THIS Is Why Intermittent Fasting Never Worked For You | The Mel Robbins Podcast

1. 0:00 – 3:32

   Intro

   1. MRMel Robbins0:00

      (Clock Ticking) (Upbeat Music) Dr. Mindy is back, office hours are open, people. She is here to grab your hand and help you implement a fasting protocol that focuses on when you're eating for maximum health benefit. We are gonna dive deep, deep, deep, deep into the difference between fasting with men and fasting with women, because there is a profound difference, and this is not being talked about enough. And this stuff is so freaking cool. (upbeat music) Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. I am so excited that you're here. Welcome to this extraordinary master class and step-by-step guide into the science and the application of intermittent fasting into your life as a tool for healing and for improving your health. Now, we're about to jump into the step-by-step part and how you get started, and we're also going to talk about the different protocols for fasting for men and women and why this is extremely critical that you understand and follow. But for the sake of bringing everybody into the tent and so that we're all starting on the same page, if this is the first episode that you're listening to with me and Dr. Mindy Pelz about intermittent fasting, I want you to keep on listening, and I want to let you know that when you're done with this step-by-step guide on how to start and the protocols to follow and what you can expect, there is another resource for you. The episode just before this one is an in-depth analysis into the 101 of intermittent fasting and all the science and research. And so let me just summarize a few key takeaways so that we're all starting with the exact same information. Number one, intermittent fasting is a health protocol whereby you focus on periods of time where you're eating and periods of time where you are not eating. The purpose of intermittent fasting is to use periods of time where you are not eating to help you switch between the two different energy sources in your body. We learned all about this in part one from Dr. Mindy. You have an energy source that is all about sugar and calories and energy that happens when you eat, and then you have a second energy source that only turns on after an eight-hour period of not eating anything, and Dr. Mindy calls that your fat-burning energy source. And so what we learned is that you are designed to switch between these two cycles, kind of like how you have cycles of sleeping and cycles of being awake, you have a circadian rhythm cycle. If you're a woman, you have a menstrual cycle. The human body runs on cycles and rhythms, and your eating is no different, and fasting is a way for you to be very intentional not about what you eat, and that's why this is not a diet. Diets focus on what you eat. Fasting is a protocol that focuses on when you're eating for maximum health benefit, and so we covered all of that in

2. 3:32 – 9:20

   What exactly IS fasting and what is the purpose? (Hint: It’s NOT a diet trend.)

   1. MRMel Robbins3:32

      the first master class. We also talked about the six different types of fasting, and just so you know, the six different types are just a matter of how long you are fasting for and the different health benefits and reasons why people fast for different periods of time. In this episode, we're gonna focus on the first type of fasting, which is what you've probably heard of, intermittent fasting, which is when you intentionally do not eat for between 12 and 16 hours. And just so that we're using the same kind of language, that means if you were to stop eating at 9:00 at night and then sleep through the night, sometime between 9:00 AM and noon is when you would have the first thing to eat, because that means that from 9:00 PM until 9:00 AM, you have been fasting for 12 hours. And when you fast for a minimum of 12 hours, you unlock really incredible health benefits. And so that's all you need to know, but you now know everything that you need in order to step into the step-by-step guide. And so here's what we're gonna cover. Dr. Mindy is back. Office hours are open, people. She is here to grab your hand and help you implement a fasting protocol today, and here's what we're gonna cover. We're gonna cover the four questions that you need to ask yourself to determine what type of fasting you want to do and why you're gonna do it. Second, we're gonna do a quick start guide. How do you get started? Like, seriously, how do you actually get started, and when should you start this? We're gonna talk about what you can expect when you try this for the first time, day one, day two, day three. We're gonna talk about what you can expect to experience in terms of results, and then, most importantly, we are gonna dive deep, deep, deep, deep into the difference between fasting with men and fasting with women, because there is a profound difference, and this is not being talked about enough, and we're gonna unpack that today, and you're gonna learn a lot, and this stuff is so freaking cool. And of course, we're gonna talk hacks and everything else. So without further ado, please help me welcome Dr. Mindy Pelz. You know her. You love her. She is an incredible expert about fasting and the benefits. So, Dr. Mindy, welcome back. Let's get started.Let's talk about how. So first, let's start with you, how do you fast, Dr. Mindy?

   2. MPDr. Mindy Pelz6:14

      Yeah, so I, I, I have gotten to a point where I love fasting so much, I have to really make sure that I eat. Um, but I don't, I like skipping breakfast, that's my jam. Um, so I get up in the morning and I drink a cup of coffee, I have a full fat cream, um, w- in my coffee, and I'll probably eat my first meal around noon or 1:00.

   3. MRMel Robbins6:38

      Okay.

   4. MPDr. Mindy Pelz6:38

      Um, uh, uh, you know, like you, family is incredibly important to me, so we usually eat dinner as a family, like, some around 8, you know, 7:00 or 8:00 at night.

   5. MRMel Robbins6:49

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   6. MPDr. Mindy Pelz6:50

      And I'm, and this is my big thing, you don't, you don't, you can build this around a f- your family's desires too. So I sit down with my family, we eat dinner, we're done at 8:00, my first meal will be noon or 1:00. Now, outside of that, and we can talk about hormones if we want to go down that path, but, uh, if I feel like I'm off, you know, yesterday, I was like, ah, I had been, I had been in Hawaii, I hadn't really been eating the way I wanted to eat and I'm like, "I need to go into a longer fast." So I dipped into 18, 19 hours. So I'll use it as a tool depending on what my body needs and then once to tw- two times a year, I'll g- I'll do a three-day water fast. A- and I do that to get rid of the cells that are not serving me, to slow down aging, to increase stem cells, so it's like a cellular clea- cleansing that I do.

   7. MRMel Robbins7:43

      So when you're in the period of the cycle where you are not eating, you're in the fasting period, water is okay?

   8. MPDr. Mindy Pelz7:54

      Water is okay.

   9. MRMel Robbins7:55

      What else is okay?

   10. MPDr. Mindy Pelz7:57

       Yeah, it's a great question. Mineral water is okay as long as it doesn't-

   11. MRMel Robbins7:59

       Yep.

   12. MPDr. Mindy Pelz7:59

       ... have a sweetener.

   13. MRMel Robbins8:01

       Mm-hmm.

   14. MPDr. Mindy Pelz8:01

       Uh, and no, NutraSweet is not okay, um, because NutraSweet can spike insulin, so just point on there. Coffee is okay, tea is okay, anything that won't spike your blood sugar. Black tea, sometimes I'll g- go have a black tea, iced tea, that is yummy, green tea, all of that is fine. It just, you can't have a sweetener in it.

   15. MRMel Robbins8:22

       Gotcha. What about, like, bone broth? 'Cause I see people, like, sipping-

   16. MPDr. Mindy Pelz8:26

       No.

   17. MRMel Robbins8:26

       ... broth during fasting cycles.

   18. MPDr. Mindy Pelz8:28

       Yeah. It, because, uh, it has protein in it, it changes the h- the healing response so it's great to break a fast with, um, but it's not the type of fasting that I'm talking about. The type of fasting I'm talking about has your blood sugar staying low. Bone broth can increase your blood sugar.

   19. MRMel Robbins8:49

       Do you have any hacks, Dr. Mindy, any shortcuts, any things that you want rapid fire for the person listening? If you're gonna take on intermittent fasting, which why on earth would you not after everything we've discussed?

   20. MPDr. Mindy Pelz9:06

       (laughs)

   21. MRMel Robbins9:06

       What are the hacks and the shortcuts to really get started in a fast, successful and supportive way when you're doing it for yourself for the first time?

   22. MPDr. Mindy Pelz9:14

       Okay, so let me, let me give you three hacks that are simple, um, and

3. 9:20 – 15:47

   3 simple hacks to help you get started with fasting.

   1. MPDr. Mindy Pelz9:20

      I also wanna go back to what you said before because I want women specifically that are listening to this, when things are confusing to us, especially when they come to healthcare, we tend to reject them. I'm gonna ask you not to do that, I'm gonna ask you to become curious about them. What we are discussing here is natural rhythms of your body and nobody's taught it to you. So I would, I would love to come back and make sure that we don't lose women in this conversation because we're, we need to embrace our natural rhythms. So I'm, I'll put that there. First hack, the easiest way to get into this is to start looking at your 24-hour period as when are you gonna eat and when are you not gonna eat? So stop, what's your stop time at night and what's your start time in the morning? Figure that out. Second, we'd brought up the coffee. W- a hack for the coffee that is amazing is putting a little bit of MCT oil in your coffee. Let me tell you why.

   2. MRMel Robbins10:31

      Why? (laughs)

   3. MPDr. Mindy Pelz10:31

      Yes, let me tell you why.

   4. MRMel Robbins10:33

      Why?

   5. MPDr. Mindy Pelz10:33

      It moves you quicker into fat burning and helps you make ketones and turns off the hunger hormone. So if you're wanting to fast a little longer and you're struggling, put a little bit of MCT oil, it's what we've seen has worked for millions of people and MCT oil specifically has the ability to turn off the hunger hormone. Put it in your coffee in the morning.

   6. MRMel Robbins10:59

      What the hell is MCT oil?

   7. MPDr. Mindy Pelz11:02

      It's a, an, one aspect of coconut oil that has this therapeutic benefit that turns off hunger. It's-

   8. MRMel Robbins11:11

      Okay.

   9. MPDr. Mindy Pelz11:11

      ... it's just na- nature made it. It's a part of coconut oil.

   10. MRMel Robbins11:14

       How much? 'Cause I once tried this with a bunch of dudes-

   11. MPDr. Mindy Pelz11:18

       (laughs)

   12. MRMel Robbins11:18

       ... and I think they poured, like, I don't know how much, b- but we then went on a hike, and let me tell you something.

   13. MPDr. Mindy Pelz11:25

       Oh, no! (laughs)

   14. MRMel Robbins11:25

       Within, within... She already knows what I'm about to tell you guys.

   15. MPDr. Mindy Pelz11:28

       (laughs)

   16. MRMel Robbins11:29

       Within about 100 yards, after about 45 minutes of drinking what turned out to probably be, like, a loo shot of MCT oil in my coffee, it doubled me over with cramps and I had raging diarrhea almost instantly-

   17. MPDr. Mindy Pelz11:45

       (laughs)

   18. MRMel Robbins11:46

       ... because they gave me too much. I don't know if it was, like, a joke, but how much we talking here, Doc?

   19. MPDr. Mindy Pelz11:51

       Yeah. Oh, my God, it's so good. I'm so happy you said that 'cause that does happen. Um, half a teaspoon to a teaspoon, you don't need very much.

   20. MRMel Robbins11:58

       Okay, and can I put my full fat creamer, no sweetener, in with it?

   21. MPDr. Mindy Pelz12:05

       Yes, you can.

   22. MRMel Robbins12:06

       Okay, got it. All right, so that's hack number two, everybody.

   23. MPDr. Mindy Pelz12:09

       Yeah, so that's hack number two. Okay, hack number three-... if you don't feel good in this fasting window, which I just wanna call out that in the beginning, it will be a little uncomfortable. And that's okay, 'cause the body will figure out how to respond. So in that discomfort, maybe it's a little bit of like, "Eh," and your brain's not quite coming back online, you're like, "I'm not feeling the ketones," try a little sea salt. Just a little bit of sea salt. Like, you can, you can p- you can put it in your coffee if you wanted, and you're gonna ask me the amount, I'm sure. A pinch. A pinch of sea salt. We have found that even the nutrients that you can find in a high-quality sea salt, like a Himalayan sea salt-

   24. MRMel Robbins12:53

       Mm-hmm.

   25. MPDr. Mindy Pelz12:53

       ... or something that's a really good one, it can have magnesium, it can have a little bit of potassium, a little bit of sodium, and it makes you feel better in the fasting window. There are a lot of products out there you can do it with, but all you gotta do is go to the grocery store and find some sea salt.

   26. MRMel Robbins13:09

       Well, I am addicted to LMnt.

   27. MPDr. Mindy Pelz13:12

       Yes, yes.

   28. MRMel Robbins13:12

       That L-M-

   29. MPDr. Mindy Pelz13:13

       Yes, yes, that's what we use.

   30. MRMel Robbins13:13

       L-M-T stuff.
4. 15:47 – 17:16

   Here’s how you may feel when you first try fasting.

   1. MPDr. Mindy Pelz15:47

      When the fasting craze came out, everybody got excited about it, and then women started to see they were losing their, their periods, their hair was falling out, their anxiety levels were going up, and some of them started gaining weight. And so what happened was the media grabbed that and said, "Hey, intermittent fasting is not okay for women." So I dove into the research because all those women poured onto my YouTube channel, and I examined the needs of two different hormones, estrogen and progesterone.

   2. MRMel Robbins16:30

      Okay.

   3. MPDr. Mindy Pelz16:31

      So women follow what I call a hormonal, hormonal hierarchy, and the hierarchy looks something like this. At the bottom are our sex hormones, estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. Those hormones are strongly influenced by insulin. When insulin goes up, we can throw our sex hormones off. Insulin is strongly affected by cortisol. So when our stress goes up, we become more insulin resistant. But above cortisol is the best hormone on the planet, which is oxytocin. When you get more oxytocin... And the only way you can get oxytocin is through connection

5. 17:16 – 20:48

   How your hormones are impacted by intermittent fasting.

   1. MPDr. Mindy Pelz17:16

      to other people. When you get oxytocin, you bring cortisol down. When you bring cortisol down, you become more insulin sensitive. When you become more insulin sensitive, now you're gonna balance your sex hormones. And that is how a female o- body operates when we look at it in a hierarchy system. Second thing I wanna say is that men have one hormone. It's called testosterone. And testosterone for a man works off a 24-hour day light cycle. Men get testosterone pulsing in every 15 minutes, around that. Testosterone then goes up into the brain and converts to estrogen for a man. He, uh... So a man can fast. Testosterone loves when a man fasts, and a man can fast pretty regularly and not mess up that hormonal cycle.... women, we operate off a 28-day to 30-day cycle, and our hormones pulse in in days. Estrogen comes in the first 10, testosterone comes in in the middle, and progesterone comes in at the end. So we have to fast according to this cycling of these hormones. It's a different rhythm. It's a monthly rib- rhythm, not a daily rhythm. Estrogen loves when you fast. So if you... For the menopausal woman who is losing estrogen, i- i- you, you will, you will die when you see how effective this is for bringing estrogen up to a more age-appropriate level. You're never getting your 25-year-old estrogen back, but your 55-year-old age-appropriate estrogen will thank you for building a fasting lifestyle. Progesterone actually doesn't want you to fast. If your blood sugar goes down too much a- or you raise cortisol too much, you will tank progesterone. And check this out, th- we all know this, we just didn't have words for it.

   2. MRMel Robbins19:36

      Hmm.

   3. MPDr. Mindy Pelz19:36

      What do we crave when we had a cycle? What do we crave the week before our periods?

   4. MRMel Robbins19:41

      Oh my God. Everything. Ice cream, uh, alcohol, um, pizza, uh, pasta, um, pretzels with pimento cheese dip.

   5. MPDr. Mindy Pelz19:55

      (laughs)

   6. MRMel Robbins19:55

      Am I getting too personal here? Help me out. Nachos. I crave freaking anything.

   7. MPDr. Mindy Pelz20:01

      Exactly. Because progesterone is asking you to bring your glucose up.

   8. MRMel Robbins20:08

      Hmm.

   9. MPDr. Mindy Pelz20:08

      So, we craved... Now, I'm going to cycling women right now. We craved carbs before our period, not because we were undisciplined. We craved carbs before our period because we needed glucose to be higher, and that internal mechanism inside our body increased the craving of carbohydrates so that we had enough resources to make progesterone.

   10. MRMel Robbins20:32

       Whoa. And so what does the intermittent fasting protocol do for a woman who is in her menstrual cycle?

   11. MPDr. Mindy Pelz20:45

       So in a 28 to 30-day

6. 20:48 – 23:41

   Women need to fast differently than men.

   1. MPDr. Mindy Pelz20:48

      cycle... Every woman's different, I wanna point that out. We all cycle it differently, but have different lengths. The first 10 days is when estrogen's building. We know this as the follicular phase. In Fast Like a Girl, I call it the Power Phase, which means that you can power up on any, all of your workouts, your fasts, your anything you wanna power yourself up on. About day 10 or 11, we move into ovulation. This would be the second phase. And in this phase, I called it the manifestation phase because we can manifest whatever... You can manifest a baby, but you also have estrogen at her peak, you have testosterone at its peak, and you have a little bit of progesterone. So it makes us very mentally sharp. It makes us beautiful. Our hair curly, our skin look great. Um, and we have motivation and drive because of testosterone. Then we come out of ovulation, our hormones dip. We have a five-day window. I called i- you can go back to powering up on all your, your lifestyle tools. But the week before our period starts, around day 20, and I call it the nurture phase because you're supposed to nurture yourself that week. You need to bring glucose up, you need to bring... And you need to rest and bring cortisol down. That's the hormonal rhythm that women follow in a 28 to 30-day period. And once a woman bleeds, we go back to estrogen building. You can go back to fasting, you can go back to working out incredibly hard. Every, all the rhythms change according to the rhythms of those hormones. So if, when women were, got ahold of the fasting craze and they just fasted all month long, they started to tank progesterone.

   2. MRMel Robbins22:33

      Okay.

   3. MPDr. Mindy Pelz22:34

      And progesterone only comes in the week before our period. That's her, that's her debut.

   4. MRMel Robbins22:38

      Okay.

   5. MPDr. Mindy Pelz22:38

      She comes in that week before and says, "Hey, everybody, we gotta shut cortisol down and we gotta increase glucose." So as women started to pick up fasting, they were ignoring that. They were muscling like we often do. We're muscling through this new, and I'm gonna put in air quotes, diet, because we thought of it as a diet. And the more months we did that, the more, the less progesterone we had.

   6. MRMel Robbins23:04

      Is that why women in the beginning were losing hair and why they were having all this negative side effect?

   7. MPDr. Mindy Pelz23:11

      That's right. So, progesterone is the hormone that will also shed the uterine lining.

   8. MRMel Robbins23:17

      Okay.

   9. MPDr. Mindy Pelz23:18

      So, we weren't making enough pro- progesterone, so we couldn't sh- The lining wasn't being shed, shedding, so we started to notice, a lot of women noticed spotting and things like that. Anxiety went up because progesterone is the hormone that calms us. So... And our hair started following, falling out because over time,

7. 23:41 – 28:13

   Why most women were not successful when fasting was first introduced.

   1. MPDr. Mindy Pelz23:41

      we were starting to restrict calories more and more and more. And so it was throwing the thyroid off.

   2. MRMel Robbins23:48

      Okay. So let me just see if I can bottom-line this. When intermittent fasting was first introduced, like so many things, the dudes were talking about it, and they were only talking about it as it relates to men.

   3. MPDr. Mindy Pelz23:58

      Yep.

   4. MRMel Robbins23:58

      And, uh, weightlifting and that kind of thing, and carb cycling, and we've heard all this shit. And no one took into account women's hormone health. And just like women have not been included in medical studies because of our hormone health, this is yet another example of where women have been left out of the conversation, and where the science has been applied to everybody without consideration of how it actually impacts a woman during her cycle. And what you're here to say is that intermittent fasting is an enormously important protocol for all women.And women have to handle it and, and introduce this protocol differently because of our hormone cycle, period, full stop. And so how do you do this as a woman? Because after I heard you talk about intermittent fasting, once we started talking about the research, Dr. Mindy, I'm like fricking, "I'm in. I am not going to eat after nine o'clock. This woman is not putting shit in her mouth until noon." Like, I am down. I'm doing the 90 days. This seems like a no fricking brainer based on body function and health.

   5. MPDr. Mindy Pelz25:09

      Thank you.

   6. MRMel Robbins25:09

      Like, I am in and sold. When you then went hair loss, this, that, hormone cycling, I'm like, "Oh, shit, this is complicated. I don't know if I can do this and I don't want to lose my hair." So how do we simplify this in terms of how an intermittent fasting protocol should be introduced by women in their lives? How do you want to handle this?

   7. MPDr. Mindy Pelz25:34

      Yeah, let's make it super simple.

   8. MRMel Robbins25:36

      Please.

   9. MPDr. Mindy Pelz25:38

      (laughs) Okay. Don't fast the week before your period if you're a cycling woman. Just-

   10. MRMel Robbins25:45

       Oh.

   11. MPDr. Mindy Pelz25:45

       Don't fast the week before your period.

   12. MRMel Robbins25:48

       Oh.

   13. MPDr. Mindy Pelz25:48

       You can do all the other fasts. Now, in the book, in Fast Like a Girl, I g- I give you lots of options. I gave you a whole fasting cycle. But for this conversation, just don't fast the week before your period.

   14. MRMel Robbins26:00

       Wow. Okay.

   15. MPDr. Mindy Pelz26:02

       End of story.

   16. MRMel Robbins26:02

       So you just go back to normal eating? Like, just eating whenever you want?

   17. MPDr. Mindy Pelz26:06

       Yeah, eating when... You gotta eat breakfast if you chose to take breakfast out, eat whenever you want and bring up your carb load, but I'm gonna ask you to not do it in a box of pizza or a tub of ice cream. Let's do it in some, you know, what I call nature's carbs. Let's do it in fruit and potatoes and sweet potatoes and vegetables, tons of vegetables. Like, let's, let's... Tropical fruits, bananas. Those are great for progesterone. Chocolate, chocolate's amazing for progesterone.

   18. MRMel Robbins26:33

       You know what's interesting? Is I wonder if this is why so many of us just bounce with our weight. Like, I've got this question from Jodie, 'cause we've got a bazillion questions from listeners when we told everybody we were gonna tackle fasting and we were gonna spend a lot of time talking about women and hormones and protocols for women. Jodie writes in, "How do I change the fact that I get down to my goal weight and then all of a sudden I gain it back? I'm constantly up and down and beating myself up, and I'm not sure if, uh, restriction of sugar and flour is the only way. I don't know if the real ticket is something else for lasting change. I'm super healthy, and then all of a sudden I eat a whole pizza or I eat a batch of coochie- cookies, and next thing you know, the same 10 pounds comes on and off. And then worse, how do I feel about myself when I'm in this cycle? I just need a formula that will work." And what I'm wondering is, this is probably what you see with women who either are just trying everything under the sun. "I'm gonna try the peptides and I'm gonna try this thing. I'm gonna do Whole30 and I'm gonna do that thing and I'm gonna try this thing," but none of it's working. Or they try fasting, but then they're bouncing all over the place because of our hormone cycle.

   19. MPDr. Mindy Pelz27:45

       You got it.

   20. MRMel Robbins27:45

       And so what you're saying is start with intermittent fasting, and then pay attention to the week before your period starts, and give yourself grace and eat nature's carbs, and then the day you get your period, you go back to your intermittent fasting protocol. Is that correct?

   21. MPDr. Mindy Pelz28:03

       You got it. You got it. That's exactly correct.

   22. MRMel Robbins28:06

       Okay. What do you do if you're on the IUD? So, um, you know, my daughters are on the IUD, and with a lot of the, uh,

8. 28:13 – 33:18

   How do you figure out your menstrual cycle if you use an IUD?

   1. MRMel Robbins28:13

      uh, IUDs, you don't get a period. So how do you figure out when that part of your cycle is?

   2. MPDr. Mindy Pelz28:20

      Yeah, yeah. I- I have the same issue with my daughter. Uh, you know, um, here's what I'm gonna say. And, and this is the best gauge that we have, and I don't want to confuse people.

   3. MRMel Robbins28:33

      Okay.

   4. MPDr. Mindy Pelz28:34

      But I... But this is what we've been using, is if you have no sense of when your period is coming, use the moon cycle.

   5. MRMel Robbins28:43

      What the hell does that mean?

   6. MPDr. Mindy Pelz28:45

      Use the way that the moon waxes and wanes.

   7. MRMel Robbins28:49

      Okay.

   8. MPDr. Mindy Pelz28:49

      So-

   9. MRMel Robbins28:49

      But like you... Break it down for me. Am I starting on the full moon as the-

   10. MPDr. Mindy Pelz28:53

       Yeah.

   11. MRMel Robbins28:53

       ... as when I stop eating or start eating?

   12. MPDr. Mindy Pelz28:55

       Go. Yeah.

   13. MRMel Robbins28:55

       Like, let's just... 'Cause is this also what we m- women in perimenopause who have really weird cycles-

   14. MPDr. Mindy Pelz29:02

       You got it.

   15. MRMel Robbins29:02

       ... and those of us that are like-

   16. MPDr. Mindy Pelz29:03

       Yes.

   17. MRMel Robbins29:03

       ... bye-bye with the period?

   18. MPDr. Mindy Pelz29:05

       Yes. Yeah.

   19. MRMel Robbins29:05

       Okay. So everybody listening, I just want to make sure everybody's tracking, because we have covered so much information. If you either don't have a cycle or you're on birth control that compromises your cycle or you're peri or you are menopause, full monty, you are going to follow the fucking moon.

   20. MPDr. Mindy Pelz29:28

       Yep.

   21. MRMel Robbins29:28

       So when... What shape is the moon in, Dr. Mindy?

   22. MPDr. Mindy Pelz29:33

       (laughs)

   23. MRMel Robbins29:34

       When I'm doing the intermittent fasting protocol?

   24. MPDr. Mindy Pelz29:41

       So the first thing I want to point out is it's not a coincidence that the moon has a cycle that's 28 to 30 days and we have a cycle that's 28 to 30 days. I just want to start there.

   25. MRMel Robbins29:54

       'Cause we're magical bitches. That's why.

   26. MPDr. Mindy Pelz29:57

       (laughs) You... Exactly. You have totally nailed that one. Exactly. Like, so let's just acknowledge that.

   27. MRMel Robbins30:08

       Okay.

   28. MPDr. Mindy Pelz30:08

       First day of your period, when you start bleeding-

   29. MRMel Robbins30:12

       Yep.

   30. MPDr. Mindy Pelz30:12

       ... would be the first day of the new moon.
9. 33:18 – 36:08

   Menopausal women can use the moon for what?

   1. MPDr. Mindy Pelz33:18

      day one of your cycle.

   2. MRMel Robbins33:19

      Okay.

   3. MPDr. Mindy Pelz33:20

      In, in my book, in Fast Like a Girl, I have a 30-day fasting reset.

   4. MRMel Robbins33:25

      Got it. You're gonna follow your, your menstrual cycle if you have a regular period.

   5. MPDr. Mindy Pelz33:30

      That's right.

   6. MRMel Robbins33:31

      If you are not sure because of birth control or other reasons when your period is happening, you are going to follow a 30-day procal- protocol. We will link to resources with all the show notes. You can find them at MelRobbins.com/podcast. You're gonna follow a 30-day protocol and you're gonna begin day one on the day of the new moon.

   7. MPDr. Mindy Pelz33:53

      For simplicity's sake, yes.

   8. MRMel Robbins33:55

      Okay. All right. Great. That's amazing. You have an example with a story of a woman named Bridget who followed this protocol. Could you share that story with us?

   9. MPDr. Mindy Pelz34:06

      Yeah. So what was interesting about Bridget's story is that she did what most of us do. (laughs) We exercise more and we eat less to lose weight. And she's what I, what I call a, a, a rushing woman. She was, you know, a h- a, uh, CEO, like had a very, very busy lifestyle, tons of family, was in, you know, w- engaged in her family, engaged in work. And all of her tools that she was using to keep her weight where she wanted to be were failing her. So she found... Right? Sounds familiar. So she found fasting and she started to fast, and, um, in the first moment that she found intermittent fasting, it was like a miracle. Like her brain came back online, she started to drop weight and she could f- was all of a sudden like, "Wow. I'm supercharged for this rushing woman lifestyle." But she didn't know to cycle it. So 30 to 60 days into this miraculous lifestyle, the opposite started happening.

   10. MRMel Robbins35:10

       Hmm.

   11. MPDr. Mindy Pelz35:10

       She started gaining weight. She started losing her period completely. Everything we've been talking about. So she was a patient that I figured out... She was one of the women I figured out, like, "Oh, there's a rhythm here. I need to find Bridget's rhythm." And so in finding Bridget's rhythm, I found-

   12. MRMel Robbins35:29

       Mm-hmm.

   13. MPDr. Mindy Pelz35:29

       ... every other woman's rhythm, which is this idea that you, you can't... You gotta step out of fasting because of this hormone, progesterone. And once we found her rhythm, it, it was her tool to do everything she wanted a- at her age.

   14. MRMel Robbins35:46

       Can we just say fuck you, progesterone?

   15. MPDr. Mindy Pelz35:48

       (laughs)

   16. MRMel Robbins35:48

       Can we just say that right now? Have to complicate things for us. You have four steps to determine which of the six fasting protocols is the right one for you. What are they?

   17. MPDr. Mindy Pelz36:04

       Oh. So yeah, I call it building a fasting lifestyle.

10. 36:08 – 39:42

    4 steps to determine which of the 6 types of fasting works best for you.

    1. MPDr. Mindy Pelz36:09

       T- so the first step is, what are you trying to do? You know, this is what w- uh, keeps coming up in this conversation. Um, th- the one-size-fits-all protocols that we give, whether it's diet or medication or whatever, it's, it, it is, works better for a man than it works for a woman.

    2. MRMel Robbins36:28

       Hmm.

    3. MPDr. Mindy Pelz36:29

       It doesn't work for humans in general. We need to find our own personal path. But you might, let's use you as an example, Mel. Maybe you decide, "Hey, I need to repair my gut, so I need to make sure that I get, train myself to get into that 24-hour fast." Whereas somebody else might say, "God, my weight is so stuck, I gotta throw some 36-hour fasts." So make sure you w- know what you're doing. Second th- or what you want to do. Second thing is you gotta cycle your fasts.

    4. MRMel Robbins36:58

       Mm-hmm.

    5. MPDr. Mindy Pelz36:58

       We already talked about that.

    6. MRMel Robbins36:59

       Yes.

    7. MPDr. Mindy Pelz36:59

       The third thing, you gotta cycle your food.So, we haven't talked much about that. Fast Like a Girl goes way into s- th- how you look at different food. And then the fourth is let's stop doing health on our own. Let's do it in a community. So, you know, w- women thrive on oxytocin. We're getting oxytocin right now talking to each other. And as oxyti- t- tosin goes up, it calms cortisol. When cortisol goes down, you become more insulin sensitive, and when insulin gets regulated-

    8. MRMel Robbins37:33

       Mm-hmm.

    9. MPDr. Mindy Pelz37:33

       ... now all your hormones regulate. So oxytocin, for a woman, is a powerful hormone. So when she goes into a fasting lifestyle and does it on her own, she misses that oxytocin moment. When she does it in community, she actually amplifies oxytocin. So-

    10. MRMel Robbins37:52

        How do you do that?

    11. MPDr. Mindy Pelz37:54

        How do you do it in a community?

    12. MRMel Robbins37:55

        Yeah.

    13. MPDr. Mindy Pelz37:55

        Well, w- we, we did for years, and we still do it, something called a fast training week, um, on my YouTube channel, where I would just take five days and we would just, I would just lead the whole world through these different weeks. So that's still there. Um, we... you know, you can keep an eye out. We do three-day water fasts all the time in community. I, I do one on, um, in, on in September and J- and January. I have a, a membership group. So the, there, and y- um, you know, you can do it that way or just make it simple. Grab Fast Like a Girl and do a book club with a group of women. Do it together with a group of women. I, uh, one thing I do with my girlfriends is we do challenges all the time together. It's like, "Hey, for the next 30 days I'm gonna do this." And then they're in on it, and now we're doing it together in a community.

    14. MRMel Robbins38:45

        I love that. I love that. I love the idea of doing it with someone else, 'cause whenever I've taken on a health challenge, just having a buddy that I'm texting with is critical.

    15. MPDr. Mindy Pelz38:53

        Yeah.

    16. MRMel Robbins38:53

        And I love that you're explaining that there's a scientific research-backed health benefit to all these reasons. Um, I wanna ask you a question from, uh, Becky who DMed us and said, "You know, I'm studying this fasting info. This is super helpful. I wanna know, good, bad, or different, if there is one of your fasting plans that, um, could be a day a week for lunch. Could I eat a meal with my comfort foods? Like is there something that I can do that's a little bit more flexible?"

    17. MPDr. Mindy Pelz39:28

        So she wants to eat lunch... I mean, ev- y- well, let's... let me explain it this way. Take your eating window-

    18. MRMel Robbins39:37

        Yep.

    19. MPDr. Mindy Pelz39:38

        ... and move it wherever you want.

    20. MRMel Robbins39:40

        Hmm.

    21. MPDr. Mindy Pelz39:40

        So if you...

11. 39:42 – 41:43

    How can I make intermittent fasting more flexible?

    1. MPDr. Mindy Pelz39:42

       like, if you wanna eat with your family dinner at 7:00 at night and be done by 8:00, then you're gonna... and you wanna fast for eight hours, then your eating window opens at noon-

    2. MRMel Robbins39:56

       (laughs)

    3. MPDr. Mindy Pelz39:56

       ... and you start eating from noon to 8:00.

    4. MRMel Robbins39:59

       See, this is why this is so great, because she is asking a question that shows how we've all been trained to calorie restrict and to focus on the what we're eating, and she's like, "I'd just like to know, if I'm fasting, is there a day a week I could have my comfort food for lunch?" And what you're saying is, if you adjust the window, yes-

    5. MPDr. Mindy Pelz40:19

       Exactly.

    6. MRMel Robbins40:20

       ... because you know that you're playing with a cycle of on and off.

    7. MPDr. Mindy Pelz40:24

       Yeah.

    8. MRMel Robbins40:24

       And so just figure out when you're gonna stop eating the night before so that the window opens up right around lunchtime.

    9. MPDr. Mindy Pelz40:32

       Yeah.

    10. MRMel Robbins40:32

        And then you've got your comfort foods all day long.

    11. MPDr. Mindy Pelz40:35

        Yeah. Yeah.

    12. MRMel Robbins40:36

        It's so easy.

    13. MPDr. Mindy Pelz40:38

        Maybe you, maybe you wanna h- you're going to a great brunch on Sunday morning and the brunch starts at 10:00. Don't deprive yourself. That's when your eating window opened. So at 10:00 you start, and by 6:00 you're done. Just move that eating window around to match your lifestyle. That's why people are sticking with this type of lifestyle, because i- you can match it to the other parts of your lifestyle that are important.

    14. MRMel Robbins41:01

        And does a fasting cycle, for women, does it reduce the muscle? Does it reduce the protein? Like, is, is... are th- do these things work together? Because I wanna be clear. I want, I wanna make sure people understand that they gotta do what works for them, but this isn't necessarily conflicting advice.

    15. MPDr. Mindy Pelz41:20

        E- exactly. So I 1,000% agree that muscle and protein are incredibly important and we need to prioritize them. So, when you're fasting, in the fasting window, you're gonna break protein down. This is not a bad thing.

    16. MRMel Robbins41:37

        Okay.

    17. MPDr. Mindy Pelz41:38

        Your, your body's getting rid of stored sugar in that muscle,

12. 41:43 – 43:01

    Here’s what happens to muscle when you fast and when it’s okay.

    1. MPDr. Mindy Pelz41:43

       so it breaks it down. When you start to eat, now you need to up your protein. You need to make sure that you get enough protein so that you have enough of an amino acid. Those are the nutrients in protein that build muscle. So where this falls apart is if you start to fast and then you open your eating window and you forget to include protein in your diet. You didn't give the fuel source to the muscles that it needed. So make sure when you eat, eat. This is a big thing, is like eat good quality food. If you want more muscle, you gotta eat more protein.

    2. MRMel Robbins42:24

       Got it. Love it. We did not dive deep into the extensive amount of research that you do have about the kinds of food that you're eating and the impact it can have on a fasting protocol as a lifestyle. I wanna give one little tip, though, to everybody, because you say that there are three foods that, from a fasting perspective, if you focus on simply limiting these three foods, that it's

13. 43:01 – 50:30

    Limit these 3 foods when you’re fasting.

    1. MRMel Robbins43:01

       gonna help the fasting protocol of when you're eating and when you're not a lot. So what are those three foods?

    2. MPDr. Mindy Pelz43:08

       Yeah. The first one is...Good oils, not bad oils.

    3. MRMel Robbins43:13

       Okay.

    4. MPDr. Mindy Pelz43:13

       So good oils are avocado oil, they're olive oil, they're sesame seed oil. They're, um, you know-

    5. MRMel Robbins43:23

       W-

    6. MPDr. Mindy Pelz43:23

       ...there's a lot of great ones. Walnut oil, yeah.

    7. MRMel Robbins43:25

       What are the bad ones?

    8. MPDr. Mindy Pelz43:26

       Yeah, let's (laughs) .

    9. MRMel Robbins43:27

       Give me the don'ts.

    10. MPDr. Mindy Pelz43:29

        The bad ones are canola oil-

    11. MRMel Robbins43:32

        Ooh.

    12. MPDr. Mindy Pelz43:32

        ...cotton seed oil, corn oil, uh, partially hydrogenated oils, you know, safflower, sunflower oils. I listed them all in the book. But yeah, and they're everywhere. They're everywhere.

    13. MRMel Robbins43:45

        Why are they-bay bad?

    14. MPDr. Mindy Pelz43:47

        They cause your cells to inflame, to swell. They cause your cells to swell. And when your cells are swollen, your brain's swollen, your joints are swollen, your belly's swollen and you're not, your cells are not able to pull in nutrients and hormones. So let's just get those foods out. Let's change the ways.

    15. MRMel Robbins44:09

        Done.

    16. MPDr. Mindy Pelz44:09

        Okay.

    17. MRMel Robbins44:09

        Delete. Okay.

    18. MPDr. Mindy Pelz44:10

        Gone. Okay, second one, uh, we've already talked about it, nature's carbs, not man-made carbs. The breads, the cakes, the cookies, the pastas, can we l-limit those? Can we get those out of the diet? Even if they're organic, even if they're gluten-free, they should still be fairly minimal. And can we bring fruits and vegetables and potatoes, even, like, wild rice, quinoa, let's bring those back into the diet and make those the highlight.

    19. MRMel Robbins44:41

        Great. And the final one.

    20. MPDr. Mindy Pelz44:42

        The last one are toxins. So this is your NutraSweets, your Splendas that a lot of people go on diets with. This is your artificial colorings. This is the nitrites that we put in. Anything that has been made toxically by man-made tox- you know, made by humans is going to destroy cellular health.

    21. MRMel Robbins45:05

        Basically, if I look at... This is how I think about it, Dr. Mindy. If I look at an ingredient list on a package and I either can't pronounce it or it doesn't look like something that I would see on a label at a farmer's market, probably not that great for you.

    22. MPDr. Mindy Pelz45:18

        Yeah. And best yet, buy something without a label.

    23. MRMel Robbins45:22

        Ooh. Or, uh, stick to the perimeter of the grocery store is what my mom always said.

    24. MPDr. Mindy Pelz45:26

        Yes.

    25. MRMel Robbins45:27

        Um, we've covered a ton, and so there's a couple of things I want to say. Number one, we are absolutely gonna have you back because I'm super curious about everything that you want to say about eating-

    26. MPDr. Mindy Pelz45:39

        Mm-hmm.

    27. MRMel Robbins45:39

        ...and specifically eating for women's health-

    28. MPDr. Mindy Pelz45:43

        Yeah.

    29. MRMel Robbins45:43

        ...and how that impacts your, um, natural healing and health systems in your body. Second, I want... I know we're gonna get a gagillion, that's a technical term, questions.

    30. MPDr. Mindy Pelz45:58

        (laughs)

Episode duration: 50:30