Episode: 102
6 Intermittent Fasting Protocols for Fat Loss, Mood, Energy, and Improving Your Overall Health
with Dr. Mindy Pelz, DC
This is the one zero-cost tool that could have a significant impact on your health.
Dr. Mindy Pelz shares how fasting helps reset your gut, heal your body, and eliminate damaged cells.
Understand the 3 easiest ways to start fasting and the fasting protocol that will help you lose belly fat (for good).
Listen on:
In the absence of food, the body heals.
Dr. Mindy Pelz, DC
Featured Clips
Transcript
Mel Robbins (00:00:03):
I started to see this topic everywhere in podcasts, in articles, in books, and I decided, you know what, Mel, let's just dig into this. This is part one. And Dr. Mindy is going to start off with the significant irrefutable research and documented benefits of fasting as a health protocol. Do I eat this? Do I eat that? Do I exercise? What kind of exercise? Is it peptides? Is it this thing? Is it that thing? Am I counting calories? Just tell me what the hell to do. Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. So a couple months ago I was out with some friends and we were talking about a bunch of stuff, and then the topic of intermittent fasting came up and they kept going on and on and on about how it was making them feel better. And so I kept putting one nacho in my mouth after another as I was listening to them talk about how they've lost weight and they just feel more alert.
(00:00:58):
And so I was curious. I'll admit, I was curious and I asked my friends, alright, so what is this thing that you're doing and how exactly do you do it? And my friend turned to me and I got to tell you, my friend is not a medical doctor, not a nutritionist. This is how they said it. Basically, Mel, when I wake up, I don't eat my first meal until about 11:00 AM. I'm like, that's it. They said, yeah. I said, really? That's it? You don't eat breakfast, you start eating at 11:00 AM That's it. And they said Yes. And I said, well, look, if it can make my pants feel a little looser and my brain a little sharper, I'm in. I started to see this topic everywhere in podcasts, in articles, in books, and I decided, you know what, Mel? Let's just dig into this because you've got questions about it.
(00:01:46):
Like for example, how exactly is intermittent fasting different from dieting? Is it healthy? Is it true? What the headlines say that it can melt body fat, that it can increase your focus, that it can decrease anxiety and depression? And does it really help you live longer? Well, according to one of the world's leading researchers and experts on this topic, Dr. Mindy Pelz, bestselling author, she says, the answer is, yeah, I can help you do all that. And it's even more exciting than that. Check this out. The New England Medical Journal, they reviewed 85 studies on fasting as a health protocol. And the research is so compelling about this as a health protocol that the New England Medical Journal recommends this as a frontline intervention for treating depression, cardiovascular disease, obesity issues like dementia, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. In fact, there is so much mind blowing and amazing and empowering information about this free protocol that you can use that I've decided that we got to break this conversation with Dr.
(00:02:54):
Mindy into two parts, into a masterclass about fasting, the science around it, and a step-by-step guide about fasting protocols and how you can use them so that they unleash your body's natural ability to heal itself and become healthier. Yes, you heard me right today, this is what you and I are going to cover. This is part one, and Dr. Mindy is going to start off with the significant irrefutable research and documented benefits of fasting as a health protocol. She's going to teach you about the two different energy systems in your body and how fasting helps you tap into both of them. She's going to walk you through the six different kinds of fasting protocols and their specific research backed benefits. You're going to understand why nothing that you have tried in the past has helped you to get control of your health. You're going to realize you're not the problem and you're going to be empowered because you're going to know more about how your body functions and you're going to be so motivated and equipped to try this zero cost fasting protocol for better health in your life.
(00:04:04):
We will cover in part two specific fasting protocols for women. So if you have tried intermittent fasting and you didn't see anything happen or it happened or you tried it and it worked for a little bit, but then nothing happened, it's probably because you followed the wrong protocol. You were doing it the way that the dudes need to do it, and that is not going to work for you if you identify as a woman. Alright? Please help me welcome Dr. Mindy Pelz, who has transformed the lives of millions of people with her free videos and best-selling books and all of her research to adopt a healthy fasting protocol. And today she's told all those clients that are Olympic Athletes Academy Award-winning actors in Silicon Valley CEOs to step aside because she has got an appointment with someone. Way more important. And that's you and me, baby. Alright, Dr. Mindy, welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast.
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:04:55):
Oh, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Mel Robbins (00:04:59):
I can't wait to dig into this. And let's just start with the basics. In the simplest terms, what is fasting?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:05:08):
Fasting is a healing state. You put your body in that you can only get there by avoiding food for a certain period of time.
Mel Robbins (00:05:18):
Oh,
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:05:19):
When your blood sugar goes down, what ends up happening is you trigger all these healing responses. So it's in the absence of food, the body heals. So fasting is this miraculous internal system in your body that will burn fat, will supercharge your brain, will kill hunger, will improve, your sleep, will take away chronic pain and will slow down aging. It's the most miraculous tool that your body's ever been built with. It's incredible.
Mel Robbins (00:05:58):
I don't think I've ever heard anybody describe it like that. When you go without food for a certain period of time, it impacts blood sugar, which then triggers all of these incredible, well-documented and researched health benefits. You are clearly absolutely so passionate about this. Why are you so excited about fasting?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:06:21):
Oh my gosh, that's such a good question. On a big level, we need a health tool that everybody can do and everybody can afford. And I'll share a story with you. During the pandemic, I was brought on to talk to a group of high school teachers. The principal had been following my YouTube channel and she asked if I would come on and talk about the immune system and things her teachers could do to improve their immune system. And when I went on, I talked about food and supplements, and at the end of the whole zoom call, one of the brave teachers raised his hand and he said, I hear what you're saying. I can't, if I'm looking at a jar of peanut butter in the grocery store and I'm supposed to buy the one with the right oils, it's $8 more than the one with the bad oils, and that's $8 I do not have.
(00:07:15):
And then another brave teacher raised her hand and said, I get up at four 30 in the morning and I go to work at three in the afternoon. I am exhausted. So the best place for me to go is through the McDonald's drive-through. It's just an easier tool for me. And what I realized after that conversation is we have to have a tool that works for everybody's health that everybody can do the busiest executive down to the person who's living paycheck to paycheck. And when you look at it through that lens, fasting is the tool that can put your body into this healing state that will overturn metabolic syndrome. That's why I'm so passionate about it. We only have 12% of Americans that are metabolically fit. So what are we going to do? How are we going to help these people? And fasting is the quickest door into this healing state.
Mel Robbins (00:08:11):
Dr. Mindy, I'm so glad that you're here. You used a term metabolic something that fasting puts you in something, something. I didn't even follow that word. What were you talking about?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:08:25):
Yeah, so great question. The best way to look at fasting is our body has two ways to make energy. One is when our blood sugar goes up, I call that the sugar burner system, and one, when the blood sugar goes down, it will switch over into the second energy system called your fat burning energy system. It's very much like a hybrid car. So we have two different ways that we can propel our body.
Mel Robbins (00:08:54):
So
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:08:54):
The only you get into this fat burning state is by avoiding food for a certain period of time, and this is called metabolic switching. So our body is meant to switch into the fat burner state and then switch out into the sugar burner state, and it should be switching in and out of these two states all day long. When we look at people who have poor metabolic health, they're not switching, they're not getting over into the fat burning state, they're staying in the sugar burner state, so they're never getting the healing mechanisms that can happen over there.
Mel Robbins (00:09:35):
My mouth is sort of on the floor and my mind is spinning like a treadmill right now because one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you is because I'm freaking confused. I think everybody's super confused. Do I eat this? Do I eat that? Do I exercise? What kind of exercise? Is it peptides? Is it this thing? Is it that thing? Am I counting calories? Just tell me what the hell to do. And then with women in our forties and fifties, it's also like, what the hell is going on with my hormones? And so you just simplified it into two systems where your body is either creating energy that you get from the food that you're eating, or it's creating energy from the stored fat that you're burning.
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:10:20):
Bingo, you got it. It's literally that
Mel Robbins (00:10:23):
Simple. And you're going to teach us today different ways that we can utilize this tool of fasting in order to switch between these stages that your body needs to either be gaining sugar, energy or whatever, energy from food or gaining energy by burning the stored fat in your body. And your body needs to be switching between these two modes in order to be healthy in order to thrive. Oh my gosh, I think I am starting to get something that I totally did not get Dr. Mindy. And we're only like two minutes into this.
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:11:02):
Yes. So here's how you can think about this excites me because this is what I'm trying to do is teach people about their bodies. We have given all of our health power away. We give it away to medications, to supplements, to doctors, to the culture. We give it all away. But we forgot that innately inside of us is this incredible wisdom. And because we didn't get an owner's manual when we were born, we don't understand it. And we've made it very complicated. So one thing I just want to make a note on is this will help you. What did the cave people do? If we go back to our primal days, they didn't have DoorDash, they didn't have a refrigerator, they didn't have a pantry. Food was not a given. So in the morning when they came out of the cave, they had to go find food.
(00:11:56):
Sometimes that food was really easy to find. Sometimes that food was not easy to find. Our innate human body had to have another fuel source that kicked in the absence of food that made our mind sharper, our energy increase, made us focus more, made us happier, made our immune system stronger so that we could go find food to survive. And then once we found food, we were meant to eat. It's called feast, famine, cycling, but we have so much access to food now I can sit on my couch and I can pick up my phone and I can have food delivered to my front door. It's so incredibly convenient that we've just tossed away this other energy system. And that's what I'm asking people to bring back.
Mel Robbins (00:12:45):
And what I've found so compelling in your extensive research and in the work that you do is that you are basically empowering us to bring back something that our body needs, which is the ability to switch between these states of consumption and a state of deprivation where you restrict the eating in a very intentional way so that you trigger all of this amazing programming in your body to burn fat, to bring up energy. And we're going to get into the health benefits. We're going to get into how we're going to get into the different types of fasting that you can consider and the different benefits and the difference for men and women. But I would love to start with how the hell did you even get into this?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:13:44):
Okay, well, it's a great question. I became incredibly fascinated with food at a very early age. This is actually a funny story because the first research I saw was based off of Dr. Sami's work. So Dr. Oui is a Japanese scientist who won the Nobel Prize in medicine and physiology in 2016 for a term called autophagy. And we'll get into, so autophagy is that when the cells sense that blood sugar and nutrients have gone down, it triggers a healing response inside the cell that makes the cell stronger.
(00:14:28):
This study came out, his study came out in 2014, and he was given the Nobel Prize in medicine and physiology. And so I was studying that and I thought, and then the intermittent fasting craze started and I thought, oh, okay, go without food for 13 hours. I could probably do that one day. Lemme try it one day. And the first day I tried it, it was horrible. I was like, why am I doing this? I'm suffering. But then I was committed. My personality, it's like, well, let me try it another day and let me try it another day. And each day I tried it. What was happening is that I was not only noticing that my perimenopausal body was changing. I was 43 at the time. That was 10 years ago. And the belly fat was starting to accumulate, the brain fog was starting to kick in.
(00:15:24):
The exhaustion at three was starting to happen. The cognition and focused issues were starting to appear. And all of that went away when I started just within three to four days, I noticed at three o'clock in the afternoon, I'm like on the third day of intermittent fasting, I was like, wait, why am am I not tired? Why am I not crashing? And then I just kept going and going, and pretty soon I figured out, wow, this second fuel source is called a ketone. And we can get into this in a moment. And ketones are 50% of the fuel for your brain. So if you're not actually dipping into the fat burning energy system making ketones, you're depriving your brain of 50% of its fuel source. And I gave my 43-year-old body that fuel source back. And when I did, it was like my brain came back online, my energy came back online, and I kept my weight where I wanted it to be because it had to burn fat in order to make a ketone.
Mel Robbins (00:16:33):
I think I just heard a collective gasp from every single woman in the 194 countries where this podcast is syndicated. And all of her sons and daughters go, wait, did Dr. Mindy just say she started using fasting when she was 43 to address brain frog frog? See, I need to fast because I can't even say the damn word. It feels like brain fog to melt belly fat, to get her energy back to basically combat the symptoms of perimenopause, which is a hormone change for women all at zero cost by simply paying attention to the metabolic cycles in your body that are designed to operate a certain way. Is that what you're saying, Dr. Mindy?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:17:32):
A thousand percent. This is why when you ask me why I'm so passionate, I'm like, and it's free. It's free, and your body does it. And all you've got to do is train it to stay in this fasted state. When ask me why I'm on a mission, I'm like, because our bodies are brilliant. And when you look at the perimenopausal woman, she's suffering and nobody's giving her answers. Let's start with a healing mechanism that already exists and teach her how to dip in and out and metabolically switch to help her hormonal challenges. That's where the discussion needs to start.
Mel Robbins (00:18:13):
Holy shit. Okay. I'm right there with you. Because what's interesting about we women is you give us a problem. We're like a dog with a bone. Yeah, we're born. And yet the hormone issues that women face all the way from when your cycle begins to perimenopause, to pregnancy, to menopause, it's so freaking complicated that every single woman I know, I don't care if she has a PhD, public high school degree or a PhD in biology, we're all like, what the fuck am I supposed to do? But when I think also about fasting, I think about the fact that globally it is a part of many cultures and religious practices and ceremonies and has been historically since the beginning of time.
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:19:03):
Yeah. I started with Dr. Sami's research. So when I first understood the healing mechanisms of autophagy, I then went and I was down hours. I would, I spent a couple of years, like 20, 30 hours a week, just every possible study I could find. And do you know that most of the studies were coming from people who practice Ramadan? Because with Ramadan, there's no food from sunup to sundown, and they do it for 30 days. And so a lot of the research stemmed from that spiritual practice. But then if you extend it to every single religion, and to your point, we've got, it's a part of every ancient healing tool. Hippocrates the founder of modern medicine, he has many documented statements about just take food out of the equation and the body will heal. So yeah, it goes way back. This is not a new innovative tool.
(00:20:10):
This is something we've been using for years to heal ourself, but we lost our way because we live in a food addicted culture. And if I'm going to be really opinionated here, no, who profits from fasting? Big pharma doesn't. Big food doesn't. Nobody profits from it. That's true. Why would the media media bring it? This is what actually I've had to deal with in putting fasting to the world is every little negative thing about fasting gets so much media attention because the only person that wins when they fast is the human that does it. They're not spending any money.
Mel Robbins (00:20:52):
Well, it's true. Who is paying for the marketing campaign to say, you don't need to eat that much. You don't need to buy this thing. You don't need to try this diet. And one of the things that I found very convincing about your work is the amount of studies that you cite. And I know that in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2019, they reviewed more than 85 studies and they had a definitive declaration about the power and the documented, researched backed benefit of introducing intermittent fasting. Can you please explain that to everybody listening?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:21:32):
Oh my God, that's the best study. I'm so happy you brought that one to the surface because when it came out, the first thing I thought was, oh my gosh, the New England Journal of Medicine is like the medical world's hero. And they went even as far as to say it should be the first line of treatment for these conditions. Let me tell you some of 'em. Diabetes and metabolic challenges, neurological conditions like dementia and Alzheimer's, the things that are destroying our neurons in our brain. Well, hello, this is happening. Let's talk about Alzheimer's. It's happening to more women than men. They go on to wound healing and energy systems. And they even gave a protocol in that study, they gave like, here's the different ways you can intermittent fast. It's one of the greatest studies. It got a moment in time and then it went away.
Mel Robbins (00:22:30):
What's interesting about it's, it actually said that intermittent fasting should be used as quote, the first line of treatment for obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative brain conditions, cancer. And that in the New England Journal of Medicine stated that intermittent fasting has anti-aging effects and nine cellular healing benefits. Can you explain how the fasting protocols are not a diet?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:23:02):
Yes.
Mel Robbins (00:23:03):
What's the difference?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:23:03):
Thank you. Yeah. So I think thank you for bringing this up because if we look at it as a diet, then we are going to see it as a trend, and then we're going to see it as something we either have done right or done wrong. So we have to take it out of the diet culture and in fast, like a girl, that's the first thing I do, is that first chapter is like, here are all the diet myths we need to push away. So here's why it's not a diet, is that you can take any food style you want and you can put it in what I call an eating window. So let's say one of a really interesting study was eight to 10 hours of eating, leaving the rest of the day for fasting can actually overturn the poor metabolic health. So if you are eating at McDonald's, or maybe you just don't want to think about your food, that you can actually overturn the metabolic damage that that diet does if every day you eat that food within eight to 10 hours, so you're leaving longer for healing. So it's not a diet because you're not manipulating the type of food you're eating, you're just changing when you eat.
Mel Robbins (00:24:21):
Okay, I want to make sure that that landed for you listening. Okay. So what you're saying is that based on the research, the reason why a fasting protocol is not a diet, because a diet focuses on what you're eating and it focuses on calories and it focuses on a specific intake of food and the type of food, a fasting protocol, many of them are neutral in terms of what type of food you're eating because a fasting protocol focuses on the window of time when you eat and windows of time when you don't. Am I tracking correctly?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:25:11):
You've got it a thousand percent. And I want to share one really quick story because I feel like this really was the perfect example of what I'm saying. Last summer, I had a man come up to me that was over about 300 pounds, and I was at a retreat and he said, I need your help. And I said, tell me what's going on. He's like, I, I'm food addicted. I've tried every diet. I've tried to change my food, I can't do it, and I'm wondering if fasting can help me. And so I dove deeper and the man was drinking about 12 sodas a day.
Mel Robbins (00:25:48):
Oh my gosh.
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:25:49):
Now it would've made sense for me to say, Hey, could you give up your soda? But he just told me he was food addicted. And I also asked him, why do you need to be healthy? And he said, I need to stay alive for my wife and my kids. It was a beautiful moment. So I said, okay, Todd, here's what we're going to do. The first month, you're going to eat all your normal food, whatever you want to eat, we're just going to compress it. And we started with a 12 hour eating window because he hadn't been fasting. First month, he was eating buffalo wings, he was drinking soda the first month just by compressing his food into one eating window for 12 hours. He lost close to 25, 30 pounds, somewhere in that range. He didn't change. He was still drinking 12 sodas.
Mel Robbins (00:26:35):
Why does compressing food into a 12 hour window, but not changing what you eat? Why does this protocol trigger weight loss?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:26:47):
So we'll go back to our two energy systems.
Mel Robbins (00:26:50):
Okay,
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:26:50):
Let's use him as an example. He was eating food that was raising his blood sugar,
(00:26:56):
And then when it would come back down, he would eat again. So he would just go up and down and up and down in this one energy system. When I had him leave a longer period for fasting, what happened is he would go up and then he would come down and then he would metabolically switch into a healing state where we would see that his insulin and his glucose levels, they didn't accumulate because there was a pause. There was a moment where his body got to just relax and not feel another wave of sugar come. And in that relaxation, what ended up happening is the body could repair. So he left time to repair from the damage that the diet was doing. And just to sum this story up, after a year, he has lost close to 120 pounds. I talked to him about a month ago. His diet has completely changed. He's off sodas, he's eating healthy, and now he has one goal. He wants to feel proud to stand next to his family in their Christmas card photo. That's his goal.
Mel Robbins (00:28:12):
That's fricking awesome. How does following that for a month or two with your current eating habits change the kinds of food choices that people start to make?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:28:25):
Yeah, so there's, well, I'll say three major mechanisms that are going on. First, let's go back to our sugar burner system. Let's say I eat a hamburger, fries, and a soda. My blood sugar has spiked, and all of a sudden
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:28:42):
When it comes down, it will actually go lower. It'll spike as high as it spikes, is as low as it'll go. And in that crash, I'm hungry again. The body gets another hunger signal. And so you get hungry every couple hours because of the quality of the food that you're eating. So what ends up happening is if we can allow a longer period where the body's healing, then in that down moment, it switches into a healing state and that craving stops. So that's the first thing. And the second thing I want to say on that is when you're in the fat burning state, when you switch over, you make a ketone.
(00:29:28):
A ketone goes up into the brain and it turns off the hunger hormone. So I knew that his eating was going to create more and more and more hunger. People who are food addicted are hungry a lot, even though they're eating a lot. So when I got him to switch over, we stabilized his blood sugar, we helped him make a ketone. The ketone went up into the brain, turned off hunger. So that's number one. Number two is there's massive changes to the microbiome. So when you go into a fasted state, you start to change the diversity of the bacteria in your gut. And this is another mind blowing moment. Our cravings are often because of these bacteria in our gut. Candida is a great example. It's a fungus that lives in the gut and it makes you crave sugar and carbohydrates. And so when you learn to go into these fasted states, you change that whole diversity of your microbiome. And then with the change in the microbiome, the bad bacteria go away that are causing the food cravings. So those were the two. And then the last one I'll say is we repaired his cells so they weren't inflamed anymore,
(00:30:45):
And so his cells were finally getting some sort of nutrition. I mean, there's a lot of nuance to it, but this is why it works.
Mel Robbins (00:30:56):
And I also love that it's zero cost
(00:30:59):
And it doesn't require you to change what you eat. We're talking about when you eat, and we're going to get into the how, but there's so much more research that I want to unpack with you and the benefits, and I want to ask you something quickly. I don't know that there's a quick answer because when you say the fasting protocols also stimulate this keto thing going up to your brain, and that's a good thing. Everything seems to be labeled keto. And so I want to make sure I'm not misunderstanding because if I hear that keto is good, I'm going to go into the grocery store and be like, Ooh, look at that candy bar. It says keto. That must mean it's good for my brain. And so what does keto friendly food mean?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:31:47):
I want to simplify it right here, and I really appreciate you highlighting this because we've lost our way and the ketogenic diet is now commercialized. Here's the simple thing. Just eat nature's carbs. Don't worry about low carb, high carb. Let's focus on nature's carbs.
Mel Robbins (00:32:07):
What are those?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:32:09):
What did nature provide us? Vegetables and fruit and things that are coming from the ground. Just because it's got less carbs doesn't mean it's good for you. So let's talk about the quality of carbs and the more we can look at our carbohydrates and say, did the earth provide this? Did this grow from the earth? Or was this made in a lab in a warehouse somewhere? So let's start there. That's the first thing. And then the second thing is, I mean, my approach to getting these ketones is through fasting actually to the story about Todd. I think we're going to keep losing our way if we're debating low carb, high carb calorie counting. Let's put that aside for a moment, and let's just know that we have to go through periods where we are not eating so that we can make these ketones that our brain desperately needs. So I don't know if that helps, but that's the way I look at it.
Mel Robbins (00:33:15):
That helps a lot because I think if we can continue to beat the drum as you're listening to Dr. Mindy and me as I try to really wrap my brain around the simplicity of this, if you can keep coming back to the distinction between what you're eating versus when you're eating and that the protocol around when you're eating is what we're talking about. We're not talking about calorie restriction, we're not talking about disordered eating. We are talking about a protocol that has profound research that you are doing in order to activate healing and health responses.
Mel Robbins (00:34:02):
And one thing I'd like to do before we jump into a little bit more of the protocol of the options with this of how to get started of what you can expect is who is fasting an option for, and who would you say shouldn't consider it or at least need to get a sign off from a medical doctor before they do?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:34:27):
Yeah. Thank you for asking this question because I really want to make sure that people are very safe with how they use this tool. So the first thing, what might shock people is that for pre-diabetes, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, it's incredible for, and I'm going to put a little asterisk, but I highly encourage you to bring your doctor on this journey with you. This is not if you have diabetes. Fasting isn't a solo journey. You need to bring your doctor with you. And I can't tell you the number of doctors that have flooded my YouTube channel. I leave the science there so they can understand it so that they can be in collaboration with their patients. But to answer the who is it not for, I think that's the most important thing to say. It is not for the woman who's pregnant. This is not your tool.
(00:35:24):
If you're pregnant, your baby needs calories. This is not it. If you're nursing, as I go through the different healing mechanisms that happen, you need to keep your fast very low because fasting can start to create a detox reaction and all the toxins that you're detoxing will go into your breast milk, which will go into your baby. So we want to keep fast under 15 hours for nursing women. And then the third one that comes up a lot is people who have any kind of eating disorders or food challenges that would be triggered by going into this fasted state.
Mel Robbins (00:36:02):
Great, thank you for that. This is going to sound like a dumb question, but maybe we should talk about the types of fasting because for example, I woke up and I have not had breakfast yet. Nice. But I am drinking coffee with milk in it. So does technically that mean I'm fasting? Is coffee allowed? Is it only water? What are you doing when you're fasting?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:36:31):
It's so funny, Mel, because this is the most common question I've got.
Mel Robbins (00:36:34):
Really?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:36:34):
Yeah. What about my coffee? Everybody's in until we get to the coffee topic and then they're like, wait a second, I was in and now I need to know about my coffee. Okay, so let me explain this. In order to get into the fasted state, you need your blood sugar to start to decline. So your body registers that there's no nutrients, there's no blood sugar increase for anywhere from an eight to 12 hour period. So at eight hours, what happens is the body starts to metabolically switch over into the fat burning state.
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:37:15):
For some people, that switch will happen quickly and 10 hours in they're into the fasted state. For others, it usually takes about 12 hours. So if your cup of coffee doesn't spike your blood sugar, you're good. You're golden. It's what you put in your coffee that is going to affect that. Right? So creamer,
Mel Robbins (00:37:41):
You mean the stuff that makes it taste like candy? Yeah, exactly.
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:37:45):
You got it. Creamer. Creamer is not going to be great. Sugar's not going to be great. We're not talking. You get to walk in and drink a frappucino, and you're still in a fasted state. It has coffee in it. It has to not elevate your blood sugar. Typically, a full fat cream won't because fat stabilizes your blood sugar. So your example, if it's coffee with full fat cream, you're probably pretty good and you're staying in that fasted state.
Mel Robbins (00:38:23):
Got it. Okay. I've only heard of intermittent fasting. See, I thought all fasting was intermittent fasting. I didn't realize until I looked at your research that there are six different types of fasting because there are six different lengths of time that you can fast for a health benefit. And so could you walk us all through the different lengths that you can fast and what each one of them produces in terms of a healing or health benefit?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:38:59):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So the first one is intermittent fasting. It starts about 12 hours without food, and the window is about 12 to 15 hours without food. You're going to see your glucose levels come down, you're going to see inflammation come down, and you're going to start to see growth hormone kick in, which helps you burn fat and slow the aging process. The next window is 17 hours. This is where autophagy kicks in. Autophagy is your body's own internal repair system. So your cells are going to get rid of things inside the cell that don't work anymore. They're going to repair cellular parts and they're going to actually kill cells that might be going rogue like a cancer cell. So the 17 hour mark starts this autophagy process. 24 hours is the gut reset. This is where intestinal stem cells inside your gut start to be produced, repairing any leaky gut situation, repairing and getting rid of bad bacteria, changing the whole environment of your gut.
(00:40:09):
So it's great for anybody who has been on antibiotics multiple times, has had a lot of been eating poor food for a long time, is constipated and needs to repair that gut, go 24 hours and we'll see a dramatic shift. 36 hours is the fat burning reset that's long enough for your body to go find the food. It stored years ago in fat. So all fat is your body stored excess somewhere, and it did that to save your life. It didn't want to store it around your organ, so it stored it around your belly. At 36 hours, you are sending a signal to your body to go burn that and to get rid of it of that storage, 48 hours, you reset your whole dopamine system. I call it the dopamine reset. This is where all of a sudden you get new dopamine receptor sites that are going to make you increase happiness. Those receptor sites will be there long after the 48 hours, and then 72 hours is the immune reset. This is where we can get rid of stagnant parts of our immune system, specifically our white blood cells. We can get rid of 'em and new white blood cells will kick in and serve us in a bigger and better way.
Mel Robbins (00:41:29):
And if we're going to start with the first type of fasting, and that window of time is 12 to 16 hours, and let's just say that anyone listening to this is so passionate about this topic and so excited to try it, could you just say, okay, you're done listening to this podcast. You decide that you're going to introduce fasting and that it's safe for you to do so. Do you count the 12 to 16 hour window in intermittent fasting? The moment you go to bed, do you count it? When you stop eating at night? Is the period of time when you're sleeping considered the fast? Can you just put me at the starting line for how you even do this?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:42:16):
Yes. It's the moment that the last piece of food goes in your mouth.
Mel Robbins (00:42:22):
And
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:42:22):
This includes drinks too. So your wine at night, I mean it's like the mouth is done.
Mel Robbins (00:42:29):
You
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:42:29):
Have water that starts the clock,
Mel Robbins (00:42:32):
Okay?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:42:33):
And
Mel Robbins (00:42:33):
It's the easiest way to start by starting the clock at night. So you're going to bed at nine o'clock. Nine o'clock is the beginning of this 12 to 16 hour window.
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:42:46):
Yes.
Mel Robbins (00:42:47):
And the time that you're sleeping counts in the fasting. Now with the 12 to hour window, this is intermittent fasting. What is the health benefit of doing this kind of fasting as a protocol?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:43:03):
The first thing is you'll make this ketone so you're burning fat. So we start to see inflammation come down.
Mel Robbins (00:43:13):
And why is that helpful?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:43:16):
When inflammation is high, you are blocking nutrients from getting in the cell. And if we just put it in the terms of what you might feel, this is your aches and pains. This is your brain fog. This inflammation is when we're starting to see swelling of our body parts, and this is why we don't feel good. This is why we move stiffly. This is why we think our thoughts are congested because of this inflammation. So in that window, we're starting to see the inflammation come down. The third thing is we're seeing growth hormone kick in growth hormone. We stop getting after 30 because it's a hormone that helps us burn fat and slows down the aging process.
Mel Robbins (00:44:10):
What's its name? What magical thing is this?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:44:13):
Yeah, agreed. Right?
Mel Robbins (00:44:15):
Yes, I
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:44:15):
Know your own body makes it, but you don't get it after 30. So you have to go make it yourself. And one of the ways you can do it is by intermittent fasting 12 to 16 hours. And if you do that on a regular basis, you are, this is the anti-aging piece, you are actually slowing aging down because you're stimulating this hormone that turns down the aging process.
Mel Robbins (00:44:44):
Amazing. I want to make this so easy for somebody to do.
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:44:49):
So
Mel Robbins (00:44:50):
If you go to bed at 9:00 PM
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:44:53):
And
Mel Robbins (00:44:53):
You sleep and you wake up, let's just say at 7:00 AM you've already taught us that the eight hour mark is when you typically tip into this metabolic switching.
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:45:11):
So
Mel Robbins (00:45:11):
At around 5:00 AM you've been sleeping for eight hours. You are now in this state where you've switched over into what you call the fat burning state. This is the state where you are using the other system. And so if you then wake up at 7:00 AM you're now 10 hours into this and to do intermittent fasting, you then wouldn't start eating until somewhere between, if I'm tracking the math right, 9:00 AM and 12:00 PM noon. Is that right?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:45:52):
You got it.
Mel Robbins (00:45:53):
Okay, great. So if you go to bed, everybody at nine o'clock at night, by the time 5:00 AM hits you, my friend, have switched your metabolic state, good job. And if you continue this protocol to somewhere between 9:00 AM and 12:00 PM, you now are unlocking all of this health benefit because you are not only getting this growth hormone, you are sending this ketone thing up to your brain, which will reduce brain frog. I keep calling it frog. It'll give you more energy and it also helps you lose weight.
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:46:32):
Yeah, because the only way to make a ketone is by burning fat. Oh.
Mel Robbins (00:46:39):
So at the eight hour mark, while you're sleeping and dreaming everybody, you've now just popped your body into the fat burning stage. Is this why you can lose belly fat by doing this protocol? Yes.
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:46:55):
Yes.
Mel Robbins (00:46:56):
Shut
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:46:56):
Up.
Mel Robbins (00:46:58):
Just tipping my body into this other cycle of fat burning would do a big help in helping me burn that fat.
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:47:08):
You got it. Because the only way you make a ketone is by burning fat.
Mel Robbins (00:47:13):
Wow.
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:47:14):
One last thing I want to say about a ketone,
Mel Robbins (00:47:17):
Okay,
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:47:17):
Is that when it comes on, it shuts that hunger hormone down, but it also upregulates or it makes, let's keep it simple, it makes a neurotransmitter called gaba. So when GABA comes on, it calms you.
(00:47:36):
People who go into fasted states, they'll tell you how calm they feel. I mean, I traveled home yesterday on a flight and I hadn't eaten in about maybe 18, 19 hours. And by the time I got home, I thought on the plane, I was like, I'm so excited to go home and eat. I can't wait to see what kind of food I have at home. And by the time I got home, I wasn't hungry, and I had this really calm, beautiful feeling in my body and I was like, oh my gosh, I got GABA right now. So when you hit that 12 to 16 hour window, you would think you're going to go be crazy and manic. But
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:48:19):
Because of the production of this ketone, the opposite happens. The hunger turns off, you get more focused, you get calmer, and now your body's ready to repair for you.
Mel Robbins (00:48:32):
Now, is this a protocol that you just introduce into your life and this is just how you roll through life. So this is not like you try it today and then you do it another day where you want some sharper thinking this is actually a cycling that you're going to be doing.
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:48:50):
Yeah, yeah. I call it a fasting lifestyle. Build yourself a fasting lifestyle.
Mel Robbins (00:48:55):
Well, if you really think about it between the fact that we go through a cycle of being awake during the day and asleep at night, and you go through a cycle of circadian rhythms, you're talking about doing this kind of cycling that your body is designed to do other cycles in order to unlock health benefits. If I kind of think about it that way, so much of your body is designed to turn on and turn off and be in balance, and this helps you get back to it. So the next type of fasting is one that you do for a 17 hour window. So what is that type of fasting and what are the benefits?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:49:38):
So as you move into that 17 hours without food, again, let's give all the credit to the body. Your body's so smart that it goes, huh, okay, food's not coming, nutrients aren't coming. So I better make sure that the inside of our cells are working properly. So it's a state called autophagy. And what the cells will do when they sense that there's no influx of nutrients or glucose, which is sugar, they start to turn within and eat the bad parts of the cell. Things that are not working, they will start to consume. That autophagy basically means selfe. So it's like an internal cellular detox. So this is another place where the anti-aging piece comes in, is that you've now asked your body to make itself better when you hit that 17 hour mark. And so it will repair mitochondria and all the internal body parts of the cell so that it can be stronger for your survival. That's what it's doing. We are programmed to stay alive at 17 hours. The cells start to become better versions of themselves. And if there's a cell that is not good, like cancer cells, it will actually kill that cell at 17 hours and it will get rid of that cell because it's a weak member of the survival team. The greatest study ever done on women was done on women recovering from breast cancer. And when they fasted as little as 13 hours every single day, they saw that they had a 64% less recurrence of breast cancer.
Mel Robbins (00:51:48):
Say that again.
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:51:50):
When women who had breast cancer went after they had traditional treatment, started to build a fasting lifestyle of 13 hours, so this isn't even full autophagy we're talking about, they had a 64% less recurrence of that cancer coming back.
Mel Robbins (00:52:14):
That's incredible. What you're almost describing as a healing response when you use this protocol is that there is a natural, almost like chemo inside you effect where your body in that resting period of being able to recover from a cycle of eating, this protocol of not introducing new nutrients allows the body to weed out all the crap that's there. That's it Just for my timekeepers, this autophagy state of fasting protocol of 17 hours, that would be as if you were going to bed at 9:00 PM that's the last time you ate and you didn't start eating again until 1:00 PM.
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:52:57):
Exactly.
Mel Robbins (00:52:58):
And is this something people that if you're going to do this autophagy fasting, is this for only periods of time? Is this something that people do as their fasting protocol forever? Or is this something that you start with intermittent and then you bump it up to get this little effect? Or is this, or people that have disease like who's doing autophagy?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:53:20):
Yeah, it's really personal preference. And here's the beautiful thing is once, this is why it's not a diet. Fasting gets easier the more you do it. So what I have experienced is that people will love the way they feel at 15 hours and want to go longer. So 17 hours is if you can go longer. Go longer. Now, I will tell you from the community of millions of people that we've been taking through these fasts that most people use autophagy fasting like after a vacation where they've overdone it their food if they want to detox without supplements. So people do lean into it for healing their body in a deeper way, like a cellular cleansing when there has been an overabundance of poor lifestyle choices.
Mel Robbins (00:54:17):
I read in your work that autophagy fasting can also increase your sex drive.
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:54:23):
Well, so as growth hormone goes up, so what we start to see again is that as the body starts to go into this healing state, what will end up happening is there'll be an increase in hormones. Estrogen's a big one, and we can talk about that in a moment too, which of course is going to increase your libido.
Mel Robbins (00:54:48):
And I also read that this is a great protocol based on the research. If you feel like a cold coming on or you feel something like instead of, you would think it would be the opposite, but that actually doing the autophagy protocol of a 17 hour fast, if you start to feel punkish or you get this, that this is a great zero cost, well researched, homeopathic way to activate your body's ability to fight a cold, why is that?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:55:21):
So we go back to autophagy, that intelligence inside your cell is going to get rid of anything that doesn't serve it. So if there are bacteria and viruses in there, it's going to push those out. It's like, Hey, the party's done in here. I need everybody to leave. And I want to point out one of the greatest studies, again, I found during Covid that I just wanted everybody to know viruses don't have their own energy system, so they have to live off of yours. So when they come into a cell that's a sugar burner, they have a party, they can gain momentum, they can live off that sugar and replicate when they come into a cell that is in a state of autophagy, they die. They can't replicate.
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:56:17):
There's no fuel source for them.
Mel Robbins (00:56:18):
That's pretty cool.
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:56:20):
It's amazing.
Mel Robbins (00:56:22):
Alright, let's talk about the third type of fasting, which is a 24 hour window. And this one you call gut reset fast. Can you talk to us about that?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:56:32):
At 24 hours, this was a study out of MIT. We see that the cells inside your gut start to repair themselves. We call those stem cells. They're intestinal stem cells. And so what happens, again, let's go back to why the body does this, is you've now gone 24 hours without food. So it needs to repair the digestive system, get rid of the bad bacteria that don't serve you and increase the good bacteria and change that environment for your survival. So intestinal stem cells get made at 24 hours, and I don't know if you know stem cells are thousands of dollars right now. You can get 'em injected into you or you can get 'em free by learning how to fast.
Mel Robbins (00:57:27):
And the next one is fat burner fast, 36 hour fast. Is that even safe not to eat food for 36 hours?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:57:34):
Yeah, absolutely. That the research that I show on that one is that at 36 hours without food followed by 12 hours of eating done over a 30 day period, they saw that there was a significant change in belly fat specifically.
Mel Robbins (00:57:56):
Okay, let's break this down because everybody just was like, hold on belly fat. Wait, what was she talking about? Okay, so the protocol was, and this was a study that you're citing that the protocol was for 30 days straight, you would do a cycling where you didn't eat for 36 hours and then you would eat for 12 hours, and then you'd go into another 36 hour window of fasting protocol, then another 12. And you did that 30 times in a row?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:58:28):
Yes.
Mel Robbins (00:58:28):
Okay. And then belly fat melted away and hold on. I got to ask a question. How do you manage not being a complete bitch? I get really angry when I'm hungry.
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:58:39):
That's why you don't start with a 36 hour fast. You start with a 12 hour fast and you train yourself.
Mel Robbins (00:58:46):
Gotcha. Okay. Just
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:58:47):
Like if you wanted to run a marathon, you don't just throw your tennis shoes, all your running shoes on and just go 12 miles.
Mel Robbins (00:58:55):
True, true.
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:58:56):
So you have to train. You start with the lower fast. And just so I don't lose people, I want to point out that what we've seen in my community is that sometimes all it takes to unstick your weight is 1 36 hour fast. It has this metabolic switch it makes on burning fat because you're training your body to go find what it stored years ago, go find the glucose you stored years ago, go find the toxins that are in there. Go find that I have another fuel source that you have prepared me for this day. I'm asking you to burn that fuel source now.
Mel Robbins (00:59:35):
Got it. Okay. But we start is what I'm hearing by training ourself with the intermittent fasting protocol, which is what I laid out by saying, stopping eating at nine, start eating back between nine and 12:00 PM And of course you can shift that window by stopping eating at 7:00 PM and then you move it up.
Dr. Mindy Pelz (00:59:53):
Oh yeah.
Mel Robbins (00:59:54):
Okay. Got it. The next fast is a 48 hour fast, which you call a dopamine reset fast.
Dr. Mindy Pelz (01:00:01):
Yes.
Mel Robbins (01:00:02):
What is that and how does the science work here?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (01:00:05):
So that was a study that I found that showed 48 hours without food reset our dopamine system. And it did that by improving not only the way in which dopamine is made in our brain, but it opened up more dopamine receptor sites. So there was more availability for dopamine to get in to our cells, for us to be able to experience the benefits of dopamine.
Mel Robbins (01:00:37):
And that study also showed that it lowered anxiety levels.
Dr. Mindy Pelz (01:00:40):
Yeah. Now you've got dopamine, you've got ketones which are making gaba.
Mel Robbins (01:00:48):
So
Dr. Mindy Pelz (01:00:49):
Dopamine is motivation, GABA is calming. And so at 48 hours, you have now created new receptor sites for dopamine. So you have more availability to pull dopamine in and you're calm, so you're calm and motivated. Why would the body do this? Because if I'm in my cave person days, I have to become more focused, more calm, more motivated to go find food when I'm 48 hours in to no food. So it's a primal switch that our body clicks in the absence of food at 48 hours. Now, I will tell you what we've clinically seen is that when people reintroduce food, not only do they enjoy food more, which is obvious, like you haven't been eating for 48 hours, of course you're going to enjoy it more, but that they notice happiness levels are higher for weeks following 1 48 hour fast. And we have seen that we have a community of millions of people that we have asked to share their stories and we just collect the data. And that is a pretty consistent one that we see.
Mel Robbins (01:02:02):
I would imagine though, for anybody on any kind of medication like a antidepressant or an anxiety medication or something for A DHD or anything else, you would want to talk to your doctor about the protocol of how this works. You're on prescription medication. But again, you just go back to starting with the training of the tool of intermittent, which is 12 to 16. The final one that you reported on is this immune reset fast, which is for more than 72 hours. That sounds pretty damn extreme.
Dr. Mindy Pelz (01:02:38):
What's really funny is that everybody says that until they try it and then they try it and their life changes.
Mel Robbins (01:02:47):
Okay, so tell me what's going to happen in my life if I start the intermittent fasting protocol as my lifestyle of eating, cycling, and then I go and do a 72 hour immune reset fast.
Dr. Mindy Pelz (01:03:02):
The immune reset was based off of a scientist out of USC who discovered that at 72 hours, the whole immune system reboots itself. And he studied people going through chemotherapy. And he found that one of the problems with chemotherapy is that it completely wipes out the whole immune system. And then the immune system's very low afterwards. But if he put people in a 72 hour fast before they go into chemo, while they're in chemo after chemo around the chemo, that there was a re-energizing of white blood cells. So they didn't have that depletion afterwards. We're back at the stem cells at 72 hours, your body makes stem cells. Stem cells are cells that can go anywhere in your body and repair. What Volter Longo saw was that they repaired white blood cells. But what we're now people are witnessing is that it also repairs chronic injuries. It repairs neurons in the brain that have been degenerating, it repairs whatever you need it to repair because the body's that smart. Once it gets stem cells, it finds what you need repair on, not what I need repair on.
Mel Robbins (01:04:25):
Wow. Can you bottom line this? What are the four ways that a fasting protocol helps you heal naturally?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (01:04:36):
So you click on an intelligence inside your body that you can only get in the absence of food, and that intelligence will start to bring inflammation down. It will start to get rid of the bad parts that are slowing the healing response. It will increase the power of the batteries of your cell called your mitochondria. So it starts to repair you in a way that we have seen nothing repair a person before.
Mel Robbins (01:05:14):
Unbelievable. What is the fasting protocol is going to help me lose belly fat? Well, it will bring it on, woman. Come on now. Don't hold back, Dr. It's a
Dr. Mindy Pelz (01:05:27):
Million dollar question. Yes, it's It's a million dollar question. Start with intermittent fasting. Just get yourself somewhere consistently 12 to 15 hours and over time, you will lose belly fat.
Mel Robbins (01:05:43):
How much time are we talking?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (01:05:44):
Give it 90 days.
Mel Robbins (01:05:46):
90 days of an intermittent fasting protocol of eating in basically a 12 hour window. And I got 90 days to see the menopause middle. Alright, I'm going to try it.
Dr. Mindy Pelz (01:06:01):
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Mel Robbins (01:06:04):
Holy cow. Don't you feel like you just got a PhD in the science of fasting? Was that not extraordinary? Well, we're only just beginning because that's part one. See, I want you to have the science and the baseline understanding before we jump into the how you got to know why you're doing something, how it's going to impact your body, and that's what we're going to talk about next. How do you get started? What does that even look like, and what are three hacks that you can use to make this easier and most importantly? Most importantly, there's a massive important difference between the protocol that you follow if you are born male and the protocol that you follow. If you are born a female, this has to do with your hormone cycles, and we're going to learn all of that in the next part of this incredible series that we're doing with Dr.
(01:07:02):
Mindy. So don't you dare go anywhere. Please share this if you got value out of it and you get your butt right back here for the next episode because we are going to set you up with the step-by-step guide to getting started and implementing all of this amazing science into your life. And in case nobody else tells you, I want to tell you, I fricking love you. I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to make small changes and to leverage this incredible research to unlock the healing and healthy systems in your body, which will help you create a better life. Alrighty, you heard Dr. Mindy? My fasting window's closed. I got to go eat and I'll talk to you in a few days. Bye. Okay, I got to hop into place here. All you need to know right now is that, oh, wait, I should start over. Did we say hacks? How does this end? This thing hack, or do we cycles or, I think hacks was at the beginning. Oh, brain frog. Frog. See, I need to fast because I can't even say the damn word. Feels like frog brain fog. Reduce brain, frog, frog. I keep calling it frog gaba.
Dr. Mindy Pelz (01:08:13):
Do you know what GABA is?
Mel Robbins (01:08:14):
Doesn't GABA have something to do with your hunger?
Dr. Mindy Pelz (01:08:17):
No, it's,
Mel Robbins (01:08:19):
Don't ask me. Okay, no worries. Sorry, I didn't mean to put you on the spot. I'll take a test and fail on my own. Show for everybody. Great. Okay, great. Oh, and one more thing, and no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it. Good. I'll see you in the next episode. Hey, YouTube, thank you so much for being here. Don't you just love Dr. Mindy. Great. Here's where you want to go next.
Guests Appearing in this Episode
Dr. Mindy Pelz, DC
Dr. Mindy Pelz is a functional health expert and chiropractor dedicated to empowering individuals to optimize their health through fasting and nutrition.
-
Book: The Menopause Reset
Are you struggling through your menopausal years?
As if from out of nowhere, you experience symptoms such as sleepless nights, irritable moods, unexplained anxiety, trouble retrieving words, and hot flashes. Your weight won't budge, no matter how hard you try. How great would it feel to wake up feeling rested; have a brain that is calm, joyful, and clear; and to finally lose weight in an easy and sustainable way?
The good news is that there is a way for you to do all of this and more. Nutrition and functional medicine expert and best-selling author Dr. Mindy Pelz has helped thousands of women just like you reset their health during their turbulent menopausal years. Join Dr. Mindy as she reconnects you to your more vibrant and youthful self.
Resources
-
- The New England Journal of Medicine: Effects of intermittent fasting on health.
- National Library of Medicine: Intermittent fasting on breast cancer.
- Endocrine Society: Intermittent fasting may reverse Type 2 diabetes.
- American Heart Association: Intermittent fasting may protect the heart.
- Nutrients Journal: Intermittent fasting reduces hypertension, increases BDNF.
- Johns Hopkins Medicine: What is intermittent fasting and how do you do it?
- Harvard Medical School: Intermittent fasting: the positive news continues.
- Frontiers: Intermittent fasting in health, physical performance, and disease prevention.
- University of Illinois: Alternate day fasting good option for patients with FLD.
- National Public Radio: Intermittent fasting as effective as counting calories.
- University of Sydney: Intermittent fasting has potential, but the type of calories count, too.
- Cleveland Clinic: Women who are menstruating need to fast according to their cycles.
- The New England Journal of Medicine: Effects of IF on health, aging, and disease.
2 Million Readers.
1 Life-Changing Newsletter
Simple and Straight-to-the-Point...
Just Like Mel.
