How to Train Your Body to Burn Fat After 40

If you’re eating less, exercising more, and fasting harder but still struggling to lose weight after 40, Dr. Mindy wants you to approach fat loss differently. This solo episode of Live Like a Girl is a special compilation of two of Dr. Mindy’s teachings on fat burning and metabolic health after 40. In the first half, she breaks down why fat loss can become more challenging as estrogen changes and shares five strategies for training your body to become more metabolically flexible, from strength training and walking to fasting, protein pacing, and sleep. Then she turns to dietary fat and explains why the type of fat you eat matters. She walks through visceral fat, omega fatty acids, and five foods she uses to support a healthier metabolic environment. The common thread throughout both conversations: fat loss after 40 requires a strategy that works with your changing metabolism. In This Episode, You’ll Learn Why fat loss can become harder after 40How estrogen influences metabolism and body-fat distributionWhat protein pacing means and how Mindy uses itWhy walking is an underrated metabolic toolThe difference between visceral and subcutaneous fatWhy Mindy pays attention to the types of dietary fats she eatsFive foods she recommends adding to a fat-loss strategyResources Mentioned: Fresh Pressed Olive Oil https://www.freshpressedoliveoiltrk.com/98BZMH/293Z4R/?uid=573MCT Oil https://naturalforce.kckb.st/pelzFor more resources related to today’s episode, visit the podcast episode page: drmindypelz.com/ep362 https://www.drmindypelz.com/ep362 Connect with Dr. Mindy: Join Reset Academy https://resetacademy.drmindypelz.com/reset-academy?utm_source=libsyn&utm_medium=podcast&utm_term=&utm_content=loc-description&utm_campaign=reset-academyWatch the episodes on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@DrMindyPelz?sub_confirmation=1Follow Dr. Mindy on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dr.mindypelz/Subscribe to Dr. Mindy’s newsletter https://www.drmindypelz.com/ Disclaimer: This podcast is intended for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, fasting routine, or lifestyle.

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

• 0:00Mindy Pelz?

  Let's talk about cod liver oil for a second. And I know what you're thinking, cod liver oil, really? Dr. Mindy, that sounds like something my grandmother took. But hang with me here for a moment, because this is one of those old school remedies that modern science keeps proving right. Cod liver oil is one of nature's most concentrated sources of omega-3 fatty acids. Also, it's high in vitamin A and vitamin D, all in a form your body can actually recognize and use. This is such a powerful combination that is profoundly anti-inflammatory. It's protective to your brain, it supports your hormones, and it does something I care

• 0:45Mindy Pelz?

  really deeply about, which is it starts to repair and nourish your gut lining at a deep cellular level. This is something I personally take every single day, and one of the things that I have noticed the most is what it's done for my skin. I recommend it to women who are navigating hormonal shifts, dealing with chronic inflammation, or simply trusting to protect their long-term health. So Standard Process is the company I deeply align with and trust. It's a whole-food-based, clean company, and it has held the standard of quality for decades, and I expect only the best from Standard Process.

• 1:29Mindy Pelz?

  They are definitely one of the top supplement companies in the world. So if you want to try it, check it out. You can learn more and get some for yourself at drmindypels.standarprocess.com. That's drmindypels.standarprocess.com. Enjoy. Hey, Dr. Mindy here, and welcome to the Live Like a Girl podcast, where I bring you icons, disruptors, educators, scientists, and doctors that show you what can be possible when you love and celebrate the female body you are blessed to live in.

• 2:12Mindy Pelz?

  Let's dive in. So I hear from so many of you, specifically women over 40, where they're like, I've been eating less, I've been fasting more, I've been exercising more, and I'm just not getting a result. Put in the comments if that's you, because what I want to show you is that there is an actual strategy to start to send the signal to your body that it needs to burn fat. It's like a switch you didn't turn on. So in this video, I'm going to show you what it looks like to burn fat after 40. This is the moment for both men and women, but especially women, that that fat burning

• 2:56Mindy Pelz?

  capability starts to slow down. And I want to show you not only why that happens, but I want, again, at the end, give you a checklist of five things you can do to start to train your body to burn fat, because that's all it is. You've got this, I promise you, that's all it is. You've just got to start to train the body, say, hey, body, here's the fat, this is what I want you to burn, and it's not that hard. I'll show you how. Are you ready? Here we go. So the eat less, exercise more routine is very, very outdated. I hope we're all on the same page as that. It changes the set point that starts to make it harder and harder to lose weight.

• 3:41Mindy Pelz?

  And for women, after 40, we lose estrogen. And estrogen isn't just a reproductive hormone, it is a metabolic hormone. And what we know on the research around estrogen is that estrogen was a weight regulator. There's a 22 study in the frontiers in endocrinology that said that estrogen supported energy in three major key ways. It helped you burn more fat when you were at rest. Gosh, I wish I could go back to my younger self and remind her to be grateful for that. It suppresses your appetite via sending signals to your hypothalamus in your brain, and it actually influenced adipose tissue function.

• 4:26Mindy Pelz?

  So when there is lower estrogen, adipose tissue does not interact with hormones like leptin, which leptin is your fat burning hormone. So when all three of these advantages move away, it gets really hard to start to burn fat. And I will tell you for myself, this has been a really interesting piece, because I've been an athlete my whole life. And when I hit 40, I was just like many of you, I was just like, whoa, what is going on? The clothes are tight, the scale's going up. And it was like there was a switch that went in an opposite direction, and many of the things that I'm going to teach you today, I started to do.

• 5:08Mindy Pelz?

  In fact, little fun note, I found fasting originally for myself, because I was like, I'm eating less, I'm working out more, I'm gaining weight, what's going on? And that was when all the fasting information was emerging. But there's more than just fasting you can do. So I'm going to give you some really concrete ideas. So there's something that we call fat oxidation. So remember that your body has two metabolisms, one that it runs off of glucose, and one where it runs off of fat. This is the fat oxidation metabolism. It's also known as the ketogenic metabolism, because a lot of people know about ketones.

• 5:51Mindy Pelz?

  And there's a 2018 review in Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science that found that there are some specific ways you can start to get over into this fat burning place and start to tap into this fat oxidation state. And one of the tricks is by exercising in a fasted state. We're going to talk more about this, but those of you that are trying to really lose weight, remember that exercising in a fasted state can accelerate weight loss. Now, some of you might be going, wait a second, what about muscle loss? We'll talk about that here in a moment.

• 6:32Mindy Pelz?

  We also know that the brain is not able to use glucose as much. So if you don't tap over into this fat oxidation place, where you're either bringing your glucose down, or you're training it through exercise and fasting, like I mentioned, then your brain metabolism is off, because your brain doesn't know what to do with glucose. So one of the key insights that I want to bring forward here to you is that after 40, when we start to train our body to burn fat, we're not just improving our physique, but we're improving our brain clarity, which is so friggin' cool.

• 7:13Mindy Pelz?

  So the number one way that we start to tap into this fat oxidation is through exercise. And this has gotten a lot of attention right now, strength training, tons of people are saying, pick up those weights, they're going to really help. And yes, and I'm going to give you some modified versions for it, but as early as 2020, there was a study done in the Journal of Sports Science that said resistance training. So resistance training usually means body weight training, so like a TRX, or even a push-up. A push-up would be where you have to resist against your own body weight, that that helps

• 7:51Mindy Pelz?

  to preserve lean mass, and it supports a higher energy expenditure when you are at rest, in comparison to just cardio done by itself. So the more muscle you have, the more of this resistance training that you're doing, the more at rest. So at rest means what I'm doing right now, just sitting, I'm not moving, that I would actually, if I have more muscle on me because of strength training, I would be burning more fat right now, given more muscle weight. This is why muscle is so friggin' important.

• 8:31Mindy Pelz?

  Now, we do know there's a 22 meta-analysis in sports medicine that found lifting weights, so this is a little different than just resistance training, this is actually lifting free weights was highly effective for long-term fat loss and for visceral fat. So those of you that are trying to get over the menopausal belly weight, that we got to pick up heavy weights, you can do both free weights and you can do the machines, we'll talk about that, the science behind that here in a moment, but I think it's really important to understand that if we start to go to the weights, we're really taking a step towards training the body to be a fat burner.

• 9:14Mindy Pelz?

  Also, there's something really cool that's called NEAT. I was gonna say it's really neat, because it is really neat. And NEAT stands for Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. And this is like what I'm doing right now. I'm a big fidgeter. So what we know is that a lot of our calories are burned through our body like by fidgeting. So we got fidgeting, shifting positions, even while you're sitting, walking around the house, standing, doing chores, and even small movements. And this actually accounts for a large amount of our daily calories. But as you lose weight, this NEAT factor dials down and you don't have, these little

• 9:58Mindy Pelz?

  fidgety moves don't have as much of an impact at your overall calorie deficit. So the heavier you are, the more you fidget, the easier it is going to be to lose weight. But once you lose that weight, the fidgeting and the moving around and the chores aren't going to have as much of an impact. This is why walking specifically is one of the most practical ways to start to counteract this metabolic shutdown that's happening in your body. In fact, a 2017 review in the Journal of Nutrition found that adding moderate walking to a 12-week diet plan enhanced fat loss and improved insulin sensitivity compared

• 10:43Mindy Pelz?

  to just diet alone. So remember, I'm always working here to teach you a holistic way to look at this. And walking is simple, it's free, it's time efficient. Okay, second thing I want you to think about is food timing. This is fasting. That one of the ways you train your body to burn fat, to go into this fat oxidation state, is by not bringing in glucose. So keep in mind that it's not just what you eat, but when you eat. And you don't have to fast long to be able to start to get over here into this fat oxidative state.

• 11:22Mindy Pelz?

  So in fact, just going like 14 to 16 hours without food tells your body, it sends a signal and says, hey, glucose hasn't come in, so how about we go and store some of that glucose that you put around my belly, back of my arms, my booty, my boobs, like, go find that and burn that. The signal for that is 14 to 16 hours in a fasted state. So there was a 2024 meta-analysis that found intermittent fasting can be as effective, and in some cases more effective, I'm gonna say in all cases more effective, than calorie restriction for short-term weight loss.

• 12:06Mindy Pelz?

  I mean, put in the comments, how many of you have lost a tremendous amount of weight fasting? I mean, I see it, we're really trying to keep track of all the pounds that people, we want to do like a big chart or a big number of all the weight people have lost on our channel. So if you've lost weight, put it in the comments so we can add you to our counter. But what we know is that fasting puts you in this glucose-depriving state. And so what happens is when you're in a deprivation of glucose, then your body switches over into fat oxidation. Now, there's a trick to fasting that can really amplify your weight loss and make you an even better fat burner, and that's called fasting and protein pacing.

• 12:51Mindy Pelz?

  So I've brought you this over the years, and I want to reiterate it because it's really cool. So there's a 23 study in the Journal of Obesity that found a structured intermittent fasting routine with protein pacing was a greater reduction in weight, and specifically visceral weight, than just standard calorie restriction. And what they found is that overall, there was a 33% reduction in visceral fat, visceral fat is belly fat, compared to people that just dieted and did calorie restriction, there was only 14% reduction in visceral fat.

• 13:32Mindy Pelz?

  So fasting with protein pacing compared to calorie restriction, we are seeing a much greater weight loss, 33% compared to 14%. And we see this all the time in our, in our, in our community. So here is your checklist, five things that you can start doing tomorrow to start losing weight. As I go through these, tell me which one's your favorite. And again, I'd want to hear how much weight y'all have lost. So step number one is you're gonna start lifting weights two to three times per week. You're gonna lift them as heavy as you can, eight reps is perfect, three sets of eight reps at the heaviest weight you can possibly do.

• 14:16Mindy Pelz?

  We know out of the study of 23, out of medicine and science and sports and exercise, that they found machines are actually equally as effective as free weights for burning fat and getting you into this fat oxidation state. So if you like the machines, do them, just make sure they are heavy. Okay, number two, try skipping breakfasts. So simply delaying your first meal to noon is not that hard. It usually takes you about 16 hours to get into that spot. So I'm gonna say for weight loss, we're looking at somewhere between 14 to 16 hours

• 15:00Mindy Pelz?

  of fasting. So you could skip breakfast, or you could skip dinner. So some of our, some of the people here in our community have lost tremendous amount of weight by actually eating breakfast and skipping dinner. So pick which one you're skipping, breakfast or dinner, but know that intermittent fasting is powerful for weight loss. I, I, I don't know if anybody has watched more people fast in this world than me, and I just continue to be in awe of the power of changing the timing of your eating and to be able to take your eating and put it all into one eating window, leaving a longer period for fasting.

• 15:43Mindy Pelz?

  There was a 24 meta-analysis in the Journal of Clinical Medicine that says that intermittent fasting was equal or superior to calorie restriction for fat loss. So within a week, according to this, this meta-analysis, blood sugar was stabilizing and hunger was fading in the participants that they looked at. Now, I do want to point out, because I get asked this a lot, if you are gonna do a really heavy weight training session in the morning, your muscles may need a little more fuel. So if your workout is one that's very intense, you might actually eat before it and then skip dinner.

• 16:25Mindy Pelz?

  So more on that later, but it's, again, you get to choose where that eating window goes. Step number three, you're gonna eat 20 to 40 grams of protein at every single meal. This is called protein pacing. And a 23 study in the Journal of Obesity said that protein pacing with fasting produced two times the fat loss than just dieting alone. So great sources of protein are meat, eggs, fish, Greek yogurt, tofu, lentils, any kind of legumes or beans. This is not about, weight loss is not about deprivation anymore. It's actually about strategy.

• 17:10Mindy Pelz?

  Step number four is you're gonna walk every single day. This is gonna take care of that NEAT effect, where as you lose weight, the fidgeting and the moving around don't become as metabolically helpful for your body. So what you're gonna do is 20 minutes of walking every single day. I personally like walking after a meal, so you start to use all that glucose and you don't store it. Step number five is you're gonna protect your sleep. If you want to lose weight, you gotta sleep. So we need to start to get your sleep in order. I will leave links, I've done a lot of sleep videos.

• 17:50Mindy Pelz?

  I wrote a whole sleep chapter specifically for women over 40 and age like a girl. And so I will leave links for videos and books and everything in the notes. If you're struggling to sleep, because I don't want to give you a tool that you're like, well, great, I can't even sleep, I'd like to sleep. I know how hard it is to get sleep, especially as you age. So please lean into that. But here's the problem with poor night sleep, is it increases cortisol and it will, this spike in cortisol will stimulate ghrelin, which is your hunger hormone, and suppress leptin, which is your fat-burning hormone and tells your brain that you are full.

• 18:35Mindy Pelz?

  So you want to shoot for about seven to nine hours of sleep, but again, let's just get some good quality sleep, so that we can keep those hormones balanced, keep cortisol down, your brain and body can repair. So let me know which one of those steps you've done that has been really helpful if you're struggling with becoming this fat burner that I know you can be. If you have any, you know, put your concerns in the comments, we'll be there to support you. I look at all my comments. So many of you are incredible at answering other people because you've been watching my YouTube videos for years and years and years. And most importantly, I really want to help those of you that are struggling with weight

• 19:20Mindy Pelz?

  loss, because it's, it's not, it's not about discipline, it's not about your genetics, it's a strategy. Weight loss is a strategy. And this video is giving you some real core reasons that you can, and, and tools that you can start using so that you can tap into that strategy. But more importantly, what matters to me is that you don't give up on yourself, because your body is meant to burn fat. I promise you. I grew up in a family where my mom was always on a diet, she put my older sister on a diet, I was taught to be an emotional food eater, I carried 10 to 20 extra pounds on me for

• 20:04Mindy Pelz?

  most of my life until I started doing these kinds of tricks. So they work, and you don't have some kind of special, you're not a special outlier who can't allow you to turn into a fat-burning machine. I know you can do it, so please don't give up on yourself.

• 20:25Mindy Pelz?

  Something has gone very wrong with our food. And I think, deep down, you already know it. The chemicals that are legally allowed in our food are quietly disrupting your hormones. They're driving your cravings, and they're making it nearly impossible to feel good in your body. And when you can't feel good, what do you do? You blame yourself. But this is not a you problem. It's a food system problem. My mom knew this before anyone was talking about it. She was a health food pioneer in the 1970s, filling our home with fresh, real food, while every other kid at school had Twinkies in their lunchbox. But she was trying to teach me something I've spent my whole career building on.

• 21:09Mindy Pelz?

  The quality of what you put in your body matters, especially as a woman. This is the heart of my book, Eat Like a Girl. I'm going to show you exactly which foods nourish your hormonal system, which ones are destroying it, and how to tell the difference. Plus, there are over 100 recipes, plant-based and omnivore, created by incredible professional chefs. When you learn to eat like a girl, everything shifts. Your energy, your cravings, your mood, your cycle, your relationship with food itself. So you can get Eat Like a Girl anywhere that you get your books normally, or you can find Eat Like a Girl at drmindypelz.com/books.

• 21:51Mindy Pelz?

  And let's together start changing the way that we think about every meal. I'm Chirion. If you've been avoiding fats, hoping that it will help you lose your belly weight, and it's not working, I want to explain why. Because everything we have been taught about fats is completely wrong. So in this video, not only do I want to give you a crash course in how do you start to look at fats as a friend, not an enemy, and which fats do you use, but most importantly, and this is so key, and this is why I've so wanted to do this video for you, is you

• 22:35Mindy Pelz?

  can use fat to lose your belly weight. I am not joking, and I'm going to show you the evidence right here, right now, in this video. So here we go. We've got to understand that there are two types of fat. So there is subcutaneous fat, and there is visceral fat. You've probably also heard this as white fat and brown fat, but let's just make it applicable to our lives. And subcutaneous fat is like maybe the fat you see around your arms or in your face. But visceral fat is not just the fat around your belly. That is all visceral fat for both men and women.

• 23:17Mindy Pelz?

  But it's also around your organs, which makes it so damaging, which is why I want you to burn it, not just so you can love your abs again, or love your body again, but so you can stay healthy. Because the research on visceral fat is pretty gnarly. So there's a 2021 study in the Journal of American Heart, by the Journal of American Heart Association, that followed over 3,000 adults, and found that visceral fat was independently associated with a 60% increase in heart attack or stroke. And this was independent. So that means it didn't matter what the rest of your body weight was.

• 24:00Mindy Pelz?

  If it was in your belly, if it was around your organs, it increased your chance of a heart attack or stroke by 60%. This also means those of you who know people who are skinny fat, which means on the outside, they look skinny, but on the inside, the fat is accumulating around their organs. And one of the things that is so damaging about this fat that accumulates around our organs is that it starts to give off like a waste product. So let's use your visceral fat, for example, your belly fat. The fat that accumulates around your belly actually detoxes.

• 24:41Mindy Pelz?

  It gives off a waste that goes up into, from your stomach, through the portal vein, which the portal vein is the connection from your digestive system to your liver. And it starts to congest all that. So you all have heard me talk about common bile duct, you've heard me talk about castor oil packs, those of you who are trying to fast, and you want to figure out how to get into more ketosis, this portal vein is really important. And so we want to look at this as a systematic approach, where when we start to use fasting specifically to lose weight, we need to soften up this visceral fat. And these foods I'm going to talk to, and these fats you can use right now, are going

• 25:26Mindy Pelz?

  to be imperative for that. The other thing that I want to point out to my menopausal friends is that when you go through perimenopause, unfortunately, that hormonal change makes you accumulate more visceral fat, gets that menopausal belly weight that is so unattractive, or so many of you are struggling with, because it just appears out of nowhere. Now, let's talk about different types of fat, and this is incredibly important. So you have omega-3, omega-6, and omega-9 fatty acids. Every single fat that you eat will fall into the category of one of those three types

• 26:10Mindy Pelz?

  of fatty acids. When we are eating the standard American diet, or Western diet, or ultra-processed diet, when we are eating that diet, it is very high in omega-6s. And it puts you into an inflammatory state, and it causes you to make more visceral fat. But the reason it does that is because it threw this balance off. 3, 6, 9, they have to be in balance. And so when omega-6s go up from ultra-processed foods, now that balance is thrown off. And I've had so many of you ask me about the benefits of like fish oils and omega-3

• 26:55Mindy Pelz?

  oils. And yes, omega-3 oils are fabulous. I'll put in the notes, by the way, some of my favorite products, if you choose to go and you want to see what I personally use. But the thing is that if you are eating a high ultra-processed food diet, that is high in omega-6s, and you come in with a fish oil, that can be really powerful for balancing those out. But if you're not eating a high ultra-processed diet, oftentimes, you actually can put yourself in an inflammatory state by adding some of these fish oils in. So this is why I like to look at balancing these fatty acids with food, and not always

• 27:39Mindy Pelz?

  going towards supplementation, and I'll show you some more reason why. But we have to remember that any fat that is high in omega-6s, the toxic, harmful omega-6s is going to drive inflammation. Whereas any fat that's high in omega-3s is going to lower inflammation. And we mess our metabolic system up often by getting this ratio off. It's like such this weird little nuance that starts to lean you more towards more belly fat. There's a 21 review in Missouri Medicine that confirmed that humans evolved on a diet

• 28:23Mindy Pelz?

  that was roughly 1 to 1, meaning they had 1 omega-6 to 1 omega-3. But the average Western diet today is 20 to 1. 20 parts of omega-6 in their diet to 1 omega-3. That is driving belly weight. That is driving visceral fat. That is killing you cardiovascularly. So we want to bring the 1 to 1 back. And we have some earlier trials that we've looked at on this balance that shows that simply improving this ratio to 4 to 1, take it out of 20 to 1, get it to 4 to 1, can

• 29:04Mindy Pelz?

  decrease your chances of a heart attack, dying by a heart attack by 70%.

• 29:12Mindy Pelz?

  So, these five foods flip that ratio. These five foods are gonna get you back to one to one and have you reducing the belly fat, not just on the outside, but also the organs on the inside. Here are the five. First, extra virgin olive oil. So it is one of the most anti-inflammatory oils that you can eat. It is rich in oleic acid, which is a mono-saturated, unsaturated fat, and it's a really powerful polyphenol that will feed good bacteria. There is a 2018 study in the European Journal of Nutrition that says that,

• 29:54Mindy Pelz?

  check this out, my women, women who ate two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil daily, daily for nine weeks, had 80% more fat loss than women who ate soybean oil. We put the ratio back. For nine weeks, they looked at this, and it was an 80% fat loss if you did two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. Let's do a challenge. I want to say, let's, for 30 days, women who are trying to lose your belly weight, put in the comments if you're gonna join me in this challenge. 30 days, two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. I'll put my favorite one down in the notes. If we have coupon codes, we'll give it to you.

• 30:39Mindy Pelz?

  Let's try it for 30 days. Commit to it and see if you start to lose weight, specifically around your belly fat. There's another meta-analysis, a 2018 meta-analysis, that shows that, it reviewed 11 trials, so this is a meta-analysis, that olive oil consistently produced greater body fat loss and reduction of waist size when compared to other oils. I don't know about you, but olive oil is the visceral fat. It is the belly fat hero of the day. Let's do the 30-day challenge. Let me know if you're doing the 30-day challenge. Okay, food number two is wild-caught fatty fish.

• 31:25Mindy Pelz?

  So fish, fatty fish, so we're talking, sometimes not the tastiest ones, but I'll explain to you how we can start to apply it. Fatty fish is really high in omega-3s. So this is your mackerel, this is your sardines. This can even be wild-caught salmon. I saw a funny, funny thing on Instagram. Sardines, put in the comments if you're like obsessed with sardines, because we did some sardines on our TikTok channel and on my Instagram, and it like went crazy. I even had somebody come up to me at a restaurant and told me she did a sardine fast, and it completely changed her mental health. Sardines are quite popular, and I saw an Instagram post

• 32:07Mindy Pelz?

  where some woman was getting really angry because she was trying to find sardines, and sardines have become so popular that they're running out of it at her store. That's how amazing sardines are, because they're so high in these omega-3 fatty acids. And there is a 22-study in hospital nutrition that looked at two different diets. They had exact weight loss, and the only difference was one had implemented more fatty fish than the other. And what they found, as you would guess, is that the people who added fatty fish into their diet lost more weight. Now, there's an acronym you can use to remember the fatty fish, and it's called SMASH.

• 32:51Mindy Pelz?

  It is salmon, mackerel, anchovy, sardines, and herring. Add your SMASH foods in. They are low in mercury and they're high in omega-3s, and you want to aim for two to three servings per week. Okay, food number three. You're gonna hear me talk about this all the time, because I am obsessed with this food right now, and it is whole eggs. So whole eggs are not only really high in omega-3s, but they're packed with protein, they're packed with choline, which is incredible for cognition, and they're packed with leucine, which is incredible for balancing your nervous system and even improving neuroplasticity in your brain.

• 33:36Mindy Pelz?

  So eggs are not only high in omega-3, they're not only high in leucine and choline, but they have a lot of vitamin D in them. And stay tuned, there is a whole video that I'm doing for you. I'm actually doing it today, as I do these videos, on why vitamin D is such a powerful weight loss nutrient. So when you are looking for eggs, I want to make sure that you are looking for pasture-raised eggs. Those are the ones that have the really bright yellow-orange yolks. Those are gonna be higher in omega-3s. So that's how we're gonna use eggs.

• 34:15Mindy Pelz?

  Okay, food number four, another house favorite here in our home is grass-fed beef. So you could also even do grass-fed dairy. So grass-fed beef is one of the most meaningful resources of omega-3 fatty acids. And a 2010 study out of the Nutrition Journal said that grass-fed beef has five times more omega-3s than grain-fed beef. In fact, grain-fed beef is gonna spike that omega-6, whereas grass-fed beef is gonna spike the omega-3. We call them both beef, but they're gonna have a massively different effect in your body.

• 34:57Mindy Pelz?

  So those of you who are like, wait, isn't beef contribute to cardiovascular disease? Yes, conventional beef, because it's high in these omega-6s. But if you do grass-fed, you are getting a higher amount of omega-3s. So the quality, it's what that animal is fed, makes a really big difference. Okay, number five is another favorite of mine, which is MCT oil. So MCT oil is this small, little piece of coconut oil, and it is so powerful for reducing hunger down. So not only is it high in omega-3s,

• 35:41Mindy Pelz?

  which is going to help you burn your visceral belly fat, but it's also really powerful for killing hunger. And there was a 24 meta-analysis in clinical nutrition that looked at MCT oil consumption, and it said that it leads, this is why I bring it up in this video, it leads to significantly greater weight and fat loss compared to other dietary fats. So we have our olive oil, that extra virgin, clean olive oil, and now we know we can add in MCT oil. Now we're bringing two oils in so that we can lose belly fat?

• 36:24Mindy Pelz?

  Like, that's insane when you think about how many of us have been walking around forever thinking that fat was gonna cause me to gain weight, but we didn't get the message that it was the omega-6 fats that are gonna cause you to gain weight, not the omega-3 fats. And there's another incredible study, 2017 study in Physiology and Behavior, that said that MCT oil suppressed appetite more than just olive coconut oil or vegetable oil. And what the study goes on to say is that people ate less when they had MCT oil before it. In fact, this one said they reported lower hunger

• 37:05Mindy Pelz?

  for three hours after taking a tablespoon and a half of MCT oil. So those of you, when you're hungry, try this experiment with me. When you're hungry, instead of reaching for food, how about you just take a tablespoon and a half of MCT oil? You can do your extra virgin, two tablespoons of, EVO is what they call it, extra virgin olive oil. You could maybe do that in the morning, and then maybe around 11 or 12, when you were like, you know, might normally reach for food, you would do some MCT oil. You could put MCT oil in your coffee. You can drizzle it as a salad dressing. You can mix it in with extra virgin olive oil.

• 37:49Mindy Pelz?

  But those two oils are friggin' magic for appetite control and being able to break this fat down.

• 38:00Mindy Pelz?

  And you could also even just do 1 to 2 tablespoons after dinner of the MCT oil. So here are your 5 action steps. First, I want you to swap out your cooking oil. So go in your closet right now, into your pantry, and look and see, do you have vegetable oil? Do you have soybean oil? Do you have sunflower oil? Or foods that have partially hydrogenated oils? Look at the ingredients. Get those foods out of your pantry now, because they are increasing your omega-6s. So, and then swap them out. When you go to the market and you're looking at labels, let's look for olive oil. Let's look for avocado oils even better.

• 38:44Mindy Pelz?

  It's an omega-3, it's just a lighter omega-3. And let's make sure we're not throwing this ratio off. Okay, number 2 is you're gonna add in fatty fish twice a week. So choose from the smash list. I recently ran a bunch of blood work on myself, and I had my OB look at it, and we were evaluating it, and my omega-3s were a little low. And she actually had a really interesting idea. She told me, just take sardines, and cut them up in chunks, little small chunks, and add them to your salad. I was like, I have a salad every day, that's really easy. So you could eat, you know, a sardine a day,

• 39:29Mindy Pelz?

  or you can break it down and put it into a salad. I've done that with sauerkraut before too. Something that I don't love the strong taste of it, is that I'll put it in a salad to be able to sort of dilute the taste factor. So I really like that as a possibility. Okay, number 3. Be sure you go watch the video that I did on breaking a fast. We'll leave the link here. But eggs are a phenomenal food to break your fast with. So my number 3rd action step for you is, at your breakfast meal, make sure you include some eggs. If you want to do steak and eggs, and side of greens, with some olive oil, that would be a great breakfast meal for a shorter fast,

• 40:14Mindy Pelz?

  one that's under 48 hours. So, or even under 24 hours, like a 12-hour, 17-hour, 24-hour fast. That would be incredible. Okay, your 4th step, action step, is I want you to really consider switching to grass-fed beef. And I know, grass-fed beef is a little more expensive than conventional beef, but it is a health food. It is a weight loss food. It is a cardiometabolic improvement food. It is medicine. And when we look at conventional meat, it is not that. It's the exact opposite. So let's start going for grass-fed.

• 40:57Mindy Pelz?

  If you need to eat it a little less, that's fine. But I really want you to consider upgrading the quality of meat that you're eating, so you get that higher omega-3. Okay, 5th action step is that you are going to put on your countertop, so you can see it, a bottle of olive oil and a bottle of MCT oil. And you are gonna commit to 2 tablespoons of olive oil a day, and a tablespoon and a half of MCT oil a day, however you're gonna get it in. So you can put it on a spoon and just get it in. You can put it in salad dressings, the MCT oil. You can put in your coffee. But put it on your countertop, so you see it,

• 41:39Mindy Pelz?

  and you are implementing it into your diet every single day. What I want you to understand is that when you look at that belly fat that you just hate, or you walk into your doctor's office, and they're like, "Your BMI is high and your waist circumference is high", is that there is a strategy here. And if you understand what to avoid, so you bring those omega-6s, the inflammatory omega-6s down, and you know what to bring up with those omega-3 foods, you will get that ratio right, and you will burn belly fat, and you will start to see your cardiometabolic markers improve. That's how powerful this food is. If you've had that experience,

• 42:25Mindy Pelz?

  put it in the comments, so we can see it. If you are joining me on my 30-day challenge of these oils, let me know. But most importantly, most importantly, I do not want you to think that you are a prisoner to this belly fat. You are not. You are not a prisoner to your blood work. It is not congenital. We have proven through epigenetics, you can override that. The important thing is you need a strategy. That's how you start to improve these markers and start to lose weight. So let me know if that's helpful, but most importantly, do not give up on yourself. You may just be one food strategy away

• 43:08Mindy Pelz?

  from dropping the weight that you have always wanted to drop. That's how powerful you are.