27. Dr. Mindy Pelz: The Metabolic Reset Every Woman Needs

Title: Dr. Mindy Pelz: The Metabolic Reset Every Woman Needs Your hormones deserve better care—and you do too. So many women feel stuck when it comes to their health—frustrated by unexplained weight gain, unpredictable mood swings, and low energy that no diet or workout seems to fix. The truth is, our healthcare system was built around research that overlooked the female body's complexity. But the great news? There's a way to support your body that works with your biology, not against it. In today's episode of Extend, I'm diving into how you can break free from metabolic imbalances and reclaim your energy with the right strategies for fasting, nutrition, and movement. You'll learn why women experience hormonal chaos during perimenopause and menopause—and how understanding your body's natural rhythm can make all the difference. I'll also uncover the truth about hidden disruptors in your food and environment, like obesogens and toxins, and how they affect your ability to lose weight and stay healthy. Plus, I'll share game-changing insights on building strength, improving bone health, and balancing your hormones through strategic lifestyle changes. Joining me is Dr. Mindy Pelz, a pioneer in women's health and the bestselling author of Eat Like a Girl. Dr. Mindy's groundbreaking work has empowered thousands of women to embrace fasting, rethink their nutrition, and overcome hormonal imbalances. As the host of The Resetter Podcast, she's built a global community dedicated to helping women live vibrant, resilient lives. This conversation will open your eyes to what's possible when you tune into your body's innate intelligence—you won't want to miss it! We Also Discuss: (00:00) Women's Health Disparities in Medicine (14:06) Medical Paradigm Shift Towards Individualized Care (21:28) Exploring Fasting and Metabolic Health (33:00) The Truth About Obesogens and Toxins (45:00) The Power of Strength Training and Movement (01:12:00) Reclaiming Balance: Key Lifestyle Shifts for Hormonal Health Thank You to Our Sponsors: TruNiagen: Whether you are looking to stay sharp, feel more energized or simple age better, go to https://www.truniagen.com/ IFit: If you are looking to elevate your home gym fitness experience with the best in fitness tech, choose IFIT. Go to https://www.ifit.com/ NextHealth: Your destination for cutting-edge health optimization—from IV therapy to hormone balancing. Explore at https://www.next-health.com/ Vitaboom: For supplements you can trust and wellness solutions tailored to your health, visit https://vitaboom.com/ Learn more about Dr. Shah: Website: https://www.drshah.com/ Clinic: https://www.next-health.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/darshanshahmd/ Learn more about Dr. Mindy Pelz Website: https://drmindypelz.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.mindypelz

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

• 0:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Welcome to Extend with me, Dr. Darshan Shah, a podcast dedicated to cutting-edge science, research, tools, and protocols designed to help you extend your health span. Having become one of the youngest doctors in the country at the age of 21, and trained and board-certified at the Mayo Clinic, I've accumulated three decades of practice as a board-certified surgeon and longevity expert. Over that time, I've discovered that a mere 20% of health knowledge yields 80% of the results when it comes to your health span. We're living in a new era where we are creating a new healthcare system, no longer focused on disease management, but achieving optimal health and vitality. Join me as I interview world-renowned experts, offering you a step-by-step guide to proactively avoid disease, and most importantly, extend your health span.

• 0:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Menopause, weight loss struggles, hormone imbalances, and metabolic dysfunction can feel like insurmountable challenges, especially in today's world where the odds are often seen stacked against women's health. But what if there's a way to approach these issues from a place of empowerment rooted in understanding of your body's natural rhythms and evolutionary design? That's why in this episode of Extend, we dive into the myths, myth conceptions, and complexities surrounding women's health, and explore actionable strategies to help you thrive, no matter what your age or stage of life. We also discuss the shocking truth about how toxins and stress affects women's hormones and metabolism, the importance of fasting, and how to adapt it to your unique biology and life stage,

• 1:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  why menopause can actually be an empowering phase of life if approached the right way, and how to break free from the diet culture trap and build a sustainable lifestyle aligned with your body's needs. Dr. Mindy Pelz is a renowned expert in women's health hormones and fasting. She has a mission to empower women to embrace their biological design and harness the power of natural health strategies. She is the bestselling author of Fast Like a Girl and Eat Like a Girl, a pioneer in rhythmic living, and passionate advocate for helping women understand and honor their bodies through every stage of life. What I love about Mindy is her true passion for helping women navigate through their journeys, and her true commitment to empowerment through knowledge. Let's get started.

• 2:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Dr. Mindy, thank you so much for joining me on the Extend Podcast. And I'm giggling a little bit because we just started talking about how I'm so proud that half the guests on my podcast are women.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And I was telling you that, you know, that came from the fact that in my real practice of medicine, it's 50/50. It's 50% men, it's 50% women. And I feel all the time when I'm talking to women that I'm not armed with enough knowledge.

• 2:43Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Because it's just really sad how all the research, all the attention on health outcomes, not all, but almost all, for a long time, has been so male centric.

• 2:56Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And you're such an advocate for women's health. And you brought it to the forefront in my own consciousness because one of the first books I read of yours was Fast Like a Girl. And my wife was like, well, why are you reading Fast Like a Girl?

• 3:08Speaker 01

  I love that. Oh, my God, I love that. You know how many men bought Fast Like a Girl? A lot of them.

• 3:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I bet, right? Because I bet a lot of doctors bought it too, like myself. There's like, I just need to know.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  What is the science and research around fasting for women? Because many women were having a really tough time with it. So before we even get into that, I love to ask you, from your vantage point, why are we in this situation where women feel kind of left behind in their health?

• 3:33Speaker 01

  It's such a good question. And, you know, I think I can answer it with my own clinical story, which is when I was first in practice, both men and women would come in, but especially the women would come in and they would say to me, like, you know, I have X, Y, and Z symptom. My specialty was lifestyle. I loved giving them food ideas and detox and help them understand how their life affects their hormones. And they would, you know, this is back in the 1990s, they would have the, they would internalize that and say, I'm going to go run that past my primary care physician, what you just said. And I would never see them again. Fast forward 10 years from that point, and women were coming in in droves, not just with one symptom, they were coming in with five, six, seven different symptoms.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  And when I would sit with them and say, here's what we need to do lifestyle wise, their response was always, thank you. And whatever you do, I do not want. Want to go back to my primary care physician. Uh, my goal is to stay out of my primary care physician's office. And there was a turning point and there I have a lot of eh eh like thoughts as to why there was a turning point. Toxins being a big one, but it was because the old paradigm of our healthcare system is like a dinosaur.

• 4:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 4:46Speaker 01

  And they are very much one size fits all and they are very much evidence based. And by evidence based, they mean we only do what research says, we only do what insurance companies cover. We have a very systematic way of doing it, but all of those studies were built off of mice. Or they were built off of men. We do not study women. So, and then all of the medications, I mean, there are so many medications that have never been studied on women that were dishing out left and right. So you have a very old school healthcare system that have has completely left women behind.

• 5:21Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. So what do you say to those people that is like, how different can it be? You know, it's just one chromosome off.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 5:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Why, why is it so different for women and men?

• 5:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I'm going to tell you my new analogy that I use, and I'm not sure I told you this, but this is what I've been speaking about. Is I think we really have to acknowledge that a woman's body is a lot more sophisticated. And I mean that with love to all the men out there, but it had to, it has to be more sophisticated because we house a baby. So whether you decide to have a baby or not, your feminine body was meant to house a baby, which means it came with a lot more features. More bells and whistles. I call it like a sophisticated violin. Like it needs to be finely tuned in order to play at its best, whereas a male body is more like a kazoo. You got like.

• 6:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I feel like a kazoo sometimes.

• 6:11Speaker 01

  Literally like you blow into it and it works. And I only mean that in all the right ways. But, um, yeah, I mean, literally, like, you are dealing with, even though we're both humans, you're dealing with a way more sophisticated environment because, or we're built to house babies.

• 6:30Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, right. And I think part of that, too, is really, a woman's body is more in tune with the cycles of the universe as well.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And we talk about circadian rhythms, we talk about, you know, all of us, humans are meant to live in a rhythmic city, right?

• 6:46Speaker 01

  Yes, thank you.

• 6:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And especially women.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And that is never considered.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  In anything medical. Like, whenever you prescribe a medication or an intervention, you never ask a woman what part of your cycle you're in.

• 6:58Speaker 01

  That is right.

• 6:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Or when to time these interventions.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  That's right. Do you know, when I was really deep into trying to understand how fasting matched to a woman's cycle?

• 7:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Uh huh.

• 7:07Speaker 01

  I found some really interesting studies that never get talked about. Here's one. That in the front half of a woman's cycle, she actually, her body makes more cholesterol. So her cholesterol is meant to naturally go up in the front half of her cycle.

• 7:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  The reason for that is you need cholesterol to make estrogen. So now, when she goes to get a blood draw, is she ever asked if, where in her cycle she is? She's just told, here's your, you have a high cholesterol, but never did they ask what part of your cycle? Second thing that is fascinating to me, right before a woman ovulates, there's a big dose of oxytocin that comes in.

• 7:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  So, so that there's this feeling of love and bond and connection right before an egg comes out. And then, did you know that the egg actually sends a chemical signal out to any of the sperm coming in to approach her? And that it's the chemical messages coming from the egg that determines which sperm she's gonna let in to her. Like, there's so many, when you break down the wisdom of the reproductive system, the wisdom of our eggs, eggs have the most amount of mitochondria in them compared to any other body part, you realize how much rhythm is going on inside a female body.

• 8:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely. And even the rhythm around just the entire lifespan of a woman, too. You know, there's a lot of, I would say, almost, you almost discount the entire time of menopause. Even menopause is discounted, I think.

• 8:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, agreed.

• 8:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Menopause especially. Because the biology of a woman is almost, you know, 80, 90 degrees change when going through menopause.

• 8:43Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 8:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And we don't change any of our interventions based on what part of a life cycle a woman's in, right?

• 8:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, my next book that I'm actually currently writing is really addressing what's the purpose of menopause.

• 8:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  Why do we live into our post-menopausal years? There's only four species, only four species on the planet that live past the reproductive cycle.

• 9:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Really?

• 9:06Speaker 01

  We're one of them, two are whales, and the other one is like an insect, or a frog, or something of that kind.

• 9:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow, I never knew that.

• 9:13Speaker 01

  So, women, as human women, spend 40 to 50% of their life in their post-reproductive years. There's only one other species on the planet that even, even comes close to that, and that's orca whales. They spend about 30% of their life in post-menopausal years. So, my evolutionary curiosity is why are women, why are we built to live so long after menopause?

• 9:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  And, and I actually think I'm, I'm coming up with the answer.

• 9:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I mean, does it have something to do around, like, orcas and humans are social beings in nature? And so, I think it takes the grandmother, or the mother of the mother, to help, am I on the right track here?

• 9:54Speaker 01

  Yes, you got it. Oh my God, this is why I love you. It's like, you and I, our brains think a lot.

• 9:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  It's the grandmother, there's something called the grandmother hypothesis. And the grandmother hypothesis says that if we go back to our primal days, and we look at the dynamics that happened in order for humans to stay alive. The robust humans, the young, the men, they went out and they were the hunters, and they went to go, and they were gone for days. And they would leave the cave life. Around the cave was the pregnant mom, the little babies, or the little toddlers. So, in order for her to stay alive, there had to be another person at the cave that took care of her, and that was the grandmother. So, the belief of the grandmother hypothesis Is that actually when our hormones go down, we have a brain change. I call it the brain remodel project.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  Old neurons get slep away and new neurons come on. And she starts to take on a brain that can see a more collective societal lens. So that she knows, oh, mom needs to be able to go and need to go get tubers. Like that was one thing that she did is she picked up tubers and she came in and brought that back to cave life. She needed to make sure that she was protecting the mom who was who was birthing babies. So there is a belief with this grandmother hypothesis. That actually postmenopausal women are a bit of evolutionary heroines.

• 11:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  We would not be sitting here, check this out, we would not be sitting here as humans right now. If it wasn't for the postmenopausal woman.

• 11:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  Because

• 11:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Makes total sense.

• 11:25Speaker 01

  We would have perished, the hunters would have gone out.

• 11:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  And they would have come back and mom would have been dead if it hadn't been for the grandmother who had took care of her.

• 11:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow, and do that for thousands of generations. And obviously, like you need women to live longer postmenopausally.

• 11:39Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 11:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And it makes complete sense. If you if you look at evolutionary biology, I think people tend to discount how much evolutionary biology really does matter. And so I'm a I'm a student of evolutionary biology.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  Oh, I love it.

• 11:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's why that's why I kind of thought through this with you. And it makes completely sense.

• 11:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Complete sense, because a lot of why we do the things we do has a lot to do with evolutionary biology. Did you know that the reason that we have morning people that love to wake up early in the morning? And we have night people, people that stay up late at night is because in our primitive societies. You needed a certain percentage of the population to be able to stay up late to protect the the rest of the societies. Protect the rest of the clan. And so the reason we evolved in four different chronotypes is how we used to live together in these primitive societies.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh, I love that. That makes so much sense.

• 12:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 12:33Speaker 01

  So when I put all the research together for Fast Like a Girl. I found something called the thrifty gene hypothesis. And it is also a piece of evolutionary biology. And it said that basically the humans that were able to Survive long periods without food in those harsh conditions. Had a genetic profile that allowed them to metabolically switch into this ketogenic energy system. And if you didn't have that genetic profile, you died and therefore it's no longer in with in our gene pool. So right now what's happening is that we are actually going against our biology by eating all day, by sitting on the couch and ordering DoorDash, by, you know, putting snacking 17 times a day is that what they say the average person puts food in their mouth 17 times a day.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  And they believe there or there's a theory with this thrifty gene hypothesis is the reason that diabetes is becoming so prevalent is because we are literally going against our genetics right now if we're eating all day and not saving these big windows for fasting.

• 13:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, that makes that makes absolute sense. So on that point, let's go back to giving our audience a little brief history of medicine.

• 13:42Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Let's do that.

• 13:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And why we're here today in this point of just human society where, you know, we I feel like we figured out a lot, like we have incredible medications to treat cancer. We can do surgery on people. Yeah, we're more unhealthy now than we've ever been.

• 13:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 13:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And I'd love to hear kind of like your take on how we got here.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I love this and I love that this conversation is going in this direction. I think that if you look back in history, you will see very clearly why this healthcare system we have right now is completely profit driven and completely broken and has left the patient out. And so when the pandemic hit, the our most current pandemic, I went and started looking at the last pandemic. That was the first thought I had was what happened to us during the last pandemic? The Spanish flu happened in 1918. And I dove into studying all the pieces of that. Well, before the Spanish flu in 1918, there was a very well respected disagreement in the healthcare world.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  Were we self healing machineries? Was the body something that healed itself? Or and and that maybe when a Virus came into us that it was really the severity of your symptoms was due to the host? Or was it due to the virulence of the bacteria? So it was vitalistic means that the body heals itself? Or was it mechanistic, meaning something comes into the body and can affect it? And so they didn't know, they they had no idea. And then the Spanish flu hit. And so now they had a test. Which direction was it going? And it was very much like the, this was interesting to me. The Spanish flu, that that pandemic, two and a half years.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  It ran its course, no vaccines, no antibiotics. It ran its course in two and a half years. Sounds a little bit familiar to what we just went through about a two year course.

• 15:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, we gave everyone mRNA.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 15:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  And I mean, and then there's that.

• 15:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 15:46Speaker 01

  But here's the point is that we had a healthy discussion about this intelligence that lived inside the body before that pandemic. We had a healthy respect for the body healing itself. Then we had a fearful time with the Spanish flu. We lost a lot of people. And two years after the Spanish flu finished, penicillin was created. And when penicillin was created, it was an amazing moment. It was like, we have something that can kill bacteria, not viruses, but kill bacteria. And we never going to go back into a pandemic again. And we started making antibiotics after antibiotics after antibiotics.

• 16:25Speaker 01

  And then the the main contributor financially to that, to penicillin was the Rockefellers. And the Rockefellers basically poured all their money into all this antibiotic research, more antibiotics to be made, and then they turned around and funded the medical schools. And then all of a sudden, they had the marriage of Big Pharma and the medical profession was born, and this was in the 1920s. And as you know, it kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger until we are so profit centered, we've lost focus of the patient.

• 16:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly. And so there's, for the listeners that want to learn more about this, just look up Flexner report, F E L X N E R. And this is a study that was funded by The Rockefellers that basically switch medical school from holistic

• 17:09Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 17:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  to needing to have scientific evidence to do anything.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And so this whole kind of mindset around doing prescriptions, making a diagnosis of a disease, and then having a prescription for it.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 17:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Is what set off kind of the entire Western medical system.

• 17:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:26Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That basically nothing happens unless you're diagnosed with a disease.

• 17:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  But the other thing the Flexner Report did was completely discount any kind of holistic medicine, alternative medicine.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 17:37Dr. Darshan Shah?

  All of it, because it couldn't be studied because it was more than one variable working together at the same time.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  That's right. So and on that, it's really interesting because we now, even in 2024, we have a, and this is happening in women's health. And it's something that I've been, that's been like nails on a chalkboard for me, is that we're really talking about it that we need to give women evidence-based healthcare. Okay, evidence-based healthcare, the way it is being stated is basically saying there needs to be a study that is done in order for us to say this therapy is going to be successful.

• 18:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 18:14Speaker 01

  But the study has to be done on women, and we're not doing it on women. And if you're going to make it evidence-based, it needs to be put all the same women at the same age, together in the same study. So we still have a big, a bunch of gaps in this, this theory. Recently, I heard something that I love, which is, why don't we be evidence-led? Let's look at a study and go, that's interesting. Now, let's see how it applies to the person in front of me. But we're not doing that. We're like, the study says this, so therefore you get that.

• 18:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  And there's the vitalistic idea that the body heals itself, this idea that you have a different lifestyle perhaps, and the person in the study is not brought into the equation.

• 18:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Not at all. And you know, one of the things I talk about all the time with my patients is, I understand we have studies that tell us this particular intervention works. But what you have to understand is what these studies are telling you is what's happening in the middle of the bell-shaped curve.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 19:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So you have people on both sides of this that either this intervention is working really well. Or it's not working at all, or potentially even harming you.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 19:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And I think, I mean, for sure, like fasting falls into this, right? And so I think it's really important for people to know that for anything you try on your health, whether it be a pharmaceutical, or a supplement, or an intervention like fasting, understand that you're an N of one.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 19:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You have to, right?

• 19:36Speaker 01

  Yes. So in Eat Like a Girl, I have a whole, like, section on N of one. Because the best way I look at it is like, you look at a study, or you see a health influencer on Instagram, quote a study, what your brain should do is go, okay, that's interesting. I wonder how that applies to me. The study gets you in the ballpark, but you get to choose the seat you sit at.

• 19:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  So, so we can't just make this about everybody responds this way. Even to fasting, this was the whole purpose of Fast Like a Girl. Is it was like, okay, Dr. Osumi, he won the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology in 2016 for a term called autophagy. He is a Japanese scientist. And basically, what he discovered is that in the absence of food, or the nutrients coming in, that there was this internal mechanism inside a cell that it started to heal itself. It pushed out all the bacteria, pushed out all the viruses. It detoxed itself, it repaired its cellular parts, and it made itself anew again, which is really cool. He won the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology for it.

• 20:41Speaker 01

  And then everybody started fasting. But then, did we ever say, is there a time for a woman to stimulate autophagy in her cycle and a time not? Do menopausal women need to do more autophagy, maybe, or less? Like, these are questions that, that many of them are not answered even today. But these are questions we need to bring up. Instead of just saying, that's, he's the genius, this is what we follow. We need to bring it into more of this N of one.

• 21:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely. And if you look at it that way, if it's an intervention that's not going to harm you, like, you know, it takes a long time to harm you, like fasting, for example.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's so much better, instead of waiting for the studies to come out on this, which potentially will never happen.

• 21:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:21Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Is to see how you're, you react to it, and to follow like a guide like you have in your book, and see how it works on you.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 21:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right?

• 21:29Speaker 01

  The, the most common question I've, I've probably answered over the years is, how long should I fast? And I always say, well, what are you trying to do?

• 21:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  Like, you know, just because everybody is skipping breakfast, does that mean you're supposed to skip breakfast?

• 21:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  I don't know. Here, let's, let me tell you the tools, and then you get to pick the tools and put the fasting lifestyle together that works for you.

• 21:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I love that. So let's dissect fasting a little bit more, if you don't mind. So first, I want to take it a step back before even fasting. What is the state of metabolic health right now in the population? And how do we get there?

• 22:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's such a loaded question. Okay, so let's start with this. You know, when the pandemic hit, I was walking around going, we don't have an immune system problem. We have a metabolic problem.

• 22:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Such a wise statement. It's absolutely right.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  And we don't have a chronic disease problem. We have a metabolic problem. If we fix the metabolic problem, we fix so many things. We don't have a menopausal moment. We have a metabolic mess that is contributing to this incredible array of symptoms that women are having. Every single health problem comes back to this metabolic marker. If you're going to focus on one thing in your life, focus on your metabolic system and you'll watch everything else come into balance. So the stats are, before the pandemic, it was 20% of Americans were metabolically healthy. What that means is that they could regulate their blood pressure, their cholesterol, their glucose, their insulin, all on their own without medication. It also meant that they had to be a certain weight

• 23:02Speaker 01

  and that they had to have a certain circumference around their waist.

• 23:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  Only 20% of Americans can say that they're, all those measurements fit into a normal range. After the pandemic, 9%, 9%. So there's a lot of various, there's a lot of reasons for it, but I know you've brought some of the experts on that, that are screaming this from the rooftop. We don't have real food in supermarkets. We have chemicals. So you are buying boxes of chemicals, and each one of these chemicals is doing something different. So in Eat Like a Girl, I really wanted to profile a chemical or a group of chemicals called obesogens. Obesogens are, pesticides is one, by the way. Aspartame is an obesogen, by the way, that's in all these diet foods.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  And what these obesogens do is they literally hijack your stem cells. And the stem cells that were gonna make some other body part actually start to get reprogrammed and make fat cells. And this is where a woman, or, and we, this is happening to children right now, too, where all of a sudden a woman says, "I, I'm eating the same, I'm exercising the same, I'm doing everything the same, but I am gaining weight very, very quickly." The first question I asked in my clinic was like, "Give me a food diary. Tell me what you're eating." And if you're eating these, anything in a box, anything with a label, you're, you're now in a danger zone.

• 24:26Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, absolutely. You know, I love this concept of obesogens. Definitely the chemicals they put in our food in ultra-processed food is one. What about the exposure of our food to glyphosate and other pesticides?

• 24:40Speaker 01

  So glyphosate, thank you for bringing this up. Glyphosate, when I started to look at the trends of these, all these women that were coming into my clinic with like multiple problems, thyroid being a big one, it was like they weren't showing up with one symptom anymore, they were showing up with like four and five. It was right about the introduction of glyphosate into our environment.

• 25:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  So glyphosate is an endocrine disruptor. It's a pesticide, and it's an endocrine disruptor. It manipulates and changes your hormonal system. The other thing it does is it actually drives heavy metals deeper into your brain. So if you have any kind of lead or any kind of mercury, which is, we've done in our, in my clinic, we tested thousands, thousands, I mean, you're doing it now here, thousands of people, and not one person was low in lead or mercury. Everybody has got this in them.

• 25:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, we find the same thing in our clinics.

• 25:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:37Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's pretty much ubiquitous that people have a very high level of some heavy metal, but particularly lead and mercury.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  That's right. So now you have these heavy metals that may have not been like huge problems and they weren't like ubiquitous within the environment. Of course, that's been getting worse, but glyphosate was the thing that ignited these heavy metals into the brain and drove it into the tissues. So not only disrupted hormones, but it took these toxic metals and drove them into our tissues more. So this started to create more anxiety, more depression. This is where we started to see deeper thyroid problems because when you drive chemicals, heavy metals into the thyroid, you shut down thyroid production. This is where we started to see things like even down into kids, like autism and learning disabilities.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  This is where all of a sudden the menopausal symptoms, you know, became this really huge suicide is like a big one that we see with menopausal women. Forty-five, between forty-five and fifty-five is the most common time for a woman to commit suicide. And I strongly feel that, yes, it's a hormonal challenge that's occurring during that moment, but it is the toxins in the environment like glyphosate that are driving many of these these other toxins deeper into the tissue to do more damage.

• 27:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

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• 27:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

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• 28:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So, you know, it's really hard for people now because they're like, you know, I can't eat produce because there's glyphosate on it. I can't eat food from the supermarket because it's all chemicals. Like, what am I going to eat now? How do you talk to your patients about making good food choices?

• 28:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, so in Eat Like a Girl, I came up with five principles. And I think, I think this is the easiest way because I don't know if you're experiencing this, but when I, when I'm in conversation, I always ask people like, are you more confused about food now than ever?

• 28:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I hear that all the time with my patients.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, we, we really try to break through that. I'd love to hear your five principles.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Pretty sure it's the talk tracks that I used to.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  I'm sure they're very similar. Yeah, but like, like my favorite meme I saw on Instagram the other day is, I'm sorry, I can't go to work today because I have to stay home and count my protein. It's like, I get it. Like, it's gotten really confusing. So, okay, first principle is that your blood sugar matters, calories don't. Now, we have plenty of research on calories that it counts, but I want to know the humans that are able to succeed at knowing every single day, how many calories go in and how many calories are they outputting? That doesn't typically, I don't know a lot of people that can do that.

• 29:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  No.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  But blood sugar, I can teach you how to read your blood sugar on a CGM. I can teach you how to feel energized after a meal so you know your blood sugar is stable. I can show you why your blood sugar tanks and you have to eat six times a day. We have to come back to balancing blood sugar. That it needs to be the most important thing.

• 29:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So true.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  In fact, I think if we put CGMs on every human, we would be out of this metabolic problem within months.

• 29:53Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I'm a big fan of CGMs. I interviewed Casey Means a few, I mean, she's a pioneer with Levels Health. But, you know, these are now available with no prescription.

• 30:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So finally, people can take charge of their own health and go get these monitors at any drugstore.

• 30:09Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 30:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And they're, you know, they're not that expensive compared for the amount of value you get for your health, I think. The amount of value, like you mentioned, this is the, one of the most valuable things that you can do for your health.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Is to get a CGM and just learn about food. Like, read your book while you have a CGM on, it'll change your life completely.

• 30:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, I, I think, I've told people, put them on your kids. I don't know if you've ever put them on your kids.

• 30:30Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Not yet, no.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  But like, put them on your kids and then let your kids eat and just have an experience with what food is doing for the blood sugar. In, in my clinic, what I used to do is the very first thing I did with women, before I did any diet change, before I taught fasting, before we detoxed, is I put one of those on for two weeks. And I said, every single day, you're gonna send me a food diary and you're gonna send me a snapshot of the chart of your glucose and we're gonna talk.

• 30:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 30:56Speaker 01

  And that was after two weeks, they were like, what do you need me to do? Where do I go? This is amazing, because they had real feedback, information of what food was doing.

• 31:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, exactly. You know, you said something really important earlier, and I think it kind of leads to my next question too, is that how to feel like you're energized with a stable glucose level?

• 31:17Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 31:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  There's a misconception that people have that if I'm feeling low energy, I need more sugar.

• 31:23Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 31:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right?

• 31:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:24Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And so, talk about glucose curves and how this point really kind of, you know, bring it home for us with this point, that you need a stable glucose curve, not a spike.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  Not a spiky one.

• 31:37Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 31:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the first thing to know is you have two energy systems. One that kicks in when you eat and one that kicks in usually around 12 hours of not eating. The one that kicks in when you eat is called your sugar burner system and the other one, I call the fat burner system, or it's the ketogenic energy system. So when we look at the sugar burner system. System in order to keep that stable, there are some ground rules. And the first one is that medically, what they say is when you eat something and you get a blood sugar spike, it should come back to its original levels within two hours after you eat that meal or you eat that piece of food. I've looked at enough blood sugar to see that doesn't happen for everybody. So you

• 32:21Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It doesn't happen for 91%.

• 32:23Speaker 01

  Right, that's right, that's right. So you have a couple of choices then. I like to see it come back within an hour, like hour to 90 minutes, like it should come back to its original amount. So when we look at putting food together, then we need to make sure that we're either eating things that are low in the glycemic index or low on the glucose response. Or we need to think about how we pair food. So for example, like I'll use a chocolate cake I had one time. It was made by actually Chef Leslie, who did a lot of the recipes in my book. And it was, she was at a retreat that I was at, she's plant based. And I'm not plant based. And I was like dreading that I was going to eat plant based for three days.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  I was like, where is my meat? Cause it stabilizes my blood sugar. So I start testing, I had a CGM on, I start testing everything. And I, I get finally, everything's spiking, by the way. And I finally get to this chocolate cake she has. And she has put a massive amount of MCT oil in it. I go to eat the cake. The cake does not, not only does it not spike my blood sugar, it makes my blood sugar drop. It was a chocolate cake with, it had a little bit of honey in it, but she had doused it with MCT oil. It was real, and it was really fat rich. So the fat combined with the carbohydrate didn't cause the spike, and in this case, it actually made it drop.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  So how we pair food is as important as the glucose response of an individual food.

• 33:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, that's, that's so true. Some of the things that worked for me along the pairing food conversation that we're having right now is starting my meals with Any kind of vegetable.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 34:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You know, any kind of non-starchy vegetable. I started doing that for every single meal now, including breakfast, because it completely turned my glucose curve into, you know, like spikes all day long to flat. Like, literally, I'll go an entire day with a flat glucose curve just by eating a couple of bites of vegetables to start with.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:26Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You know, like one portion or even less.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And I think, you know, what I really try to emphasize in my patients, it's not about what you eat so much as, as long as you eliminate ultra-processed food.

• 34:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's about the order and how you're eating that really makes a big difference, right?

• 34:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. So something interesting I've seen on this, a new, new path my brain went, is that, you know, the GLP-1 hormone is made from the microbes in our gut.

• 34:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 34:51Speaker 01

  And those microbes get destroyed by fat, toxic fat, so ultra-processed foods. So if you actually want to help those microbes upregulate the microbes so that they make the GLP-1 hormone, that there is studies showing that the order in which you eat food will determine how well those microbes will make that hormone that will kill hunger. And the order looks like fiber, vegetables, protein, carbohydrate. You should always eat the carbohydrate last, you should eat the vegetables first, and then the protein second, and then the carbohydrate. And that order helps those microbes get all those prebiotic fibers. They make the GLP-1 hormone, and it kills hunger in your head.

• 35:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  In your brain.

• 35:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's so true. And the CGM really brings that home for you.

• 35:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Because you could see what it does to your glucose curve, which is also kind of what it does to your hunger response as well, right?

• 35:42Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 35:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You know, I think there's a lot of shaming that goes on in social media for people that are taking GLP-1s. And they equate it to a lack of willpower. But in reality, I think you're absolutely right. A lot of it is due to how we've killed our microbiome, and we've reduced this biological signal from the ultra-processed foods that we're eating, right?

• 36:03Speaker 01

  That's right. Well, on that topic, I mean, if we just call it what it is.

• 36:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 36:07Speaker 01

  We had ultra-processed foods, destroyed the microbes. The microbes stopped making GLP-1, we start getting more hungry. Then those ultra-processed foods poured these obese And all of a sudden, you're gaining weight faster than you ever did because the stem cells have been hijacked. And then those ultra-processed foods decided to spray things on there to create this incredible dopamine response in your head. So you're not making the hormone that kills hunger, you're eating foods that are making you fat, and you're addicted to those foods, all because of what the food company did to you. So, yeah, I mean, we should take the shaming and the guilt away. I'm not saying everybody should get on the drugs, but there should be maybe an entry point to those drugs and an exit point to those drugs. And then there should be a

• 36:49Speaker 01

  lifestyle that helps you rebuild these microbes that can make the GLP-1 hormone. So you're not having to rely on the drug.

• 36:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And that is exactly what we do here, Mindy. Like, when we see patients, we don't put anyone on a GLP-1, number one, if they're not realistic about what they're trying to achieve. But number two, without them being on a really intentional plan to rebuild their own natural GLP-1 production. And that's the only way to do this right. Because then you're not going to be on it forever. And you're also going to be able to use this break or this time period where you're not as hungry to reform your relationship with food.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  That's right. That's exactly right. And again, it's back to like the question that were the conversation we had about what happened during the Spanish flu. It's like, I almost feel like sometimes I just want to hit a pause button on the healthcare world for a moment. And she'd be like, okay, everybody, sit down. I have a little story to tell you. We got so far off course. We are so far off course. And if you're not aware of what's in your food and what it's doing to you, you literally are signing yourself up for chronic disease. And this is what I think people are starting to wake up to. But we also have to get away from this idea that the doctor is going to save us. The person that's going to save you right now is you, through knowledge,

• 38:09Speaker 01

  listening to podcasts like this, reading books, coming into clinics like this. That is what's going to save you right now. But if you're doing nothing, you have involuntarily signed yourself up for chronic disease. And you know, and it's a shame, you don't even, people, there's well, Wonderful humans out there that don't understand this. And then they get a cancer diagnosis or a loved one gets Alzheimer's. And they're like, what's going on? I don't know what happened. It's this is where it's criminal. We need to change these two systems.

• 38:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I totally agree with you. And, you know, back on the GLP one thing, I think all the listeners, if you are taking a GLP one, you almost should be required to purchase a CGM and buy like Eat Like a Girl or buy, you know, one of these other books like Food by Dr. Mark Hyman. Like I require that of all my patients. Like I'm not prescribing it unless you're reading at the same time. Because the only way you're going to get yourself out of this horrific loop is to educate yourself.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly. Yeah. And I don't think we're used to that. I mean, the era in which you and I grew up in, you had a problem, you went to the doctor. The doctor told you what the problem was, gave it a big fancy name and then sent you home with a prescription. That system doesn't exist. It exists, but it's not helpful at this particular moment.

• 39:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Not for chronic disease, not for obesity, not for metabolic disease. It doesn't work for that. And there's temporary Band-Aids, but you've got to get off the this roller coaster of just going back and forth through through this and never really winning this battle.

• 39:40Speaker 01

  That's right. Yeah.

• 39:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely. Can you mention five things? So one is metabolic health.

• 39:44Speaker 01

  We haven't even gotten to the other one. Okay, the second one is kind of ties into this. Let's just, again, let's keep it simple for people. Eat nature's food, not human made food. So your farmer's markets, the outside of your grocery stores, anything without a label. Like when we go to eat food that just came from the earth, whether, and that's not just plant based food. I mean, if you eat meat, I'm personally a fan of eating meat. Like anything that the earth has provided for us is great. The minute we start to put a label on it, now you need to know what those ingredients are. And you have to be an expert. And even those of us that know what those ingredients are, they change them, they manipulate them. It gets, it's really hard to understand.

• 40:24Dr. Darshan Shah?

  They try to trick you with those labels.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, like natural flavors. Natural flavors is on the front of packaging and basically you, they can hide chemicals in the term natural flavors. Flavors on a, an ingredient label.

• 40:39Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I've seen that. It's not, if they have to say natural flavors and tell you. It's natural flavors. It's a trick.

• 40:46Speaker 01

  It's a total trick. Yeah. And then they, then they put on the front, it's natural. Like that means nothing. So, so I think like if we could just, instead of, like I, I had contemplated with Eat Like a Girl, like having lists upon lists of all these ingredients. And instead, what I chose to do is pick the most harmful ingredients. And then I have a whole section on how to read an ingredient label. Because I thought if we can, if I can teach how to, the basics of an ingredient label. And then I can just say, just look at your food and go, is it nature's? Did nature provide this? Did it have to go into a lab and be manipulated? Like, how much of this food, when you read the ingredient, are these, are there words you understand in there? Like, let's try to bring it back to that fifth grade level. And I think that will help people.

• 41:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, it's massive help for people just to understand what an ultra-processed food is. And how to avoid them. And you know, it's hard to avoid it a hundred percent of the time, but.

• 41:41Speaker 01

  Really hard.

• 41:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, if you get to eighty percent, it can be a massive improvement on what people are doing right now.

• 41:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, agreed, agreed.

• 41:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Third thing?

• 41:48Speaker 01

  Okay, third one. This is my favorite one. Feed your microbes, not your taste buds. Okay, now I'm not saying you shouldn't have things that are tasty, but I've sat with too many women that are struggling with their cravings. And what they do when a woman can't overcome her cravings is she turns on herself. She calls herself undisciplined. She feels guilty because she dove into some food that she couldn't control and get over her cravings. She shames herself because she can't lose weight because of her cravings. And she thinks it's all in, within her control. And so I wanted to put that third principle in there because these microbes actually tell your brain what foods to crave. The, the most one, that most popular one that people know is candida.

• 42:29Speaker 01

  Candida is a fungus that lives in your gut. And in order for it to stay alive, it says, give me sugar, give me carbohydrates, give me alcohol. And then you can't get over that. You're like, I don't know how to get off sugar. I have a sugar addiction, but you don't realize there's literally a fungus in your gut. Fast like a girl and eat like a girl. The the whole idea of a fasting lifestyle. Where you go a certain period without food. And then you're really intentional about how you what foods you bring in. Specifically, polyphenol, probiotic, prebiotic foods. And if you start to create a pattern and a rhythm between fasting and these, what I call three Ps. These prebiotic, probiotic, polyphenol foods. You change your microbiome.

• 43:13Speaker 01

  And when you change your microbiome, all of a sudden your cravings go away.

• 43:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's so empowering to know that your cravings are not a failure of your willpower.

• 43:23Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 43:24Dr. Darshan Shah?

  These are just biological signals that you need to learn how to modify with science.

• 43:27Speaker 01

  That's right. That's right. And but but here's the difference. We started this between men and women.

• 43:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  Here's the difference for women. And this is why I'm so vocal about this. Is that women continually turn on themselves. They think it's their problem. Why can't I be look like the person on Instagram? Why can't I be a size two? Why can't and it's always my fault, my fault, my fault. Did they ever stop and think that something like the birth control pill? Actually created a gut dysbiosis? Were they ever educated? That when you're on the birth control pill for two decades, it changes the microbes in your gut. And that change in the microbes in your gut actually starts to change what the foods that you crave. This is like the nuance that needs to start happening to free women because we think it's our fault.

• 44:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Or the Midol that you take. You're given when you're going through menopausal symptom. Like that's like a nuclear bomb for your gut bacteria, right?

• 44:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, it's just mind blowing that no one's ever talked about that until now.

• 44:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Okay, what's number four?

• 44:26Speaker 01

  Okay, number four is protein is the hero macronutrient.

• 44:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Protein is a hero macronutrient.

• 44:31Speaker 01

  So, you know, I I think protein has come into vogue, you know, pretty quickly, like the conversation around protein. And I like that. I think that, you know, in the book, I have something called the key 24. Which are the 24 nutrients that women need to get into their bodies on a regular basis in order to make a hormone. And when I looked at these key 24, nine of them are amino acids. So you need amino acids to make hormones. You need amino acids to make neurotransmitters. So you get amino acids in protein. Now, in animal protein, you're getting all the essential ones. You're getting, you know, you get a more complete array. But in the book, it's, you know, I had one of the chefs in the, who made recipes in this book, was a plant-based chef.

• 45:15Speaker 01

  And so we, I put all the different plant-based proteins that can help you get those amino acids.

• 45:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's great.

• 45:23Speaker 01

  But either way, we look at this, we have to bring protein into the conversation. And every time you put a meal together, where's the protein? Always make sure there's protein there.

• 45:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, and for vegetarians or vegans, as long as you variety the different, variety, the source of the vegetables and you can get the right proteins in. It's not impossible to get these amino acids from vegetables, right?

• 45:45Speaker 01

  Right, that's right. And, and I think, I think that was a big mistake that happened when we started to get this big wave of protein conversation on social media. I think we went from a place of going low carb, where we're like, carbs are bad. And everybody got away from carbs. And then we were sort of stuck and didn't know what our next nutritional move was, right? And then protein came in and everybody was like, you need protein. And then it was like, it can only be animal protein. And then all the plant-based people were like, wait a second, what about me? And so what I tried to do with Eat Like a Girl is really sit down and go, protein's everywhere. It's in plants, it's in animals, let's just get a lot of it.

• 46:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. How do you dial in the dosage of protein for the women that you're seeing? Because there's all sorts of numbers thrown out there. And once again, everyone's an N of one. So how do you help women dial this in?

• 46:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's a great question. I think there's two things we look at. One, I like the one gram of protein for every pound of ideal body weight.

• 46:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's a key number, right? Ideal body weight.

• 46:45Speaker 01

  Ideal. So if you're 160, but your ideal is 130, you want 130 grams of protein. So you're not trying to eat for your weight that you don't want to be. So, so that would, I, I'm a fan of that. I'm also a fan of that first meal. This is why in Eat Like a Girl, I had a whole chapter on the first meal matters. That you have to get at least thirty grams of protein. I like that idea. That's easy. That's a chicken breast. That's a cottage cheese, I think, is like, you know.

• 47:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Four eggs?

• 47:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, six eggs.

• 47:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Six eggs, okay.

• 47:18Speaker 01

  Six eggs. It's a cup of cottage cheese. It's not a ton. I mean, six eggs is a lot, but you could put it in an omelet.

• 47:24Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 47:25Speaker 01

  So I like that, and I like the idea that it opens up these amino acid receptor sites, and it makes it so that your body starts pulling in the amino acids from everything after that. What I don't like is that I don't want women counting anymore. We have gone from counting calories to counting the number on the scale to counting macros. So in Eat Like a Girl, I talk about it, but then I'm like, we gotta free ourselves from all this counting. So that's the only, that's my only complaint about all of that.

• 47:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  The way I talk about that with my patients is it's a win just to get protein at the first meal of your day.

• 48:05Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 48:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Because everyone is so used to having a very carb-rich meal at the beginning of the day.

• 48:11Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 48:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And that carb-rich meal at the beginning of the day, we all know, you know this too, it completely throws off your metabolism for the rest of the day.

• 48:18Speaker 01

  That's right. Yep.

• 48:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So just starting with protein, let's just start with protein, right?

• 48:22Speaker 01

  That's right. Yeah, exactly.

• 48:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And then automatically, you're gonna switch to eating less carbs.

• 48:25Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 48:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And I think that's a massive win.

• 48:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 48:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And that win, and you wanna pile up the wins, right?

• 48:31Speaker 01

  Right. Well, I like that.

• 48:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You win there, and then you, maybe later, you add more protein. You're not counting it, you're just adding a little bit extra. Maybe having cottage cheese and eggs.

• 48:40Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 48:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And those kind of things are really helpful, because I agree with you. I think there's so much counting, and it's really, it's disempowering sometimes to have to count so much, because you get fatigue. You get counting fatigue, right?

• 48:51Speaker 01

  So like with, back to the CGM conversation, what I did with my patients is we would just put it on until they had mastery over their food. Then we took it off. And we were like, okay, now you have a sense of how you're supposed to feel. Now let's, it's like taking the training wheels off. Let's take the training wheels off, and now let's see how you put combinations together. But if we have to count everything, and that rigidity, you cannot, you can't sustain. Stain that over time.

• 49:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  No, just such an important point with CGMs and with any wearable. If you're someone that gets paralysis by over analysis of the data, or it even sends you backwards. Some people get a stress response

• 49:27Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 49:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  to all this data, just tell yourself in your brain that this is a temporary data collection for you to change your habits and then you can stop it. I think most people only need to wear a CGM for maybe six weeks and then they figure it out, right?

• 49:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, agreed. Yeah, six weeks is good. And then I tell people like, put one on in January after the holidays. Put one on after a vacation because you can kind of slip a little bit and you, you know, it's helpful to just sort of know where you're at.

• 49:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, right. Okay, what's number five? Just so we're complete.

• 49:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, number five is fat doesn't make you fat. And I think this is a pretty common one. We've been talking about it for a while. But what most women specifically don't know is you need good fat to make hormones, specifically omega threes. And, you know, like, I'm a huge fan of olive oil. I drizzle olive oil all over my food. It's high in polyphenols and I get extra virgin, organic, extra virgin olive oil. It's got great omega threes. I'm a huge fan of wild salmon. I have it a couple of times a week. Leaning into omega threes because if you don't have enough omega threes, you don't have enough ingredients to make hormones.

• 50:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 50:31Speaker 01

  But when we went low fat or, oh, I don't want, fat has too much calories in it. Like, we start to manipulate fat and withdraw fat out of a woman's diet. And now we have a hormonal problem.

• 50:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, absolutely. Great five points. I love all of them. You know, the last one reminds me also of going back to the history of medicine, how we got to this problem in the first place, is another kind of negative thing that happened during our lifetimes is this war on fat and war on cholesterol, right?

• 50:58Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 50:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And it was all from misguided science, from misinterpreting of the data. And then doctors and scientists digging their heels in because they didn't want to say they were wrong.

• 51:07Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 51:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  We were wrong. Cholesterol is not bad for you.

• 51:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:11Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Dietary cholesterol for very few people leads to elevation of blood cholesterol.

• 51:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 51:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And same with fat, like fat is not what's making people fat for the most part, right?

• 51:20Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 51:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And so I think it's an important point to bring up.

• 51:22Speaker 01

  The other thing on fat that I've really been trying to really get across to people is that if there's the fat on your body, like if you have extra adipose tissue, the tendency is to look at yourself again and label yourself undisciplined. Or some people give it the genetics, oh, it's my genetics. But if we actually break down what adipose tissue is, it's just storage for excess. Our bodies are so brilliantly designed that our bodies decided, oh, we have, I have too much glucose. I have too much insulin. I have too many chemicals that are that are coming in. I have too much synthetic estrogen that I don't know what to do with. I have a decision to make. I can either put all that excess around your heart, your lungs, your liver, the vital organs,

• 52:08Speaker 01

  or I can actually store it somewhere that isn't going to shorten your life. So I'm gonna put it around your belly, I'm gonna put it around your face, I'm gonna put it on your booty, I'm putting it on the back of your arms, because that's a better storage spot than your vital organs. And then we go and we look in the mirror and we just ridicule it. And the body's like, what, what? I was like saving your life. You get, you fed me all these foods, you gave me all these toxins. I didn't know where to put them, so I put them somewhere that saved your life and now you're mad?

• 52:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah, it's crazy.

• 52:36Speaker 01

  Right, like when you think of it through that lens. So fat, not just the fat on our body, but the fat in our food has been so misrepresented.

• 52:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's so true. And you know, I also, when I have this conversation with people about fat, men and women.

• 52:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:51Dr. Darshan Shah?

  We have the conversation about visceral fat and how that's particularly dangerous and how cortisol levels being elevated leads to more visceral fat as well. So there's a big connection between fat and stress, right?

• 53:03Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 53:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 53:04Speaker 01

  Well, so in our, in my world, we spend a lot of time helping women lose weight of all different ages. I have seen so many different patterns of weight loss. And the one pattern, that fasting won't help, food won't help. That is really a tough struggle is the chronically stressed out woman. And it could be trauma from a childhood that's left over, that has her cortisol system completely on high alert all the time, or it can be that she's so stressed out because of life. And what I try to get across to those women is when cortisol is high in the body, your body thinks it's running from a tiger.

• 53:43Speaker 01

  It doesn't matter if you're sitting at your desk, it thinks you're in a life threatening situation and that you are running from a wild animal that's going to eat you and kill you. And in that moment, there is no room for weight loss. There is no room for hormone balancing. There is no room for anything other than get up and go. So one of the things that I always tell women is if you are in your office and something stressful hits you, the best thing you can do is get up and walk around the floor, take a walk around the block. Cortisol is meant to make you move. If you don't move with cortisol, then all your body only has one choice, but to store it as fat.

• 54:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely. So true. And the thing that I can add to that is, and the reason that works so well is that the time it takes for psychological stress to become a physiological stress. So by physiological stress, I mean an elevation of your cortisol levels.

• 54:43Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 54:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  There's a time period in there and it's about 30 to 45 minutes for most people before the cortisol really starts rising. And so if you can take a break from that psychological stress signal by doing the things that you talked about, taking a walk around the block, you know, just doing something a little bit different, even like, you know, a lot of us are stressed out in front of our computers all day long and putting a timer there that every 30 to 45 minutes reminds you to take a quick break.

• 55:08Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 55:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That cuts off that signaling from the psychological stress through the physiological stress and keeps cortisol levels low.

• 55:16Speaker 01

  Ooh.

• 55:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 55:17Speaker 01

  That's amazing.

• 55:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It really works. And another negative aspect of cortisol is that it stacks. And what I mean by that is when your body's used to a certain level of cortisol secretion. When you increase stress without taking a break from it, your body resets the amount of cholesterol it secretes to a much even higher level. And so you have to take these breaks to lower your cortisol. And sometimes it's a longer break, like, you know, we need to do self-care on a daily basis, in my opinion, or take our vacations, or take our weekends, all these things that you talk about a lot.

• 55:49Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 55:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's why it helps.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  You know, I'm thinking, because I was just having this conversation with a friend earlier today, how we are meant, and you brought it up in this, in this context, is we are meant to, both men and women, to be rhythmic. Women are more rhythmic than men because we have more hormonal rhythms. But if you look at the nervous system, we're meant to go into fight or flight, and then we're meant to go into the parasympathetic rest and digest. If you look at the hormonal, a woman's menstrual cycle, we're meant to have periods where we have estrogen, and then we're meant to have periods where we have progesterone. I've heard even our microbes have a circadian rhythm, that they change guard according to if it's night or if it's day. So the body is completely rhythmic. Now, when we look at the world, we know there's a night and day. We know there's a summer and a winter.

• 56:36Speaker 01

  We all agree that nature has rhythms. What we are not all pointing out is that human, the human body has rhythms. And when you don't honor those rhythms, you end up in dysregulation.

• 56:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 56:50Speaker 01

  And once you're in dysregulation, everything starts to fall apart.

• 56:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That is so true. I mean, we completely have forgotten that we live according to the rhythms of the universe because we don't go outside to even experience them anymore.

• 57:04Speaker 01

  Right. And this was fasting. It was like, you know, the, the big aha I saw so many people have with Fast Like a Girl was, oh, wait, I was meant to go a long time without food. I, I was, that's actually how I was designed, was to rest from food.

• 57:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 57:18Speaker 01

  Like, yeah, that makes so much sense. When you look at stress, you were designed to rest from stress. You were designed to rest from hormonal surges. You were designed to have these periods of recalibration, and we just don't honor them enough.

• 57:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, absolutely. Wow, I mean, people are gonna learn so much from your book. Because I assume that you're also talking about fasting and eat like a girl as well, right? And so that's, that's, it's kind of like this overall paradigm for weight loss and eating well to maintain optimal biology and physiology.

• 57:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, with Fast Like a Girl was really interesting, how the world consumed that book. Because I had been teaching it in my clinic. I had seen it work. I taught it on my YouTube channel. People were grabbing it and, and doing really well with it. So I knew that women had to have this rhythmic style to fasting.

• 58:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 58:07Speaker 01

  But then it just, I mean, it just took over the world. It was like, we sold 800,000 copies in the matter of two years. It just, women just gobbled it up.

• 58:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's a great book.

• 58:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you.

• 58:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It really is. And you know, I think for even men to just learn about the biology of fasting and why it helps.

• 58:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Can we talk about that a little bit?

• 58:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So what are the benefits of fasting? We, we mentioned autophagy already.

• 58:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:30Dr. Darshan Shah?

  What are some of the other benefits?

• 58:31Speaker 01

  Um, well, growth hormone. Growth hormone surges even with 13 to 14 hours of fasting. And growth hormone, you need, you lose it after 30, and you need it for production of every other hormone. So it's a precursor to that. Inflammation goes down. Autophagy gets stimulated at like 17 hours. Intestinal stem cells at 24 hours of fasting come in and start to repair the gut. 36 hours of fasting, your body really goes and finds that, that storage, all the, the body weight around the, the circumference of your waist and all the places you don't want the extra weight. The visceral fat, it starts to, to burn that. 48 hours, you get a whole dopamine reset. And 72 hours, the whole immune system resets itself. And what's interesting, back to our evolutionary biology discussion,

• 59:15Speaker 01

  is the reason it does that is because in a short, you know, three day fast, you have to get stronger. You have to get better in order to go find food. Otherwise, you and I wouldn't have been, we wouldn't be sitting here.

• 59:26Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, and you said in 12 hours, you start making Ketones, which is an alternate form of energy as well. So do you advocate like a 12 hour fast? Or how do you recommend just practically for the listeners? How can they start a fasting protocol?

• 59:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think the first thing to do is start looking at your day as you have eating windows and fasting windows. So and the fasting window starts the night before. So if the last thing you put in your mouth is at eight o'clock at night, then four hours to midnight is so now you're four hours in. And then if you go all the way till 11 o'clock the next morning without food, you've done 15 hours without any food. And that's, that's an amazing amount of time for all of these neurochemical shifts to happen. So and then at 11 o'clock, you open up your eating window. And now you're eating within your eating window. And you know, if you want to snack seven times a day within the eating or within the eating window, fine.

• 1:00:23Speaker 01

  But the idea is that then you close the eating window down at eight and the fasting window starts again. So I think it starts with a mindset. And then what I used to do with my patients is I would have them just push their breakfast back an hour, maybe push their dinner up an hour. And we would slowly train them into these windows. And usually within two weeks, they could, they could successfully be in like a 16 eight, 16 hours of fasting, eight hours of eating.

• 1:00:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right. And then what about the longer term fast? Like a 72 hour fast? How often do you recommend those?

• 1:00:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, those are my favorite. That's where life really changes for people. Twice a year, I think is good. We do one every January. In fact, last year we had 100,000 people worldwide online. Yeah, online doing a like a global fast.

• 1:01:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You do this every year?

• 1:01:13Speaker 01

  We started, we started doing it every year a few years back. Last year was the biggest. We will do another one this year.

• 1:01:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Great. Is it every January?

• 1:01:20Speaker 01

  Every January.

• 1:01:21Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Every January. Okay. Cause I think, you know, I think this podcast will probably come out end of December or so, so maybe people can join the fast.

• 1:01:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  In the January.

• 1:01:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, just go to my website, drmindypelz.com. And there'll be a link there to sign up and it's free. It's completely free.

• 1:01:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And then that's fantastic. Thank you for doing that for the world.

• 1:01:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  This episode was brought to you by Nex Health, a health optimization and longevity clinic located in Los Angeles, Manhattan, and soon to be opening in Montecito, Nashville, Miami, and many other cities in the United States and Canada. Nex Health is the Apple Store of wellness, where you can optimize your health span and lifespan using cutting-edge technology. I actually founded Nex Health eight years ago to give my patients a place to go get extensive biomarker testing done and provide them with all the tools that I use to get my health in order. The longevity circuit in Nex Health using hyperbaric oxygen, sauna, cryotherapy, and LED light is a game changer. In addition, the doctors at Nex Health measure thousands of biomarkers and put into place

• 1:02:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  a longevity optimization plan using advanced tools like ozone, plasma exchange, and peptides. Go to www.nex.health to check it out.

• 1:02:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

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• 1:03:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  that I'm taking my vitamins and supplements. Go to vitaboom.com and check it out.

• 1:03:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Okay, so that's something to our fast. During that time, you're allowed what?

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, so within a three day water fast, the goal is to really get the blood sugar to come down. And now you're in this ketogenic energy system. So we don't want you raising blood sugar at all. So you can have black coffee without any creamer. You want it clean. You don't want it with mold or pesticides. This isn't like popping down to your franchise coffee store. You want just clean black coffee you can have. You can have tea, again, no creamer. You can have water, you can have mineral water. Element Tea has put out an amazing new. Have you tried their like soda can? It's not necessarily. Oh, they have a black cherry lime that's to die for. And it has sodium, potassium and magnesium in it. Those are you can do in a fast.

• 1:04:22Speaker 01

  So there's several things you can drink, but you're not eating.

• 1:04:26Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. And what I find is after you get past about 24 hours, you're just not hungry anymore.

• 1:04:30Speaker 01

  You're not hungry, yeah.

• 1:04:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I think those ketones turn off that hunger signal a little bit.

• 1:04:33Speaker 01

  Ketones turn off hunger. I think a lot of people realize that they actually eat for other reasons. And so that's what like I create a Fast Like a Girl journal that if people want to dive into the emotional reason they may eat. Because we discovered that a lot of people would hit maybe hour 30 and they would be like, well, I'm not, I'm not hungry, but I'm really depressed. And it's like, yeah, you've lost that ability to eat to soothe yourself. So your relationship to food, you see very clearly.

• 1:05:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And then when you're a woman and you're fasting like a girl, what do you need to change month over or week to week on your fasting schedule?

• 1:05:14Speaker 01

  It's a great question. So the two times in a woman's cycle that she's got to be careful to not fast too much. The first is ovulation. So that would be like day 10 to day 15. And the reason for that is that you have a little bit of progesterone that comes in during that time. And progesterone doesn't like cortisol to go up. So we like to keep cortisol down so that progesterone can make her appearance. The week before your period, progesterone is incredibly high. You need. Gastrophone to be high so the uterine lining can shed. So you should not be fasting because you don't want to raise cortisol.

• 1:05:51Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Got it, got it. And then are there some people that shouldn't be fasting? Do you not recommend fasting for certain groups of people?

• 1:05:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, another great question. If you're pregnant, this is not your tool. If you're nursing, you don't want to fast more than seventeen hours because you'll stimulate atophagy, which starts is it is your own natural detox. And all those toxins will go into breast milk and into your baby. So those, those are absolutely no with pregnancy, no longer than seventeen hours when you're nursing. Outside of that, eating disorders, I really recommend that you work with your professional, whoever's helping you. I I've seen people's relationship to food dramatically change when they learn to build a fasting lifestyle. But I really would encourage people to like walk that journey with some kind of practitioner. Pre-diabetes, diabetes, those are the ones that people usually go, I can't fast, right? And it's like, no, actually, you're the one that should fast.

• 1:06:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You should be fasting.

• 1:06:43Speaker 01

  But make sure your doctor's involved in that process with you.

• 1:06:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, absolutely. One other group I think that I talked to, or I try to meter fasting in a little bit later in their journey, is when they're eating absolutely zero protein and they're just losing skeletal muscle.

• 1:06:57Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So I'm just trying to get them three good meals of just even some protein in until we kind of fix their diet a little bit.

• 1:07:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, and some people, that brings up an interesting point. For some people, the door into fasting is to clean up food.

• 1:07:11Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, absolutely.

• 1:07:12Speaker 01

  So if you clean up food first, you might find fasting a lot more effortless. I had a really interesting experience a couple of years ago with an actress who was very public about her eating disorders. And she came to me, but she had lost her cycle. And she had come to me for help with her metabolic switch, basically. Now, I know if I got her fasting, we would start to clean up some of the, you know, some of the, she had, like, she was also, believe it or not, she was super thin, and she had a high hemoglobin A1C. She was insulin resistant.

• 1:07:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, so skinny fat kind of.

• 1:07:46Speaker 01

  Skinny fat. So we spent a couple of months just working on her food system. And it was like little things, like she was putting. Oat milk in her coffee. Okay, I need to try to shift that. She was eating plant-based meals that were really deficient in fiber and deficient in good fat and deficient in protein. So we need to add that in. We did that for a couple of months and just changed her relationship to food. And then I tacked on a fasting window. And the next she was, um, one of the shows that she did was a Netflix series. And when she went to go film the next season, she was like, oh my gosh, I have so much energy to, for when I'm actually on set.

• 1:08:27Speaker 01

  But what was startling to me is when I came back to food after a day of being on set, I had this beautiful relationship to food that I'd never had before. So I, I just had, we went in through a different door. And I think what happens is we fall into these absolutes in healthcare. We're like, oh, if you have an eating disorder, you shouldn't fast. No, there's some nuance here. I mean, the only absolute that I say is the first two I started with. If you're pregnant, absolutely no, this is not your tool. If you're nursing, don't go more than 17 hours. Otherwise, everybody else with the right practitioner working with them is going to benefit from fasting.

• 1:09:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I love that. And some people should seek out like the help of a nutritionist or some coach to help them through all of this. I think it's overwhelming for people.

• 1:09:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Especially if there's a lot of things they need to change.

• 1:09:15Speaker 01

  That's right. Yeah.

• 1:09:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's, there's professionals that know how to do this correctly. And, you know, a lot of them have been educated by you. So thank you.

• 1:09:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Thanks.

• 1:09:24Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I want to highlight a point that we just brought up and not gloss over it is that even if you don't have extra fat on your body, there's a chance that you have metabolic disease.

• 1:09:33Speaker 01

  Yes. Yes.

• 1:09:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's why there's only nine percent of people.

• 1:09:38Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:09:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  In America that have no metabolic disease.

• 1:09:42Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:09:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's not just nine percent that are, that are thin, right? There's a lot of thin people out there that have trouble with their metabolism. And so fasting can certainly help those people as well.

• 1:09:51Speaker 01

  Yes. And there's two things to say on that. First, I'm always going to be the voice of women. Because so many women get frustrated because their skinny husbands are like, well, I don't need to fast. I don't need to try to lose weight. But if you put their hemoglobin A1C numbers next to each other, you would see that actually skinny hubby may have been more of a metabolic mess than a woman who's gaining weight. So that's, that's the first thing I want to say. The second thing is that I think we have to start to look at this hemoglobin A1C as this number that is a gold standard for where we are with health and not, and get off the frickin' scale.

• 1:10:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:10:32Speaker 01

  Because the scale is not telling us. I, I had an experience where I was at the Olympic museum in Lake Geneva. And there was this beautiful picture of all the gold medal winners in all the different sports. And they did a whole picture for women and a whole picture for men. These are our athletes. They, they all were gold medal winners. I literally took my camera and went across the whole picture. If you saw the diversity in body types.

• 1:11:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly.

• 1:11:01Speaker 01

  There is no way you can tell me there is one average weight number that we all need to buy into. We are just built, all of us are built different. So that scale, I mean, we should stop the scale. The scale should be just thrown away.

• 1:11:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, exactly. I mean, I tell all my patients, like, the only kind of scale, if you want a scale at your house, only when you should have, is one that gives you your skeletal muscle mass. That's the number you need to be following. And just look at the directionality of it, right? That way, that gives you an indication of how much you need to go strength train, how much you need to protein you're eating, all those kinds of things. So that's, I agree with you fully that really, and you know, many people don't know what their hemoglobin A1C is. It's one of those numbers, everyone just needs to know what it was at his last measurement, right?

• 1:11:47Speaker 01

  I know. You know, and full transparency, I just did a bunch of blood work with you and mine was 5.1. I'm not happy with that. I actually wanted to be under five. So it was a beautiful observation for myself to be like, okay, time to go into some longer fast, time to tighten some things up. And, you know, I'm sure you didn't, you might've not even noticed that. And I think most doctors would have been like, oh, it's great. It's 5.1. But for my metabolic brain, I was like, I can do better. And when we look at like things like anti-aging, you want to have a hemoglobin A1C down to around 4.7, 4.8, that's a little bit better.

• 1:12:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I try to get my patients to aim directionally for five. If they're 5.2 or below, I'm so happy.

• 1:12:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  But then the number I started looking at after that actually is insulin.

• 1:12:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Because insulin is more of a leading indicator.

• 1:12:35Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:12:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And fasting fasting insulin, actually, and we try to get that number under 10 and under under five is like your metabolism is on point.

• 1:12:42Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:12:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And then the CGM is obviously another great way to look at, look at where you're at as well. So these are such important numbers and they've just now become available to people.

• 1:12:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. Or but but like with hemoglobin A1C, if you're not out of range, they're not going to tell you. So this is why like almost every podcast I'm on, I'm like 5.0, 5.0, get yourself there. Go look at it. You're that if it was 5.3, you probably didn't get a talking to, right? So go and look and hold yourself accountable.

• 1:13:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I just had Dr. Chatterjee on and it's so funny how these numbers are so arbitrary too, because in the United States, we tell you have prediabetes, you're 5.7 or above. In London, it's six and above. It's like by the time you're at 5.7 or six, like you have a real problem.

• 1:13:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, you do.

• 1:13:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And you can, it takes 30 years to get there sometimes, 20 to 30 years to go from five to six.

• 1:13:34Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:13:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So you want to know early.

• 1:13:36Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:13:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And you want to check frequently so you know if you're headed in the right direction or the wrong direction.

• 1:13:40Speaker 01

  That's right. That's right. Yeah.

• 1:13:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Let's have a quick conversation around movement, exercise, especially for women and how that differentiates than your men that you talk to.

• 1:13:52Speaker 01

  Okay, this is a great, this is a great question. What I want women to know is that at 40, as your hormones are starting to decline, because the ovaries are going into what I call retirement, they're like, hey, at 40, they're like, peace out, it's going to take me about 10 years, I'm going to go into retirement, I'm going to stop making as many sex hormones. So I'm going to hand the job over to another organ and that organ is your adrenal glands. So if you come racing into your 40s and you're incredibly stressed out and you combine that stress with like marathon running. Or Spartan training, or I don't want to diss CrossFit because there's some good things around CrossFit. But you're doing extreme exercise. There's a large chance you're going to tank your hormones even more

• 1:14:36Speaker 01

  because the adrenals can't handle the cortisol load.

• 1:14:39Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Or even the women that are still looking at calories in, calories out and spending three or four hours on a treadmill.

• 1:14:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:14:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Every week, you know, right? That too, right?

• 1:14:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you're so, and then cortisol is going up and the weight loss is stopping because now your body is like, wait, cortisol is around all the time. We need to shut, shut down burning fat. So when we look at exercise, especially for women over 40, I'm a huge fan of variation. Like you should be doing yoga, you should, and I love the strength training. We'll talk about that in a minute. You should be strength training. You should be walking or hiking. You know, you can do HIIT training. That's fine. But do, you should have a variation of all of that.

• 1:15:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:15:17Speaker 01

  And I think we all pick our favorite thing and then we're like, just do it over and over and over again. So I like women to look at like HIIT training. HIIT training can actually, like a 20 minute HIIT training workout can improve growth hormone. Growth hormone goes up, helps balance your hormones and the other hormones. Yoga, amazing for, for nurturing your parasympathetic nervous system. But maybe your yoga after 40 is not hot yoga where the room is like 120, like, and you're doing it extreme. Maybe it's more of like a Yin yoga where you're holding a position longer. What about hiking? I don't think we give walking enough credit. But like walking in nature, there's science showing that that'll actually lower cortisol.

• 1:15:59Speaker 01

  Now cortisol comes down and your adrenals are like, okay, maybe I'll make you a little more estrogen. Maybe I'll make you a little more progesterone. So we've got to start to have more variation, especially after 40. The other thing that I'll point out on women and exercise that I've literally become obsessed with because I think it hits all these marks and it goes back, I think, to the grandmother hypothesis, which is rucking.

• 1:16:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I was just gonna say, I love, I was just gonna say this, rucking is one of the best forms to get all of this

• 1:16:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:16:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right?

• 1:16:27Speaker 01

  So, okay, so I'm 55. I was a competitive tennis player in my younger years. And then I became a chronic runner. And then in my 40s, I started getting injured all the time and I stopped running. And I missed that cardiovascular. So this year, put on a 16-pound vest and I started going up hills. And I found my cardiovascular system was being worked as much as if I was running without a vest on, on a flat hill, flats level. And I was like, this is really interesting. I'm getting the cardiovascular improvement. Then I dove into the research and I started to see that they're showing rucking for menopausal women is stopping osteoporosis.

• 1:17:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I believe it.

• 1:17:08Speaker 01

  Now, think about the mechanism behind that because you've added weight. So the bones have to stay stronger so that they don't end up weakening because you need extra bone strength to be able to carry the, do this rucking thing that you're doing. Then I started studying the grandmother hypothesis and I'm like, oh my God, I bet the grandmother, when she was forging for tubers, probably had to take a toddler, plop her on her back and like carry the toddler out to go hunt for plant-based food to bring back to mom so mom could stay alive. So I think rucking is like designed, is part of the evolutionary design for menopausal women.

• 1:17:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I mean, if you look at evolution, especially like for women, is absolutely becomes evident that this is what our bodies were designed to do.

• 1:17:53Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:17:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Humans were designed to move and walk. I mean, that's why there's humans all over the world is because we walk there.

• 1:17:59Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:17:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And we did it with stuff.

• 1:18:01Speaker 01

  Right. That's right.

• 1:18:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right? We didn't always have like carriages and cars and horse carriages. Like we did it walking with stuff that we're carrying, especially kids. And so it makes absolute sense.

• 1:18:12Speaker 01

  So like posture, this is something interesting. I've visited countries, you and I, when I was at your house, we were talking about like places we've gone.

• 1:18:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes, yes.

• 1:18:20Speaker 01

  Like for example, I spent some time in Haiti where they carry everything on their head.

• 1:18:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:18:26Speaker 01

  Okay, well, what does carrying everything on your head do? Well, it causes you to come upright. Right. It actually improves the curve in your neck so that you keep all this and the curve in your low back. So you have some spring and bounce within your curve. So actually head carrying, like carrying baskets, carrying weight on your head is actually really beneficial. I'm sure the cave grandmother did that.

• 1:18:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly.

• 1:18:49Speaker 01

  You know, with the toddler on her back and she probably gathered with a basket and put the basket on her head. And she didn't realize that she was actually keeping her body in better shape than what we're currently doing.

• 1:19:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely. And the other fact about rucking too is it is does wonders for your balance and your ability to stay mobile.

• 1:19:08Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:19:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  As well. And I think the lack of mobility, I mean, I don't think this is well known. The lack of mobility that we get as we age is what leads to falls, which is the number one cause of demise after the age of seventy.

• 1:19:19Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:19:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You're much less likely to fall if you're rucking for the years and years before that.

• 1:19:24Speaker 01

  The other interesting thing on fitness for menopausal women is looking at hand strength.

• 1:19:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Grip strength?

• 1:19:30Speaker 01

  Grip strength. So they're saying that actually grip strength is a predictor of aging. Well, I interviewed on my podcast, a movement expert, Katie Bowman, one of the top performing podcasts we've done. And she talked about a movement diet. And she said, we have to make sure as we age that we're looking at movements like chopping in the kitchen, whisking, like kneading with our hands, that those movements are actually important for our longevity to keep that hand strength. Strong because that grip strength is important for getting out of a chair, for reaching and pulling things. It's for functionality as we age. So any exercise or anything we do in a day that improves grip strength and cooking is one of them.

• 1:20:13Speaker 01

  We're gonna start or pulling or or pushing and all that hand movement is going to make sure that your functionality as you age is at its best shape because you're not losing that grip strength.

• 1:20:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Well, so I mean, this whole tendency of just buying prepared food.

• 1:20:29Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 1:20:30Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You know, it's a, there's actually the act of making the food is keeping you stronger.

• 1:20:35Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:20:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And also mentally stimulating as well.

• 1:20:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So for men and women, you know, the. This whole world that we live in, where everything is so comfortable. Everything just comes on demand. Is actually really affecting our strength. Brains, all of it, right?

• 1:20:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, like it's when you really look at how we're designed, you see how off course we've gotten. And then, and then we can, you know, we talked a lot about chronic disease, but I really believe that the suffering that's happening in menopause right now is because we didn't, we didn't ask ourselves, how are we designed to be through this process? And when we look at movement, we were designed for things like rucking. My mom is eighty five years old and she is so mentally sharp. And there's a couple of things I've decided she does. She goes out into her garden every single day. She pulls the weeds out, she gets her hands in dirt, she bends down and she squats so that she can tend to her garden. And then she comes inside and she does puzzles.

• 1:21:31Speaker 01

  And then when she's done doing puzzles, she goes and sits on the couch and reads a book and does crosswords. She's actually tapping into her evolutionary design of like problem solving, of bending, of squatting, of reaching, of getting hands in dirt. She's not pulling tubers out, but she's pulling out weeds. This, there's a simple lifestyle that we have gotten so far away from that is causing this hormonal mess that so many women are experiencing.

• 1:21:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, it's so true. And I think step one of regulating your hormones as a woman is just getting your lifestyle back to this lifestyle of movement and eating with nature, all of this, right? You know, I think for a lot of women, they, they, they're doing these things, they're trying these things. They're, they're reading your books, they're going down the pathway of modifying their diet, their exercise, all of this. Yet, you know, they're still very menopausal and they're still suffering. What else can you bring to them? What else do you recommend they do to really help regulate?

• 1:22:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, so a book that I actually wrote a long time ago, it's out there still, was called The Menopause Reset, and I came up with five lifestyle tools that I thought every woman over 40 should do, and I still stick by these. The first one was learning to fast, because for those women after 40, they have to learn that the brain is less sensitive to glucose, and it becomes more sensitive to ketones. So the 50, 60, 70, 80-year-old woman, she is going to thrive on ketones even more than the 20 and 30-year-old. Second rule was, we have to learn to cycle our food, and we've talked about this. But I like carb cycling. Like, sometimes there's low-carb moments, and sometimes there's high-carb moments. They benefit different hormones.

• 1:23:17Speaker 01

  Estrogen loves low-carb living. Progesterone does better with high-carb living. So, learning to cycle your carbohydrates. The third was the microbiome. Work to repair your microbiome, because microbiome breaks down estrogen, and the microbiome makes neurotransmitters. So, for women through menopause, what also isn't being talked about is that estrogen stimulates dopamine, serotonin, acetylcholine. But these are neurotransmitters that your gut can make. So, let's start to feed those microbes. Number four was detox. This is why I'm like in love with everything you're doing here with detox.

• 1:23:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Thank you.

• 1:23:53Speaker 01

  Let's take lead, for example. Lead lives in the bones. And when estrogen starts to go on her wild ride, when she's up and down through the perimenopausal years, that signals lead to come out of the bones. And lead will come out of the bones, and it'll go into the brain, and it'll start to create depression. It will start to create memory loss. Lead is a dumber downer. It slows everything down. So, if you didn't detox before 40, you will be in much better shape through the menopausal journey if you start to detox now. This is, again, why I'm so in love with everything you're doing with detox. The crazy menopausal symptoms are so amplified when there's a presence of a lot of toxins, especially heavy metals.

• 1:24:37Speaker 01

  And then the last one is to stop the rushing woman syndrome. And rushing women's Syndrome is not a phrase that I coined. I always give Dr. Libby Weaver wrote a book called The Rushing Woman Syndrome, but you you might be able to get away with rushing women rushing woman syndrome at thirty five, at forty five and fifteen five, you cannot get away with it anymore. You need to learn how to rest. You need to understand recovery. You I call it courageously resting. Women going through the menopausal process needs to they need to learn to courageously rest. And when you take those five things and you put them into a lifestyle, menopause is not as bad as you think it would. And then you match that with the grandmother

• 1:25:21Speaker 01

  hypothesis. It's really not that bad. Why it's bad is because you are at an evolutionary mismatch with what was supposed to occur when your hormones changed.

• 1:25:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I love that. I mean, it's such an incredible structure for how to think about all of this, but it's so all encompassing. I really think it'll help. And the last thing you mentioned, how we're at an evolutionary mismatch, making this so much worse for women than it used to be.

• 1:25:47Speaker 01

  Bingo.

• 1:25:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right?

• 1:25:48Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:25:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And so women lived long periods of time with, you know, generations and generations going through menopause, and it never was such a complete disaster as it is right now.

• 1:26:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:01Dr. Darshan Shah?

  We need to get back to making this a tolerable part of or even an enjoyable part of a woman's life.

• 1:26:07Speaker 01

  Let's think about this. I'm laughing to myself because I'm like, do we think that the cave grandmother had a hot flash?

• 1:26:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:14Speaker 01

  I don't I don't know. I'm going to go and look and see if we have any documentation of that. Did she have depression and anxiety? Did she gain weight? Did she have trouble sleeping? Was she irritable? I'm actually thinking, no, she because she knew what was happening to her. She knew the purpose of the reproductive system stopping. She knew that she was needed by the tribe. She wasn't tossed aside by a society that said, you look old. She was actually moving into her wise elder years where she was going to be a different version of herself that was helpful. There was a rhythm that she followed, and we are not following that rhythm right now. Society is not honoring her. Society is tossing us aside at that point in which she

• 1:26:56Speaker 01

  needs to actually be brought up. And we need to look at menopausal women and say, you are more helpful to the culture now than ever. Let's get you living in accordance with your biology.

• 1:27:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I love that. Such great wisdom. And you're doing so much for turning around, not just individual women's health, but also the perception of this part of life for women. And, you know, for that, I'm sure everyone thanks you. So thank you for doing everything that you do.

• 1:27:23Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:27:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Mindy, I'm so excited about your new book, Eat Like a Girl. When can people start getting this?

• 1:27:27Speaker 01

  It's available everywhere. I'll tell you a really fun story. You can find it anywhere, but go to your bookstore if you can. Go support your independent bookstores. The first print was over 100,000 copies. They have all left my publisher. They are all out there in the world. People are gobbling them up. So you should be able to find them at your bookstore. But yeah, anywhere that you get books.

• 1:27:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Very cool, Mindy. Yeah, I'm sure that this is going to change a lot of women's lives. So thank you for putting that out into the world. And what's next for you?

• 1:27:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, you know, I'm rhythmic. So I've been out in the world doing a lot with both these two books. And now I'm kind of going inner a little bit more. And I'm writing the next book, which will be really about this brain change that happens to women. And I really want women to understand that menopause actually is working in your favor if you understand exactly what is going on from an evolutionary standpoint. And that's the next book that I'm writing.

• 1:28:21Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, so exciting. You know, more women suffer from Alzheimer's than men. And I think your book will really help turn that as well, turn that tide as well.

• 1:28:32Speaker 01

  Yes, I hope so.

• 1:28:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So thank you for doing that. Where can people find you, Dr. Pelz?

• 1:28:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can go to my website, Dr. Mindy Pelz. My passion project, and what a lot of people don't realize, is that I do four new YouTube videos every week on new topics. So go to YouTube and every-

• 1:28:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  For a week?

• 1:28:47Speaker 01

  For a week. Half hour long. That's a big part of what I do.

• 1:28:51Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:52Speaker 01

  Half hour videos for a week are all with research backed. I answer questions that people bring to me. But yeah, my YouTube is really a large part of what I do.

• 1:29:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Your social media is so active too. What's your social media handle?

• 1:29:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, my name, Dr. Mindy Pelz, you know, across all socials. And then my podcast is the Resetter Podcast.

• 1:29:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 1:29:10Speaker 01

  And you're coming on that. We're going to talk about my experience with what you're doing here, which just blew my mind. So I can't wait to bring you to my people.

• 1:29:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I can't wait either. Thank you so much for joining me today. And until the next book, I'm going to have you back on for the next book.

• 1:29:25Speaker 01

  Yes, thank you. I would love to do that.

• 1:29:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  This is such a great conversation. Thank you.

• 1:29:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you.

• 1:29:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That was a fantastic episode of the Extend Podcast with Dr. Mindy Pelz. I'm really excited to have so many women's health experts on this podcast. I've committed to having at least 50% of my guests be women. And I think it's an often undervalued and undertalked about area of health that we really need to focus on. So I'm proud to do that with Dr. Mindy Pelz on this podcast. And here are my top 10 takeaways from this episode. Number one, only 9% of Americans are metabolically healthy post pandemic. Before the pandemic, 20% of Americans were metabolically healthy. Now that number has dropped to just 9%. Women are disproportionately impacted due to hormonal shifts and societal pressures that exacerbate the metabolic challenges. Number two, most health research ignores women entirely.

• 1:30:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Many medications and treatments are tested only on men or animals, leaving women to struggle with ineffective care. This lack of tailored research is a major reason women feel unsupported in their health journeys. Number three, cholesterol naturally rises during certain parts of your cycle. Women's cholesterol levels increase in the first half of their cycle to support estrogen production. Doctors often misinterpret this as a health issue without considering where women are in their menstrual cycle. Looking at women's cholesterol levels should really be done with a lens, looking at where they are in their cycle as well. Number four, glyphosate drives toxins deeper into the body. This pesticide not only disrupts hormones, but also pushes heavy metals like lead and mercury deeper into tissues, affecting brain, thyroid, and even fertility.

• 1:31:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Women exposed to glyphosate may experience worsened anxiety, depression, and metabolic issues. Number five, estrogen decline triggers neurotransmitter deficiency.

• 1:31:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Estrogen stimulates serotonin, dopamine, and acetylcholine production, which is why its decline during menopause can lead to mood swings, memory loss, and low energy. Most women are unaware that feeding their gut microbiome can actually partially offset this loss. Number six, adrenal glands take over hormone production after the age of 40 in women. After 40, the ovaries hand over hormone production to the adrenals. Chronic stress exhausts the adrenals, worsening perimenopausal symptoms and menopausal symptoms like weight gain, irritability, and fatigue. Number seven, visceral fat accumulation is tied to stress, not just diet. Elevated cortisol levels, often from psychological stress, lead to visceral fat around the organs.

• 1:31:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Women with high stress are more prone to weight gain in their midsection, which also increases the risk of chronic diseases. Lots of heavy cardioactivity also leads to increased cortisol levels, causing sometimes the same problem. Number eight, heavy metals are found in almost every woman tested. In clinics testing thousands of women, not a single patient was free from heavy metals like lead or mercury. These toxins disrupt hormones and are linked to anxiety, depression, and thyroid issues. Number nine, fasting may benefit women even more than some men. Women's brains are more sensitive to ketones produced during fasting, making fasting especially powerful for energy, fat loss, and cognitive health in some women.

• 1:32:37Dr. Darshan Shah?

  However, the fasting must be tailored to the menstrual cycles to avoid hormonal imbalances. And number 10, menopausal women are evolutionary heroes. The grandmother hypothesis suggests that postmenopausal women's brains remodel to focus on societal and family well-being. Historically, these women were crucial for survival. In modern society, undervalues their wisdom and biological significance.

• 1:33:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Thank you so much for listening to the podcast today. Please remember to subscribe if you liked this episode and give us a good review and share a link with your friends. It really helps to support all of our efforts. I also want to remind you that the information shared on this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please consult with your healthcare provider or physician before making any decisions or taking any action based on what you hear today, especially if you have any underlying health conditions or on any medications. Your doctor knows your personal health situation the best, and it's always important to seek their guidance.