Episode 511: Dr. Mindy Pelz: Fix Your Metabolism with the Right Type of Fast

12:36Dr. Mindy Pelz:And it'll satiate you.

12:38Jennifer Cohen:It'll satiate me and I can go the whole day.

12:40Dr. Mindy Pelz:Are you still about, because I know that you talk about six types of fasting.

12:44Jennifer Cohen:Yeah, yeah.

12:44Dr. Mindy Pelz:Is it all, but I remember like you were water faster for a long time. Oh yeah, we still. Do you only do water fasting now?

12:52Jennifer Cohen:It depends on the length. So if I go into a three-day water fast, which we do twice a year with our community, we lead hundreds of thousands of people through this experience, completely free, so fun to watch. And I will tell people water only, water only. You can have coffee if you want, but the purpose of a three-day water fast is to completely clean your system out. Wow. So nothing. Nothing. Okay.

13:18Dr. Mindy Pelz:Because what are the six types of fasting that you talk about?

13:22Jennifer Cohen:So the first one is intermittent fasting. Most people know that. That's like 12, somewhere between 12 and 15 hours without food.

13:30Dr. Mindy Pelz:Right. That's a common one. Very common. It's more like, that's kind of like a food restricting window. That's right. That's right.

13:37Jennifer Cohen:The second one is autophagy fasting, where you're stimulating your cell's ability to clean itself and detox itself, that's at 17 hours. So people who want more of a detox effect, they need to go 17 hours. So third one is a gut reset and it's at 24 hours. The research shows that your body makes intestinal stem cells. So you make cells that go in and repair the gut. That one's really powerful. And I use that in my clinic all the time. And I got people off all kinds of supplements just by getting them to 24-hour fast, they can repair their gut.

14:13Dr. Mindy Pelz:Really? Yeah.

14:14Jennifer Cohen:It's probably my favorite fast when people are like, I'm bloated, I have diarrhea, constipation, I have leaky gut, all the gut dysbiosis. You can cure that by one 24-hour fast every week. Just get used to doing that on a weekly basis and your body will heal itself.

14:33Dr. Mindy Pelz:Really? So cool. So all you need is nothing, basically. Right. Nothing. Water.

14:37Jennifer Cohen:Right, just water. Once a week. Once a week. For how long? Until your symptoms improve. And then if you're doing better, you can start to do it once a quarter, every day, the 24-hour fast. It's really up to you what you want to do.

14:50Dr. Mindy Pelz:Okay, what are the other ones?

14:51Jennifer Cohen:So then 36 hours is what I started doing that one for patients who just couldn't lose weight. And I found some research that was showing that sometimes you just got to go a little longer to tell the body, hey, you stored some fat, you stored some glucose, you stored some things years ago around my belly, you know, in my booty. And so at 36 hours, if somebody's weight loss resistant, throw a 36 hour fast at it. It really unsticks weight. And now everything else you're doing, your training, your food, everything else works better. So that's my favorite one for weight loss. 48 hours of dopamine reset.

15:27Jennifer Cohen:So 48 hours without food and your whole dopamine system in your brain resets itself and you get actually new receptor sites for dopamine will actually start to form. And the reason behind that, that's really cool, is that the body's now like, hey, it's been 48 hours without food. I need you to be motivated to go find food. So it resets the whole motivation system.

15:52Dr. Mindy Pelz:Wow. And so how did you research all of these things and get these benchmarks? Like, oh, at 24 hours, it's the greatest one for weight loss, or at 48, it's the greatest one. or whatever, or for your gut. How do you know all that? Like, what is your back? Like, how did you back this up? How did I find that? Yeah.

16:08Jennifer Cohen:So when I first discovered the term autophagy, I was doing so much detox in my clinic and autophagy is basically translates into self eating. And I was like, wait a second, the body will detox if you take food out of the equation? Like, could I just have teach my patients how to detox through fasting and then they don't have to spend all this money on supplements? I mean, I'm not anti-supplement, but I'm pro-patient. I want the patient to get well at the least expense at the best thing we have. And our own internal healing system is the best thing we have. So I started understanding autophagy and I started looking on PubMed, which is the site that all the peer-reviewed journals are.

16:54Jennifer Cohen:And I went through a period like about 10 years ago where I literally spent 20 hours a week on PubMed researching fasting. I did that for like three years. I was obsessed. Every single study I could ever find. And then I would practice with my patients. I'd be like, hey, we're going to try a 17-hour. We're going to try a 24. And then I watched it work. And then I practiced with my online community. I'm like, hey, everybody, we're going to do what we call fast training week. where I was like, we're just going to play with for five days. We're going to try this fast. And I want you all to report back.

17:28Jennifer Cohen:Then I hired a team of people to like listen to everybody and tell me what they reported back. So you're talking like a good three years of massive research. And I boiled it down to these six fasts that work for people.

17:42Dr. Mindy Pelz:Based on all the information you kind of aggregated, that's how you found the fast at 24 hours works for this, 48 hours works for that.

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19:34Dr. Mindy Pelz:what about like the fat like you know prolongs fast mimicking diet which is five there's tons of research backing yeah tons of science you're eating yeah does it work like a fasting a water

19:47Jennifer Cohen:fast yeah so it depends so here's the big we should probably even go back to the biggest myth that fasting is not a diet. It's not a fad. It's a healing tool. So when you pick that length fast, when you're like, what length fast should I do? You need to ask yourself the next question, what am I trying to accomplish? So when we look at the fast mimicking diet, which is what Prolon is, Walter Longo, who was the one that discovered the three-day water fast would reboot the whole immune system, he was like, I don't think people will go off food for three days. So what's the most minimal amount of food I can give somebody to get a similar experience?

20:30Jennifer Cohen:And what he discovered was the fast mimicking diet. And it was keep a person under 800 calories, keep their carbohydrate down. And he didn't, I haven't been able to figure out his, I tried to reverse engineer Prolon for many years. Really? Oh, yeah.

20:46Dr. Mindy Pelz:There's a method to the madness because people love it. Yeah. I know doctors who put their patients on it quarterly. Yeah. I'm not opposed to it. No, but you're saying it works. Yeah.

20:56Jennifer Cohen:Yeah, it works. And like I've been on Prolon a couple of times. I watched my ketones go up. The study he did on the fast mimicking diet is profound. He found if you put people on the fast mimicking diet five days a month for three months that he started to see type one diabetics. He started to see their pancreas, actually those cells that weren't working to produce insulin, they started regrowing. So an injured pancreas started to heal itself on the fast mimicking diet. Walter and his team get all the credit for that. That is amazing. So I can see why doctors are like, here you go. Here's a box.

21:36Jennifer Cohen:Just follow these instructions.

21:37Dr. Mindy Pelz:for a week. Right. Because I think with lots of people, you want to eliminate the stress or the work behind it. It's like, oh, it's easier to say to someone here, do this, than get them to figure it out on their own. Yeah, for sure. But what I was going to actually ask you then, so if fasting works by eating a little amount of food, why would anybody take a water fast?

22:02Jennifer Cohen:Or do a water fast? Yeah, so here's the thing. Okay. When people start fasting, they actually find eating a little bit of food more difficult than the water fast. Really? And there's two reasons for that. In a water fast, what's going to happen is you're going to metabolically shift over your fat burning system a whole lot quicker. And I've watched this on my own continuous glucose monitor and ketone reader. In a water fast, I can go into ketosis within 24 hours and boom. And once you're in ketosis, your body's burning fat and those ketones go up into the brain. They make you really mentally sharp.

22:37Jennifer Cohen:They kill hunger. And that happens very quickly in a water fast.

22:42Dr. Mindy Pelz:Really?

22:42Jennifer Cohen:With Prolon, it took a day or two for that to happen because you're eating food that's high in carbohydrates. It's pretty high in carbohydrates.

22:51Dr. Mindy Pelz:They reformulated. Oh, good. Yeah, I have one here. Oh, good. I was going to give it to you. Try it. I was curious to get your opinion on it.

22:57Jennifer Cohen:Yeah, well, I told the CEO, I was like, you need to get it all organic. It is all organic. This call that I had with him was like five years ago. This is great.

23:07Dr. Mindy Pelz:Tell me what else.

23:07Jennifer Cohen:Yeah, I was like, you need to get it all organic. You need to get the plastic out of it. Why are you putting the olives in a plastic container? Now you're adding plastics to it. They changed that too. I'll show it to you. Oh my God.

23:19Dr. Mindy Pelz:They revamped the whole thing. The soups. You have to see this thing. Oh, amazing. So that's why I keep talking. What else?

23:24Jennifer Cohen:And then the organic, the plastics, and the sweetness. They had a little cookie in it. Do they still have a cookie in it? I don't know. I think I got to check it out. Because if I have a sugar addiction and you give me a little bit of sweetness, the next couple of days are going to be really hard. Yes. And then the other thing I asked is I'm like, why would you eat this all day long? Why wouldn't you have people eat this in one window of time? Tell them to eat at an eight-hour eating window, not eat all day long. They'll get ketones quicker. They'll be less hungry. This is fascinating. That was the conversation this is, you know, and I had.

24:06Dr. Mindy Pelz:That is great. So basically, though, those are valid points, though. Yeah. You know, like very valid points. Yeah. I still find, this is what I find hard, and I know I'm going to like, you probably have heard this a million times. for me fasting while you're very active is excruciatingly difficult yeah so like when I I actually just did the pro long for the first time and I understand the benefits but I found that I couldn't exercise as severely or like I shouldn't say severe as intensely as I normally could because you don't have the energy yeah so how do people like what do you tell people for people who are active you're active yep yep how do people who are who are very into like you know, fitness and activity, can you prescribe the best type of fasting protocol for those people who are very active?

24:57Dr. Mindy Pelz:Because I've yet to see it.

24:58Jennifer Cohen:It's such a good question. And it's one of the things that turns uber fit people away from fasting. Yeah. So again, let's go back to our tools. These six different length fasts are like, think of them like supplements or think of them like a workout.

25:13Dr. Mindy Pelz:Right.

25:13Jennifer Cohen:Some days you're lifting weights. Some days you're doing endurance. Some days you're doing balance exercise. So when do you need to pull these tools out? Well, the first thing is anybody doing a 12-hour fast, even the most fit person could do that.

25:28Dr. Mindy Pelz:See, that to me, the intermittent fasting to me isn't really even, I don't think of that as a fast. I think of that just like an eating, like kind of like an eating schedule, right? You can do it on that. Yes. I'm talking when you're getting into like two, three, even a 24-hour fast seems doable.

25:45Jennifer Cohen:So a 20, I I would throw a 24-hour fast for a fit person on a recovery day when they're not working out. Because now you're cleaning up the whole system. And then the next day, don't make it a heavy day. You'll get up, have breakfast, have your protein, your carbs, whatever combo works for you. Right, right, right. But a 24-hour would be a recovery day. Whereas 12 and 13 hours every single day are pretty easy for most people to do. Think of it as it's a rest. your digestion. When else are you giving your digestion a rest? If you're eating all day long so you can work out, there needs to be periods where the gut is not bringing in food and trying to assimilate all of that.

26:25Dr. Mindy Pelz:Who should not be fasting?

26:27Jennifer Cohen:I think that there's a couple of people. I think people with eating disorders need to actually involve a psychologist or something because it can trigger that. Pregnancy, absolutely not. Absolutely not. I met a guy one time that's like, oh, I put all my, I'm like, fuck no.

26:42Dr. Mindy Pelz:Yeah. I would imagine that'd be terrible. Who would ever do a fast when they're pregnant? You're like feeding two people. Right.

26:48Jennifer Cohen:No, it's crazy. Believe me. I've had people try. Nursing. You don't want to go over 17 hours because at 17 hours, you're dumping toxins and those toxins are going to go into your baby. But I still would say, don't, don't, that's not your tool. Eat. You need to eat so you get enough nourishment. People with thyroid problems. They can fast, but what they need to make sure is every day they're getting 1 ,200 calories into their diet every single day. You need at least 1 ,200 calories every day to keep the thyroid working right.

27:19Dr. Mindy Pelz:So people who have thyroid issues, obviously pregnant people or people who are nursing, people who have eating... To me, there's a few different myths that people who do have disordered eating love this because it's a way for them to restrict calories, right?

27:35Jennifer Cohen:Very true.

27:36Dr. Mindy Pelz:Which is why it's very scary. Yes, agreed. And people use this as a way to figure out ways to cut calories. Right. Right? Yes. I'm also concerned that sometimes I'm noticing people who are doing these intermittent fasts because they actually end up getting an eating disorder on them. Like orthorexia kind of thing. Because sometimes you become much more cognizant of not eating or when you can't eat and when you could eat versus just like eating when you're hungry or eating your breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

28:11Jennifer Cohen:Yeah. And the disordered eating is a big one. And I have watched people with massive disordered eating really do well with fasting, but you have to sort of back them in. I worked with a very famous actress who had a very public eating disorder. And she came to me wanting to balance her hormones. And I was like, oh God, how are we going to do this? Yeah. Oh, God. For the first 90 days, I put a continuous glucose monitor on her, and I said, I just want you to track your food. I taught her about foods that spike blood sugar. I taught her about combination of foods together. I taught her a better eating routine and how to stabilize her blood sugar.

28:52Jennifer Cohen:We did that for 90 days. Then I started to teach her how to push her breakfast back an hour, and we slowly started to work on that. But we had to stabilize her relationship to food. We did that for about a year. And then she went back into filming the next series of her show. And it was like she got the benefit of fasting without the obsession of control. Because she could use fasting to make ketones when she was on set and she was like focused. But then when there was a lunch break or a dinner break, she knew the combination of food to put together so that her blood sugar wouldn't spike so that she wouldn't gain weight.

29:32Jennifer Cohen:So it was a different type of control.

29:34Dr. Mindy Pelz:Right. It's just kind of like switching out one type of control for another. That's right. That's right. So that's why like food in itself, though, it's like really scary because, you know, alcohol, if you quit, you don't have to ever eat it again. Right. Food, it's like you have to eat eventually, right? You have to eat eventually. You have to eat. Because when you brought up something, obviously, in the new book, Age Like a Girl, and also this is what you talk about a lot and the menopause, perimenopause, fasting, dieting. The other big myth is that, and I've actually thought I've noticed this myself, that women don't do as well on fasting as men because of the hormones.

30:12Dr. Mindy Pelz:What do you say to that? Especially in menopause, I would imagine with their hormones everywhere.

30:17Jennifer Cohen:Yeah. So Fast Like a Girl was the solution to that in the sense that what I taught the world was there were times during your menstrual cycle you don't fast. And those are during ovulation, day 10 of your cycle to day 15.

30:30Dr. Mindy Pelz:You do not.

30:31Jennifer Cohen:You can fast a little bit, like 13, 14 hours, but not more than that. You want to keep it at a low intermittent fast. But the week before your period, you don't fast at all because you need glucose to make progesterone. And progesterone is the hormone that comes in the week before your period. So a lot of, I'm sure you see this in the fitness world, a lot of people lose their cycle. A lot of women lose their cycle when there's not enough calories, when there's not enough glucose, that whole system shuts down. So I say no fasting the week before your period. For the menopausal woman, this one's really interesting because estrogens decline means you become more insulin resistant.

31:14Jennifer Cohen:That's messed up. Like estrogen helped your body use glucose for energy and now she's gone and your cells or she's going away, your cells don't know how to keep itself metabolically healthy. So this is why so many women gain weight. Your go-to at that point is fasting. Like with age like a girl, I have doubled down on fasting for menopausal women. It is absolutely the tool, and let me tell you why. When you go, and we can break it out according to somebody's lifestyle, but when you go into a longer fasted state, what happens is your body makes a ketone. And the only way it can make a ketone is by burning fat.

31:59Jennifer Cohen:So it has to burn fat in order to make the ketone. The ketone goes up into your brain, it turns off hunger, but it also sharpens your mental clarity. So now, and it also, by the way, increases a neurotransmitter called GABA that calms you. So I can be 48 years old, have major brain fog, have be gaining weight just looking at food. And now all of a sudden I'm teaching that 48 year old to go into a 15, 17 hour fast, and they're going to lose weight and increase their mental clarity because they've put this tool into place that's going to give them both weight loss and mental clarity. I'll give you another interesting conversation I had, and I talk about it in the book.

32:46Jennifer Cohen:Lisa Moscone, she's like the number one female brain researcher right now. I brought her on my podcast and said, tell me what menopausal women should be eating when they go into menopause because the brain isn't as good as using glucose. And she was like, well, they need to learn how to make ketones. I'm like, yes, exactly. So we're not bringing the ketone into the brain picture for menopausal women. So you got to start fasting when you're in menopause to get that brain energy back online. And the byproduct of that is you burn fat to get the ketone. See, the thing is though, do you know who Stacey Sims is?

33:27Dr. Mindy Pelz:Dr. Stacey Sims? Did you have her here? Of course. I love her. Yes. I asked her all about this and she disagrees. She says you should not be fasting. Women should not be fasting. This is so good. Yeah. And I brought you up actually.

33:43Jennifer Cohen:Well, I'm curious what she said.

33:45Dr. Mindy Pelz:You got to watch the episode. Well, I know.

33:47Jennifer Cohen:So let me tell you what, because I brought Stacey on my podcast. Yeah, I saw. Because I was like, let's just, if we disagree, let's talk about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. What happened? She's looking at it through the lens of an endurance athlete female. That is her person. It's also probably a lot of people listening to this. So through an endurance athlete's perception, if you're going to go do a heavy workout, you don't want to do it in a fasted state. I would agree with that. This is why I'm saying these longer fasts can go into a place of recovery days or an easier workout day. So we aligned on that.

34:30Jennifer Cohen:Like a 24-hour day. Yeah. Or even 17 hours. The intermittent fasting. Yeah. Okay. So if you're going to wake up in the morning and go, you know, you're lifting some really heavy weights, you need some protein before that. Yeah. So you have two options. Maybe you don't eat dinner as late so that you can still fit the 13, 14, 15-hour eating window in there. Right. And then the next morning, you eat protein before you go work out. Now you can do both things.

34:57Dr. Mindy Pelz:See, to me, that's not really the complication. It's more about the, again, it's with the activity and the hormones and the metabolism. Okay.

35:04Jennifer Cohen:So the second thing that Stacey says, at least on my podcast, she said that when you first wake up, if you have food, you start the hormonal cycle. That's her big thing. Food is going to help you hit the, tell the hippocampus, I'm sorry, the hypothalamus, it's time to start making hormones today. Yeah. So, okay, I can kind of see, I can go with that. So if we go with that theory, what I asked her, did you ask her what she eats before she works out? Protein. So not every day. So on my podcast, she told me she does a protein coffee.

35:43Dr. Mindy Pelz:Oh, yes. That's exactly what she said. You are right. Right. She puts protein powder in the coffee. I remember that. And then I saw her making it one time.

35:51Jennifer Cohen:Yeah. She does a protein coffee, collagen powder, creatine, all of that butter cream. She has like a mega dosed coffee before she works out that's packed with protein. Yes. I remember that. So, okay. This gets really nuanced, but it's really important. I was like dying to share this. Okay. So this is the perfect place to do this. Okay. Try it.

36:14Dr. Mindy Pelz:Go.

36:14Jennifer Cohen:Okay, when we go into a fasted state, we do it for a variety of reasons. If you just want to go into ketosis and get ketones, Stacey's protein-rich coffee will work for you. You can have protein, you can stay in ketosis, you're getting ketones, you're burning fat, and you're locked and loaded for your intense workout, Plus you've stimulated the hypothalamus to tell it to start to make hormones like cortisol and growth hormone and insulin and all the different, and even estrogen and testosterone. Testosterone is mostly made in the morning. So her coffee works if you're trying to use the tool of ketosis and stay in that.

37:00Dr. Mindy Pelz:Okay.

37:00Jennifer Cohen:That's beautiful. If you're trying to stimulate autophagy, which is the body detoxing itself now, or you're trying to make stem cells, that protein coffee is not going to work. So we started this off talking about coffee with MCT oil. That's for the faster who's trying to stimulate this healing detox effect. And it works incredible. For the faster who wants to work out really hard, try Stacey's mega-dosed coffee. Phenomenal. And then when you're done working out, you got a mega load on protein. She and I both agree with that. Now, this new book, I'm doubling down on longer fasts for mental clarity.

37:43Jennifer Cohen:Very different. Stacey's looking at fitness. I'm looking at the 48-year-old woman who's maybe not fit, but she can't even remember anything anymore. And she's having trouble focusing. She needs to get into a deeper fasted state. That protein coffee is not going to work for her. She needs more ketones. She needs more autophagy. She needs to be able to get her brain back online.

38:10Dr. Mindy Pelz:Okay, so that makes sense to me. So it sounds to me there's all sorts of different benefits and advantages to fasting. Certain ones, right? Certain ones don't work for certain people's lifestyle. You got it. That's what it is. Yeah. So like that's what I've kind of gleaned from all this so far is that for my lifestyle, because I am very active and I have to be active. I think a lot of people, maybe not or maybe, who at this stage of life, like 40s, 50s, they're also exercising to build lean muscle, right? Because that's what they have to do. And for mental clarity, for their brain more than their body at this point.

38:50Dr. Mindy Pelz:So you have to pick a fasting protocol that won't interfere with that. Bingo. Right. Bingo.

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40:09Dr. Mindy Pelz:So then the other people like you, so you're a good example. So someone like you, who's 55, you said you're a fasting guru. You have all these, you know, everything about a fast, fast, fast. How often are you fasting? Are you active? What is your protocol?

40:24Jennifer Cohen:Yeah. So I would say most days I will throw a 15-hour fast in. It's just natural for me. I'll have coffee in the morning. I put collagen in, and I'll tell you why. In the coffee. Yeah. I've been doing it lately. And again, it depends what you're trying to do. So I've been doing collagen and creatine in my coffee lately because I'm not looking for detox right now. I'm not looking for autophagy. And I'll tell you why. Yeah. I just started surfing. So I moved to Santa Cruz. A friend took me out surfing. I fell in love with it. I suck at it. I'm getting a lot better. I can actually catch the wave and stand on it.

40:59Jennifer Cohen:Good for you. I love that. And so, but what I noticed was I would come home from surfing, I was famished. And so, and I also noticed that if I didn't put creatine and collagen in my coffee, I couldn't paddle as well. My strength paddling, which is a big part of surfing, especially when you first learn. So I quickly changed my fasting protocol. And I was like, I'm going to finish dinner at 6 o 'clock at night. I'm going to protein pack my dinner. Nothing else is going in my mouth. I'm going to get up in the morning. I surf at 7.30 in the morning. I'm going to do a Stacey, let's just call it Stacey Sims coffee before I go and surf.

41:38Jennifer Cohen:And then when I come home, I'm going to power up on protein again. Strangely, the beginning of learning the sport, I started carb craving for the first time. All I wanted was carbs. So I would have a huge breakfast at 10 o 'clock in the morning, something I've never done. When I wasn't surfing and I wasn't trying this new activity, I would have the coffee I told you, black coffee with MCT oil and my first meal would be at two. But I started surfing. So now I had to adjust my window. I had to make sure I powered up on protein. If I don't power up on protein the night before, then I don't feel like I have as much oomph in the water the next day.

42:15Jennifer Cohen:If I don't put collagen and creatine in my coffee in the morning, don't have as much oomph. So I rearranged my fasting behaviors to meet this new sport that I was learning.

42:25Dr. Mindy Pelz:Right, so I think this is really important because I think that people beat themselves up. I was, like when I first met you, I'm like, I can't do this because of my fitness thing. But it's because I literally did not have the, like, I was so hungry, I would get nauseous. Because like, especially cardiovascular workouts, I found, like if you're a runner, if you're somebody who does like endurance stuff, like it's so hard to work. On the endurance ones. On the endurance ones. That's what I'm saying. The weight training, resistance training, much better to do it with.

42:57Jennifer Cohen:But so then let's use like, you know, again, I want people to see they're all tools. Yeah, exactly. And Stacey and I just laughed when I brought her on my podcast. I'm like, do you know why you're here? And she's like, yes. I'm like, are you tired of everybody tagging each other? So it was a really, you can go hear our conversation on my podcast. But like today, I'm here, I'm traveling home. I'm not surfing today. And so I'll fast, I'll have, my team is, we're having a team gathering tonight. And so I'll eat at six o 'clock. And I stopped eating last night at six o 'clock. So today is a travel day.

43:31Jennifer Cohen:I'm here with you. I had my coffee this morning without collagen in it, and I'll fast all day today.

43:37Dr. Mindy Pelz:So then how often do you do the longer fast, like the three-day, four-day, five-day fast?

43:41Jennifer Cohen:So for me and what I recommend for people is once to twice a year. Do a three-day water fast. We do them as a community every January and September. I don't recommend you work out during that time. You're drinking water only. Use it like a spiritual tool, like a cleanse. So just because you're not a faster or because it's not your regular thing, you can still throw that in as like a detox. It's the cheapest detox around that's the most effective.

44:08Dr. Mindy Pelz:Right. Like that's the thing, right? Like it's not like you're telling people to buy some fancy thing. It's just like, just don't eat for three days.

44:15Jennifer Cohen:Just don't eat. Like your body, our bodies are miraculous. And we, especially the female body. And we have decided that we give more power to the supplement, more power to the doctor, more power to the podcast or health influencer than to our own body that we carry around. Right. What's your take on supplements? Do you take any? I cycle them. So I don't think we should be taking the same supplement day in and day out. So this is another really important concept because what people do is let's say I take a probiotic. I'm taking a probiotic. Hopefully you know why. I used to sit with patients all the time and they would bring bags of supplements.

44:54Jennifer Cohen:100%. And I'd be like, okay, pull them all out and tell me why you're taking them. Nobody could tell me. Literally, people will pull out a supplement and they'd be like, well, my friend said she got good results with this one. They pull another one out. They're like, this one came through Instagram. I thought it looked really good. So we would do away with all supplements. So you take a supplement to make a difference in your body. So if you're taking a probiotic, you are trying to introduce a new strain of bacteria into your gut to make a more diverse microbiome. But if you take that probiotic every single day of the year, at some point, your body becomes deaf to it.

45:34Jennifer Cohen:It's like, I don't know. Okay, you introduce it in the beginning, and you're like, whoa, this is great. I've noticed that the bloating's gone down. My bowel movements are back. But after about 90 days, your body has now adapted, and you're wasting your money. So my golden rule for me and my patients is every 90 days we switch those supplements. And sometimes you completely get off supplements and use your lifestyle, and then you can get back on them.

46:02Dr. Mindy Pelz:That's a very good point. So I'm a big believer in cycling too, because to me, it's a little common sense. Your body acclimates to everything you do, your weight training, cardio, everything. If you do something for too long, like muscle memory, Like first, like not muscle muscle, it's basically like your body adapts. And so that's why you have to constantly change it. Like even with vitamin D, right? Everyone's like, you must take vitamin D every single day. But once also, if you're not getting your tests done, like you don't know, you might be now way over your vitamin D capacity. That's right.

46:34Dr. Mindy Pelz:And not even know.

46:35Jennifer Cohen:This just happened to me with vitamin D. Right. Me too. I was really low in vitamin D and I started taking it. And then when my blood work came back, I was like, whoa. Way over it. Way high. Yep. So then I went off of it and then I was like, okay, let me see if I can use the sun. Let me see if I, you know, if I can. And then I retested and I'm like, no, it's too low now. Okay. I got to go back on.

46:54Dr. Mindy Pelz:Well, that's, well, this is the problem, right? Like people are not, they take it one test and then they get supplemented and then that's their thing for a year, two, three, five, five years. So when you say cycle, so you're saying you, you prefer your, your whole methodology is 90 days, like three months on. How much off a week, two weeks off?

47:12Jennifer Cohen:It depends. But if you're in just prevention, I would say anywhere from two to four weeks.

47:17Dr. Mindy Pelz:Two to four weeks. And then you can either recalibrate. I would think you should get another blood test.

47:23Jennifer Cohen:It depends what you're testing for. But if you went on a supplement, you noticed a difference, and then you stopped noticing a difference, get off of it for a couple of weeks and see if you're fine. Maybe you're fine. Maybe you don't need to go back on it. But let's say all of a sudden you're like, oh, shoot, I noticed that I'm constipated because my probiotic was helping me. Go back on it and see if you need it. We got to get off of it. It's kind of like fasting. This is why I like fasting. Get off of food for a moment. Let your body heal itself. Then go back onto food. You're going to see what foods work, what foods don't work.

47:58Jennifer Cohen:We need breaks, even like exercise. We need breaks from things. Everything.

48:03Dr. Mindy Pelz:I mean, even like, you know, this is for friends. A lot of my friends actually laugh at me because I eat the same things over and over and over again. I think a lot of people who are in like the fitness space do that, right? Like you find your things and like, it's actually a problem because I think I was going to say to you, I think that, and I've seen you talk about this and write about this, that we should be eating for our microbes and not for our cravings. That's, I understand that. I want you to talk about that. But what about for us, other people who are eating out of like habitual, like, you know, like it's habitual for me now to every morning have my eggs.

48:37Dr. Mindy Pelz:Every afternoon I have this thing. I'm so structured. I think what's happened, and maybe you can agree or tell me if this is actually just in my head, your body can start becoming allergic to these things because you're eating them too often. So much.

48:53Jennifer Cohen:Yes. Very true. Right. Okay. So the way we look at food selection should be through the microbiome. So the microbe, when you're eating, you're not fueling per se your human cells. You're actually fueling your microbes. So when you eat those eggs, what happens is the microbes go in and break it down into different nutrients. So choline is a great nutrient that's great for the brain from eggs. It is your microbes that break that food down and make them readily accessible for your human cells. So the microbes are like the broker. They're like the one that you bring it in and then they decide what it needs to, what it should change into so it can fuel your body.

49:41Jennifer Cohen:So these microbes are also fueling your cravings. Like they're the ones that are telling you more chocolate, more carbs, more sugar. Right. So if you eat the same food over and over and over again, we have trillions of bacteria in our gut. They all need different foods. They want diversity of foods. So if you're eating the same thing over and over again, you're starving out some of those microbes. They're like, I don't get any food. And then you're strengthening other ones. And it's what we call a monoculture, where all of a sudden, dominant microbes are running your system. And those microbes may keep fueling cravings.

50:19Jennifer Cohen:Those microbes actually fuel your brain. They tell your liver to make ketones. Like the name of the game is diversity. You want to open up your eating style and eat as many different types of food as possible. So you're getting a very diverse set of microbes in your gut.

50:38Dr. Mindy Pelz:What would be some like signs that we're not eating enough variety?

50:42Jennifer Cohen:Well, digestive changes would be, yeah.

50:45Dr. Mindy Pelz:Or like bloating?

50:46Jennifer Cohen:Bloating, constipation, diarrhea. Constipation is probably the biggest one that I see. But you can even go into depression, anxiety. Really? Yeah, those microbes make serotonin. And so maybe you're like, let's use your diet as an example. Maybe your diet's working for weight loss, energy, fitness. But if you're doing the same foods, you're not giving the foods, the microbes that make serotonin. So all of a sudden, depression could kick in or anxiety could kick in.

51:18Dr. Mindy Pelz:That's a great point because we get so myopic in what we're used to, right? We do the same thing, especially in this space. I think we're in a culture of high performers, high performance, go, go, go, go, go.

51:34Jennifer Cohen:We do what we've done, even if it doesn't work for us anymore.

51:37Dr. Mindy Pelz:That's right. That's right.

51:38Jennifer Cohen:And diversity is not that hard. It's really for the microbes. A lot of it is plant diversity. So just open up your fruits and vegetables. I'm not talking - That's true, I guess. Yeah, it's not complicated. I'm not saying start eating like going into bread because I know like for some people that can be like a slippery slope. What I'm saying is stop eating the same stuff over and over again because this monoculture is going to have over the long haul. Right. It's going to have a really gnarly impact on both your physical and mental health.

52:07Dr. Mindy Pelz:What's your take on all the weight loss drugs now? Like all the Ozempics and Monjaros and every day it's working on like two strains. It's like GLP-1, the Ozempic was on one strand. Now it's the other ones are working on two different receptors and three receptors. What is your whole take?

52:25Jennifer Cohen:Okay. So thank you for asking this. The first I would say is what part of your body makes the GLP-1 hormone? Do you know? The gut? Yes. Okay. So the microbes.

52:38Dr. Mindy Pelz:Yeah.

52:39Jennifer Cohen:The microbes. This is a perfect example. It's a great segue question. I was going to say, it's a great segue. That was like perfect. is the microbes make GLP-1 hormone. So if all of a sudden you are deficient in GLP-1 hormone, then we go back to, can we feed the microbes that make GLP-1 hormone? And there are some things that we know, like Yerba Mata. Yerba Mata tea actually feeds the microbes that make GLP-1 hormone and can actually start to kill hunger. We see it in the fasting world all the time. Yerba mate tea is amazing. It is a nutrient that feeds the microbes that make that hormone. So powerful.

53:21Jennifer Cohen:Wow. That's incredible. Does anyone know that? Yeah, it came out. Like when the GLP one came out, you know who brought it to everybody's attention? Who? The glucose goddess. Do you remember her?

53:30Dr. Mindy Pelz:Yeah, of course I do. She was supposed to be on here. I don't know what happened actually. She talked about the... So I have some outside that Yerba mate tea. Yeah, yeah. So that would actually help?

53:40Jennifer Cohen:Yeah. So that starts to feed those microbes. And then what happens is those microbes start making GLP-1 hormone. So the other thing that feeds those microbes, fiber. So are you having enough fibery foods like leafy green vegetables? You know what kills those microbes? Fat, bad fat, canola oil, cottonseed oil, corn oil, all the toxic fat. So now let's put Ozempic in perspective. How did the world get obese? is it's toxic food with toxic oils. So now all of a sudden, it's not calorie in and calorie out game anymore. Obesity is coming from the ultra processed foods that are killing the microbes. The fat is killing the microbes that are making GLP-1 hormone.

54:30Jennifer Cohen:So how convenient the big pharma came up with a pharmaceutical that is going to bring that hormone back. I'm not saying we don't do it. I'm just saying that it's not root cause.

54:41Dr. Mindy Pelz:Do you know what's funny that you said that? I was thinking something interesting when you were talking that don't you find it interesting? I was thinking the reverse that now, I don't know about you, you live around, you live, like I live in LA and I got to be honest with you. I don't see any fat people here anymore. It's actually kind of like creepy. Yeah. Cause that's really true. It's like everybody is on a GLP one of some form to the point where that just tells me though, is it maybe, maybe it is calorie in calorie out because it's, it's basically stopping people from eating. The people are, are not hungry.

55:15Dr. Mindy Pelz:And so everyone's like emaciated.

55:18Jennifer Cohen:You know what they're doing? What? A fasting lifestyle. Well, yes. That's what they're doing. So I've sat with so many friends who went on it, people that went on it. I'm like, tell me what, what you learned, what you're doing. And they're like, I'm not hungry. I'm like, yeah, that's what happens when I start fasting. You, when you start learning and doing daily fast, you start, you're not hungry anymore. They're like, my brain is clear. Oh yeah, that's what happens when I start fasting. So it's, to me, yes, it saves lives. And there's so many interesting things that we're learning about GLP-1 hormone.

55:50Jennifer Cohen:And if you can afford it, fine. It's expensive. It's very expensive. That's why it's funny.

55:55Dr. Mindy Pelz:LA people have a lot of money here. But I got to tell you something. Like, it is absurd to me how you walk around in this city, nobody is fat and no one's overweight. Yeah. Like people that I've known a hundred years that always had a little bit of more meat on their bones. Skinny as could be. Yeah. Mike, what is like, I think that's actually kind of dangerous. And what I actually have heard recently, tell me if you've heard this, if you've noticed this, that some people who've been on it now, cause it's been very popular for what, like three years, maybe two or three years. There's been a little bit of like the pendulum has now swung slightly the other way because people say that if you're on it for too long, again, your body's acclimating.

56:36Jennifer Cohen:Yeah, because now you're telling, you bring up a really good point because now you're telling your microbes, hey, I got enough GLP-1. You don't need to make them for me anymore. That's my point.

56:45Dr. Mindy Pelz:It's not working as well. Yeah. It's not as effective anymore. So at the beginning, what do they do? They dose you. Yeah. So you keep on increasing your dose gradually. Yeah. But then what happens? You eventually get to that place where it's like your body is now like acclimated to it. People are getting hungry again. Yeah. And so they're eating again. They haven't changed their lifestyle habits.

57:06Jennifer Cohen:Right. They didn't get to the root cause of why they got overweight in the first place.

57:10Dr. Mindy Pelz:Exactly.

57:11Jennifer Cohen:And people say, oh, it's genetics or no, it's not. There was a destruction of these microbes. The first question to ask yourself is you've been doing ultra processed foods. Are you doing the wrong oils? Get off those oils. Increase your diversity of vegetables and fruits and feed those microbes. Go into the yerba mata. I even saw a study that showed the order in which you eat food can affect the microbes that make GLP one.

57:37Dr. Mindy Pelz:Yes, I heard that too. I heard that, have you heard this, like you eat protein first before you eat anything, then you eat your fruit, then you eat your vegetable? Yeah. Is that true?

57:46Jennifer Cohen:Protein first, fiber second, and then carbohydrates. So if you're going to do pasta or bread, that should be the last thing you eat. Right. Even a sweet potato, which I love dearly. Me too. You would eat it last. Do you want to eat the night? And I do this. I usually do, we do grass-fed steak like almost every other night.

58:05Dr. Mindy Pelz:I love that.

58:06Jennifer Cohen:Yeah, I'll do like a steak, then I'll have my salad, and then I'll have my sweet potato with grass-fed butter on it. That's like a pretty classic order. I would eat something.

58:14Dr. Mindy Pelz:Yeah, that sounds very similar to me. So like, do you have, you notice, are your patients on a lot of, I'm sure most of them or some of them are in GLPs.

58:22Jennifer Cohen:Yeah, for sure.

58:23Dr. Mindy Pelz:Even if they're lying to you, if they're saying they're not, right?

58:26Jennifer Cohen:Yeah, yeah. I mean, for sure. We've had a lot of liars that we just have. I'm always like, hey, no judgment. Like I'm not judging anybody. I just think the name of the health game is never to be addicted to a medication that you have to be on for the rest of your life.

58:43Dr. Mindy Pelz:Right.

58:44Jennifer Cohen:Like blood pressure medication. Yeah. Okay. Your doctor says be on it for the rest of your life, but do you know there's a lot of lifestyle tools you can use to not be on that medication?

58:53Dr. Mindy Pelz:Yeah, exactly. People want though the quick fix. It's like we were talking earlier. They don't want to think about how they can do it on themselves. If you just hand them something and say, follow this, people, like, that's what they prefer. Right? That's why, why do you think online courses and coaches are at, like, an all-time high, right? Because people just want you to give them a module that, even though most of this stuff is, like, they can do on their own, you can write on your piece of paper, you know, and save yourself thousands of dollars. People rather pay to get information that they already know because they think it's psychologically, it just takes the pressure off of them.

59:29Dr. Mindy Pelz:Yeah.

59:29Jennifer Cohen:Yeah. You know, I understand that. And if that's your path and you're not having any side effects, I'm personally somebody who's a little nervous about a drug that hasn't been studied for decades upon decades. Like, like, like, let's talk about another weight loss trend that was so trendy for a long time, which was

59:50Dr. Mindy Pelz:Finfin?

59:51Jennifer Cohen:No, the laparoscopic surgery where they tie the stomach.

59:54Dr. Mindy Pelz:Oh, of course. You mean when the stomach, the state. Was it lap?

59:59Jennifer Cohen:What was it? There's a few of them. Yeah, where they like tied up the stomach so you couldn't eat.

1:00:04Dr. Mindy Pelz:You couldn't eat because then your stomach was, they shrunk your stomach with surgery. Yeah. What was it called?

1:00:10Jennifer Cohen:I don't know why I can't remember it all of a sudden. Anyways, it was lap band. It was called a lap band surgery. Yeah, I totally remember this.

1:00:17Dr. Mindy Pelz:It was very popular. So for years. And then, by the way, you know what happened? People started to gain their weight back. That's right. And they ate through it. Yeah. You know? And they had all kinds of other health problems.

1:00:27Jennifer Cohen:Oh, yeah. What other ones did they have? So there was definitely the gut dysbiosis was an issue. So depression and all of that showed up. Diabetes, they all started getting weird forms of hemoglobin A1c, which is a marker for diabetes, started elevating. Oh. I think because the stomach didn't have enough time to break down the glucose molecules. So it was spiking their glucose and making them pre-diabetic.

1:00:54Dr. Mindy Pelz:Oh, wow.

1:00:54Jennifer Cohen:So because you needed that time in the stomach to actually get all the juices in there to break all the food down. So there ended up being a consequence.

1:01:03Dr. Mindy Pelz:There's always a consequence. That's the thing. That's right. So that's interesting. I bet you, I mean, listen, I have a feeling that we're going to see even more of the pendulum. you're going to see people actually gain a lot of weight, like actually go to the other side. Right. Because you can only take this stuff for so long, right? And then you're going to hit a ceiling.

1:01:24Jennifer Cohen:Yeah. Well, let's use another trend that people got really into, especially here in LA, all the Botox and fillers. Oh, yes. And then we realized, oh God, like over time, you're actually going to have a boomerang effect.

1:01:37Dr. Mindy Pelz:Oh, that's so true.

1:01:38Jennifer Cohen:All of a sudden, now you can't even hold a tight skin because, I mean, who was it? Courtney Cox became the poster child. I didn't see this. Tell me. She became the poster child of too much plastic surgery. And her face started drooping. And it was mostly around fillers. And so they put all the fillers in her. And then they put Botox in her. And then all of a sudden, her face started doing weird things because the muscles had been frozen. And so the long-term effect of that was that she wasn't able to do both of those at the same time. But now what does she do? This was like three years ago. She came out public and she's like, I wish I hadn't done so much.

1:02:16Jennifer Cohen:It was like the cost of beauty on the other side. Of course.

1:02:20Dr. Mindy Pelz:Meg Ryan, I thought that was too. I think there were a couple of. Because these are all things, like this is like everyone goes extreme, right? That's right. It's never just a little. It's always going to be a little. it's more is more, right? Like, and that's the problem.

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1:04:02Dr. Mindy Pelz:Okay, I got other questions for you. Okay, women and fertility and fasting.

1:04:07Jennifer Cohen:Oh, it's so good. It is? It's so good. Okay, here's the story. When I was first trying to decide this fasting cycle, so I had studied fasting, like I told you, 20 hours a week, diving into the research. I knew it worked, and I started sharing it on my YouTube channel. But the women on the YouTube were giving me comments like, my hair is falling out. I'm losing my cycle. I can't get pregnant, like all these little weird things. So I took what I knew in fasting and I literally whiteboarded it in my office. I put down everything I knew about estrogen, everything I knew about progesterone and testosterone.

1:04:49Jennifer Cohen:I looked at it and I was like, oh, wait, estrogen actually wants us, our glucose to be low. Estrogen wants, you got to be insulin sensitive. So the first thing on fertility that anybody struggling with fertility needs to know is if your hemoglobin A1C is high, if it's 5.5 or higher, you got to clean your metabolic system up because you won't make enough estrogen to be able to release an egg. So you need glucose to be low, insulin to be low to make estrogen. But the crazy thing is you need glucose to be high to make progesterone, which is why extreme athletes, extreme fasters, extreme dieters can't get pregnant because most of the time their blood sugar gets so low for too long, there's not enough glucose in the system to be able to make progesterone.

1:05:46Jennifer Cohen:Okay, same woman, totally different, totally opposing theories. So what I did is I was like, what if we took a woman that was struggling to get pregnant, we put her into more fasting at the front half of her cycle, and then the back half of her cycle, we didn't have her fast at all, and we actually had her eat healthy carbs, like fruits, vegetables, sweet potatoes, potatoes. Would that work? So I started with a member on my team who had a high BMI. So she was overweight. She had been trying to get pregnant for over a year. And her doctor told her it was because she was overweight. She was never going to get pregnant.

1:06:26Jennifer Cohen:So I said, front half of your cycle, I want you to fast and go keto. Back half of your cycle, I want you to eat carbs and not fast. Give me 90 days. Within 30 days, she got pregnant. Had been trying for a year. So then I was like, okay, let's try this again. So I tried it with four other patients at that point. Every single one of them got pregnant within 30 days. Same thing. They'd been trying for a while. So when Fast Like a Girl came out, I was like, wait a second. What is going to happen if the whole world tries this? Story after story of women becoming fertile and getting pregnant, doing exactly what I just told you.

1:07:03Jennifer Cohen:I even put an infertility protocol in Fast Like a Girl where I'm like, this is what I did. and over and over again, women are getting pregnant. So if the woman is the challenge, if the man's the challenge, it's not gonna help, but it's fasting, low carb, front half of your cycle, more carbs, healthy carbs, no fasting back half, and now you're giving both hormones what they need.

1:07:28Dr. Mindy Pelz:Wow, that's amazing. It was really cool. Do people know about the infertility, fertility and fasting? Yeah, they know now. I just think there's so many myths around fasting, right? I think the women parts, but the hormone part, do you believe in HRT then? I do. I do.

1:07:45Jennifer Cohen:But again, we're back to the same conversation as Ozempic and everything else.

1:07:49Dr. Mindy Pelz:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. No, that's true.

1:07:52Jennifer Cohen:Hormone replacement. There are plenty of women who have made it through menopause and done incredibly well without hormone replacement therapy. There's also plenty of women who haven't weathered very well through menopause without not using hormone replacement. Right, right. The challenge I have with hormone replacement therapy, and this is so huge and I want people to understand this, is just because you put the hormone into your body doesn't mean your body knows what to do with it. It is an exogenous outside source. So you need to make sure the body is ready to receive this hormone. Okay, what's the number one thing you need to make sure that a body can receive a hormone?

1:08:36Jennifer Cohen:You got to be metabolically healthy. If you are not metabolically healthy, you put that hormone into your body and we don't know what it's going to do with it. Okay. Second thing, on every cell lives receptor sites. Receptor sites are like gateways that allow hormones to get in there. There are toxins that block these receptor sites and make it so that glucose can't get into the cell. Insulin can't get into the cell. Hormones can't get into the cell. So what's your toxic load? Bring your toxic load down.

1:09:11Dr. Mindy Pelz:That's a great point.

1:09:12Jennifer Cohen:So there's so much lifestyle that we're leaving out of the hormone replacement therapy conversation.

1:09:19Dr. Mindy Pelz:So people would always say, they'll counter that by saying, oh no, because the hormones are bioidentical.

1:09:25Jennifer Cohen:They're bioidentical, but if you use them bioidentical, a lot of the hormones that are being used right now or that we're talking about that women are jumping on are not bioidentical. They're not? Oh, yeah. The hormone conversation has been, everybody get on HRT. We have lost the nuance. We have lost that there are bioidentical hormones and there are synthetic hormones. For sure, you need to get on bioidentical hormones. And how do you know you're on bioidentical hormones? hormones because you have to go to a compounding pharmacy to get them. A very different pharmacy than your CVS or your Walgreens.

1:10:04Dr. Mindy Pelz:Right. But doesn't a doctor normally have to prescribe them anyway? Of course. But with a doctor prescribed, like who would prescribe a synthetic one? Like what doctors?

1:10:13Jennifer Cohen:Oh, there's a thousand of them. There's millions of them out there right now.

1:10:17Dr. Mindy Pelz:So that's the first thing. So bioidentical for sure. For sure. But are you saying if someone is on bioidentical, can your body still reject it based on the toxic load? It's all about your cell's ability to receive. So how would you know? What are some signs that maybe your body cannot receive them?

1:10:36Jennifer Cohen:First thing, do you gain weight when you go on them?

1:10:39Dr. Mindy Pelz:That was my question to you. I bet you, I mean, I'm scared of these things, to be honest with you myself. Because I also, I know I've had every single menopause expert on the planet on this podcast. I've spoken to everybody and they all say, oh no, no. They give me a million factoids on why I shouldn't be scared. But I still in my head believe that it's cancer causing because whenever you're putting something in your body hormonally, I just think you never know.

1:11:05Jennifer Cohen:Yeah. Your hunch is strong and I think we should all still be asking that question. I'm scared. So like I've been asking the question of everybody's walking around going, we got the study wrong. Okay. Can we just talk about that for a moment? Isn't the job of the researchers and the team of researchers to interpret the data correctly? How the hell did the data get misinterpreted that dramatically? For that many years. For that many years. Yeah.

1:11:36Dr. Mindy Pelz:Like, it doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't, it doesn't like compute, like the math's not in my head. Because I can understand, to me, if someone wants to be on HRT, because yes, if you're on, it can maybe get you more lean muscle mass, all those maybe more, I don't know, kind of like more of the vanity reasons. That's one thing. But I would be scared based on like, for just doing something for vanity on the other end. I'd rather be five pounds heavier or 10 pounds heavier, but be healthier. Be alive. Be alive. Yes.

1:12:11Jennifer Cohen:Exactly. Yeah, I agree.

1:12:13Dr. Mindy Pelz:You know?

1:12:13Jennifer Cohen:So we have to question this, like, oh, they got the study wrong. Okay, well, maybe we should all individually go read the study. Yeah, where is the study? I'd like to see the study. Exactly. Yep. So there's that. Then the other thing that we have to look at is lifestyle. When did we throw lifestyle out the window. I just had a major hormone expert on my podcast. And I was like, okay, so if I'm going to increase testosterone, which she was a big fan of, I'm like, tell me what else I should do in my lifestyle. And her point, and it's a valid point, her point was, if I put somebody on testosterone, now that person's motivated to do their lifestyle.

1:12:56Jennifer Cohen:And I was like, okay, that's legit, but why don't we do them both at the same time?

1:13:02Dr. Mindy Pelz:Right. And also, you know, I was also told, so this is the problem. One person will say that, you know, they put their patient on testosterone. Other respected hormone doctors would say, actually, you can't just be putting your patient on one hormone. If you're putting them on one, you've got to put them on the other three as well. Bingo. Right? You can't just do one. Bingo. Yeah. Because then you'll be, you know what I mean? Yeah.

1:13:28Jennifer Cohen:And the other thing, and this one is the craziest, is you know what's the worst for menopause? It doesn't matter what therapy you're on. Yeah. Is stress. Stress. You can't rub enough estrogen onto a woman to undo a stress lifestyle.

1:13:46Dr. Mindy Pelz:Listen, you're preaching to the converted. I am so confused by, I don't know if, again, this is like too much information overload, where now there's so much information out there. Metaplase has become like the wild, wild west now on social media. Yes, thank you. Everybody's an expert. There's a bazillion contrary opinions everywhere. So I just choose to do nothing because I'm scared. Yeah.

1:14:10Jennifer Cohen:That's kind of how I do it. So I always go to my lifestyle first. Right. That's exactly what I do.

1:14:16Dr. Mindy Pelz:I'm like going to work out. I'll do weights because I know weights can't kill me. Yeah. You know? Right. Like I don't know. Everyone's on like a bazillion peptides, right?

1:14:24Jennifer Cohen:Oh, I like peptides. Peptides are fun, but they're also a question to ask. Well, I don't know what to go on. What are you taking? Are you taking? Okay, well, let's go into the peptide conversation a moment. Oh, the toxic overload.

1:14:34Dr. Mindy Pelz:Yeah, one thing I want to talk.

1:14:36Jennifer Cohen:No, one thing I just want to finish up on the HRT is that what women, I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt, you are not supposed to have the same estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone level at 50 as you did at 30. That's important. The natural state of the human body is for that level to go down. This is the whole premise of Age Like a Girl.

1:15:00Dr. Mindy Pelz:Yeah, this is a good point.

1:15:01Jennifer Cohen:Because if it goes down, what Lisa Moscone taught us is your brain rewires itself. And you actually, the loss of estrogen signals the brain to change. And you actually build a stronger brain long term. And by stronger, I mean your brain becomes more mentally clear. it becomes more unilateral, meaning it can use the right side of the brain. You can totally focus in on the creative side of your brain, or you can move over and totally focus in on your logical side of your brain. It is a pruning process that's preparing you for leadership, which is what the evolutionary reason for menopause is that we're meant to be leaders.

1:15:45Jennifer Cohen:We need estrogen to go down in order to change our brain for the better so that we are stronger, more independent, more focused at 60, 70, and 80. Really? It's Lisa Moscone's work and I amplified it in Age Like a Girl.

1:16:00Dr. Mindy Pelz:That's a really good point. So what happens into your brain if you're a 50-year-old woman taking these hormones to be more like a 35-year-old?

1:16:08Jennifer Cohen:You need to make sure you're not taking such a high dose.

1:16:12Dr. Mindy Pelz:Right.

1:16:13Jennifer Cohen:So like I'll use myself as an example. I do bioidenticals at the lowest dose possible, and I always square it with my lifestyle. If my brain isn't working right, I don't think, oh, let me lather more estrogen on. I'm like, okay, have I been drinking alcohol? Have I been, has my stress level's been high? Have I been eating right? Have I been fasting? Have I been giving enough ketones? Am I sleeping? I go down the list of things, and this is what I put in Age Like a Girl. Like my first thought is what control do I have? Not what do I need to lather on myself more?

1:16:50Dr. Mindy Pelz:Right. That's a good point. Do you think that creatine has helped your brain fog? Oh, creatine's amazing. Because you said you put it in your coffee and you do it before surfing.

1:16:57Jennifer Cohen:So creatine, estrogen stimulated creatine. So when you were cycling and creatine was hot, when estrogen was high, your body naturally made creatine. When you are not psyched, when estrogen goes down, you need to supplement with creatine.

1:17:11Dr. Mindy Pelz:Yeah.

1:17:12Jennifer Cohen:I'm a fan of that.

1:17:13Dr. Mindy Pelz:Are you taking 5 milligrams or 10?

1:17:15Jennifer Cohen:I believe in the mega dose of, and it's gone from 12 grams. It used to be the mega dose. And then recently a new study came out that said 20 grams. I saw that too. So two weeks, let's just say two weeks at 20 grams to get that mega dose. And then you need to go down to five grams as a daily dose. And then after 90 days, get off of it for two weeks and start over again.

1:17:37Dr. Mindy Pelz:Right. So because creatine is a supplement like everything else.

1:17:40Jennifer Cohen:That's right.

1:17:40Dr. Mindy Pelz:That's a good point. Okay. So now tell me, because I cut you off. I got excited about the toxic load. Like how do you know when you have a toxic load that you won't be able to even intake these things?

1:17:50Jennifer Cohen:Yeah, well, let's use thyroid hormones. Women have been taking exogenous thyroid hormones for years and not feeling any better. So this was a whole premise of my practice is I would take these women who had high, had really crazy thyroid symptoms and were on thyroid hormones, but they weren't getting better and we would detox them and all of a sudden they got better. So if you're taking HRT and you're not seeing an improvement, you might have a high toxic load. And toxins become very, very important in the menopause process. I have a whole chapter on it in the book because we can't be lathering.

1:18:27Jennifer Cohen:This is why we have to look at our toxic load. We have to look at plastics and heavy metals and endocrine disruptors like pesticides and beauty products. All of this is changing this internal environment. and if we're lathering ourselves with more hormones, more hormones doesn't mean feeling better. Cells being able to receive those hormones and low inflammation, no toxins in the receptor sites. We want a cell that is not packed with glucose molecules because you've been eating so much sugar. You've gotta get your cellular health nailed in order for those hormones to work, those exogenous hormones to work.

1:19:07Dr. Mindy Pelz:That's a good, so for example, if someone has a high, I got my blood test back and I had a high arsenic, very high arsenic.

1:19:14Jennifer Cohen:Where is it coming from? Yeah, water probably. Water? Soils, yeah. Arsenic comes from water. I know.

1:19:20Dr. Mindy Pelz:That's why I thought because of the fires that it was really bad. Yeah.

1:19:24Jennifer Cohen:We had a lot of discussion. You probably got it from the fires too. Probably for sure, right? I know a lot of people in the biohacking space that started testing their blood after the fires here in LA to see. They were like, one woman in particular told me her blood work was so crazy that she moved out of LA.

1:19:42Dr. Mindy Pelz:Yeah, a lot of people. I mean, the last person here is to shut the lights because between COVID and the fires, nobody's here anymore. Really? Most of my friends are like, everyone's living in Florida or Austin. I mean, there's nobody here. Yeah, that's crazy.

1:19:58Jennifer Cohen:That's crazy. I know. I mean, I was pushed out of LA because I was in the Palisades. Well, you were in the Palisades. That makes sense. Yeah, so. But it's crazy.

1:20:06Dr. Mindy Pelz:Okay, I have one more question, then I can let you go, because I know you have a heart out here. What was the question I was going to ask you? I asked you about the toxic load. Peptides. Peptides, that was it. I want to ask you. Okay, peptides are interesting.

1:20:17Jennifer Cohen:I do want to bring those up, because what a peptide is, it's an amino acid sequence. So in your younger body, your body would eat food, like meat. Amino acids come from meat, by the way, most of them. and you would get enough amino acids to make a sequence of amino acids that your body would put together and then it would make a peptide. Peptide is this thing that initiates a biological process. So GLP-1, trisepatide, let's use trisepatide. Trisepatide is the peptide that helps you make GLP-1 hormone. But prior to that, it was a sequence of amino acids. As you get older, and your diet becomes more monofocused, you're not getting this diverse diet, or you're vegan, you're not eating enough animal meat, you're not getting enough amino acids.

1:21:14Jennifer Cohen:If you're not getting enough amino acids, then you're not making these peptides. If you're not making these peptides, then there's certain biological processes that aren't going to work in your body. So peptides, to me, are phenomenal. There's not a side effect to them. But all you're doing is you're reinstating a natural process that the body can do if you ate the right food. But I personally have used, my favorite one is a peptide right now called cerebrolysin. And it helps your body make BDNF. And BDNF is - Protein, yeah. Yeah. So when I was writing this book, I was injecting cerebrolysin. And the next thing I know, I was like focused for eight hours writing the book.

1:21:56Jennifer Cohen:Like my focus was so on, like just through the roof.

1:22:01Dr. Mindy Pelz:Really? Yeah. It sounds like Adderall.

1:22:04Jennifer Cohen:It was very, I've never been on Adderall, but it felt like.

1:22:07Dr. Mindy Pelz:I did it for like 25 years ago for a week and I was like so focused. It was crazy. But like you're telling me, I don't know how people can stay on that thing longer than like a week, but that's besides the point. So you're telling me, what's it called? What's it called?

1:22:22Jennifer Cohen:Yeah, cerebrolysin.

1:22:23Dr. Mindy Pelz:I've never heard of that one.

1:22:24Jennifer Cohen:Yeah, it's a fun peptide. And, um, but the thing is, is that then energy on it. Oh yeah. But then I couldn't sleep that night because my brain was just like, I was like, stop talking to me.

1:22:38Dr. Mindy Pelz:Really?

1:22:38Jennifer Cohen:So it had a downside. How long were you on that one? Uh, I, well, I continue to use it if I need it for a brain day, but I know my sleep is going to be compromised. So I just use it as needed. I love that. Another, another peptide that you might love in the fitness industry is BPC one five seven. I know about that. Everybody loves that one.

1:22:56Dr. Mindy Pelz:Everyone loves that one. So that's like a joint one. It's for like inflammation. People love that one.

1:23:03Jennifer Cohen:Surgery, I've seen it help people. My husband had a hip replacement. And so we ended up doing that beforehand and after. And after. He recovered so well. People love that one. Yeah, another one that's really cool that I'm experimenting with is GHK, you know, that one dash CU for skin. I have heard of it.

1:23:22Dr. Mindy Pelz:I haven't used it, but I'm curious about it. I've heard a lot about that.

1:23:26Jennifer Cohen:So they're fun. I don't think I'm trying to bring – you should reach out to him too. I'm trying to bring the father of peptides onto my podcast. What's his name? Dr. Seeds.

1:23:37Dr. Mindy Pelz:Was he at that thing that I saw you – I'll ask you off this thing. What's his first name?

1:23:43Jennifer Cohen:I think it's William, but he's like he wrote the peptide Bible. Okay.

1:23:47Dr. Mindy Pelz:I'm going to find it. I want to get that guy on. Because he – yeah.

1:23:50Jennifer Cohen:We're trying to get him on too right now. And he'll come on because he asked me what I wanted to talk about. And I was like, I want to talk about peptides and menopause. You should bring him on to talk about peptides and fitness. I do. And like, for sure.

1:24:03Dr. Mindy Pelz:I'm going to remind myself after. Okay. So is there anything else I can... Oh, I just want to ask a quick question that I saw before and I was curious and I wanted my audience to know about apple cider vinegar and fasting. Oh my God. Everybody loves apple cider vinegar. Yeah. Tell me about that.

1:24:15Jennifer Cohen:So apple cider vinegar stabilizes blood sugar.

1:24:18Dr. Mindy Pelz:Right. Can I just take it on my own without fasting?

1:24:20Jennifer Cohen:Yeah.

1:24:21Dr. Mindy Pelz:Does it work?

1:24:21Jennifer Cohen:Yeah. The research is like some of the videos on my YouTube that have done the best are apple cider vinegar. And because it stabilizes blood sugar. So you just do a tablespoon in water before you eat a meal or put it on your salad dressing or you have it in your fasting window and it will stabilize your blood sugar so that you're not hungry and you don't end up with this huge insulin response. It's amazing.

1:24:46Dr. Mindy Pelz:Okay. So just one tablespoon a day is before a meal.

1:24:50Jennifer Cohen:Before a meal is the best. You can do it after a high-carbohydrate meal. It'll bring that blood sugar down if you want it. I don't love the taste of it. That's terrible. So that's why I don't want it after a big meal. I can't imagine stomaching that. But before, sometimes I'll put it in water and drink it throughout the day to keep my blood sugar stable. But yeah, fasters use it all the time to get over that hunger, to make sure that they don't get too – their blood sugar doesn't get too low. So some of the pre-diabetics that we have put into fasted states, their blood sugar is too high. And so it won't drop down.

1:25:24Jennifer Cohen:And so we have them use it then to try to get it a little bit lower. So I've done a ton of videos on it. Okay, I'm going to look.

1:25:32Dr. Mindy Pelz:People ask me about that. I'm like, I'll ask her. By the way, I got so excited for you. We didn't do our little shots. But we do these little magic. Have you tried this before?

1:25:42Jennifer Cohen:No, tell me what it is. I can't read it without my glasses. I know.

1:25:44Dr. Mindy Pelz:I was going to say I have my glasses here. but I know what it is already. But these are magic minds. It's kind of like a performance health shot. I love it. And we do it all the time before we start the podcast because it's supposed to like help the guests be like super focused and alert. But two hours later, I mean, like you should have had this on your Steve Bar like diary of a diary. Yeah, exactly. But then it actually works for you, right? Yeah. Because then it skyrocketed your whole business.

1:26:09Jennifer Cohen:Yeah, right. That's right. So whatever I said. Whatever he says, perfect. Okay, so let's do this. Magic mind. I love this.

1:26:15Dr. Mindy Pelz:You've never tried these. Okay, you're going to be like, I'm telling you, because every guest who's ever been on here has asked me afterwards if I can send them a bunch. I have to be careful. I have to find more podcasts. These are delicious, literally. Where do I get them? Air One. Okay. Everywhere. I'm like, hold on. I want to tell you what's in it, because it's like really good stuff. Like ashwagandha. There's turmeric. I should like know by now, but my brain. See, if I would have taken this earlier, I would have known. but they're really delicious actually. Do you like them? Yeah. It's tasty.

1:26:48Dr. Mindy Pelz:Not bad, right? Yeah. Super tasty. But because people like always take this other one that I'm not crazy about, but these are delicious.

1:26:55Jennifer Cohen:Amazing. I'm going to take the bottle with me.

1:26:57Dr. Mindy Pelz:Do you want me to give you more?

1:26:59Jennifer Cohen:Sure. You can send me some? Of course. I can send you a bottle.

1:27:02Dr. Mindy Pelz:Oh, by the way. Okay. By the way, her book is called, I should say goodbye, Aged Like a Girl. She is fantastic. And also I love your personality. You're so cute.

1:27:11Jennifer Cohen:Thank you.

1:27:12Dr. Mindy Pelz:Get the book. And thank you for coming on.

1:27:14Jennifer Cohen:Yeah, thanks for having me. Of course. This was so fun. I love it. So appreciate it.

1:27:18Dr. Mindy Pelz:So appreciate you being here. Bye-bye.