SHAWN STEVENSON: Could fasting be a fast way to improve your health? In several peer reviewed studies, fasting has been shown to improve insulin sensitivity, improve immune system function, improve cognitive function by boosting the production of BDNF, brain derived nootropic factor, boost autophagy and slow the rate of aging. And of course, one of fasting's most notable benefits is aiding in weight loss, but with another particular benefit. According to the International Association for the Study of Obesity, intermittent fasting is more effective for retaining muscle mass than daily calorie restriction. So we're losing weight, but hanging on to our lean mass, hanging on to our muscle.

And that is one of the things that is not considered in typical weight loss programs where people are losing a high percentage of their muscle mass and setting up future weight regain. So fasting does have some remarkable benefits, but, and this is what today's episode is all about. Fasting is not the same for everybody. Fasting should not be undertaken by everybody in the same way. As a matter of fact, you're going to see there's a clear distinction in the ways that a woman can benefit from fasting versus a man. So today we're going to be unpacking some absolutely mind blowing facts about weight loss specifically for women. How it's different. And also how to cater a fasting protocol to extract incredible benefits but Understanding that women's and men's biology is radically different. And I'm telling you, some of these insights changed the way that I look at things.

Now, before we get to our amazing guest who's going to fill us in on all of this incredible information. I want to talk about something that is incredibly complementary to a fasting protocol and is highlighted in the journal clinical interventions in aging. And the researchers found that the renowned Traditional fermented tea called pu erh is an effective adjunct to intermittent fasting because of its ability to support fat loss while protecting muscle mass. Now I know that pu erh has a weird name. All right it's also, it's fun to say, just say it, Pu erh, can't help but put a smile on your face. If somebody could say Pu erh with a straight face, they probably hate kittens and babies and all kinds of other cute things. All right, I'm just kidding. It's not that deep, but I know that it's a strange name, but this tea has been utilized again for centuries.

And today we have tons of peer reviewed data affirming how remarkable it is for human health. Another study that was published in the journal Phytonutrient Research noted that Pu Erh is one of the rare nutrient sources that has a direct significant influence on the enzyme that unlocks fat from your fat cells. An enzyme called hormone sensitive lipase. 

Alright, so again, it is really special when it comes to its resonance with human metabolism. But the key is making sure that it's wild crafted, making sure that it is free from pesticides and herbicides. The tea industry, so many people do not realize this is one of the most contaminated product sources out there with microplastics and all kinds of other nonsense.

This amazing tea, the Pu erh that I've been drinking for years is triple toxin screen for purity. It's utilizing wild harvested Pu erh that has exceptional concentrations of polyphenols. Then we know that this is one of the benefits we see with it's improving the microbiome. Now this Pu Erh is from a patented cold extraction technology, and you're simply not going to find this anywhere else, but at Pique Life. Go to piquelife.com/model, and you're going to get up to 15 percent off their incredible Pu Erh. They also have Pu Erh combinations for fasting teas, and they also have over 20, Pu Erh tea. Other award winning teas, award winning flavors that you can check out, but definitely check out their amazing pu erh. Go to piquelife.com/model. That's P I Q U E L I F E.com/model for up to 15 percent off and other perks like free shipping. So definitely check them out ASAP. And now let's jump to the Apple podcast review of the week.

ITUNES REVIEW: Another five star review titled "this is by far the best podcast on Apple. 100 percent fire" by it's me, Debbie B. I love this podcast. Every time I listen, I come away with a new nugget of health knowledge that I apply to my life. He always has great tips and great guests on the show.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Thank you so much for leaving that review over on Apple podcasts. I truly do appreciate that. Please, if you're hearing the sound of my voice and you've gotten some value from the model health show. Pop over to Apple podcast and leave a review for the show. It really does mean a lot. And now, let's go ahead and get to our special guest and topic of the day.

Dr. Mindy Pelz is a world renowned women's health expert who's on a mission to empower people to believe in their bodies. She's a best selling author and physician and coach to Olympic athletes, Academy award winning actors, and industry leading CEOs among many others. She's a best selling author of several books including Fast like a girl, the menopause reset, and the resetter. And now her brand new book Eat like a girl. Her incredible youtube channel is inching its way towards 100 million views. And now we have her here on the model health show to share her incredible insights. Let's dive into this conversation with the amazing. Dr. Mindy Pelz.

I don't know why when you, as soon as you sat in here, I got hungry. Is this, is that just because of your energy? You give off big plate energy or is it the cookbook? I don't know.

DR. MINDY PELZ: Oh my God. Usually it's the opposite. Like people, with Fast Like a Girl, people are like, you eat? I'm like, did you not read the book? It was about cycling, fasting, in and out. So..

SHAWN STEVENSON: When I eat, I eat.

DR. MINDY PELZ: That's right. That's right.

SHAWN STEVENSON: That's what this is all about.

DR. MINDY PELZ: I will take, that's the biggest compliment of great. Let's bring some food in.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Let's go. Hey, we can do that. We can do that. Listen, I'm so excited to talk to you. You are one of my favorite people in this space and right now we need your help. All right. And we're going to start off, I would love to talk about some of the big struggles that More than ever, we have no lack of information. There is so much information, but that might be part of the problem. We have no lack of information, but yet, more women than ever are struggling to lose weight. What in the world is going on?

DR. MINDY PELZ: Oh, the first thing is, people have to know it's multi factorial. There are a lot of reasons why women are gaining weight, and I'll tell you the number one reason that it is not, is it's not because of discipline or a lack of willpower. And that is what I am trying to get across, because what happened with Fast Like a Girl is it came out, and I taught women that you have a fasting window and an eating window. And all of a sudden they started to take the same food they were eating, some of it was really toxic food, they compressed it all into an eating window, leaving a longer period for fasting, and they lost weight.

It's really interesting that we think the problem with weight loss is hunger. It's not. That ties into the weight loss drugs. We can talk about that. We think the problem is like a woman's not disciplined or maybe she didn't get the right diet. The problem is that we live in the most toxic time in human history. And the food system is just full of chemicals. And these chemicals are actually what are known obesogens. The obesogens actually go into your body and they take a stem cell and they conform that stem cell. And instead of that stem cell making healthy tissue, that stem cell now makes fat cells. And so you literally have, and this is both men and women, but you literally have a culture of people that are going into the supermarket thinking everything in there is okay to eat and safe, but they don't realize that the chemicals that have been poured into these foods are actually taking your cells and making your cells create fat cells.

SHAWN STEVENSON: This is shocking.

DR. MINDY PELZ: It's like it has nothing to do with calories, it has nothing to do with discipline, it has nothing to do with protein content or any of the other things, which are all interesting to talk about. But can we start with how do we get women to eat real food and get off these chemical laden foods? Because that is the number one cause of disease is these chemicals have reconfigurated your cells, reprogrammed them, to make fat cells. And now you're suffering and now you think you need a drug to kill hunger. And one of the things that we saw it with Eat fast like a girl was actually, if you just take, took some time and a break from this toxic food, your body could recalibrate your metabolism could get itself back on track and you could lose weight, but everybody thought then it was the fasting that did it. And that's why eat like a girl came around. Cause I'm like, it wasn't, the fasting was a part of it. But what happened is you got a break from this toxic food. So now let's teach you how to eat and avoid this toxic food.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, let's go. Let's go, all right. So we are making ourselves and tissues out of some of the worst stuff newly invented..

DR. MINDY PELZ: Yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Junk now. But you just shared one of the most remarkable insights, which is this is reconfiguring what our stem cells are doing. And what I also picked up was we're essentially wasting our stem cell supply, right? And so we're accelerating our aging process, reducing our ability to repair, whether this is our joints and ligaments, our skin, whatever the case might be. And there's this big anti-aging movement taking place right now, but again, we're missing the point. We're treating symptoms with this anti-aging approach and not addressing. What is our supply looks like that we have so much capacity to regenerate and to stay vital.

DR. MINDY PELZ: So I can't remember if I said this the last time I came on this show, we have weight gain all wrong. Why would your body put extra fat around your belly, around your face for, in your chest or on your booty? What is the body doing? The body is trying to handle excess. Okay, what's the excess? There's excess glucose from these high carbohydrate, high sugary foods. It's excess hormones from all the chemicals that are endocrine disruptors and it's excess toxins. So your brilliant body knew exactly what to do. It was like, this is a chemical that I don't know how to manage. So I'm gonna go ahead and put it in fat. And so we start seeing, that's one side of how we start to see people gaining weight. Then the longer you eat these chemical laden foods, now your stem cells are changing. And instead of making healthy tissue, like one of the tissues that the stem, these obesogens hijack are stem cells that make bone tissue.

Okay. So women, we've got women with massive osteoporosis situations. We've got kids. They say in Britain, in England right now, that the height of children is significantly smaller than ever before as they're getting more and more obese. Okay, because a child has so many stem cells. It's been hijacked by a chemical that instead of making bone for growth, is making fat. So this is what you're seeing. So in the culture right now, we've got the excess being visibly stored, the stem cells being hijacked, and now how convenient that we have a drug to make you stop eating. And it's gotten, it's spun out of control. And when I look at like a fasting lifestyle, where you take time away from food and then you actually eat real food without chemicals in it. Like it's literally that simple and we just over complicated it all.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. Again, this is a perfect compliment. You're teaching us now what to eat when we're eating, but we also want to maintain that value and something that humans have been utilizing for centuries. And also, this is something that's built into our DNA and just our lifestyle being hunter gatherers. But today it's something we need to do with more intention because our world is very abnormal and that is getting the benefits of fasting. Now, could you share, because this is one of the big revelations that you brought for all of us that fasting for men and fasting for women are different.

DR. MINDY PELZ: Yep.

SHAWN STEVENSON: So why is fasting different for women?

DR. MINDY PELZ: When we look at us hormonally, we, sex hormone wise, now there's lots of hormones in the body. Men, your primary hormone is testosterone. And testosterone gets made from a communication from the brain to the outer part of the testes, and then testosterone's made, it goes up into the brain and converts to estrogen. From a lifestyle perspective, you really have one hormone to think about, which is testosterone. For women, that's not the case. We have three hormones. We have estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. And those are also made around the outer part of the ovaries. There's like tissue around these two organ systems that are making these hormones.

But the outlier for women is progesterone. Progesterone needs glucose in order to be made. It's like a chemical lab, like you, you can't, or even like a recipe. If you can't make bread without flour, you can't make progesterone without glucose. So if you are in a fasted state where you are lowering glucose down, and, or you're in a calorie deficit state, or a diet restrictive state, and you're bringing down glucose too low, at the same time raising cortisol up, progesterone doesn't like cortisol, Then you can't make progesterone.

So this is another fun fact. When the fast, like a girl went out into the world to date, we, across audible ebook regular, we've sold over 700,000 pieces of copies of this book in some format. And we got millions of people flooding our socials and our emails. And there has been a couple of things that completely shocked me. And the biggest one is how the 20 and 30 year old women don't have a cycle. Like no cycle at all. So I was like, why is that? They're in a cortisol rich environment constantly. Whether they're sitting on their couch looking at socials or eating this toxic food we're talking about, and the body image of the 20, the teens, the 20 year olds is incredibly dysmorphic.

And so we've got, they're like muscling to stay skinny. So now their glucose is low, their cortisol is high, and they're not making enough progesterone to shed the uterine lining. And in the uterine lining, when you actually shed blood. There are four major environmental toxins. There's BPA plastics, phthalates, there's forever chemicals, and there's pesticides. They have measured that in uter in menstrual blood. We have a massive problem when we look at the 20 year olds who don't have a cycle.

SHAWN STEVENSON: We're talking about the ability to reproduce.

DR. MINDY PELZ: Right.

SHAWN STEVENSON: We're talking about also, all these issues are going to clearly, and this is the great thing about this time now, lead to issues with menopause later on. And so how do we fix this mess? Because, just even hearing this, there is a requirement for glucose for progesterone.

DR. MINDY PELZ: Yep.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Now, how would fasting be different? How would we frame that fast? Because again, a woman might just be like, I'm just going to do what my husband's doing and have this whatever window. And also it's every day of the week in perpetuity.

DR. MINDY PELZ: Yeah. Yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: And it's just this is just what I'm doing. 

DR. MINDY PELZ: And my husband's dropping weight and I'm not. Yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: And I don't feel as good. He's got all this energy. Yeah. What would a woman do differently to really extract the benefits?

DR. MINDY PELZ: So I think to make it as simple as possible, with Fast Like a Girl, I introduced something called the fasting cycle, where I was explaining there are times during your menstrual cycle to fast and times not to. And if we just make it really easy, the week before your period, don't fast. That is progesterone's moment. She needs to peak in order for that uterine lining to shed. I would also say if you're listening to this and you have an irregular cycle, that's also the time you don't want to be like killing yourself at the gym. You don't want to be partying all night long. Like anytime cortisol goes high, progesterone goes shy. So you got to make sure that you, whenever your progesterone is coming in during your cycle, that you're not in these extreme habits. So that's the first thing. But then with menopausal women, we still have to think about progesterone.

You're getting less of it as you go on. You just need to be, make sure that you're not fasting every day of the week. And surprisingly, once people found fasting, I couldn't get them to stop. Like most people would be like, I don't think I can fast. Let me tell you that where I sit, I'm trying to get people to make sure they don't fast too much. Which again is why eat like a girl was like, Hey everybody, can we talk about how to eat? Make this really easy for you. But yeah, and men don't, you guys don't have to think about that. You just have to, you fast for men. I usually say, fast as much you want and every once in a while, take a break. Is that simple?

SHAWN STEVENSON: So again, this is not when your period starts. This is just prior.

DR. MINDY PELZ: The week before. Yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: It can be a game changer.

DR. MINDY PELZ: Yeah. And then, yeah. And then I also think during ovulation is another little four day window we shouldn't fast because you get a little, anytime progesterone comes in, like you shouldn't be fasting. So when you think about the menstrual cycle, this one really has blown my mind, is during ovulation, your estrogen peaks, it hits its highest, then testosterone comes in. So for a woman, she only gets a big surge of testosterone during ovulation. So if you're with a woman, think about that. Like it's a four day window. She's got a lot of testosterone, and then there's a little bit of progesterone.

So in fast like a girl, I called it the manifestation phase. I was like, you can manifest anything. You are, you're a hormonally. Your superpowers are ready to go. Estrogen brings with. dopamine, serotonin, acetylcholine, glutamate, oxytocin, BDNF. I call it her girl gang. She like brings her girl gang with her so the front half of your cycle you feel a little more outgoing, a little more gregarious, you feel powerful, estrogen peaks at ovulation, you're like, yes, like I can do anything.

And then she goes away. And then progesterone comes in, and progesterone's like the introverted hormone that's Hey, you just want to chill on the couch grab some carbohydrates, let's watch a movie and just want you to relax. We have this real interesting swing as a woman. We can be outgoing, and we can be introverted, but at ovulation, we've got estrogen at our peak, we've got testosterone, so our motivation and drive is high, and then we have a little bit of progesterone. So we really are quite spectacular at ovulation.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Ah, I love this. And also you talk about this fasting framework in eat like a girl as well. So the new cookbook, so we get the education on the fasting portion, but also what to eat when we are eating.

DR. MINDY PELZ: Yes.

SHAWN STEVENSON: So you mentioned even some of these newly invented chemicals that, thousands of them now that are showing up in our blood, right? So where's all this coming from? Obviously, again, it's coming from ultra processed food is a big thing, but where else could these things be infiltrating our bodies?

DR. MINDY PELZ: Ultra processed foods is the first place to go after, which is why in Eat Like a Girl, I laid out like five foundational ideas. I was like, just follow these five. Cause like we were talking about before we started can we just simplify nutrition? Like this just got so complicated. And so one of the five is eat nature's foods, not human made food..So if we could just simplify it, just eat things that come out of the ground or off a tree or live on the land. If you, like a box of crackers, you pick it up, a human had to alter something to create that. So I think that's the first lens when it comes to food. It's can we just go back to eating nature's foods?

Then the other place women get it is we put over 200 chemicals on our body. Endocrine disrupting the body or by, endocrine disrupting chemicals every day over 200 of them on our body, and those chemicals change who we are on a hormonal lens. So beauty products, this is where we're really talking about food here, but making sure you're, you're not lathering yourself with phthalates and endocrine disrupting chemicals that are estrogen dominant chemicals.

So we get it there, we get it in our home environment. We get, we're in LA right now, the sky's not looking very pretty. Like we get it if you live in an area that has air pollution. We're just, we're everywhere. We're getting these chemicals, but because a woman's body is more sensitive a woman, women are struggling more than men. And the best way, and take this with total love, the best way that I can, I've been saying is like a woman's body is like a violin and a man's body is like a ukulele. What do you think of that as a man?

SHAWN STEVENSON: I get it.

DR. MINDY PELZ: I could have said a kazoo.

SHAWN STEVENSON: I get it.

DR. MINDY PELZ: Gave you a little more.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Our minds are connected because I was like, I was thinking kazoo. I was thinking about kazoo. You gave us a lot of credit.

DR. MINDY PELZ: Yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: We could just one note. We're solid.

DR. MINDY PELZ: That's right.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Oh my gosh. Oh.

DR. MINDY PELZ: But if you really think about it, like we're just living, the female body is a very sophisticated machine. Yeah. It houses a baby. That's pretty damn cool.

SHAWN STEVENSON: It's unbelievable. Really, it's unbelievable.

DR. MINDY PELZ: When women put themselves in physically, emotionally, chemically toxic environments, we now have that machinery going off, whereas you don't have that problem. And that is why books like this are necessary because women have to understand the machinery.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. And now another aspect of that machinery is also the lipophilic nature of a lot of these chemicals, right? Just, women are going to naturally have more body fat because of that, being able to produce life.

DR. MINDY PELZ: That's right.

SHAWN STEVENSON: And these things are, in a strange way, our body fat is protecting us.

DR. MINDY PELZ: That's it!

SHAWN STEVENSON: And women have a greater capacity for that. And I think this is also why women consistently live longer than men is just the resilience and how the body handles things, but that doesn't mean you're thriving.

DR. MINDY PELZ: Right. Yeah, and on the body fat thing I can't remember if we talked about this the last time I was here. Women then look at themselves in the mirror and they shame themselves. They say horrible things about themselves. But if you actually knew what fat was, you could actually start to appreciate what your body's doing. Instead of looking at the fat around everywhere and going, Oh my God, I'm undisciplined. I guess I couldn't follow the same diet my husband was doing or my friend was doing. What if you looked at your fat and said, thank you body for saving me. Thank you for not putting these toxins in my internal organs. Now let's work together to release it. Now you're in an energetic alignment with your body, but instead that's not what women are doing.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Let's talk about how to do it. Let's talk about how to take back control of our biology. What do people have to look forward to with Eat Like a Girl?

DR. MINDY PELZ: Yeah. In the book I'm really excited about these five principles, and I can run through them really quickly.

SHAWN STEVENSON: I think we covered two of them, right?

DR. MINDY PELZ: Yeah. We and they work for men too, but again, because men can get away not following them better than women can.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Kazoo. KazoO alert!.

DR. MINDY PELZ: The kazoo can do it better. So it's blood sugar matters. Calories don't.

I think that hopefully in this day and age, people are catching on to that. Yeah, nature's food, not human made food. This one's really interesting. And with your background in nutrition, I'm curious what you think. Eat for your microbes, not your taste buds. So most people don't realize that as your microbiome changes, so do your cravings. I sat with so many women over the last year that were like, I just don't know how to stop my cravings and fasting changes your microbiome. And if you actually go back into food and the first meal you eat, like I have a whole chapter and eat like a girl called the first meal matters.

So if that first meal is feeding your microbes, then you actually will change your cravings over time. So I made that a principle, like, why don't your taste buds have been hijacked by the food industry. And your microbes are completely depleted. Maybe you've been on birth control for decades. And birth control completely changes the microbiome, the birth control pill for women. And so now you're craving all these things and you think, again, you think it's your fault. But the microbes are telling you, feed me carbs, feed me sugar, feed me alcohol. So when you learn to use fasting to change the microbes and then that first meal to feed the microbes, now your cravings change. So that's why that had to be a principle.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, absolutely.

DR. MINDY PELZ: And then the other two was protein is definitely the hero, macronutrient, and then the last one about fat doesn't make you fat. And it's really rebranding how we look not only at fat in food, but fat when we look in the mirror.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Let's talk a little bit more about that protein aspect.

DR. MINDY PELZ: Yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: There were some researchers not too long ago published some data looking at how protein, specifically the first meal of the day, led to diabetes. Dramatic increases in satiety hormones just again mirroring what you're just talking about with the microbiome. But also that protein fraction as well, specifically that first meal of the day. So why is protein the master macronutrient?

DR. MINDY PELZ: So the first thing I know we can like it's really trendy right now to talk about oh 30 grams of protein. Everybody should have that and I like that but I like to make things simple. In Eat Like a Girl, I have a list of what I call the key 24. There are 24 nutrients that you need to make hormones. If you are not getting enough protein, you are not getting enough amino acids and you don't have the right nutrients to even make a hormone. So we've got to bring protein back into the conversation. And protein can be found in plants. This isn't meat, like I, like for Eat Like a Girl, I literally hired two chefs.

One is a plant based master chef for the Four Seasons Hotel, beautiful woman. And the other one is an omnivore chef who studied and learned how to eat, or how to cook meat from the women, the elder women in Spain. So I brought these two culinary giants together. And I was like, one of the things I sat down with them is I'm like, amino acids, protein, every single one of these recipes has to have a good amount of protein.

And my plant based gal was like there's 23, 000 edible plants on our earth. And she let me pull out the ones that are the most protein rich and she put them in all of them. And my omnivore chef was like, why don't I just do a big variety of meat so we can get other types of amino acids in. So the reason women need protein is for that amino acid punch, but then we've got to make sure that there's, you're not just eating a cheeseburger every day. So I think that is the important thing is like when is that, if you don't get enough protein, you don't have enough amino acids. If you don't have enough amino acids, you're not gonna make hormones. That's simple.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, some of these hormones are peptide hormones specifically in like insulin, for example, right? You need it. If you're not providing those amino acids, you can't make it. HGH is another one.

DR. MINDY PELZ: Yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: But Thyroid hormone. That's another one. Thyroxine. Yeah. So again, all these cool things we want our bodies to do. If we're not providing amino acids, they simply, this is the thing about the body, it'll make adaptations, but you'll call them symptoms. That's right. You'll call them diseases. That's right. But they'll make adaptations. What happens when we provide our bodies with these building blocks? It just really unlocks all these great capacities.

DR. MINDY PELZ: Yeah. And, not to beat a dead horse, although it's not dead, is the weight loss drugs that I, when I've sat with so many people and I asked them, tell me what the biggest changes that you're noticing with these drugs. They're like, I'm just not hungry anymore. Okay, this concerns me because some people are like, I can barely eat a meal. Like when they first do the shot, like the first couple of days, they're like, I'm just not hungry at all. And then my hunger picks up as the shot wears off. And my thought is Okay, how are you getting your key 24 in? If you're not getting your key 24, you may be losing weight, but how are you going to make hormones? You need food to make hormones. So like fasting was about let's create the environment in which these hormones can thrive. And eating is like hormonal medicine. So they both, they go hand in hand.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. This is such a huge part of this conversation, which is, we have some people that are an anomaly in this, I'd say they're like less than 5 percent of folks that are really mindful of okay, I'm utilizing these new semaglutide drugs. And I'm really focused on when I am eating, getting high quality sources of protein and all my macro and micronutrients that I need to create all my hormones and all this. It's very rare that's happening because it's not coming along with the packaging of the drug. It's not about that.

DR. MINDY PELZ: No. So if you think about that, the first thing is like people who are taking the drugs don't really fully get why they gained weight. So that's why I love how we opened up this conversation like let's just all be on the same page as to why you gained weight and you not being disciplined enough. Let's just take that off the table for this moment. But now you killed your hunger.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Killed it.

DR. MINDY PELZ: Yeah. So what are you doing for nutrients? And long term, what is that going to look like? So the best thing would be make sure you're cleaning up your lifestyle, but make, you might have to eat, even though you're not hungry, so you can get these nutrients in, or you mean you could do it in supplementation, but the goal of life is not to just supplement the goal of a healthy foundational life is good quality food with good quality people. And that is health. It's not avoiding all of that.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. An important question should be what is my hunger trying to teach me, because you just mentioned is getting killed something that biologically we evolved to have this very important biochemical feedback that would drive us to search for certain nutrients really. And we can talk about how cravings evolved in that as well. Our bodies sinking out through something like this kind of nutrient tagging that takes place when we eat a certain food, right? Post ingestive feedback and maybe our bodies are becoming deficient in certain key amino acids and selenium and whatever the case might be. And we develop a craving for a certain type of nuts or, like a Brazil nut, for example, and that's driving us to go and get those nutrients in, but ultra processed foods have hijacked that data because our bodies. If you've ever had the Brazil nut and we're living in a normal environment, we know that we can get the selenium from there, and so we might have a craving.

DR. MINDY PELZ: And not very many.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, right just a small amount. Yeah, but now of course those cravings could be for Oreo cookies or those cravings could be for you know some fruit punch or they could be for some chips, whatever the case might be and We start to mistake and the water start get muddied up..

DR. MINDY PELZ: Yep.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  ..On our real like the truth about our hunger, the truth about our cravings, that is actually our bodies trying to help us to regenerate, trying to help us to repair, trying to help us to heal. But now we just come in with a blend instrument and kill the hunger. What do you think is going to happen? Which is what we see in the data. The only long term study that's been conducted, and we'll put it up for everybody to see if they're watching the YouTube version. All the patients in this study, yes, it worked effective. It was incredibly effective for weight loss, but they gained back two thirds of that weight within the same amount of time.

DR. MINDY PELZ: Yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: The weight just starts coming back once the test subjects come off the drug.

DR. MINDY PELZ: Yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Because we're not really addressing that biology in the first place.

DR. MINDY PELZ: Yeah, I was recently with a childhood friend who has lost a significant amount of weight on the weight loss drugs. And he has also changed what he's eaten, eating, and he's also changed his working out. And he's been on the drugs for two years now, and his doctor said, hey, it's time to get off. And I asked him, I was like, can you let me know how that goes? I like, I really, there's an example of somebody who's eating well. Now it's a man. So we might see that these are going to be different for men and women, but he's eating and he's exercising.

If he gains the weight back, then in my opinion, that was a total failure. If he's able to use his lifestyle now to keep him where it's at, now maybe we could look at it as a temporary tool to assist you. But right now, It's we have this huge obesity epidemic that nobody's really addressing the fact that the ultra processed foods created it and they hijacked our taste buds. So now we can only get pleasure from really rich dopamine rich foods. And now we have completely disconnected ourselves from our own healing power by adding these drugs in like we're further away from understanding that the body heals itself and using nutrition to do that than we've ever been.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Got a quick break coming up. We'll be right back.

What are the most important nutrients for a healthy brain and great cognitive function? Many people are aware that our brains are mostly made of water, but the dry weight of the human brain is mostly made of fats. Now, the question is, what kind of fats do our brains really need to make a notable difference? Research published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition discovered that increasing dietary levels of omega 3 DHA, that's docosahexaenoic acid, DHA, was able to improve both memory and reaction time. In healthy test subjects. Now, just to be clear, if you want a great memory, we have to have DHA.

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Fish sources are notably high in DHA, but fish eggs or fish roe is actually quite higher. Now, this is one of the big reasons why things like caviar are so expensive and also considered a delicacy, considered to be very valuable. But with the price point and also the quality and the freshness, keeping all of those factors in mind to make sure that we're taking advantage of these benefits that can be found in fish roe. I recommend the fish roe from Paleo valley. It's made from 100 percent wild caught fish from fish rinds in pristine water. Waters sourced from sustainable minded fishermen committed to preserving fish runs for future generations. Their wild caught fish roe is gently freeze dried to keep the full range of nutrients and omegas intact and undamaged.

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SHAWN STEVENSON: All right. Let's dig in a little bit more on when we are eating and all this good stuff here in eat like a girl, by the way, these pictures are gorge, they're gorgeous pictures. And you mentioned something really important that I don't think a lot of people think about, especially in the context of a cookbook, which is what makes this so unique is that yes, we have the deliciousness checked, but also there's this very intentional emphasis on protein and also a wide variety of proteins. And so what I'm hearing also with the incredible chefs that you got together was you're being inclusive as well of the different diet frameworks. Because that's another thing like we've got all this diet dogma. Everybody's separating these camps This is one of the reasons that I really like you is Because you are considerate of that and you're inviting everybody to the dinner table.

DR. MINDY PELZ: Yeah. I love the way you say that. Thank you. That was a huge compliment. I think that lots of different styles of eating work for different people. So I have friends that are plant based and they are so healthy and their lab work shows it. And I have other friends that went plant based and really became unhealthy. So what's the, is it the plant based that's the problem or is it the person's body? And the same thing with meat. I have friends that have done carnivore diet for months and have their only eating meat and their lab work shows that everything improved and then I have other people that eat meat. And their lab work shows you're getting worse.

So we have to get out of this idea that there's a one size fits all diet for everybody. So if your ethos is I want to be plant based, I wanted to create these recipes that were plant based. And if your ethos like mine is I'm an omnivore, I'm not plant based, then I wanted to make sure we had them. So that so thank you for seeing that because, Health, we, whenever we are arguing with each other, cortisol comes in. And anytime cortisol comes in, we have, we're more prone to insulin resistance. But the hormone that is the hero of all hormones is oxytocin. And oxytocin calms everything down. So if we can all come to the table together, and see that we're all these, just humans having this experience and let everybody have their own belief system around nutrition. Now everybody gets oxytocin and nobody gets cortisol and everybody's health wins.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Let's go. Let's go.

DR. MINDY PELZ: I was like, that's how I see it Like bring let everybody be what they want to be stop pointing fingers. So, but with that, like plant based I sat with chef Leslie a lot and I was like, one of my biggest problems with plant based is you don't get enough amino acids. In there, in Eat Like a Girl, I have charts of here are the foods that plant based people are gonna wanna lean into to make sure that they get enough amino acids, and Chef Leslie made all these recipes to prove, to show this diversification that they can get. 

Then I went to chef Jeff and I was like, here are the major foods that have the pack, the most amino acid punch. And then he went and made recipes that way. So it was a way of just honoring everybody and where they were at, but not letting anybody get away with anything. Because like for omnivores, if you eat meat and you're eating conventional meat.

Yeah, that's a little bit of a problem. If it has hormones in it and antibiotics, that's not great. But if you start to eat clean meat or grass fed meat now you're eating a healthier meat. If you are a plant based and you're a junk food vegan and you're eating Doritos all day long but avoiding meat. That's not healthy either and you need to be thinking as a plant based person that I can't just eat the same plants over and over again. I gotta really open up. My plant choice is to get all the amino acids and I might need to eat more than the meat based person. So it's just teaching everybody how to eat within their style.

SHAWN STEVENSON: And also The diversity that you're going to pick up too for the microbiome. I know that was intentional in these recipes, too before I want to talk a little bit more about food, but before we do I want to do a recap On the power phases.

DR. MINDY PELZ: Yes.

SHAWN STEVENSON: All right. So of course you already mentioned that right before the menstrual cycle begins. That's a window, like you said, a week before to ideally not fast is not an ideal time for fasting for women. Can we just go through the whole phase and I love it because with the cookbook, you know, you get to see the color visual. Can you go through the power of fasting in your cycle?

DR. MINDY PELZ: Yeah, so just high level day one to day ten. Day one is the day that a woman bleeds. Those first ten days she's building estrogen. That's like that. There's other hormones going on, but that's the primary one. Estrogen does really well if we are insulin sensitive. So this is a great time for lower carbs. I call it ketobiotic, it's my version of a low carb. It's also a great time if you want to really like work out hard if you want to fast long, that's what, and I called it the power phase one. I'm like you power up on all your health habits. It's a great time. Then you get from day 11 to day 15, like we talked about, you get this peak of all these hormones. Yeah. This one's really interesting, and I don't think we talked about this last time, which is, once you've made a hormone, that's not the end of the hormonal story.

You've actually got to break that hormone down into a usable part. If I've got a big document, and I've got to send it, I have to compress it before I can send it via email. So it's the same thing. You've got all these hormones that are in your system right now. So for that five day period, you need to feed your microbiome and support your liver so it can break those hormones down into usable parts to go into the different cells. So you get, yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: So with that being said, so day one through 10, what does that fasting window look like?

DR. MINDY PELZ: You can go anywhere from 12 hours to 72.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Okay, and then with that next five days the manifestation phase, what does that look like?

DR. MINDY PELZ: Yeah. Fasting window, I usually say, keep it about 15 hours. You can still fast. Just don't go really crazy. And start to eat foods that support your microbiome and your liver.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Got it. And also, again, this would be a time where you don't necessarily do the fasting, like something that has a structure.

DR. MINDY PELZ: You wouldn't pop a three day water fast into ovulation. You can go 15 hours max, but more than that, now you're out of sync with your feminine body.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Ah that's such a great tip. Thank you. Okay, now we have power phase two after that.

DR. MINDY PELZ: So you come out of ovulation, your hormones drop, and now you're day 17, you're like day 16 until day 19. You could, again, you can power up on a keto diet, go lower carb, you can do longer fasts, you can work out a ton. So it's another moment. That's why I called it a power phase two, and then day 20, here comes progesterone. She's coming in and she needs glucose and she needs cortisol to be low. So you got to bring up your carbohydrate load now we can talk about the type of carbohydrate and you got to stop fasting. So it's the week before your period that you really have to think about how do I eat more carbs?

But this is nature's carbs again. This is not breads, pastas, cakes, cookies, crackers, but every single woman I know on this planet maybe there's a few that don't say this, but they, so many women are like, I crave carbs the week before my period starts. Yeah, because your body's so smart. It's give me some carbohydrates because I need glucose so that I can make this miraculous hormone called progesterone so that your uterine lining can shed. And then we villainize that. We're like, I don't know. I just can't stick to my diet the week before my period. I don't know why. I'm just, all I want to do is eat carbs. Yeah, because your body is designed that way.

SHAWN STEVENSON: o you mentioned the type of carbs to go for. What does that look like? In the context of this book, I'm just looking here at these pancakes, pumpkin protein pancakes. I would imagine we can get some nice carbs from here.

DR. MINDY PELZ: Oh yeah, we've got, we, the desserts in there and the people with the sweet tooth is incredible. The carbs I like are, the pumpkin protein pancakes were Chef Leslie's contribution and I told her squashes. We need for the, I call them hormone feasting days. When we need to bring glucose up, we need to do it through things like squashes. The other thing you'll see a ton in there is my favorite food on the planet, which is a sweet potato. We need sweet potatoes are incredible for helping make progesterone. And then we, even dates. Dates are really interesting because they'll raise your blood sugar, but if you look at the attributes of a date, they are incredible for hormonal health and really important to bring dates in.

But all of a sudden, the keto heads out there are like, no dates, we're going to spike your blood sugar. So we have a date, a chocolate date bark. And there's like a maple caramel sauce that we put in there. We really tried to use, and my chefs are incredible, we tried to use what you need. And then I just put them under, here's what you need on a low carb moment, and here's what you need on a high carb moment.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Ah, I love that so much. Again, we've got a bunch of great sources, intelligent sources for carbohydrates. So many different things. You're even using some quinoa dishes in here, getting a nice variety and plenty of incredible flavors and diversity. These chefs did their thing. You did your thing. Yeah.

DR. MINDY PELZ: Thank you.

SHAWN STEVENSON: So with that being said, do you have what are a couple of your favorite breakfast items? I want to know, like also, your favorite dinners and snacks. And I know this can be hard.

DR. MINDY PELZ: Yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Because sometimes choosing the recipes is like choosing with your kids. Who's your favorite? You probably got a favorite.

DR. MINDY PELZ: Yeah the pumpkin protein pancakes. I can't for breakfast, definitely. I'm a pancake lover. And I wanted everything in there to be gluten free. So because for my own, I just don't eat gluten. So that's one is a pancake that's gluten free and it holds together. Have you ever done a gluten free pancake where it just falls apart?

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. Back in the day before I mastered my own. Yes, exactly. Yeah.

DR. MINDY PELZ: So that was, that's one that I would say for breakfast I'd love. We have a bunch of smoothies in there because a lot of people who fast don't eat breakfast, but they might do something at 10 or 11 in the day and then they'll grab a smoothie. So there's a ton of great smoothie smoothies. But for dinner this one I keep making over and over again is a kimchi edamame bowl. So the chef leslie did a bunch of bowls. Do you eat bowls?

SHAWN STEVENSON: I love bowls.

DR. MINDY PELZ: It's such a smart way to get all the food in there. And then we did it with quinoa, which is a way better source of protein than rice.

SHAWN STEVENSON: It's complete protein, yeah. It's rare.

DR. MINDY PELZ: Quinoa is really an excellent fuel source that doesn't get enough credit. So it has quinoa and then it has kimchi, which there's a lot of fermented foods in there. A lot of how do you make fermented foods in there. Because fermented foods are a probiotic that add bacteria in. But kimchi is really interesting because it has that extra spice. And the extra spice can actually speed up your metabolism. And it also has the green onions that, when they're getting fermented, they actually help support the immune system. And then, from there, I wanted to bring soy back. I'm like, soy is a phytoestrogen.

Why are we ignoring soy? And so many of the recipes have soy in it. So the kimchi edamame bowl has that. And then I combine it with the salmon furikake. This one is incredible because it's wild salmon, if you can get it. And then what Chef Jeff did is he put a rub on the top of the salmon. You put it in the refrigerator. For an hour and you let that rub sink in and then you pull it out dust it off and then he has like a mustard glaze that you put on top of it and I kid you not like I put that on top of the kimchi edamame bowl and I'm a happy camper.

SHAWN STEVENSON: You're talking dirty to me right now. I don't know. All right. Again, these photos are gorgeous. So many incredible recipes and you just mentioned one that I was going to ask you about actually one of the ingredients, which is a sweet potato and tempeh taco. Oh, yeah, I was like again the soy conversation and we had dr. William Lee, incredible researcher at Harvard. And just again dispelling the concerns around these phytoestrogens found in something like soy and its relationship to estrogen related cancers. There is none as a matter of fact. It's really pretty rare anti cancer being anti-, angiogenetic or anti angiogenesis, cutting off the blood supply to cancer cells.

And again, it's the framing, but also when you're looking at a food like that, you're looking at a recipe like this and not soy burgers, soy hot dogs, soy ice cream, soy milk, all these different things that are just like, again, newly invented concoctions with soy. Again, you can, yeah, you can mix in a little bit of that stuff. But I know that a lot of friends and colleagues that are doing a vegan or vegetarian protocol, they go ham on, ironically, I said ham.

DR. MINDY PELZ: Hopefully they won't be offended.

SHAWN STEVENSON: By the way ham is an acronym for those that don't know as hard as a motherf**ker. They go ham on Not ham, fake ham, and just again. It's the ultra processed version versus Utilizing it in a more traditional way.

DR. MINDY PELZ: Right. So let's talk about what tempeh is a fermented soy and it is high in protein. And I love what Dr. Lee is talking about when it comes to soy stopping tumor growth, specifically in breast tissue, like it's the opposite of what everybody's thinking. And that literally in this book, I would, I told both chefs, I was like, we're bringing soy back. I want to do everything I can. I have a whole section on soy in the front matter. I'm like, we have to bring soy back so people feel comfortable. So women specifically feel comfortable eating it.

So the sweet potato tempeh tacos, they also are incredible. I just made them for some friends the other night and you've got the sweet potato that will help you make progesterone. That's the power of the sweet potato. It has all the perfect nutrients to make progesterone. Then you have the tempeh. That actually has soy in it. So it's going to, it's a phytoestrogen. So it's helping support higher estrogen load in your body. Then it has the protein in it from the tempeh so that it can help with all of these amino acid requirements that we need for hormones and it's fermented. So we're adding good bacteria in, and it is so tasty and it is literally hormonal medicine when you start to break it down and look at it through that lens.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Stacking.

DR. MINDY PELZ: Stacking.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Stacking it. I love this. All right. Where can we get the book?

DR. MINDY PELZ: Yeah. I think we'll put a link in here for people, but wherever books are sold you can go to Amazon, you're going to Barnes and Noble, you can go to a bookshop. I'm a huge fan. If you have the choice, go to your independent bookstore. Because I like supporting the mom and pop. So that's important to me, but other, it'll be everywhere the books are.

SHAWN STEVENSON: So make sure right now, depending on when you're listening to this, if this is right before the book comes out, you could pre order it. This is going to be a massive hit. So you want to make sure that you get your copy early. Go to Amazon, Barnes Noble, wherever you get your books and pre order the book. And also you've got some bonuses and we'll put the link for everybody in the show notes. Got some great bonuses, including some amazing videos and some cooking behind the scenes stuff with one of the chefs who work on the book.

DR. MINDY PELZ: Yep, exactly. Yeah, chef Leslie has been doing a tremendous amount with us in video. So we've got some really cool content for bonuses.

SHAWN STEVENSON: It's amazing. Amazing. So the book officially comes out on..

DR. MINDY PELZ: October 22nd.

SHAWN STEVENSON: October 22nd, 2024, because I know some people are listening to this in the future. Depending on when you're hearing this, get yourself a copy of this amazing book. Get this for a friend, a family member, any woman that you know. This is a amazing gift. This is an amazing gift to give somebody that you care about and help to get this education out there. And I appreciate you so much. You know how important this message is, and for just putting so much time and energy into this and you're changing the lives of so many women. So I appreciate you.

DR. MINDY PELZ: No, thank you. I appreciate being here and I feel like we're kindred souls on the topic of nutrition. And when you see it through the lens of what's happening, it's really hard to unsee it. So I just really appreciate, you know, You and your voice as well because the more of us shouting from the rooftops that food is medicine, whether you're a man or a woman, the more lives will save literally.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, facts. All right, now it's time to eat Dr. Mindy pelz everybody.

Thank you so much for tuning into this episode today. I hope that you got a lot of value out of this. Share this with the women in your life that you care about. This is super important. Again, Dr. Mindy Pell's amazing new book, Eat a Girl, would be a phenomenal gift to give the people that you care about. So definitely check her out. And of course, you can check out the info below for all things book related in the show notes and share this out on social media. You can send this podcast interview to somebody that you care about via text message. Just get this into the hands and hearts of more women. We've got to get this information out there, and I appreciate you so much for being a part of this mission. We've got some epic master classes and world class guests coming your way very soon. So make sure to stay tuned, take care, have an amazing day.

And I'll talk with you soon. And for more after the show, make sure to head over to the model health show. com. That's where you can find all of the show notes. You can find transcriptions videos for each episode. And if you've got a comment, you can leave me a comment there as well. And please make sure to head over to iTunes and leave us a rating to let everybody know that the show is awesome. And I appreciate that so much and take care. I promise to keep giving you more powerful, empowering, Great content to help you transform your life. Thanks for tuning in.