Why Your Health Tools Aren't Working (and Why It's Not Your Fault)

What if your body has never once been working against you? In this special solo episode of Live Like a Girl, you'll hear Dr. Mindy Pelz's live keynote from Hay House's Empower Your Life weekend, an event honoring what would have been Louise Hay’s 100th birthday. Dr. Mindy shares how a single YouTube video on autophagy took her from a busy functional health clinic to writing Fast Like a Girl, and why the book she thought was a fasting manual turned out to be a women’s empowerment book. She then lays out the five principles she believes every woman should see her body through, and connects each one to Louise Hay’s teachings. Along the way, she opens up about escaping the Palisades fire, the near-death experience that left her hypervigilant for years, learning to surf at 56, and why she rode a Big Wheel down her driveway on her birthday. Resources Mentioned Free Nervous System Questionnaire https://resetacademy.drmindypelz.com/nervous-system-reset?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=audio&utm_campaign=nervous_system_resetFast Like a Girl by Dr. Mindy Pelz https://www.drmindypelz.com/booksEat Like a Girl by Dr. Mindy Pelz https://www.drmindypelz.com/booksAge Like a Girl by Dr. Mindy Pelz https://www.drmindypelz.com/booksWho Are You Becoming? Age Like a Girl Conversation Deck https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/833831/who-are-you-becoming-by-dr-mindy-pelzLeanne Morgan: Why Your Best Years Might Start After 50 (Live Like a Girl) https://youtu.be/Y_1GUyNGzVg?si=pYmKTHCO0S_OZp8qYou Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay https://www.louisehay.com For more resources related to today’s episode, visit the podcast episode page: drmindypelz.com/ep382 https://www.drmindypelz.com/ep382 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?

  I want to tell you about something that genuinely moves me. And that's watching what happens when women come together around real health science. There's something powerful that shifts when a woman realizes she's not broken. She's just been given the wrong information. And when she is surrounded by other women who are waking up to that same truth. Wow, it's magic. The healing accelerates. The consistency becomes easier. The loneliness of the health journey just literally dissolves. And that's what I have been watching over and over again, happen inside my Reset Academy, month after month.

• 0:43Mindy Pelz?

  Women who come in frustrated and depleted, they start to find their rhythm. They start to reclaim their energy. And the most beautiful part is they start rebuilding trust with their bodies. Inside my academy, you get monthly trainings, live coaching calls, and an incredible community of women who are all doing this work right alongside you. And I show up every single month with new content, new tools, new ways to explain things, because your body is always changing and your health education should grow with it. So come join me over there. All you've got to do is find us on resetacademy.drmindypelz.com.

• 1:24Mindy Pelz?

  That's resetacademy.drmindypelz.com. I can't wait to see you there.

• 1:35Mindy Pelz?

  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. Let's dive in.

• 1:57Speaker 01

  Welcome to the stage, Dr. Mindy Pelz.

• 2:04Mindy Pelz?

  Thank you. Thank you. For those of you that don't know me, I'm Dr. Mindy Pelz. And for the past 30 years, I have been on a mission to teach women how incredibly blessed we are to live in a feminine body.

• 2:25Mindy Pelz?

  I was blessed to be raised by a mom who every day told me, you are a girl, you can do anything. You are a woman, you can do anything. You can do anything you put your mind to. And so from an early age, I had a very different relationship with my body. I then, like many of you and many of the speakers up here have talked about, went through some of my own health crises. And I discovered the power of lifestyle and how if you change what you eat, how you move, how you think, how you breathe, how you sleep, who you hang out with.

• 3:04Mindy Pelz?

  If you actually curate an incredible lifestyle, you discover a whole wisdom inside your feminine body that will lead you always in the right direction. So after I graduated college, I decided that I really wanted to go into a healthcare place of helping people understand, especially women, how to take incredible care of their body. And so I ended up going to chiropractic school, where many people don't realize that in chiropractic school, you sit in classes for three and a half years studying every physiological process in the body, every organ system.

• 3:48Mindy Pelz?

  And how you study it and look at it is through the lens that it is self-healing, that your body is always doing the right thing at the right time. I personally cannot see it any other way. So when I went into practice, I wanted to empower people, but specifically women, on how they can start to trust their bodies again. And so I had, what, for 30 years, I had a clinic that was very much like a functional health clinic before we even had that name. And I would actually take my patients to the grocery store and we would go down the

• 4:33Mindy Pelz?

  aisles and I would show them what was in the ingredient list. I would teach them how they could pick foods for their, not just them, but their whole family, how they could pick foods that supported their feminine body. Every month in my clinic, we would do a monthly talk on a different organ system and how it actually healed itself. And my goal was to take one woman, because when you empower one woman, she doesn't stay silent.

• 5:05Mindy Pelz?

  Right?

• 5:08Mindy Pelz?

  She turns around and teaches another woman, because that's what we do. And so I quickly learned this, that if I could teach one woman, I could get her to change the lifestyle of her family. And then somebody would see that, she would turn around and teach another woman. And pretty soon I had what I call all these mama bears in my office, who were like, teach me, teach me, teach me. And so somewhere along my path, I got really into detox and learning how to remove the chemical stressors of the body. One thing that I think is really important to be aware of is that you're, again, your body is doing the right thing at the right time, always.

• 5:53Mindy Pelz?

  What messes it up is it gets interfered with. And it gets interfered with your mind. It gets interfered with chemicals, like your food. And it gets interfered from lack of physical movement or too much physical movement. And that intelligence can't heal itself. So we would teach how to change your lifestyle. And I got really into heavy metal detox. And in that process, I learned a word that changed my life. And it's autophagy. When I first learned the principle of autophagy, which basically you can break it down, auto

• 6:35Mindy Pelz?

  means self, and phagy means actually eating, it eats, that our cells have an internal mechanism in it that the body will actually start to eat the inner workings of the cell that no longer serve it. So if there is DNA in there, if there's a mitochondria that's not working right, if some part of that cell is not functioning right, you have 72 trillion cells in your body, you have an internal mechanism inside that cell that fixes it, cleans it up. And so I became obsessed with autophagy, because I was like, oh my God, I've been

• 7:16Mindy Pelz?

  giving my patients supplements, but they could do this on their own. The absolute best way to stimulate autophagy is through fasting. So I became obsessed with fasting. I spent 10, 20 hours every week going through PubMed, trying to find all the studies on fasting. And I stopped selling supplements and I started teaching my, my patients how to fast and stimulate autophagy. And what I noticed in doing this is that the level of healing these people were getting was better than anything I'd ever given them. People were, women were dropping weight, the brain was coming back online, hormones

• 8:01Mindy Pelz?

  were balancing, energy was going up, memory was improving. And I was completely in love with this concept. At the same time, fasting was getting a lot of momentum in the world. Anybody read Jason Fung's Obesity Code book? He was the one to come out and say, guess what? Weight loss isn't calories in, calories out anymore. It actually is a hormonal situation and you need to bring insulin down and your body will burn fat a lot better. So I was in my clinic, teaching all the mama bears how to fast and teaching them how to do it with their hormonal cycle. And all these people were reading Jason Fung's book.

• 8:46Mindy Pelz?

  One day, I decided to take a class that I had given my patients and put it on YouTube. One video, just put it on YouTube, because I didn't know where else to put it. And it was on autophagy and fasting. And within a matter of a week, that video went viral. And I went from 3,000 subscribers on YouTube to 30,000 subscribers in one week off of this one concept called autophagy. All the people who were studying Jason Fung and many of the other fasting experts out there, found that I was showing fasting in a different way. I was showing that women needed to do it rhythmically with their hormones.

• 9:31Mindy Pelz?

  And I got so excited about the results we were seeing that I decided I should write a book. Anybody else have wild, crazy dreams like that? It's like something on a Saturday, like, huh, I should write a book. That sounds like a good idea. A lot of work. What was so fascinating was that many of the top five publishers said, we already have fasting manuals. And my agent said, but we don't have one for women. And they're like, yeah, Dave Asprey put a chapter in his.

• 10:10Mindy Pelz?

  But because Hay House was started by a really strong woman,

• 10:19Mindy Pelz?

  the team at Hay House saw that this book was needed. And this book came out on December 22nd. And I thought I was putting a fasting book out into the world for women. And what I did not know is that I actually wrote a women's empowerment book.

• 10:40Mindy Pelz?

  And the number of women that showed up online, email conferences and said, "I did not know how my menstrual cycle worked until I read your book. I didn't realize that all the cravings I had the week before my period were actually natural to my feminine body. I thought it was a mistake of my mind and I wasn't disciplined enough." And woman after woman after woman told me her story of disconnection from her body. I even had many of the moms, maybe because I have kids, the mama bears are, you know, find me. But I had many mama bears say, "Can you teach this to my 18 and 19-year-old?

• 11:25Mindy Pelz?

  And so I need to help them see what you're teaching them Fast Like a Girl." So I wrote Eat Like a Girl. And if you haven't read that, it is a cookbook. But the front matter was actually written with the 19, 20-year-old, 21-year-old woman in mind to show her that you can eat differently at different times of your cycle. And these books literally took a life of their own because women are so thirsty to understand our body. We live in a world that has conditioned you to distrust your body. It has taught you that you need to be a certain size to be loved.

• 12:07Mindy Pelz?

  The world has taught you that if you have a wrinkle on your face, you will be left aside. We have to, as I go through today, five principles that I know work to help women live a life congruent with her feminine body. We have to start this conversation with, "You don't live in a world that wants to support what your feminine body needs." The most profitable person, by the way, for any brand, any supplement company out there is the 35 to 55-year-old woman. They know that you hopefully have some money and you have problems, so I'm going to give you a pill.

• 12:51Mindy Pelz?

  So this book really took legs of its own. And one of the things that I will say I am the most proud of, and many of the people here at Hay House know the story and got really tired of me, because this book was like selling like 5,000, 6,000, 7,000, 8,000 books, like every week. It was just going, going, going. And the New York Times never put me on the list. Yeah, I had a little temper tantrum on that one. To say, this March, I get a call from Hay House, three and a half years after the book has been put out. And they say, "You sold 6,000 books this week. What'd you do?" And I'm like, "I don't know, I didn't do anything.

• 13:36Mindy Pelz?

  I've been surfing in Santa Cruz. I haven't been promoting it." And any author in here knows that 4 o'clock on Wednesdays, which is really 1 o'clock Pacific time, that that's when the list comes out. And so this amazing day in March, I look down at my phone and Patty Gift is calling me at 1 o'clock on Wednesday. And I have, literally, I look at my husband, I'm like, "Oh, she probably knows what happened to the 6,000." And she tells me that the frickin' book finally hit the list.

• 14:19Mindy Pelz?

  That might become the greatest achievement of my career because the book took a life of its own. And women saw that they were seen, they were heard, they understood themselves, and they became empowered. And to me, that is the whole goal of healthcare. It should raise you up, not leave you down. Now, I'm a little bit of a newbie here at Hay House. And I unfortunately never got to meet Louise. And I am blessed to hang out with people who have traveled the world with her and hear the stories. And one of the things that really caught my attention when I first came to Hay House was how much they kept talking about her

• 15:04Mindy Pelz?

  and keeping herself alive, her teachings. "Oh, Louise would want us to do this and Lulu would want us to do that." I was like, "Wow, you guys are really dedicated to her heart and her vision." And when I was preparing for this talk, I found this quote from Louise. And I thought, "Now, if Louise and I had met, this is what we would have talked about. We would have sat down and geeked out that the intelligence of the body is the most miraculous thing that was ever created." Right now, you, literally, they say

• 15:46Mindy Pelz?

  we have like 72 trillion cells in our body. But do you know that each one of those cells, right now, are doing over tens of thousands of biological processes in your body? And it's not like you're over there going, "Oh, wait, I think I just got some bacteria. Immune system, can you go ahead and make some T cells and tag that? And then we're going to need to make a whole army that goes after that." Okay, let me go back to what she's saying. Your body is scanning the temperature in the room. It's scanning the light. It's deciding if you like the person next to you, if your body feels safe sitting next to them. Your body is constantly, your body is reading your environment and operating and adapting accordingly.

• 16:31Mindy Pelz?

  So after traveling the world for three years, talking about Fast Like a Girl and Eat Like a Girl, and getting millions of comments on my YouTube channel and emails that come to us, I have come to this conclusion that there are five principles that we all should see our body through. Now, the reason I showed you that video to begin with is because somebody in this room is thinking, "But I'm a woman. I'm not a girl." One of my dear friends is LeAnn Rimes. And she said to me one time, "When do I get to be a woman, Mindy?" And I'm like, "No, you don't understand. Like a Girl is this place that we were

• 17:14Mindy Pelz?

  before we were taught who to be." And I'm going to show you some neuroscience that proves this. So Like a Girl, the reason I love that commercial is we need to own it. Do you know that the Like a Girl originally came from an essay that was put out in the 1980s by a feminist philosopher who said that the reason that girls throw like this is because they don't want to take up too much space? Crazy, right? Crazy. So when they're fighting, they don't want to take up too much space. So I'm hoping that by the end of this talk,

• 17:59Mindy Pelz?

  you feel like you should take up as much space as you possibly can. If there has ever been a time to take up space, it's right now. These are the five principles that I have found every woman needs to think about. And when I was preparing for this talk, I decided to gather all my Louise Hay books. And I had a ton of fun rereading them and going through them all and looking at where my teachings and her teachings actually map together. And I have to laugh because I get through all this. I'm like, "Yeah, she understood. She got it. She knew it." "Yeah, she didn't even have medical training."

• 18:41Mindy Pelz?

  I'm like, "Yeah, she totally got it. That's it." So I am sure, and many of the people who knew her well can tell you that these five things were definitely a cornerstone of how she lived. As I go through these five, I want you to think of these like reading glasses. We have to put our reading glasses on so we can see the type better. At least I have to. I want these five things to become the lens in which you look at everything in your life. Because you live in a female body, for those of you who do, and the men in the room, don't leave.

• 19:24Mindy Pelz?

  Because you become an incredible asset to the women in your life when you understand this.

• 19:34Mindy Pelz?

  80% à 90% de l'information sur la santé que les gens reçoivent maintenant est sur les médias sociaux. Et ce que les gens sur les médias sociaux essaient de faire, c'est de prendre votre attention. Et beaucoup d'entre eux disent que vous devez le faire de cette façon, pas de cette façon. Et ils contribuent à la shame et la culpabilité que si beaucoup de femmes ressentent sur leur corps. Donc, voici les cinq que je veux que vous regardez et voyez et dites : "Est-ce que cette information qui vient, s'adapte-t-elle dans l'un de ces cinq boîtes ?" Voici. Principale numéro un.

• 20:12Mindy Pelz?

  Louise était géniale à nous apprendre à posséder nos croyances. Maintenant, laissez-moi vous dire la neuroscience derrière ça. Les femmes ont une partie plus grande de notre cerveau que les hommes. Ça s'appelle notre corpus callosum. Et c'est le connecteur entre notre hémisphère droit et notre hémisphère gauche. Et le job du corpus callosum est de pouvoir intégrer la partie de la droite du cerveau, qui est créatif, artistique, émotionnel, relationnel, avec la partie gauche du cerveau qui est logique, orientée d'action et un fait.

• 20:56Mindy Pelz?

  Je dis toujours que la partie gauche du cerveau est "Voyons ça", et la partie droite du cerveau est "J'espère que nous pouvons le faire". Ça a plus d'émotion dedans. Et le corpus callosum connecte les deux. Donc, dans mon livre "Age Like a Girl", tout le monde lit ça ? J'ai écrit un chapitre entier sur une psycho... Elle était une philosophe qui a fait un étude et a écrit un livre appelé "In a Different Voice". Tout le monde connaît Carol Gilligan ? Oui. Donc, Carol Gilligan a dit que ce qui se passe à l'âge de 15 ans, c'est que comme l'estrogène vient, ces deux parties de votre cerveau commencent à synergiser.

• 21:38Mindy Pelz?

  Et tout ce que vous regardez est à travers la lens de relationnel et logique. Donc, nous mettons toujours le soin des autres dans un certain endroit dans tous nos décisions de prise de décision à cause de la façon dont notre cerveau fonctionne. Mais ce que Carol a dit, c'est que la société, quand elle a interviewé des enfants à 9 et 10 ans, elle demandait à un garçon et une fille : "Qu'est-ce que vous voulez ?" Et le garçon disait : "Je veux ça", et la fille disait : "Je veux ça", comme si on l'appelait "alimentation". "Qu'est-ce que vous voulez manger ?" "Je veux du beurre de pamplemousse, je veux de la pizza". Vous demandez la même question à 11 ans, le garçon est comme : "Je veux ça", et la fille dit : "Je ne suis pas sûre, mais je pense que je veux ça".

• 22:22Mindy Pelz?

  Une fois qu'elle passe par l'âge de 15 ans et qu'elle est drôlée par l'estrogène, et que le corpus callosum s'intéresse, tout d'un coup, le garçon vous dit : "Je veux ça", et la fille dit : "Je ne sais pas, qu'as-tu ?" Donc, nous regardons tout à travers une lens relationnelle. C'est la façon dont nos cerveaux sont faits. Donc, la principale numéro un est de posséder vos croyances. Les croyances de ces croyances sont-elles même de vos ? Qui les a mis là ? Je travaille avec tant de femmes qui essayent de se faire amuser avec leur corps. Je me dis : "Ce n'est pas votre voix", parce que si je pouvais prendre ma tête, mon cerveau, et l'ajouter à votre cerveau, vous voyez à quel point votre corps est incroyable. La voix de quelqu'un d'autre est là. Louise savait ça. "Le passé n'a pas de pouvoir sur moi".

• 23:07Mindy Pelz?

  Beaucoup de nos croyances limitantes ont été absorbées au enfance. Ce sont les situations que nous devons surmonter parce que notre cerveau était comme une boule à tous nos critiques et conseils. Et nous sommes nés dans une culture qui disait : "Vous êtes dignes si vous êtes bons". Donc, soyez bons et nous vous aimerez. Maintenant, je vais vous dire que quand j'ai mis "Age Like a Girl" au monde, je me suis dit : "Oh mon Dieu, je vais mettre toutes ces femmes menopausives dans ces nouveaux endroits de la vie", et elles vont être comme : "Oh mon Dieu, je n'ai plus besoin de faire ça et ça", parce que le livre est entier sur la façon dont votre cerveau change à travers la menopause pour le bien. Donc, nous avons inventé une carte, une carte de conversation,

• 23:51Mindy Pelz?

  et vous pouvez l'utiliser comme un journal, vous pouvez l'utiliser pour une soirée de femmes, vous pouvez l'utiliser pour devenir plus proche d'un mari, mais ce sont des questions qui vous amènent hors du pensée patriarcale de qui vous êtes et vous permettent de décider de ce que vous voulez posséder.

• 24:10Mindy Pelz?

  Il y a trois fois dans la vie d'une femme que son cerveau se remodelle en fonction d'un changement hormonal, parce que oui, notre cerveau est si intelligent que quand les hormones changent, l'intelligence et le corps dit : "Eh bien, mon cerveau doit changer aussi pour que je puisse répondre aux nouvelles exigences de mon nouvel temps de vie". À l'âge de 15 ans, ce qui se passe, ce sont les neurones dans le cerveau qui vous font dépendre d'un soignant qui va en dehors. Et tout d'un coup, vous êtes comme : "Je peux faire ça moi-même". Tout le monde a une fille adolescente ? Oui, c'est ce qui se passe. La deuxième fois est la grossesse, quand les hormones tombent juste après la naissance d'une femme. Les neurones dans son cerveau qui l'ont appris à trouver ses clés et qui l'ont aidé à comprendre pourquoi elle est allée dans une autre pièce, vont en dehors.

• 24:56Mindy Pelz?

  Non ? Parce que l'intelligence du corps sait que cette femme a un enfant dont les indices doivent être lu et doivent être compris. Donc, l'intelligence dit : "Voyons, nous allons enlever certains de ces neurones pour que nous puissions faire des espaces pour des neurones plus intuitifs", pour qu'elle sache quand son bébé a besoin d'alimentation, qu'elle sait quand son bébé a besoin de confort, qu'elle sait ce qu'elle a besoin. Elle va avoir besoin de cette superpuissance d'intuition. Très cool. La menopause, ces neurones de la plaisanterie, vont en dehors. Et tout d'un coup, quelqu'un a été comme... comme sorti quelque chose ? Et vous êtes comme : "Désolée".

• 25:42Mindy Pelz?

  Non ? "J'ai juste dit ça ?" "J'ai besoin de ces neurones pour me filtrer parce que je ne suis pas supposé dire ça", c'est ma voix intérieure.

• 25:54Mindy Pelz?

  Il y a une raison pour ça, parce que les femmes menopausives, si vous revenez à la primaire, ont été construites pour la direction. Et si vous êtes un leader, vous devez porter un message à l'avenir sans être complètement obsédé par la plaisanterie de tout le monde. C'est tout dans "Age Like a Girl", vous pouvez lire ça. Mais c'est comme ça que nous sommes intelligents, c'est comme ça que nous sommes incroyables, que notre corps sait que quand les hormones changent, notre cerveau doit suivre pour le travail que nous sommes supposés nous concentrer : l'indépendance, l'intuition, la direction. Si vous vous doutez de vous, votre corps le fait, vous n'avez pas à le payer. Il le fait. Principale numéro deux.

• 26:37Mindy Pelz?

  Et c'était une fois que je suis revenue à "You Can Heal Your Life", je me suis dit : "Wow, elle a beaucoup d'affirmations". J'ai aimé la histoire de Nancy hier, elle était comme : "Ouh ! Est-ce qu'elle sortait comme en pleurant des affirmations partout ?" Comme : "Hélas". Donc, de toute façon, l'une des affirmations qu'elle a dit encore et encore était autour de la sécurité. Et c'est intéressant, après avoir vu "Fast Like a Girl" sortir au monde, j'ai vu beaucoup de gens qui étaient comme : "J'ai fait ce que vous m'avez dit de faire, mais je ne perds pas de poids, je ne balance pas mes hormones". Et je regardais ce que nous avons donné à cette personne, et je regardais quelqu'un d'autre, et ils disaient : "Oh mon Dieu, j'ai perdu 50 kilos". "Oh mon Dieu, mes flèches chaudes sont partagées".

• 27:22Mindy Pelz?

  Et je me dis : "La même outil, les corps différents, qu'est-ce qui se passe ici ?" Et j'ai essayé de comprendre pourquoi certains peuvent prendre ces outils simples et les utiliser, et d'autres ne peuvent pas. Et j'ai finalement arrivé à la conclusion que ça a à voir avec notre système nerveux et notre état de système nerveux. Pour ceux d'entre vous qui essaient de perdre du poids, je veux juste dire que des études comme celle-ci à droite sont vraiment importantes. Les femmes sous stress chronique ont deux fois le risque de diabète type 2 que les hommes qui, dans la même étude, ne montrent pas cette corrélation. Nos corps sont très sensibles.

• 28:07Mindy Pelz?

  Donc, combien de gens connaissent la théorie de la polyvagelle ?

• 28:11Mindy Pelz?

  So in trying to help this subset of people who were not getting as good a result as some of the other people in my community, I stumbled upon the polyvagal theory, or I revisited it. And I started to look at today's world and today's woman through this lens. And I started to figure out that, wait, the nervous system should be in what we call a green state, where something hits us, and we have a stressor, we react, but then we go back to balance. And we're calm. But what I started to see was that many of the women that were not getting a result with fasting, or food, or exercise, who use the terms, "I'm stuck,

• 28:55Mindy Pelz?

  nothing I do is really helping me," that they weren't in a green state. They were in a yellow or a red state, because they had been under so much stress for so long, that when you're in a fight-or-flight response, you know what your body does? It intuitively makes you insulin resistant. Because you need glucose to go to those muscles so you can run away from a tiger. But you're not running from a tiger. You're on Instagram, looking at all the people who have different opinions than you. And you're raising your cortisol, and you're putting yourself in fight-or-flight. And so I started to see, oh my God, the insulin resistance, the belly, the fatigue, the hot flashes,

• 29:39Mindy Pelz?

  or the people in the yellow state. And then I wanted to unpack the food noise. I didn't understand, why are we all of a sudden talking about food noise? Where did this come from? Like, why is this just coming to the surface now because of these weight-loss drugs? And I found that when people have been under stress for so long, they move into a red state. And in a red state, what ends up happening is your body shuts down. Your digestion shuts down. You want to withdraw, and you want to numb yourself. And what women will often do is numb themselves with food. And the food noise goes up. And so I took, I started looking at Louise's principle of "I am safe," and thinking, oh my God, if every woman's body felt safe,

• 30:24Mindy Pelz?

  I could give you the healthiest meal, and you would lose weight. I could walk you around the block, and you would lose weight. That I could help you, you know, eat in a certain way to energize your brain, and your memory would come back on. But, but every, so many women are in a yellow or a red state. So I wanted to solve that. So I came up with, this is my new thing, that I'm teaching to my academy members. I'm teaching to my YouTube audience, those of you that follow me over there. And it's called "A Nervous System Questionnaire." And I decided that the only way we were going to start to get into a deeper conversation on the female body was we were going to need to address your nervous system state. So it's an interactive quiz.

• 31:09Mindy Pelz?

  I just want you all to understand that you might not be getting a result with the things you're doing, because you're in a yellow or a red nervous system state. And then what do we do? We think it's our fault. But you live in a patriarchal society that has you feeling unsafe, and has been telling you you should be a certain size in order to be worthy, and that you should probably not misbehave. And so you've been going through life carrying this burden. And then you're like, oh my God, I can't fast, I can't eat, I exercise, I'm not building muscle. What's going on? It's because your nervous system state was so skewed that it can't receive. And with this quiz, you will know what nervous system state you're in. And you have, there's a free guide you can have.

• 31:53Mindy Pelz?

  And it'll start the conversation of how should you fast, and how shouldn't you fast. I want to know what state you're in, because if you're in a red state, you shouldn't be fasting. I'm the fasting expert. And I have changed my opinion. Because we need to help women get into a green state. So it shows you how to eat, how to fast, how to work out according to your state. So that's there for you. Principle number three is honor your rhythms. You have a rhythm. If you supplement with only one ingredient, my vote is that you supplement with magnesium. It's literally the most important mineral on earth for human health. And I think a lot of us think about it

• 32:38Mindy Pelz?

  just for sleep. But magnesium has so much more power for you than just that. It supports heart health, bone health, muscle tissue, mood, you name it. Magnesium is truly a gift to a stressed-out body. But the magnesium you're taking, yeah, this is where it gets a little complicated. You got to look at the label. It's likely it's just one or two forms of magnesium. And some of these forms aren't even really bioavailable. That's why Qualia Magnesium Plus is hands-down the most comprehensive magnesium supplement ever made.

• 33:21Mindy Pelz?

  It has 10 complementary forms of magnesium. Yes, 10. So you don't have to figure out, like, which one do I need for sleep? Which one do I need for stress recovery? It's all in this one supplement. Plus, they added 70 trace minerals. And it's now clinically tested. So here's the cool thing about this supplement. Just two capsules a day. I take, honestly, I take mine at night. And you're getting the most diverse, bioavailable version of magnesium supplement I personally have ever seen. So head on over to qualialife.com/mindy. They're giving our community

• 34:05Mindy Pelz?

  up to 15% off if you use the code Mindy. Yay, thank you, Qualia. And all of their supplements are backed by their 100-day guarantee. So that's Qualia Magnesium Plus, code Mindy, at qualialife.com/mindy. Enjoy. You have always had a rhythm. Now, I didn't have to go far to find Louise's quotes on this. She knew that. Again, I'm like, she knew that? Wow, why didn't she tell anybody? She should have spoke a little louder about that one. "I accept my full power as a woman, accept all of my bodily processes as normal and natural." Here's one bodily process

• 34:50Mindy Pelz?

  for those of you that are cycling. Front half of your cycle, you might be energized and not very hungry. You kind of can skip on sleep, and you can fast a little longer. Diets might work. But in the back half of your cycle, you're supposed to rest and recover, and eat more carbohydrates so you can bring your glucose up so that progesterone can make her appearance. You are not meant to be the same as you go through a 30-day cycle. My post-menopausal women have a rhythm, because when estrogen and progesterone go away, our neurochemical armor comes down. And all of a sudden, we are noticing a depletion, not just of estrogen and progesterone, but we're noticing a depletion

• 35:35Mindy Pelz?

  of dopamine, serotonin, acetylcholine, all the yummy neurotransmitters. So these two books, no matter where you are in your hormonal cycle, are there to honor that you are rhythmic. When I first learned this, I was like, wait a second. So I shouldn't be eating the same way all month long? What happens if I take the same supplement over and over again? What happens when I do the same exercise over and over again? It does not work in a female body. And when you look at the chaos of our hormones across our lifetime, this is what happens. Like, I'm sorry.

• 36:19Mindy Pelz?

  You just don't mess with my peace. Then, you know, across the month, one of the most interesting things I ever saw was that testosterone comes in during ovulation. We don't get much of it any other time. I'm like, what? I only get testosterone when I ovulate? How amazing is that, that the body gave me some drive and libido when an egg comes out? Super smart. Men get testosterone every 15 minutes.

• 36:51Mindy Pelz?

  Like, "Well, that sucks."

• 36:55Mindy Pelz?

  So if you're in a heterosexual relationship, you're at a testosterone mismatch. I was like, "Why don't I get it the rest of the month? That's not fun. That's not fair." And now, what we're going to be talking about is how cortisol comes in. I have a new term I'm teaching in my academy, and I'm teaching on YouTube, called cortisol flexibility, learning how to work with your cortisol levels. Because cortisol's not the enemy. Cortisol comes in in the morning, which means cortisol was the hormone that was meant to make you move. You have the most amount of cortisol receptor sites in your belly. So if you are chronically under stress and you are not moving, guess where all of that cortisol is going to go?

• 37:41Mindy Pelz?

  Belly fat.

• 37:44Mindy Pelz?

  So cortisol flexibility means when you have a stressor, you understand what to do. Working out in the morning is a great thing to do because you have the highest amount of cortisol. And whenever you have something that hits you that's stressful, it's super important that you get up and move. Go work that cortisol through your system. Otherwise, it will stay in your system. This is what it looks like to start to understand what it means to live in a feminine body. You know when your hormones are coming in, you know when they go away, you know when one hits like cortisol, and you know what to do with it. It's not hard, once you start to see it. Principle number four.

• 38:24Mindy Pelz?

  So this one is a really personal one to me because I don't think we talk about this enough. We are like antennas.

• 38:37Mindy Pelz?

  I really want you to understand that your nervous system is highly, highly sensitive as a woman. And why would the intelligence of the body need to do that? Because when you are in your reproductive years, you need to sense danger because your body can create and carry life. So you need to be very sensitive to the people, the places, and the pace of your life. We're going to talk about this in a moment. So if you go against the readings that are coming into the body, then the body starts malfunctioning.

• 39:21Mindy Pelz?

  Louise knew this. My favorite quote in here is, "I provide for myself a comfortable home, one that fills all of my needs and is a pleasure to be in. I fill the rooms with a vibration of love so all that enter, myself included, will feel this love and be nourished by it." To me, from a neuroscience lens, that's like, "I'm going to put myself in a place where I feel safe and I vibrate safety so that all women will feel at home in my presence." Think about that for a moment. Are you that woman to other women? Are you that woman to other people?

• 40:03Mindy Pelz?

  It's the greatest thing we can do right now is to start to work on putting ourselves in environments that are nourishing, that are supportive, to surround ourselves with other women that are lifting us up. But you know what the patriarch has taught us to do?

• 40:23Mindy Pelz?

  Turn on each other. But Louise knew it. Who are you hanging around? What are you... How are you feeding yourself? What kind of job are you at? What kind of relationship are you in? Because all of those matter when you live in a feminine body. Now, I know she was giving this to, you know, both men and women, but it's more apropos for women.

• 40:49Mindy Pelz?

  I have a personal experience with this that I'll share, that many of you who've followed me know that I was living in the Palisades when it lit up on fire. And I escaped that day as trees and cars and houses were burning. I didn't know I was going to escape. Thought that was going to be my last day.

• 41:10Mindy Pelz?

  And then I moved out of LA because our neighborhood completely burned. And I went to Santa Cruz. And when I got to Santa Cruz, some dear friends said to me, "Mindy, let the land heal you." People come to Santa Cruz to either heal or hide. Turns out, that's true.

• 41:32Mindy Pelz?

  Kind of like that. And so every day, I would put myself in either the water or in the forest. And I started literally taking the literal, "Let nature heal you." And what changed in my body was profound. My mind started working better. My sleep started working better. My focus was better because I changed the environment that I was in. And I put myself in an environment that was in a vibration that was in alignment with me. I didn't take a supplement. I didn't do an extra special fast. I didn't break my fast a certain way. I didn't do some fancy exercise

• 42:16Mindy Pelz?

  or, you know, master some sleep routine. I put myself in a vibration that allowed my body to heal.

• 42:26Mindy Pelz?

  I haven't been back to LA much. It'll be two years in January. I came back here last January for a hot moment. And every time I fly in to Burbank, the chest starts to crush. The gut starts to feel like something horrible is going to happen. Because my body is so smart that it says, "We've been here before, and last time, we almost lost our life."

• 43:00Mindy Pelz?

  And so I have to go through a process of reminding it we're not in that situation anymore. I also had a situation where in my late 30s, I decided that it would be really fun to swim into a pile of Portuguese manure and let those suckers wrap all around me

• 43:19Mindy Pelz?

  and land myself in a Mexican hospital fighting for my life. Had the full near-death experience, down a tunnel, saw the life review. It's pretty cool, just want to say. Don't be scared. It's a lot of fun.

• 43:37Mindy Pelz?

  And when I came back and out of that experience, I became a very hypervigilant human, which is very common with people who have had extreme trauma like that. And I didn't realize that till I moved to Santa Cruz. And a friend says to me, "Hey, you want to come surf with me?" I'm like, "Yeah, I should probably do that. That seems good. Let's go surfing." The first book she told me I should read, first surfing book, is "It's Good to Suck at Something."

• 44:05Mindy Pelz?

  I read that book. I was like, "Yeah, this is so good." And then I would go out and I would miss another wave and miss another wave, and I couldn't stand up. And I was like, "Oh, my God." This is the most humbling experience ever. But something magical happened in my body. I had gone into water in my late 30s and almost lost my life. And at 56, I went back to the water and I had a very different experience. And when my body could feel a different experience, what it started doing was give me different thoughts. We all have that. That's how... And I know, you know, body keeps a score and it applies to both sexes,

• 44:51Mindy Pelz?

  but I really think as women, our body is constantly reading the room. We walk in and we're like, "Something in here is not right." It's your body telling you. Listen to it. Or all of a sudden, you meet somebody and you're like, "This is great. Your vibration is my vibration." So I don't... You know, we don't have to be psychic. Like, you're already... Your nervous system is already telling you all the time if you are in the right place. So I have broken this down for my own life into three areas.

• 45:25Mindy Pelz?

  This one's really important. Our bodies will react to the people that we hang around.

• 45:34Mindy Pelz?

  I have a very dear friend who wanted me to teach her fasting because she was gaining a lot of weight through menopause. And I gave her every tool I could possibly give her. And one day, she turns to me and she says, "I don't think it works for me. I'm so hungry. I'm not losing weight. I don't know what's going on." And so, you know, sometimes it's not good to try to fix your friends. And so, I was like, "Okay, let me see what else I can do." A year later, she decides to leave her husband.

• 46:11Mindy Pelz?

  A year after that, she drops 50 pounds.

• 46:17Mindy Pelz?

  And I see her one day and I'm like, "Oh, my God. What happened to you?" And she goes, "Fasting works for me now."

• 46:27Mindy Pelz?

  Nervous system state.

• 46:31Mindy Pelz?

  But as we talked deeper, it was the environment that her husband had created in the house that was creating so much pressure on her that her body couldn't balance itself.

• 46:46Mindy Pelz?

  I really want you to think about this because when tools for health don't work for us, we think as women, we think it's us.

• 46:56Mindy Pelz?

  But it might actually be the people that you are surrounding yourself with. I had a dear patient that I love that was so desperately trying to lose weight. And we finally found a path that worked for her and she was just dropping weight really quickly, like every week. I was so proud of her. I was so excited for her. And one day, she stopped showing up to her appointments.

• 47:23Mindy Pelz?

  And I had a very busy practice, so it took me a couple of weeks to realize like, where's Lupe? Where did Lupe go? And my front desk is like, we've called her, we don't know where she is. She showed up six months later, had gained all the weight back.

• 47:38Mindy Pelz?

  Now, I'm not a judgy person and I just brought her into a room and I was like, tell me, Lupe, what happened? And she said, it became really hard to actually commit to a nighttime food routine because my husband and I have a routine where we sit down and watch a movie every night and we eat popcorn and Red Vines.

• 48:04Mindy Pelz?

  And so in order to commit to my health habits, I was going to have to break that bond of eating Red Vines and popcorn with him. And I didn't want to do that.

• 48:20Mindy Pelz?

  We came up with a really good solution for her, but that is the power that people have on us. It's sometimes how our body feels and it's sometimes how they start to change our thought patterns. So if you're stuck anywhere in your life, the first thing I want to ask you is who are you hanging around? Because it may be people putting their thoughts into your brain that are not serving you. It may be that you have to redefine some relationships in order to match your health goals because for women especially, the people we hang around have a huge impact on our physiology and on our health habits.

• 49:05Mindy Pelz?

  Second one is our place. So the house I raised my family in, we were the house where all the kids were welcome. Everybody could come. And what that meant is it was messy.

• 49:16Mindy Pelz?

  And I would wake up many times in the morning and see like the kitchen looked like a rave had happened. And so I decided that I was gonna clean it up. We were gonna straighten the whole house up. My family didn't love that so much because I changed the rules on them. I went from, I'm not a neat freak to, you left your shoe at the door and it was crooked. It wasn't lined up. And I walked in and now you've triggered all the trauma states of when I was a kid and my shoe wasn't lined up perfectly and how I got ridiculed for that.

• 49:55Mindy Pelz?

  Right?

• 49:59Mindy Pelz?

  I still, to this day, I'm trying to explain it to all of them, even though the kids are out. I actually, I'm sure some of you have had this experience. My daughter has, just got married and has her own house. And we went to go visit and I went to go dry my hands on the little tea towel and she said, no, no, no, no, no.

• 50:21Mindy Pelz?

  Not at my house.

• 50:26Mindy Pelz?

  And on the day, I was, she's like, that's not for hands, that's not for hands, mom, it's decoration.

• 50:37Mindy Pelz?

  On the day we left, they had to go, she and her husband had to go off to work. And I looked at my husband and I'm like, I, the little shit stir in me just wants to leave that towel on the ground and like, make everything misaligned and be like, there.

• 50:53Mindy Pelz?

  That's how it feels.

• 50:57Mindy Pelz?

  But I didn't, I took the high road. But I found this study. Women who described their homes as cluttered had a flatter daily cortisol pattern. What that means is their cortisol was just tanked. And it's a sign of chronic stress and their husbands didn't respond that way.

• 51:19Mindy Pelz?

  Because the male body isn't built to create and house and birth life. And because of that, we came with a lot more bells and whistles than the male body. We're like a sophisticated violin. Like if one little note gets off, you're gonna need to finally tune us, maybe straighten up the shoes, tell us something nice.

• 51:46Mindy Pelz?

  And then all of a sudden, we are in harmony.

• 51:50Mindy Pelz?

  But a male body is like a kazoo.

• 52:01Mindy Pelz?

  It has one note.

• 52:05Mindy Pelz?

  And it works.

• 52:10Mindy Pelz?

  And I mean that with so much respect. I have a husband and a son and they know this.

• 52:17Mindy Pelz?

  So when we hang around people or we're in places that don't work for us, we feel it physiologically, so much so that 80% of autoimmune conditions are happening to women because our body is attacking itself because we keep going to the wrong people and we keep hanging out in the wrong places. And our body is so smart that it changes the immune system so that it can start to attack itself. And it's really a sign that you've been hanging out with the wrong people and you're in the wrong places.

• 52:50Mindy Pelz?

  Now, I grew up here in LA and when I learned to drive, I learned to drive like this.

• 52:59Mindy Pelz?

  And I learned that you never put your blinker on here because if you do, it actually means people are gonna speed up.

• 53:08Mindy Pelz?

  Right? So you gotta have one hand on the horn so you can move her around, everybody. You don't need that extra hand for the turn signal because that's of no use to you here in LA. Right?

• 53:27Mindy Pelz?

  So when I moved to Santa Cruz, I had to remind myself not to drive like LA. And I got behind a car with a bumper sticker. Anybody been to Santa Cruz, they love their bumper stickers. And one of the bumper stickers said, I'm not in your hurry.

• 53:51Mindy Pelz?

  I took a picture of it.

• 53:55Mindy Pelz?

  And put it on my dashboard. So I could remind myself and it became a mantra. My whole calendar now is like, oh, so and so wants to meet with you. And I look at that and I'm like, no, that's when I surf. That's, I'm not in their hurry. I'm not in their hurry. I need to go get in the water and balance myself. And I changed the pace of my life to match what was right for me and not what was right for everybody else around me. Principle number five is what we are doing right now and what Louise knew in. Before we get back into the episode, I want to ask you something.

• 54:36Mindy Pelz?

  When was the last time you paused, like genuinely paused, long enough to ask yourself, what do I want from this next phase of my life? Because I know a lot of you have spent years taking care of everyone else. And somewhere in there, your own needs moved to the bottom of the list. This needs to change. I want you to start making room for yourself again. And I realize it's actually more difficult than it appears, which is why I am so excited to share my new card deck with you all. It's called, Who Are You Becoming?

• 55:21Mindy Pelz?

  Keep it somewhere you'll see it. Pull a card with your morning coffee. Take a breath and spend a few minutes reflecting on what comes up for you as you read the question on the card. Give yourself permission to listen deeply to that inner voice, the one that you may have been turning away from, who wants to speak now. You don't have to figure out your whole future today, which is why these cards are so powerful. Because they allow you to take each understanding of yourself and what you are looking forward to in the future, step by step. And you start with a small, simple moment for yourself.

• 56:06Mindy Pelz?

  Who You Are Becoming is available for preorder now. Just visit discover.hayhouse.com/whoareyoubecoming. I am so excited to share these cards with you. I'm even more excited to see who you discover in these cards. And I can't wait for these to arrive at your doorstep. Enjoy. Such a deep way. I love the story about the hayrides.

• 56:36Mindy Pelz?

  Because what she knew is that it wasn't just seeing those men and making them feel loved, but that you heal in community. Community is medicine.

• 56:48Mindy Pelz?

  And we tend to think we need to do health on our own. One of the things that I did in my clinic was create these recipe nights where I would put these recipes all up on the wall and everybody was to take a recipe and do it at home. And then it was like a potluck. Everybody brought their food and then we shared in community what was it about what you made? How hard was it? Did you like it? Because they were healthy recipes. But really what I was doing was building community. Because oxytocin is the most powerful hormone on the planet. And if you want to heal, get yourself in community. And Louise knew this. And the science knows this as well, that we have, by the way, check this out because

• 57:33Mindy Pelz?

  we're so well-designed. We have more oxytocin receptor sites in our amygdala than men. So our amygdala is our fight or flight center. And so we have more oxytocin receptor sites up there because when we're stressed, what do we do?

• 57:51Mindy Pelz?

  We call our bestie. We want to talk about it. We want to connect on it. Because we have more oxytocin receptor sites in our brain. So when we are stressed, we don't always go to fight or flight. We may go to tend and befriend because it calms us. 50% greater odds of survival for people with stronger social relationships. It's as important as not smoking. Because for a female body, it is in community is how we heal. Which is why events like this become so powerful. Because we are in community.

• 58:32Mindy Pelz?

  And just by meeting a new person and being in a new connection and being lit up by that, you are getting a whole neurochemical response that is balancing your hormones and making you more insulin sensitive and supporting a better immune system just because you sat next to somebody who made you feel seen, heard, and loved. That's how important being in community is. So going back to this idea of living life like a girl. Now that you know all of the principles, let's go back to our childhood.

• 59:11Mindy Pelz?

  Before estrogen drugged us, we trusted ourselves and what we said before the world told us what we said wasn't important or was inappropriate or was too angry. We let ourselves be soothed. Maybe by a mother, maybe by a caregiver, maybe by a pet. But we allowed ourselves to co-regulate with something that soothed us. We ate when we were hungry. We slept when we were tired. When we go all the way down into our toddler years. We knew what rooms. Think about a toddler. A toddler gets it. Everybody's like, "Your dog gets it." Right? When your dog like growls at somebody, you're like, "Oh yeah, our dog is really intuitive." Like, "That must not be a good person." But toddlers are the same way.

• 59:55Mindy Pelz?

  We know when something's not appropriate. And so we throw a tantrum. But when we became a woman, we were told that was inappropriate. But our little girl knew that. And we found our friends on the playground. So I don't know where being a woman meant being serious. One of the greatest things I've learned about Louise is how playful she was. And I think as we age, we should get more and more playful. To reinvigorate our little girl. So this year, I decided to change my podcast from Resetter Podcast to Live Like a Girl Podcast.

• 1:00:39Mindy Pelz?

  And I'm in the process of interviewing experts and really dialing in deep on what it means to live in a female body. And at the end of every podcast, I ask the question, "What does living like a girl mean to you?" And every guest I've brought on has had some version of an answer that was, "To be authentic. To speak my truth. To say what matters to me and not be fearful of silencing my voice." And then on the other end is to play. Tomorrow, I have a podcast coming out with the comedian LeAnn Morgan. It's really good. Go watch it.

• 1:01:23Mindy Pelz?

  I played my card deck game with her. Oh my God, it was so fun. We had a whole, you know, a whole wonderful time playing. You can watch it on YouTube. And when I asked her this question, she said, "Oh, well, that's easy to play." So when, last year, after I had been through so much trauma of neighborhoods burning and promoting all these books, I finally found the most perfect place for me to live, in this incredible house that butts up right against the forest so I could go out every single day and be with nature and regulate with nature. And it has this really long driveway. And the first time we move into it, I turn to my husband and I'm like, "Oh my God, that driveway.

• 1:02:06Mindy Pelz?

  I'm going to take a big wheel. And I'm going to ride down that driveway like I did when I was a kid." And so he started to say, "A big wheel's not going to fit you." Like, he said it like, "You're going to break the big wheel." I'm like, "I get it." I'm like, he didn't mean it like you're fat. He meant it like you're an adult. And big wheels for kids. And I'm like, "That's okay. It's okay. I'm just going to ride it once." And he's like, "It's going to be dangerous. Are you going to wear a helmet?" I was like, "What are you talking about? This is my dream. This is my little girl. Like, shush." So I went to Amazon. I found a big wheel.

• 1:02:51Mindy Pelz?

  The weight, in case you want to know, is 40 pounds, the weight limit. But any of you that know the Enneagram, I'm a seven on the Enneagram. And so our two motivations are joy and freedom. So I didn't really care if I was over 40 pounds. And so on my 56th birthday, I rode this down the driveway.

• 1:03:35Mindy Pelz?

  I still have it. And in two weeks will be my 57th birthday. I need to perfect that turn a little bit, you know? You had to like pull the handle up and like just turn all the way around. I'm working on it for, in two weeks. We're going to do this again. It was one of the more liberating things that I have done in my adult life, to throw all the rules out and give my little girl what she needed. And so many of us are sick and depressed and anxious and struggling with weight and struggling with sleep because we are out of congruency with that little girl who wants

• 1:04:16Mindy Pelz?

  to speak to you, wants you to start to bring out parts of you that you pushed down. So whenever you see my face, whenever you see my books, I want you to start to realize that I am giving you permission to play. I am giving you permission to speak your truth. I am giving you permission to be whoever you authentically feel like you should be. Because that is absolutely the healthiest thing you can possibly do.

• 1:04:58Mindy Pelz?

  So I leave you with this thought as we celebrate this incredible woman whose 100th birthday would have been this month. She knew these principles. She had a phrase, "Life loves you." And I added a phrase to it. I added, and your body does too. It never is going against you. It is constantly giving you signals if you are in alignment with you. Thank you.