Never Fast the Week Before Your Period! The Shocking Science About Intermittent Fasting & Women’s Health

(01:11):

But for the sake of bringing everybody into the tent 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 Peltz 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 1 0 1 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.

 

(02:24):

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.

(04:41):

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 going to cover. Dr. Mindy is back office hours are open people, she's here to grab your hand and help you implement a fasting protocol today. And here's what we're going to cover. We're going to cover the four questions that you need to ask yourself to determine what type of fasting you want to do and why you're going to do it. Second, we're going to do a quick start guide. How do you get started? Seriously, how do you actually get started and when should you start this? We're going to talk about what you can expect when you try this for the first time, day one, day two, day three, we're going to talk about what you can expect to experience in terms of results.

 

(05:28):

And then most importantly, we are going to 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 going to unpack that today and you're going to learn a lot and this stuff is so fricking cool. And of course we're going to talk hacks and everything else. So without further ado, please help me welcome Dr. Mindy Peltz. 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?

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (06:13):

Yeah, so I have gotten to a point where I love fasting so much. I have to really make sure that I eat, but I like skipping breakfast. That's my jam. So I get up in the morning and I drink a cup of coffee. I have a full fat cream in my coffee and I'll probably eat my first meal around noon or one o'clock like you. Family is incredibly important to me. So we usually eat dinner as a family around seven or eight o'clock at night.

 

(06:50):

And this is my big thing, you can build this around your family's desires too. So I sit down with my family, we eat dinner, we're done at eight. My first meal will be noon or one now outside of that, and we can talk about hormones if we want to go down that path. But if I feel like I'm off yesterday I was like, 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 two times a year I'll do a three day water fast 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 cleansing that I do.

 

Mel Robbins (07:43):

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

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (07:54):

Water is okay,

 

Mel Robbins (07:55):

What else is okay?

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (07:57):

Yeah, it's a great question. Mineral water is okay as long as it doesn't have a sweetener and NutraSweet is not okay because NutraSweet can spike insulin. So just point on there. Coffee's okay, tea's, okay. Anything that won't spike your blood sugar, black tea. Sometimes I'll go have a black tea iced tea that is yummy green tea, all of that is fine. You can't have a sweetener in it.

 

Mel Robbins (08:22):

Gotcha. What about like bone broth? I see people like sipping broth during fasting cycles.

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (08:28):

Yeah, because it has protein in it, it changes the healing response. So it's great to break a fast with, 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.

 

Mel Robbins (08:49):

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

Mel Robbins (10:59):

What the hell is MCT oil?

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (11:01):

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

 

Mel Robbins (11:11):

It's

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (11:11):

Just nature made it. It's a part of coconut oil.

 

Mel Robbins (11:13):

How much, because I once tried this with a bunch of dudes and I think they poured like I don't know how much, but we would then went on a hike and let me tell you something.

 

(11:26):

She already knows what I'm about to tell you guys. Within about a hundred yards after about 45 minutes of drinking, what turned out to probably be a lose shot of MCT oil in my coffee, it doubled me over with cramps and I had raging diarrhea almost instantly because they gave me too much. I dunno if it was like a joke, but how much are we talking here, doc?

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (11:51):

Yeah. Oh my god, it's so good. I'm happy you said that. That does happen. Half a teaspoon to a teaspoon, you don't need very much.

 

Mel Robbins (11:58):

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

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (12:05):

Yes you can.

 

Mel Robbins (12:06):

Okay, got it. Alright, so that's hack number two. Everybody.

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (12:09):

Yeah, so that's hack number two. Okay. Hack number three. If you don't feel good in this fasting window, which I just want to call out that in the beginning it will be a little uncomfortable and that's okay. The body will figure out how to respond. So in that discomfort, maybe it's a little bit of 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 put it in your coffee if you want it and you're going to 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 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 got to do is go to the grocery store and find some sea salt.

 

Mel Robbins (13:09):

Well, I am addicted to Element that lm, we use mt stuff. I love them. They're a sponsor of this podcast. I drink it every day and I'm assuming that's not breaking the fasting protocol.

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (13:24):

No, we're big fans of Element too, and our community is obsessed with element because a pack of element in your water, in your fasting window is a game changer for how you feel in the fasting window.

 

Mel Robbins (13:39):

It's so true. There was something I forgot to ask you. Can you walk us through the first time you fast, how shitty you might feel like what to expect and how long you need to stick with it in order to move through that phase?

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (13:58):

Yeah, I think it's important because if you hear this, you get all excited, you come out of the gates, you try it and then you don't feel good, you're going to reject it. So what happens, let's use a sprained ankle as an example. When you sprain an ankle, it doesn't feel good, but the body's healing. When you have a fever doesn't feel good, but the body's healing. So the first time you put yourself in this fat burning healing state, everybody will feel something different. Some people will feel not so great, but the good news is the not so great usually only lasts the first couple of times. So usually

 

Mel Robbins (14:40):

And what is not so great? What are you referring to? You

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (14:43):

Can be like headache moody. Yeah, you can be a little moody, moody brain fog. Some people will notice even we've seen people have rashes, like the body pushes out. That's extreme, but the body will push out the bad stuff. Some people might get a little bit of constipation, some people will get a little bit of diarrhea. The body is getting rid of whatever's not serving it. So it is a little bit of a detox. So as that comes out, you might have some feelings of like, yeah, I'm not feeling great yet. I'm not buying this thing yet. But here's what happens is the body is building you stronger, so honor that. That's a temporary symptom as your body moves into this healing state and it's usually only lasts anywhere from a day to three days. Most people, I would say 50% of the people don't even notice that

 

Mel Robbins (15:37):

Women need a different fasting protocol than men. Why?

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (15:41):

Yeah. So this is the heart of why I do what I do. When the fasting craze came out, everybody got excited about it and then women started to see they were losing 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. Okay,

 

(16:31):

So women follow what I call a hormonal hierarchy and the hierarchy looks something like this. At the bottom are 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 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 going to balance your sex hormones and that is how a female body operates when we look at it in a hierarchy system. Second thing I want to say is that men have one hormone.

Mel Robbins (19:41):

Oh my God, everything. Ice cream, alcohol, pizza, pasta, pretzels with pimento cheese dip. Am I getting too personal here? Help me out nachos. I crave fricking anything.

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (20:01):

Exactly, because progesterone is asking you to bring your glucose up. So we crave, 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.

 

Mel Robbins (20:32):

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

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (20:45):

So in a 28 to 30 day cycle, every woman's different. I want to point that out. We all cycle 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 all of your workouts, your fasts, your anything you want to 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 it 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 and we have motivation and drive because of testosterone.

 

(21:43):

Then we come out of ovulation, our hormones dip. We have a five day window. You can go back to powering up on all 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. All the rhythms change according to the rhythms of those hormones. So when women got a hold of the fasting craze and they just fasted all month long, they started to tank progesterone. And progesterone only comes in the week before our period. That's her debut. She comes in that week before and says, Hey everybody, we got to shut cortisol down and we got to 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 going to put in air quotes diet because we thought of it as a diet and the more months we did that, the less progesterone we had.

 

Mel Robbins (23:04):

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

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (23:11):

That's right. So progesterone is the hormone that will also shed the uterine lining. So we weren't making enough progesterone so the lining wasn't being shedding. So we started to notice a lot of women notice spotting and things like that. Anxiety went up because progesterone is the hormone that calms us and our hair started falling out because over time we were starting to restrict calories more and more, and so it's throwing the thyroid off.

 

Mel Robbins (23:48):

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

 

(24:26):

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 introduce this protocol differently because of our hormone cycle period. 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. Minnie, I'm like, fricking, I'm in. I'm not going to eat after nine o'clock. This woman is not putting shit in her mouth until noon. I am down, I'm doing the 90 days. This seems like a no fricking brainer based on body function and health 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?

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (25:34):

Yeah, let's make it super simple,

 

Mel Robbins (25:36):

Please.

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (25:39):

Okay, don't fast the week before your period. If you're a cycling woman, just don't fast the week before your period. You can do all the other fast. Now in the book and fast like a girl, I gave you lots of options. I gave you a whole fasting cycle, but for this conversation, just don't fast the week before your period.

 

Mel Robbins (26:00):

Wow. Okay. So you just go back to normal eating, like just eating whenever you want.

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (26:06):

Yeah, you got to eat breakfast if you chose to take breakfast out, eat whenever you want and bring up your carb load. But I'm going to ask you to not do it in a box of pizza or a tub of ice cream. Let's do it in some what I call nature's carbs. Let's do it in fruit and potatoes and sweet potatoes and vegetables, tons of vegetables, tropical fruits, bananas. Those are great for progesterone chocolate chocolate's amazing for progesterone.

 

Mel Robbins (26:33):

What's interesting is I wonder if this is why so many of us just bounce with our weight. I've got this question from Jody because we've got a bazillion questions from listeners. When we told everybody we were going to tackle fasting and we were going to spend a lot of time talking about women and hormones and protocols for women, Jody 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 a 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 cookies and next thing you know, the same 10 pounds comes on and off.

 

(27:18):

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 going to try the peptides and I'm going to try this thing. I'm going to do whole 30 and I'm going to do that thing and I'm going to 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. Got it. 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?

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (28:03):

You got it. You got it. That's

 

Mel Robbins (28:05):

Exactly correct. Okay. What do you do if you're on the IUD? So my daughters are on the IUD and with a lot of the IUDs, you don't get a period. So how do you figure out when that part of your cycle is?

Mel Robbins (28:43):

What the hell does that mean?

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (28:45):

Use the way that the moon waxes and wanes.

 

Mel Robbins (28:49):

Okay, but you break it down for me. Am I starting on the full moon when I stop eating or start eating? Let's just because is this also what we met women in perimenopause who have really weird cycles and those of us that are like bye-bye with the period?

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (29:05):

Yes.

 

Mel Robbins (29:05):

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 are Perry or you are menopause full Monty, you are going to follow the fucking moon. So what shape is the moon in Dr. Mindy when I am doing the intermittent fasting protocol?

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (29:41):

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

 

Mel Robbins (29:54):

Because we're magical bitches. That's why

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (29:58):

Exactly. You have totally nailed that one. Exactly. So let's just acknowledge that,

 

Mel Robbins (30:08):

Okay,

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (30:08):

First day of your period when you start bleeding would be the first day of the new moon.

 

Mel Robbins (30:15):

Okay?

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (30:18):

Ovulation would be the full moon, which is when we're wickedly powerful.

 

Mel Robbins (30:24):

Yes ma'am.

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (30:26):

In fact, I keep saying let's just put all the ovulating women in one room and they can solve all the world's problems

 

Mel Robbins (30:31):

As long as we're intermittent fasting.

 

(30:34):

So if you're going to start the intermittent fasting protocol for maximum health and healing benefit, and also taking into account the very real issue of women's hormones cycle, regardless of where you are with your period or not getting one, you are going to start with the new moon, which is that super thin sliver of a Where the hell is the moon? Moon? Okay. That's right. And that's going to be the beginning of your intermittent fasting protocol and you are going to stop fasting protocol while the moon is near its full moon phase. Is that what we're doing?

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (31:17):

So let's just make it simple, please. Let's say intermittent fasting, you're going to fast 12 to 15 hours.

 

Mel Robbins (31:25):

Okay?

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (31:26):

Day one, starting the new moon till about day 21.

 

Mel Robbins (31:33):

Perfect.

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (31:34):

And then at 21 you switch out and you stop fasting for a week, and then the minute the new moon comes in, you start fasting again.

 

Mel Robbins (31:43):

That's fantastic. And so that's very clear, and I want to underscore why this matters. This matters because women are very different physiologically, hormone chemically, all of it from men. The system operates differently and this fasting protocol is going to help with brain fog and belly fat and energy and anti-aging and gut reset. And the research is completely unbelievable and irrefutable. And you also have to be responsible for the fact that we run in a network of hormones that are different than people who are born male. And so I want you to understand this seven day window where you're not going to be following a fasting protocol is because of your metabolic health and your hormone health, and that's why we're being very specific about this. Now, I want to ask one more very specific question. For those of us in menopause who no longer are going through a cycle is our 30 days, 21 days on seven days off.

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (32:57):

So there's apps, let's start there. You just pick up an app and when you have and just find the new moon. It's not that hard to find on

 

Mel Robbins (33:06):

An app. Okay, just Google New Moon this month.

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (33:08):

Yeah, I can tell you the app I use is called Moon Lee.

 

Mel Robbins (33:11):

Moon Lee. Okay,

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (33:12):

Moon Lee. And look at where the new moon is. That would be day one of your cycle. In my book in fast like a girl, I have a 30 day fasting reset.

Dr. Mindy Pelz (33:30):

That's right.

 

Mel Robbins (33:31):

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

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (33:53):

For simplicity sake. Yes.

 

Mel Robbins (33:55):

Okay. Alright, 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?

 

Dr. Mindy Pelz (34:06):

Yeah. So what was interesting about Bridget's story is that she did what most of us do. We exercise more and we eat less to lose weight, and she's what I call a rushing woman. She was CEO, had a very, very busy lifestyle. Tons of family was 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 in the first moment that she found intermittent fasting, it was like a miracle. Her brain came back online, she started to drop weight, and she was all of a sudden like, wow, I'm super charged 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.

 

(35:10):

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 every other woman's rhythm, which is this idea that you got to step out of fasting because this hormone, progesterone, and once we found her rhythm, it was her tool to do everything she wanted at her age.

 

Mel Robbins (35:46):

Can we just say, fuck you progesterone? 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?