← Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
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- [00:00]
A
The name of the menopause game is to go into menopause as late as you possibly can.
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B
Okay, so how do we do that?
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A
Number one trick above anything else, to have a good menopausal experience. Get metabolically fit in your 30s.
- [00:14]
B
What is the biggest misconception women in their 30s have about menopause?
- [00:17]
A
You have no control. It's something that happens to your mother and you just pray that you're gonna have a good experience. And maybe that experience is genetic or not genetic. And I'm here to say that experience is lifestyle. If you want a peaceful menopausal experience, you need to start looking at your lifestyle, metabolic health being the first thing.
- [01:01]
B
What if your 30s aren't just about building your life but also building the future of your body? What if the way you eat fast and set boundaries today is actually shaping your brain, your hormones and your power for decades to come? Dr. Mindy Pels is here to change the way we think about women's health timelines. She's a New York Times best selling author, top hormone expert, and a fierce advocate for redefining how we age, starting way before menopause hits. In this episode we talk about so many things we've never covered on this show, like fast testing in depth and the healthy way to do it. Also menopause and how we need to be strategically planning for menopause now in our 30s before it even begins. But don't worry if you're in your 40s, 50s, or beyond. This episode is for you too. We're talking about brain fog myths. Why learning to say no might be the most powerful biohack of all. Watch this episode on the real Alex Clark YouTube channel or culture Apothecary on Spotify. This show is free, but one of the most impactful ways to support us so we can stay a free show is by pausing the episode before we start and leaving a five star review on Spotify or Apple. Join the cute servitus Facebook group to discuss the show and meet like minded women and send this episode to your BFF group chat. Please welcome New York Times bestselling author of Age like a girl, Dr. Mindy Pels to culture apothecary. What is the biggest mistake that women are making in regards to their health in their 30s that is going to wreck their hormones later if they don't stop?
- [02:28]
A
I'm going to break it down into two categories. One is going to be metabolic health and the other one is going to be nervous system health. Because if I could go back to myself in my 30s and have a conversation with myself, this is what I would say. So there is something called the hormonal hierarchy. And the hormonal hierarchy is where hormones basically work together in unison, but they have a priority system. At the bottom of the hierarchy are sex hormones. These are progesterone, estrogen, and testosterone. Above that is insulin. So if you are insulin resistant, you are gonna be massively out of hormonal balance. And a perfect example of this is two things. Pcos. Massive part of PCOS is insulin resistance. Infertility. I know this. You know, a lot of women are having children younger, but if you're in your 30s trying to get pregnant, insulin resistance and infertility go together. So we already see signs of hormonal imbalance in those two. So get your metabolic health in order, and you really want. I mean, we can go deep into that. That's what all my books have been about, is how do women start to balance their hormones using this tool of metabolic health?
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B
Oh, yeah, we have so many questions about that, because I feel like there's a lot of misinformation in this space as well. What do you think is the biggest lie women are being told when they're seeking answers on balancing hormones?
- [03:57]
A
That you. If you're gonna balance hormones, you just focus on the sex hormones. There's a lot of hormones. So in this hierarchy, insulin controls sex hormones. And you know what controls insulin is cortisol. And so if you're stressed out, you're gonna be insulin resistant. If you're insulin resistant, your sex hormones are gonna be out of balance. And above cortisol is oxytocin. So oxytocin. We're getting oxytocin right now. Just having a beautiful conversation. And so a lot of women end up doing like, I don't have time. They're not put first. Sometimes they end up like, oh, I don't. I can't get together with my girlfriends. Those kind of things actually matter because anywhere you go to get oxytocin, you balance cortisol. And anytime you balance cortisol, you now have a better chance at being insulin sensitive. And when you're insulin sensitive, you're now balancing hormones. So there's a holistic picture here that's not being discussed.
- [04:53]
B
So what should be the first course of action? Going keto if you're insulin resistant?
- [04:57]
A
Yes. But let's talk about what going, going keto means.
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B
Okay.
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A
So when the ketogenic diet became very popular, everybody looked at ketosis as a low carb experience. And you can get into the ketogenic state from fasting. That's how I recommend it. So I'm not saying don't look at your food, because I really encourage. And I think your audience is the same thing. Like, we have to clean up the way we eat. And. And when we look at carbohydrates, they're not evil. It's the processed carbohydrates that are evil. But nature's carbs, things like fruits and vegetables. Sweet potatoes are amazing. Potatoes in general, incredible for women. That's why I don't like the ketogenic version of low carb, because a lot of times women forget to have carbs and we need carbs. So there's a lot of nuance there and we can talk about that. But I like fasting. Just tack on a fasting window every day, 13 hours, 15 hours of fasting every day, and you're going to get yourself into a healthier metabolic state, which is going to give you the same ketone production as if you skipped carbs.
- [06:06]
B
And so this is for people that are struggling with insulin resistance.
- [06:08]
A
Yeah, yeah. Of any age.
- [06:10]
B
Because one thing that I also always hear is like, well, we're chronically protein deprived. Like, we're not getting enough protein as women. So how does that work in with fasting for that long?
- [06:19]
A
Yeah, well, so the way I teach it is you want to look at your day and go, okay, there is a fasting window and there is an eating window. And if I'm going to go 15 hours every single day, what that looks like is I Finnish eating at 8 o' clock at night means no snacking. So just. Or 7 o' clock at night, let's just say 7 because the numbers are easier. And then I wouldn't eat again until 10 in the morning. That's not that hard if you train yourself to do it. You can have your coffee in the morning and then at 10 o', clock, you now open up your eating window and you're gonna eat from 10 in the morning until 7 o' clock at night. I think you can get enough protein in during that time. That's a really nice period in which you can actually start to get all the protein you need. And I know this might be controversial, but I really think we've over spotlighted protein.
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B
Why?
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A
Because a lot of people that I see in my world is if they start to do 1 gram of protein for every pound of body weight, they start gaining weight because they are so metabolically unhealthy that if they are doing protein plus carbs, and they're focused on that number. Protein turns to glucose, and too much glucose requires insulin. And if you're insulin resistant now, you don't know, your body doesn't know what to do with all that glucose.
- [07:41]
B
One thing that you talk a lot about is menopause. And I've talked to my audience about how before we're in the season of our life of having kids, it's important to get our bodies ready for baby. Learn everything we want to know about parenting and child rearing before we're in that chapter. Because otherwise it's really overwhelming if you're trying to cram all that in in nine months.
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A
Right.
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B
Is it the same for women in their 30s when it comes to menopause?
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A
So get metabolically fit. You know, it's back to that original question. Get metabolically fit in your 30s. How do you know you're metabolically fit? There's one number on blood work to look at, and it's hemoglobin A1C. Hemoglobin A1C is a measurement of your metabolic system over 90 days. You want that number to be as close to 5 as possible. So at 35 is when progesterone starts to decline. Many women are going into perimenopause at 35 as progesterone starts to decline. So if progesterone declines and your hemoglobin A1C is 6.0, which is diabetic or pre diabetic, then all of a sudden you're gonna end up with a massive imbalance in these sex hormones. So, yes, get metabolically fit in your 30s. That is. That is absolutely the. The number one trick above anything else to have a good menopausal experience.
- [09:02]
B
What is the biggest misconception women in their 30s have about menopause?
- [09:05]
A
That's such a good question, because I'm 56, and, I mean, we weren't talking about it when I was in my 30s, so there was. The misconception for my generation was that it's something that happened to our mothers. It was like something that happened to older women. And it was something that you just hoped you had a good experience with, that you had no control over. That has dramatically changed in, like, the last three years. One of the major things that's happened in the new awareness about menopause is that you actually can control the symptoms. So the biggest misconception is that you have no control. It's something that happens to your mother, and you just pray that you're gonna Have a good experience. And maybe that experience is genetic or not genetic. And I'm here to say that experience is lifestyle. If you want a peaceful menopausal experience, you need to start looking at your lifestyle, metabolic health, being the first thing.
- [10:08]
B
And that starts in, ideally, what age?
- [10:11]
A
That's being your 30s. Yeah, 35. Progesterone starts to decline at 35. At 40, estrogen goes on a wild ride. So what happens is one day estrogen is up, the next day estrogen is down, and so you're all over the place. Like, you feel great one day, you feel horrible the next. And so once a woman enters into her 40s, that's the part of the. That's about the time that she starts to notice that she's gaining weight, she's fatigued, she's not sleeping, she has brain fog. So it's that transition of the late 30s into the early 40s that it really starts to unwind for women.
- [10:49]
B
I've had to unlearn so much propaganda about just my period in the last, like, five years.
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A
Love it.
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B
Because I wasn't always in the health and wellness space. So I am pretty new to all of this and kind of going on this journey with my audience. And, you know, we were told getting your period is a curse. It's one of the worst things to ever happen to women. Now I feel like my period is my superpower. I love being able to talk to people about how cool it is as women that we have this kind of other sense that gives us this, you know, window into our hormones and what's going on. It's such a cool tool that we have.
- [11:21]
A
Excellent.
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B
Is menopause kind of the same thing, but it's really a biological upgrade?
- [11:26]
A
Yes. I love the analogy you made, because. Can we just talk about the period for a second? Because this excites me. We detox every month when we're having our period. They've actually measured, like, toxins that are in our menstrual blood. I put a whole chart on it in my book, Eat like a Girl. Like, it's. It's how we detox. We need to have a period. So I love that you're like. Like rethinking that for yourself. It's. And. And that we're actually talking about it as opposed to. Again, my generation was like, don't talk about it at all. It's a beautiful thing. It's how we detox. It's amazing. This is what I'm trying to bring forward in age. Like a girl. We Gotta talk about what's right about menopause, not what's wrong about menopause. And the whole premise of the book is that your brain rewires itself. The brain actually starts to shift, your neurochemical system shift. And if you understand that process, you'll see it actually shifts for the better. It's like I call it, it's your get out of jail free moment. It's where you start thinking different. And that's beautiful. You're not supposed to think like your 15 and 16 year old self. You're supposed to be a leader. That's the whole purpose of menopause, is to rewire your brain for leadership. It's, it's so cool if you actually understand the process.
- [12:49]
B
Okay, I'm going to have you explain menopause like we're in fifth grade.
- [12:53]
A
Okay.
- [12:53]
B
For those of us who really have never looked into this at all, or maybe we have parents that are going through it or whatever. When does menopause typically happen? What's the age range? And then how long does it last and what happens to us in that time?
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A
Okay, so I'm going to tell you the, the, the biological process. But don't get, don't get depressed like.
- [13:13]
B
Because you're going to tell us how this is really an upgrade and why it's awesome.
- [13:16]
A
Right? That's right. Okay, so 35 progesterone starts to, to decline. So we talked about that. Progesterone. Just so we're clear, progesterone is the hormone that actually sheds the uterine lining. So you need, you have to have progesterone peak the week before your cycle. And when she hits her peak, then that is what causes the uterine lining to shed and you will bleed. The second thing that progesterone does is she stimulates a neurotransmitter called gaba. Gaba is what calms you. So that is one of the reasons that eh, 35, late 30s, we might be a little more irritable than we typically have been because we are missing a neurotransmitter and a hormone. The other thing that progesterone does is that she wants us to actually keep our glucose levels high. You need plenty of glucose. This is why we've got to bring some carbs into a woman's diet and we can, we can go into that. But progesterone is the, the first hormone to go. Anxiety, irritability, first thing for women to experience. Okay. A few years later, we're getting closer now to 40 estrogen all of a sudden, one day is completely high, next day completely low. So what most women in their early 40s will start to feel is. Is totally normal one day. And the next day you're like, look at your husband. And you're like, why are you looking at me like that? One of my favorite early 40 moments for me was when my son had come home from soccer practice, and it was like 9 o' clock at night, and he was chewing and eating cereal and chewing really loud. And I was upstairs trying to sleep, and I swear I could hear him chewing. And I came downstairs and I'm like, why are you chewing so loud? And he looked at me like, I'm sorry, you look like my mom, but I don't know who you are. The one day we are super reactive to stress, and the next day we may seem like our normal selves. So that late 30s, early 40s is where we start to see our behaviors change. We start to see irritability kick in as you progress into your mid-40s and estrogen goes down even more. Okay, estrogen wasn't just the hormone that helped you release an egg every month. Estrogen actually bathed your brain and stimulated the production of over 12 molecules. Every time you released an egg, and you got this huge surge of estrogen, you got a huge surge of dopamine. You got a huge surge of serotonin. You got acetylcholine, which is important neurotransmitter for memory. You got glutamate, which helped you focus. You got bdnf, which helped you hold onto new information. You got oxytocin. That made you want to connect. Okay? Now, one day estrogen's here, the next day she's gone. So all of a sudden, you start seeing women say things like, I'm just not motivated anymore. I don't feel like working out. I don't know what brings me joy. I saw this in my practice so much, and it broke my heart that these women would come in and they were like, on paper, my life looks amazing. My husband's incredible, and I live in this gorgeous house, and my kids are killing it in school, but all I want to do is cry. I'm so depressed. And that's because you didn't just lose estrogen, you're losing this whole neurochemical system. Then as you go deeper into your 40s, you start to forget where your keys are. You forget the names of people. The ADHD goes up. You can't stick to a task. And so the 40s become this wild Brain experience. And then once you hit your 50s, the average age, the healthy age. I really want to point that out because we tend to dismiss that there's a healthy time to go through menopause. The healthy time to go through menopause is 52. I can't tell you how many 42 year olds I've spoken with that are in menopause or that freaks me out. That is not natural to be 42 and have to have a hysterectomy or to go into menopause. 52 is the natural time. And once you cross that threshold, your brain is done rewiring itself. And we can talk about that in a moment. And you are on the other side of it. And it's the other side that's incredible. Which we should talk about. But the depressing part is this goes from 35 to 52. It is a long period that these neurochemicals are dramatically shifting.
- [18:07]
B
So now you're done, or you're in the middle of it.
- [18:10]
A
By the time you get to 52, most women are done.
- [18:14]
B
Wow.
- [18:14]
A
Yeah, some women. 55. The later you go into menopause, the healthier the better for you.
- [18:23]
B
Most of you are waking up every day chugging coffee that's basically radioactive potting soil, mold, mycotoxins, possibly asbestos. Honestly, your morning brew might qualify as a biohazard. That's why I recommend pure coffee from Taylor Duke's Wellness. It's 100, organic, lab tested, and completely free of the terrifying garbage that's in your grocery store blend. And here's the best part. It's so clean you can literally shoot it up your butt. That's right, shoot it up your butt. Coffee enemas for detox, liver support, and honestly, just the thrill of it. Now that was a joke. I mean, it was for me. Maybe you like it. No judgment. You can drink it or reverse funnel it straightened your colon like the high functioning lunatic that you were born to be. It tastes like rich chocolate and fruit, but only from one end. You can taste it. Okay. And no, it doesn't come with a free side of ibs. Actually, complete opposite, just energy. If you're gonna be a coffee snob, at least pick one that doesn't poison you or your butt. Go to Taylor Dukes wellness.com use code Alex Clark for 10% off. That's Taylor Dukes wellness.com code Alex Clark. Support your gut, support your brain, and maybe, just maybe, your lower intestines. There's a not so glamorous phenomenon where your house slowly poisons you. With mold, smoke, VOCs and the candle you got from a white elephant swap last Christmas. This is why I got my Jasper, the first air scrubber built specifically for home use that doesn't look like it belongs in a meth lab. It is chic, it is beautiful, it does the job. So this is a commercial grade power disguised as a sleek elegant box. So this air scrubber steamrolls over those other air purifiers you can get at Costco or whatever. It captures the tiny particles that your lung hates. Smoke, dust, mold spores, pet dander, VOCs from cleaning supplies, the steak smoke that coats your walls and causes your fire alarm to go off. It scrubs it all. And unlike other purifiers that are basically expensive fans with commitment issues, Jasper is engineered to actually clean your entire home's air. It's got smart sensors, HEPA filtration, VOC removal, and it even handles wildfire smoke. Worth noting if you live in governor Newscom state. And here's the kicker, Jasper comes with a lifetime warranty because they know this thing works and you're going to need it forever. So if you struggle with sleep, feel better when you go on vacation compared to when you're home or burn almost everything you cook, go to Jasper Co JR Co and use code ALEX to get free $400 off. Again that is J Co and make sure you use code ALEX for $400 off for an immediate life improvement. They ship fast too, so no waiting forever. If you are somebody cuz you brought this up and I didn't even think about it. If you're somebody in their 40s who is being recommended that you get a hysterectomy? What are some things that you would do first before opting for that?
- [21:11]
A
Try to keep your ovaries. So if some hysterectomies they'll either take the uterus and the ovaries or they'll leave the ovaries and just take the uterus. So there is some evidence that even when the ovaries are not producing eggs, they're still producing just a tad bit of sex hormones. So don't get rid of those because they can actually start to still produce you a little bit of hormones.
- [21:38]
B
I've had multiple women just randomly in the last six months tell me that they were recommended to get a hysterectomy in their late twenties for different things. Like they were, their periods were super heavy. They're like you need to get a hysterectomy. So they did. Or a super bad endometriosis or something.
- [21:54]
A
So this is really interesting. I'm super happy you bring this up. There are two priorities for the human body. And men have one, women have two. So the male body, the number one priority is survival. So everything that that body will do is try to stay alive. The female body has two priorities. It has survival and reproduction. So if you take a 28 year old and you put her in a toxic environment, you feed her the ultra processed foods, you put her in a highly stressed out environment, you put her around no light. Like when I came in here, I'm like, I hope you all get out in the middle of the day.
- [22:37]
B
Oh my gosh, don't even get me started. It's the worst light environment in this building. Yeah. And filming all the time, it sucks. Yeah.
- [22:43]
A
I was like, you, you better take a walk around the building in the middle of the day because you will mess your circadian rhythm up. So what women need to start to see is that it's our environment that our reproductive system is mapping to. So if you're not eating the right foods, if you're under so much stress, if you are not getting movement and light and you're not prioritizing sleep, then that whole reproductive system will start to malfunction. So that I think we could say that with pcos, infertility, menopause symptoms, hysterectomies. Why don't we stop and look at the environment that woman is in as opposed to just taking her organs out.
- [23:28]
B
I wonder what the correlation would be if somebody were to look into it between totally jacked circadian rhythms and infertility.
- [23:35]
A
Yeah, I would like that study done too.
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B
Right. That's really fascinating. We should tell rfk.
- [23:40]
A
Yeah, well, unfortunately we're not doing studies on women right now. So like even in age, like a girl, I had over 450 peer reviewed citations in there. It was really important to me to back everything that I set up in there. Now, are those 450 citations purely done on women? No, unfortunately the I have a team of researchers that help me put together all these citations and the majority of them are human studies, but sometimes we have to look at animal studies like we just don't have. It would be amazing to isolate women and start to study women and understand that.
- [24:20]
B
So once you're through menopause then, and you said that's when things start to get good. What good stuff happens?
- [24:25]
A
This is the fun part and this is the hopeful part. All of these neurological changes are actually rewiring your brain. And there are three times In a woman's life that her brain rewires. One is at puberty, the second is postpartum, and the third is perimenopause. So the first question we have to ask ourselves is, why does the body do that? Like, I hope once you hang out with me long enough and you listen to my stuff, you will love the fact that you live in a female body, because we are, like, amazing. And at puberty, what happens is, as those hormones come in, the signal of the influx of hormones tells the brain we need to get rid of the neurons in the brain that make you dependent upon another human. Because you're going to start to release eggs every month now, so there's a possibility of pregnancy. And. And with pregnancy comes responsibility. So we need to start to reshape your brain for an independent brain that can handle the next phase of life, which technically could be pregnancy. Postpartum, after having a baby, we see a huge drop in hormones, and that signals to this miraculous body you're living in that, hey, guess what? You're just birthed. This beautiful little human that can't talk to you has no verbal ability. So you're going to need to have a wicked intuition to know what your baby needs. So the neurons that help you understand where your keys were, that helped you understand the to do list that you're supposed to do that day. You don't need those neurons anymore, because you need to be highly intuitive so you can focus in on what your baby needs. So the brain rewires itself to be highly in tune with your baby. Okay, now we're coming to perimenopause. What happens at perimenopause? Well, the first thing to know is that we are the only mammal on the planet that lives over 42.5% of our life. Without a working system, our whole reproductive system shuts down. But yet we're left to live over 40% of our life, we're still living it without a reproductive system. So what was the body? What is the body preparing us for? And this is all age like a girl. And what I put in there is that the neurons in your brain that kept you potentially addicted to people, pleasing, to fixing everybody's problem, to putting everybody else's needs ahead of your own. Those neurons start to slough off, and new neurons start. Start to get created. And the two areas that the neurons are being created are your prefrontal cortex and your amygdala. And both of these centers control your emotional regulation. So on the other side of it, you create new Neurons in these emotional regulatory centers of your brain that actually make you more stable emotionally.
- [27:49]
B
This is crazy. I just thought that was something that happened. Like, oh, you just get older, and so you just get tired of caring, but, like, it's actually biological. You're like, I literally am so confident, I do not care what anyone else thinks.
- [27:58]
A
Thank you. It was funny. In the book I tell a story about, I went to. I love books. I loved them since I was little. And I went with a group of women to the Miami Book Fair, which is a huge book fair, and we were going to go hear Malcolm Gladwell speak. And I love a good storyteller. And so we tried. There was six of us, and we wanted to sit in the front row, and we wanted to all sit together, as women often do. And there was one woman right in the middle of six seats with white hair. And I walked up to her, and I was like, do you think you could move down a couple of seats so that all my friends could sit together? And she looked at me and she's like, no. And I. Knowing what I know, I was like, okay, I get it. I get it. She's like, I got here early. I want to be able to hear Malcolm speak. And I'm like, I totally get it. So we rearranged, and I went back to my friends. I'm like, like, she's postmenopausal. She's not going to budge.
- [28:55]
B
I love that you were able to, like, translate that for everybody else.
- [28:59]
A
Exactly.
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B
Do you think that pregnancy later in life, late 30s, early 40s, is really positive for our hormones, or can it be detrimental?
- [29:08]
A
I mean, I've watched a lot of women birth a baby in their early 40s and then go into perimenopause. So they had postpartum and perimenopause at the time. Same. Same time. My heart goes out to those women. We need to rally around those women and really lift them up. So I think that, unfortunately, there can be a little bit of a double whammy that could be really hard on that woman. Now, as far as is it healthier to do that or not, I'm not familiar with any evidence that says that having a baby later is going to help you have a better menopausal experience. What I do really recommend, and I've written about this in both age, Like a girl and then a book that actually is out now called the Menopause Reset is the name of the menopause game, is to go into menopause as late as you possibly can. And some of these women who have babies in the early 40s actually will end up going into menopause late later.
- [30:12]
B
Okay, so how do we do that? How do we get our body to go into menopause as late as possible possible?
- [30:17]
A
Okay, so lifestyle. So let's walk through five key things. This will be really helpful.
- [30:23]
B
Write it down, write it down.
- [30:24]
A
Right, exactly, exactly. So the first is, and this I brought forward in all my books is start to learn to fast. And I, and I, and I, I'm not, I'm not saying that for any other reason than it's free and it's going to help you metabolically stabilize yourself. You can read fast like a girl. I've written so much about that. But when you move into your 40s, learn to fast. It's gonna help you not only with your reproductive health, not only if you're still trying to get pregnant in your 40s, it's gonna help you with your brain health. It's gonna give you this nutrient called a ketone that's gonna power up your brain. So let's start there. Second thing, learn to carb cycle. So if women that have active cycles, I'm a huge fan of no carbs in the front half of your cycle. Day one till day 15. And then you do the nature's carbs, more of the fruits and vegetables and sweet potatoes. I'm a sweet potato fanatic. And tubers and legumes you can do all of add more of those in the back half of your cycle.
- [31:30]
B
So what about when you're working out though and eating energy from carbs?
- [31:33]
A
You need them from both. But just be make sure they're smart carbs. I'm not saying no carbs. I'm not saying no carbs in the front.
- [31:40]
B
Okay.
- [31:40]
A
I'm just saying. Okay, let's make it really applicable. I'm going to eat berries, I'm going eat green apples. These are lower on the glycemic index. I'm going to lean into more vegetables. I'm going to shy away from the breads, even the fermented sourdoughs that have a healthy component. I won't do as much dairy. Even though grass fed dairy can be a healthy, there's a health component to it. So I'm sticking to meat and I'm sticking to vegetables and I'm sticking to low glycemic fruits. Day one through day 15.
- [32:15]
B
Got it.
- [32:16]
A
Day 16 till I bleed. Okay, now I'm gonna add in sweet potatoes. Potatoes, tubers like sunchokes, jicama like these are really supportive of progesterone. I would even say you can bring your, I'm a fermented fan. You can bring your fermented sourdough in, in the back half of your cycle.
- [32:37]
B
Sauerkraut.
- [32:38]
A
Sauerkraut fits everywhere.
- [32:40]
B
Everywhere.
- [32:40]
A
Okay, but those things that are gonna spike your blood sugar just a little higher, put em in the back half of your cycle. So that's what I mean by carb cycling.
- [32:49]
B
How are young women sabotaging their hormones?
- [32:51]
A
Overly stressing themselves? So too much cortisol. If you are living in a high stress situation, your hormones think of, think of everything through your body's perspective. If stress is coming at you over and over and over again, then your body says, hey, we're running from a tiger. I don't have time to make a baby right now. I don't have time to balance a reproductive system. I'm trying to keep you alive. So if you pick up Instagram, if you've had incredibly stressful day and you've been working your fanny off, whether at home or at work or both, and then you go and you sit on the couch and you pick up Instagram and and now you're like, oh my God, look at my friends just went and had out to dinner without me. Or wow, look, there's a woman who's 35, she's so beautiful, she's prettier than me. All the crazy things that social media does to us. You're sitting on the couch after a stressful day, you're not relaxing, you're keeping cortisol high. And if cortisol stays high, your hormones are like, they're out. I always say if cortisol's high, progesterone's shy, your hormones are done.
- [34:03]
B
So practical ways to lower cortisol, I'm just gonna guess grounding barefoot outside.
- [34:08]
A
Yep.
- [34:08]
B
What else?
- [34:09]
A
Taking a break from your phone. Okay, Taking a break from social media. Where's your self care? Like making sure you have time during your week where you are just taking care of you, not taking care of everybody else. How are you giving back to you? Some women it might be massages. Some women it might be talking on the phone to a friend for two hours, just prioritizing things that bring you joy, that are unique just to you. Grounding, sleep, all of that is phenomenal. But I really think it's as simple as just making sure you're taking care of your needs, not everybody else's, all the time.
- [34:47]
B
And then the second thing you said, two ways we're sabotaging. One was the high cortisol, constant state of stress. What's the other thing?
- [34:52]
A
The wrong foods. So, I mean, it's just, I mean, you know, it's like the food industry right now is horrific.
- [35:00]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [35:01]
A
I mean, and it's more than red dyes. I mean, it is refined sugar, it is refined flowers, it is toxic oils. So, you know, when you are 25, that might not matter, but when you're 45, that diet contributes to menopausal belly weight, the brain fog, the insomnia. So, yeah, the quality of food matters.
- [35:24]
B
Let's talk about brain fog, because I hear that term a lot. What is actually happening in the female brain when we are experiencing brain fog?
- [35:31]
A
Yeah. So age matters. So if it's 40 and under and you're having brain fog, you've gotta look at the things that created inflammation in your brain. We've talked about food, let's talk about toxins. So oftentimes, what can cause a lot of brain fog and neuroinflammation comes from things like your beauty product products. If you're putting toxic beauty products on you, that has synthetic estrogen mimickers in it, your body doesn't know what to do with that. Anything your body doesn't know what to do with, it's going to inflame, it's going to try to get rid of it through inflammation. Heavy metals. I detoxed so many women in my office because heavy metals are in our water, they're in our soils, they're in our environment, and they impact brain function specifically for women.
- [36:24]
B
Do you think high heavy metal overload could also be contributing to infertility?
- [36:28]
A
Oh, absolutely, yeah. Oh, absolutely. No, I mean, I did a decade of detox and it was all heavy metals. We tested tens of thousands of women's heavy metal load. Not one, not one came even in normal range for lead and mercury. Lead and mercury were in every single woman we have tested. And so, yes, so we started detoxing all these women. And the number one thing I would say to these women is be careful because you can get pregnant now. So. Absolutely. And things like pesticides are horrible. Like, we know glyphosate actually drives heavy metals even deeper into our tissues. So when we talk brain function of women, when we talk brain fog, we. We can't. That's why I have a whole thing in here about the toxic dump of menopause. We can't. We can't leave that out of the conversation.
- [37:27]
B
Here's the truth that nobody tells you, your doctor is running like 20 tests on you. That's it. 20 little biomarkers. Maybe that's the same amount of effort that I put into my taxes. Meanwhile, Jevity is running over 90 biomarkers twice a year. That's not a blood panel. That is a full blown investigative report on your body. It's like hiring a private investigator to find out why you feel like garbage by 3pm and for $129 a month, you're getting not only comprehensive blood work, but you'll also get 40% off your personalized supplements and prescriptions if you need them, expert consults from functional medicine doctors, and a customized health plan based on your actual biology, not just a motivational quote and a gummy vitamin. It is all inclusive. It is proactive, and honestly, it is cheaper than the slow, confusing path you're already on. Go to gojevity.com use code ale to skip the wait list and save 20% off your first month. That's go.com code alex to skip the wait list and save twenty percent off your first month. This Halloween, forget ghosts and goblins. The real horror. Cracked nails, split ends, and I got so inflamed it's its own haunted house. You need Cowboy Colostrum, your new secret weapon for looking alive even when the rest of the world is falling apart. This isn't just any colostrum, by the way. Cowboy only uses first milking. Colostrum from grass fed US cows collected within four to six hours of birth, which means it is loaded with bioactives like immunoglobulins and natural growth factors. Think radiant skin, stronger nails, shinier hair, a happier gut, and yes, actual immune support. Revolutionary, I know. And before you ask the baby calves, they get theirs first. Cowboy only takes the surplus because it's 2025 and they're not monsters. It's creamy. It tastes amazing. The vanilla literally tastes like a vanilla milkshake from your childhood back when you still believed in joy. You can froth that into coffee water. I think that's weird to do, but some people like to do that. Or you can be normal like me and put it in a smoothie and immediately feel like somebody who has their life together. So if you're done being haunted by dry skin and dead hair and brittle nails, go to cowboycolostrum.com with code ALEX for 25 off and bring your beauty and immune system back from the grave. That's code Alex for 25 off@cowboycolostrum.com True or false? Science proves that women need Sleepovers with our girlfriends as adults and girls nights for our hormones.
- [39:46]
A
Yes, true. Very true. I mean, this is my whole point. It's like, we all know if I go and hang out with my girlfriends and we giggle and we laugh, you feel better afterwards. That's not frivolous. That's health right there. You're getting oxytocin, and oxytocin balances cortisol and cortisol coming down balances insulin. When insulin. You're insulin sensitive. You now have your sex hormones in ballots.
- [40:12]
B
Does it affect estrogen as well?
- [40:14]
A
Absolutely. That is such a huge concept of, like, where's oxytocin? In the health conversation of women? And this is, like, full transparency, Alex. Like, you gave me the option to come meet with you in person or to do it virtual. I will pick in person every single time.
- [40:32]
B
It's so much better.
- [40:33]
A
It's so much better. And if nothing else, it's better for me because I'm a connector. I like talking to people. I'm gonna leave here with a big dose of oxytocin, which helps balance my hormones.
- [40:44]
B
I think we can get caught up in just the busyness of life. And we get asked as women to go to dinner with, you know, a group of friends or whatever, and we're like, oh, that means, like, having to get ready and all this. And I, like, I've had such a long day. It would just be nice to, like, go in bed and binge Netflix. Yeah. And I do the same thing. I think we all do that. Like, do I really want to get up and get ready and go out? But I've never regretted it. I've never regretted it once I go out to the dinner and I spend time with girlfriends, and then I go home and get to, like, get cozy in my bed, and it's so wonderful. But it does do something to me, you know, hormonally, to be around other women. I just think that's so underrated. Like, do the girls trip. Get the babysitter. You've got to go on the weekend, little girls trip.
- [41:26]
A
I'm so happy you brought this up, because I sat with so many women that were like, I don't have time to take care of myself. I don't. I don't. I can't go out to girl ladies night out because I got all these other things I gotta do. And I've also sat at the deathbed of four patients that all had cancer, hormonal cancers. And I can tell you that these women wish they had taken more time to be able to connect to their girlfriends not only from a fill me up and make me feel better, but once they understood the power of oxytocin, they were like, wow, why did I ignore my needs all this time when I could have been hanging out with my girlfriends and having a good time and that would have balanced all of my hormones? We don't give it enough credit.
- [42:15]
B
I also think there is a facade thinking like we can get those needs felt virtually through social media, like talking with my friends, sending reels back and forth, sending memes back and forth, that's connecting with my girlfriends. I don't have to be with them in person. And that is so not true.
- [42:31]
A
Agreed. There's something about in person connection that amplifies dopamine. So I quote a study in age like a girl that one of the things I'm asking or recommending I should say to women as they move through menopause is to look at purpose. And for a lot of women, the purpose was raising children. And then the children grow up and now they're left purposeless. So in this day and age, they can go find purpose online. But the research shows that if you do something that fulfills a purpose in person, live in action with somebody, you get 10 times the dopamine hit. And the same thing with storytelling, I have a whole path in the book that I researched for weeks because I was so fascinated by it it that when we tell stories, we actually release a neurotransmitter in our brain called acetylcholine. Now if that story is actually in person and I'm like, the stories I'm telling you is helping me release acetylcholine. If the story was enjoyable and I really had a good time as I was tell in that experience that I'm telling you about now, I'm making dopamine for myself, I'm making serotonin for myself. If you enjoyed the story, then you're also getting dopamine and serotonin and acetylcholine. We're having a neurochemical experience that you cannot get by looking at a screen.
- [44:04]
B
Is it crucial for women to start HRT when they start menopause?
- [44:07]
A
Yeah, that's a loaded one. Okay, I'm gonna tell you the, I'm gonna tell you sort of the standard answer and then I wanna talk a little bit about the behind the scenes answer. So I think it's a personal decision. I think some women who have great metabolic health, women who have their nervous systems very balanced, they're not Under a lot of stress. I think those women might find they don't need HRT. In Japan, only 4% of women take HRT. And when you look at their diet, when you look at. That's amazing. Yeah. When you look at their lifestyle, when you look at the way elders are treated in Japan, they're put on pedestals. They're well taken care of. I think we have to look at HRT as a tool that we might be able to backfill in because we don't really have our lifestyle completely nailed. We are living in a modern world, and we also are living in a world that hasn't quite. It's not like Japan. You know, here in America, we haven't put our elders on pedestals.
- [45:12]
B
It's terrible.
- [45:13]
A
Especially our female elders. We're. We toss women aside the minute a wrinkle shows up. We don't, you know, women feel horrible about themselves. So HRT is a tool when lifestyle isn't dialed in. Now, some women have their lifestyle dialed in and they still require a little bit of hrt, but a lot of women won't need HRT currently. And this is the behind the scenes that I want to talk about. When I first started researching the information that I put in age like a girl, nobody was talking about menopause. This was 10 years ago. And I wanted to answer one question. What's the purpose of menopause? Why was the human body left in this state for so long? And during that time, women weren't given access to hrt? Do you remember the study that the was like, don't go on HRT because.
- [46:10]
B
It was bogus, saying that we were all going to get breast cancer or whatever. Yeah. Completely debunked.
- [46:15]
A
Which is a whole other thing. Like, isn't the job of a researcher to interpret the data? Right.
- [46:19]
B
You would think, like, so.
- [46:22]
A
So that's a whole nother thought. But out of that, all of a sudden, one day. One day, we changed our tune overnight. I'm gonna say that I have been in the room with a lot of people who believe there's a big pharma playbook going on behind the menopause conversation right now.
- [46:40]
B
Really?
- [46:41]
A
And I wanna say this with love because I have seen a lot of women helped with hrt, but I am gonna ask women to be discerning if it's right for you. Go talk to your doctor, see, get in a conversation. If it's okay for you, I'll use myself as an example. I have the best OB. She is in her 70s. She is iconic. She's been around forever. I walk clinic, and the first thing you see behind the desk is just all these different supplements. She's into natural healing. I love her. She also supports hrt. Does that make me not love her? No. I want to know why. So we have had conversations about what's. Did I want to do hrt? Did I not want to do hrt? I ultimately, at about a year ago, decided I was going to go in on a little bit of hrt. Let me tell you why I haven't been able to get my stress under control. I've written three books in three years. I'm out traveling. So I was like, okay, I'll do a little bit. I'll try it. But I am not taking my eye off of my lifestyle. I'm gonna keep doing the best I can over there. And I told her, and the minute I get my stress under control, I'm getting off of this stuff. That's not the message we're getting right now. The message we're getting right now is one that stop suffering. You don't need to suffer. Just rub some cream on yourself and everything's gonna be okay. But your brain is rewiring itself. You're learning about what you like and you don't like. In this menopausal experience, do we know if it causes cancer? I have plenty of people. I saw you brought Erin Keneally. Dr. Erin Connealy on this. She'll tell you yes sometimes, no other times. She is a hell of a integrative cancer doctor. Like, she's a great. I admire that woman. And she'll tell you yes for some, no for others. When you're looking through the cancer lens.
- [48:39]
B
Right, Right.
- [48:40]
A
So it's not an easy answer. It's a personal answer that you and your doctor need to really think about.
- [48:47]
B
Personalized medicine. Not one size fits all. Shouldn't that be the name of the game for literally everything? Why is learning to say no and setting boundaries in your 30s crucial for hormonal health later?
- [48:59]
A
The best way I can explain this is all falls through a word called resentment. And I learned this from Julie Gottman. Julie Gottman. The Gottmans, in general, are the number one marriage specialists in the country right now. They actually have a marriage lab. And they look at couples. And what Julie told me personally, and she's been publicly talking about, is that what happens to women in marriages that start to fall apart is that they continue to say yes when they really wanted to say no. And Julie and I continued that Conversation. I said, well, don't women do that everywhere in our life? Like, I guess I'll go do that thing, I'll help my friend, but I don't really want to help my friend. I'll fix this person's problem, but I'm really exhausted and I just really want to go to bed early tonight. If you look at the way that women in general are trained is we're trained to put the needs of others ahead of our own. And we keep saying yes and we keep saying yes. And then the resentment builds. And it's not just in marriages, it's in our own bodies. The resentment builds until one day we're like, peace out. And one of the statistics that started this whole book was that the most common time for a woman to kill herself is between 45 and 55. I actually refuted that, that, that statistic when I, when I first saw it, I was like, there's no way this is a mother, this is a grandmother, this is a community member. Why is she killing herself? And when I started to unpack that, I saw that A, it's this massive neurochemical shift. But B, when we go to boundaries of the 30 year old and we go to learning to say no, so it's really behind that question is learning to put yourself first. And sometimes putting yourself first requires that you say no. Putting a boundary up. All a boundary is, is it's an indication of your limit, what you can take. Let's use kids as an example. I'm sure a lot of people have had this situation where you leave your kids clothes at the bottom of the stairs and you hope when they walk upstairs they're gonna pick up their clothes and they're gonna put it in their room. I don't know about you, but I have made that pile bigger and bigger and bigger until finally I'm like, forget it. I'm just gonna pick your stuff up and I'm gonna put it in your room. There's a perfect example of I don't wanna clean up after you, I want you to clean up after you. We have a thousand scenarios like that where women are always doing for others and not doing for themselves.
- [51:51]
B
Yeah.
- [51:51]
A
So learning to say no is actually a form of self care. When you don't want to do something. Start to learn to stand up for yourself, start to learn to put a boundary in place, that I have the ability to do this for you and I don't have the ability to do that. So on the stair thing, you're either going to take that upstairs or I'm going to throw it away so I can have the bottom of my stairs clean.
- [52:22]
B
And it's so funny you saying that because every single one of us.
- [52:25]
A
Yeah.
- [52:25]
B
Relates to that scenario, whether as the kid or the parent. You've said that our bodies were designed for wisdom sharing and societal leadership for our later years. What is that? What does that mean? How do we reclaim that?
- [52:38]
A
Yeah. The book has something in it called the Grandmother Hypothesis and really fun to research for me because, you know, fasting, the whole reason I got excited about fasting is because our hunter and gatherers friends did it and they thrived at it. One of my favorite things about Bill Schindler who you brought on here is that he's like our ancestors were killing it with their health. And so I wanted to look at some of these primal hypotheses that we have. And one of them is the Grandmother Hypothesis. And here's what it says. Says back in the primal days when a woman stopped her menstrual cycle, the tribe actually put her in a different need or a different place within the tribe. And she wasn't a caretaker of little children anymore. She wasn't the caretaker of birthing children anymore. She was actually needed to be able to go out and forage for fish. So check this out. The men would go off and they would do the big animal kill. They brought back an animal kill 3% of the time. They weren't very successful. So one day out of 30, they came back with a big kill. While they were gone, it was the grandmother who went out and foraged for tubers. This is why I keep bringing up the sweet potato. She. They gathered together at the crack of dawn as a group of women to protect their, their clan. And they went out and found foraged fur plants. They primarily found potatoes, all the things the sunchokes, all the tubers that in whatever, wherever their area was. And they brought it back along with some berries to feed the plant the clan while they waited for the animal kill to come home. According to the Grandmother Hypothesis, there are many pieces of this when we stop reproducing. The amount of energy that went into releasing an egg every month now returns back to you. Another great part of the menopausal story. And it returns back to you in three areas. The first area is fitness. So you, you're. This is why you're seeing 50 and 60 year old women like go into the gym. I don't know if you followed any of those Instagram.
- [55:03]
B
Oh yeah, they're crushing, crushing it awesome.
- [55:06]
A
It's amazing because they're not. All that energy that went to reproduction now can go towards fitness. Second thing, it goes towards cognition. Because we needed the, the grandmothers in the hunter gatherer days, they went on a seven hour trek every single day to go forage for food. This is the grandmother hypothesis. And so seven hours a day they were walking, they had fitness, they had to have cognition because they needed to figure out where the tubers were that they were going to bring home to the clan. So they needed a sharper brain. And the third thing that gets restored to us is social connection. We were meant, as we age, to do collaborate together. And this is really important. Collaborate with women. We're not meant to compete with women. We're meant to come together for the survival of the clan. So when you look at this transformation that happened to us in the primal days, this is not the transformation that's happening in the modern day. We aren't talking about the cognition. We can observe the fitness on Instagram and, and we need to lean into helping each other more than ever.
- [56:19]
B
Just to clarify, because as you're saying this, I'm like, oh yeah. When you're talking about this grandmother hypothesis thing, that would really be like the age of menopausal women today. Right? Because when we think grandmothers now, everybody gets married later and has kids later. So now it's like that 70s and 80s, but you're talking more like 40s, 50s.
- [56:36]
A
Oh yeah. I mean, because the primal, they didn't live as long as.
- [56:38]
B
Right, right, yeah. So way younger, not like an old, old, old lady. Yeah, yeah, okay. I think that's important to just remind people.
- [56:44]
A
So, so the, so the, the big piece of what's the purpose of menopause is if we go to evolutionary, it's to save the species. It's, it's for leadership. Our brain rewires itself for better cognition, better connection to other people that are trying to save the clan, better fitness. That's the positive here, which is why I love to bring the primal piece in.
- [57:11]
B
Look, my wellness routine is stacked, but one thing I never skip is my daily juve red light therapy. It's become a non negotiable for me. I turn it on first thing in the morning, drink my smoothie, I stand in front of it like a plant photosynthesizing the truth, and 10 minutes later, I'm already feeling more alert. My skin looks better, my mood's lifted, and my body just works better. Red light and near infrared light support healthy cellular function, which is basically the foundation of everything. Energy metabolism, recovery, inflammation, immunity, skin health, the works. You get clinically proven wavelengths, real medical grade devices and a safe, effective dose of light right from your home. Juice. Not some cheap gadget. Okay? It is the gold standard in red light therapy. If I'm going to invest in anything for my health, it's going to be something that helps my body do what it was designed to do better. Go to juve.com Alex your discount will automatically populate. It's Joov J O O V.com Alex.
- [58:06]
A
Alex.
- [58:06]
B
For an exclusive discount on your first order joovv.com Alex it's Halloween, the one time of year when people willingly cover themselves in fake blood. Meanwhile, I'm over here like no thanks. I've got the real thing courtesy of my period tmi. But whatever. Unlike the rest of Halloween, my horror story is a happy ending thanks to Garnu, the non toxic period brand that doesn't treat your body like a science experiment. Garnu makes period products that are 100 organic cotton, no bleach, no plastic, no fragrance, no weird chemical cocktail, no glyphosate. Just safe, clean stuff that your body won't freak out over. Garnu actually supports women, not just markets to them. They give pads to girls in developing countries. So everyone gets the support that they need. That's real girl power. No cape required. So this Halloween, skip the scary tampon ingredients and treat yourself to something better. Go to Garnu.com use code Alex for 15% off your one time subscription or one time purchase. That's Garnu.com code Alex for 15% off. Because the only blood you should worry about on Halloween is the fake kind. Are there any other tips that were applied in ancestral living that would be really helpful for us to do today?
- [59:16]
A
Yes. So they fasted. I know. I. I can't, I can't get off my fasted soapbox. I'm. I apologize. I just, I think it's the, the key to everything for women's health. They fasted and I calculated how long they fasted. They fasted about 17 hours every single day. They did this trek in a fasted state.
- [59:37]
B
And also if you're saying that we should not be eating, if the fasting should start around 8pm and then go till 10am and you want a couple hours between finishing dinner and then going to bed.
- [59:48]
A
That's right.
- [59:49]
B
We need to be eating dinner earlier. Yep.
- [59:51]
A
Bingo. It's a thing though, there was some write ups recently that like the people are going to dinner now at 5 o' clock more than ever.
- [59:59]
B
We literally need to be doing that, you guys. I know that a lot of people, like, that's unrealistic. That's not my work title. I understand it's not going to be for everybody, but if you can do it, you should do it.
- [60:08]
A
That's right. I mean, this is one of the things I get asked a lot about fasting is, okay, well, what's my eating window?
- [60:14]
B
Yeah.
- [60:15]
A
Well, the best thing you can do is always eat in the light. The minute you eat in the dark, that you've got melatonin coming into you. And melatonin makes your pancreas sleepy. Not just your brain, it makes your pancreas sleepy and you become more insulin resistant.
- [60:31]
B
Which means if we're trying to eat within the light, Dr. Mindy, then that changes depending on the season.
- [60:38]
A
That's right.
- [60:38]
B
So you can eat a little bit later in the summer because the light's out longer in the summer, but you need to eat earlier and go to bed earlier in the winter.
- [60:43]
A
That's right. You got it. You got it.
- [60:44]
B
All right.
- [60:45]
A
I actually think food, you know, if we go back to our primal friends, I think food was more sparse. Of course, it was more sparse in the winter than in the summer. And I haven't found any research on this exact thing, but I think we are meant to be be in more of a fasted state in the winter than the summer.
- [61:02]
B
That makes total sense to me.
- [61:03]
A
Yeah.
- [61:03]
B
Now, when we're talking about circadian rhythms, what's your advice for the young woman who's raising little kids or breastfeeding and her circadian rhythm is totally out of whack because you're waking up in the middle of the night and stuff.
- [61:12]
A
Yeah. So make sure you time yourself to light. So there's a couple ways you can do that. And yes, you know, this is going to sound like, yeah, easier said than done. But let's fill in what you do if you can't do this. Get up with sunrise. You want your eyes to see the red hue of the sky. So it can be as simple as you make yourself a cup of coffee and you stare out the window and you see the red light. What that does is your brain goes, oh, okay, we just woke up, I see red light. Okay. That means I need to turn off melatonin production. So your brain starts to turn off melatonin production. If you're not getting up with the sunrise is where red light therapy can be really helpful. Next thing is your movement should be in the morning. So you want. That's when our ancestors did it. That's when your body has the most cortisol in it. Move your body in the morning so it knows, oh, okay, here's the morning. I definitely am just gonna keep myself moving. So you're telling your brain where it is in its daily 24 hour cycle. Third thing, go out without your sunglasses in the middle of the day. This is what I recommend for you.
- [62:18]
B
All, us at the TPSA office.
- [62:21]
A
When we're done with this podcast. You're gonna do like around this building without your sunglasses so that your eyes see the blue light from the sunlight and goes, oh, okay, it's midday now. Then at the end of the day, at sunset, go back outside, take the dog for a walk, make sure that you're getting out and seeing the red light or put your red light on. Now the next step, once it goes dark, you gotta either put some blue blockers on, put blockers on your computer or your TV screen, something. So you're not getting the infiltration of all that blue light. For sure. That's a thing. So the busy mom has to time herself to the light in whatever way possible. And then the last thing I'll say on that one that I really focused on, that was fascinating. I did a whole sleep chapter in Age like a girl is that one of the signals to tell our body to go to sleep is a decline in temperature. And so you hear a lot of women say, especially in the menopausal years, I gotta keep the room cold. But what we don't talk enough about is that primally we are met to experience a reduction in temperature as we get closer to bedtime. So the worst thing you can do is sit in your living room or your den with the blue light from your tv, fireplace on, fireplace on, blanket. Maybe you're watching an action packed film that you're getting all your nervous systems getting all agitated. You're not going to be able to sleep. That's a tough one. My heart goes out if you're waking up at 2, 3 in the morning. I did that for many years with my children. But I really want to emphasize that you're going to need to make sure that you pull in some of these other primal tricks like light and temperature to get your rhythm back.
- [64:09]
B
What is your advice for a woman who listens to these health and wellness podcasts and reads a bunch of health and wellness books and stuff? She's like, I don't know, I'm just so overwhelmed by all of this?
- [64:18]
A
Yeah, I was that woman. I'm sure you all have. I mean, everybody's been that woman.
- [64:22]
B
How'd you overcome it?
- [64:23]
A
Well, the first thing is to realize that part of the experience of menopause is surrendering to the fact that you can't be perfect. Perfectionism will kill your hormones. So I stopped trying to do it all. Like, okay, so I can't cold plunge three times a week, and I'm not always going to eat the perfect amount of protein for myself. And sometimes I'm gonna skip the gym. Like, give yourself some grace. There's actually a term called orthorexia, which is where people get so obsessed with their health habits that now what they're doing is doing the opposite. So we need to hold this a little looser. Like, have fun with it. Be curious. Like, you listen to your podcast, and what I would say is, like, you know, Bill Schindler comes and teaches you how to eat like a human, and he tells you, hey, you know, you should be. Did he talk about eating weeds out of the crevices of the sidewalk?
- [65:25]
B
No, but he did say you've gotta peel the skin off all your potatoes. Okay, yeah, but that's hilarious. We did not talk about that.
- [65:32]
A
He has this whole thing about how the weeds in your backyard that are coming out of your concrete might be actually beneficial.
- [65:39]
B
Oh, my gosh.
- [65:40]
A
Or, you know, one thing I learned from him was nictinamide corn, which is. Is really important.
- [65:46]
B
We did talk about that.
- [65:47]
A
Yeah. Okay, so be curious about that. Like, let's do the corn thing. Like, when I go to a restaurant and I see that they have nicktinomized corn on there, I'm like, oh, that's cool. You know that. Yeah. But I don't go like, I can't eat corn. It has to be nicktitomized.
- [66:02]
B
I'm the same way. And you know what? I. I feel like it's a mindset shift of. It's not that all of this information should be overwhelming or oppressive. I really find that there's freedom in having this information. Like, wow, I know more. I can do better. I can pick and choose what works for me. I know my body now better, so I can. I know, like, okay, that advice would apply to me and my health journey. You know, where I'm at right now. Or it may not. Yeah, but knowing your body kind of allows you to sift through things and be like, oh, what this guest said, I can take from that. That's going to help me. Or, that isn't for my time in my life. But now I know that knowledge, I can share it with somebody else who might need.
- [66:33]
A
That's right.
- [66:34]
B
It's not about like information overload. You have to do everything everybody says. It's just you pick and choose what's going to serve you.
- [66:41]
A
And I just want to point out, if you can just be curious, you can be your own N of 1. We' talked about this. This is the downside of the ladies night is you'll go out and you'll be like, oh my God, all my friends, they did this diet and they lost weight. I'm gonna go do it. And then you go and do it. You don't lose weight. And then you turn on yourself and you're like, oh, there must be something wrong with me. The name of the health game is to fall in love with your body and to be curious about what works best for it. And I used to always tell my patients when they're like, oh my God, I feel so healthy. I like, I've applied everything that you've told me to do. I feel amazing. And I and my first comment to them was, nothing fails like success. Be careful because when you hit a place where you're like, I've done all the things and I'm feeling really good, you'll take your eye off of it. For me, I always have one thing I'm working on. I always have one health habit that's pulling me forward. So if you're listening to this podcast and you've never fasted before, like, I'm inviting you into the fasting world. I've written a lot of books, I've done a lot of videos on this. Just test it. If your friend was like, like, oh my God, I did fasting. And I, it didn't work for me. That doesn't mean it doesn't work for you.
- [67:54]
B
Yeah.
- [67:54]
A
If your doctor is like, oh, I'm scared about fasting, take him the 450 or her the 450 page. Peer reviewed citations in age like a girl and ask him or her to be able to do their own research. Yep. So staying curious and staying individual is the name of the game.
- [68:15]
B
Where can people pre order your book.
- [68:17]
A
So you can go anywhere that books are sold? I always say this, if you have an independent bookstore, go into your indies. Those are families that live on that income. So you can go to bookshop.org support them. We also did something cool for your audience. We put all of our bonuses together because I don't know if you realize this, but this episode's coming out before and the other 70 to 100 episodes that I'm recording for this book. And so we have a bunch of bonuses. So if people pre order it now, we've got like a whole 90 minute course I did on the book. We have a toolbox, we have a live event. I'm doing how to put the book into action. And you can start learning right now. And that's at age like a girlbook.com backslash culture apothecary.
- [69:08]
B
That's so nice that you offered that for my audience. They're going to absolutely love that. And by the way guys, this is one of those easy things. You pre order this book for yourself, your mother, and then you're done for Christmas. Like this is a great easy book, inexpensive to buy a book for somebody and will greatly benefit their life. Dr. Min's fantastic. Where can people find you on social media?
- [69:27]
A
Well, I always tell people my passion project is YouTube. Oh I've done over 2500 videos and you can go stalk me there. You'll see all my old hairstyles and dresses. But there's plenty of you there so you can go there. Otherwise I'm on all the socials. Otherwise you can always go to my website and you know, drmindy pels.com if.
- [69:46]
B
You could offer one remedy to heal a sick culture and that could be physically, emotionally or spiritually, what would that remedy be?
- [69:55]
A
I think that it's what we have talked about here is personalized medicine. Really start to live life on your terms. Whether it's setting boundaries, taking care of your nervous system or making diet changes. We need to come back to looking at what the individual needs, not necessarily what's right for the culture at hand. Let's go into the individual and when. You know, one of my favorite quotes is when you do what lights you up, when you are the healthiest version of yourself, that is truly what's going to change the world.
- [70:29]
B
I am so excited to age like a girl and age the way God intended. I think that's really what this is about is, is helping to support your body as we age in the best way so that it is a beautiful experience. It shouldn't be a traumatic or painful or you know, a hundred medications. That's not how aging should be. Unfortunately, that's how it's become in America. But that's not how it should be. That's not the ideal. So hopefully by reading Dr. Mindy's book, we can, we can change that. Thank you for coming on Culture apothecary yeah.
- [70:58]
A
Thank you Alex. I really appreciated the conversation. Conversation.
- [71:04]
B
Absolutely loved this episode. I have not talked about any of this stuff before. I learned so much. I love the conversation that we had about just women needing to be around women for our health. That is so important. Please contact your girlfriends, text the chat, say let's get together. Let's do that dinner that we keep putting off. Leave a 5 star review for my podcast. This helps us immensely. It helps us become more noticeable to other guests. It helps people discover us. It helps us climb the track charts. We're on a mission to heal AIT culture twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays 6pm Pacific, 9pm Eastern where we are bringing on guests to bring their own unique remedy to do just that. Subscribe to Real Alex Clark on YouTube. Find the show on Instagram at Culture Apothecary or me at Real Alex Clark. I'm Alex Clark and this is Culture Apothecary.