Why Your Legs and Ankles Are Swollen & What to Do About It

Dr. Mindy explores three foods that can help reduce swelling in your legs and ankles, a concern for many of you dealing with discomfort and inconvenience. The three recommended foods—wild salmon, dark chocolate, and egg yolks—are rich in essential nutrients like vitamins B6, magnesium, and vitamin D that improve circulation, support lymphatic drainage, and help manage fluid retention. By incorporating these foods into your diet, along with mindful eating and fasting practices, you can take control of your health and alleviate these uncomfortable symptoms. Remember: 'You can control the destiny of your health.' To view full show notes, more information on our guests, resources mentioned in the episode, discount codes, transcripts, and more, visit https://drmindypelz.com/ep294 Check out our fasting membership at resetacademy.drmindypelz.com https://resetacademy.drmindypelz.com/. Please note our medical disclaimer https://drmindypelz.com/medical-disclaimer/.

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

• 0:02Mindy Pelz?

  On this episode of the Resetter Podcast, we are going to go through the foods to eat so that you can eliminate swollen legs and ankles. This is a real thing a lot of you are struggling with. So in this video, I want to give you some food ideas. I want to talk about how do you get these swollen ankles and legs? They're uncomfortable. They're not fun to deal with. So I really wanted to bring this to you so you had some resources. Welcome to the Resetter Podcast. This podcast is all about empowering you to believe in yourself again. If you have a passion for learning, if you're looking to be in control of your health

• 0:45Mindy Pelz?

  and take your power back, this is the podcast for you.

• 0:56Mindy Pelz?

  So let's dive in because some of these are really yummy and I'm excited to share them with you. Okay, first, we got you. You all know me, like the first thing we've got to do is we've got to go high level and say, well, what are the reasons my legs are swelling? And the reason it's important to understand the why is because if I just sit here and say, eat this, eat this, eat this, you'll go eat it. But if it didn't work or it wasn't the end all be all for your swollen legs, you start to think that it's the food's fault or you'll turn on me and be like, oh, my God, that YouTube lady is crazy. And I really want you to think for yourself. We have a healthcare system that has put us to sleep and has taken any ownership of our responsibility

• 1:40Mindy Pelz?

  for our own health away. And so a large reason that I do these videos on YouTube is to give you your power back because you can control the destiny of your health. And when we look at swollen legs and we look at swollen ankles, we've got about one, two, three, four. We've got about six or seven different things that it can be from. So here we go. The first for my menopausal women out there is hormone fluctuations, especially during menopause.

• 2:10Mindy Pelz?

  Pause. This has to do with estrogen. Estrogen is what I call a diva. She does so much for us. And when she goes away, a lot of things start to change and circulation can be one of them. I'll explain how we can, we can bring that back at the end of this video. So stick with me through this. Okay. Second is fatty liver disease. Uh, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is a huge problem, especially here in America. By 2050, they're, they're saying like 50% of Americans will have fatty liver disease because of the quality of our food. So we'll talk about that.

• 2:49Mindy Pelz?

  Nutrient deficiencies. This is a big one and I'm going to dive in specifically into magnesium and B6 on this video. So stick with me through that. Uh, pregnancy, of course, you know, you're going to see a, a, a shift in circulation in the legs. Being overweight and long periods of inactivity. So these are kind of how we get to this place where these legs are really swollen. And usually a leg and ankle swelling is due to a concept they called edema or fluid buildup. The, these are areas around your cells that fill up with water and your lymphatic system has trouble clearing them. And so when that, when we can't clear something out of the body, things stay stagnant.

• 3:34Mindy Pelz?

  You've heard me say this a lot with fat. How fat cells are just places your body didn't know what, what to do with this stuff. And so it put it in fat cells. Well, when we're seeing that swelling around the legs and the ankles, it's just an indication that the lymph system, your whole lymphatic system is not working well. And we will leave links here in this, in the notes of this video. Or if you're listening to this on my podcast, we'll leave, we'll leave links there. I've done videos on how to improve your lymphatic system. So if you see, if you think it's that, make sure you dive into understanding lymph. And what you eat can make a big difference when it comes to edema. So here are the three that I recommend in my, this is my favorite one, the first one.

• 4:19Mindy Pelz?

  It's my favorite protein. Let's put it that way. It is wild salmon. So wild salmon is rich in vitamin B6. And it, what by vitamins B6 can do is improve circulation.

• 4:34Mindy Pelz?

  So it's especially helpful for circulation in your legs and your ankles, which is what we're talking about. And specifically, research has found that it's really helpful for that swelling in the legs and ankle at the tail end of your menstrual cycle. So remember, this swelling can be estrogen dependent. So my perimenopausal, my menopausal women, you're going to notice some of that swelling. And then my menstruating women, you're going to notice some of the swelling, but mostly at the tail end, which is the moment when progesterone comes in, you're going to notice some of that swelling as well. So there were two really interesting studies.

• 5:16Mindy Pelz?

  A 2012 study in the Journal of Caring Sciences found that taking vitamin B6 decreased fluid retention and swelling in women going through PMS. So this is oral, take a supplement can really help. And that same journal in a 2016 study found that getting adequate amounts of vitamin B6 decreased fluid retention. And when you paired it, check this out, when you paired it with calcium, it was even more effective. So if you're looking for supplements, I don't have one for you here, but if you're looking for supplements for retention, let's pair them with both calcium and with B6 with calcium.

• 6:01Mindy Pelz?

  Now, something interesting about wild salmon is it is really, really high in B6. So 170 gram piece of wild salmon contains 100% of your daily resource for vitamin B6, so your requirements. Now, 170 grams is about six ounces of wild salmon and three ounces is about the size of a stack of carts, a deck of carts. So in order to get just 100% of your daily requirement of B6, you would need to have two stacks of carts put together. That would be a pretty big piece of salmon to get you 100%.

• 6:47Mindy Pelz?

  And it but it but it's worth a shot. Uh, I can tell you in Eat Like a Girl, uh, my cookbook that pairs with Fast Like a Girl, Chef Jeff made one of the best salmon recipes on the planet. Uh, it's called Salmon for a Cocky. You can go check that out in my book, Eat Like a Girl. Um, and I make it all the time. It is so good, so I highly recommend that one. Okay, second food that's gonna help with swelling is dark chocolate. This is also my favorite. A 2016 report found that 48% of Americans are low and or deficient in magnesium.

• 7:28Mindy Pelz?

  And hopefully you know, we need magnesium for sleep, for stress, for brain function, for hormone hormonal production. Every hormone in your body needs magnesium and we got 48% of adults that are deficient in it. I'm gonna take a little segue here for a moment. When you think about the hormonal mess that we're in right now, when you think about the the women that are suffering through menopause, where in the conversation is that you are magnesium deficient because 48% of you are? So how do we bring magnesium back? Well, we can do it through supplementation, but we can also do it through dark chocolate. So but the fun thing about magnesium is it's not just brain function.

• 8:12Mindy Pelz?

  It's not just hormone production, but it also plays a central role in lymphatic drainage. So remember, I just want to keep bringing you back to how this body, this miraculous body of yours works. But the lymph is how we drain the bad stuff away from important organs. So like we have lymph in our, a lot of lymph tissue in our neck so that our brain can detox. We've got lymph coming out of our liver that goes into our gut. We've got lymph all throughout our gut. We have lymph, you can often feel the lymph nodes going down to your lower extremities.

• 8:55Mindy Pelz?

  So lymph cannot be forgotten and you need magnesium to get that drainage going out of the lymph so these organs can detox. When we're talking about these swollen legs, so much circulation and lymph movement has to happen in the legs and it's really difficult to do if you're low in magnesium. So, and I really think a lot of lymph as being a part of the immune system. It's not separate from it. I just want to point that out. There's a 2023 review in the Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition, and it found that magnesium deficiency impairs lymph drainage and making it harder for your body to keep fluid moving.

• 9:40Mindy Pelz?

  So I'm thinking, as I'm, as I'm, as I'm, you know, bringing this to you all, you know, how many of you have been on like a plane? And all of a sudden, a long flight and you feel like, like your legs get swollen. Sometimes mine do. And when you, we see studies like this where a magnesium deficiency can impair that circulation. What about taking some magnesium before you get on a flight? Or better yet, have some dark chocolate. And we, when we eat, when we eat dark chocolate, I'm not talking about the sugary processed chocolate. I'm talking about the dark, like 70, 80% is gonna be a little bitter. Like, like you wouldn't be able to eat a whole bar of dark chocolate.

• 10:24Mindy Pelz?

  So one single ounce of dark chocolate contains 65mg of magnesium, which is a lot. This is why we are such fans of chocolate. You think we're fans of chocolate because of how it tastes, but we're fans of chocolate because of the magnesium punch it can give you. I also just want to point out that it is not lost on me that we as women crave chocolate before our periods. And you need magnesium to make progesterone. And I have often thought how miraculous that is of the human body, the female human body to give us that craving so it can get that magnesium in.

• 11:07Mindy Pelz?

  The other thing about dark chocolate, I'm just off on dark chocolate because I like it, is that you also get a lot of flavonoids and other antioxidants, which are really good for brain function, gut health, inflammation. This is why I'm always going to recommend to you all that you do food first, supplements second. When we look at this metabolic switch that I've been teaching you in Fast Like a Girl and Eat Like a Girl, when we look at this metabolic switch going from sugar burner to fat burner. What I'm really saying to you in the most basic way, the most simple way as I can, is what you eat matters and when you eat matters.

• 11:50Mindy Pelz?

  So if we're always putting it through the lens of eating foods that support health and tacking on these fasting windows so that we can tap into our own natural healing processes, you will find that year after year after year, you're getting healthier and healthier and healthier.

• 12:09Mindy Pelz?

  Okay, third food for your legs and your ankles, egg yolks. So remember, like this weird trend where we were supposed to like get egg whites? That never made sense to me because the yolk is where all the goodness is. And it turns out that the yolk is packed with vitamin D. So a lot of times we talk about vitamin D only being able to come from the sun or from fatty fish, which not everybody's a fatty fish fan. But there's a study here, a 2017 study that showed that from the Foot and Ankle International Journal

• 12:49Mindy Pelz?

  that found that 84% of patients who presented with foot and ankle swelling had low vitamin D. And the study goes on to talk about one of the ways of getting it back is through egg yolks. So we want to look, and when you get egg yolks, I just want to say something about this. When I go to buy egg yolks at the supermarket and I get them home, I, when I crack them open, I look for that deep orange color. They shouldn't be like a pale yellow. If they're pale yellow, they don't have as many nutrients in it. So look for that deep orange color.

• 13:30Mindy Pelz?

  And know that this vitamin D, you can get, you have your eggs out in the sun. Grab, make some scrambled eggs and sit out in the sun. But what I want you to know is that vitamin D, when we get it specifically through food and supplementation, that it has over a thousand cellular processes across your body and brain. And it acts like a hormone. They do say vitamin D is a hormone. It regulates kidney flow, uh, function and blood flow. And it supports your liver, which your liver, by the way, those of you are like, why can't I get into ketosis? Why can't I thrive in the fasted state? It could be because the liver is congested.

• 14:12Mindy Pelz?

  And so when we're eating, if we bring some of those egg yolks back in, we up our vitamin D, it makes this metabolic switch work a lot better. Now, there are a couple of interesting, more interesting things on vitamin D. I just want to point out for you that 42% of Americans are clinically deficient in vitamin D. And nearly 80% of us have levels below the optimal range. So this is how important vitamin D is. I also want to take a little bit of a side turn because vitamin D is what you need for, to, to be bringing back into your life to help with circulation in the legs and, and in your ankles.

• 14:56Mindy Pelz?

  And a 2001 study in the Journal of Exposure Science and Epidemiology found that the average American spends 92% of the day indoors or in the car. So you gotta make yourself go outside. I really want to point that out. Last thing I'll say on the egg yolk. I've bounced around a bit here, but egg yolks are a great source of vitamin D, especially when they come from happy chickens, like I mentioned, that are raised on grass and they eat alfalfa and bugs and other wild fids. So make sure that yolk is really dark, really dark orange.

• 15:38Mindy Pelz?

  Okay, questions you all had. Somebody said, "I've heard that magnesium and vitamin B6 reduce leg swelling. What are the best food sources for these nutrients?" And I'm gonna give you a couple of foods that are rich in both magnesium and B6. So I like raw nuts and seeds. I'm a big fan of legumes like black beans, edamame, because you get the soy. Certain whole grains like quinoa, rice are really good. And our leafy greens like Swiss chard, kale, spinach, and collard greens. When we want to add in more B6, we go to look at our fruits a little more.

• 16:20Mindy Pelz?

  We look at the bananas, avocados, papayas, oranges, cantaloupes. But you also can get a lot of B6 in protein sources like beef liver, salmon. We've been talking about salmon, tuna, poultry, and eggs. So back at food. A key thing when you go to Eat Like a Girl, if you go to Purchase Eat Like a Girl, in it I have something called the Key 24, which is the key nutrients that you need to be able to make hormones. I have links to foods of those 24 nutrients. So if you're looking to kind of go deeper into understanding sources of food and their vitamin content and what they do for those of you that are women, for your female body, you can go check that book out.

• 17:05Mindy Pelz?

  Okay, second question. "How does hormonal fluctuations during menopause contribute to my swelling in my legs and ankles? And what can I eat to minimize it?" Here is, okay, I'm gonna make this one really simple. When we go through menopause, we have these massive swings of estrogen that are going up and down and up and down. When you get a big influx of estrogen, you need to get rid of that estrogen. And if you don't get rid of that estrogen, what ends up happening is that it can create swelling in the body. Lot of women will notice bloating. Some women will notice those swollen ankles.

• 17:48Mindy Pelz?

  Those of you that are taking hormone replacement therapy, this specifically happens. And so I know, you know, I've known a lot of women. I know I tinkered with some bioidenticals and you, you end up with a lot of bloating. You end up with like, you feel puffy. So here's the trick. Fiber, fiber, fiber. Lots of leafy greens. Well, if you eat that on a consistent basis, every single meal, fiber, fiber, fiber, you're going to find that that swelling will go down.

• 18:22Mindy Pelz?

  Okay. And then the last question is can fasting, my favorite topic, help relieve the inflammation from fluctuating menopausal hormones? And the answer is absolutely yes. Those of you who've been fasting fans with me or fasty fanatics, put it in the notes if, or in the comments, if you've noticed that fasting has really helped with inflammation. Definitely the longer fasts are going to be more potent, but it really at about 12 to 13 hours, we start to see inflammation come down. Now, the trick with any, anytime you're fasting to help with a hormonal issue, please make sure that you get Fast Like a Girl, because the whole purpose of Fast Like a Girl

• 19:05Mindy Pelz?

  was to teach you how to map fasting to your hormones. So there's a lot to say on that. There are a lot of videos on it, but more importantly, I've written in a whole book. So go check out Fast Like a Girl. So there you go. I know that swollen ankles and legs is no fun. I also know you are in control of your health and you have more power than you have been taught. So I really hope that videos like this give you the power back. I hope videos like this help you understand what you can do for yourself and that you're not at the mercy of your genetics, your life situation, your budget. This is why I love fasting, that you can be in control of your own health. You've just got to educate yourself. Okay?

• 19:51Mindy Pelz?

  So I'm cheering you on. And as always, I hope that helped. Thank you so much for joining me in today's episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we'd love to know about it. So please leave us a review, share it with your friends, and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.