Part Two: Functional Health Expert Dr. Mindy Pelz on How Fasting Heals Hormones, Burns Belly Fat & Increases Sex Drive

A single shift in your morning routine could change your energy, your mood, and even how you age!! And…your sex drive will improve too! Are you struggling with menopausal weight gain, endless food cravings, or feeling like your body just isn’t working the way it used to? You’re not alone. In this groundbreaking episode of Mayim Bialik's Breakdown, Dr. Mindy Pelz — leading expert in women’s health, hormone science, and fasting, and author of Age Like a Girl — exposes the truth about why women age differently, what’s really behind weight gain during menopause, and how to train your fat-burning metabolism to finally work with you, not against you. She reveals why everyone should care about women and how they age (it affects more than just women’s health!), the real causes of menopausal weight gain and how it differs from regular weight gain (and yes, it’s fixable!), how to train your metabolic system to burn fat efficiently (even after 40!), the mental health and chronic disease benefits of fasting, (especially for women in menopause), and the dangers of the “Make America Healthy Again” movement (what they’re getting wrong about your health!). Dr. Mindy Pelz also breaks down: - Fasting 101: When to fast, for how long, & how to break your fast safely - The truth about detoxing: Common toxin buildups & how to activate your natural detox pathways - Proven solutions to reverse menopausal weight gain naturally - The surprising reason older men also gain weight - How much protein & fiber you really need - Why fasting is not starving, and how to do it safely for your body type - The shocking origins of the “breakfast is the most important meal of the day” myth - Who should and shouldn’t fast, and why it isn't isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach - How processed foods are destroying your hormones (and why they’re even worse for women) - The real reason men lose weight faster than women, and how to level the playing field - Why we’re living in the most toxic time in human history, and what you can do to protect yourself - How fasting can ease menopause symptoms like hot flashes & brain fog - Why endometriosis diagnoses are rising - 3 things everyone should add to their diet right now for longevity & energy - The powerful role women are designed for after menopause (your brain actually rewires itself during this time!) - The real truth about hormone replacement therapy (HRT): Who should consider it, its risks, and why it only works with key lifestyle changes - How to finally beat food cravings once and for all, without feeling deprived - Why most people are getting aging completely wrong...and how to truly age like a girl! Whether you’re in your 30s, 40s, 50s, or beyond, this is the information that can literally change how you age, think, and feel. TUNE IN to MBB now and learn how to reset your body, balance your hormones, and reclaim your energy, naturally! Dr. Mindy Pelz’ latest book, Age Like a Girl, is available for pre-order: ⁠https://www.discover.hayhouse.com/agelikeagirl/⁠ https://www.discover.hayhouse.com/agelikeagirl/ Subscribe on Substack for Ad-Free Episodes & Bonus Content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bialikbreakdown.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BialikBreakdown.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.bialikbreakdown.com/ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube.com/mayimbialik⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.youtube.com/mayimbialik%E2%81%A0 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices https://megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:05Mayim Bialik?

  Hi, I'm Mayim Bialik.

• 0:06Jonathan Cohen?

  And I'm Jonathan Cohen.

• 0:07Mayim Bialik?

  And welcome to part two of our conversation with Dr. Mindy Pelz, New York Times bestselling author, educator, expert, and trailblazer in the field of women's health and hormone science and metabolism. Her current upcoming book, Age Like a Girl, is fantastic and a wonderful compliment to Fast Like a Girl and Eat Like a Girl. In part two of our conversation with Dr. Mindy, we're going to talk about how there are some very clear, very easy ways for the government to be helping us be truly healthy again, and what are the forces behind why Maha is turning away from what is likely the number one detrimental factor in all of our lives and diets.

• 0:50Mayim Bialik?

  We talk about what hormone replacement therapy is missing and why it's setting so many of us up for recurring failure. We're also going to talk about sugar addiction, how to curb cravings, and the three things you should add to your diet to turn your metabolism around. We can't wait for you to hear part two of our conversation with Dr. Mindy, so here it is, and enjoy.

• 1:14Jonathan Cohen?

  Break it down. Fasting also impacts the body's ability to detox from chemicals that have built up. Is that accurate?

• 1:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, yes.

• 1:25Jonathan Cohen?

  In your practice, what are some of the most common buildup of toxins that people are holding on to? And how is that impacting them?

• 1:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. Now you want to go into a really complicated topic. Okay, first, we have to acknowledge we live in the most toxic time in human history. So you have toxins everywhere. So you have them on your new clothes that come into your house, new furniture that comes into your house. You step outside, there's air pollution. It's laden in our beauty products. It's in our food. It's everywhere. So avoiding those toxins, I'm going to be really honest. My clinic was built off a detox. And I used to give people long lists. Here's what I want you to go home and throw this out.

• 2:15Speaker 02

  It's gotten so bad, it's near impossible to minimize your toxic load now, which is another reason I love fasting. Because when you fast, especially if you go 17 hours, you stimulate something called autophagy. And autophagy is you spark the intelligence inside the cell and it can register if that cell needs to be detoxed. And it will actually push out bacteria, viruses, pesticides, plastics, almost everything except heavy metals. Because heavy metals are heavy. So they're a little harder to get rid of. So another reason I love regular fasting

• 3:00Speaker 02

  is if you can throw a 17-hour fast in on a once or twice a week schedule, think of it like you're detoxing. You're getting rid of all the toxins that you're breathing in. Now, I want to point out one thing, because this has been a really powerful thing to bring forward at this time in our country. The most, the worst toxin, the worst toxin that we are exposed to is glyphosate. Glyphosate is sprayed on all of our foods. Here in California, we have strict glyphosate laws that don't allow farmers to use glyphosate.

• 3:43Speaker 02

  So if you're in California, eat local. But recently, under the new administration, all of the glyphosate laws and the regulations around glyphosate have been reversed.

• 3:57Mayim Bialik?

  There was an article in the New York Times saying, "Roundup is fine for you. Don't listen to the..." And it's like, it used to be the crazy hippies on the left. Now it's like, "Don't listen to the crazy..." Republicans on the right, like it's a big circle of crazy. No, the article was, I sent it to Jonathan and I was like, okay, now I feel like this is gaslighting on a global scale. Eat food that you sprayed Roundup on after everything and all the research we've done? I don't, I mean, I'll be honest, though, I feel crazy because I don't know what's true anymore.

• 4:35Speaker 02

  Right, right. Yeah, thank you for saying that. I, um, I've been thinking about doing actually a series on my YouTube channel of like, and I, and I don't, I don't want to get too political, but I do want to get political.

• 4:48Mayim Bialik?

  No, it shouldn't be a partisan, it shouldn't be a partisan issue.

• 4:52Speaker 02

  The Maha movement has many things correct and they have many things wrong. And they have turned their face away from some of the biggest contributors to chronic disease. And I'm fucking tired of it. I'm just gonna be really honest with you. I'm exhausted watching us go, red dyes are a problem for children. Fuck the red dyes. We need to think about Roundup being sprayed on our food and being parayed and put in baby food where there's lead, there's glyphosate. I don't care about red dyes. I care about what is happening systemically to us all.

• 5:36Speaker 02

  And I think to your point, and I really am happy you brought this up because everybody's getting confused now. The name of the game of the toxic game is to bring your toxic load down. And the toxins you want to go after first are the most dangerous ones are pesticides, specifically glyphosate. And the reason that glyphosate is so challenging is it drives the plastics into tissues. It drives the heavy metal into tissues. It deepens the severity of the toxic load you have already. And that should be what Maha is focused on. But they have turned their head away.

• 6:21Speaker 02

  From this guy, from, you know, that it makes me irate. You can't say red dye needs to go out and turn away as our president reverses all of the environmental laws around pesticides. You've got to buy the whole system. And if you don't buy the whole system, it all starts to break. And to your point, we all start feeling crazy.

• 6:51Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, I mean, I never thought that I, I mean, it literally feels like the emperor, you know, the emperor's new clothes, because I said to Jonathan, I was like, now I'm supposed to believe that food sprayed with pesticide that is literally made to kill things, to kill living organisms of all varieties, that I'm supposed to be like, no big deal. Here, child. What?

• 7:17Speaker 02

  Right, right. When we have so much research showing how detrimental glyphosate is to the human body.

• 7:27Mayim Bialik?

  Well, it's inconvenient. And I think this also speaks to sort of, you know, a bit of what we've been talking about. People don't like when things are complicated, nuanced, or inconvenient. And that comes to their health, it comes to their information. And as we're seeing, it comes to politics as well. I don't want nuance. I want like one, like you said, I want one rule that, you know, fits every situation. And it's not that simple. And it takes effort to be able to try and parse through this so that you can figure out what actually works in your body and also for this planet.

• 8:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, thank you. And can I, let me, can I make it simple? Let's try to make it simple. Eat real food. Did it come out of the ground? Or was it highly processed? Just real food. So fruits and vegetables, meats, cheeses, legumes, even, even some things like fermented bread, like sourdough bread. You know, it can be really, really healthy. So eat real. If you have the funds to eat organic, eat it organic. And if you don't have the funds, follow Clean 15, Dirty Dozen, go look it up on EWG, and start tacking on 15 hours of fasting every day.

• 8:47Speaker 02

  If all we did was that, we would improve the metabolic health of our country. It's literally that simple. Why are you not in RFK Jr.'s position?

• 9:00Speaker 02

  I like to, I like to keep myself separate from those, from, you know, I, if we're gonna, you know, you wanna talk about him, I used to, um, I've heard him speak a thousand times, like, years ago, and he was the environmental guy. I, I don't think people realize, I, you know, this is, you're gonna get me going, but, um, I, I've been studying politics since I was a little kid. It was the dinner conversation at our dinner table all the time. When I was 18, my mom literally joyfully walked me to the neighbor's house where I could actually vote, and it was like the biggest deal in my family. I think one of the problems we have right now is no, people haven't seen the, the, the, how politics work, works in a broader sense.

• 9:43Speaker 02

  They're choosing their one thing. So Robert Kennedy Jr. was an environmental lawyer, and what he discovered is that mercury was in our rivers, was in our, our environment, and it was causing brain damage to young children. And then he extrapolated that out into where else is mercury? He was an environmental protector, and now he's not. He is not an environmental protector. He is allowing, he's turning his, himself away from what our president is doing, which is ruining our environment, which is making us the most sick out of everything we're doing.

• 10:27Speaker 02

  It's worse than ultra-processed foods. Air pollution kills more children every day than vaccines do.

• 10:36Speaker 02

  So the conversation, to your point, has gotten upside down. But if you, if you look at history, if you look at where somebody like Robert Kennedy's roots came from, he was an environmental lawyer until now. And I don't know if it was power, I don't know what it was.

• 10:56Mayim Bialik?

  Remember when he posed with the McDonald's? That made me sad. Like a part of me died inside when he posed with that McDonald's. It made me really sad.

• 11:05Jonathan Cohen?

  There's also a lot of conversation right now about lead in our soil and the degradation of our topsoil to not have nutrient-rich foods, as well as other chemicals that are just in the soil itself. So it sounds like, really, yes, you want to reduce load, but the only other option is to increase our detox pathways.

• 11:26Speaker 02

  You got it. You got it. Increase. So let's talk about detox pathways. So when you go into these fasted states, and by the way, the other thing I want to point out is everybody can afford money and time to go 15 hours without food once they train and they understand. So one of the things that I have been deeply trying to understand is how do we help the single mom in the South who is working two jobs and she has the only thing that she can do is drive through McDonald's because it's cheap, it's timely, and that's what she's doing. So what can we give her? Let's teach her how to fast 15 hours.

• 12:10Speaker 02

  She can do that. And so that she's not, she's, she's starting to get rid of these toxins at a cellular level. Then you bring up detox pathways. We need to make sure she's moving every day. Is she increasing her circulation? If we can get her sweating every day, maybe she just does like a 20-minute jog around the, the track at, at, you know, at lunch break, um, so that she's sweating. If we can get her sleeping, because when we sleep, our brain actually shrinks and our cerebral spinal fluid goes up and washes toxins out. If we can get her having daily bowel movements, which is harder than you would think, when you're, especially when you're eating those toxic foods.

• 12:55Speaker 02

  Now, her natural detox pathways are getting rid of the accumulation of the toxins that she's getting from her food. The example I use is during the pandemic, I was reached out to by a beautiful high school principal who was watching my YouTube channel. And this was September 2020. So we were deep and started into the pandemic. And so she wanted to bring me on to talk about what, to help her, her teachers understand how they could keep their immune system up. I was so beyond excited because I come from a family of teachers. And I was like, oh, my gosh, I can give back to these teachers.

• 13:40Speaker 02

  So I give this really fancy presentation on like, here's the food you should eat. Here's the supplements you should take. And at the end of the whole lecture, I'm like, wow, I felt really good about it. And this brave man raises his hand and he says, um, I really appreciate what you just said, but if I'm looking at a jar of peanut butter and you're telling me I need to eat the jar of peanut butter with the better oil than the one that has the toxic oil, that is an $8 difference. And that is $8 I do not have. Another woman said to me, I get to my classroom at 4:30 in the morning. I work straight through.

• 14:23Speaker 02

  I don't take a lunch break so that I can sit with my, my students and be of help to them. I leave at 4:30 in the afternoon. I'm exhausted, so I drive through McDonald's. And I realized in that moment that it's become so complicated that a tool like fasting is such a beautiful answer that everybody can take the calling on.

• 14:46Mayim Bialik?

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• 15:30Mayim Bialik?

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• 16:15Mayim Bialik?

  It's the best way to support our show. I want to turn a little bit more to age like a girl.

• 16:26Mayim Bialik?

  You know, I think for many women, you know, menopause does not feel like a glorious time. You know, if you talk to sort of like holistic people, you know, you'll get the like, "Oh, you're coming into your age of wisdom." And I'm like, "I don't know." And, you know, this notion that we can have more confidence, more energy, more clarity, like it's in the title of the book. What are people getting wrong about how to approach

• 16:55Mayim Bialik?

  Aging in terms of what is waiting for us?

• 17:00Speaker 02

  Well, so the first question to ask yourself, and this is one that was sparked the whole age like a girl, is why do women live 42.5% of their life without a reproductive system? If they're lucky. Because we're supposed to be dead? No, the opposite. So if, why would the body stay alive as a system completely shuts down? Men don't have that. We're the only species on the planet that stays alive after a reproductive system shuts down. When estrogen and progesterone start to decline, it signals to the brain to rewire itself.

• 17:46Speaker 02

  And the neurons in the brain that kept you stuck to people pleasing, to being everybody's hero, to fixing everybody's problem, to doing the Rosie the Riveter, sort of I can do it all mentality, those neurons move away. They are sloughed off. This is Lisa Moscone, the top female brain researcher in the world. This is her work. There are neurons that move away so that new neurons can grow, so that you are prepared for the next job in your life. What is that job, Mindy? Right, that's a great question. So let's back up one step at step.

• 18:30Speaker 02

  There are three times in a woman's life that this brain will rewire itself. The first is at puberty, when hormones come in. When hormones come in, you need to prepare to be independent. Because if you get pregnant, you're going to have to care for a baby. So your neurons that kept you dependent upon mom and dad are sloughed away, and new neurons are formed for independence, so you can lead yourself.

• 19:02Speaker 02

  Second time, postpartum, after a baby. When those hormones drop, what ends up happening is the neurons that told you where your keys were.

• 19:11Mayim Bialik?

  They also told me where my hair was, but go ahead.

• 19:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, that told you where the to do list that you kept in your brain. Those neurons get sloughed aside and you need new neurons to be able to be more intuitive with your baby because your baby doesn't talk. So you need to know how to read your baby's clues.

• 19:34Mayim Bialik?

  Right.

• 19:35Speaker 02

  Think about that. Most animals, when they come out into the world, they aren't as reliant on their parent. They can like, you know, go watch the, watch National Geographic channel. Those babies pop out and they're, they're independent, but human babies are not that way. So the mom's brain has to rewire itself so that it can read the clues of the baby. Third time, perimenopause, hormones drop and the brain rewires itself for leadership. We as women were meant to move into a leadership role. This is, goes back to the hunter and gatherer days. It's under a philosophy called the grandmother hypothesis. Doesn't mean you have to be a grandmother.

• 20:19Speaker 02

  But it, the theory was that back in the hunter gatherer days, when a woman stopped her cycle, they moved her into a different place in the tribe. And in that place in the tribe, her job was to lead the women and the children that were left back at the cave while the men went out for big animal kills.

• 20:45Mayim Bialik?

  But I want to say that those women were moving into a leadership role with this plunge of hormones that I'd like, I do take issue with this because what we're being told now is you should never have that drop in hormones. You should never, you know, lose your hair. Your vagina needs to be as fresh and moist as if you're 20. Like, and here are the drugs that will make that happen and, you know. I feel like I'm 90 years old. I don't know if we're, you know, in a similar bracket. But from all the women that I know who are in perimenopause, it doesn't feel like leadership. It feels like I can't sleep. I'm up all night randomly replaying every mistake I've ever made,

• 21:29Mayim Bialik?

  regretting everything I ever did. I don't like him anymore, whoever he is. I definitely don't want to have sex with him, and I don't even have the lubrication to have sex. What am I leading besides a gang of other unhappy, exhausted, shriveled vagina women?

• 21:53Mayim Bialik?

  That's what I'm leading. Everybody follow me.

• 21:57Speaker 02

  The key word in this and the cruel part of it all

• 22:02Mayim Bialik?

  Yes.

• 22:02Speaker 02

  is perimenopause is a 10-year process.

• 22:07Mayim Bialik?

  That's what my midlife told me. And I said, I would never have lived past 15 if you had told me that.

• 22:14Speaker 02

  OK, so let's go look at the 60 and 70 and 80-year-olds. Let's look at Jane Fonda.

• 22:21Mayim Bialik?

  So do I need hormones or I don't need hormones to be a leader?

• 22:25Speaker 02

  So let's go back to the hormone question. It is a personal choice. It's a personal choice.

• 22:31Mayim Bialik?

  Right, but you understand what I'm saying. There's something about, something about societies that does not exist now that allowed me to be on a throne of lilacs and lavender as everyone came to me for my wisdom. Right now, it feels like we're being told you shouldn't have that drop. There's estrogen receptors everywhere. Your heart's going to give out. Your bones are going to break. Jump up and down 20 times on concrete every day and take all the hormones. Schmear this on your vulva. Put this on the back of your elbows. Put this behind your knees and stick this suppository in there. And now you're a leader.

• 23:09Speaker 02

  Exactly, exactly. The level of shoulds that have now been placed upon women in perimenopause is egregious. And it's, it's, it's just, just like the food conversation, it's gotten so complicated. So let's make it simple. Yeah. When you go into your 40s, there's lifestyle changes that need to be made. And we talked about one of them here. And hopefully, just look at that hemoglobin A1C. Get your metabolic health in order. And then just tell me if that hemoglobin A1C gets down closer to five and you can start doing these low levels of fast, what happens to the brain fog? What happens to the insomnia? What happens to the hot flashes?

• 23:54Speaker 02

  What happens to all of that? My experience with hundreds of thousands of women is that one change dramatically changes those menopausal symptoms. Now, along with that, again, you're in a conversation with your doctor. And if your doctor recommends hormone replacement therapy, I think you should consider it. I think you should think if it is a good option for you. But hormone replacement therapy without lifestyle changes is, sets you up for failure over and over and over again. Wow.

• 24:37Speaker 02

  The two need to be in combination. And the problem with the menopausal conversation right now is we're putting all eyes on hormone replacement and we're not talking about lifestyle. They need to be done together. And then, I don't know about you, but every woman I've talked to was like, well, I went, I went on my estrogen patch and then it was too much, so I had to get it down. Then I went, I started taking progesterone, but it was the wrong kind. I was taking the oral, so now I'm doing it vaginally. And now my motivation is gone. And so now they're sticking pellets in my butt so that I can up my testosterone. It is crazy making and we don't have.

• 25:18Speaker 02

  Have a one size fits all with hormone replacement, which is why you need a good doctor with a good relationship. I'm 56 years old. I am on hormone replacement therapy. I do blood work every 90 days with my OB and we watch my numbers to see if that hormone replacement is working. We just, we've been doing that for a year and it, we just got it clicked. Now, not all, the single mom in the South is not going to be able to do that. So, we've got to find a good balance between lifestyle and hormone replacement. We can't say one over the other. They have to go together.

• 26:03Mayim Bialik?

  I worry a lot and we've talked to, you know, Dr. Haver. We've talked to all the, you know, doctors about this and, I mean, I've had two really, really good, solid OBs retire in the last two years because no one knows how to handle this system that is being also like run by robots. These were not old doctors. These were not doctors past their prime. These were people who were like, I don't know how to help people, which is why I became an OB in the first place. So, for me, like, a lot of this is like, the system is broken. The system does not benefit people who don't easily have access to this kind of care.

• 26:45Mayim Bialik?

  And, you know, even, I mean, I'm grateful to you for the work that you do because at least we're trying to get it out there, that there are lifestyle things, like, the fact that there are like foods that you should know about. Like, if you are a hormonal, like, if you're having a hormonal shift, here are the foods that you need. Like, no one ever told us that. No, I'm even thinking about, I mean, I'm a lactation person, like, no one, I don't even think that's, the only thing that I was taught is what are the allergens that might cause your baby to have blood in their stool or be fussy, right? And these are very important things to know. I know the common allergens, but I just read an article today, there's like a 43% decrease in peanut allergies because people

• 27:26Mayim Bialik?

  were so freaked out about peanuts that they stopped giving everybody peanuts and everyone was allergic. But I'm like, thinking of these things in terms of food, like, these are just not part of the conversations that we have at all.

• 27:39Speaker 02

  Thank you. Yeah, which is, which is why I'm, you can tell I'm, I'm, I'm highly agitated about that because again, I'm going to go back to women when women try something because an expert gets up and says, do this and it, they fail at it. They don't think that it was the expert's fault. They don't think it's the doctor's fault. They think it's their fault because women have been conditioned to always turn on themselves. So the menopause conversation started with an altruistic lens and, and Mary Claire was a, a big part of that and, and she's an incredible advocate for women's health. But now the whole conversation

• 28:24Speaker 02

  has gone to HRT and nobody is talking lifestyle, which is why I'm, I'm like, this is why I sit and do five new videos for my YouTube and why I write books. It's like, and do podcasts like this. We have, you, you don't get a free lifestyle pass because you do a drug of any kind. You don't, Ozempic's the same thing. You don't get a free lifestyle pass. The minute you are off that drug, you're going to gain the weight back. If you get off the HRT and you didn't fix your lifestyle, all those symptoms are going to come back. They have to be done together. And that is where we see the greatest benefit.

• 29:09Mayim Bialik?

  No one has ever said this on our podcast. No one has ever been that clear and explicit. Like no one has said that. I mean, I

• 29:17Jonathan Cohen?

  I mean, it's exceptionally moving and there's so much here that we're just so grateful that you shared with us. I'm wondering as we get a little bit close to the end here.

• 29:28Mayim Bialik?

  The end of our existence or the end of the episode?

• 29:31Speaker 02

  Wait, we're ending? We're just having fun. We just, the fun just started. What do you mean we're ending?

• 29:37Jonathan Cohen?

  For people who may be struggling and it's like it's it's almost feels out of reach sometimes, right? Like you hear these advice, you hear people saying how easy it is, how fast the body changes when we start to implement these things. But for someone who is at the beginning, right? Where you're like, oh, I gotta train myself now and I have to learn this new system and I have to start watching the clock and I'm gonna feel nauseous at first. And then I have, tell us some of the amazing changes that you've seen to help motivate people to get started, to believe that it's possible for them.

• 30:12Speaker 02

  Okay, great. I love this question. So let's start with something we've talked a lot about, which is fasting. Fasting is the only weight loss tool that I know that gets easier with time. Diets, we burn out on them. Exercise, we bore of them. But fasting, because your body knows how to innately do it, it gets easier with time. Okay, second concept. Your cravings are your cravings because you trained your brain and the microbes. We'll talk about microbes in a moment. You trained your microbes and your brain to crave those things. A great example of this

• 30:53Speaker 02

  is candida, something that I spent a lot of my life doing. When I was in college, what do we do in college? We get yeast infections. Right. Why do we get yeast infections? Some people have sex. No, well, some people have too much sex, for sure, with random people. I totally thought I had the right answer.

• 31:13Jonathan Cohen?

  You eat a ton of sugar.

• 31:15Speaker 02

  Sugar, beer, pizza. Makes for sex. And lots of sex with random humans. And so what you do is you feed a fungus in your gut called candida. And that fungus, as it grows, sends a signal up to your brain and says, give me more beer, pizza, and sugar. And so I can tell you, I've sat with so many sugar addicts. And I, and we just slowly work on fasting and we slowly move them away from the really refined sugar. Then we go to fruit. We're like, okay, let's just put you over here in fruit. I'm not anti fruit. But we slowly train. And you know what happens is the microbes in the gut that

• 31:56Speaker 02

  were telling your brain what to crave actually start to die off and you don't crave it anymore. Easier, easier. When you eat in the beginning, when you switch from a Western ultra-processed diet over to natural foods that the earth provided us, that first switch is, it's a little hard. You miss the cokes, you miss the desserts, you miss whatever, the little candies you're eating. Food that tastes good. But if you stick with it, it gets easier with time. So that's the only way we're going to change this. If we give people tools that get easier with time. People don't need motivation with their health. They need momentum.

• 32:39Speaker 02

  And fasting gives them so much momentum, getting them off the processed foods onto just natural foods. And then they start feeling better. And then I don't have to tell them anything. They want to naturally do it because they see their own result.

• 32:55Jonathan Cohen?

  Amazing.

• 32:56Mayim Bialik?

  I want to know, what's the number one thing that I'm eating that's probably messing up my hormones more than anything else?

• 33:05Speaker 02

  Well, I don't know what you're eating, but anything with artificial colors, artificial flavorings, those synthetic food dyes, I hate to bring the food dyes back up, but we'll put those, anything that's made in a lab is an estrogen mimicker. And when you put it into your body, your body doesn't know what to do with this synthetic version of estrogen. So same thing as for a man, it will store it as fat. But for a woman, the reason it's even more detrimental is because it appears to be estrogen. So your natural estrogen production starts to go down because your body thinks it has enough estrogen.

• 33:50Speaker 02

  So we've got to get you off chemicals.

• 33:53Mayim Bialik?

  I know so many women diagnosed with endometriosis. I used to know no one with endometriosis. I didn't even know what the word was. And now so many women have endometriosis. Are you seeing a rise in this? What is going on with endometriosis?

• 34:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, endometri- Patriosis, PCOS, infertility. So we have to remember that the body is always doing the right thing at the right time. So if there's inflammation, then why is the body inflaming? It's trying to get these toxins out of us. And so it just happens to be inflaming in certain parts of the body. Why is PCOS the most common hormonal problem for women? Well, that's because all of these chemicals have our sex hormones completely mixed up. So now we have synthetic estrogen high, we're insulin resistant, we have testosterone high, and it's sparking PCOS.

• 34:55Mayim Bialik?

  What are the three things I should add to my diet if I'm in perimenopause or in this stage of life?

• 35:02Speaker 02

  Well, first, this is a fun one. I'm gonna start with the one I love the best.

• 35:08Speaker 02

  Tubers. Tubers are sweet potatoes, potatoes, hickama, sun chokes. Tubers have a tremendous amount of magnesium, and they are low glycemic, so they don't spike your glucose a lot. And you need magnesium to be able to make sex hormones, and they're yummy. I don't know if you all like sweet potatoes, but I have one almost every day.

• 35:35Mayim Bialik?

  Okay, that's one.

• 35:36Speaker 02

  Okay, second one is really a food group, fiber. So lots of salad, because when you eat fiber, you feed a set of bacteria in your gut called the astrobolome. These bacteria break estrogen down, and what they want is fiber. You don't go a day without a salad. Make sure every day you put a salad in there. Okay, third thing, we'll go to the favorite topic of this conversation is protein.

• 36:08Speaker 02

  And I personally, you know, I appreciate people who are vegan and plant-based. You're going to need to eat a lot of legumes so that you can start to bring up your protein amounts. But personally, I think grass-fed beef, you know, wild caught salmon, these kind of protein sources are dense in amino acids. And amino acids are also a precursor for making hormones. So again, let's tie it all together. I go into my 40s, I'm not eating right. And so therefore, I don't, I'm not giving my body the nutrients it needs to make the hormones that it should naturally be making.

• 36:49Speaker 02

  And now I go on a patch and I'm now telling my body, don't worry, I'm going to just bring it to you. And we throw the whole system off, which is why lifestyle and hormone replacement need to always go together.

• 37:02Mayim Bialik?

  Where can people find out about you? I know you have a YouTube channel, obviously, Age Like a Girl is your newest book. Tell people where to find you so they can continue learning from all of the incredible wisdom you have.

• 37:15Speaker 02

  Thank you. You can, I mean, you can go anywhere the books are sold to find the book. I'm going to keep giving a shout out to the indies, the independent bookstores, because those are family-run and we should support them. You can go to bookshop.org and order them, or go into your independent bookstore. Otherwise, it's on, if you want to give money to Jeff Bezos, you can go to Amazon and get the book there. You can go to agelikeagirlbook.com and we have a bunch of bonuses. And I always say that my passion project is my YouTube channel. So if you want more information after listening to this, just dive into my YouTube channel and there's more conversations like this there.

• 37:52Mayim Bialik?

  Amazing. Really, really so grateful for your wisdom and for how straightforward you are, how honest you are. And sometimes the truth hurts, you know? Sometimes it's hard to hear that there are things that are in our control that we can do and that we should do. But I really, really love, you know, it's a very firm hand that you use when you teach, you know, and when you, when you're talking about these things. And yeah, just really appreciate your time. So thank you so much.

• 38:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, thanks to thank both of you. I love this conversation and I just, I really, I just want people to, especially women, just don't give up on yourself. You like, you gotta bet on yourself. And unfortunately, the way that the health messaging is going right now is that, like you said, everybody's pointing fingers at everybody else. Start just to discover what works for you and block the rest out.

• 38:52Mayim Bialik?

  Jonathan, as I said in the intro, I was wrong. I did not know what to expect with, with Dr. Mindy. And I was very, very, I was impressed, a little bit shook. She's very, very, she's very, very smart about a lot of things that I don't know anything about, like ketones.

• 39:11Jonathan Cohen?

  You need that firm hand. You can't have someone be like, "Mame, what would you like to do?" That is not the way to get results with you.

• 39:19Mayim Bialik?

  That's what Dr. Mindy is.

• 39:23Jonathan Cohen?

  You need someone who's gonna be like, "You can change. You need to bet on yourself."

• 39:28Mayim Bialik?

  The only person that needs to be a leader coming out of perimenopause is this lady because she's the leader. She's all the things. I mean, look, I think it's very important to, you know, keep in mind, she also is not saying there's a one size fits all solution. What she's saying is that there, there is a component of this phase of life, for women in particular, that cannot exclusively rely on access to hormone replacement therapy as the only, quote, "solution" to many of the things that, that ail women.

• 40:03Jonathan Cohen?

  Yes, absolutely. I think that's an extremely powerful message. And just like, think for a second about the one thing she said about eating.

• 40:15Jonathan Cohen?

  Eat when it's light out.

• 40:17Mayim Bialik?

  Eat with the sun.

• 40:18Jonathan Cohen?

  I'm not a scientist, but that makes total sense to me that if I, my body, my genetics, was formed before there was electricity. Electricity is fairly new in this age of our lives, in this, in, in modern history, that my body's gonna be shutting down and doing other things. It's not looking for food at that time. I want to encourage everyone to follow my fasting journey at our Substack page, MindBee Alex Breakdown on Substack. We release content there, not released anywhere else. And I'm gonna tell you how crabby I am. Mime is gonna give updates. How many days did it take me to get to 15 hours? Because I do have a little experience with this. I can do 12.

• 41:03Mayim Bialik?

  So wait, what are, what are the hours that you tend to do?

• 41:05Jonathan Cohen?

  I start to eat dinner early. Depends on when I eat dinner, but I'll like, I'll, I'll eat dinner early. I'll try to be done dinner by sevens, maybe eight o'clock.

• 41:12Mayim Bialik?

  So we're talking like, you feel like eight to eight you can handle.

• 41:15Jonathan Cohen?

  No problem. But then when I get eight to nine, I start to get crabby.

• 41:19Mayim Bialik?

  When I get out of bed, it's a problem.

• 41:22Jonathan Cohen?

  Eight to 10, I'm starting to really not be pleased. Eight to 11, I'm like, headaches, upset. My, my creativity is like, I don't know where my ideas are coming from.

• 41:36Mayim Bialik?

  That is you being eliminated from the gene pool. That's like Darwin is like, let's see.

• 41:42Jonathan Cohen?

  That's like, no, no, bad news. But I want to get to that 15 hours and feel comfortable, feel excited. I want those ketones to spark.

• 41:51Mayim Bialik?

  You know what? Tell everyone what happened when we started to walk to have breakfast on Sunday.

• 41:56Jonathan Cohen?

  I needed a pre-breakfast, I'll be honest.

• 41:58Mayim Bialik?

  What was that pre-breakfast?

• 42:00Jonathan Cohen?

  That pre-breakfast was a little bit of leftover dinner that I heated up.

• 42:04Mayim Bialik?

  What was the dinner? I want everyone to picture what was happening at 8:30 in the morning.

• 42:09Jonathan Cohen?

  First of all, I was on a 12 and a half hour fast because I had stopped eating. At least by eight o'clock.

• 42:17Mayim Bialik?

  So when Jonathan says, "I heat it up a little," some people would say like, "Oh, you're hungry. Like, have an apple. Have a carrot. We're gonna walk to breakfast." No. Jonathan wanted turkey bolognese. Did he use the microwave? No, he doesn't use a microwave. So now we're talking saucepan, heating, stirring. It's a whole thing. Turkey bolognese.

• 42:41Jonathan Cohen?

  And what did you say?

• 42:43Mayim Bialik?

  "I'm leaving. Goodbye." And then we didn't speak for... We did a fast. We didn't speak for 18 hours.

• 42:51Jonathan Cohen?

  It's true. The reason being is that I said, "Let's go to breakfast." Mime said, "Okay." And then without any communication, without any communication, I went and started heating up a little turkey bolognese. I thought, "You know what? This is gonna take five minutes at the most. I'll wolf this down, and then I'm gonna be much more pleasant on the walk because because it's gonna be at least 45 minutes before breakfast happens, and I'm at the edge of my fasting capacity. I don't have those muscles yet.

• 43:23Mayim Bialik?

  And we are all at the edge of our seat to see what a man on the way to breakfast making turkey bolognese is gonna look like seven hours later.

• 43:34Jonathan Cohen?

  I'm gonna be proof that anyone can do it.

• 43:37Mayim Bialik?

  And especially if you are walking and interacting with this person, you're gonna need estrogen, progesterone, and a vulva cream.

• 43:46Jonathan Cohen?

  Vulva cream for everyone, not something I thought I'd say.

• 43:49Mayim Bialik?

  I really enjoyed talking to Dr. Mindy. I think I need to go visit her. I wanna know more about her. She knows a lot of things. Also, I know everyone out there is wondering, ketones, like we learned about in organic chemistry? That's right. The only reason I know what a ketone is, it's a carbon double bonded to an oxygen with two ditty boos on either side.

• 44:08Jonathan Cohen?

  It's also a delicious drink.

• 44:10Mayim Bialik?

  I learned about ketones literally in organic chemistry. I know what things can connect to them. "Oh, that's stable. The oxygen has four electrons." I never knew that we'd be talking about the very same ketones as this other system. I've heard about ketosis, right? I've heard like, "Oh, and you're fasting ketosis." Now I understand, and I wanna learn more.

• 44:31Jonathan Cohen?

  It was aptly timed for both of our lives. So grateful that we get to meet these really amazing guests that we would not get to meet anywhere else. So, Mayim, thank you for being on this journey with me, and thanks, everyone, for being along with us.

• 44:44Mayim Bialik?

  And I think you absolutely need to head over to Substack because we're going to be following Jonathan's journey into becoming an expert faster without harming people around him. From our breakdown to the one we hope you never have, we'll see you next time.