Dr. Mindy Pelz on the Wisdom That Emerges from Menopause

Summary

Podcast Summary: Making Space with Hoda Kotb
Episode: Dr. Mindy Pelz on the Wisdom That Emerges from Menopause
Date: January 14, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this heartfelt and enlightening conversation, Hoda Kotb sits down with Dr. Mindy Pelz—renowned women’s health expert and author of "Age Like a Girl"—to reframe menopause not as a period of decline, but as a transformative biological and neurological shift that empowers women. Together, they explore the science, daily habits, and mindset shifts that can help women embrace this phase and find strength, clarity, and self-compassion.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Reframing Menopause: Not Decline, but “Becoming”

• Menopause as a Biological Remodel: Dr. Pelz explains that menopause is not just a hormonal decline, but a purposeful brain and body transformation. Neurons associated with people-pleasing and external validation are replaced with those fostering self-knowledge and assertiveness.

  • Dr. Pelz: "Your brain is remodeling itself... The neurons that kept you addicted to everybody else's opinion of you go away and you start to build new neurons that make you more introspective. You turn within and you’re like, 'What do I want?'" (07:41)

• A Large Part of Life: Over 42% of a woman’s life is potentially post-reproductive; this period is a significant and meaningful time worthy of investment and understanding.

  • Dr. Pelz: "We live 42.5% of our life, if we're lucky, post-reproductively. That’s a large part of our life." (04:03)

2. Menopausal Symptoms as Messages

• Physical & Emotional Shifts: Both Kotb and Pelz discuss common symptoms: brain fog, depression, anxiety, and memory loss.
• Temporary, Not Permanent: Dr. Pelz reassures listeners that the symptoms are part of a brain and hormonal "remodel"; it’s chaotic like home renovation, but purposeful.
  • Dr. Pelz: "It’s like a kitchen remodel. You wouldn’t walk into the middle of the dust and be like, 'When is this gonna be done?'... It’s purposeful." (06:17)

3. Lifestyle Tweaks for Brain & Body Health

• Connections Matter: Genuine interpersonal connections produce oxytocin, which reduces stress hormones and supports hormone balance.

  • Dr. Pelz: "When you connect with another human, oxytocin comes in. Oxytocin brings down cortisol... By bringing stress down, you become more insulin sensitive. All of your sex hormones start to balance." (09:28)

• Declutter for Mental Clarity: Creating calm physical environments supports the chaotic remodel happening in the brain.

  • Dr. Pelz: "Just know there’s a lot going on up there as your remodels itself. Can you make your environments feel calm?" (11:28)

• Storytelling for Memory: Sharing stories from one’s past exercises the brain and helps regenerate connections that support memory.

  • Dr. Pelz: "When we tell a story about something in the past, we are actually exercising our brain and making it go back into the memory center." (11:41)

4. Nutrition & Fasting

• Your Diet Needs to Evolve: Foods that worked in your 30s may not suit your needs in your 40s or 50s. Dr. Pelz champions whole foods—proteins, vegetables, legumes, tubers (especially sweet potatoes for magnesium and gut health).

  • Dr. Pelz: "The diet that you thrived on at 35, you may not thrive on at 45, and at 55, it might really be damaging." (13:37)
  • Dr. Pelz: "Sweet potatoes are amazing... they feed your microbiome, regulate your blood sugar." (14:31)

• Fasting, Ketones, and Metabolic Flexibility: As estrogen declines, the brain uses glucose less efficiently; shifting to ketone fuel via intermittent fasting helps clear brain fog, improve mood, and aids weight loss.

  • Dr. Pelz: "As you go through menopause, your brain slants more towards a lower glucose diet." (15:04)
  • Dr. Pelz: "Intermittent fasting—13 to 15 hours—helps you switch to a fat burning energy system... The brain fog goes away, the depression, the anxiety goes away." (16:12)

• Fasting in Practice: Details on fasting windows, what you can drink (black coffee, full-fat cream), and the importance of protein for the first meal and per workout needs.

5. Exercise & Sleep

• Fasted vs. Fed Workouts: Fasted cardio promotes fat loss; protein is helpful before strength training—protein powder in coffee or amino acid supplements are practical hacks.

  • Dr. Pelz: "When you go in a fasted state to the gym... it’s gonna burn fat to find glucose." (20:10)
  • Dr. Pelz: "For strength training, amino acids are incredibly important before a workout." (20:34)

• Sleep and Light: Estrogen was the body's "timekeeper," and its loss disrupts sleep cycles. To recalibrate circadian rhythms, seek natural light in the morning/midday, use red lights at night to mimic sunset, and lower bedroom temperatures by 2 degrees at night.

  • Dr. Pelz: "When you get up in the morning and you see the sun rise, your eyes register that and send a message to the timekeeper in the brain and say, 'It’s daytime, turn off melatonin.'" (28:16)
  • Dr. Pelz: "You need your core body temperature to go down by 2 degrees." (30:09)

• Self-Soothing Routines: Meditation, yoga, chanting, and box breathing calm the nervous system and improve sleep quality.

  • Hoda Kotb: "It’s like you have a bunch of lake water in a jar and you shake it, then you watch how it drops down. I feel that way when I’m meditating." (33:08)

6. Stress & the “Sandwich Generation”

• Impact of Chronic Stress: In midlife, caring for aging parents and children ("sandwich generation"), many women are maxed out. The adrenal glands take over estrogen production in menopause; if already overwhelmed, this can lead to the worst symptoms.

  • Dr. Pelz: "Having a highly stressed, rushing life is a recipe for menopausal madness." (35:41)

• Learning to Make Space for Yourself: The huge mindset shift in menopause is transitioning from self-sacrifice to self-care, which can initially unsettle families and partners.

  • Dr. Pelz: "You might have been getting a lot of worth from caring for everybody else." (36:45)
  • Dr. Pelz: "I put an appendix to men in this book... so that women could hand the book and just say, here you go." (37:02)

7. Hope, Agency, and the Hero’s Journey

• Temporary Turbulence, Brighter Horizon: Symptoms are temporary; what emerges is a liberated, self-aware woman ready for the next joyful chapter.

  • Dr. Pelz: "Your brain is remodeling itself so that you can start living life on your terms. You’re in a temporary stuck spot." (38:30)
  • Dr. Pelz: "Don’t wait for a hero to show up and make this menopausal experience amazing for you. Be your own hero." (39:02)

• Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT): Helpful for some, but not a universal fix. Symptoms can indicate deeper life dissatisfaction—suppression may miss the opportunity for transformation.

  • Dr. Pelz: "It’s not a one size fits all... you need to have an OB that you’re really working closely with... Maybe the depression, maybe the rage is because there are parts of your life you don’t want to play anymore." (39:56)

• Finding One’s Voice: There is a cultural shift—women are increasingly naming their needs, saying “no,” and finally doing life on their own terms.

  • Dr. Pelz: "What happens at menopause is this massive remodeling and this neurochemical shift wakes us up: 'I don’t wanna play that game anymore.'" (41:44)
  • Hoda Kotb: "It takes so long to find your voice." (41:27)

8. Personal Rituals and “Making Space”

• Dr. Pelz’s Ideal Day: Meditation, nourishing reading, surfing (learned at 56!), hiking, chanting music, and doodling—all create peace, self-knowledge, and joy.
  • Dr. Pelz: "Every day, I get in the water, two hours a day I surf. There’s whales jumping, there’s otters next to me." (44:01)
  • Dr. Pelz: "At night, I sit in my room with red lights on and the chanting music, and I just doodle. What it does is let my thoughts sort of move through me from the day." (44:35)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "I wanted to figure out why the human body would continue to thrive for a female once her reproductive cycle went away." — Dr. Mindy Pelz (04:06)
• "You're not a victim to this ten year experience. It's an opportunity to get to know yourself in a different way." — Dr. Mindy Pelz (09:39)
• "The brain fog goes away... because what comes with ketones is more dopamine, more gaba, there's a whole neurochemical shift just from eating [differently]." — Dr. Mindy Pelz (16:12)
• "We have outsourced so much of our worth and care to other people. Don’t wait for a hero… Be your own hero." — Dr. Mindy Pelz (39:22)
• "What happens at menopause is this massive remodeling and this neurochemical shift... we’re like, 'You know what? I don’t want to play that game anymore.'" — Dr. Mindy Pelz (41:44)
• "If you had a clean slate… how would you spend that day?"
  "I meditate. I always try to put something good into my brain through a book… I surf… I walk, and at night I doodle... just letting my thoughts move through me." — Dr. Mindy Pelz (42:46–44:35)

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Useful Timestamps

• 03:27 - The "mama bears" and origins of Dr. Pelz's menopause research
• 06:17 - Explanation of the neurological "remodel" during menopause
• 09:28 - The biological benefits of connection and oxytocin
• 11:41 - Storytelling as memory exercise
• 15:04 - Why intermittent fasting helps brain fog and mood
• 20:10 - Exercise tips: fasted vs. fed workouts
• 28:16 - How light exposure resets sleep cycles in menopause
• 35:41 - The crushing impact of stress during perimenopause
• 39:02 - Take charge: "Be your own hero"
• 41:44 - The cultural importance of finding women’s authentic voices
• 42:46–44:35 - Dr. Pelz's personal rituals and ways of "making space"

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Tone & Style

This episode blends the warm, practical energy of Hoda Kotb with Dr. Pelz's blend of science-backed advice, gentle encouragement, and real-life stories. Dr. Pelz is upbeat, compassionate, and empowering in her approach, consistently validating women’s experiences while urging self-advocacy and lifestyle experiments.

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For Listeners

Whether you’re moving through menopause or supporting someone who is, this episode reframes the discussion as a story of hope, agency, and self-discovery. It’s packed with actionable tips and mind shifts to make this period not just bearable, but a powerful new beginning.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Commercial Narrator]

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[Hoda Kotb]

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[Hoda Kotb]

There are people who accept the world as it is and there are people who refuse to believe that this is just how it is is a complete answer. Dr. Mindy Peltz is one of those people. She is a New York Times bestselling author, clinician, and one of the most influential voices in women's health today. She has written seven books, surpassed 110 million views on her YouTube channel, and seen her podcast reached more than 11 million downloads. Her work in fasting hormones, metabolic health and aging has attracted a global community of more than 5 million people searching for a different way to understand their bodies. After being diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome in her early 20s, Dr. Mindy began a decades long quest to find answers that traditional medicine could not offer. What started as a personal search for healing became a mission to challenge the idea that women's bodies are broken and to help women reclaim trust in their own biology. Her new book, Age Like a Girl is her most personal work yet. It explores what happens when a woman stops overriding her body, stops rushing and starts listening. It reframes menopause not as a decline, but as a powerful biological and neurological shift, inviting women to see this stage of life not as an end, but as a becoming. In our conversation, Dr. Mindy opens up about what drives her to find answers, what she's learned from working with women around the world, and what you can do to make this time in your life a lot better. I'm Hoda Kotb and this is my podcast, Making Space. First of all, I'm so happy to be sitting with you. I've admired you from afar. Thank you. I've listened to your podcasts on a lot of my good friends and I was so excited to see this book and it's called Age Like a Girl. And then I started reading. I saw the word menopause and I was like, I know exactly what this book is going to be about. It's going to be about menopause. This is not that book. This is a book that's not explaining or describing what we're going through. And I love the concept. So first of all, just tell me how this came to you as something that you wanted to write.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah, Well, I always say it started with the mama bears. In my practice, I had a practice full of women that were going through perimenopause and they kept having all these crazy symptoms. And one of the most startling symptoms was behind closed doors. They would be like, my life on paper is perfect, but I'm depressed, I'm anxious, and I have suicidal thoughts.

[Hoda Kotb]

Wow.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

And I was like, so many of these women were saying it that I dove into the research to try to figure out what is the purpose of menopause. Like, we live 42.5% of our life, if we're lucky, post reproductively.

[Hoda Kotb]

Right.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

That's a large part of our life.

[Hoda Kotb]

That's a chunk. That's a big chunk.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

And what I know about the human body is it doesn't do anything by mistake. So I wanted to figure out why the human body would continue to thrive for a female once her reproductive cycle went away.

[Hoda Kotb]

Interesting. So you, how old are you?

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

56.

[Hoda Kotb]

You're 56. So when you think back to whenever that moment was where you started to feel different, describe yourself in that moment in that window.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Well, so my symptoms through menopause were really different because in my early 40s, they were all physical. It was like night sweats and weight gain. And then it kind of went in, in the mid-40s into like, I just feel kind of depressed. And then the brain stuff started to K and it was really like, nothing could make me happy. And I would say, I'm a workaholic. Like, I can put in a 10 to 12 hour workday. And all of a sudden I started noticing I had to shut down the amount of work I was doing. I would lose my thought when I was with patients. Or if I was like doing a video for YouTube, like, my memory would just go. So that made me kind of move from the body to the brain because there's so many symptoms, right? Which one? Why are all these symptoms happen? What is the body trying to tell us?

[Hoda Kotb]

Okay, so a lot of women who I'm imagining are listening, saying, yeah, I feel brain fog, I feel kind of in a funk. I don't feel good. But this is just how life goes, man. This is what Happens in this stage. So buckle up and endure. And what's your answer to that?

[Commercial Narrator]

Yeah.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

And the next thing that they say is, is this gonna last forever?

[Hoda Kotb]

Yeah.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

So what I wanted to explain is this is not gonna last forever. So let's explain this.

[Hoda Kotb]

Okay.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

At 40, when estrogen that signals the brain to literally remodel itself. This was Lisa Moscone's work that she found that when we go through these massive hormonal shifts, Neurons in the brain that are delivering information to different parts of the brain, some of those neurons get sloughed away, and new neurons appear that give you new thoughts.

[Hoda Kotb]

Wait, wait, wait. So you're not just on the decline? Yes. There's stuff that's building in your brain.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

It's literally like a. A kitchen remodel. It's like the brain is remodeling itself for the next phase of your life.

[Hoda Kotb]

Ah. So that's a big underlying highlight thing. Cause I think we all thought that. Oh, it's called decline. That's what happens. I'm 61. Like, you feel that you're firing on all cylinders, and then you're like, oh, I can't remember. Uh, oh, I don't know this. Uh, oh. So you're losing brain cells, and some are being built.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

That's right.

[Hoda Kotb]

That's crazy.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

So, like, think about it. Literally think about a kitchen remodel. You wouldn'. Walk into the middle of the dust and be like, when is this gonna be done? You have some sense that there is going to be a completion, and it's purposeful. So here's the brilliant part, and Lisa's research taught us this, is that those neurons in your brain that kept you addicted to what everybody else thinks of you, the people pleasing. If I fix your problem, I'm gonna be worthy. The way in which so many women are outwardly looking for validation, those neurons go away.

[Hoda Kotb]

That's why we stop caring about what other people think.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Like, literally, we're not designed to care.

[Hoda Kotb]

You know what's so funny? I interviewed Jamie Lee Curtis and a bunch of other women of that age, and one of the things they always say is, Kathie Lee said this too. I don't care anymore.

[Commercial Narrator]

I don't care.

[Hoda Kotb]

I just thought it was a kind of state of mind. You just tired of it, but you say, there's something more.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah, no, you're not designed to care. This is the big premise of the book, is your brain is remodeling itself. All those neurons that kept you addicted to everybody else's abuse. Opinion of you goes away and you start to build new neurons that make you actually are more introspective. You turn within and you're like, what do I want? Like speaking your voice. So many women are like, I'm not. I don't want to speak up because I don't want to rock the boat. You put them through this brain remodel of menopause and all of a sudden they're going to tell you what they think.

[Hoda Kotb]

Let's talk about timing though. Okay? So when you start forgetting and being in a fog and saying, when am I gonna get clarity? And where's my phone? And I can't find the keys. And what did my kids say? I can't remember was their homework due to this part where the remodeling starts. How long of a process is that?

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah, I mean, this is bad news. Yeah, it's about 10 years. Okay. But what I did in this book is in the middle section I wanted to explain, like when your moods go off, think about these lifestyle changes, when your memory goes off. Cause this is what I've learned is we don't need to bring forward like here's a fanc supplement or here's a fancy medication. We need to start to teach women how to use their lifestyle to create a neurochemical reaction in your brain. Let me give you an example. Right now we're in connection with each other, we're making oxytocin. And so there's there when you connect with another human, oxytocin comes in. Well, oxytocin actually brings down cortisol. Cortisol is your stress hormone. And when you balance cortisol, actually you can start to now balance insulin. And you actually, by bringing stress down, you become more insulin sensitive. And when you're more insulin sensitive, all of your sex hormones start to balance.

[Hoda Kotb]

So having great connections with even someone you've just met in this moment, as long as there's a real, true connection, all that's bubbling up inside of you.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

That's right. And that's what I wanted to bring forward is like, you're not a victim to this ten year experience.

[Hoda Kotb]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

It's an opportunity to get to know yourself in a different way. And as women, we respond to every environment we put our bodies in. You put yourself in a negative, stressful environment, your body's gonna go into having a negative reaction. If you put yourself in really positive environments, you're gonna have a whole different neurochemical reaction. Same body, different environment.

[Hoda Kotb]

Okay. So if I would like to not wait 10 years to get rid of my brain fog. If I wanna get something going, I like this interpersonal connection. I think that what other things can people do who have busy lives and kids and jobs, et cetera, et cetera, that they can fit in, that can help clear that up.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

So you wanna go with memory first? Let's go.

[Hoda Kotb]

Memory.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah, memory and brain fog. So we have to remember like a remodel. There's a lot of dust and chaos. And so if there's chaos in your brain, you wanna make sure your environment is calm. So something as simple as decluttering. Just know there's a lot going on up there as your remodels itself. So now can you make your environments feel calm? And so like, for me, we lived in that house. I had that house where all the kids showed up. And, you know, when I went into my late 40s, all of a sudden the kids showing up equated to a mess. And I had to like train everybody in the house that I can't handle messes. Now I need you to take care of that. And then I went, had certain rooms where I had completely reorganized the room so it was calm. And every time I went in to that room, I started to feel more calm.

[Hoda Kotb]

Okay, so your environment clearly clear your environment.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Clear your environment. So that would be one. Another one for memory that I love, that I found a tremendous amount of research on is storytelling.

[Hoda Kotb]

Oh, what is that?

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

So let's check this out. So when we tell a story about something in the past, we are actually exercising our brain and making it go back into the memory center. And in order to do that, it stimulates a neurotransmitter called acetylcholine. And acetylcholine goes away often when estrogen goes away. So when those two start to go away, you can't access memory, but you just need to exercise that part of the brain. So tell stories. We have left storytelling up to tv.

[Hoda Kotb]

That's interesting.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

So, but you know how we know this innately? Do you have that relative that always tells the same story?

[Hoda Kotb]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

I mean, my mom is that. And until I understood what she was doing, I was like, I would say, mom, we've heard that story before, right? But then you realize what she's actually doing is exercising her memory bank. And so I started asking her different questions. Like, you know what? You've never told me about that story. Can you tell me about X, Y and Z? So we have to think of memory as a muscle, okay. And so if you start to use it through storytelling or dip into old facts. You know, like, what was your childhood phone number? Like, and maybe you don't use. Maybe you actually remember the way to get somewhere without having to use an app to show you. We have to exercise that.

[Hoda Kotb]

Okay, so we've got some tricks there to get your memory going. What about, like. I mean, nutrition, obviously, is gonna be a big thing that you tackle, but I feel like some nights I'll have salmon and broccoli or whatever. I'll wake up the next day and I feel like I'm on fire, like, excellent. And sometimes whenever I feel that way in the morning, I backtrac. I'm like, what did I eat? When did I eat it? What was it? Was it that? So tell me about how nutrition plays in how we feel as we age and that meh kind of feeling.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

It's such a good question. Because the diet that you thrived on at 35, you may not thrive on at 45, and at 55, it might really be damaging you. So let's make it simple, because nutrition seems to be very complicated for people. The first thing is get off the ultra processed foods, which is why I'm smiling when you're like, I have salmon and greens.

[Hoda Kotb]

Yes, you feel it.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yes, you feel it. So we gotta get off the canned packaged foods with the bad oils and the chemicals. Just get off that and eat real food. Okay, so protein, vegetables, legumes are amazing in the book. One of my favorite types of food is tubers, which are sweet potatoes. Jicama sun chose potatoes. Those are all incredible for the menopausal brain, and I have a whole list of reasons why.

[Hoda Kotb]

Okay, well, those are important. So sweet potatoes are good for the menopausal brain.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Sweet potatoes are amazing.

[Hoda Kotb]

What do they have? Is there something in there?

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah, well, a lot of magnesium. They feed your microbiome, and your microbiome makes serotonin and all kinds of things. They regulate your blood sugar. They're lower on the glycemic index.

[Hoda Kotb]

Oh, smart. Okay.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

So they actually stabilize your blood sugar.

[Hoda Kotb]

Okay, so eat. Eat all stuff that's real from the earth.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah.

[Hoda Kotb]

What else can you do, nutrition wise?

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

So let' swe're gonna have to touch on fasting, because that's.

[Hoda Kotb]

I want to. I'm dying to. Okay, tell me about the fasting piece.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah. So the best way to talk about this is through the lens of Lisa Moscone, our brain researcher. When I had a conversation with her on my podcast, she emphasized that the female brain doesn't know what to do with glucose as estrogen starts to decline.

[Hoda Kotb]

Oh, okay.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

So glucose is the molecule that just. So we keep everybody up to speed. When you eat food, it turns into these glucose molecules, but you have another fuel source for your brain. It's called a ketone. And so as you go through menopause, your brain slants more towards a lower glucose diet, which is why your salmon and your greens fueled you so well. That's not a high glucose meal. And if you can get to ketones through intermittent fasting, 13 to 15 hours, we can talk about what that is. You are now metabolically switching into a different energy system. I call it the fat burning energy system. Because what your brilliant body will do is it senses that there's no glucose coming in.

[Hoda Kotb]

Right? No food.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

And so it switches over and burns fat. That menopausal belly weight that you're exhausted with, it will exhausted, burn. And that in order to make a ketone that will go up into your brain and supercharge your brain. And so the brain fog goes away, the depression, the anxiety goes away. Because what comes with ketones is more dopamine, more gaba, there's a whole neurochemical shift just from eating.

[Hoda Kotb]

Okay, so this is all from not eating?

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah.

[Hoda Kotb]

So your brain's on fire, you feel better from not putting any food in?

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah.

[Hoda Kotb]

Okay, this is interesting to me. So how long should the stretch of not putting any food in go? Yeah, let's pretend I don't know. You're at home, you've put the kids down, you had your meal and it's eight o' clock at night and you ate a snack and now you're done.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah. So the best way to look at this is in a 24 hour period. You wanna have an eating window and a fasting window. So if I'm done eating at 8 o' clock at night, so this means nothing going in your mouth, you can have water, but you don't want your blood sugar to go up. And then I eat at, let's say 10 or 11 the next morning.

[Hoda Kotb]

So you say don't eat till 10, even if you have like a busy morning, you have meetings, you have things still.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah. Okay, so the next logical question usually is the coffee.

[Hoda Kotb]

Coffee, I was gonna ask. I was like, girl, I'm in. But just sort of. Okay.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

And then let's talk about how you get yourself there so people can walk away with something to apply. So, so black coffee's okay, A full fat cream is okay. Something with a lot of fat in it, a lot of People do the MCT oil in their coffee. That's all just to stabilize, but not.

[Hoda Kotb]

Half and half full fat. Cream, heavy cream.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

You could do half and half and half. Okay. No oat milk, almond milk, no creamer or sugar.

[Hoda Kotb]

Okay. So you just have your coffee and that'll take you through till like 10 or 11 or whenever.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah. So most people that. That kind of becomes a meal.

[Hoda Kotb]

Ah. So then you reach 10 or 11. What should be the first thing you put in your mouth if you want to keep clear? Brain, body on fire. All those good things.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah. Oh, this is such a good question. So there's two things. One is you want to feed your microbiome. So we have trillions of bacteria in our gut. So I always like to put like a salad, maybe some fermented foods. If you do animal products. I'm a huge fan of breaking your fast with bone broth because it really repairs the inner lining of the gut. So you want to think about what that's gonna help support the gut and fiber. Fermented bone broth is great. Second thing you wanna think about is protein. It's a really big one right now, especially in the diet.

[Hoda Kotb]

Everybody's talking about it. Yeah.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

So you need about 30 grams of protein to start to actually move yourself metabolically to more insulin sensitivity.

[Hoda Kotb]

Okay.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

So I like the research on that. And so just make sure that first meal has 30 grams of protein.

[Hoda Kotb]

So what is. Can you break it down? Like, how many eggs am I eating? What is 30 grams?

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah, eggs. E. Eggs is like, it's like six eggs.

[Hoda Kotb]

So you gotta eat six eggs.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah, yeah. Eggs is probably not your best choice.

[Hoda Kotb]

Yeah, that's a good one.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

But like a seven ounce chicken breast, which would be like about this big.

[Hoda Kotb]

All right.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah.

[Hoda Kotb]

And that's how much should you have throughout the day?

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

You're supposed to have one gram per pound of ideal body weight.

[Hoda Kotb]

Oh, okay.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

But this is why I say try to have 30 grams per meal is. I've watched a lot of women double down on protein only to gain weight.

[Hoda Kotb]

Oh, really?

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah. Okay, so, you know, use your intuition and maybe look at 30 grams per meal. But if you're shoving eggs in your mouth because you need to hit some number.

[Hoda Kotb]

No good. Stop. Okay, so some people are morning workout people. I am. I like to go to the gym. I go at like 5:15. Okay. Is it okay to go on empty?

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah. So there's a couple ways we could look at this.

[Hoda Kotb]

Okay.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Okay. We'll break this down in simple terms. When you go in a fasted state to the gym. Your body needs glucose to make those muscles work. And if you haven't given it a meal, it's gotta go find glucose somewhere else. So it's gonna burn fat to find it. So for weight loss, if you can go in a fasted state, that is the best way to go to the gym.

[Hoda Kotb]

Got it.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Okay, now what I'm about to say is gonna sound like I'm opposing that if you're going for strength training. Amino acids are incredibly important before a strength training workout.

[Hoda Kotb]

So how do you get those?

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Protein is typ. So you have two options. You could put protein powder in your coffee.

[Hoda Kotb]

Oh, okay.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

The coffee becomes the vehicle for a lot of things and it'll dissolve in there and you can make a little protein powder. There was even a trend that was called a carnivore coffee and it was like people were putting raw eggs in their coffee.

[Hoda Kotb]

Okay, gag.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Don't recommend that. But I'm just telling you how crazy.

[Hoda Kotb]

People got with their coffee because they were dying to get the protein. That's right. Got it.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Or you could just take an amino acid supplement. We have our fasters. Put amino acid powder in water and just drink it down so that you have the ability to. And now you're going to be able to lift weights.

[Hoda Kotb]

More ahead with Dr. Mindy Peltz. Stay with us.

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[Hoda Kotb]

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[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

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[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

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[Hoda Kotb]

So now you've had your first meal. What are you doing, like, in terms of eating throughout the day? Can I eat my normal thing? Oh, you can.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah. What we would say is like, once you open up that eating window, eat like this is not an opportunity to stop eating. What most people find when they tack on a 13 to 15 hour fasting window every single day is their hunger goes away.

[Hoda Kotb]

And so. Oh, it does?

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah.

[Hoda Kotb]

Okay.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

I know that sounds crazy, but you've never fasted.

[Hoda Kotb]

I keep thinking about like when they tell you you can't eat before colonoscopy or something and all you can think about is food and you're like, oh my God, I can only drink this, like clear, crystal light or whatever it is. But your stops being hungry after a bit.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah. I mean, this is why I think fasting has continued to stay in our culture. Is it's the only nutrition and plan that I know that gets easier with time.

[Hoda Kotb]

You know, it's so funny, fasting. I don't know if it gets a bad rap or not a rap at all, but other than people telling you they do it, you don't really hear about it as a thing.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah, people. It was a thing in the beginning for people. Like 10 years ago, it was really. People would tell you, oh, I'm not eating breakfast cause I'm fasting. I think the culture, so many people are doing it now that it's just become common sense.

[Hoda Kotb]

And I guess everything that we see about all the diets and things are all kind of being monetized. It's like, try this diet, buy this pill. I mean, what do you.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Well, it's funny because when I first learned fasting, I learned a term called autophagy. And autophagy means that when your body goes without food, the cells start to cle themselves up and they get stronger. And in 2016, there was a Japanese scientist that won a Nobel prize for this term that he associated with lack of food. So I was like, oh my God, somebody's gonna come up with an autophagy stimulating diet or autophagy supplements or meds, but nobody could come up with that. You can only stimulate autophagy by going without food is the main way, so nobody can make money off of it. That's where I'm going with this.

[Hoda Kotb]

Yes. Oh, you're right. There's no way to monetize.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Think about it. This is what we've noticed on my YouTube channel is like, I can teach you how to go without food. And all of a sudden, your food bill goes down. You don't need as many supplements. You get off medications. Industries are not big Ag, Big Pharma. They're not excited about that.

[Hoda Kotb]

Makes sense. You know, it's funny. A friend of mine whose mother was struggling with cancer, they were. Why don't you try. Let's try not having a ton of food and see what happens with your body. And she said she noticed changes in her mom. Good changes. So I think it's just really fascinating. Okay. And so should you just stay in that window that you were describing 13 to 15 hours?

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah. So you could get up. So let's use you as an example. Maybe you try some protein in your coffee, and then you drink it. See how you do. I mean, there's gonna be an adjustment period. And then when you get done with your workout, then. Then go home and eat some protein. Go have your six eggs, because you just emptied out the glucose stores in your muscles. So now you want to put good nutrients in.

[Hoda Kotb]

Good, good. Okay. And then go throughout the day and then just do the same thing and stop. Well, you think you'd see weight loss or. What are you seeing other than a good food?

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Weight loss is huge. I mean, the amount of weight loss we have watched people on my YouTube channel get is insane. Hundreds of pounds.

[Hoda Kotb]

Wow.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

And women in their 80s that are like, oh, my gosh, I learned how to fast, and I finally lost my menopausal belly weight.

[Hoda Kotb]

That's crazy.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

This is the thing to know about extra weight is when you have extra anything. Glucose, toxins, hormones. Our bodies are so smart that what they do is they say, I probably shouldn't put this around the heart and lungs. Those are important organs. So I'm gonna store it around your belly to save your life. And then we look in the mirror and we're like, you know, I'm undisciplined. We tell ourselves horrible things, but really, what? Your brilliant body put it there because it didn't wanna put it around an organ system that would kill you. So when you go into these micro moments of no food coming in, the body's like, oh, I know what to do. I stored extra glucose around your belly. I'm gonna go burn that today. So what I saw in my clinic was like, literally, when I taught these mama bears how to fast, they would walk in the next week, and it looked like somebody had taken a fat coat off of them.

[Hoda Kotb]

Oh, my gosh.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

And it was like, crazy.

[Hoda Kotb]

Wow. You could see it right away.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

You could see it right away.

[Hoda Kotb]

Something you're lugging around. Okay, so the nutrition piece is important for all the things you're describing in your book. Again, it's called age. Like a girl. So there are other factors that play into this for a lot of people. Like, sleep is a big one. I mean, what the hell do you do? You wake up, you panic. What happened? My kids, my this, my that. Like how important and how much of that is affecting just that meh feeling that a lot of people in their 40s and 50s and 60s have.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah, sleep's a big one. And there's two things I would say on it. Remember that estrogen was your timekeeper. It would actually, estrogen would stimulate the part of the brain that knew where you were in the 24 hour cycle. Now estrogen's gone, she's leaving. And so you have to find other things to tell the timekeeper what time of day it is. So red when you get up in the morning and you see the sun rise, your eyes will register that and send a message to the timekeeper in the brain and say, it's daytime, turn off melatonin. And then in the middle of the day, when you go out in the middle of the day and you see full spectrum light, the timekeeper goes, okay, it's the middle of the day. We want to keep melatonin at bay. No more melatonin. At the end of the day, you go and look at the sunset and your eyes will send a message to the timekeeper. Oh, it's the end of the day. Go ahead and make melatonin.

[Hoda Kotb]

Wow.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

So light becomes really important.

[Hoda Kotb]

So artificial light, should we be getting or. No, but what if. Yeah, okay. I was just thinking in New York, like the last few days, but yeah, so.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Well, this is why red lights have become so important. You could get a red light. Like in my house, I have red light bulbs that were like $10 and I just changed a couple lamps out. And so at the end of the day, I sit in that room with red light.

[Hoda Kotb]

So, you know, it's like the sun's setting.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

There's full spectrum happy lights you can get online. And like, you know, people use them for seasonal affective disorder. You could put that on while you're just working at your computer in the middle of the day and that light will start to register to the brain where you are in the day.

[Hoda Kotb]

Okay, so. So of all the things, nutrition, exercise, sleep, all the different things, where does sleep fall? In there.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

It's a big one.

[Hoda Kotb]

It's a big one. Okay.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

But I mean, I don't know. This is where the menopause conversation is going askew, in my opinion, because we're saying women need to prioritize sleep. Well, it's not like we're not prioritizing sleep. We just can't sleep. Right. We, like, can't fall asleep. We can't stay asleep. So how do we prioritize something we can't control? We're not being able to do that.

[Hoda Kotb]

Yeah.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

So this is why in the book, I was like, look, let's re pattern light. Temperature's another one.

[Hoda Kotb]

Temperature's. Yeah. So what should the temp be?

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

You need your body, your core body temperature to go down by 2 degrees.

[Hoda Kotb]

Okay.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

So I'm in the living room. I'm sitting there watching a movie, and it's warm. When I go into my bedroom, it needs to be at least 2 degrees colder than the living room so that my core temperature can go down.

[Hoda Kotb]

Okay.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

When your core temperature goes down 2 degrees, it actually tells the brain, the timekeeper, it's time to go to bed. And it'll signal melatonin.

[Hoda Kotb]

Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Okay, so drop the temp in your room a little bit.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

So drop the temp.

[Hoda Kotb]

Okay, got it.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

And then, I mean, of course, I think we are definitely a lot more intuitive. As we go through menopause and we go through this process, our nervous system becomes highly refined. I think that's by evolutionary design. So we have to be careful what conversations we engage in. If I don't know about you, but I can't do work before I go to bed because my brain is still going. So remember that if you start to wind your brain up, you might struggle to fall asleep because it's just chatting at you.

[Hoda Kotb]

What do you think about all of the meditation, breath work and all of these things and how they affect your body and mind?

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah, so there's great research on yoga. Before bed will actually put your body into a rhythm to be able to sleep. So it's like body meditation. We know that chanting music, that repetitive chanting will stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system, which is amazing. So that's incredible. And then, yeah, I mean, I think making sure that you're preparing yourself for sleep, I think that's where we might have been able at 35, just to jump in bed and go to sleep. At 65, we might need to have a whole go to sleep process.

[Hoda Kotb]

Okay, got it.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Oh, and I know I was gonna tell you box breathing.

[Hoda Kotb]

Oh, yeah.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

That's pretty profound.

[Hoda Kotb]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

If you just do the four, breath in, hold it for four. For four. And then release for four.

[Hoda Kotb]

And do it again.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

And do it again.

[Hoda Kotb]

Yeah. And that does.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah.

[Hoda Kotb]

I've done some breath work and some meditation, and I found it, like, really settles to me. It's like, you know, it's like you have a bunch of lake water in a jar and you shake it and then you watch how it all just drops down. And I feel that way when I'm meditating. I feel like the ocean, the top of the ocean is so tumultuous. And you drop and drop and drop and drop down. And no matter how tumultuous it is, you go low enough, you're gonna feel like it's calm down here. Who knows what's going on up there, but boy, it feels good. Yeah, it feels good down here.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah.

[Hoda Kotb]

More with Dr. Mindy Pelts when we come back.

[Commercial Narrator]

Back.

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[Hoda Kotb]

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[Hoda Kotb]

The other thing because a lot of women who are feeling this are in the sandwich generation and they feel incredible stress. It's like carrying. Caring for your mother, caring for your children, doing all the things, being everything but stress, stress, stress, stress. I mean, stress is one of those things that you try to put at bay. How much does that play into what's happening to us in our 40s, 50s, and 60s?

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah. Unfortunately, I think that's the core of why we have, especially in the Western world, so many menopausal problems, is that women go rushing into their perimenopausal years. So maxed out.

[Hoda Kotb]

Yes.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

And what happens when the ovaries stop making estrogen is they hand that job over to your adrenal glands, and your adrenals are like, wait a second. I've been doing a lot of work here, and now you want me to make more estrogen for you? So it really is. Having a highly stressed, rushing life is a recipe for menopausal madness.

[Hoda Kotb]

Wow.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

So we've gotta start to learn to build in downtime. We have to start to look at me time. A lot of women start to isolate themselves just to calm. So I think you just. The beautiful part of the remodeling of the brain is that you will intuitively start to care for yourself a lot more. I think it's startling for women when they're, like, used to caring for everybody else, and then all of a sudden that instinct stops and they want to care for themselves. It's beautiful. But you might have been getting a lot of worth from caring for everybody else.

[Hoda Kotb]

Right. And it's a huge shift. It's almost like a personality you had for all those years, and now you're like, oh, wait. And people, I'm sure, will come up to you and go, what happened to you?

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Right.

[Hoda Kotb]

Like, where's my thing that you always brought me? But you have to really stand firm in that.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

That's why I put an appendix to men in this book.

[Hoda Kotb]

Yeah. Oh, tell me.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Because as I was writing it, my number one feeling was I really want women to feel heard and seen through this book and that understand the process. But what a woman is gonna do, an empowered start to talk about what she discovered in the book, and how is she going to explain it to her husband or to, you know, the men in her life who aren't having that experience. So I put an appendix to men, and the appendix is basically written to a man so that women could hand the book and just say, here you go.

[Hoda Kotb]

This is what I'm reading. Read your section.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah, I got it for you because I think it's. You Know, I think it's confusing for men. All of a sudden, if you're married to a woman, you're like, you were doing all these things for all of us, and you look like you enjoyed it, and now you don't wanna do that anymore.

[Hoda Kotb]

Right. Where'd that come from?

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Right. And I wanna normalize that.

[Hoda Kotb]

Right. I think it's like an attitude change. And you're like, no, this is more than that. So again, for women who are listening, who are in their 40s, their 50s, their 60s, and they're thinking, at this time in life, the wheels just kind of start falling off. I've heard everyone say, ugh, I'm getting old. Ugh, I can't remember, but there is some light at the end of the tunnel. So what if you're. If someone's about to pick this book up and they're thinking to themselves, I already feel this kind of meh way. What's the message about what's ahead for that rest of their life, that next 40 years?

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah. It's a message of hope because your brain is remodeling itself so that you can start living life on your terms. So know where you're heading is a beautiful place. You're in a temporary, temporary stuck spot.

[Hoda Kotb]

That's it. Temporary, temporary. Yeah. Cause I think they think the decline is here.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

That's right. And so why I put in the middle of this book, use your lifestyle to help yourself. I think as women, we have outsourced so much of our worth and care to other people. And I always say, don't wait for a hero to show up and make this menopausal experience amazing for you. Be your own hero. You get to be the hero of your own story now. And you get to use your lifestyle when your brain's not working well and your memory's gone down. Okay. Get to know the ketone system and try some intermittent fasting. Try exercising your brain with, you know, using storytelling if the stress gets too high. Okay. What if you go out into nature and you get cortisol will start to lower and you'll start to calm like you did with that beautiful meditation. Like, you are not a victim. You're not a victim to the process. This process is happening for you, and your lifestyle controls how bad it's gonna be. Hmm.

[Hoda Kotb]

That's a great message. Real quick on hormone replacement. Are you pro con?

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah, I think it's done some amazing things. I'm really happy we're talking about it. It is not a one size fits all. So I Wanna just make sure that we don't set women up for failure once again by saying. Saying you're suffering. Take a patch and the suffering goes away.

[Hoda Kotb]

Right?

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

So you need to have an OB that you're really working closely with and know that there's a learning curve. So that would be the first thing. The second thing that I think is interesting just to point out is maybe the depression, maybe the insomnia, maybe the rage is because there's parts of your life you don't want to play anymore, you don't want to do anymore. So if we start to make every woman calm through this experience, we may not get to know ourselves in a new way.

[Hoda Kotb]

That's interesting.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

You see where I'm going with this? Like, the rage, okay? We live in a world that taught women that if you look a certain way, you act a certain way, we will love you. And so, so many women have wrapped themselves up in bows in order to be palatable to a culture that says, yes, we like that. So we push down our own authentic V. And I think what happens at menopause is this massive remodeling and this neurochemical shift sort of wakes us up and we're like, you know what? I don't wanna play that game anymore. Do you relate?

[Hoda Kotb]

Yes, I relate a hundred. And I always say, like, it takes so long to find your voice. When did you find your voice? You know, I interview a bunch of people and I ask them about imposter syndrome, and do you feel like you're all these things and suddenly now they're just, like, busting out and saying, this is me now, and why did it take so long? And why did I wait this long to feel the rage before I decided, like, yeah, the time is.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

And we don't want a culture full of rage for women.

[Hoda Kotb]

No, no, we definitely do not.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

But I do think it is time to stand up for ourselves. Michelle Obama is a great example. I was, like, jumping up and down on my couch this summer when she came out, and people, the media went after her and said, oh, she didn't show up at some events, so she must be leaving Barack. And then she got interview and said, I'm just doing life on my own terms now. I was like, there it is. That's it.

[Hoda Kotb]

That's what we're talking about.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

That is what we're talking about.

[Hoda Kotb]

Well, this has been a great, great conversation. We call this podcast Making Space. So if you had a day where you didn't have an interview, you didn't have an appearance you didn't have a patient, a client. You had nothing. You had a clean slate from the minute you opened your eyes to the minute you closed them at the end of the day. How would you spend that day?

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah, well, I'm creating this in my life.

[Hoda Kotb]

Oh, good.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

So I can tell you exact. I'm a big fan of my morning time. So morning time is I meditate. And then I always try to put something good into my brain through a book first so that I can train my brain to think the thoughts I want. I've just started surfing at 56 years old.

[Commercial Narrator]

Wait, what?

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah.

[Hoda Kotb]

That's so cool.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

I know. So this is a fun story, because when I was in the seventh grade, I grew up in Malibu, and I was a little tomboy. I went out to surf, and this boy I love liked, looked at me, and he was like, mindy, girls don't surf.

[Hoda Kotb]

Oh, geez.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

And I was like, girls don't surf. I guess I don't surf. I play every other sport, but I guess I don't surf. So this summer, we moved to Santa Cruz, California, and a friend of mine who's 52 says, you want to come surf with me? And so I'm like, yes, you're a woman. We surf now. Right. So I took my little girl, and I was like, I'm gonna surf. And I go out every day.

[Hoda Kotb]

How was it to get on that board?

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

It's humbling. It's humbling. But I did it for me, not for anything else.

[Hoda Kotb]

I love it.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

And so now every day, I get in the water, two hours a day I surf. There's whales jumping, there's otters next to me. What? Yeah.

[Hoda Kotb]

How cool. All right, so you're in the water, and then how do you kind of spend the back half of the day?

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

So I'm a big fan of if I didn't have to work. Let's just point this. So I also love walking and hiking. So my day would be pretty physical. It would be a hike. And then nighttime for me is a combination of chanting music like I talked about. I've gotten really into doodling. Have you doodled?

[Hoda Kotb]

No, I haven't doodled.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Okay. I'm a horrible artist.

[Hoda Kotb]

Yeah, me too.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

So I find at night, I sit in my room with red lights on and the chanting music, and I just doodle.

[Hoda Kotb]

What are you doodling? Anything.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Anything. Circles, lines. There's. There's, like, interesting sites on socials that can inspire you.

[Hoda Kotb]

Oh, neat.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

But what it does is it lets my thoughts sort of move through me. From the day.

[Hoda Kotb]

That feels good.

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Yeah. And then I'm on 8 o' clock in bed.

[Hoda Kotb]

Me too.

[Commercial Narrator]

Yes.

[Hoda Kotb]

I thought it was just the Today show crew, but yes, there are others. All right. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Congrats on your book. Thank you. Hey, guys, thank you so much for listening and for coming on this journey with me. If you like what you heard, and I hope that you do, please give Making Space a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts. And make sure you tell your friends. Follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you're listening right now. Making Space with Hoda Kotb is produced by Allison Berger and Mitch Rissmiller along with Kate Saunders. Our associate audio engineer is Julie Juliana Masterilli. Our audio engineers are Matt Tierney and Joe Plord. Original music by John Estes. Libby Liest is the executive vice president of Today and Lifestyle.

[Commercial Narrator]

Hey, girl, what's happen? Is that your antiperspirant?

[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

Uh, yeah.

[Commercial Narrator]

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[Dr. Mindy Pelts]

It's native.