Insulin Resistance? 6 Daily Habits That Can Make a Difference

Insulin resistance can develop gradually, sometimes long before you notice changes in your blood sugar. And while genetics and other health factors play a role, the habits you practice every day can have a meaningful impact on your metabolic health. In this solo episode of Live Like a Girl, Dr. Mindy Pelz shares six practical habits that can help support insulin sensitivity, particularly for women navigating midlife and hormonal changes. She explains why the quality of your carbohydrates matters, how a 10-minute walk after meals can influence your blood sugar response, and why building muscle is one of the most valuable things you can do for your metabolism as you age. You'll also learn how fiber and fermented foods support gut health, why sugary beverages deserve a closer look, and how your sleep routine can affect the way your body responds to insulin. In this episode, you'll learn: What insulin resistance is and how it developsWhy carbohydrate quality matters for blood sugar regulationHow pairing carbohydrates with protein or fat can support a steadier glucose responseThe benefits of walking for 10 minutes after mealsWhy resistance training and muscle mass matter for women over 40How fiber, legumes, and fermented foods support gut healthThe impact of sugary beverages on blood sugarWhy sleep consistency matters for insulin sensitivityThree practical habits you can start today Resources Mentioned Wise Goat Organics https://wisegoatorganics.com/shop-full-width/?af=drmindyBen Bikman Interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZhqLE-pTYM&t=2sFor more resources related to today’s episode, visit the podcast episode page: drmindypelz.com/ep378 https://www.drmindypelz.com Connect with Dr. Mindy: Join Reset Academy https://resetacademy.drmindypelz.com/reset-academy?utm_source=libsyn&utm_medium=podcast&utm_term=&utm_content=loc-description&utm_campaign=reset-academyWatch the episodes on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@DrMindyPelz?sub_confirmation=1Follow Dr. Mindy on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dr.mindypelz/Subscribe to Dr. Mindy’s newsletter https://www.drmindypelz.com/ Disclaimer: This podcast is intended for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, fasting routine, or lifestyle.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Mindy Pelz?

  Okay, I have something I've got to say that I really think a lot of women need to hear. If you've ever followed a health program and it didn't work, check this out. This is not your fault. I promise you. Let me explain. Most fitness programs, most fasting protocols, most dietary advice, it was researched on men. It was designed for men and then handed to women with a shrug. And here you go. Hope this works for you. But here's the thing, you operate on a 28 day hormonal cycle. The foods you eat, the length of your fast, even the intensity of your workouts,

• 0:42Mindy Pelz?

  all of it needs to be timed to where you are in that cycle to actually get a result. This is the science I teach inside my Reset Academy. This is the science that I have researched for over a decade. And inside my Academy, every month I walk you through it in a very practical and actionable and way. And it's actually built for your body, for a feminine body. So it's going to work. I promise you, I see it over and over again. So no more guessing, no more following advice that was never designed for you. This is a moment to get back into relationship with this beautiful body

• 1:26Mindy Pelz?

  that you are so blessed to live in. So if you're ready to finally understand this incredible body of yours and work with it instead of constantly fighting against it, come find me over in the Reset Academy. It's resetacademy.drmindypelz.com. That's resetacademy.drmindypelz.com. I'll see you there.

• 1:53Mindy Pelz?

  Hey, Dr. Mindy here and welcome to the Live Like a Girl podcast, where I bring you icons, disruptors, educators, scientists, and doctors that show you what can be possible when you love and celebrate the female body you are blessed to live in. Let's dive in. The CDC says that one out of three Americans are insulin resistant, AKA they are pre-diabetic. And here's the thing, insulin resistance, it doesn't happen overnight. It happens with consistently doing the wrong habits.

• 2:35Mindy Pelz?

  There was a study out of Stanford University, a 2025 study that looked at 36 different adults. 19 of these people in the study were women with the average age of 56. So this is a really impactful study. And they looked at these group, this group of people over two weeks. They put continuous glucose monitors on them. They had them do food logs. They looked at how much movement they had. And they discovered that there are six habits that people do in order to stay insulin sensitive. And if you get off the mark with these six habits,

• 3:19Mindy Pelz?

  you start to move in a completely different metabolic direction. These six habits are not hard. They are intentional and you can be doing them too. They are simple things like food and walking and how you handle your muscle tone and sleep. And I want to walk you through each one so that you can make sure that you are doing them efficiently. Insulin resistance is not a curse. It is not because of your genetics. It is because of your lifestyle. And on this video, we are going to fix this. Because insulin resistance is more than just how you look in the mirror and not enjoying the reflection that's looking back.

• 4:04Mindy Pelz?

  If you are in poor metabolic health, it affects your immune system. It affects your nervous system. It affects your hormones. So let's clean this up. So because it's easy to clean up and let's do it consistently. If you are new to my channel, I just want to say welcome. Hit the subscribe button. I got a lot of videos on insulin resistance here. And if you are needing more support, I have a free tool called a fasting 101 guide. It goes through food and fasting principles. It is free to you. I'll leave the link in the notes below. Here's how I look at insulin. Insulin is a key.

• 4:42Mindy Pelz?

  It opens up tissue so that insulin and glucose can come together and move into that tissue. I'm a lover of ketones, which is in many people's brain, total opposite of glucose. But what I love when I think about insulin is it's really this magic hormones that opens up tissue that needs glucose. There are three tissues where insulin will store glucose often. One is in the liver. The second one is in your muscles and the third one is in fatty tissue. Now, all of my videos, I really want you to start thinking for yourself

• 5:24Mindy Pelz?

  so that you can be an incredible advocate for your health. Think about those three. I've got the option to take glucose from the food I eat. And I can either put it into my liver, I can put it into muscle, or I can put it into fat. Which one would you want? I think most people would say muscle. So there is a first indicator of what many of these insulin sensitive people did is they built muscle. Now we're going to, we're going to walk through that. So your blood sugar can actually look normal for years while your body is shuttling insulin and glucose into liver, muscle and fat tissue.

• 6:09Mindy Pelz?

  And you don't even know. So we want to make sure that it's not being stored in these areas. And we want to make sure that your muscles are big enough because your muscles are like a pantry to be able to hold under all of this. So this Stanford study showed several different findings. Finding number one, it showed that the source of your carbs matter. So the way I like to look at carbohydrates is I like to look at, I have some carbs that are man-made carbs and I have some carbs that are nature made. A man-made carb would be things like cookies, cakes, pastas. You know, when you walk into your grocery store, it's everything in that middle aisle.

• 6:55Mindy Pelz?

  So when you go to eat a carbohydrate, a really good test to ask yourself is, did this come from the ground? Did nature make this or did a human have to make this? When we've got carbs constantly coming in from sweets, that is going to lead more towards insulin resistance. Whereas what this group of people did that were insulin sensitive, what they often did is they had their carbohydrates from things like vegetables and even from fruits. Finding number two that this study looked into was that movement matters. And when you move is really important.

• 7:38Mindy Pelz?

  Specifically, when you are moving, moving meaning walking, even push-ups, jumping jacks, running. I know I get asked this a lot about, well, is biking movement? Yeah, it's all, anything other than what I'm doing right now, which is sitting, that the more you move after your meal, specifically the last meal of the day, the lower your glucose spike is at night. And if you have a big meal at night and you don't move and then you go to bed, all that glucose, your body has to produce a ton of insulin and it takes that insulin and glucose and it stores it right in fat.

• 8:21Mindy Pelz?

  So movement after your meals is critical. What you are doing to your body is you are telling your body, hey, I'm going to use the glucose I just created from my meal. So I don't need you pancreas to make a ton of insulin. If we go back to the original stat that one in three Americans are pre-diabetic, the pancreas at some point is like enough. I've been making insulin and insulin and insulin and I am exhausted now. And so I'm going to take a rest and it starts, the pancreas starts to malfunction.

• 8:59Mindy Pelz?

  If I eat a meal and then I actually walk and use movement to push glucose into muscles, my pancreas doesn't have to do as big of a job. Finding number three from this study is they found that people who were more insulin sensitive had a diet that was higher in fiber. Specifically, this study said beans. So I love me some great legumes. Those of you who have Eat Like a Girl, I have, I had a plant-based chef that actually came in and made a bunch of bean recipes in here. I also have carnivore recipes. Don't worry, it's not a vegetarian book, but it has a lot of great recipes that tie into this.

• 9:42Mindy Pelz?

  So more fiber was linked to better liver and fat tissue sensitivity. So one of the tricks that I tell my Reset Academy members is that how about we have fiber at every single meal? I've done here on this channel, many videos on how do you make your own GLP-1 hormone? The number one way you make it is more fiber. And what I love about beans is that beans have the protein and fiber together, making them a wicked combination for not only helping your body be more insulin sensitive,

• 10:26Mindy Pelz?

  but protein will actually kill hunger. So it's incredible, natural Ozempic. Ooh, this is a good one. Finding number four from this study is the difference between people who are insulin sensitive and people who are insulin resistant was their sleep.

• 10:45Mindy Pelz?

  So irregular sleep has been tied to higher blood sugar levels the next day. When we go to sleep, if we have a steady blood sugar level, not only are we going to sleep better, but we're not going to store all the glucose from dinner as fat. So making sure that you eat a really stable meal at dinner, which basically looks like fiber, protein, and maybe and good fat and some nature's carbs, like a sweet potato or potatoes. I've talked a lot about taking your white potato and putting it into the freezer or the refrigerator right after you cook it will increase its resistant starch,

• 11:29Mindy Pelz?

  which helps with GLP-1 hormone production. I'll leave the links for videos that I've done on that below. But that meal at night can be incredibly strategic if we put together fiber, protein, fat for sure, good fat, and we use the right carbohydrate. Now, mistakes that people make is I want to point out those of you who are prediabetic or maybe you're diabetic or you know you're insulin resistant. You're not lazy. This is not, this is again chemistry. So let's break down some of the mistakes that you're making. One, some people think they have to cut all their carbs in order to lose weight. Put in the comments if that's you. Not true.

• 12:14Mindy Pelz?

  Nature's carb has fiber, fruits and vegetables, which makes them a very healthy carb. Second problem that we see with prediabetes or diabetes or insulin resistance of any kind is people are still trying to count calories. Calories don't matter when it comes to metabolic health. Third thing I see a lot of you all do is that you want to get yourself more insulin sensitive. So you start fasting more. That's not always the solution. This is why I teach a rhythmic fasting. I've got lots of videos I'll leave below on that. And then the other one that a lot of people do is that they just eat all day. And on the, on the weekend, they start skimping on sleep.

• 12:57Mindy Pelz?

  So that constant grazing, the, the sleep deprivation, all of that is going to start to wear your body down and lead you down a path towards insulin resistance. When I was a little girl, a boy told me that girls don't surf. And unfortunately, I believed him. Now I'm in my 50s, in the middle of writing a book about menopause, about what happens to our brains and our bodies as our hormones shift. And I picked up a surfboard and something miraculous happened out there in the water that I did not expect. I felt calm, genuinely deeply calm in a season of my life that hadn't felt anything but calm.

• 13:40Mindy Pelz?

  And then I realized this is what the book, Age Like a Girl, is actually about. This is what menopause is actually offering us if we're willing to receive it. A chance to go back and find the little girl we left behind. And to say to her, I'm coming back to you. That's what Age Like a Girl is about. Yes, there's science in it. The neuroscience of what's actually happening in your brain during this transition is genuinely stunning. And I can't wait for you to read it. This book is an opportunity to finally ask yourself what you want and how you want to live. And maybe this is a question

• 14:24Mindy Pelz?

  that you're asking yourself for the first time. Age Like a Girl is available now at drmindypelz.com/books. And no, it is literally a piece of my heart. It is my vision for women as we age. I hope you enjoy the book. And again, drmindypelz.com/books. You'll find Age Like a Girl there. Here are the six steps you can start doing right away. So first is I want you to stop eating naked carbs. So naked carbohydrates are carbohydrates that don't have a protein or a fat with them. Let's use an apple as an example. Even though an apple is a great food, I just told you it's nature's carbs.

• 15:09Mindy Pelz?

  If you want to make it an even better food, slice some cheese with it, put some nut butter on it, dress it up. Same thing when we look at even a piece of bread. You can go watch the, the interview I did with Ben Bickman on when do we use carbs and when don't we use carbs? It was a really interesting interview. I'll leave it below as well. And he really feels that there's not a lot of reason to eat carbohydrates. But if you are going to eat carbohydrates, let's make sure that we always put it with a fat. So this can be something like cottage cheese with blueberries. You could do Greek yogurt with blueberries. So if instead of just having your blueberry alone,

• 15:52Mindy Pelz?

  can you put it with a protein and a fat? I'm a big fan of sourdough bread. There's a lot of really good evidence that sourdough can actually stimulate serotonin production. I've done a video on that too. I'll put below. So let's make sure we're putting grass-fed butter on our sourdough bread or something like a nut butter. But when you eat a carbohydrate, let's not leave it naked. Let's put a good protein or fat on it. In this study I quoted, they found that people who had fiber, protein and fat before a carbohydrate like rice or bread lowered their spike, their blood sugar spike.

• 16:36Mindy Pelz?

  So we're again back at this idea that we need to put the meal together in the right combination. Step number two is you are going to take a 10-minute post-meal walk. Use the glucose that you were eating. You just ate, it was, you got all those taste buds fired up. You're feeling good. And sometimes we're feeling too relaxed. Go for a 10-minute walk. Walking works the muscles and pulls that glucose in and set this muscles will be like, I need you because we are actually starting to, I need you for fuel so I can continue along this walk. If I eat a big meal that has a lot of glucose in it and I sit down, those muscles are not saying,

• 17:20Mindy Pelz?

  I need you to the glucose and the glucose will be stored as fat. So the people in the Stanford study, they noticed that they actually took a regular 10-minute walk. The most important time to walk is after that last meal, your biggest meal, so that when you go to bed, you have used glucose, you are not storing glucose. Step number three, this is a big one. I've done a lot on this too, which is more muscle. Muscle is definitely in vogue right now, especially for menopausal women because muscle is really great for functionality. You need muscle to be able to get up off the ground. That is imperative, especially as we age.

• 18:03Mindy Pelz?

  But more importantly, muscle is a metabolic organ. And the more muscle you have, the more ability to store glucose in that muscle. So we want to make sure we're having, building a lot of muscle. Now this isn't about, you know, hiring a trainer unless you want to. This isn't about working out every day. You don't even need a gym membership. Two to three short sessions a week is actually proven to be quite helpful. I have done a video on 25 pushups done throughout the day, 25 squats done with throughout the day and what the research shows on those.

• 18:48Mindy Pelz?

  There was an interesting study in the frontiers in endocrinology that looked at over 1,100 adults with diabetes. And they found that the type of exercise that works the best for diabetics and for increasing insulin sensitivity was resistance training. So this is your pushups. These are your bands. This is your squats. These are your lunges. Because what you have to do is you have to pull in one direction and then let go, you don't want to just let it go. You actually resist in one direction and you resist in another direction. Regular movement mixed with regular strength training,

• 19:32Mindy Pelz?

  strength training coming largely from resistance training. Step number four is you want to give your gut a metabolic makeover. Your gut absolutely controls your metabolism. We have a tendency to think that we're more human cells than we are microbes, but I'm here to tell you, you're more bacteria than you are human cells. And those bacteria are actually sending a signal to your liver. Your liver is your greatest fat-burning organ. Those bacteria send a message to the liver, telling the liver how to regulate blood sugar. One of the things we know is that if people who have been on multiple rounds of antibiotics

• 20:17Mindy Pelz?

  over time, what happens is that we find that they start to gain weight. And the reason that they gain weight is because we have destroyed the microbes that signal to the liver to tell the liver to burn fat. So if you know you've been on multiple rounds of antibiotics over the years, what can you do? Well, first, we already mentioned it, more fiber. And also, watch all those videos I've done on GLP-1 hormone. Second, let's make sure we're adding in a lot of legumes. Even if we're not vegetarians, we can start to add in beans, lentils, and chickpeas. They are really good for feeding the good bacteria.

• 21:00Mindy Pelz?

  Another step for repairing your microbiome and making it your best metabolic organ that you've got is to start to add in fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, kefir, even kefir like milk you can get, not the pasteurized kind. Those of you who are sauerkraut lovers, I will leave a link below to my favorite artisan sauerkraut. It's put out by Wise Goat. It's chef kiss. It's the best. But when we think about making our gut a metabolic organ, we think about adding something in, not taking it something away, which is really amazing to think, I can add something

• 21:41Mindy Pelz?

  in and I can lose weight and make myself more insulin sensitive. Step number five is stop drinking your blood sugar spikes. So your sugar in your coffee, your sodas, your juices, your sweet teas, just because they are in a drink doesn't mean they aren't destroying you metabolically. They are like naked carbs in a liquid form. Starting to train yourself to not have sweetener in your coffee in the morning. I know, that's a hard one. Just take a little bit every single day. Get off of the soda pops. Can you, instead of maybe five in a day, can you cut those in half and try that for a month and then cut it in half again?

• 22:25Mindy Pelz?

  When you go to, in the afternoon, to get some tea, instead of having a sweetener in it, could it just be black? If you need something more than water, how about if you try some sparkling water? That's something that I do often is sparkling water. Yerba matea tea, there's some that have sweeteners and some that don't, but yerba matea tea is great for stabilizing blood sugar if you don't have a sweetener in it. And step number six is your metabolic health for the day starts the night before. So your metabolism does not switch off when you sleep. One of the biggest mistakes people make when they are trying to get insulin sensitive is they ignore sleep.

• 23:10Mindy Pelz?

  They don't see that as some kind of metabolic routine they need. But in trials, proven over and over again, that when you cut sleep short, you lower your insulin sensitivity. Going to bed at the same time, getting up at the same time, making sure your room is cool. Those of you women that are over 40 and you are going through menopause, I have a sleep chapter in Age Like a Girl that is phenomenal and has all the hacks for women who are in menopause or in post-menopause. But making sure that you are creating a sleep sanctuary for yourself is a fat-burning tool.

• 23:54Mindy Pelz?

  It is a way of becoming more insulin sensitive. Now, if this sounds confusing, put in the comments if this sounds easy. I'm hoping it sounds easy. These are not hard steps. Build some muscle. Let's repair your microbiome. Let's prioritize sleep. Let's look at how we use our glucose. This is a lifestyle that actually can, over time, start to reverse some of the scariest diagnoses out there. But if you do need more help, please come join me in my Reset Academy. It's a membership group in which we have community and health coaches. I'm over there and many people who are experiencing insulin resistance are there unwinding the

• 24:37Mindy Pelz?

  habits that got them to the insulin resistance place in the first place. So here are three takeaways. If you're just sort of like, I'm overwhelmed, do these three things. One, let's dress up your carbs at your next meal. Two, let's walk 10 minutes after your biggest meal. And three, let's find a bedtime that you can stick to every single night. When you get a diagnosis of diabetes, when you're, know that you are insulin resistant, it is lifestyle, lifestyle, lifestyle, and you control your lifestyle. So do not give up on yourself. Don't think that your only solution is the weight loss drugs or metformin. It is your habits.

• 25:19Mindy Pelz?

  And let's redo your habits, starting with the ones I presented to you here today, and you will start to see a change. Those of you who have been listening to my videos for a while and you have used these tools and you've gotten great results, put it in the comments so people can learn from your experience. Most importantly, don't let yourself buy into this fact that you are destined to have diabetes. Your body is more miraculous than that, and you have a lot more control than that. So don't give up on yourself. As always, I hope that helps.