just wanting to make things easier. Like women just go with the flow because it makes things easier, literally. And so I think on a lot of levels that certainly our generation of women that have gone through this, you know, midlife transitional point, we're saying,

hey, like, shouldn't we make this easier for the women that are younger than us? Yes. Oh, amen. Yeah, our children and our daughters and our nieces and everyone else. Like, why not make this more transparent so they know what's coming? Yeah. I really feel like I stand, as I know you do as well, I stand on this platform saying, no one told me. No one told me what was going to happen. And so even as a health care provider, and that says something, like I've had actual training, clearly not enough. Right. And so I think as we begin this, journey, it really starts and begs the conversation to ensure that we are setting an example for future generations and saying, we deserve to have information. We deserve to have research done

on us. We need, we desperately need more education so that women have some sense of what's going to happen with their bodies. We do such a good job, I think, with preparing children and young adults for what's coming in terms of, you know, puberty and early adulthood and contraception and pregnancy and the postpartum period. But we don't do such a great job with middle age men and women and particularly women because we're a little more complicated and that's not a negative thing. Like I want us to embrace the unique needs of our physiology and not to feel like we have to apologize for it. Like I almost think back, I have, you know, I have several nieces. And so conversations start about when someone starts getting their menstrual cycle and when they don't. And I said,

but I'm so glad that now it's not just shrouded in silence and secrecy and, you know, let's put the tampons away because God forbid anyone knows we're having our period. Right. And now we're speaking more openly. Like I always talk about the fact that I was so ashamed of perimenopause and even more ashamed when I started talking about it. And then I realized there are so many other women that are suffering the same sense of shame. Yeah. But unless we change the narrative, we as women that have the ability to reach a large audience of people, then this just perpetuates.

And then this nonsense continues. And I think why would I believe both of us really stand on a power? We want to educate, inspire, and empower women to be the best lives. And the best way to do that is to share information, like share our stories, talk about the things that make us feel uncomfortable. like I had a business coach who used to say, when you feel uncomfortable, that's the time to share it. Like, I was like, great. Great. That's what I especially love is coming on social media and talking about things and

make it feel uncomfortable. But the point is that we as human beings need to connect. And this is such a beautiful way to be able to do that. Yeah. I have so many thoughts on what you just said and resonate with it so deeply because I'll tell you, and we talked about this when I came on your podcast, that when I finally, finally like started to understand my hormones at 43 years old, which was that alone was criminal that I took me to 43 to understand my hormones. But I had that same sort of sense of, oh, my God, what do we, we need to go teach the 13 year olds. Why, why didn't anybody teach me that there's a lifestyle? I need to map my menstrual cycle. And I, all I want to do is reach down and start

to educate the younger generation. And, and it will be interesting. to see if what you and I are talking about starts to trickle down to them because I feel like it really is the 35 to 50 year old woman who's going through perimenopause that starts to realize, oh my God, my lifestyle determines my moods, my how much I hold on to weight, how my brain functions. Like all of a sudden that lifestyle you had at 25 doesn't work at 35 and it definitely doesn't work at 45. Is that what you see for women? And what do you have thoughts on helping women change their pattern of how they approach food

and fasting and everything? Well, I can echo almost everything you said because it wasn't until I hit perimenopause. And I didn't even know it existed. Like, let's be clear, I'm a traditional Western medicine trained nurse practitioner. And no one taught me about what was going to happen, not my mom, not my GYN, not my training. Yeah. And so it really speaks the fact that if we didn't know, then most other women don't know as well. And my hope and my intent is that as we have these conversations and as we share information, valuable information, that we can not only inspire women to take better care of themselves, because let's be honest, most of us think about ourselves last, but also kind of start talking about lifestyle medicine, really not being like such a unusual process. Like really, that should be mainstream. Like everyone should have the ability to talk to their patients in a non-urgent, emergent environment about lifestyle medicine. And that encompasses all these things.

Like, I don't want women at 25, like at 25, I was probably arrogant, probably thought I'm never going to deal with these problems. And at 35, I was definitely more aware because by then I was a parent. But I think it's important for women to consider these things and conversations to be had starting at young adulthood so that women have a sense of what's coming because think about all the stress we would save women. Right. If we fed to them, hey, you know, if your sleep goes south and your periods start getting really heavy in your late 30s, early 40s, there's a reason for it. And it's not just this reflexive kick-all.

Like we have to suddenly lean and veer towards putting everyone on synthetic hormones and doing surgical procedures. And we say, hey, we could actually change a lot of this by encouraging better lifestyle habits. And I think the one thing that I guess I get most concerned about as a clinician and as a parent is that, you know, as the country starts to kind of, in a lot of Westernized countries, start to kind of veer off in this like metabolic and flexibility space. I'm just like, we got to all be working together. It's not just, you know, our voices, all of us need to be working together so that we can encourage men and women to take better care of themselves.

But I agree with you. If we start early, think about it. start in college. Like even if there's like a, you know, an elective that kids, kids, younger people, younger people have to. Kids these days. I know kids. I was like, I actually just said that younger people are required to take just to make them aware, not something that's aligned with the USDA's food guide pyramid or my plate, but actual evidence-based research-backed methodologies and strategies that are going to save people a lot of medical expenses, you know, save them a lot of lifestyle choices that they have to mitigate. It's a whole lot easier at 20 or 25 to make those changes. 50, 55, 60, a whole lot harder. I just had a call this morning with an absolutely

lovely woman who at 64, like 10 years ago, started making those changes. And she talks about, gosh, if I had only known. I hear that so much. Yeah. And so I always say, let's not look backwards. Let's look forwards. But, you know, let's be the light and the time of of what I consider to be darkness as it pertains to the health and wellness industry, sustainable long-term, long-term ways of living that embrace our physiology and don't allow us to kind of be in this, like I call it like a void. Like I feel like a lot of women north of 35 feel like they're out in the wilderness. Like they can't figure out where they need to go. There's always the bright, shiny objects. Like people are like, oh, I'll get you to lose that 15

pounds. And then, oh, by the way, you're going to gain it back all in two days. But really providing the education so that women can make, continue making better choices for themselves. And, you know, not have to look at, you know, unfortunately there's this mindset of methodology. And this is something that I'm starting to kind of speak more about, that the wisdom of womanhood, that in other cultures, older women and the elders in general are really respected for their wisdom instead of looking at like, oh, my God, now I have to think about like, what do I look like in the mirror? and what do I look like in a bathing suit? And, oh, I don't want to have to put such and such on because I feel uncomfortable.

And it's like we're focusing in on the wrong things. We're missing so many opportunities to really connect with women in a really powerful way. So that's my hope. Yeah, start earlier. I think that's a great first step. It's like let's start having these conversations way before you go through perimenopause and menopause, like this is what's going to happen to your body. And these are the things you can do nutritionally, exercise-wise, sleep-wise,

lifestyle medicine-wise that are going to ensure you live a great life, not just before parent menopause or before menopause. Like it's not like you drop off a cliff, which is what I think a lot of the kids think that they drop off a cliff when they turn 50. And my kids told me that the other day. My teenage, like, oh, I'm going to have to go back and I have a 22-year-old and a 19-year-old. I got to go back and ask them that. Yeah, you're like, don't you drop off a cliff and just get old?

Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. So why do you think? I think this is a question to really think about and how to answer for women. What happens as we move into our 30s metabolically that makes us put on weight, makes our brain not function well? I say it's really over 40, but we're really starting to see it now into the 30s and even into the 20s.

And what I love about some of the things you're doing on social media, your new book coming out is you're really tying hormones to weight gain. and a lot of dysfunction that women are having. So I think the most, or health dysfunction, I should say, what happens to us as we age that makes us so metabolically different than our younger versions of ourselves? Well, I think, you know, I always kind of start from the physiology piece

because that's where my brain naturally goes. I think one of the most destructive or important changes it starts to happen. You know, we have peak bone and muscle mass in our 20s and probably peak by the time we're 30. And so as we lose muscle mass, we lose the opportunity to be more metabolically flexible. And so I think about the fact that the more muscle mass we have,

the more insulin sensitive we are. And as we start replacing fat with muscle, so as you're going closer to 40, 40 is when it really starts to accelerate. And it's not a question of if but when, really have to work diligently. We've conditioned women to believe that they need to do chronic cardio, that that somehow is going to keep them spelt.

And what we should be saying to them is you need to continue to maintain and build muscle mass so that you are more insulin sensitive. You know, at Gabrielle Lino says, you know, muscle is the organ of longevity. And so when I heard that for the first time, it completely lit my mind around. I was like, wait a minute. I don't, I've never thought about muscle like that. And yet it makes so much sense. So really making sure young women understand that, you know, that have maintained that muscle mass.

It's not just for the fit pros. I think there's this misconception that they don't want to have a lot of muscles. Physiologically, unless we're taking exogenous testosterone or growth hormone or steroids, we're not going to get as big as men. Like, we are not designed to be that big. So that's one misnomer. But I think muscle being the organ of longevity, understanding that as we lose muscle mass, it slows down our metabolism, unfortunately.

And you really want to think of your muscles as a glucose reservoir. You want to think about the more muscle mass you have. Every time you're lifting, this is what I do. I am helping to maintain insulin sensitivity in the body. So if most people are not exercising properly and they're just doing chronic cardio, and we see them. You see them in the gym or the same person who runs 10 miles every day. God bless them.

I've never enjoyed running, even though I ran in high school. I just remind them like, it's okay to do cardio. But really the focus should be on strength training so that you maintain those muscles. So we lose muscle mass as we get older. Wait, what, let me say one thing on that. So because I think this is such an important point. So if I am going to set out on a weight loss journey, one strategy to help lose weight is to build muscle. Absolutely.

Okay. And then what do I do if I look at the scale and I'm trying to lose weight and I'm doing that by building muscle, the scale is going in the wrong direction. My clothes are fitting a little tighter. And how do I overcome that? Because that's a challenge I hear women say. It's like, oh, now my booty is a little bigger. And I put my skinny jeans on and they don't feel as good.

And the scale's gone in the opposite direction. And now what do I do? The scale is a liner. That's what I tell you all the time. The scale is a liar because, yes, muscle mass weighs more than fat. That is correct. but over time it'll take up less space. So you want to think about it, you're officially utilizing the space in which you had for muscle.

And you may see a transient change in your weight. But I want you to focus in on the benefits you're doing for your body and stay the course. You know, we're unfortunately a very, we're a society that's very fixated on the number and not on metabolic health. And I think we have to kind of reframe those thoughts to understand that, yes, maybe my weight is up a little higher than I wanted to be. It could be so many things that impact your weight gain from day to day. First of all, stop weighing yourself every day. I think that's like the best. You know, go by the way your clothes fit or set aside a week, one day out of the week or one or two days out of a month when you weigh yourself. The rest time, put the scale away. The scale is a liar. And I think it creates more psychological stress. And, you know, I just, I think we, we focus on the wrong things. I have to stop you there too, because I'm thinking about the last time you and I talked and you said, you're a grown-ass woman and stop snacking. And, you know, we put that with the Resetter podcast has a YouTube channel.

We put that little clip. People loved it. So now I know you were like, what did I say? But I have to say, I'm going to say it now. You're a grown-ass woman. and put the flipping scale away. It is not teaching you what you need to know about your metabolic health. And it's not reinforcing good habits.

And I know everyone thinks I'm really nice and I am very nice. There's a lot of snark deep down and that's where that must have come from. I must have been feeling a little bit feisty that day. No, it's awesome. I love it. That's why I want to highlight it is it's just, you know, it was a great conversation and you were like really passionate and the statement was great. Yeah.

No, I think there are far too many women. that fixate on that number on the scale and they lose out on their life. It's like toss the scale. Like, let that, like you just need to let that die. Let the scale die and the scale is a liar. And if you start to understand that that comes from a place of love, I literally don't weigh myself. I mean, I can't know. I have to because I go to a doctor's office and I'm required to step on their scale. But it's just, it's not healthy. It's not even healthy for me to do it all the time. I have a couple of friends who weigh themselves every day and their whole day is mitigated on whether they're up or down. It's a control issue, though.

I have to say as somebody who spent 20 years of my life hopping on the scale every morning, it's it. I had to really let go of that like, okay, my weight is okay today. I'm okay today. Or, oh, it's, I'm not okay today. I better change my lifestyle. So if we don't have that as a measurement, what do you think is a good measurement of metabolic health? Well, I mean, if we're just saying within the confines of your home, I think that we all have that pair of pants or that pair of genes that lets us know that we're either like headed in the right direction or we're not headed in the right direction.

You know, when it comes to markers of metabolic health, I mean, I could talk about those labs till the cows come home because I think there are so many options now for women. but I think having a continuous glucose monitor and being really honest with yourself or if that's not within your budget, having a glucometer. In fact, more often, I would say 99.9% of the time when I work with women, that's one of the first things I recommend because I'm like, I don't know what's going on with your blood sugar and I need to know. I want to know what's gone at nighttime. I want to know what's going on in the daytime. And this doesn't just apply to middle-aged women. This is everyone. We are in a public health crisis threat in terms of metabolic flexibility. and it's time for us to step up an adult.

And part of adulting is getting curious about what's going on with your blood sugar because most of us are unseemingly, we're unaware that we're insulin resistant. And if we're insulin resistant, guess what isn't going to change? Yeah. You know, it won't change. And so I think part of full on adulting, if you will, is being aware of what your blood sugar is doing and the response to stress, sleep, nutrition, exercise, you know, the irony Mindy is in the,

midst of like all this book, Bruehaha, all the podcasting and media stuff I've been doing, I trend my blood sugar. And I think it's out of excitement. It goes up. You know, there's a little bit of cortisol goes up. My insulin and blood sugar grew up. But it's really fascinating to watch. Like, I don't normally have as many blips on my, my CGM. But now I do because I'm like, oh, I can see why that happens. But the point is, the more you know, the better choices you can make. And I think for a lot of women, they assume, irrespective of their age, they can eat whatever they want. Well, those days are gone, ladies. And just eat whatever you want.

You have to be conscientious. And it's not to suggest that Mindy and I don't eat fun foods. I just don't eat them very often. And my kind of catchphrase lately has been, if you can't moderate, you eliminate. And I think that really rings true for a lot of people are like, oh, I don't keep gluten-free cake, cookies. I don't keep any of that stuff in my house. You know why? Because I can't moderate.

So I just eliminate. It makes it much easier, much easier. It's a great. It's a great. to, as somebody who has an all-in personality, I should probably use that as my own mantra. So, so here's what I hear is we need to build muscle and we need to know our blood sugar. And then the next question on the blood sugar would be, and I've worn on and off those monitors as well, what, do you see trends in yourself? Do you see trends in your community with the menstrual cycle?

Does glucose go up the week before our periods? Does it go down once our period starts? Like, what's the trend you're seeing? Most of the trends that I'm seeing is we know that in the ludial phase when progesterone is predominating and, again, an oversimplification, we know that we become more increasingly insulin resistant. So you are going to see higher blood sugar values. You may even see higher blood sugar values at nighttime as well.

Freaks everyone out there like, what am I doing wrong? Yes. What am I doing wrong? I don't understand. I had this huge spike and I was like, it's our physiology. And then typically within the first, second or third day when the menstrual cycle starts, when you start bleeding, and estrogen is starting to kind of rise. We're starting to see an improvement in that. But to recognize that, you know, CGM data can be hugely impactful, but know that if you have the ability to plan your presentation, your trip, anything that's stressful, do it in the beginning part of your menstrual cycle. If you know you have a fitness competition, you're going to do CrossFit or whatever it is that you're doing, doing the beginning part of your menstrual cycle because your physiology actually works with you, not against you. And so backtracking a little bit, like when estrogen predominates, we're more insulin sensitive.

We can push the envelope with our exercise. You know, we don't have to maybe be as super conscientious as we are about sleep. I'm not suggesting sleep isn't important, just saying, you know, you may get by with six and a half or seven hours as opposed to eight or nine. but then understanding and kind of leaning into the second half of the menstrual cycle, understanding that you're going to see variations in your blood sugar. You're going to see variations in your response to food. You're going to see variations in your response to sleep. And just to acknowledge and say, okay, this is why you and I both talk about doing like yoga

and walking and Tai Chi second half the menstrual cycle and not like cross-bitt and super hard conditioning classes. It also means, you know, this is why we get conscientious about our nutrition, the entire month, but acknowledging that your body might need a little bit more carbohydrate. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but there's a lot of hormonal fluctuation going on behind the scenes. And this might be the time to have, if you're a middle-aged woman, maybe you're having a third or half a cup of some sweet potato or root vegetables. Maybe if you're a younger female, you have more flexibility, you're more insulin sensitive, even based on where you are

in your cycle. And so doing some experimentation, like I encourage everyone to experiment. Like we don't do this enough when we talk to our patients. We aren't saying like, experiment. They want us to give them the order like, this is what you do. Oh, yeah. How you do it. And we have to kind of break that conditioning because it can be harmful. I think genuinely, because people stop trusting intuition. They stop trusting what their body's trying to tell them. And I think that's so important so that women understand, if we took 10 women at the same age and put them all together and they're all the same part of their mental cycle, they all might eat a little bit different. Maybe one person needs a little bit more carbs. Maybe someone else needs a little more sleep. Maybe someone else needs a little more

sleep. Maybe someone else needs a little more physical activity. I mean, one of the things that I love about just walking, which is not super sexy, what helps with insulin sensitivity? Walk. I mean, it requires no equipment other than maybe wearing shoes, depending on where you live. Super, super important. So I do see those trends. And certainly for women that are menopause, that get to lux because then they're like, well, everything looks a little bit the same all month long. I was like, that's one of the benefits. Yes, yes. One of the benefits. Yeah. You know, I think that when And that's such a huge point for women to understand. And I think this is actually why they haven't done a lot of women only studies, because we need to personalize our food. Everything has to be personalized,

but not just for our sex, for us individually. So it's really, I really resonate with what you're saying because we get this a lot in our community, which is just give me the one size fits all approach for a woman. I'm like, no, no, no, there's no one size fits all for a woman. Here are the guidelines, which is what, you know, I think books like yours are going to do so well. Here are the guidelines. And now you have to go one more step and customize it to you. Would that, is that how you feel?

Would that be like an accurate statement? Yeah, and you did such a beautiful job. I think the word bio-individuality, which makes my husband cringe every time he hears it. But I just say, we are unique. Our physiology is unique. to each individual. Our DNA is unique. And so I think it's important to encourage women to say, here are some strategies, try them out, see how you feel. Like I said, it's this conditioning that we've encourage people that the one size fits all works. It doesn't. And that's why writing a book is so

complicated. Yeah. You acknowledge, I'm always like, but, but, I mean, all the time, I feel like I'm constantly saying, well, try this out and see how you do. I mean, I'm sure for you, you've got programs that are running right now. Same thing with me. And you know, as I'm watching women kind of get their way through being, you know, newbies with intermittent fasting, and I can kind of predict some of the things that will come up at certain stages. But even then, there's always, they're always outliers. There's always people that maybe something's more effortless for them, something's harder for someone else. I think that we really need to lean into the possibility that what may work right now may not work a year from now or

might not work six months from now. And so I think it's important and validating for people to know that we constantly have to shift gears. And I'll give you an example. Through all of my travel, I picked up a couple of parasites. Oh, fun. Yeah. So I got treated for that and accepted that. And then, you know, there was this Candida thing that I'm on now, which I was shocked by it. Another fun one. Exactly. And so yesterday, I'm not exaggerating. Yeah, I'm literally like, I had my lunch and then I was going to teach a group at one o'clock. And all of a sudden, my skin just felt funny. I'm like, what is going on? I had head to toe hives. And so I had to get on this call.

Yeah, head to toe hives, no breathing problems. And the whole, all the women on this call were like, are you okay? And I'm like, I look like a lobster. I feel okay. Right. But here's a great example. I'm a clinician. I'm being treated for something.

I understand everything behind the scenes. And so it drove me down a rabbit hole to find out two weeks into a candida protocol. Is this common? You know, what is this representative? Is it a histamine response to something I ate? I mean, there's all these things. So the point of why I'm sharing this is really just to say that at this point in time, I've never had a hive in my life.

And so I'm like, okay, let's roll with it. Let's try to figure out, like, what could contribute to that? Was it something I ate? Is it the products that I'm taking for the candida? Who knows? Is it because the atmospheric pressures up today here in the part of the country I live in? I have no idea. But I'm now going to kind of experiment to see what could possibly have contributed to that.

So instead of just saying, oh, this medication I'm on or supplement I'm on must be the problem, what I hear you saying is you're curious and asking yourself questions, which I think that is the message for women is that as you learn to time your food and your fast and your exercise to your cycle or your lack of it, then when a symptom shows up, I really believe that we are taught to villainize symptoms. But if your body had a language that it could speak to you, it would speak to you in these symptoms. And it's telling you something. So what I hear is be curious about it. Go digging for it. But it's much easier, don't you think, Cynthia, to just go into a doctor's office and be like, here are my problems. Dump it on the doctor's lap.

Have the doctor give you a fancy name for your problems and then give you one pill and you're out the door. And all you got to do is take that pill. Yeah. Do you think that works anymore? And do we really need to help women look at our at ourselves as needing a more thorough approach to health than one pill, one solution, one problem, one pill. Obviously, you know my answer. I just want I'm, I think it's so important. Well, I think it's always in the context. Like if we're talking about urgent or emergent medicine, totally different. But for chronic and prevent chronic disease. management and prevention, we have to take ownership. We as patients so that we go in there, our own best advocate. Like, instead of just giving me, telling me my blood sugar is high or my thyroid's underactive, it's like, okay, well, where did that stem from? Like, where did that come from? So that curiosity that I hope, and for some people, they really don't want to know. They want to

come in and they want to take their pill. And that's as much as they want to think about it. They're not ready for that message. Or the people that are ready to do the work, ready for the message. it really keeps going back to the same thing that we're kind of alluding to the lifestyle piece. How does your lifestyle contribute to the symptoms you're experiencing or the disorders you're being treated for? And so I recognize that my parasite came from my international travel. I accept that. However, I think it's really important when women are dealing with whether it's really heavy

menstrual cycles or lots of cramps or cycles that are kind of a come and go. They're really evasive or it's weight gain. or fatigue that we acknowledge that our lifestyles play a role in these symptoms. It's not a blame game at all. I mean, at all. I've been there, but I always look at it like, why now? Like, why is it showing up now? And understanding the hormonal fluctuations that go on behind the scene and how our brains are so attuned to the environments that we're living in that we don't, maybe we don't think we're particularly stressed, but our brain does. And how does that look? Like, how does that show up?

And so I think it really begs the conversation to really reflect on why and how these things come about. And I think most people genuinely want to understand. It's not that they want to go to their doctor's office or their health care provider's office. They get a pill and then they go home and they're like, okay, well, now what do I do? Yeah. Because I don't think, I don't think what's the root cause of what's going on is really being addressed. We're just giving it a Band-Aid. And that's, unfortunately, that's the way the traditional kind of allopathic mind.

model is. I mean, that's certainly what I trained in. It wasn't until, you know, years later when I had a child with like threatening food allergies that I started to look at things a little differently. But I think each one of us want to be curious about our own bodies and we want to understand more. Like I can tell you, in fact, I was laughing right before we got on our call. There were a couple of nurse practitioner friends who were younger than me who are like, what's this progesterone thing I need to be worrying about? Why all of a sudden I'm like, well, you're- Love on her. Love on her. She's the best horse. mode. Exactly. And so I'm laughing because I'm like, well, as you're losing progester, maybe

providing more of it will give your body a little bit of a buffer. You know, they're like, but I'm confused. I don't know when to take it. Why do I have to take it? Why is it important? And I'm like, there's, there's nothing wrong with taking progester. And if that's what, that's what you need to do for your body. But if it's going to help your periods, you know, not be so heavy, the crime scene periods or going to help your sleep, I mean, there's no shame in that. You know, that's the one thing that I think, unfortunately, sometimes I think we can also send the message that, you know, we shouldn't be taking any supplement or if hormone, if you have a thyroid issue and that's what's right for you, that's great. There's no judgment. But I think it's also

coming from the perspective of acknowledging that sometimes you do need a little more support than just from the lifestyle piece. You may get to a point. I mean, I certainly have an underactive thyroid. And I wish I didn't have Hashimoto's and it's in remission, but still, it's just, one of those things I picked up along the way in perimenopause, but it's okay. I'm accepting of this. So I want to be clear that if you do have to take medication, that's okay. Or if you do need to take a supplement, that is okay. So let's dive into some symptoms that I hear women complain a lot about of all ages. And what are some of the lifestyle solutions? Because the thing I feel like about lifestyle medicine is everybody can do it. You know, when we start,

to branch into medications and supplementations, now you're branching into, can you afford it? Do you have the medical insurance that will cover it? And I feel like that's the beginning of the complication for women. Whereas if we can say, you know, if a woman says, hey, I was 30 and I had a six, you know, a six-pack ab, which would be really unusual for a woman in general. I want to say six-pack ads, four-pack, maybe six-pack is very unusual for a woman. But hats off if you had one. Then all of a sudden at 35, you've got what I call the wine bar that emerges and you get a little more belly fat. What is the lifestyle solution for that? Well, I kind of start from a place of practicality. And I love that you mention,

let's not start with supplements and medications because that's the traditional allopathic mindset. So the lifestyle piece has to be the foundational piece. When a woman is telling me that her body fat is up, Because if you go from having a six-pack to not, I think about inflammatory food consumption. So gluten grains, dairy, alcohol is a good one. Process sugar, soy. I think about the lack of muscle mass in the body. I think about what's your stress management like. And it goes without saying, we know we've got 40 times more cortisol receptors in our abdomen

than we have elsewhere in our body. So what do you think happens when we get stressed out? We get a stress belly. And so that's a cortisol belly, depending on who you hear, from. I also think about like sleep quality. And I know I talk about sleep all the time. I do too. It's important. But I totally nerd out and trying to biohack the heck out of my sleep. I work at or a ring proudly because I can track all my data. And I'm a nerd like that. So I'll admit that. But I think about the fact that a lot of women think that they'll sleep when they're dead or,

you know, they put their kids to bed and then they want to work until, you know, they want to catch them on email or laundry or whatever. And my mother taught me something. that has always resonated, sleep when baby sleeps or sleep when, you know, your kids are asleep. Now I have teenagers and that's that's completely thrown out the window. But the point of what I'm sharing is all these pieces can contribute to weight loss resistance. And so being really, you know, being really conscientious about figuring out like, why did you suddenly start gaining fat? It's like those are the directions I generally go. And I often find it's as simple as you're eating too frequently. You know, do you eat three meals a day in snacks and then have a couple

glasses of wine after dinner. And so maybe you're going seven hours a day without eating. I mean, that's like unbelievable. But it can be something as simple as that. That can have a huge net impact. And I think that's why a lot of people have initial such great success of fasting because they're just eating too darn frequently. Yeah. Yeah. And what do you think about the idea that when you are fasting, what you're doing is you're allowing your body to repair and heal? I think of fasting a lot, like sleeping when this is why I agree with you like we have to like protect sleep and I with the sleeping thing I have to tell you that the other night I got like laughing at myself I literally have like 12 things I do before I sleep and it's like it's like get put the blue blockers on get my chili

pad going get the temperature of the room right where's the weighted blanket like let me take my melatonin's up I'm like the other night I was like girl you were over the top with your sleep regime, but it works. And that's important. It's super important. So I think with fasting, here's my question to you is when you look at somebody who randomly gains weight and then you see all the things that need to happen to help her lose that weight, which is a beautiful list you just gave, I think fasting is the fastest path to

accomplish everything you just said. And when we look at the research study, some of the classic research out of like cell metabolism, that basically the way I read it is you're metabolically immune from a poor diet. If you just compress your poor diet in a, you know, eight hour eating window, you can give your body that extra time it needs to repair and recover from the damage of that diet. I'm not saying we need to all go out and eat. a bad diet. But do you feel like intermittent fasting is literally the fastest path to unwind and all the damages you just spoke of? I do with the exception of somebody who's not sleeping. So if you're not sleeping, don't add it in fasting. Like get the sleep dialed in first. And I feel like

there's a lot more women that don't prioritize sleep, that that becomes a larger issue for them than people that are not having issues with sleep. With that being said, I absolutely positive. I think when we reduce meal frequency, that that has huge benefits. I mean, almost instantaneously. In fact, I'm sure this happens for you as well. Like someone watches a video or is in one of your programs and they reach out and they're like, oh my God. I mean, within a week.

Yeah. Unrise bloated. Yeah. Easy. Yeah. And so. Some days I read my comments and the stories and I'm like, it still blows my mind. Like, it's this free tool that transforms your health.

like I have never seen. And it's a beautiful thing because I think on so many levels, like we're helping build awareness to the unique needs of like women's physiology. And it's a conversation that needs to be had because, you know, we can't apply those principles to men and women the same way. It's not to suggest it's not effective in both genders. It obviously is. But I think it's also very reassuring for women to know like, oh, okay, there's some

unique needs here that I need to kind of lead. And I always say lean into your physiology. Don't feel like you have to explain it, apologize for it. I mean, I always felt like in my 20s, I don't know if you were this way. Like, if I got my period when I was away with friends or over the weekend, I was like, I do a pot, like, I'm sorry I'm so tired or I'm sorry that I'm so grumpy or I'm sorry that I want to eat like a whole pizza in one night, whatever crazy thing I did in my 20s. Whereas I think now, and much to your point, you know, sleep becomes hugely impactful for

women at any stage of life, but especially if you want to lose weight. I always say, if you want to lose weight, you got to sleep. I got to get you sleeping through the night first. But fasting, absolutely as a caveat, can be one of the most powerful ways for people to get rid of excess weight they don't want. Yeah. Do you see people who, once they get into ketosis, they have trouble sleeping? And when people start fasting more and even in the longer fast, are you seeing that people struggle to sleep? And I do. I was laughing. And there was. And there was. some, it wasn't one of my groups I moderated, it wasn't one of yours, but it was interesting. There was a woman saying like, she loves how she feels when she does a long fast, but her sleep's

terrible the whole time. And I was like, well, maybe need to break her fast. And she was like, what? Maybe need to break her fast. Because from my perspective, sleep is so critically important for balancing hormones and, you know, the glymphatic system, all these very sophisticated things that happen. And we build muscle when we sleep if we're doing it properly. So I just said, You have to think about the cost-benefit. Like, is an extra day of fasting better, good for you? If you have three days where you sleep terribly and you're getting like four hours a night of sleep and you're walking around like a zombie.

We talk about hormetic stress and hormesis. And I always go back to the right stress in the right amount at the right time. And when that's done, it's great for your body. It makes you stronger, more resilient. But by the same token, if you're doing it at the right time, if you're doing it at the wrong time for too long, long amount of time, you can actually end up damaging or hurting yourself. And so we don't want that. We definitely want people to become much more attuned to what their body needs for sure.

And so one of the things that I've thought about is that actually when you are fasting, you're repairing and when you're sleeping, you're repairing, and I can't find any science on this, but I feel like if you're repairing during the day, what if you potentially don't need as much sleep at night. Because now with fasting, you've put yourself into this self-healing state, which is also sleep. So maybe there's a scenario where as you build a fasting lifestyle, you need less sleep. I don't, that's a question that I've been curious about. I'm sort of curious your thoughts on it. Yeah. I mean, it's a great question. I mean, I guess it comes down to, like, how do you feel when you wake up? Like, you might, while you're doing a prolonged fast,

maybe you're sleeping five or six hours and you wake up energized. That's great. That's different in the context of that one woman's example. I haven't seen any research on that either. And I think, I guess it's my understanding and obviously I'm not a sleep expert, but I guess it was my understanding that there's so much that goes on physiologically when your body is in this repair mode that even with upregulation of autophagy, this waste and recycling process, I thought the glyphatic system activation actually required so much power that I don't, I guess I don't fully understand. I'm not a brain scientist, but that's a good question. One that is worth kind of pondering that if you're doing really well with a prolonged

fast and you're having this upregulation of autophagy, do you need as much sleep? I don't know. You know what? Yeah, to be continued, I'd be curious because you and I are probably the closest to watching women and fasting over, you know, hundreds of thousands of women. So it's fun for me to hear what you're seeing in your community. And that is definitely something I've seen. The other thing that I've seen, total side note, I'm not sure I ever told you this,

that when we've done longer fast with our community, especially when we guide people through a three-day water fast, the most common symptom that women get is either low back pain or pelvic pain. And so we, as the community that I'm a part of, we were trying to figure this out. and the theory was that what if there's scar tissue that happens from carrying a baby and delivering a baby. So when you start to make stem cells, you actually are repairing that those scar tissue area, that scar tissue area. Cool, right?

It is so cool. That is so cool. You know, and it's interesting because, you know, I always encourage people to, you know, once they're fat adapted, once they get into ketosis, to really start to play with longer or shorter fat. fast. And I think on a lot of levels, you know, there are clear-cut benefits to doing longer fasting, but I still feel like there's a little hesitancy. People feel a little hesitant to lean into doing a two-day, a three-day fast, although I met someone in Las Vegas when I was speaking in October, and she was, she was young, because I actually asked her how old she was, because she looked young.

And she's like, yeah, I want to do a fast for a month. And I was like, why? That was my first question. I was like, I asked this lovingly, but why? Yeah. I said, because, you know, there's that whole kind of communal connection piece. Like, I know when I'm doing longer fast, I feel a little less connected to my family when they're sitting down and eating. So, you know, she was saying, well, I just felt so good when I did a week. I figured it a month would be better.

I was like, how about you like just stick to like a, and you're a young woman. And then I explain the physiology of why, you know, food scarcity and famine might give her brain the wrong information. I might say, like, foods, you know, not coming anytime soon. And so we need to shut down this fertility. We're not going to ovulate. We're not going to get our menstrual cycle. Yeah, no.

She hadn't even thought about that. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Well, it's a good thing she came to you. You were the right. She was that you were the right person to go ask that too. So that's awesome.

What do you think about just fast? Like when we look at brain health, what do you think about fasting as a tool to improve brain health? And I'm talking about all different aspects. of brain health, mood disorders, mental clarity, even memory loss. Where does fasting fit in for that? I think it's critically important. We know that women in particular, and this is just fresh on my brain from a podcast a few days ago, but we know that women are become more insulin resistant as we get closer to menopause. And so when you think about the net impact on brain health

and the degree of Alzheimer's dementia and other vascular dimensions that you see in middle age, I really think that fasting is a critically important tool for helping to maintain healthy blood sugar levels and insulin sensitivity. And so, you know, I think a lot of us in the fasting space, you know, talk about beta-hydroxybuterate, how it defuses across the blood-brain barrier and that helps the mental clarity. And so that's a great starting point because that can be such a big win. Yeah. people that are dealing with brain fog, maybe even depression, that all of a sudden, gosh, I feel so much better.

It's amazing. Yeah. And so I think that's a really good starting point. I talk a lot about the gut brain access and why, you know, a lot of depression, anxiety, etc. can really be exacerbated by poor gut health. And so, you know, recognizing that there's this interrelationship between being in a fasted state and upregulation of, you know, key reparative processes that go on in the gut, including

if you fast long enough, you have some stem cell activation. That's another piece of it. But I think the more I understand about the brain in the hippocampus and learning centers and other things, you know, our brains are just really not designed to live our kind of hedonistic, insulin resistant environment that we're in. So this is why I think fasting is probably one of the most critically important components of not just healthy aging, but just healthy. living. And, you know, when I was connecting with Dr. Pormutter, I was saying the other day,

it was such an incredible opportunity. He was talking about new and emerging research, talking about how our brain and our body can actually make fructose in response to inactivation or upregulation of a key enzyme. And so it really just continues to play upon this narrative of, you know, brain health and insulin sensitivity are so closely aligned. And one of the really easier ways to ensure that we keep our brains as healthy as possible is to really be integrating fasting into our lifestyles. For some people, that might be two weeks out of the month. For some people, that might be three weeks out of the month. If you're menopausal, you can probably do it more often. But really speaks to the fact that fasting is without a doubt

critically important for cognitive neurobehavioral function. And I'd be interested to hear what your experiences have been like. I know that as one example, a woman I was talking to before our call today was saying that, you know, she had her depression medication lowered. And she was finally at a point where, you know, she had had significant major depression, you know, significant meaning that she was crying every day and just really needed the medication, but that she had finally gotten to a point where she felt healthy enough to start talk about reducing her medication in conjunction with her psychiatrist. I would never advocate anyone stop their, their antidepressants or anti-anxiety medications

without close connection with your health care professional. But to me, that gives me hope. It tells me that there's a whole lot more, a lot more that's going on behind the scenes than maybe perhaps you even realized. I'm not a neuroscientist, but I definitely, based on what I've read, I definitely feel like very affirmed

that this is such a healthy opportunity for us to honor our bodies. Yeah. There's so many different ways I see fasting playing out on brain health. The ones you just talked about, about bringing, you know, sugar levels down, which is so key. Ketones are so healing. And when ketones go up, GABA goes up. And so GABA is your neuro, you're calming neurotransmitter.

So I see it really work for anxiety. The only challenge with anxiety is that you, to your point, you've got to become fat adapted if you're going to use fasting as a tool for anxiety because you got to get into that comfortable place where when the ketones are coming is what I call it. I always tell my brain, ketones are coming, that you can like actually, you know, feel ease into that moment as opposed to when am I going to eat food? Cognition, you know, it's crazy what fasting can do for cognition. I've seen some research on resetting dopamine receptor sites. If you go 48 hours of fasting, you reset your whole dopamine pathways. So I think it is an amazing tool to your point

and Pearl Mutters point. And it's not like one month of intermittent fasting is going to do that for you. It's the continual habit of building a fasting lifestyle that is going to over time change your mental health. That's the way I look at it. Yeah, no, no. I think it's a long game. Like, I think you have those short game benefits.

Like, you'll get that mental clarity. And I love that you brought up GABA. I always say GAVA is such an amazing neurotrans. are in the body, one that's grossly appreciated. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. It's like progesterone. Gaba and progesterone.

We need to go to a party where they hang out. Yes, very mellow. And it's interesting. I was just reading the other day about the dopamine fast where people are in an effort to kind of upregulate their dopamine. They are having like a fast from social media and a fast from electronics and how that is allowing for, according to this research I read, it's allowing for this upregulation and dopamine receptors that get kind of blunted because we're constantly,

like think about it, like social media is like the perfect dopamine ergic kind of overwhelm where we're just constantly getting these hits of likes and this and that. And so I think that it brings up another really good point that we want to find balance with our social media use in conjunction with, you know, whether we decide to do a fast just for those purposes or if we do it in conjunction with a combined technology fast along with that actual food fast and seeing how that works. But I would imagine for a lot of people, it would probably be harder to go without the electronics. That's my guess.

But what if you stack them together? That's a great idea. I love it. Okay. One last question. And then I want to respect your time. But I have to ask you this question because this is another one that I'm like, oh, my gosh, somebody who's doing fasting with women. Like, let's, I would geek out on these moments.

One thing that I've been thinking about is if you look at times when your hormones come like screaming in and we can look at a woman who has a regular menstrual cycle, it would be ovulation. You get this peak of all three sex hormones and then you get progesterone's peak the week before your cycle. What I know about detox is that as hormones go up, toxins come out of store tissues. We see this in menopause, perimenopausal women. So is it a wicked combination to have toxins coming out because hormones went up and stimulating

autophagy at the same time where the cell might make a decision that it needs to go into apoptosis where it kills that cell and now you have toxins being redistributed? Is that a horrible combination? Do you not want to stimulate autophagy when hormones are at peak coming surging in? Well, I guess you could look at it two ways. You could see that it could be an efficient process, you know, if you're getting upregulation. So that that's how I would think about it, you know, just based on what I know about the physiology that goes on at that kind of peak ovulatory point in a menstrual cycle. I recognize that we live in increasingly toxic environments, you know, the things we're exposed to in our food, no personal care products and our environment. But I think if people have within their, you know, their grab bag of tools, if they are taking binder, if they are, you know, thinking thoughtfully about, you know, fasting as a lifestyle, then I would think that we'd be able to weather those kind of perfect storms, if you will, a little bit easier than, let's say the average person who's a couch potato,

eats a standard American diet and goes into, you know, goes into start a fasting regimen and they are really buffering a lot of symptoms. You know, I think about like hydration and dry brushing and like all the things that can kind of be supportive for the body under those circumstances. It's a good question. Yeah. You and I can talk offline on this because it's a new realization that I've had in just observing hundreds of thousands of women fasting.

And some of my clients that I'm coaching right now, I'm seeing that the higher the heavy metal load specifically, if they're stimulating atophani at ovulation, they're getting a strong detox reaction. So it has me thinking a little different about where our hormones actually detox. us naturally. And to your point, it may be good. That might be good. But if you start getting really bad symptoms of detox at ovulation, because you're stimulating autophagy at the same time, that might not be fun. Yeah. And that's why I think it's important to work with, you know, providers that are knowledgeable because that that might not strike someone as being unusual if they're not as

familiarized with fasting, that that correlation could even be made. And it makes complete sense. I mean, I think about how many women I see that are mercury toxic and, you know, they're surprised. I'm like, oh, I didn't realize that eating, you know, five days of tuna fish every week. Yes. Oh, my God. Eating sushi three days a week is going to be a problem. Yeah. I totally see that too. So, well, this was great.

Thank you for entertaining my women and fasting brain. I feel like we need to have, you and I need to have more conversations like this because we're in the trenches and it's really fun to share a notes. So talk a little. little bit about your book. When's it coming out? What can people expect? I'm really excited for it. And I hope everybody that's listening in my audience specifically, you have to get this book. There is, this is right in alignment with what I'm teaching and I'm really excited that it's coming out. Yeah. So it goes to publication on March 15th. It's intermittent fasting transformation. And the program's called IF45. And so this was the program that was developed over the last several years,

lots of fine-tuning and really focused in on educating women about their hormones, about how to fast successfully, whether you're in your peak fertility years, you're in pari menopause in the trenches or you're in menopause, really honoring our own unique physiology. And what I love is it has a 45-day journey where you learn all about fasting. And it's a book that can be for women who've been fasting or new to fasting. And then there are some amazing recipes. I have my dear friend and chef Beth Lipton. I'm all about making food. accessible and fun and flavorful. And so we have gluten and dairy-free recipes in the back, most of which are very meat, animal-based protein focus. There are some vegetarian recipes and

their instructions on how to make them vegetarian if that's part of your lifestyle. But I'm really excited. It's hard to believe because it seems like I've been living in limbo for a while. It's hard to believe it's actually here. I love it. I so appreciate your support. And that's the one thing that I think, or at least I know, My viewers and listeners really appreciate that they've always said, like, anytime we see you and Dr. Mindy talking, there's a genuine camaraderie and friendship. And there absolutely is. I think there are not enough of us talking about fasting as clinicians and certainly having the ability to impact so many women's lives in really positive ways. Yeah.

Thank you. I agree. And I feel like you and I are screaming at the top of our lungs trying to, like, get women to see it differently. And they're hearing us. So I love that. I agree. Collaboration is my jam. So I love it. Last question I have for you, I've been asking everybody this year. The podcast, we have a theme this year is gratitude. So this is sort of a two-part question. Do you have a daily gratitude practice? And if so, what is it? And what is something you're

immensely grateful for today? Well, yes, I have a gratitude practice. And my team thinks it's kind of funny. But part of my gratitudes, I usually will, I write things down in my phone. But I also will kind of put that out there on Instagram and the stories to kind of talk about my day. But it's generally things I'm really excited about. I didn't do this morning because it was just been a busy morning, but expressing gratitude in really small ways. You know, my husband and I have a way that we'll text each other and it could be something really small. Like, thank you for taking out the trash or thank you for taking the dogs out. I mean, just really just, it can be something small and that's what gratitude doesn't have to be grandiose. What am I really grateful for? I am today particularly

grateful for the friendships. And then that's the great thing. about the podcasting community, the incredible networking and friendships I've created and cultivated, especially with the upcoming launch, because I feel really loved and supported. And so I was reflecting on that last night. I'm grateful. I am, but I have to share with your listeners, I got this wonderful hat. I'm grateful for this wonderful hat that Dr. Mindy sent me that I get to put on. I love it. I love it. I feel like there is a movement of collaboration amongst health professionals that I've never seen before. And it's such a beautiful place. Everybody wins when health professionals of all backgrounds come together and

share their expertise and learn from each other and do it in a really loving, collaborative way. It's just the patient wins, people win. It's a really fun journey. I absolutely agree. Yeah. I mean, I think mindset of abundance is, mindset of abundance is really the way to go. there's just no way for us to know everything about everything. And I learned from you and vice versa and so many other healthcare professionals that are out there that I feel immensely grateful. Well, thank you for coming on. So appreciate you. Thank 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.