413 - How to Lose Belly Fat & Heal Your Hormones with Dr. Mindy Pelz

24:35Like, like we support each other. It's amazing. You know? And so I think that's how it should be. Exactly. And that's how the doctor should be too. This is a big thing that I've really been trying to teach my community is like, you know, the, the best analogy I can give is when you're putting a toolbox together, let's say you're going to build something in your house. You don't look at the toolbox and go, well, I've got a hammer and I've got a screwdriver and well, forget the screwdriver, the hammer is way better. You look at what the job is and you're like, well, I need a hammer for this. I need a screwdriver for that.

25:07We should look at diets the same way. We should look at like fasting is a healing tool. And I, there are six different level fasts that I love. And you get to decide when you're going to pull that tool out. And then eating is also a tool, a health tool. So now let's, if we go off those three principles, like maybe you need to increase the diversity of the foods that you're eating, but your bestie doesn't. Maybe your bestie is like, I'm doing all the diversification. And then maybe your bestie needs to work on gut and liver support so she can break down her hormones. And you might be like, well, I eat salads with everything.

25:40And then maybe another friend is like, hey, you know what? I got those two things nailed. I just really need to work on like detoxifying these hormones. That's the nuance of the conversation that needs to happen. And then as women, like you said with Chris, we are natural collaborators. Why? We should never be talking poorly about another woman. We should never be competing with another woman. We should be cheering every other woman on. Yes. Celebrating them. What do they need? How can I be there for you? That's right. Let's talk about fasting and building muscle. So like one of the things I love feeling strong, like that's one of my favorite feelings to have.

26:19I've heard a lot of people say that they are somewhat afraid of losing muscle when fasting. So what's your perspective on that? Oh, I'm so happy you asked me this question. Did I tell you to ask me this question? I was really good. This is why we're such like soul sister friends because we connect on this level. So this is one of the biggest criticisms people give fasting. So here's what I've seen and here's what the literature says. So when you go into a fasted state, your blood sugar is going down. So the brain registers that and says, where else have we stored blood sugar? And there are three places it stored it.

26:54The inside the cell, the liver, well, actually there's like four inside the cell, liver, gut, and muscle. So it's going to go to those areas. Oh, and fat. So it's going to go to those areas and it's going to start dumping all of that glucose. So as it dumps all that glucose, your muscles may appear as if they're shrinking because the body is making itself stronger. It's releasing stored glucose. So in the actual fast, it might feel like the muscle is less, has gotten smaller. But here's the clincher. And this is why I'm so happy to put Eat Like a Girl out into the world, is that fasting is one part of the equation.

27:35So yes, it appears as muscle shrinks when you fast, but that's why when you eat, you need to make sure you're powering up on protein. And I fall into the category of 30 grams of protein, especially in that first meal. I think that's a beautiful way to look at it. And it opens up an amino acid receptor site that makes your muscles very much receptive to all other amino acids the rest of the day. So if you are somebody who's fasting, you feel like you're losing muscle, then my answer to you is when you eat, eat and eat more protein and then you won't lose muscle. And, and I'll tell you a story on this that really blew me away was, I don't know, like five years ago, I was in a yoga class with a group of women that we were doing every Sunday morning, the same yoga class together.

28:24And this woman who was about 10 years older than me came up to me after class and she's like, you are building muscle. Like, what are you doing? And that was at the height of my fasting. I was like doing three day water fast, five day water fast. But then when I ate, I'm a big protein lover. And what I realized I was doing is actually was like making the muscle stand out even more because I was leaning myself out by releasing all the stored glucose. And then I was powering up on protein and I was building muscle. I wasn't lifting weights at the time. Wow. It was insane. So we have to bring both of these metabolisms into the conversation when it comes to muscle.

29:02Cause yeah, you go on a five day water fast, you're going to pierce your muscle. It's just going to happen, but now go eat protein and see what happens. So I'm excited about this new book. Cause it sounds to me as I'm listening to you, the inspiration behind it was like, okay, fast, like a girl, amazing. Your other work, amazing. But there was this whole other piece that you wanted to dig into. Um, and I know last night we were hanging out in your hotel room just chatting up and I saw you get so lit up. First of all, I love to cook. I love recipes. And I think in this particular book, you went bonker pants on making sure, right?

29:38No, but they're incredible. So can you tell us about the recipes and eat like a girl and why this was so important for you to get it right? And who's the book for too? Yeah. Well, okay. So the interesting thing about who the book is for, and this is going to be like, how can you accomplish this? When Fast Like a Girl came out, do you know that there were two groups of people I heard from the most? The first was the women in their 20s and 30s who had lost their menstrual cycle. I mean, hundreds of thousands of messages my team got about like, well, what do I do about that? And that's when we were like, oh, what are you eating?

30:09We need to talk about the eating window. Okay. The second was all the mama bears. All the 45, 50 year old women who had teenage daughters were like, help me get this information to my daughter. Like how my daughter is suffering. So when I wrote this book, I really thought about everything from the post-menopausal grandma all the way down to the 20-year-old that doesn't have a cycle. As an author, you know how hard it is to write to that wide of an audience. But if anyone can do it, I know you, you can do it. Yeah, I hope I accomplished it. And actually, something really fun, a little side note.

30:42When we went to go do the photos, I took my mom, I brought my mom in, who's 84. And then I brought my daughter, who's 24. Oh, God bless. So we're all 30 years apart. Oh, God bless. So I'm 54. So the three of us are, there's some pictures in there of the three of us. I'm doing all the crying emojis, you guys, like 17 of them. Yeah. And it was really important to me because that's, here are three generations of women that are all using the principles in the book very differently. Like my 84-year-old mother doesn't go on three-day water fasts, but I do have her intermittent fasting for her cognition.

31:16whereas my 24 year old, you know, is more into food and detoxing and eating clean. So we talk more about food than long fasting windows. So I really wanted to bring all three into the picture. And I love it. It's like a grab bag. It's like this beautiful buffet of possibility. And it's like, oh, well, what do I need? And you know, what levers would I like to pull today? Right. Exactly. Before we keep going on this, and I do want to bring it back to the chefs. Yeah, I was going to say we have to go back to that. But I want to talk first because I feel like our chip throwdown was so epic. and you basically taught me, like I was in the grocery store the other day.

31:49I'm like, nope, Mindy not approved. Nope, Mindy not approved. Nope, Mindy not approved. I love that. So, but I want to go back. Are there things, products, and maybe this is a whole other episode we do, in terms of anything that we should look out for in terms of stuff, and I'm asking for me personally, stuff that we're putting on our skin. Like from a beauty perspective, most of, I will say most, not perfect by any stretch, but I think probably like 60 to 70 percent. Everything is super, super clean. Great. I'm curious if there are certain ingredients that you're like, Marie, I need you to watch out for this and everybody.

32:21Yeah. This, this, this, and this. Okay. Easiest way to determine is there are two apps that you can scan all your beauty products with. One is called Think Dirty. Cute name. Yeah. And it's put out by the Breast Cancer Prevention Fund, which is all about preventing breast cancer. The other one's called Skin Deep and it's put out by the Environmental Working Group. You take those two apps and like today you could do it. Just go scan your, all your beauty, all my cosmetics, all my hair stuff. Okay. And you just scan it all. And then here's what you can do. I usually say, just throw out what's toxic.

32:52So like, I'll go off, think dirty. If there, if it scores a three or higher or like really a four or higher, um, throw it out, just throw it out. Um, now having said that, cause you're in lights a lot, this is something actually a friend, a good friend. She's become a good friend Leanne Rimes. She and I had this discussion early on when I first started working with her. And so she created two different makeups. One was the makeup she used when she wasn't on stage and on lights and one that she had to use because it doesn't drip and it doesn't, you know, it's like it held up better when she was performing or on an interview.

33:29So you could do the same thing. Like, you know, just section them out and make sure that that moment when you're like, look I can't have like eyeliner boogers in my eyes totally like you need to have your stuff totally so um so I like that as an example of what you can do but um it's it's really important that you dial your beauty products in um those are all if they're toxic they're endocrine disruptors um there are so many reasons why they are destroying your hormones yeah I mean because just think about it I always think about this I'm like uh I'm doing all of this intentional work. Yeah. Busting my little booty, you know, trying to keep the diet, right?

34:08You do this, do the workout. And then am I like totally effing myself up over here undoing, you know, or maybe making it worse, um, the things I'm not even paying attention to. So I wanted to ask, so thank you for that. Cause I don't have those apps downloaded. And then the other thing I would say is, um, from the chip throwdown that we did, which people go watch that on my YouTube channel. I did something I did not know I was going to, that was literally, that was like, talk about Jersey Marie spirit. It was awesome. Yes. So fun. It's so fun. You guys will just have to go watch it to see it. Um, I put an ingredient list, a label in eat like a girl.

34:43And I, I literally take people through like this is when I take it through the lens of what this tells you about hormonal health. And so I like, here's what these ingredients are. Here's what that is. And this is what you want to look at because you know what we were taught is to look at the calories. Yes. And then maybe we look at the fat and that's it. But we need to retrain everybody. So that's the first thing. Second thing, and I'm not sure if I mentioned this when we were together, is I put a huge chart in the book on what is called obesogens. No, we didn't talk about this. Okay, so this is really interesting and something that I'm like, I hope people grab this with this book, is that there are chemicals that are put in our food that are literally known obesogens.

35:25And what an obesogen is, is when you eat that chemical over and over and over again, it tells your stem cell, which your stem cells are a cell that can go anywhere in your body and make anything, it tells your stem cells to make fat cells. Jesus. So literally, you're eating these chemicals. Let's go to chips. You have your favorite bag of chips. You're eating it over and over and over again. It's packed with obesogens. And you're dieting, you're exercising, you're trying to figure out why you can't live in a body or get your body to be the way you want it to be. But you don't realize that the ingredients on your favorite bag of chips you're eating over and over again are actually reprogramming you to start to build fat.

36:06It's not a calorie issue. It is a toxin issue. Jesus. Yeah. Crazy, right? It's crazy. No. And this is why these conversations are so important because again, I thought I was doing real good until our chips were then I was like, I got a whole other level to go to. So we talked about, um, I want to really make sure that we break these down because I think these are two great philosophies that you have in Eat Like a Girl, the foundational five and the three food rules. Even if we've covered them before, I really want to stick it and make sure that people hear these. Yeah. So one of the things that I realized is like, I didn't really want to write a book that confused people even more.

36:41Like I want to take all the information that we've all ever been given about nutrition and let me simplify it for you. So the foundational five are pretty, really simple. And I hope people accept them that way. One is blood sugar matters, not calories. Okay. The calorie thing, can we just like say right here, right now, like whoever's listening between you and I, like we're done with calories. It tells us nothing about our health. It doesn't give us any vision of, of good hormonal health. It is an old outdated theory that needs to go away. Love it. Blood sugar, on the other hand, absolutely tells you how quickly you're going to age, if you're going to store fat, if you're going to balance hormones.

37:24It is such an important marker that I really feel like if we could put a continuous glucose monitor on every single person in the world, we would end chronic disease. I mean, I believe it because my dad, you know, my dad has type two and he's taken himself off a little bit. And anytime we show him his numbers because he's number obsessed, he gets under control. Right. And most of us do. Right. When we have that instant data and that instant feedback and we can see in real time, that's right. It wakes most of us up. Yeah. I mean, how many of us don't know what our food is doing? Most of us. Right.

37:58Totally. So you can eat a meal, you scan the continuous glucose monitor, and then it'll just tell you like, how did that food do for you? So blood sugar has to be like at the forefront of everybody's brain. So that would be rule number one, which leads me to rule number two, which ties into this, which is eat for your microbiome, not your taste buds. Yes. This is a big one. Cause how many of us have been, you know, it's like if I, cause I've had, and I've gone through some just terrible things where my microbiome was way off kilter. And it's almost like I could feel, I'm like, oh, there's like, I'll use this, you know, very technical term like shitty bugs in there.

38:38Yeah. Wanting the sweets or the sugar. Like it almost felt like little creatures going, there is, there actually is. You should be eating this and that's terrible for you. Let's get more of it. Yeah. And I've also experienced other times now is presently one of them where things are nice. It's healthy. It's strong. And I am craving my veggies. I'm craving my fruits. I'm craving my nuts. I'm craving my kimchi. I'm, you know, I'm craving the things that I'm like, I know intellectually that this is right. It's actually your bugs craving them. Yes. Right. I'm like, happy bugs, good bugs. Yeah. Like this is the reframe we have to think about.

39:13So there are bacteria, good bacteria in your gut that sends your brain signals that says, feed me. So like they've actually identified the bacteria that makes you crave chocolate. So when that bacteria is hungry, it's going to be like you eat chocolate. And so then you're going to go get chocolate. And if you get the, you know, I'm a fan of chocolate, by the way, Like I think a good high quality chocolate is wonderful. But if you go and eat like a chocolate that you are like, ooh, this is, what did you call it? Naughty. Oh, naughty town. Are we going to naughty town? Are we going to spanky town?

39:43Like at what level are we going to be? Yes, yes. Like you go to naughty town and you go into like a box of chocolates. Yeah. And then again, you turn on yourself. You're like, oh God, I was going on that diet. I was doing so well. And then I got stuck and you start blaming yourself and you don't realize that it's a set of bacteria in your gut that actually is giving you these signals. So there was a, when I first started understanding fasting, there was a beautiful study that had just come out. This is like 10 years ago. And it was called the Every Other Day Diet. And what they did is they took a group of people who were metabolically challenged.

40:16Let's just say that. Their blood pressure was high. Their liver enzymes were off. Their cholesterol was high. They were obese and they were eating horrible food. And they said, okay, here's what we're going to do. You can eat whatever you want on one day. And then the next day you're not eating. and then the next day eat whatever you want and then you're not eating. So every other day you fasted and on the days you weren't fasting you ate whatever you wanted. At the end of the year every single person in the group had lost weight and every single and all their metabolic markers had changed and every single person's food cravings changed.

40:50Wow. So the only reason that happened was because their microbiome changed. So we have to go back. If you literally look at a menu or you're at a store and you go, I just did this with lunch before I came over here. I was like, I, I, I, I, my taste buds wants fries. Yes. Yes. Like I was like a burger and fries sounds amazing right now, but I also haven't been eating enough fiber. I've been traveling. So I should probably get a salad because my microbiome would love a salad. Yes. So I chose a salad because I wanted to feed my microbiome, not my taste buds. I love that. And we all got to admit too, it's like the food, and I don't know if this is the same, but it feels like it's a related conversation about the obesogens.

41:33Like, come on, who doesn't think like French fries, right? It's like as a kid, how much I went to McDonald's all the time. You know, there was a million places where I have these memories of comfort food, you know, and different things. and like we're human. So you see that, you smell that. Every time I go to a theater, I am literally a Pavlovian dog. Wow. I don't do it. I don't activate it on anymore. But you know, for like decades when I was much younger, it was like the Coke comes on, the popcorn. I'm like, yes, please. You just, you see it, you smell it, you feel it, you want it. So don't beat yourself up if you have those cravings.

42:08But I love that. Yeah. You know, it's like just having the consciousness to make a different choice. Yeah. And just remember, again, I'm really hoping that this conversation, the book will like pull the shame and the angst and everything away from this diet culture that so many of us have been living in. And when you're like, I can't stick to the diet. I can't stick sugar-free. I can't stay off alcohol. I really would encourage people to think like, I wonder what's going on. Like, am I feeding my microbiome? Do I even know what that means to feed my microbiome? Because once you get in the habit of feeding your microbiome, your taste buds change.

42:41And I've seen this over and over and over again. But instead, what do we do when we sit down at a restaurant? We're like, what am I in the mood for? Yes. When you ask that question, you're asking your taste buds. If you ask, what haven't I eaten? That would be new food for me. And what could I do to feed my microbiome? You're going to find that over time, your taste buds are going to change. Rule number three. Rule number three, and this one I love too, is eat nature's carbs, not human made carbs. Tell it to us. Okay. So you know how the keto diet has been like, I feel like if the keto diet was like a human, it's like, it's been glorified.

43:23It's been punished. It's been like put through all the different levels of acceptance and hatred. And it's gotten a lot of confusion and people are like, should, what are, what macro nutrients should I be eating? okay to me it's as bad as counting calories let's just keep this simple what we need to know is that a good carb is one that the earth provided us and a bad carb is most likely one that that man made for us or humans made for us so let's put this into action fruits vegetables uh squashes potatoes like all of that sweet potatoes yeah sweet potatoes are like my favorite yeah like all of that nature provided us and in that there is hormonal magic so let's stop being like I need to go low carb how about we just say I need to get off the breads the cakes the pastas the cookies like the highly processed carbs if that's all we do it just makes it so much easier than when we were counting macros.

44:26Like when the keto diet first came out, everybody was like 50 grams, net carbs. They were on like all their different apps. Okay. That's not sustainable. No. Makes you crazy. It makes you crazy. Can't do it. If you run a business or you're doing a bunch of different things like we are, it's like, you're just kaput on the floor. Totally crazy. Can't do it. So that's why I just started saying just like fat, you know, we were like, we're like, everybody went low fat. And then all of a sudden they were like, wait a second, there's good fat. We need to go. And then we started talking good fat and bad fat.

44:53I want to create the same conversation with carbs. There is man-made carbs or human-made carbs and there is nature. And nature, for us as females, I feel like the more I study the female body, the more I think we are so in sync with nature. Like nature provided us with so many cool things to support our hormones. It's pretty amazing when you, like a sweet potato is amazing for progesterone. All of the really like green leafy vegetables that are amazing for the set of bacteria in your gut that are called the estrobilome and actually break down estrogen. So like nature knew what it was doing when it provided a woman food.

45:34All right. Four. So number four is protein isn't just for men. Oh, now this one's changing. The, the, I think, you know, it's interesting in the time that I started writing the book till now, like things are changing really fast. Oh my God. Protein, protein, protein everywhere, right? Yes. Everywhere is like protein. I need to eat more protein. So, but why? Let's break down why. So in protein, and it depends if you go animal or plant-based, which again, we should, we got to make sure we talk about my chefs. Because I think they both have benefit. But just a sheer fact is that animal meat has a more vast arrangement of amino acids.

46:13So I can eat a steak and get all the essential and non-essential aminos right then and there in one steak. Whereas plants, you might have to eat a variety of plants to get that same amount of amino acids. So amino acids are key nutrients that you need to make hormones. You also need it to make neurotransmitters. So when we're not eating enough protein, it's not just about muscle, although yay muscle, we love muscle, but it's also about hormones. So we've got to bring protein back. Hey, are you ready to get clear on your most important goals and let go of everything that's holding you back? Then grab my free yearly goals map from the link below.

46:56In just 10 minutes or less, you're going to have a roadmap to achieving your biggest dreams way faster and with less stress. Get your free download at yearlygoalsmap.com or if you're watching this on video, scan that onscreen QR code right now. And I think like, again, back with the macro counting, what ended up happening is everybody got into this place where they were like restricting everything. And I feel like protein's the hero macronutrient, like bring protein in. Like you can't really overdo protein. I love that. Which is amazing. Yeah. That's a good one. Okay. Number five. And then we go to chefs.

47:29Yeah. So number five is fat doesn't make you fat. I hope everybody knows this, but I want to, I want to point this out. And this is something I talked about in the book. I feel like fat as a nutrient does two things. One, our brain is 50 % good fat. So just like I looked at what I needed to eat, actually, it was pretty funny because the waiter even asked me, he's like, I asked for extra avocado with my salad today. And he's like, you know, it already comes with avocado. And I was like, double up, baby. Yeah, exactly. I was like, great, add more. Why did I do that? Well, one, I knew I was coming here and like wanted my brain to be at its sharpest.

48:07So half of the fuel source for my brain is fat. So I needed that. The second thing fat does is it puts the brakes on your blood sugar. So one of my chefs is a plant-based chef. And when I first met her, she was feeding me all this foods. We were at a retreat. She was feeding me all this, all these different foods. And then, and I had a glucose monitor on and I would go back to her and I'd be like, check this out. Like the main course you just gave me, the entree, it like spiked my blood sugar. Could you do something else to make this so different so it wouldn't spike my blood sugar? Well, after a couple of days of this, she brings me a chocolate cake.

48:46And no, yeah, seriously. And she's like, Mindy, I want you to try this. And I'm like, okay, I'll try it. I was testing everything. I scanned, I ate it, scanned my continuous glucose monitor. And do you know that it made my blood sugar go down? What is this magic chocolate cake? don't say it speak it for the people so I said to her I'm like what did you put in there she goes MCT oil oh and so it was the fat yep that brought the blood sugar down so just because you look at that and you're like it's a dessert and therefore it's going to spike my blood sugar what chef Leslie did is put a lot of fat into it and it brought it brought my blood sugar down so I know I have to say some of my favorite non-dairy chocolate vegan desserts are based in avocado.

49:35Yes. Like an avocado whipped kind of, do you know what I mean? Like chocolate moussey thing. And Josh is like, what the hell are you doing? I'm like, I'm being magical in the kitchen. And it's just, it's the best. I love that. So if you think about just that concept alone, when it comes to eating, we don't, I'm not advocating for deprivation. No. No, that's one thing I need to say. And especially in Fast Like a Girl too, because I used a lot of those recipes in your book and they're delicious. Thank you. And I love this too, because again, for folks who are just getting introduced to this, you know, when you are in your fasting days and then I want to talk, I want to talk about the chefs, then I want to talk about the fasted snack, because that's a really cool concept.

50:12On the hormone feasting days, I got that phrase right, right? Where it just, I just remember feeling like psychologically and emotionally so good because Because it was the first time that I feel like I ever read a nutrition book that was like, have the damn sweet potatoes. Like, have the carbs and let your body... I was like, yes. Like, it just felt like a celebration. Thank you for that feedback. Because when I went to go and look at these three different sex hormones, so we've got estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. I always... I said this in Fast Like a Girl, that estrogen and progesterone are like twin sisters.

50:47Like, we call them sex hormones. We clump them together. We think they're the same, but they have vastly different personalities. So estrogen really, really wants you to keep your car blowed down and wants you to be more insulin sensitive. And then she can like make her appearance and she's doing great. A great example of that is like infertility. We saw so many women in Fast Like a Girl who could not get pregnant, finally get pregnant because they started to learn how to cycle the food with their menstrual cycle. So we've got that on one hand, we've got that. Whereas progesterone, progesterone is like, girl, give me a cookie.

51:25Give me some chocolate. Sit your ass down on the couch. And then I will give you a menstrual cycle. That's literally like what she would say. So how do we rectify that? How do we like, what do we do? And every woman knows this because what do we do the week before our period? We're like, give me the bag of popcorn. Absolutely. Like, I don't feel like working out. Yeah. Again, what we do is we shame ourselves. We're like, oh, I can't stick to my diet. I don't want to go to my workout. But what we don't realize is progesterone is like knocking on the door. And she's like, excuse me, I need you to bring glucose up and I need you to take cortisol down.

52:02So I don't want you to do the extreme workout. I don't want you to do a diet. I don't want you to fast. I want you to eat and feed me. That's how complex and sophisticated we are. So I just think it's important that we look a little deeper at what the female body is needing. And that's, if those two hormones could talk, that's what they tell you. Yes. Okay. Chefs, chefs, we heard plant-based amazing chef who rolled out a chocolate cake that lowers your blood sugar. So this is incredible. So for any folks out there who are plant-based, you're going to have such a plethora of incredible recipes.

52:37Yeah. Yeah. Now let's talk about your other chef. Yeah. So the, So Chef Leslie, just a huge shout out to her because one of the things that I love about her is her passion for plant-based cooking. And she told me when I first met with her, she said there's 2 ,300 plants on this planet that are edible. And my job is to turn those into masterpieces that we can all eat. And then when I brought her the hormonal information, she's like, oh my God, next level understanding for me. So there is a whole track for plant-based people. So you could pick up this book and you could be like, I'm vegan. I don't ever want to hear you say meat again.

53:13Yep. And you have a whole track in there. I did a 30 day plan just for vegans in there that are all based off of her recipes. Beautiful. Then I'm not plant based. I believe in eating meat and, but I also believe we need to give choices to each other. We need to, we need to be able to invite everybody into the conversation of what it looks like to eat like a girl. So I needed to make sure that we brought the best meat-based chef in. So I found this incredible guy, and his name's Chef Jeff. Let me tell you a couple cool things about Jeff. So for starters, he had a top restaurant in Vegas called Valencia Gold.

53:49He owned that restaurant. So he's, you know, in fact, when the recipes first came back, we were like, hey, we love you, Jeff. Some of them are a little chef-y. Yeah. Like too much. Too chef-y. So we like put those aside and made sure that, you know, all the recipes that were in there, but they are. The second thing is that he learned how to eat meat from the elder women in Spain. And I was like, this is perfect because like his recipes are, they actually do have a little more of a Spanish twist to them. I love that. And they are based off of what he learned from these elder women. I'm like, this is what I want to bring.

54:29I want to bring the wisdom of elder women together. Yes. And then the third thing, when I asked him, like, do you understand anything about women's hormones? Turns out that he was a competitive pairs figure skater. Oh. And he's like, oh, I know all about this because my figure skating partner was a woman and we had to train differently according to her cycle. I'm like, what? Like. That, like, when have we ever heard that? Right. It's awesome. It's amazing. So I just, and these two chefs were so into this project. Like he would, Chef Jeff would send me texts. He's like, I just nailed keto caramel sauce.

55:07He's like, we're going to change caramel sauce for the world. And that recipe is in there. And then like chef Leslie was like, oh my God. Like I sent her, like she has a bunch of soups in there, detox soup. She's like, I nailed that. I wanted her to do a broth that was similar to bone broth for vegans. and she was like, I did a functional mushroom broth. Like they were all in texting me as they were creating all these recipes. Oh, I can't wait. And then when we shot the pictures for all the people who were like eating the food that was shot for the pictures, they were like sending me messengers like this is off the hook.

55:42Oh dude, I can't wait to get my way through it. Okay. Fasted snacks. What is a fasted snack and how can we get our hands on stuff? Right? Yes. So big question that a lot of people ask me is what can I have in my fasting window? Now, let's break down that principle before I go into a fasted snack. The goal is to metabolically switch. So when you eat, you're in the sugar burner system. When you fast, you're in the fat burning system. Now, when you start to switch from sugar burner to fat burner, it takes about eight hours before your body really gets over there and starts making ketones. So I always say you're safely in your fat burning system at about 12 hours.

56:21Okay, that four hours from eight to 12 hours for some people is brutal. Like they are just like, I can't make it to 12. I can't make it to 15. Like if they go 12, they can't go to 15 or 17 hours. So I started scouring PubMed. And PubMed is like the Google for all science articles. And I wanted to see if there was anything out there that showed that you can still get all the benefits of fasting, but you could actually eat something. And so I found two examples. One was actually a study that was done on what they called it, a fasted snack. And it has some parameters. So you've got to keep your protein under 20 grams in this fasted snack.

57:04Because once you elevate protein, you pull yourself out of something called autophagy, which is this healing mechanism that happens when you fast. So protein has to be under 20 grams. You have to keep it under 200 calories was the other thing. and it had to be mostly made up of fat. So until Chef Leslie, I was like, I, what I did all the time was a keto cup. Have you ever heard of a keto cup? Only from you, but I don't know what's in it. Yeah. So a keto cup is just coconut oil with some chocolate without sweetener. I think it might have monk fruit in it around the outside. And I would just tell everybody, eat keto cups.

57:41If you can't make it in that fasting window and you're struggling, let's just, they're like training wheels. Let's eat keto cups. But then I went on to study fasted snacks more. And I found that actually one of the most interesting studies they did is they took two groups of people. One group, they said, you're going to fast 13 hours, and then you're going to break your fast. The other group, they said, you're going to actually fast 15 hours, but at 13 hours, we're going to give you a fasted snack. So, and we're going to see what metabolically happens. The group that went 15 hours eating the fasted snack actually lost more weight and the weight they lost was around their waist circumference.

58:22Amazing. Amazing. Amazing. So then I started pulling that out and I was like, okay, this is really interesting. Like we let's, how do we make this flexible? What if we could create fasted snacks that will really help people stay in that fasting window, but curb the hunger. And so Chef Leslie created, like, I think we have about 10 different fasted snacks. Some of them are drinks because people like to drink. Some of them are drinks that will stabilize blood sugar. Awesome. And then she has some fasted crackers in there. We have some fat bomb dips. Like there's a lot in there. I'm getting hungry.

58:54I'm going to need a snack after this. Okay. I've heard you talk about not eating after dark. I know we talked a little bit about circadian rhythms. How, talk to us about this. Yeah. Should we not eat after dark? Yeah, Yeah, it's such a good concept. So here's what you need to know about hormones is that they all play with each other. They like interact with each other. So melatonin, when melatonin goes high, you actually become more insulin resistant. So melatonin and insulin, they don't really like each other. They don't play fairly together. So if you think about it, the meal that you would have at five o 'clock when it's light out, that meal will have a different insulin response than the meal if you have the same meal at nine or 10 o 'clock at night.

59:41Because at nine or 10 o 'clock at night, you have a ton of melatonin. And so your insulin system is a little sleepy. It's a little sluggish. So when you eat that meal, if insulin is the hormone that will help shuttle glucose into the cell. So if insulin's asleep and doesn't come out when melatonin comes out, then what your body does is it stores that extra glucose as fat, which actually brings up a really interesting point that I also am trying to free people of is all fat is, is excess. That's all it is. It's not undisciplined. It's not you're a bad person. It's not your genetics. Your brilliant body was like, I don't know what to do with this glucose.

1:00:25I don't know what to do with this obesogen. I don't know what to do with this synthetic estrogen hormone. I'm going to go ahead and put it around your belly because if I put it in your breasts, if I put it in your heart and your lungs, that's going to end your life. And the number one goal for me is survival. So when melatonin is high and we eat all that extra glucose gets shuttled to fat. So that's the nighttime. Yes. The morning is interesting too, because what happens is you still have melatonin high. So it starts to shut off. And what shuts it off is looking at light. And now what ends up happening is that insulin system gets turned on, but within the first hour of waking up, cortisol gets turned on too.

1:01:10Okay. Whenever cortisol is high, cortisol was meant to make you move. So you should go, you should go walk or run first thing in the morning. But cortisol also makes you insulin resistant. So if you just get up in the morning and you just wait an hour before you eat, you are going to have a better metabolic experience with that because melatonin and cortisol have done their thing and they are gone. And now you're more insulin sensitive. I love this. So does this build into, I had a question about, are there fasting mistakes that people make that actually cause them to gain weight? Oh yeah. Let's talk about that because I think again, if someone's like, Oh, this sounds really fascinating.

1:01:52I'm always wanting to know, well, what are the mistakes? Where can I step in it? And I don't want to. Well, mistake number one is they fast too long for too often. It's like overdoing fasting. Yep. So, and this for women, what ends up happening is all of a sudden we got a bunch of complaints like people's hair they're losing their hair or if you fast too much you actually metabolically can get stuck and your body starts to hold on to weight wow so that's why in fast like a girl I laid out six different level fasts and I'm like hey vary your fasts of these six yep so that's the first one second one when a woman should never fast the week before her period because that's when that's progesterone's moment yeah progesterone's like I want glucose and I don't want cortisol.

1:02:35So back off, sit your butt. This is why the, like what we call it, the sit your ass down retreat. Sit your ass down retreat. This is something that Mindy and I are considering doing for all of us overachievers who are just need to sit our ass down every once in a while. And at that retreat, you know what's going to happen is we're going to just be sitting there and people are going to be like, what are we doing? And then I'm probably going to get up and dance. And then we're all going to get up and dance. And we're going to be like, no, it's the sit your ass down retreat, which means we do nothing.

1:03:01Yes. So, but yeah, so the week before your period, you don't want cortisol to go up. Otherwise progesterone's out. One of the more interesting things I noticed from fast like a girl that again, really shocked me is how many 20 and 30 year olds don't have a cycle. And now if we go back to what I said before, which is, that's how we detox. This is a problem when you're 28, 32 years old. Yes. You need to be able to shed that uterine lining. So I had a couple of theories on it. One was many of the younger generation has got some body dysmorphic issues. And I think as women in general, we need to free ourselves of trying to look a certain size or look like everybody or look like the person on Instagram that's been Photoshopped.

1:03:44So there's that. But the other thing is that cortisol is saturation for that younger generation is so high. And if you're stressed out all the time, progesterone's out and progesterone has to peak in order for that uterine lining to shed. So, you know, when we look at who, you know, when, when does fasting go dark? Yeah. It's when we're doing it too long for, you know, too much of it for too long. And when women aren't minding the week before their period. Amazing. It's that simple. I love it. Um, so this has been incredible and I, I've really like in my mind right now, I cannot wait to cook my way through like a girl.

1:04:27Is there anything else that you want to let the people know or that you want to say before we wrap? I think we talked about this. One of the things I've realized in, in just being on social media and having so many women like report back to us, how their health is, is that women as a whole, we are massively dysregulated right now. Like our metabolic system is dysregulated. Our nervous system is dysregulated. Our hormones are dysregulated. Microbes, like we are so out of harmony with our own body. So when I put eat like a girl together, my idea was now there is a combo of books. You can do fast like a girl and eat like a girl.

1:05:04And for the woman, she can learn how to get her metabolic system and her nervous system and her microbial system on track just by using food as medicine and the timing of food as medicine. Once we get that all regulated, now we're going to have another conversation that'll come in another book. But I think what's really important is that we are constantly looking for that one thing. And there's not one thing. There's these systems. You are a rhythmic human as a female. You are in rhythm all the time. So eat like a girl and fast like a girl was meant to bring those three systems back into rhythm.

1:05:41I love it. And me as a dancer, as you know, it's like rhythm and harmony and cycles and nature. It's like, this is who we are. This is who we're meant to be. And to kind of really take a stand against, I think for many of us, I know I was just conditioned, you know, to almost behave like a robot, you know, and like a production machine and no matter what, decades and decades of that. It's like, and you probably got disconnected from your body too. Oh yeah. And I'm a very body centric person, you know? And, and so, uh, I just, I love it and I love your work and I adore you and I appreciate everything that you put out into the world.

1:06:16And thank you for taking the time, not only to be here today, but to do all of your incredible work and to keep sharing so passionately. Oh, thank you. Again, I just appreciate the opportunity because as women, we're more powerful together. Yes. And I think every time you and I get together, I'm like reminded of that. Like we should be supporting each other, lifting each other up, believing in ourselves. Like the moment of competition needs to go away. Collaboration is here. And the moment of us trying to do what every other woman is doing is gone. The moment of I do it my way, a woman's way, is absolutely here.

1:06:49So thank you. I appreciate you.