215. Dr. Mindy Pelz: Why Fasting Stops Working for Women—Menopause, Stress & Hormones

What if menopause isn't the beginning of your decline—but the beginning of your most powerful chapter? And what if the reason fasting isn't working for you has more to do with stress than willpower? In this episode, I welcome back Dr. Mindy Pelz, bestselling author of Fast Like a Girl and Age Like a Girl, to explore how menopause, hormones, and nervous system health influence the way women age. Dr. Pelz challenges the traditional narrative around menopause, explaining how declining estrogen may affect the brain, behavior, and identity. We also discuss why intermittent fasting isn't one-size-fits-all, how chronic stress can affect metabolism and weight management, and why sometimes doing less is exactly what your body needs. In this episode, you'll learn: How menopause and declining estrogen can influence brain health, mood, and behavior Why fasting strategies may need to change throughout a woman's menstrual cycle and menopause How chronic stress, cortisol, and nervous system regulation relate to metabolic health Why fasting harder and exercising more aren't always the best solutions for weight gain How sleep, breathwork, nutrition, and recovery can support your nervous system Why menopause can be an opportunity to rediscover your purpose and identity The biggest takeaway? More isn't always better. Understanding what your body needs—and adjusting your approach as you age—may be one of the most powerful ways to support your long-term health. Learn more about Dr. Darshan Shah: Website: drshah.com https://drshah.com Clinic: next-health.com https://www.next-health.com/ Instagram: @DarshanShahMD and @extend_podcast Learn more about Dr. Mindy Pelz: Nervous System Questionnaire: NervousSystemQuestionnaire https://bit.ly/NervousSystemQuestionnaire Age Like a Girl Book: bit.ly/alagbook https://bit.ly/alagbook Fast Like a Girl Book: bit.ly/fastlikeagirlbook https://bit.ly/fastlikeagirlbook Resetter Collaborative Facebook Group: bit.ly/resettercollaborative https://bit.ly/resettercollaborative Reset Academy: bit.ly/resetacademymembership https://bit.ly/resetacademymembership Fast Like a Girl Certification Course: bit.ly/flagwaitlist https://bit.ly/flagwaitlist Thank You to Our Sponsors! IM8: Try IM8 with a 30 day money back guarantee! Use code DRSHAH at checkout at im8health.com/drshah https://im8health.com/drshah for 10% off! Timeline: Timeline, powered by Mitopure, just dropped in price! Check it out using link shop.timeline.com/DRDARSHANSHAH https://shop.timeline.com/DRDARSHANSHAH for 20% off when you subscribe!

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

• 0:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

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

• 0:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Hi, Dr. Mindy, how are you?

• 0:51Speaker 01

  I'm awesome. I'm so, it's always a joy to be with you. I really enjoy talking to you.

• 0:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Same, same. I, you know, I think we have another scheduled to talk to you every year because it seems like every year you have something new to talk about. And so,

• 1:05Speaker 01

  I do.

• 1:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I love it. And it's such valuable information. And I'm really excited to talk to you today about the last book you put together called Age Like a Girl.

• 1:15Speaker 01

  Thank you. Yeah, you know, it's funny, of all my books, that's the one that's like the most personal to me. It's, there's, there's a lot in there that is, well, you know, very, a lot of ahas for a lot of menopausal women.

• 1:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. And the reason I want to talk about this is because you were at my house for dinner, and we had such an incredible night. And we were going around the table, talking about what you want everyone to know. And you said something super powerful, very moving, that completely shifted how I think about menopause. You said something to the effect of like, menopause wasn't the end of something, it was the beginning of something. And I just thought that that was very well put in a perspective that maybe even a lot of women don't really have, right? I think, yeah, I think women go through life thinking, oh, my gosh, I hope this isn't the year, you know? And I would love for you to dig into that a little bit.

• 2:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. So what I wanted to figure out is why the human body would go into menopause, and we would stay alive 30, 40 years beyond a reproductive system stopping? Because there are very few mammals that actually continue to live females, once their reproductive system stops. So my, my brain was like, why would the human body actually allow us, once our reproductive system is done, to continue to live so long? And that led me to look at the brain changes that happen to women as they go through menopause. And it led me to things like the grandmother hypothesis. And I looked at even some ancient principles,

• 2:50Speaker 01

  old ancient teachings. And I looked at Lisa Moscone's neuroscience on how certain neurons actually prune away. And here's what I discovered, is that as estrogen goes down, the brain dramatically changes. And the neurons in your brain that kept you addicted to people pleasing go away.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  So, right. So this is why, if you have a menopausal woman in your life, and she's just blurting out what she thinks now, it's because her brain is remodeling. And it, the neurons that we actually lose those neurons, because what's happening in menopause is it's preparing a woman for leadership. And in leadership, you need to be able to have a stronger social lens, and not necessarily care about what each individual thinks. And this ties into the grandmother hypothesis, which is, when back in the primal days, when a woman stopped cycling, she became a protector of the clan. And she would make sure that

• 3:56Speaker 01

  the fertile women were taken care of, the kids were taken care of, and she would actually go out and forage for food. We still live in that, even though we're in a modern world, we still live in that same brain, and that same body. Yet, you have a culture of women that are freezing their faces, and dyeing their hair, so they don't look old, because they're scared of being tossed aside by our society. But when you understand the neuroscience, and you understand evolutionary biology, what is actually happen, happening as a woman is preparing for leadership?

• 4:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Amazing. That's an incredible perspective, because you're right, like, you know, women do go from somewhat of like this, I would say nurturing, home building, just wanting to be potentially more involved with their kids and their family, to then, you know, and a lot of people, I think, attribute that this to the kids growing up. But it's much more than that. And this makes a lot of evolutionary biology change. And, you know, I think, whenever I think about evolutionary biology, I always remind people, like, people think it's kind of woo-woo sometimes. I'm like, it's not woo-woo. Why do you think, like, yeah, this is real behaviors. Look at animal behaviors. So many of the things

• 5:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  they do, they're born with, right? And like, how do birds know to migrate one direction during, you know, a certain season, right? How do, how do dogs bury their bones? It's innate inside of you, these behaviors. I have a hard time reconciling one thing, though. So is this behavioral change, this rewiring of the woman's brain, due to the estrogen changes? And then, so, then why are we replacing estrogen as well? Because, you know, this is, this is, I'm sorry to say this.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  It's a great question. It's a great question, and one I've asked for a while. And I can give you the clinical answer, and I can give you the feminist answer if you want.

• 5:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 5:58Speaker 01

  So, and I'll try to give them both to you, because just you grab, people can grab what they want.

• 6:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 6:05Speaker 01

  But we have to remember that even if a woman is taking HRT, she still doesn't have the same level of estrogen that she had at 25. So it's not like, even if you're on hormone replacement, you don't get this brain remodeling. It's still, you're, you know, if you're on hormone replacement therapy, and you're 65, you still have lower estrogen levels than you ever had in your entire life. It's just that we are keeping estrogen at a fairly high rate, because of what we know that it does for the neurons, the positive stuff it does for the neurons in the brain. So I believe the remodeling project still

• 6:45Speaker 01

  happens, because that we already see a delta in estrogen at 35 compared to 55.

• 6:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Makes a lot of sense, right? And so, the estrogen that we're replacing is keeping the bones healthy, keeping the brain healthy, but the remodeling is still going to occur.

• 7:03Speaker 01

  Still going on.

• 7:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Evolutionary change.

• 7:06Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah. Because you're not at the highest levels. You know, it's like, a friend of mine always says, oh, you mean, because we were drugged on estrogen? And I'm like, yes, we were very drugged on estrogen at 35. It kept us taking care of everybody else's needs. But at 55, even on hormone replacement, we don't have the same levels. And the brain is going through the remodeling.

• 7:30Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. And I think for men that are listening, this is also very analogous to what happens to men, right? Your testosterone is at its highest when you're the reproductive phase of your life, right? And then, you go through a gradual decline. That doesn't mean that, you know, you want to not replace your testosterone and stay healthy. It just, and not all men with testosterone replacement, even though they do get a little bit more libido, it's nothing like it was back in your twenties, when it just makes you stupid. You know what I mean?

• 7:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

• 8:01Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. We need that balance.

• 8:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I, I mean, the, the point I wanted to make in Age Like a Girl, is I, you see so many women start to leave divorces, leave careers, change the way they, they even serve their family, and they finally go, enough, it's time for me to focus on me. And I wanted to normalize that and say, yeah, that's because estrogen dropped, and your brain changed. Now, it doesn't mean everybody has to get divorced. It doesn't mean you have to have a radical change in your life. But understand that your thinking is changing because of the decline in estrogen. And that, I have found, has been so helpful

• 8:47Speaker 01

  for women to go, oh, no wonder, I used to be able to clean everybody's stuff up in the house, and I can't do that anymore. Now, I'm really tired of it, and they need to clean their own stuff up. I used to care that, you know, I would drop everything for my kids, and now I really want to put myself first. That is a brain change that menopause offers.

• 9:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. So with that very empowering knowledge, I think, to shift people's perspective, and I think both men and women need to know that information.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  That's right. Yeah.

• 9:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  What are some of the things that you advise women to do in the book, to reframe and, and maybe capture the benefits of this time of their life?

• 9:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's a, it's a really, it's a really good question. Well, first, know thyself. Like, know that if all of a sudden, you find yourself not caring about things, that could be that you're starting to see this remodel in action. So that would be the first one. The second one, you know, it ties into my other books. I really think that the most important biological marker a woman can focus on, as she goes through this brain remodeling, is hemoglobin A1C. Know your blood sugar. Know if you're metabolically flexible. Because if you aren't, as this brain change is happening, you're going to be more susceptible to dementia

• 10:09Speaker 01

  and Alzheimer's. So from an action-oriented standpoint, whatever you can do, whether it's lower carbohydrate diet, or just staying off ultra-processed foods, or adding in some intermittent fasting, you're going to feel your brain sharpen, as you go through this experience, which is really the opposite of what women are feeling. Women feel like they, they have brain fog, they can't remember, because the brain's remodeling. Any, anytime, anybody's remodeled a house knows it gets dusty, and it's, and it's a construction zone. So I think the most important marker is hemoglobin A1C. Let's keep you metabolically healthy through this transition.

• 10:51Speaker 01

  And then, and the third one, it really relates to relationships. And I think I put a whole section for men in the book. And I really talked about how you need to express to the people that you love, that you are actually doing things differently now. And a lot of women don't feel confident speaking up like that. And so the resentment builds. And I, I'm really a fan of explaining, you know what? Like, I know I used to do that, and I don't want to do that anymore. And you can do it without judgment. You can do it without blame. You can just say, I know that's how I used to operate, but who I am now no longer wants to keep doing that task I did for you.

• 11:37Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Well, that's absolutely beautiful. I love that. On the hemoglobin A1C piece of this, you know, your previous book, Fast Like a Girl, was powerful for so many women. And they really, I think it changed a lot of lives. And I think for me, you know, fasting was kind of like a one size fits all prescription when it first came out, right? Do a 16 week long fast, skip breakfast, et cetera. Maybe you can just give us a little bit of a knowledge on fasting like a girl and what that really means.

• 12:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, so there's two things I, one I've been bringing forward and the other one is brand new, and I'll explain that. Women, we are much more sensitive. Our bodies are more sensitive, our hormones are more sensitive. So when we fast, there are times we should fast, and there are times we shouldn't fast. Men have a tendency to just get away with fasting as much as they want. So there's a big difference between men and women. Now, for women, if you have a cycle, you fast according to your menstrual cycle. And the front half of your cycle, you can do a long fast. The back half of your cycle, you do less fasting. That's the most simple way I can explain it. My perimenopausal friends who don't know when their cycle is coming, you really want to look at symptoms.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  So when your brain fog kicks in, when you're feeling more sluggish, then fasting is going to be a helpful tool. But when all of a sudden anxiety goes through the roof, and you're not sleeping, and you're maybe spotting, all of a sudden you have a period every six weeks, that's where we need to slow down the fasting. And that was what I put in Fast Like a Girl.

• 13:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Got it.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  For my post-menopausal friends, and even for a new, a new twist to this that I'm finding, is that people who are in a fight or flight nervous system,

• 13:24Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 13:25Speaker 01

  where they're just stuck in like sympathetic drive. Fasting doesn't work as well for them. And this is a new concept that I, I've been bringing forward is you need to know your nervous system state. If you're in a state of chronic stress, fasting, you might need to do less fasts. This is such a big concept. We're actually going to add some chapters to Fast Like a Girl and put it out next spring because a lot of people are, women are dysregulated right now. And what does a woman do who's completely dysregulated? Her hormones are all over the place. She's gaining weight. She doubles down on fasting. She doubles down on keto, carnivore, working out, cold plunges.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  And we really need to help her see how to do it differently based off of her fight or flight nervous system.

• 14:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Such a great point. I think, you know, just in generally in medicine, I'm noticing so much more attention on your parasympathetic and sympathetic state. And it ties into every single system in your body because the vagus nerve decides a lot of that. And that nervous plug into every organ of your body, from your brain all the way down. And so it makes, it makes complete sense. And I think, you know, you, you're very right in saying, you know, we need to adjust our habits and adjust what we're doing based on the state of our nervous system. But I think a lot of times, people don't really know or realize what state their nervous system is in because you're kind of living in it. So you get blinded to, to thinking about that. So you have a quiz that you just put out, or you put out a while ago, maybe a nervous system quiz, right? Can you tell us about that?

• 15:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, we just put it out about a month ago. And it's an, it's an interactive quiz. And what I did is people can go and take the quiz, and then it'll tell them what fasting length is appropriate for them, what, how to break the fast, what kind of foods they want to look at eating, what kind of movement. And it's all based off of research. We have all those citations in there. And it's based off what nervous state you're in.

• 15:24Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, and there's like a red, yellow, and a green, right? And I'd love for you to maybe dive in a little bit more. Like, what is yellow, what is red? And what is green?

• 15:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, so green is balanced. Green means, green means, you know, the people who are in green mean they can have a stressful day and they recover. They, like, they can have a stressful moment and they recover. So those people, they can fast, those, especially women, they can fast all the time. They can do carnivore diet, they can do keto, they can do all the crazy. They can go and do cold plunges. They're not going to be, they're going to see the positives of those.

• 15:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  Yellow state is your sympathetic fight or flight. That is, your nervous system is sensing danger. It is looking for danger. So when you start to run a marathon, and then the next day do a three day water fast, which I've seen a lot of people do, where they are like working out so hard and fasting at the same time, you're actually starting to damage and put your nervous system in even more of a stressed state.

• 16:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 16:28Speaker 01

  So yellow, but, but the other thing about yellow, and I know you know this, is that it puts you in insulin resistance.

• 16:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's true, absolutely.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  Right?

• 16:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  Because if you're in fight or flight, your body's sending all that glucose to the large muscles to help you run away from the tiger.

• 16:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, absolutely. Yeah, and so that's your glucose levels go up, your insulin levels go up, and that's where your hemoglobin A1C starts going up. So a lot of people that live in that yellow state, they, over time, they do get metabolic resistance, even diabetic. And that's also a reason why people find themselves gaining weight, and they don't know why. I think this is the mechanism by which stress leads to weight gain.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, on my YouTube channel, I see so many comments where people are like, I'm stuck, I'm stuck, I'm doing everything that you told me to do, and I'm stuck. And I've now come to realize that's because they were in a yellow nervous system state and they needed a different set of tools.

• 17:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow, that's incredible. So what are some of the tools from going from yellow to, to green?

• 17:26Speaker 01

  Well, the biggest thing, this actually, yellow is where making sure you stay off of ultra-processed foods becomes critical. Because many of the chemicals in ultra-processed foods are excitatory. So they are going to rev up your nervous system. This is where a, a lower carb life will do you well, but not completely low carb. I call it ketogenic, where you're doing, you can do meat and beans and fiber. You can do all the fruits and vegetables. Just get off the refined flours and the refined sugars. And this is where, keep your fasts 13 to 15 hours. Don't go crazy. Don't do a three day water fast. Don't do, don't do a 24 hour fast until you move yourself back into green.

• 18:10Speaker 01

  And I'm finding, yeah, as you know, the metabolic system and the nervous system are, are intertwined.

• 18:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  And something as simple as eating real food, doing short fasts, prioritizing sleep, those simple activities over a course of a week or two starts to put you back into green. And then once you're in green, now, okay, now we can go and go back to the trainer, start lifting heavy weights. We can do longer fasts. We can go back to all the, the techniques that were being offered to us on social media that everybody gets excited about.

• 18:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, yeah, I almost look at yellow as like, time to go to recovery mode, but active recovery mode, right? Things like breath work, meditation, getting massages, all those self-care activities that you could be doing. One of the ones that I use is sauna.

• 19:02Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 19:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  How do you feel about sauna for women?

• 19:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes, infrared or just even a heat sauna, even just a standard sauna.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  So a Finnish sauna, if you stay in there too long, too much heat is going to raise cortisol. Infrared is much more gentle because it's not as hot. And it's very parasympathetic stimulating. So one of the things about people who have been in the yellow state for a while is you almost have to, like, train your parasympathetic nervous system to come back online. So sitting in an infrared sauna would be amazing. And it would really help your nervous system feel more relaxed. But a Finnish sauna, do it for a little bit. I love a good sweat, but if you're in there too long, you could actually drive yourself into more of a yellow state.

• 19:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, that comment is so incredible because like, people are always asking, what should I get? The Finnish sauna or the infrared? I'm like, well, kind of like, they both do different things, you know? And I think, I think for a lot of men, you know, the Finnish sauna definitely has a lot of research around reducing cardiovascular risk. But people need to remember those studies are just on men, right? And so I think you have to, yeah, you have to, you have to like really understand, like, where is the research? So to your point, like, doing what feels good and achieves your goal for that moment is, is probably even better.

• 20:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

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• 21:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

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• 21:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  What about the red state when you're, you know, you're done?

• 21:37Speaker 01

  So, so, right. So red state is where you actually, your, your nervous system is going into conservation. And so it's not going to digest food as well. It's, your energy is going to be very low. You're going to want, you're not going to want to be social. You're going to pull away from people. You're going to isolate and it's a bit of a freeze mode. If, if you think about an animal, when it senses that it's about to die, it will actually freeze and not move and play dead. That's what's happening in the red state is that our, we're in a shutdown mode. So this is where you definitely don't want to fast. You definitely don't want to do, you don't want to be

• 22:18Speaker 01

  lifting heavy weights. You want to be nourishing yourself. And we can pull from Ayurveda and Ayurvedic medicine, broths are incredible when you're in this state because your digestion is shut down. So this would be like where bone broth could be the hero. And you can bring that bone broth in, it'll start to calm the nervous system. It's got a lot of glycine in it, which is very parasympathetic stimulating. You don't want to be doing a lot of raw foods, lightly steam your foods because your digestive system is in a bit of a shutdown. So the more we can help the digestive smoothies, not super cold smoothies, scrambled eggs, things that are going to be easy

• 23:01Speaker 01

  to digest are going to help. You don't want to be doing extreme workouts, but things like walking that we know that right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot starts to calm the nervous system. So, and if you're, if you score in a red state, this is where I'm like, listen, you need to make sure that you stop and prioritize your health now before the next thing that will happen to you is an illness. So when we look at these states, if we could stop and customize our lifestyle and our food so that we can try to get back to green before the diagnosis comes, that's where I see this being the most helpful.

• 23:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Where can people take this test to kind of realize where they're at? And then how often should they be taking it?

• 23:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a great question. So we, we left you the link. So if you want to put it in the show notes. Yeah. And it's free. I, I spent quite a bit of time creating it, just making sure it was like spot on. I went back and forth. I love that you're asking me this question because I was like, could you take it every day? And then I realized, I think that might be too much that maybe you take it once a week and you just to see where you're at. We just ran in our, in our Reset Academy, we just ran 300 women through an experiment where we had them take the test, then we had them eat and fast according to their food, and then we had them retake the test. And 90%

• 24:31Speaker 01

  of them moved into, so red moved to yellow and yellow moved to green. So we can start to see that this actually will move you in the right direction. And it's really starting with what does the body need? I think when, when it comes to stress, we're always like, what does my mind need? How can I change the, the, the way I'm perceiving my stress? And I'm actually flipping that and saying, how about we change what your body needs so that we can inform your body that it's safe now? And then that will inform your mind. And so when you take the quiz, you get a seven day plan that comes with it.

• 25:11Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, amazing. And you mentioned the Reset Academy and for my audience that doesn't know like what that is, can you describe it a little bit more? Because I'd love for them to have access to it. I know I've heard, talked to many people that have done it and they just love it.

• 25:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you. It's my membership group. When I closed my practice, I took all my patients in my online world and we came together in a membership group. We work out together every Saturday morning. We meditate on Monday mornings together and we customize food plans for our members. And then every two months, we do a two week experience together. So it's a place to get information on all, everything we're talking about here, learn how to fast, learn how to do your, customize your food and do it in community, which I think is probably such a missing part right now of healthcare is why are we doing health in isolation? We should be doing it in community.

• 26:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. I love that. Absolutely. How many members do you have in this group of yours?

• 26:08Speaker 01

  We have 3,000, 3,000 women in there. Yeah. It's really fun.

• 26:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's amazing.

• 26:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's really great because you're teaching them and they're supporting each other. And I think it goes well beyond menopause, right? Or perimenopause even.

• 26:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, we had a 19 year old enter just recently. I was like, we gotta take care of her. And then I've got a lot of 80 year olds in there.

• 26:30Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  It's really cool.

• 26:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's, it's all of this stuff about nervous system especially applies at any age, you know, and it even applies probably in adolescence and childhood. I'm teaching my kids breathwork right now and meditation. And, and we talk about the nervous system all the time because I think it's something that, you know, I never even heard of until I became like well into my medical career, right?

• 26:53Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 26:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I mean, you learn a little bit about it, but you don't realize how much it really affects you. I'll tell you a story. Like during surgery, we used to cut the vagus nerve right at the diaphragm when people had ulcers.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 27:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. That was a treatment for ulcers back then. There was no protonics and, you know, this acid reducing medication. So all you could do is cut the vagus nerve. So the stomach wasn't stimulated to produce acid.

• 27:16Speaker 01

  I was just going to say, wow, what were those people's life like after you did that?

• 27:21Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. So, you know, I think they always had gut issues. They always, right? And it's, it's really sad, you know, but because it's at the diaphragm, the vagus nerve still went to the heart. And so therefore these, you could still measure their HRV and it'll still be, it would still work, but massive gut issues because as you know, the microbiome communicates to our brain through the vagus nerve as well.

• 27:43Speaker 01

  Right, right. So.

• 27:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And so that communication is done. Yeah.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  So something interesting about, like after, and you and I've talked about this personally, after the fires in the Palisades in Malibu, I was in a red, I was in a red state. And I had people advise me on train your parasympathetic nervous system. And I started to think about like, what does that look like to train your parasympathetic nervous system?

• 28:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 28:08Speaker 01

  You, you already said it. It's things like breathwork. It's things like yoga. It's things like walking, but it's even more simple than that. An acupuncturist tell me, just move slowly, do the dishes slowly. Don't drive so fast. Like you're literally telling your body over and over again, you're safe, you're safe. We're okay now. And I think in this day and age, we don't do that right now. Right? We're just like rushing from thing to thing to thing. We're hanging out with people that irritate us. We're like, you know, trying to control our environment and then we're wondering why we can't lose weight.

• 28:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I know. Exactly. It's, it's, it's so true. And it just reminds me, I'm laughing because I've, I've been there before.

• 28:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 28:51Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Most people have, right?

• 28:52Speaker 01

  Right. I can only speak from personal experience.

• 28:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I love it. So you know, one of the other things that you talk a lot about is how in that's later stages of life, maybe fifty, forty-five and above, you need to really be thinking about purpose and identity, right?

• 29:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And I think that really becomes a urgency to enter this time of life with purpose and identity, because for so long, your purpose and identity is survival and your kids and everyone else around you. And so a lot of people find themselves lost in this phase because they haven't even thought about it, right? I can't, I was just at a dinner last night where, you know, this, a lot of people were talking about becoming empty nesters. And like, what are you gonna do now?

• 29:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And they're like, I have no idea, no idea what we're gonna do now.

• 29:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Talk about that a little bit, if you don't mind.

• 29:46Speaker 01

  You know, one of the things I wanted to do with Age Like a Girl was really help women see like, it's, it's your time now, you know, because that empty nest situation is a, is a real void. And what do you do? And so many, especially for women, we haven't even thought about ourselves. I had an experience as I was writing the book where I isolated myself for three, three to four months, just lived on my own. And I, I remember thinking, when do I want to eat dinner? There's nobody, nobody here to, to make dinner for. When do I want to eat dinner? Maybe I want to eat breakfast. How do I want to do this? It was a really cool experience. So my hope with the book is that women will see that

• 30:31Speaker 01

  this is a true third act. You, your brain is remodeled, your kids are launched. If you have a career that maybe you don't love, now's the time. You are in a moment where you can reinvent yourself. And we, we did something fun. My publisher and agent and I came up with a card deck, a conversation card deck, where women could start to prompt themselves. And you could do it as couples, heterosexual couples, or even same-sex couples. And we start to prompt yourself into thinking differently. Because one of the things that happens to us is we're so conditioned to be like, I need to look a certain way, I need to act a certain way, I need to be responsible for everybody around me. And what I wanted

• 31:14Speaker 01

  to do with the card deck was get women to actually start to think for themselves.

• 31:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I love that. You know, I would love for you to send me that card deck.

• 31:22Speaker 01

  Oh, I will, definitely, yeah.

• 31:24Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I'd love, I'd love to see it and go through it as well. Incredible advice from you always, Dr. Mindy. And, you know, I think that people can really understand a lot more about themselves by the tools you put out there, like the test. And then you give people resources, like your group and your books, and you're just doing such an incredible job for humanity. And once again, I love having you on this podcast, and I look forward to what's coming next. Sounds like you're about ready to lock yourself away for another book, maybe?

• 31:55Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know. Well, you know, now that I understand the nervous system state, I'm not sure I could ever write another book and go launch it the way I've done that. But we are looking at adding the nervous system work into Fast Like a Girl and putting that out into the world. So, but you know what I'm doing? Because I, I like to practice what I'm preaching. I go surfing here in Santa Cruz every morning. I have found a new rhythm in the water. So I go every three hours every morning, I go out into the ocean with my friends. And we surf, and then I come home and work and do my YouTube videos. I'm still doing, you know, three to, three to seven new videos every week, go on my YouTube channel. But I've hit, I don't know if you've ever got to this place, but I've

• 32:40Speaker 01

  hit this sweet spot of life where I'm like, this feels good. Like, whatever this is that I'm doing, really feels good. I don't have, I'm, I'll be fifty-seven next week, and I don't have that ache in my heart anymore for something more. I feel like I maybe have found a rhythm of life that I love.

• 32:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow, I'm so happy for you. And I, I really, I really love you putting that out there, because it just shows that, you know, you can get there.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And be super happy and, and get, and do all of this the way you're doing it. I love that. And happy birthday to you next week.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  Thank you. I appreciate that. You know, and this is a whole nother philosophical question, is I think sometimes we have to ask ourselves, like, when is enough?

• 33:24Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, right.

• 33:25Speaker 01

  Like, we're always in search of more, more, and more. And like, when, or tomorrow is gonna be a great day, or next year, when this happens, I see this with weight loss. When I lose twenty pounds, my relationships will improve. And I've really come to this place where happiness, the greatest happiness you can find is waking up in the morning and just deciding the day is gonna be great regardless of what's on your calendar.

• 33:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 33:48Speaker 01

  That's a green state. You gotta be in a green state to do that.

• 33:51Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Gotta be in a green state. Well, thank you so much, Mindy, Dr. Mindy Pelz. And I, I love, I love talking to you every single time. And where can people find you on social media and on YouTube?

• 34:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, go to my name on YouTube, Dr. Mindy Pelz. I've got lots of videos there. You can go to, same thing, my webpage. And my books are all on Amazon. So I'm around, but YouTube is where my heart is. That's where I'm putting a lot of effort in these days.

• 34:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Fantastic. Well, thank you so much. And can't wait to have you back on next time.

• 34:20Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me.

• 34:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

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