How to Fast for Fat Loss, Hormones, and Better Sex | Dr. Mindy Pelz

Summary

Podcast Summary: The School of Greatness

Episode: How to Fast for Fat Loss, Hormones, and Better Sex | Dr. Mindy Pelz

Host: Lewis Howes
Guest: Dr. Mindy Pelz
Date: May 15, 2026

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Overview

This episode features renowned fasting expert Dr. Mindy Pelz, who joins Lewis Howes to break down the science and lifestyle principles behind fasting for fat loss, hormone balance, and even better sex. Dr. Pelz explains why women in particular need to approach fasting differently, how to harmonize fasting with the menstrual cycle, and the powerful relationship between hormones, mindset, and health. The conversation is packed with actionable advice, myth-busting, and memorable stories designed to empower listeners—especially women—to harness the “superpowers” of their biology.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Why Fasting Works—And Why Most Diets Fail

• Dual energy systems: The body creates energy both when fed (glucose burning) and when fasting (fat burning/ketogenic). Most people only use the first, accelerating aging and inhibiting fat loss ([03:06]).

  “If all you're doing is working with the one energy system, you are absolutely accelerating the aging process.” — Dr. Mindy Pelz ([04:24])

• Diet vs. timing: The timing of eating is as important, if not more, than what you eat. Prolonged, frequent eating keeps your body from switching to fat burning, limiting weight loss—even if you eat "healthy foods" ([04:36]).

  “You could eat all the right foods, but if you're eating it too frequently, you're still gonna gain weight.” — Lewis Howes ([04:36])

The Adaptation & “Training” of Fasting

• Gradual approach: Fasting is like endurance training; the body adapts over time. Initial discomfort signals the body’s healing response via hormetic stress ([06:07]).

  “In the suffering, your body's healing...you're pushing your body just with enough stress that you're forcing it to repair itself.” — Dr. Mindy Pelz ([06:07])

When To Fast: Light vs. Night

• Circadian rhythms: Best to eat during daylight; at night, higher melatonin increases insulin resistance, leading to more fat storage and poorer digestion ([07:39]).

  “Eat when it's light out. When it's light out, you don't have melatonin in your system...the meal you eat at 8 o'clock at night is gonna be stored more as fat.” — Dr. Mindy Pelz ([07:39])

• Late-night eating: Nighttime meals can lead to gut issues and sugar cravings, and inhibit nighttime fat burning ([08:47]).

• Optimal fat burning: Most fat is burned during sleep, when the body is detoxifying and repairing ([11:00]).

  “What is fat? All it is is your body had to put excess somewhere...The body's so brilliant, it stores it somewhere else.” — Dr. Mindy Pelz ([11:02])

Gender Differences in Fat Loss and Hormone Balance

• Why women store more fat: Female bodies are designed for both survival and reproduction, requiring more stored fat for optimal hormone function; losing the menstrual cycle signals metabolic distress ([13:14]).

  “We're not meant to be skin and bones. We're meant to have a little bit of extra fat. It's part of like the female body.” — Dr. Mindy Pelz ([13:32])

• Cycle as detox: Menstrual cycles help detox hormones and toxins; missing periods is a red flag for women ([14:17]).

  “Your cycle is, is a detox. You are shedding the inner lining of your uterus and you are getting rid of what is not serving you.” — Dr. Mindy Pelz ([14:17])

• Safety and stress: High stress, negative mindset, and environmental factors disrupt cycles and fertility. Feeling safe—physically and emotionally—supports hormonal balance ([19:15]).

  “If you are thinking toxic thoughts...the body is always feeling like it's under threat, your hormones will go massively out of balance.” — Dr. Mindy Pelz ([19:53])

Synchronization & Hormonal Hierarchy

• Pheromones and syncing: Women’s cycles can synchronize through pheromone signaling, especially when in close contact ([21:23]).

• Hormonal “hierarchy”: Oxytocin (connection and bonding) reduces cortisol (stress), which in turn helps balance insulin (blood sugar/fat storage) and sex hormones ([24:25]).

  “Women are meant to be in community. Because when oxytocin and we're connecting with each other, then cortisol goes down.” — Dr. Mindy Pelz ([25:15])

How to Fast with the Female Cycle

The Fasting Cycle for Women ([26:13], [26:32])

Menstrual Phase (Day 1–10):

• Hormones at their lowest initially but estrogen rises.
• Women can fast longer, exercise intensely, and eat lower carb ([27:24]).

  “Those first 10 days, a woman can do it.” — Dr. Mindy Pelz ([27:31])

Ovulation (Day 11–15):

• Surge in testosterone and estrogen; libido, motivation, and cognition peak.
• Ideal for muscle-building workouts and manifestation activities ([31:58]).

  “You're going to notice her libido is going to go up during that...she's going to want to have sex more then.” — Dr. Mindy Pelz ([32:11])

Post-Ovulation/Early Luteal (Day 16–19):

• Hormones drop, fasting can resume (16–48 hour fasts possible), and hard workouts are better tolerated ([46:16]).

Late Luteal/Progesterone Phase (Day 20–Cycle):

• Progesterone dominates; avoid fasting and intense exercise.
• Focus on recovery, nurturing, raising blood glucose gently (healthy carbs), and connection ([48:21]).

  “You should slow down your workouts. That’s more yoga, Pilates, hiking, make that your recovery time.” — Dr. Mindy Pelz ([48:21])

Key principle: Front half = extremes (fasting, workouts); back half = recovery, gentle movement, and more carbs ([49:45]).

Men vs. Women: Fasting Approaches

• Men: Can fast daily but should alternate fasting with periods of "feasting" for hormonal balance; morning workouts align with natural testosterone and cortisol rhythms ([57:02]).

  “If men stay in a fasted state all the time without stepping out and eating, eventually it'll catch up with you.” — Dr. Mindy Pelz ([57:16])

• Women: Must align fasting with their cycle—over-fasting can crash hormones, affect cycles, and fertility ([61:49], [64:27]).

Risks of Over-Fasting & Birth Control

• Over-fasting hazards: Dr. Mindy’s own too-aggressive fasting led to hormone crashes and early menopause symptoms, but cycle-based modification reversed these ([64:27]-[66:10]).

• Birth control: Long-term pills can disrupt brain-ovary communication, damage the microbiome, and make post-pill hormonal recovery difficult ([36:05]–[41:03]).

  “When we come in with an outside source to manipulate our hormones, when we get off of that outside source, we don't have a natural rhythm.” — Dr. Mindy Pelz ([41:03])

Abundance, Mindset, and Hormonal Power

• Abundant living: Dr. Mindy ties hormone health to one’s ability to attract abundance and make better life decisions. Six pillars for women: fasting, food, working out, sleep, socializing, work ([59:29]).

  “If you could time them and know how to do them with your hormones, you are absolutely increasing your ability to attract more abundance in your life.” — Dr. Mindy Pelz ([59:53])

• Out of alignment: Hormonal misalignment leads to symptoms, imbalances, and loss of “superpowers”—especially in menopause ([60:28]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On late-night eating:

  “The meal you eat at 8 o’clock at night is gonna be stored more as fat than if you have it at five in the afternoon.” — Dr. Mindy Pelz ([07:39])

• On women’s cycles as detox:

  “Your cycle is a detox...it’s how we detox.” — Dr. Mindy Pelz ([14:17])

• On outside pressure and modern lifestyle:

  “Women need more rest and recovery...We get to choose where that is.” — Dr. Mindy Pelz ([54:11])

• On fasting and mindset:

  “In the suffering, your body’s healing...It’s the same thing you do every time you go into the gym.” — Dr. Mindy Pelz ([06:07])

• On power and potential:

  “You are more powerful than you’ve been taught. Your body is a frickin miracle. It can heal, it can adapt. It knows what it’s doing—trust it.” — Dr. Mindy Pelz ([75:45] – Three Truths)

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Timestamps of Important Segments

| Time | Topic / Segment | |-----------|---------------------------------------------------| | 02:16 | Episode introduction and purpose | | 03:06 | The two energy systems, why diets fail | | 04:36 | Timing vs. food content—a deeper look | | 06:07 | Training the body for fasting | | 07:39 | Should you skip breakfast or dinner? | | 08:47 | Digestion and eating after dark | | 11:00 | Why fat is burned during sleep | | 13:14 | Gender differences in fat burning | | 14:17 | The menstrual cycle as detox | | 19:15 | Mindset, stress, and fertility | | 21:23 | Pheromones and cycle synchronization | | 24:25 | Hormonal hierarchy: oxytocin, cortisol, insulin | | 26:13 | How women should cycle fasting | | 27:24 | Day-by-day breakdown of fasting and cycle | | 31:58 | Testosterone surge and libido | | 36:05 | Birth control impact on hormones | | 41:56 | Summing up cycle-specific fasting strategies | | 49:45 | Summary: extremes vs. nurture in cycle | | 55:47 | Women out of alignment, "superpower" unlocked | | 57:02 | Fasting rules for men | | 59:12 | Hormones as keys to abundance & mindset | | 61:49 | Dangers of over-fasting for women | | 64:27 | Dr. Mindy’s personal cautionary story | | 66:43 | Results from practice-based cycle fasting | | 69:48 | Processed foods and food addiction | | 70:55 | Case study: overweight man, fasting for change | | 75:45 | Dr. Mindy’s Three Truths |

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Actionable Takeaways

• Women:

  • Time fasting and workouts to your cycle—easier and more effective for fat loss, hormone harmony, and mood.
  • Focus on recovery and nurturing during the week before period.
  • Track your cycle and adapt protocols; avoid heroics and over-fasting.

• Men:

  • You can fast more consistently but must still include feasting for health.
  • Align workouts and fasting with morning testosterone/cortisol peaks.

• Everybody:

  • Eating during daylight hours is superior for metabolism.
  • Fasting transforms your microbiome and reduces cravings.
  • Social connection, mindset, rest, and nutrition are all essential for optimal hormone health and abundance.

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Final Memorable Quote

“Trusting yourself. Trusting your own inner guidance.”
— Dr. Mindy Pelz on her definition of greatness ([78:06])

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For further exploration, Dr. Mindy recommends her book Fast Like a Girl, her YouTube channel, and her podcast for deeper dives and community support.

Transcript

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[Lewis Howes]

Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Dr. Mindy in the house. So good to see you.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Thank you. So great to be here.

[Lewis Howes]

You are an incredible fasting expert teaching people how to burn fat, balance hormones, and live better lives. And my first question is gonna set you up. How do we look and feel younger? How do we burn the fat that we really don't want on our bodies faster? And how do we have the best sex of our lives through fasting?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Oh, wow. We're gonna put all those together. Okay. Let me start with a principle, and then I'm gonna answer each one individually.

[Lewis Howes]

Perfect.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

So here's the principle. We have two energy systems. One where we create energy when we eat, and one energy system that kicks in when we're not eating.

[Lewis Howes]

Okay.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Okay. This is where every diet has ever failed. This is where aging starts to speed up. This is where you get your libido wrong. Is because every conversation around nutrition has only been around what we should eat. And what fasting is doing is I'm now and me plus many other experts are coming to the masses saying, why don't we talk about when we eat? So when your blood sugar starts to come down, usually around 8 hours, 8, 10 hours without food, you switch over into what we call the ketogenic energy system. It's also, I like to call it the fat burning system, because it's there that your body burns fat for energy. We're like a hybrid car. And so you switch over, you start burning fat for energy. You make something called a ketone. Ketone goes up into the brain. It shuts off hunger. It amps up gaba. So you get a lot calmer, and it gives you incredible mental clarity and insane energy. If you never go 8 to 10 hours without eating, you will never tap into this system. And so you never get that limitless feeling that we're all getting from fasting. And so if all you're doing is working with the one energy system, you are absolutely accelerating the aging process.

[Lewis Howes]

Really?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

And every diet's gonna fail you, because what ends up happening is you're only focused on food. And that's why we're hopping from diet to diet to diet. You know, this is great. Then this is great. Then this is great.

[Lewis Howes]

So you could eat all the right foods, but if you're eating it too frequently, you're still gonna gain weight.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

You could potentially still gain weight if

[Lewis Howes]

you're not taking at least eight hours of rest. If you're just constantly eating every hour.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Right.

[Lewis Howes]

Or every few hours, constantly eating, you could gain a lot of fat.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah. So think of it like exercise. What would happen if you just kept working out and working out and working out? Every day was like a hard workout. A hard workout. There's no recovery. It's the same thing with fasting. You're giving your body a chance to recover. And the longer you let it recover, the more healing switches turn on, and that's why it slows down aging, and you're burning fat in the process. It's the recovery that matters.

[Lewis Howes]

Wow. So if You're. But when I go a long time without eating, I feel really hungry.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

And sometimes I feel sluggish or tired at the same time. So when is it that we get this unlimited feeling or this burst of extra energy? When does that happen? After extending the window of not eating.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah. So the first thing is it's a training process. So it's just like, you know, if you're going to run a marathon, you don't just throw on some shoes and go 13 miles. You're going to feel pretty bad.

[Lewis Howes]

I did that before and I got the flu right afterwards. I ran a marathon without training. Well, maybe it was like three weeks of three miles at a time training, but it really wasn't training. And I was sick for days and I couldn't walk and I had the flu and it was just like, miserable. I finished it, but my body said that was a big mistake.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That's right. Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

And I paid the price later.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah. And that's the same thing that happens with fasting, is that people go, oh, fasting's not for me. It didn't work for me. Okay, well, I could say that, you know that about a training that I didn't properly train for. So what we've got to do is start to slowly work people into this fasted state. And usually I tell people, you want to get pretty much to like 12 hours in the beginning. Can you go 12 hours every day? And then you might suffer a little bit, but check this out. In the suffering, your body's healing. So it's called a hormetic stress. You're pushing your body just with enough stress that you're forcing it to repair itself. It's the same thing you do every time you go into the gym. You're stressing your body, so the body repairs itself and makes itself stronger. So when you go into this fasted state, around 12 hours, the body's repairing. Now, what I tell people is if you're suffering at 12, switch back to food and then go again. Next day, maybe go another 12, another 13 maybe. And then when that gets easy, you start compressing your eating window more and more, leaving longer time for fastings. So you just didn't train yourself right.

[Lewis Howes]

And is it better to fast in the morning or at night? Because some people wake up and they want to eat right away, but they say, I can skip dinner.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

And some people say, you got to skip breakfast and then you can eat a little later.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

Is it. Do you. Have you seen the data on skipping breakfast versus skipping dinner? And the benefits for fasting?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah, this is hugely debated in the fasting world.

[Lewis Howes]

Really?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah. So I'm just gonna give an easy principle that everybody can grab onto. Eat when it's light out. When it's light out, you don't have melatonin in your system. The minute it goes dark, we get melatonin because we're trying to prepare for sleep. So when melatonin goes up, you're more insulin resistant. So the meal you eat at 8 o' clock at night is gonna be stored more as fat than if you have it at five in the afternoon.

[Lewis Howes]

Why is it so comforting to eat at night, though?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

I know.

[Lewis Howes]

It just is like a late night snack, you know, extra bowl of cereal. For some reason.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

You trained yourself.

[Lewis Howes]

I trained myself.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Right, yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

So when I eat when it's dark, what is happening to my body when

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

you're eating when it's dark? You have a little bit of a hormonal dilemma going on because when it's dark, the body's preparing for sleep. And so if we're eating, then two things can happen. You're more insulin resistant, like I mentioned, but then your digestive system shutting down because you're going into what we call a parasympathetic relaxed state. So if you go to bed with a full belly and that food is not going to be digested as well.

[Lewis Howes]

Really?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

And so, I mean, there's a whole issue, a bunch of gut problems that can happen, that food can ferment at night, which now starts to create more like, you know, we can go down the path of candida and fungus and that it's undigested food. Whereas if you eat at 5, go for a walk afterwards, like you're using that glucose, your body has the ability to digest. So yeah, night eating is not good.

[Lewis Howes]

So what did you say? The digestion shuts down at night? Is that what it is?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

It just slows down, the stomach slows down.

[Lewis Howes]

So when you're asleep, let's say you have a meal or a snack or even a few almonds or something an hour before you go to bed, let's say you've eaten something, it could be ice cream, something healthy, something not healthy, and within an hour you're eating it, then you go to bed. What is happening to the digestion during that process of sleep versus if you were awake at noon and you had that food?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah. So when you're asleep, the body's repairing, so the food is definitely not breaking down as easily at night. So again, it's sitting there it's not being digested as efficiently. So from a digestion standpoint, better digestion at noon than you're gonna have at 9:00'. Clock. Now, you said something about what if you had a handful of nuts? What if you had like. I think what you eat matters.

[Lewis Howes]

Okay.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

So if. I'll tell you something that I will often eat right before I go to bed is just. Or at night if I'm craving it is just a piece of really dark chocolate. One or two pieces helps. That craving that you get, it doesn't spike my blood sugar. Cause it's really dark chocolate. It's not a lot for the digestive system to work on. It's more like the big meals that we're talking about.

[Lewis Howes]

Gotcha.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That's gonna be a problem.

[Lewis Howes]

Something tiny and healthy is not that bad.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That's right.

[Lewis Howes]

But if you have a big meal an hour before bed, it's probably not going to digest. You're not getting the maximum nutrients out of that.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah, yeah. The digestion. You're not going to get as many nutrients and you're going to create a real change in the microbiome. You're going to see more of that candida show up. That's. That's gonna give you sugar cravings and

[Lewis Howes]

it's not gonna help you burn fat at night either.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

No, no, no.

[Lewis Howes]

Don't we burn the most fat when we're sleeping? Yes. Really?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yes.

[Lewis Howes]

Why is that?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah. Well, think about what the body's doing when it sleeps. It's getting rid of anything that doesn't serve it. So there's some really interesting research on, like at 11 o', clock, certain organs repair. I know at 2 in the morning, the liver repairs, the adrenals repair. Like your body goes through this massive reboot. And so sleep is really important for that. Now this is something really interesting that I've thought a lot about and I wish we could reframe this. What is fat so fat? All it is is your body had to put excess somewhere. So it put excess glucose, it put excess hormones, it put excess toxins, so it stored it somewhere else so that it didn't store it in your organs, your internal organs. And when it stores it, if it's stored in your internal organs, your life would be shortened. So the body's so brilliant, it stores it somewhere else.

[Lewis Howes]

But we do have fat in our internal organs, right? Visceral fat.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah, we do have visceral fat.

[Lewis Howes]

And we don't want that. That's the worst.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

No, it's. Yeah, that's the worst. Yeah. The body potentially had maxed out the other stores, so really? Yeah, it went inward.

[Lewis Howes]

Do we store fat first internally in our organs, then excessively on the outside, or is it outside first, then inward?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah, it's such a good question. So the three patterns, first, when glucose goes up, it will be stored in the cells. So it's to me, fat is a largely stored glucose. So it goes to the cells. When the cells are swimming and they can't take all that glucose in, then it's going to start to go to the muscles because it's so brilliant. The body's like, hey, I'm going to go pour in glucose because if we ever need to run from a tiger, I need to have those powered up and ready to go for your survival. Then if the muscles are saturated, it goes to the liver and then usually at that point it's also stored in as fat. So it has a system of where it wants to store it based off of your survival, because that's the number one priority of the body, is to survive.

[Lewis Howes]

Right, so what would you say is the differences between how men should be thinking about burning fat versus how women should be thinking about burning fat? Unwanted fat?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah. Oh, it's such a good question and one I've never been asked before. And here I'm gonna make a really bold statement that I don't think a lot of women will love, but it's part of living in a female body. Is that a little bit of. We're meant to have a little bit of fat.

[Lewis Howes]

Oh, don't say that.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

I know, right? Like a little bit. I'm not saying like. But we're not meant to be skin and bones.

[Lewis Howes]

Right.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

We're meant to have a little bit of extra fat. It's part of like the female body. And because here's what's interesting, both men and women have. The body has one major thing it's focused on, which is survival. But women have two we have reproduction. So our bodies always. It doesn't want to be. Think about when we're too thin, we bring calories down too much, our cycles stop.

[Lewis Howes]

Right.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

So we need a little bit more padding to make the reproductive system work. Men don't need that.

[Lewis Howes]

And if a cycle stops for a woman, is that a bad thing?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Oh, it's a horrible thing.

[Lewis Howes]

Why is that bad?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah, and thank you for asking that. I will say that one of the biggest ahas I've had from this book going out in the world is how many 20 and 30 year olds don't have a cycle, really. So this is what women need to know. Your cycle is, is a detox. You are shedding the inner lining of your uterus and you are getting rid of what is not serving you. So it's not just an. A troublesome situation you have to deal with. Your body is getting rid of hormones, it's getting rid of toxins. It's how we detox.

[Lewis Howes]

It's recycling. Yeah, it's kind of like a fast.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

It's like a fast, really?

[Lewis Howes]

So a cycle is detoxing and getting rid of toxic things in the female body.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That's right.

[Lewis Howes]

And it happens once a month, right. Every 28, 30 days, roughly 28 to 32.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

No woman has the exact same. I mean, every woman's different. But 28 to 32, does it usually

[Lewis Howes]

go in the same time for most women or when does it line up? And why do you hear that? Some women in families or friends say, oh, our cycles are aligned. Does it have anything to do with astrology or the moon? Does it have to do with what you're eating, how you're sleeping, your environment, your mood cycles, your age? How does it all work?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

It's kind of all of it, really. So here's something that I think women really need to know that is again, different than men, and that's that our bodies are always adapting to our environment. Women's are, women's are. So if we're restrictive too much with our calories, this is why I taught fast like a girl, when to fast and when not to fast. If we're too extreme with our exercise, if we're too extreme with our stress levels, whatever environment we're putting in, our hormones are like navigating that and adapting to that.

[Lewis Howes]

And your cycle will change based on that.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Your cycle will change based off of that. I'll give you a great example. I had a friend who had. She had three at the time. She had two kids and was trying to get pregnant with a third, and she was struggling to get pregnant with a third. And she waited a year to go to this reproductive specialist who had her fill out, like, you know, mounds of paperwork. She goes, after a year of waiting, she sits down with this guy and he says, I'll tell you how you need to get pregnant. You need to stop doing so much.

[Lewis Howes]

Wow.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

You need to stop stressing so much. And she was so upset, she left. And she's like, I waited a year, I filled out all that paperwork. And then she was. And that's what he told me. And she goes. And then I decided to try it. And within a month she was pregnant.

[Lewis Howes]

Really?

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[Lewis Howes]

Why do you hear this a lot from, you know, women who, who say they can't get pregnant. And then you hear stories of, well, they were too much in control or they were stressing too much and the moment you let go and surrendered, then they got pregnant. Why do we hear that so frequently?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah, so if you think about it, if reproduction is a top priority for a female body, if you're under so much stress, the body is like, it's not safe to house a baby.

[Lewis Howes]

Interesting.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

The body's always doing the right thing at the right time. So if it's not able to have a baby, the first thing you have to ask is for the female is does my body feel safe? And sometimes you'll love this because you're such a mindset expert. I was gonna call you Guru. Your mindset guru. If you are thinking toxic thoughts, if you are constantly under, like not dealing with traumas in your life, if stress is really high, the body is always feeling like it's under threat, your hormones will go massively out of balance.

[Lewis Howes]

Really?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

So your hormones are connected to the way you think also?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Absolutely.

[Lewis Howes]

Do you think if a woman is subconsciously knows that they're in a relationship with the wrong person, they married the wrong person, or they're trying to have kids with some man that subconsciously they know they're not supposed to, do you think that their cycle will be off or they won't get pregnant because they think that way?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

I think it's very possible.

[Lewis Howes]

Really?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

There's some interesting studies I want to go back to the.

[Lewis Howes]

Because they don't feel safe.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

Wow.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

You have to feel safe for your hormones to be balanced. That's why fasting didn't work for women to do all the time. Because people. The body was like, too stressful. It's too stressful. But cycling, fasting works for women because you're sure you're using the principles of fasting to heal, and you're using the principles of food to nourish yourself so the body feels safe. And you do that in accordance with your hormones and your cycle. And the body's like, I'm safe. I can release weight.

[Lewis Howes]

I want you to talk about cycling and fasting in a moment, but I think I just cut you off from something you were going to say.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah. So I want to talk about. I wanted to go into the pheromones for a second because why do we cycle together? And then I wanted to talk about one study about birth control that was really interesting. So we cycle together. Women do, because as crazy as it sounds, we smell each other. Really? Yeah. So there's a scent that we give off and it changes our cycle. That's how powerful a woman's body is and how it will adapt to the environment it is in.

[Lewis Howes]

So when you smell another woman who has. It'll know when the cycle is happening and it'll sync up your hormones with theirs.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yes, but it's. But it's when you're like, in families

[Lewis Howes]

and work and family, when you're constantly with that person.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yes, it's constantly. It's not like you go out into the world.

[Lewis Howes]

It's not like you see your girlfriend once a month and, oh, we're gonna sync up right now.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

They're called pheromones.

[Lewis Howes]

Pheromones.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Isn't that crazy?

[Lewis Howes]

That's fascinating.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Okay, second interesting study.

[Lewis Howes]

What is the reason behind that, you know, pairing of cycles within families or communities? Is that. Is there a safety thing when you're both in a cycle at the Same time. Is it?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That's a great question. I always go back to our primal caveman days. I'm like, why did. Because that's where you can really see. Why did we do that?

[Lewis Howes]

I guess men back in the day used to spread their seed a lot.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Maybe that was it. There was a lot of.

[Lewis Howes]

Who knows? To multiple women at once. It's true. I mean, in tribal days, it was like, okay, the man with the most money or the doctor or the whatever, the person with the most resources is able to kind of spread their seed to as many people as possible for survival.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah, it's possible. I think there's something I wrote in both my books called the hormonal hierarchy, and it works in women because our hormones are more complicated and the hierarchy looks like this.

[Lewis Howes]

Wait, you guys aren't simple.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

We're not.

[Lewis Howes]

Okay.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Are you just figuring that out right now? We're not. It's so funny. So many men say to me, like, you said it. I didn't say it. So. And this is why I love conversations like this. Let's just. Yes, we're not simple, and our moods constantly change.

[Lewis Howes]

Well, I think you can be simple when you understand a lot of this stuff, as opposed to feeling like, I don't know how to understand, why am I feeling this way? Why are you feeling more stressed this time? When we have awareness and we have an understanding of our. Our body as a man, as our body, our hormones, or a different environment, things like that, we feel more at peace. It doesn't mean it's going to give us 100% peace, but we're going to feel like, okay, I have a sense of understanding around it.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That's right.

[Lewis Howes]

I think when women get understanding around their bodies, their cycles, their hormones, like, why they're gaining weight and why they're losing weight and all these different things, when they're aware of it, they don't feel. They don't have to feel as bad or shameful or anxious or stressed about it.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yes.

[Lewis Howes]

Right.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yes. That's the right way.

[Lewis Howes]

It doesn't mean it's perfect, but at least you have awareness.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Nailed it. And this is why I'm trying to open this conversation up so we can all talk about it. If you look at what we've done historically in our culture is women don't. We don't want to talk about our periods. We don't want to talk about menopause. We don't talk about it. It's like a shameful thing that we have to hide. And that's now changing, which is really great. But if we can bring it to the surface and talk about it, men and women can understand each other. Women can understand each other better. So it's so important that we bring it to the light. So, but here's what I want to go back to. This pheromone.

[Lewis Howes]

I've gone off so many different tangents.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

I know, but you've got me thinking and excited. So here's what I think happens is in this hormonal hierarchy, in order for your sex hormones to be balanced, you have to be insulin sensitive. You have to have that system. Right. Which is why I think Fast like a Girl is so many women are getting their cycles back. They're getting pregnant for the first time because I help them see how to do that.

[Lewis Howes]

Interesting.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

But what's in charge of insulin is cortisol. So like we talked about, well, okay, if cortisol is high, you become more insulin resistant and you have a harder time balancing sex hormones.

[Lewis Howes]

And cortisol is stress.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Cortisol is stress.

[Lewis Howes]

And is stress based on food stress, lack of sleep, stress, environment stress, relationship stress. All of it.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

All of it. Fasting raises cortisol.

[Lewis Howes]

Right.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Exercise raises cortisol, which is why we have to do it differently as women.

[Lewis Howes]

Interesting.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

But at the top of that all is oxytocin. And this is why I think perhaps we. We would. We smell each other and would cycle together. Because women are right. Women are meant to be in community. Because when oxytocin and we're connecting with each other, then cortisol goes down. This is why you should always let your gal go out on ladies night. Always.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Because now she gets oxytocin. It brings cortisol down, she's more relaxed. And then when she's more relaxed, now all the dieting and exercise that she wants to do makes her is going to work. And when that regulates insulin, now we can balance her hormones.

[Lewis Howes]

Wow.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

So we're, we're just humans in general, but women are geared towards connection.

[Lewis Howes]

And so what about, you know. So you mentioned cycling, fasting or fasting while cycling. How do we know. How does a woman know when to fast and how frequently to fast based on their cycle?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

So in Fast like a Girl, I created something called the fasting cycle for women. And basically I walk through the whole menstrual cycle. I'll give you the basic principles of it.

[Lewis Howes]

Break it down for me.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah. And showed women, this is when you fast, this is when you don't fast. And then I timed it to six different level fasts.

[Lewis Howes]

Give me the 101 of a menstrual cycle.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Okay. This is gonna be great.

[Lewis Howes]

When does it start or what happens? The day it starts versus when it ends.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Okay, great. And then you gotta go home tonight

[Lewis Howes]

and be like, this is what I learned.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah. And let me know how useful this is. Yeah. Because it's really interesting. If more men understood this, I think you'd understand the women in your life more. Okay. Day one through day ten. Day one is the day you start to. A woman bleeds. A lot of women don't realize that that's day one. So you have to use feminine care products. It's day one. So your hormones actually are come crashing down at that point. And for the next 10 days, you're gonna specifically build a hormone called estrogen. Estrogen needs you to be insulin sensitive. So keeping your carb load down, keeping fasting longer, exercising more. Really, those first 10 days, a woman can do it.

[Lewis Howes]

Then that's when you can fast and exercise more.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah, yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

Day one through ten.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Day one through ten. And that's where keto works. That's where the whole low carb situation worked really well in those first 10 days. The other unique thing about estrogen is when cortisol shows up, she doesn't care as much. She's a little tolerant of cortisol. The other interesting thing for you to know, anybody who's got a woman in their life, those first 10 days, when estrogen builds estrogen, one piece of estrogen, it's called estradiol, stimulates dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, bdnf, acetylcholine, glutamate. So she's gonna be happy, focused, more outgoing, wanna socialize more, really?

[Lewis Howes]

In the first 10 days?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah. Give her a couple days after she starts to bleed. But as she gets closer to day 10.

[Lewis Howes]

Cause usually when it starts, you hear people say a little more moody. Right.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

I think that's because we don't mind the back half of our cycle, really. So when I go all the way through, I'll explain that.

[Lewis Howes]

Okay. Yes.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

Because Martha, my fiance, she really doesn't get moody like she has. She doesn't get cramping. You know, it's really rare. If she feels pain or feels. She might for like a couple hours, be like, I just want, like, to cut a little more like that. But maybe that's.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

She might be doing this right, though. We're not meant to have PMS is because we're going against our natural rhythm.

[Lewis Howes]

Really?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah. Bad menopause symptoms also going against natural rhythms.

[Lewis Howes]

How many women do you think, percentage wise, have intense pms?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Oh, I would say the majority of them, really. But think about it. Women exercise the same all month long. Women eat the same all month long. Women don't think about, oh, progesterone's coming in. I maybe need to slow down my life a little bit right now. We don't talk like that until this moment in time. And this is what, again, another thing, I'm trying to open up this conversation. So we have been trying to diet and exercise and live life very much like a man.

[Lewis Howes]

Right. Especially in like the coastal cities. You see, you know, I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but you see women going to the gym five, six days a week or getting up early in intense yoga, hot yoga, every single morning. It's like you got to get it in and you got to work hard. And it sounds like, yes, for a period of the month, but not the entire month.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Exactly.

[Lewis Howes]

Or for part of the week, but not every day.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Exactly.

[Lewis Howes]

That's what I'm hearing you say, yes, got it.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

And that is so important for women to hear. And when I get to the back half of the cycle, you'll understand why. But our hormones pulse in and out in a 28 to 32 day period. You all have one hormone. You have testosterone.

[Lewis Howes]

That's it.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That's it.

[Lewis Howes]

How many hormones do women have?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

We have, well, sex hormones, so we have three. But you also have estrogen. But you make testosterone. It goes up into the brain and converts into estrogen. So the conversion happens in the brain. So all you have to think about is make more testosterone and you get it every 15ish minutes.

[Lewis Howes]

Every 15 minutes?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah. Just pulses in, really. Hormones are always pulsing, so they pulse in every 15 minutes and then it goes away. And then it pulses in and then it goes away naturally. Yeah. You're highest in the morning. Testosterone's highest in the morning.

[Lewis Howes]

Women, that's why men usually have, you know, extra sex drive in the morning.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That's exactly why men are have a higher sex drive in the morning.

[Lewis Howes]

Right.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

And it's a good time to work out.

[Lewis Howes]

Is it the best time to work out, you think?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah. Because you have all that testosterone energy. Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

Right.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yep. And muscle building.

[Lewis Howes]

So it's better to work out for muscle building and fat loss in the morning for men than it is at night, would you say?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Clinically now? I want to be. Because I've done this.

[Lewis Howes]

Everyone's different.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah, yeah, I've done this Enough time. And I know the men will be

[Lewis Howes]

like, I work out at midnight and I burnt that and I got a six pack and you're like, okay, right.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

If you look at the rules of hormones for a man, well, all of us, it's better to work out in the morning because the other thing we both get is spikes of cortisol in the morning. And if you use cortisol by working out, you won't store it as fat.

[Lewis Howes]

Right.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

For both men and women.

[Lewis Howes]

And you feel relaxed, you feel more calm, you get more dopamine, probably from the process of working out. I'm assuming that's right.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

But if you use testosterone for you all, when testosterone comes in, if you're lifting weights, you're going to help build that muscle more. We only get testosterone. Check this out. We only get testosterone, a big surge of it. Day 11 to day 15, you don't

[Lewis Howes]

get it for 10 days.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah, really, it comes in, in a big surge. Right. In ovulation. So it's a great time for a woman to build muscle. You're going to notice her libido is going to go up during that she

[Lewis Howes]

don't want to have sex during, then

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

she's going to want to have sex more then that one is like mind blowing. Right. How many men and women are a mismatch? And again, this is purely, obviously a heterosexual moment, but how many men and women don't feel like they're sexually matched? Right. But yet do we understand that women get that surge of testosterone in that five day period?

[Lewis Howes]

That's interesting. How do you time that up though? It's like, okay, day one, she's got her period, she started bleeding. Right. And then you think, okay, 11 days from now, let me put a mental note or put it in my calendar. Okay, this is going to be the day.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Right.

[Lewis Howes]

That doesn't sound so like sexy though when you think about it. Let me like mark this on my calendar and really be aware of when she's going to be available at the best time.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah, well, so here's what you can do is, I mean, I'm not saying don't have sex the rest of the time. I'm just saying you got a shot, a big shot at that point, like so just be aware of that.

[Lewis Howes]

Sure, sure. The woman may be more aroused.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That's right.

[Lewis Howes]

Gotcha.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

She might have more desire naturally and

[Lewis Howes]

she can't even control it. She can't. I mean, well, the body is surging

[Sponsor/Ad Reader]

with the hormones, right?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Sure, Yes.

[Lewis Howes]

I mean, I guess you could mentally block It. But the body is naturally more turned on.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

The body is naturally more turned on.

[Lewis Howes]

Okay. I mean, yes, you can control anything, but I'm just saying the body, you can't block the hormones.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

I was thinking of like all these, this visual of like all, all these

[Lewis Howes]

women like jumping on men ripping their clothes off.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That's right. It's not like that.

[Lewis Howes]

I can't control it.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

It's not like that.

[Lewis Howes]

Yes, but the body, unless you, I guess medically or put some medication, you can't block these hormones. That's what you're saying.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That's right. Well, I mean there are, there are situations like birth control pill has.

[Lewis Howes]

That's blocking it. Yeah, you're taking a medication to block.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

It's changed it. It's synthetically directing it.

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[Lewis Howes]

And when a woman has been on birth control for multiple decades, what challenges might come up in their bodies with their hormones?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Well, this is a big a major Issue for women, especially the younger women, is because it takes a couple of years for the pattern of the brain and the ovaries to get to know each other. So if we come in with birth control a year after a woman started her period, there's never an internal innate sense of the body. And then we keep women on birth control until menopause and we take her off of menopause and now she has a serious hormonal issue because she never learned that pattern.

[Lewis Howes]

Wow.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

So That's 1/2 1 is horrible for the microbiome. It decimates the microbiome and you need your microbiome to make serotonin, you need it for immune system, you need your microbiome to break down estrogen.

[Lewis Howes]

So, so when you take that pill and it's like a daily pill for like what, 10, 12 days or something?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah. It's on a month.

[Lewis Howes]

It's like half the month.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

You take it for two weeks.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah. You have a cycle according to them

[Lewis Howes]

when you take it, you take it daily for like two weeks or whatever it is. What is in that pill and what is it doing to your gut? Microbiome.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

And what it's doing to your brain?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah. Well, so it's, it's controlling hormones for you. So you're adding in hormones into your body. So it's, it's make, it's doing the controlling instead of the body and naturally doing it.

[Lewis Howes]

So is that good?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

My opinion is no. But we have to really think about what the alternative is. We don't have any. Here's a question for you. I asked my 21 year old son this recently. It's what has become standard for women to be the ones in charge of birth control. And when you look at the birth control pill, it is exogenously from the outside controlling our hormones, which is setting us up for a whole bunch of hormonal problems. There's some new research where they're looking at a pill for a man that would change the semen.

[Lewis Howes]

Right.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

The change sperm. Now would you take it?

[Lewis Howes]

I wouldn't take it.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Why wouldn't you take it?

[Lewis Howes]

Why would I want to block my body's natural way of being Then the

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

same goes for women.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah. I'm not saying women should take it.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

I know.

[Lewis Howes]

But

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

that is why.

[Lewis Howes]

And I also, I wouldn't take it unless they were like, listen, there are zero side effects. And right when you got off of it, you would be perfectly back to where your body was in sync and your sperm would be just as optimized or healthy or powerful, whatever it is. And there wouldn't be, you know, you wouldn't hurt your sperm later.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

Then I'd be like, okay, well, if there's decades of research and this is proven and babies are still okay afterwards, then I'd be like, oh, maybe I don't know if I was 20 or something, but it's not something I would take right now.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

So that's what's happening to women really, is that we have manipulated our hormones, and this is why women's health is in a really disastrous place right now. So I totally hear what you're saying, and I would agree, like, yeah, your logic is right. But we've been doing this to women forever.

[Lewis Howes]

Why? Why? I mean, this is probably a whole nother subject, but why is birth control such a normal thing if it's so bad for women's bodies?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah, it's. Why do we do it is because the alternative is nobody wants to have a child.

[Lewis Howes]

Young or young child. Yeah.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

And

[Lewis Howes]

what's more painful, hurting your body for decades and maybe a lifetime, you know, having a child young I get is a big risk. And there's a lot of pain and pressure that could come to that, along with a lot of beauty and wonder and magic as well. But at what price?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Somewhere along the line, we decided that the woman was in charge of the birth control process, and we didn't think. And I will. I will say this with as much kindness as I can.

[Lewis Howes]

Yes. And I'm not here to judge people.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah, no, me neither.

[Lewis Howes]

My sisters were both on birth control for a long time. That's one of the reasons why I asked, because one of my sisters was on birth control, I think, for two decades, and she couldn't get pregnant.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Right.

[Lewis Howes]

And it was devastating for like four or five years she was trying, and she could not get pregnant to the point where she gave up. She was just, like, in tears for months, sad that she wasn't able to have a child. And there were some other complications. I can't remember the terminology of things if it's something she had, but it wasn't. It wasn't in her cards anymore.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

And she was in her late 30s and she was devastated.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

And then she got off of birth control and just said, okay, well, I guess I'm not going to be a mom. And then four or five years later, she was able to have a child. Like, it kind of magically happened, but. And now she's got an amazing, you know, one and a half year old. So it's a beautiful thing now. But it was really scary and painful for many, many years. And you know, it's sad to see. And it affected her hormones and different things. It took time for the body to re regulate.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That's it exactly. I mean, you just painted the picture that so many women are struggling with. And so when we come in with an outside source to manipulate our hormones, when we get off of that outside source, we don't have a natural rhythm. And that's honestly one of the things that I'm seeing with Fast Like a girl, when I go and read my reviews and see how people are responding to it, is I just gave a lifestyle that allowed women to get back into routine with their hormones. So it's awesome. She has it now. It took her four to five years. But what I'm hoping is that we can use lifestyle as a way to give that rhythm back.

[Lewis Howes]

Right. And you said between day 11 and 15, that's when there's a surge of testosterone for women in their cycle. What happens after day, that's when they can be working out harder. That's when you can go to the gym four or five days that week and push it a little more.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Well, so day one through day ten, you can do the hard workouts. Day 11 to day 15, you get the most amount of testosterone you'll ever get. You have the most amount of estrogen you'll ever have and a little bit of progesterone. So let's talk about that period, because it's a really cool period. So testosterone is libido and motivation and drive. Estrogen is. She's gonna wanna talk to you. She wants to have a. So if you, if you, if you wanna have sex with her, you better talk to her first. Cause she's. During that time, she's got estrogen she wants to verbally process with you.

[Lewis Howes]

So her brain, especially late at night.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yes.

[Lewis Howes]

When you just were asleep, her brain

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

is like on fire. And then she's got progesterone. So she's a little bit calm. So that is. I call it, I called it in the book the manifestation phase. Because I was like, oh, we are super. Our superpowers. Like we put on our hormonal superpower cape and we could manifest a baby, we could manifest a raise, we could manifest some new project at work because all our hormones show up then.

[Lewis Howes]

So for those four days is it just. You're sharper, you're more focused, you're more energized, you're clear, you're like goal oriented. During those days.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That's right.

[Lewis Howes]

You know what you want to create.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That's how we should be. So women listening that are like, I don't feel like that. I'm going to ask you to look at. Are you living a lifestyle in accordance with your hormones? Okay, so let's go to your fiance who is like, this is kind of, you know, her period and menstrual cycle is easy. She's probably, if you. If she looked at it, is living in accordance with her hormones.

[Lewis Howes]

She is. She is. Yeah. She's doing amazing.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

She's got great family relationships, great friendships. She's got a meaningful work that she loves. She eats very well, you know, very clean. She rests well. She's. And she's positive and joyful. She has an attitude of just gratitude and giving and thoughtfulness, and I love that accepting. She doesn't hold on to grudges.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

Like, she has a calm mind in the sense that it's not a rigid mind.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

She lets go of things.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That's amazing.

[Lewis Howes]

She creates boundaries and lets gos of things. Right. She give. Forgives people. So she doesn't have a lot of stress and tightness internally. I think that allows her to flow and not be in pain or have PMS or be like, cramping a lot or off cycles.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

You nailed it. I mean, you just gave the formula for oxytocin.

[Lewis Howes]

Really?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

So she gets a lot of oxytocin? Is what I just heard all day. Yeah. So it's balancing everything else out.

[Lewis Howes]

Interesting.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

Okay, so that's day 11 to 15.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah. Day 10. Day 11 through 15. Is that ovulation manifestation period lifestyle? This is something interesting that I've been really deep into thinking is if women have the most amount of testosterone, then why don't we use that to build muscle? So maybe you've had him on your show. Do you know Tony Horton?

[Lewis Howes]

I know Tony. I don't know him that well, but I haven't had him on yet.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

You should bring him on. He's a funny guy. So he and I created a program together last year, a fitness program called PowerSync 60. And we took his genius of putting workout programs together with my knowledge of hormones. And so it's out there in the world. You can find that very cool. But I brought it to him. I'm like, why don't you have a monthly calendar for women's workouts? Why do we have a weekly calendar? And so we put a lot of weightlifting in during that time. Heavy. That's the time you Want to live heavy weights for women so that you can build more muscle.

[Lewis Howes]

That's interesting. Okay, so after day 15, then what?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Okay, so then after day 15 and then also fasting during that manifestation, keep it low. You don't want it really high. You've got, you know, eat more like foods that support good gut health. Be mindful of your liver. Maybe chill out on the alcohol a little bit. So you can break all those hormones.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah. Okay.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Then you come out of ovulation and all the hormones crash again. So it's kind of like this is. You'll notice it in our attitude. We have like, we're up, we're down, we're up, we're down. Because that's how our hormones go. So when the hormones go low, you can fast more. So that's a time where you could go into some longer fasts. You can do harder workouts. Like day 11 to day 19. I'm sorry, day day 15, 16 to day 19, you can fast longer.

[Lewis Howes]

So you can go, what, 10 to 12 hour fasts or.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Well, longer is like 16, 36, 48, 48 hour fast.

[Lewis Howes]

Okay. So during those days you can go

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

longer, you can go longer. Yep.

[Lewis Howes]

You can go two days without eating.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Wow. Yep.

[Lewis Howes]

And what do you consider a fast?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Anything that doesn't raise your blood sugar.

[Lewis Howes]

So what can you consume?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah, so water, mineral water, teas, coffee. You can do MCT oil. If you want to do butter in your coffee. That works. Yeah. You just need to make sure it doesn't raise your blood sugar.

[Lewis Howes]

Okay.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

But so there's actually apple, cider vinegar, water, if you want do electrolytes. You can do electrolytes. Yeah. It just can't have a sugar or a sweetener of any kind of salt.

[Lewis Howes]

Like element tea.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Salt is really element.

[Lewis Howes]

T is amazing you can do that during a fast.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yes. Do you know that element tea was actually created for fasters?

[Lewis Howes]

Really?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

Oh, wow.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

So the idea was to.

[Lewis Howes]

I love it.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

I do too. The idea was to put it in water when faster so that they're getting those magnesium, sodium and potassium so the body can fast better.

[Lewis Howes]

Interesting. So you can do a few packs of that a day.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

Oh, okay. All right. So that's day 16 to 19 and

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

then day 20 hits and everything. Yeah. So day 20 hits and progesterone appears. Okay, so progesterone's the outlier. She does not like stress. So you shouldn't be fasting, you shouldn't be pushing your workouts. You should slow your social calendar down if you can. You should slow down your workouts. That's more yoga, Pilates, hiking, make that your recovery time. That's not a time to push extreme anything. In the book. I call it the nurture phase because I want women to nurture themselves. But if we go back to the libido topic, it also can be a great time if you want to connect with the women in your life during that time. Foot rubs, kind comments, shoulder rubs, like gentle, be gentle with us and you will get a better version of us.

[Lewis Howes]

Right. I mean, if you do that every day with a woman, you'll probably get a better version of it.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That week is the one that really matters.

[Lewis Howes]

If you talk kindly, if you rub it back every day, it's probably gonna be a better day. And so what is. Okay, so this is the 20 day cycle, menstrual cycle for women.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Well, and then you do that until she bleeds, until she's 10 or 12

[Lewis Howes]

more days or eight days later, until she bleeds. Then it starts all over again.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

It starts all over again. So the women that are having really heavy pms, the women, a lot of menopausal women that get a lot of clotting when they start to bleed, they have really bad periods. It was the week before. They didn't mind, really. Yeah. So that's. If you, if you bring. And oh, here's the other thing about progesterone. You have to bring glucose up. So this is why almost every woman I talk to, and I know there's a few outliers out there, because I'll get that question, but we crave carbs, we crave chocolate, we want to sit on the couch. We're not as like outgoing, but we've taught ourselves to push through that time. So there's a reason you crave carbs. You got to bring that glucose up so that you have enough fuel source for progesterone to be made.

[Lewis Howes]

So what are the key steps then, during that 10 day period, or I guess really during the whole cycle to optimize your lifestyle for hormones?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah. Well, it would be in the front half of it. Let's make it as simple as possible. The front half of your cycle. All the extremes that you want to do, okay, whatever it is, work, working out, dieting, fasting typically does better. In the back half of your cycle, there needs to be more nurturing and more recovery.

[Lewis Howes]

Because you would think as a man that when your woman starts her period, that's when you would want to take it easy on her or like make sure she relaxes. And chills out. That's what I would think. Like, okay, she's on her period. She's probably going to be moody or whatever. That might be the way of thinking. But what I'm hearing you say is, like, that's the time to push things, like, more than normal. That's the time to, like, get organized, work out, you know, fast, and to be more in the drive phase versus the nurture phase.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

The nurture happens before, right before it, Right before it.

[Lewis Howes]

So, like, period starts. Like, let's get into action.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Well, the first two days, you give us.

[Lewis Howes]

Give us a couple days trying to get clear here. Trying to get clear here.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Like, the first two days, remember the hormone we went from progesterone, really building a little bit of estrogen comes in, and then our uterine lining sheds.

[Lewis Howes]

Okay.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

So the first two days, we're detoxing. Yeah. And we. Those are kind of magical days. Like, we have access to both sides of our brain, so we may still feel a little more inner.

[Lewis Howes]

Okay.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

But on day three, we start coming outward more, and that's when we can push it more.

[Lewis Howes]

So good to know. So the day the menstrual cycle starts, when she starts bleeding, wait a couple days until you get things into action is what you're saying.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That's right.

[Lewis Howes]

Okay.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah.

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[Lewis Howes]

this is good. This is all. This is very helpful, I think. I mean, what else should men know or women know about their cycle?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

I think the biggest challenge I'm seeing and why we have all these hormonal problems is that just women need more rest and recovery. And it's a. It's a really hard concept because how

[Lewis Howes]

do you tell women that in the modern world today to say, women, you need more rest and recovery? You shouldn't be pushing as hard, you shouldn't be as driven in certain days of the month. And that's not what your body wants. Yeah, it's hard for. I would think that it's hard for a modern woman who is very independent, who makes their own money, who's got a great job, who is in control of their life. Maybe a little too much.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

For their homeowners. Liking. It's probably hard for them to hear that.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah, it is. And I am one of those women. Just so we're clear, like, I'm not here, like, proselytizing a puritan lifestyle. I'm here saying that what we did to keep up with the patriarchal world, which to me just means the power to be at the table with men and to be there where we deserve to be is we forgot that we do need more rest and recovery. So we get to choose where that is. So let me give you a couple examples. That week before your cycle, for women, maybe you don't if you have a lot at work, then don't tack on a whole bunch a new workout and really stress yourself working out. And don't tack on a fast. Don't tack on like rigid diet routines. There needs to be something that's nurturing you during that time.

[Lewis Howes]

Don't go out every night of the week.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That's right. And if you do that, then you can come into the front half of your cycle and you're gonna be. You're working with your hormones, so you actually will be more powerful. I mean, and again, let's just. If we look at hormones, we have three hormones. And these three hormones are making all kinds of neurotransmitters in our body. So on a neurochemical level, we're a little more superior. Just saying.

[Lewis Howes]

Okay, if you are in alignment with those hormones.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That's right. But we've never been in alignment with it. Wow.

[Lewis Howes]

Well, maybe we have in the past. Right.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

But maybe primal days.

[Lewis Howes]

Right, Exactly. So when women are in alignment with their hormones, they are unstoppable.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Bingo.

[Lewis Howes]

But when they're out of alignment, they're just hurting themselves.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Absolutely. A thousand percent.

[Lewis Howes]

Wow. This is fascinating.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Right, so. But we, we do everything very similar in lifestyle to men, and we need to realize that we are living in a different body. So I'm not saying a lot of

[Lewis Howes]

people don't want to hear that though.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

They don't want to hear that. So like you could do. It could be as simple as the week before your period, get to sleep a little bit earlier, you know, do more yoga and then go to work and kick butt at work. But maybe if there's a big project that you have control over, could you start it at the front half of your cycle, not at the back half?

[Lewis Howes]

Have just goes back to know thyself.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That's right.

[Lewis Howes]

You know, know thyself. Study yourself. Understand how your body, your mind, everything works. Be a student of yourself and your health. For sure.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That's right.

[Lewis Howes]

So there's three hormones that women have. Right. And there's one that men have.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Well, one, you have two because you have estrogen too. It just is made in the brain.

[Lewis Howes]

Gotcha. The main one that's being generated is testosterone. And the three for women are progesterone, estrogen and testosterone. Okay, so what I'm hearing you say is that men should fast differently than women.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

And men, can we fast daily? Is there a time where we should stop fasting?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yes.

[Lewis Howes]

Can we do intermittent fasting every day for years? Should we take a break day you know, weekend or. What should we be doing?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah. So again, let's go back to our primal friends and let's think about them. So you can fast. You don't have anything to cycle it to. You can. You do really well with fasting. And you just have to have moments where you're feasting, too. So let's go. The man comes out of the cave in the primal days, he goes hunting for food. He's now clicked over. Maybe it takes a long time to make a kill. So he's clicked over into that ketogenic energy system. He finally makes a kill, comes back home, brings it to the cave and cooks it up and feasts. So if men stay in a fasted state all the time without stepping out and eating, eventually it'll catch up with you. So women, we just have to do that according to our hormones. Because if we go back to our primal friends that it was around right before we got our period, that we were probably sequestered off. We don't have documentation of this, but hypothetically, we were probably sequestered off, and we're more in a nurture phase. So we weren't out doing the kill.

[Lewis Howes]

Right. When you were bleeding, you weren't like, going off or working the first few days.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That's right. But probably once, like the days leading up to our bleed, then we would bleed, and then we probably went and perhaps joined the pack to go kill, Make a kill. We're like, so primal.

[Lewis Howes]

It's fascinating.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

Now, I wanted to go back to the women having these superpowers and having this kind of manifesting masters. When you're in alignment with your hormones, what do men and women need to do for their brains to be wired for abundance hormonally? How can we wire our hormones to be connected to our brains to see the world differently, to make better decisions and to attract opportunities, abundance, and good things into our life better.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Oh, I love this question. This is so good. Well, let's start with women, for starters. We do exactly what we've been talking about. We have to know how to live a lifestyle that is in accordance with our hormones.

[Lewis Howes]

And do you have key tenets of this lifestyle? Do you have.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah, it would be fasting, food, working out, sleep, and probably socializing. I'm going to put socializing and work like those six things. If you could time them and know how to do them with your hormones, you are absolutely increasing your ability to attract more abundance in your life.

[Lewis Howes]

And these six things kind of create your environment.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That's right.

[Lewis Howes]

Everything within your environment of your day to day life. If those things are in alignment with healthy habits and healthy living and healthy choices, I'm assuming you're going to feel better.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That's right.

[Lewis Howes]

But if one of them or a few of them are off, or all of them are off, your hormones are probably off too.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That's right. So what's the consequence of your hormones being off? There's like, we can talk about pcos, weight gain, menopausal symptoms. I mean, there's a lot. PMDD is a new concept that's just being talked about.

[Lewis Howes]

What is that?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Really bad premenstrual symptoms. Okay, so all of that that we have like fancy names for, I equate to we're just living out of accordance with our hormones. So when you're physically suffering, you're not a money magnet for sure. But if we look at what happens to women when they go through menopause, we start to lose one hormone or a component of estrogen called estradiol. When we lose that, we lose all those neurotransmitters that I talked about and we react to stress a lot more acutely. Our ability to hold on to information becomes more difficult because we lose bdnf, because we lost estradiol. So again, that's why the menopause reset. I talk about perimenopause and post menopause because there's another level of lifestyle that needs to come in there to accommodate all of the loss of neurochemicals. I mean, it's really like, it's intricate.

[Lewis Howes]

Yes.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

But once you understand it, like you're on again, you're a woman, becomes unstoppable. Does that make sense?

[Lewis Howes]

That's powerful. Yeah.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Right.

[Lewis Howes]

And what's the best way that a man or a woman can clean up their insulin system?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Fasting.

[Lewis Howes]

Fasting, fasting.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That's why it's taken over the world.

[Lewis Howes]

I know. What's the downside to fasting?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

If you do it too much for women, it changes to our hormones. So that's why I wrote the whole book.

[Lewis Howes]

So it's almost like women need to be very mindful when they start fasting.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

How, the time of the month, how

[Lewis Howes]

and when, for how long. And they need to test it a little bit more. It sounds like don't just jump in and try to do it like men would try.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

Because there's certain apps that might just say, okay, just go for 20 hours a day or 16 hours a day and just do it every day. And, you know, rank yourself amongst your peers. And try to, you know, compete, catch. And that's probably not the way that women should be thinking about it.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Right? That's right. Nobody should be competing in fasting.

[Lewis Howes]

Right, Right, exactly.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Even men.

[Lewis Howes]

But there's a gamification of apps that are like, okay, your score is up. Keep going and go a little longer. And so you, you know, it's like that whole gamification can be tricky psychologically for people.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yes.

[Lewis Howes]

So for women, it's. I'm hearing you fasting, but be very mindful and test it. And track it.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yes, track it, test it. Experiment. I mean, the Fast like a girl has become the manual for women. So it's all in there. You can go to my YouTube. I have a bunch of things there. And I'm just saying that because we just consolidated it in one location. But then I will say this. I say this all the time. Then test it. Like you said, test it for you. Test it, see if it works. You might find you can fast a little longer during ovulation than my recommendation. If it works, then great. But the problem was is that we didn't have this conversation when fasting took over the world. So all these people started to lose weight and women started to lose hair, they started to lose cycles, Their thyroids crashed because they weren't given the formula. And now they have the formula.

[Lewis Howes]

That's kind of scary, right? When fasting, crazy fasting kind of took over, really? In the last four to five years, I would say it's got more popularized. Right. And how many women were coming to you saying that this doesn't work?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Hundreds of thousands.

[Lewis Howes]

Really?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

So this is actually really interesting. So I was the first one. So I found out about fasting. Loved it started. And I was about 44 years old at the time. I'm 54 now. And I was like, okay, this is great. And all of a sudden I started dropping weight. My moods improved. Like, every perimenopausal symptom I had went away. And then I started to notice, like, anxiety crept up. I started going into menopause at 45 and I was like, this doesn't seem right. The later I go, like, the average age for a woman going into menopause is like 52. So I ran a Dutch hormone test on myself and my hormones were completely tanked because I was fasting too much.

[Lewis Howes]

Wow. What were you doing at that time? For how long?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Oh, I was doing like one meal a day. I was doing three day water fasts a couple times a year. Like three, four, five times a Year I felt so good. And that's the problem.

[Lewis Howes]

You do feel so good that first year because your. Your body's getting rid of all the dead fat cells and the toxic cells. You're flushing it out, right?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

But then your hormones weren't feeling good.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Right.

[Lewis Howes]

But when did you start to feel the negative symptoms of fasting?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

It was about a year of doing all that.

[Lewis Howes]

A year in.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

Your body was like, all right, this is too much.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah. So then I broke the menstrual cycle down, and I was like, okay, wait, wait. Progesterone doesn't do well with cortisol. Wait. Progesterone needs glucose up. Okay, I gotta change that. And then I went to the ovulation part of my cycle, and I was like, wait, I should be focusing more on my gut and my liver. How can I support those with food? And I started to change that, and then, literally, I was like, almost in menopause at 45. And my cycle came back, and then I didn't.

[Lewis Howes]

You're almost in menopause at 45. So you just weren't having your period anymore? It was gone.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

It was gone for how long? It was about three or four months.

[Lewis Howes]

Okay, so you're like, this isn't. I'm feeling good. My body's looking good, but I'm not. Something's off.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah. And anxiety was through the rift. I couldn't sit on the couch and relax anymore because progesterone makes gaba. And so what I did is I killed progesterone. And then progesterone is what allows that uterine lining to shed. I wasn't making the neurotransmitter to calm me. So anxiety was showing up for the first time in my life. But I loved the weight. I was.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah. You're like, I look great. I feel strong.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That's right.

[Lewis Howes]

Interesting. So when did it start to come back? Like, when did the cycle come back? And you realized you started testing different things?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

It was within 90 days.

[Lewis Howes]

Wow.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

And then I got really excited about it, and I was like, well, let me test it on my patients. So we started testing it on the patients that were hormonal hot messes. And they all started coming back within 90 days. They're like, oh, my gosh. All that stuff you had been giving me supplements for, like, they're all balanced now. Then I was like, okay, let me test it on women that are struggling with pregnancy. That one blew me away. So I had a couple of staff members that were struggling to get pregnant, and I was Like, I think this might be the cure or the thing that'll help you. I don't know. Let's try it.

[Lewis Howes]

Fasting or taking it off. Fasting.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

The fasting like a girl. So knowing how to go in and

[Lewis Howes]

out the right time at the right

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

time, all of them got pregnant within a month.

[Lewis Howes]

Wow.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

And you go to my YouTube videos. You go to my reviews on Amazon. I mean, we've been able to reproduce this over and over again. So that when then I started teaching it on YouTube.

[Lewis Howes]

That's cool.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

And you have a channel. I really looked at YouTube, my YouTube community, as like an incubator. So I would say, hey, you all go. This is what I think is working. This is years ago. Go try it. And then millions of women all over the world flooded our channel and just started saying, like, hey, this is working. This is. So we just took inventory of what was working and not working. And that's why I think fast, like a girl is resonating.

[Lewis Howes]

That's amazing.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

We tested it all.

[Lewis Howes]

That's so cool.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

It's really cool. It was really fun.

[Lewis Howes]

What do you think is the hardest thing about getting our hormones in alignment and healthier?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Well, the first is understanding it. So this is why, even if we

[Lewis Howes]

have all this information, because a lot of us understand, eat less, eat better things, and we'll feel better. But we eat poorly, we eat sugar, we overeat, we over consume. You know, we're influenced by marketing, by abundance of it, whatever it might be, you know, lack of motivation, whatever it might be. We're influenced.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

We're out at parties, you know, whatever, wherever it is.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

It's the modern world.

[Lewis Howes]

A lot of us know we're not supposed to do certain things, and we still do it.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

And I'm not here to judge because I eat sugar, you know, a lot, just with the best of them.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

But.

[Lewis Howes]

And I know I'm not supposed to do it right. I know it's hurting me, but I've eliminated so many other things that I'm like, okay, this is the only thing I'm gonna allow myself to have every once in a while.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That's right.

[Lewis Howes]

But what is holding us back, you know, the most? Is it a lack of discipline, a lack of motivation? Is it our environment? Is it our family's habits that have passed down to us, that now we're just in routine from what they've done? Is it our friends is just. We have too much access to devices that are marketing to us these things and causing stress? What do you. Is it Everything, it's all of that.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

I mean, this is why I say we're at a mismatch with the modern world. But if we just take. Let's. That's. This is, this is why I want to simplify it. Because it would be easy to listen to everything you just said and think, well, I'm screwed then, like, okay, that's impossible. And I'm saying that it's not impossible and you should take steps. So let's start with the food step. The food, the processed food, is made to make you addicted to it. So how do we change that? Alone. Okay, well, if I can get you to fast, I actually can get you to start to feel better without food. And your microbiome will change and your food choices would change. If we start there, we start to clean up the hormonal system. Because the food industry is working to keep you addicted to food.

[Lewis Howes]

Yes.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

So they have no incentive for you to not be addicted to their food, to fast.

[Lewis Howes]

There's no incentive.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

There's no incentive.

[Lewis Howes]

They don't make any money.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That's right. But if I can get you to fast, I can change your microbiome, I can get you feeling good there. You're going to make better food choices. And there's tons of research. My favorite story that I tell all the time right now is a man came to me. He was £300 and he said, I really need your help. And I said, okay, tell me what's going on. He said, I need to lose weight. I said, okay, why? He said, I need to stay alive for my family. I was like, I'm in. How can I help you? I said, what's your biggest hurdle? He goes, I'm food addicted. I drink 12 sodas a day. I can't get off the buffalo wings, I can't get off the fast food. Well, those, those are making you addicted. They want you to be addicted. So I took his addicted food and I just started to have him eat it within a certain period. First month I got him where he was only eating that horrible food within like a 10, 12 hour period. The rest was fasting. First month, drinking 12 sodas, eating buffalo wings. He lost 13 pounds just by eating

[Lewis Howes]

it within a window.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Just by compressing it into one window. Second month I said to him, can you just do the soda outside the house? Like just don't bring the soda inside the house. Stay with this eating window. I think he was doing like an eating window of like eight hours by that time. So he's going 16 hours of fasting he lost nine pounds next month. I still haven't taken much away from him. I had him add protein in. He started to add protein. He lost 15 pounds. Wow. We did this routine. And when I got him into some longer fasts, we got him like it was just a process. I just saw him for the first time. He's down 175 pounds. Wow.

[Lewis Howes]

That's incredible.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

We started with when he ate, not what he ate. I didn't recognize him. It blew me away. When I saw him, I was like crying. We were both crying and all we did is change when he ate. And that was the door in to change everything else.

[Lewis Howes]

Wow. Does he still eat certain unhealthy foods or is he now like, okay, I know the value of these nutritional foods and I'm going to eat more of these and less of the bad foods.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

So he still eats. He still. Every once in a while, the majority of his diet is really good.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah. 80, 90%.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

80, 90%. Because he started craving different foods.

[Lewis Howes]

Your taste buds change your microbiome. You're craving different things. They want healthier things.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That's right. But we came up with the help. There was a team of us that were started rallying around him like an exercise specialist and a life coach and everything. And the life coach came up with this idea of, okay, if you're gonna go off your diet, just don't do it two days in a row. You can do it one, but then the next day you have to clean up.

[Lewis Howes]

Two turns into five.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That's right.

[Lewis Howes]

You know, two just is like, well, let me just roll into this the next day.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

I thought that was a really good idea.

[Lewis Howes]

That's a good idea.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

That's a really good rule. Just don't do it two days in a row.

[Lewis Howes]

That's really good. Dr. Mindy, I have so many more questions I want to ask you, but we've got to wrap things up here in a minute. So I've got a couple final ones. If you guys are fascinated by this listening on Audio or YouTube and you want another episode with Dr. Mindy to go in deeper because I didn't even ask most of my questions, then leave a yes below for another episode or part two. Type in yes or another episode in the comments and share your biggest takeaway as well in this episode so far. What has shocked you or what has helped you or what's the thing you've underlined the most from this conversation? Leave that in a comment below. Your book, Fast Like a girl sold over 400,000 copies in the first year so far is helping so many women get healthier. You know, lose, lose the right times, types of weight, balance their hormones, you know, look younger, feel better, all these different things. And so I want people to get your book fast, like a girl. A Woman's guide to Using the Healing power of Fasting to Burn fat, Boost energy, and Balance hormones. Make sure you get this for a friend. Get it as a gift for a woman in your life. They will thank you and send them a link to this episode as well. You also have the menopause reset, get rid of your symptoms and feel like your younger self again. So make sure you guys check out this. You've got a few other books on your website. Your YouTube channel has at the time of posting. This will probably have a million subscribers by now. Thank you. You're posting five days a week, great content. So people can search over on your YouTube channel and on your podcast to get a lot more information on this. We. We barely scratched the surface. I'm fascinated. This is inspiring stuff. Is there anything else we can send people to to support you to today before the final couple questions?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Oh, you're so sweet. Yeah, I mean, again, play with the principles. So YouTube's my passion project. I pour my time and soul into that. So go there, get the books, and leave comments on my YouTube and what you want to know more about, because I do have a team there that's scouring that. So I think that's probably the best place to go.

[Lewis Howes]

That's exciting. Very cool. And the YouTube link is. What's the link there?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

It's just my name, Dr. Mindy Pelz.

[Lewis Howes]

Dr. Mindy Pelz over on YouTube.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Perfect.

[Lewis Howes]

This is a question I ask everyone towards the end called the three Truths. So imagine a hypothetical scenario. It's the last day on earth for you, many years away. You get to live as long as you want, but it's the last day. And you get to create and experience all the things you want to in this life for the rest of your life. But for whatever reason, on this last day, you've got to take all of your work with you. Your books, this conversation, all your YouTube videos. They all go with you when you pass away. But you get to leave behind one final message. And this is all we would have of yours. And this final message is your three truths, the three lessons you would leave behind. And we wouldn't have access to anything else. What would those three truths be for you?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Well, the first one goes for both men and women, but I really Want women to hear this. You are more powerful than you've been taught. Your body is a frickin miracle. It can heal, it can adapt. It knows what it's doing. Trust it. That would be the first one. My second truth would be people matter. Who you surround yourself with, who you connect with. Don't isolate yourself. Don't surround yourself with people that bring you down. People matter hormonally. They matter. And then my third one would be be a lifelong learner. Just keep learning. Stay curious. Stay curious. Don't we live in a world where we want to cancel everybody out because they don't think like us, but the people that don't think like us actually can help us deepen our thoughts? So stay curious. To all information.

[Lewis Howes]

Oh, those are great truths. Dr. Mindy, I want to acknowledge you for a moment because you've been doing this work for over 25 years, but it really hasn't been until the last year, after 25 years, where all this stuff has taken off into the world in a bigger way.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

So I want to acknowledge you for dedicating most of your life to this work, to helping women and men, but doing it where, you know, maybe you're only working with your local community for many of those years.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

And it wasn't being spread to the masses and it wasn't, you know, selling hundreds of thousands of copies of your book, but you showed up daily to learn, to try new things and to serve people.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

And that has made a big impact on the world by your commitment, your dedication. So I really acknowledge you for your lifelong service to healing and health. It's really powerful and it's helping a lot of people right now. So I'm grateful we got to connect and I hope we get to do this again.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I'd love to come back and thank you. I appreciate your kind words. And like we started off, I've been a fan of your podcast for years.

[Lewis Howes]

I appreciate it.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

I really feel like conversations like this can really impact people's lives if you just sit with the information and see what resonates.

[Lewis Howes]

Absolutely.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity.

[Lewis Howes]

Of course. Final question. What's your definition of greatness?

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Trusting yourself, Trusting your own inner guidance.

[Lewis Howes]

There you go. Dr. Mindy, thank you so much. Appreciate you.

[Dr. Mindy Pelz]

Thank you. Appreciate you.

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