The Hidden Truth About Your Hormone Personality! with Dr. Mindy Pelz

Today on Midlife Conversations, I'm here with Dr. Mindy Pelz. And I can't wait to dive into this conversation because she brings something so unique to this midlife conversation about the personality of hormones, something we have not touched on yet, and how it's the most challenging time with hormones is actually perimenopause, not menopause. And I want to bring some clarity around that. We're also going to dive into some things around how we should be eating in this stage because it's not a one size fits all cookie cutter methods. So thank you so much for being here today.

Oh, thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here. And this conversation is near and dear to my heart because I just, I just left the perimenopause.

Oh, gosh.

I'm like entering into more postmenopausal. So not only do I have a lot of opinions on it, but I've experienced it.

So that's great. Yeah, that's great. And I'm, I'm in that perimenopause. I keep thinking I'm in menopause and then my period. So I'm like, it's just like, I think I'm there and then I'm not.

Yeah, like, like I'm 53 and last year I had like four, four, four periods and I went 166 days without a cycle. And I was like, here we go.

Yeah, going.

And then I got, I got my period and I was like, okay, back to ground one again.

So, so I went four months without one and I was like, here we go, this is good. And I'm hot flashes and all the whole time. And then, and then I got four back to back, ten days apart each.

Oh my gosh. Sounds like perimenopause. Yeah.

I'm like, this is really fun, fun times. So let's, let's rewind a little bit. How did you start focusing on this? Let's talk a little bit about your background and why you ended up niching here.

Yeah, it's so funny because I would say if you go back and you look at my overall life, my hormonal health has been pretty much easy breezy. Like I didn't have a lot of pmdd. I didn't, you know, I, I, it was, I just had no stress over my menstrual cycle. Of course, I didn't know, you know, I didn't know how to eat or work out for my menstrual cycle like I do now. So when I landed at 40, I had one goal and the goal was to be in the best shape of my life. And the way that I measured that goal was by a number on the scale and how I fit into my skinny jeans.

So very common for women.

Very common, right? Very common. So I came into 40, like, boom, I did it. I'm the most fit I've ever been.

Me too.

By 43, I was a hot mess and I wasn't sleeping, I had night sweats. I was emotionally all over the place. And I hadn't changed anything in my lifestyle. So it really was out of my own desire to go, what happened to me? What is going on? That I started to just discover that after 40 are we start to make this slow. I always say our ovaries start to make a slow decline into retirement. And because of that, there is going to be these ebbs and flows to hormones. And if we don't adapt our lifestyle to change to these declining hormones, we're going to end up with a lot of symptoms. So it really came from my own journey. And then once I dialed it in, I just started teaching the women on all my social media platforms and I started noticing that there was a consistent thread of how we should be looking at these hormones as we move into the perimenopausal years.

Wow. Okay, so let's talk about that. How should we be looking at them? Because I will say traditional OB GYNs, it seems, puts everyone on synthetic birth control pills. That's their answer. They look at one thing and. And there's a big difference between that cookie cutter method and then bioidenticals or tweaking these diet. I want to dive into that a little bit. Like what's your thought process on that first?

Yeah. And also they put them on antidepressants.

Oh, yeah.

Very, very common.

And Xanax.

Yeah, right. Exactly. So, you know, the first thing I would say is that when we look at everything from are you going to do birth control? Are you going to antidepressants, hrt, bioidenticals. I just really want to create the space that it's a very personal decision that there's no. I can't tell you. There's an absolute. I've heard so many women who have said HRT is amazing. I've heard some women say it's not. I know bioidenticals, which is where I ventured into. There's an art to it to like, you know, getting the right amount in there. So when we look at all three of those, we have to understand once again, there is no one size fits all.

Okay, Doctor, I have a question. You just, you said. And maybe I didn't know this till right now, I was thinking HRT and bioidentical were the same thing, are they not? Okay, tell me that. I've been saying them as the same thing.

Yeah. So HRT is synthetic estrogen.

Interesting. I. Okay, I've been saying the wrong thing. Cancel out everything I've said previous.

I kept saying ht. Bioidenticals are the natural version.

Interesting. Okay, so bioidentical is what? I do not. I thought hrt, that meant that too. Okay, got it. Glad I know this.

Now there's. With hrt, I mean, again, you could. There's a lot of conversations around hrt. It's sort of being looked at differently. I would say your best door in is to start with bioidenticals because they're. The consequences of that is not as great. There's a lot of debate in the medical community of what the consequences of HRT are.

When people do what they call pellets. Is that hrt?

Yeah, when they like testosterone pellets. Yeah, that's more synthetic. We're back in. Okay, so hormone replacement therapy in the traditional medical sense is a synthetic version of the hormone, whereas bioidenticals is a natural version of the hormone and it's a much micro dosed mouth. So you're, you're trying to work with your normal hormone hormone production, whereas HRT is coming in with. No, we're going to control hormonal production.

Okay, so I've been doing bioidentical and I've been saying the wrong things. I thought they were the same. When people do synthetic like birth control pills, is that fall under HRT or is that a pollen category?

Yeah, I mean it is a version of synthetic. Nobody calls it hrt. But you know, I'm just going to say my opinionated thought on that is its manipulation of your, of your menstrual cycle. So, yes, you know, what you're trying to do is bring some control back to the menstrual. Menstrual cycle. So when people, when you're given a birth control at 43 as a solution for your perimenopausal symptoms. Really what you're saying is we're going to manipulate the, the egg release and the, and the uterine shedding. And I don't think that's appropriate at that age.

I would agree with that.

Hormone replacement therapy, you're saying, hey, your estrogen is declining. Your testosterone is declining. Let me give you a synthetic version of that. When you come in with bioidenticals, you're saying, okay, let me work with the hormones and get you to give you some natural. Which is why I think it's the best story.

That's exactly what I do. And I'll tell you, my hot flashes completely stop estrogen in. Yeah, a bioidentical estrogen, a low dose, which is.

I was just at a, the largest functional medicine conference in the world. I was speaking at and the whole theme and it was on longevity and anti aging. I would tell you throughout the every presentation was this common thread of how important hormones are to our overall longevity and anti aging. And that bioidenticals really are being looked at as the hero of the day. Yeah, it's just a bit of the wild, wild west that nobody quite understands how to prescribe them right now. So if you choose to go down that, be patient, work with your practitioner. It can take you a couple of months to get dialed in the right dose for you.

So my doctor, I go to a naturopathic nd she loves, she insists that I should not be testing my blood more than every 90 days because she says there's just too much fluctuation and we could have different numbers. But she likes to look overall. So that's been working for us right now, like doing that. Do you recommend people in perimenopause that they regularly test their blood? Like, do you recommend doing urine and saliva too? What's your thought process around all that?

So I think every. It's a great question and thank you for asking it because I think it's a life saving question. I think after 40 we should do a hormone test every single year. And the hormone test I like is a urine test. And where you're taking the Dutch test. The Dutch test, yeah. I think that and the Dutch test will save lives because what it's going to do is it's going to show you how estrogen is breaking down. And when we don't look at how estrogen is breaking down, we just look at total estrogen. We really are not, we're not getting a complete picture. There's good helpful protective estrogen and there's toxic estrogen that will give you cancer and then there's estrogen breakdown that will show you how well your liver and gut are working at breaking down your estrogen. And that's 2, 4 and 16. Oh, and the Dutch test will tell you that.

Amazing. So, and then what do you think about the saliva test? Yeah.

For, like, adrenals? I think that's great.

I know we test. We've used that for hormone, too. And I know there's been some controversy around doctors about how accurate that is.

Yeah. Dhea. They often test DHEA that way and cortisol that way. You know, again, I'm just really a fan of the Dutch test.

Okay.

I've tried to find other tests that work as well, and it's the one I love the most. I'm not opposed to the saliva test. I just think your best, most accurate.

One is the most accurate. Got it. And I think that's so important because I'll tell you, mine was showing that testosterone bioidentical was converting to estradiol for me, and I wouldn't have known that had I not done that test.

Yeah. So did you find testosterone helpful?

So I loved how I felt on testosterone, but it was converting too high on the estradiol. So that was. So we backed it off to every other day, and that's brought it back more to normal. So.

So, Estrada. Estradiol is the form of estrogen that we lose as we go through those perimenopausal years, and it will be replaced with what we. What's called estrone, and it's a different version of estrogen. Estrogen. So that's. That's something to know. So it would be natural. I mean, again, what we want to do is try to navigate what the natural course of our hormones would be. So it could be that it was just too much estradiol for you, for your time of life. The other thing I would say, though, that the big concern for women as they go through perimenopause is that estradiol is. Is protective of the brain and it helps with cognition. So there is. And this would be one of my, you know, heartfelt comments to women going through perimenopause is that we have to have this understanding that there's going to be an adjustment that the brain has to make.

Sure.

Do the change from estradiol to estrone so that we can get. The brain has to have some type of estrogen, which is why bioidenticals can be helpful.

Sure.

And some of the lifestyle changes that I would encourage. But also be patient with yourself, because there's going to be a recalibration to the change in the type of estrogen and the decline of estrogen that your brain is getting.

The thing that made the most difference with me was adding the estrogen Bioidentical though I will. That's the most. The craziest symptoms I was having was the hot flashes, like five an hour. And that instantly stopped them. Yeah, yeah.

And my, and my plea to, to women would be like, just because they, you're hearing Natalie's like, win on this. Make sure you find your win because it might be, you know, that there's a different door in for you. So just be patient and understand that it's a process and you're, you're, you're in a great example of the process.

So let's talk about the personality of hormones. Because you said there's a personality. What do you mean by that?

Yeah. Okay, so this I love because when we look at sex hormones and specifically and, and, and I'll back up one step and just let's talk about the difference in these personalities when it comes to men and women. When met with men, they're primarily driven by testosterone. Now we can all laugh and be like, of course they are, we know they are. But testosterone in a man is going to be produced by the outer part of the, they call it the ludic cells of his testes, goes up to the brain and converts to estrogen. So when you hear somebody say, well, men have estrogen too, it's very true. It's just they need testosterone to convert it. Women, what we've got is we've got three sex hormones that are all produced by the thecal cells outside the ovaries and our adrenal glands. And these three are estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. Now, the reason that this is important is as I go into the personality, I want you to understand as you move into the perimenopausal years, your adrenals are producing some of these hormones as well, which makes stress a really important thing to manage as you move into those perimenopausal years because you're going to find you're more re to stress and you're going to have a bigger hormonal swing to stress because you've got this load on the adrenal glands to make these sex hormones. So, so something cool or really important to understand. So. Okay, and then I'll keep going. You look like you had a question.

No, I'm. No, I'm just trying to follow. I love it. I had never heard this before. So this is wild.

Yeah. And so the way. Let's make it applicable, the way it will look, and any perimenopausal woman will tell you, yeah, that makes sense. Is that the stress you were able to handle at 35, you're not able to handle as well at 45.

Makes sense. And that's how we feel. We're more stressed out, but it's just different how we're handling it.

That's right. And a large part of that is because your adrenals are doing two jobs. They're having to adapt to stress, plus they're having to give you sex hormones. And then your brain's having to navigate the loss of estrogen, which is making it more reactive to stress.

So a lot of this, these symptoms that we make fun of, that's the explanation behind it.

That's right. That's. So when we talk about the personalities, that's what I want to, I really want women to understand is that there's a natural progression that's happening here. You're not going crazy, you just. We haven't had converse enough conversations like the one we're having right now to help you understand yourself.

So who really needs to hear this is our husbands and our.

Yes, thank you.

There's an explanation. We're not crazy.

Yeah. Well, I can tell you that the next book I've already gone on in contract with it with Hay House is going to be on what happens to the female brain after 40.

Wow.

And I'm really hoping that it will be that bridge for, for men and women to understand each other. So. You're absolutely right.

Yeah.

So with that in mind, let's go go into these, these different personalities. So here's the thing about estrogen. Estrogen is the thing that gives us mental clarity, allows us to have, be able to multitask. It gives us incredible verbal skills. It gives us the, this amazing ability to connect and want to connect. Estrogen is very outgoing and estrogen is very like, I can conquer the world. That's, that's it.

Have a lot to do with our skin too and appearance. Like if you think about like when you ovulate, how you'll be glowing more, that type of thing.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. But. And then let's break that down. So why would you do that? Why would estrogen makes you your skin glow and your hair?

It's biological, I would imagine it makes you attractive to, to reproduce or.

That's right.

Okay.

That's right. So estrogen has this. Just think of her as this outgoing, kick ass, amazing hormone that serves you really well. I feel like estrogen has gotten a bad rap because we think of it as cancer causing.

But from the flawed 2002 study that's right.

But that. But really, estrogen is a large part of our superpower. And. And for our perimenopausal women. What I want you to know is that once you go into 40, you're having these ups and downs.

You're getting.

Some days where you're like, oh, my God, I'm on fire. I feel so good. And other days you want to cry and go into a ball, and that's estrogen. During perimenopause, when you are like, I can't handle stress. I can't hold on to information. I can't remember what I'm doing. Everything everybody's saying makes me want to cry. That hot flashes. This is estrogen doing her down. And then two days later, you're like, okay, I'm good. I feel fine. I actually feel really good. This is estrogen bouncing back up. So we have a roller coaster with estrogen as we go into perimenopause. Once we get into post menopause, the brain's adjusted, it's better, and those emotional rides will go away. So that's the first thing I want women to know.

Okay.

Okay, got it. So then. And I'll go through the personalities, and then we'll talk about what lifestyle they want. Okay. So progesterone is completely different. So I. In the. In fast, like a girl. I really talk about how you. We need to look at estrogen and progesterone as, like, twin sisters. They look the same, they have the same last name. We put them in the category of sex hormones, but they have vastly different personalities. So progesterone makes us more inner. So we want to, like, go in. We don't want to do anything. Progesterone is very, very vulnerable to cortisol. And so progesterone wants us to slow down. Progesterone will actually go into a GABA receptor site and calm us. So when we are cycling the week before our period, if we feel like, I don't really feel like working out, I want to sit on the couch. I'm not feeling very outgoing. That's progesterone. That's progesterone giving you a sign of what she needs. When you. The week before our periods, when we have a cycle, when we feel like, I'm really, really hungry, that's progesterone. She needs you to raise glucose. This is where the ketogenic diet really fails. When progesterone is coming in, we can't be in a low glucose state. So if you're craving more carbs that's progesterone, saying, hey, give me more blood sugar because I need more blood sugar to be able to appear. The same thing with things like chocolate. We crave chocolate at this time because there's a ton of magnesium in chocolate and we need chocolate to be able. We need magnesium to be able to make progesterone. So she's a totally different. She's. She's inner, she's more intuitive. She kind of wants to hang on her own. She's not as social. Whereas. Whereas estrogen is way more outgoing.

Makes sense.

Right. And every woman can. Can sense that. Right.

And it's. I'm also thinking, even like when I take. Because progesterone, we take at night and it's like, it relaxes us. It's like it calms you. You'll go to sleep easier, you sleep better. All of that. It makes sense.

That's right. And then testosterone in a woman does three things. And I think this is really important because we tend to think of testosterone as libido. And for sure it's libido. But that has two other things that it does. And one is it's our motivation. So what I see in a lot of perimenopausal women is all of a sudden they don't have the motivation to work out or they can't really finish a product project or start a project that their lack of motivation, like, I know I should probably go do that, but I just don't feel like doing it. That is really testosterone, a sign of low testosterone. And then the other thing would be our drive. Like, you see a lot of women, like, lose their ambition, like the goals that they were going after that, you know, part of that is wisdom. We just start to look at things a little differently. But also as testosterone goes down, it's harder to. To get yourself up and going and be in that achiever mode, depending on where your testosterone levels are at.

Got it. Okay. Never had this broken down so simply, this. This is amazing. I love that you came. Was this your idea? Did you come up with the whole personality?

Yeah. So I. Yeah, it's been a. We have a huge worldwide audience. And so I've been playing with these principles and them I've had. I've had the pleasure of having some really in depth discussions with John Gray. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. I learned a lot from him. So it's just an accumulation of really talking to a lot of people and then of course, going through it myself.

No, but I just love how you broke it down. Because I think we all hear about hormones but we never. And we hear like the little things that it does. But putting it in the personality really gives it life.

Right.

Like I think I fully get it now. It makes sense. And I also think it's interesting that it seems like most doctors do like the estrogen last, which is interesting to me because that might be one of the most important ones. So it's just like, like seems like they go to testosterone first, like they think that solves everything basically. That's just been my experience.

Well, here, here's probably why they do it. It, there's the least side effect if you start with testosterone.

Got it.

And, and here's something, this is another really interesting thing to think about for like the 45 year old woman who's in a driver role is that all day long you're driving, driving, driving. So you're using your testosterone.

Yeah.

And so what ends up happening is eventually when testosterone tanks, we're going to pull from estrogen. And so at the end of a long day, if you've been in that driver role, you're going to need to bring estrogen back. And the way you can bring estrogen back at the end of the day is do anything that brings you joy. So you know, if you're getting on a phone call with your girlfriend and laughing brings you joy, sitting on the couch and like watching a Netflix series brings you joy. But if, if you're a 45 year old woman and you've been in a driver role and it's been a hard ass day, you need to do something to fill yourself back up so you can bring estrogen back up.

Makes sense.

I think it's the easiest hormone to work with testosterone because once you start to manipulate estrogen, you can have a lot of highs and lows. So this is how I like to work with estrogen.

No, it's so good. Okay, let's talk about how diet fits in with the personality. Because I don't believe there's a one size fits all. I think there's a few general rules that apply like eating unprocessed natural foods, eating real foods, staying hydrated, all of that. But you know, there's a big push for people to do carnivore and keto. It's like the trend of the, you know, the last two years.

Right.

And I don't believe that's a one size fits all for perimenopause. Can we talk about that?

Yeah. And I'm a thousand percent in alignment with you. And I want to tell every woman that if you. If you watch your friend go on a diet and then you go on that diet and you don't get the same result as your friend, it's not your fault. Like, there is a personalized diet for you. So. So finding that diet is really helpful. And in fast, like a girl, I talk about the different. And we'll go through each one here, but I talk about what the different diets are that work best for these hormones. But I really want to relieve women of guilt and shame and frustration when we try to find that, oh, my God, here's the perfect diet. There's no perfect diet. There's your diet.

So, no, I think, like I said, there's some general principles, and then there's, like, the tweaks, you know, so, yeah, like, nobody's going to thrive just eating gummy bears. Like, we're not. We're not talking about that.

And nobody thrives on the western diet. Nobody thrives with the toxic oils and the synthetic ingredients and the refined flowers and sugars, and nobody thrives.

So step one, unprocessed your diet. But now let's talk about that. Let's talk about the nitty gritty. Like, why would we. Who, first of all, who would benefit from keto and carnivore?

Well, let's go through it in terms of the hormones, and then we can kind of go through it in the cycle. And then I think people will see themselves. So when we look at estrogen, if you still have a cycle, estrogen comes in from day one, which day one is when you start to bleed. And she is building, building, building until day 10. And as we move into ovulation, around 11 or 12, estrogen is at her peak. And what estrogen would want you to know if she could talk to you and tell you, hey, this is how I like to be taken care of, is she likes glucose to be lower, she doesn't like insulin to be. To spike, and she doesn't mind cortisol. So if you want to go run a marathon, do a new CrossFit workout, if you have a. A deadline at work, you want to go into a longer fast. Estrogen's very forgiving, and that's how we.

Feel on fire during that time.

That's right. That's right. So the one request that estrogen has is keep glucose low.

Got it.

So if you want to go into the keto diet and it works for you, great. But if you're like, nope, I'm Anti keto. Then what I recommend is just look at nature's carbs and maybe the lower glycemic foods. So go into more your berries and your green apples and eat more vegetables and meat during that time. Just really make sure that your blood sugar isn't having these big spikes. Make sure you're eating the right oils. You know, bad oils will create more insulin resistance than any, anything else, which.

Is not talked about enough right now at all. Actually it's not talked about at all at mainstream.

No. And I, and I would say it's the number one food choice everybody needs to make is start with your. Was swapping out your.

Yeah. And unfortunately pretty much every packaged food has it now. Like even at the health stores, like, even if you go to like a whole foods or a natural food store. It' it's, it's in everything. It's crazy.

And restaurants, I mean we've been at, at, at like high end restaurants and we've asked them what they cook it with. Their, their stuff with and they're like canola oil.

Oh my gosh.

And so we've learned as, as a group of a part of a group of doctors, we will say we're allergic to canola oil butter. We try to, that's the, our number one focus.

Interesting. Yeah. Seed oils are really crazy, like related. I think it'll, you know, mainstream always follows like 10 years later. So we'll hear about this in a decade.

I hope so. I hope so. So. Yeah. So just remember to keep your glucose a little bit lower. If you're going into the refined foods, it may, it may throw estrogen off. So you know, this is where a glucose monitor is great. If you, you know, a great measurement is hemoglobin A1C. If you get a blood test, we'd like to see hemoglobin A1C under 5. And if it's over 5, then, you know, really make sure you're, you're leaning into nature's carbs.

Okay, so they're about.

Yeah, that's the first part. Now we move into the ovulation period and in the book I gave them all fun names because the hormone names are really boring and hard to remember. Ovulation obviously isn't. But follicular and luteal are very hard to remember with ovulation. Here's what I want you to know. Estrogen's at her peak. She's already there. She's built. And then testosterone comes slamming in. Testosterone is at its peak. And then you get a little Little bit of progesterone during ovulation. So what that means is that you are going to need to make sure you eat a little more carbs because progesterone's there. And we'll explain progesterone in a minute.

But that's why you're not sleeping during this period. Like this is when you wake up a lot or that's can't for some women.

Some women, they do really well at ovulation, but I found that there's the most variance in the cycle, especially for perimenopausal women in ovulation. Some will tell me they feel amazing and others will tell me I can't, I'm going to kill everybody around me. So what we need to know about the three hormones when they show up together is that just because you make a hormone doesn't mean you metabolize a hormone and break it down so you can use it. So the two organs that ovulation that become critical are your liver and gut. And you need to make sure you up your vegetables. You got to eat more green leafy vegetables to supply the microbiome. And I think if there's ever a time to be off alcohol to really support eat more bitter foods and support your liver, it's during ovulation. You really got it. Because otherwise these hormones won't break down.

Got it. Interesting.

Okay, so that's ovulation and testosterone. There's not really a lot of foods you can eat. I will tell you that testosterone really does well with fasting. So if you are a skilled faster or you're inclined to fast, it's easy to fast 13 to 15 hours. Fasting in that time period can be really beneficial.

Explain that more. Like talk about fasting and your preference on that and how what you mean by that.

Yeah, so fasting is when you go for a significant period of time without raising your blood sugar.

Okay.

So it's really time restricted eating. You're taking all your food and you're eating it in a specific eating window. So when you hear us say 13 hours, 15 hours of fasting, what we're saying is that you've gone 13 to 15 hours without your blood sugar rising. And what your body will do is we have two different energy systems. So as the blood sugar dips, your intelligent body switches over to a fat burner place and it starts to burn fat and make something called ketones. And ketones can be healthy, they can go up and repair the brain. And, and for women, this is really what fast like A girl is about is we want you to cycle in and out of these ketones, but you don't have to do the ketogenic diet to get ketones. That's the misconception.

Yeah, that's a big misconception. Most people think you have to. Okay.

Yep. So that's why I, I'm such a fan of actually using fasting and paired at the right time with your hormones to get you into keto, into ketosis.

Wow. That's. I mean, that changes it for people because I don't think people, I. Most people don't understand that.

Right? Yeah. Yeah. And for the perimenopausal woman, it's imperative because. Let's say she needs more carbs, let's say it's ovulation, she needs more carbs. She feels better on a higher carb diet. Fine, Great. Just pair that with a 13 hour fast. You'll get a little burst of ketones. That goes up into the brain, repairs the brain, gives you some mental clarity, and then you go into your more carb rich meal. And now you have the best of both worlds.

So the interesting thing about fasting is most women that are in perimenopause or menopause age, we went live through the time where that was like the worst thing you could do. That's in the, in the era of go fat free. And if you starve yourself, you're slowing down your muscles, never skip a meal, you're slowing your metabolism.

Yep.

Interesting about that because we're all unwinding from that. So what do you. Anything you can add about that? Because that's. We, we were raised believing that.

Yes, I hear you. The first thing I would say is how did we, how did we weather health on that? How are women's health doing? You know, if in general we are more obese, we have more chronic health problems. 80% of autoimmune conditions happen to women. Infertility is at the highest point it's ever been. So what we've been doing in the low fat movement has been damaging to our hormones. The eating six meals a day, there is no science showing that speeds up your metabolism. I've looked and I've looked and the breakfast is the most important meal of the day was actually a campaign slogan for cornflakes in the 70s.

Wow.

And. And there's no evidence. I mean, there's some nuances.

All the things we were raised believing.

Yeah. And I was the same. I was born in 69, I grew up in the 70s and 80s and I believe the same thing. So yeah.

And it's amazing how that can be wired in us. Now, where do we draw the line with fasting? Because I think also it can go dangerous to the other side where you're really not eating enough and we're getting into eating disorder. So anything you can add on to that?

Well, the first thing I want to say is fasting is not calorie restriction, it's time restriction. So in the book I have six different length fasts and I, and I show you where you would use them. I want people to look at fasting like they would take a supplement. Now when you take a supplement, most people don't think of it this way, but this is a really important thing is that we should cycle supplements go in. A supplement should actually supplement your a good diet and a healthy lifestyle. So if you're on the same supplement over and over and over again, it's no longer working for you. So we want to look at fasting as like you splash in certain fasts and you splash out and it's not, you don't do one meal a day over and over again. You don't do 13 hours over and over again. There needs to be an ebb and flow to that because that's our hormones. Ebb and flow.

Yeah. Okay. This is really, this is really good because I think so many people listening have been so scared of this. And I think it's not something to be scared of. It's really first when I, when I do add in the fasting, it's amazing how great my focus is and how good I feel. And I actually, you know, I noticed if I were to have breakfast and lunch, and I'm speaking for clients that have walked through this too, but if you have breakfast and lunch normal, you tend to more likely have that afternoon drop than if you're not having that until later. Like the more you prolong, you're less likely to have that afternoon drop as well.

Right. And so let's talk about that for a second because let's go back to the part of the perimenopausal woman is losing estrogen. So there is going to be a little bit of a brain dip in the afternoon and brain fog and cognition. So but, but the brain has to get used to this age appropriate dip. I mean you can bioidenticals and everything we've, we've talked about, but this is where ketones coming in with fasting can actually supercharge the brain and can be a replacement as our brain Gets used to the changes in estrogen. So that's why you felt that is like your brain was working the way you want it to work or the way it worked at 30. You're feeling that change. Neurochemical change.

Mm. So good. So good. Oh, my gosh. So much good information here that I was not thinking about. This is so. I love the personality. I love the way the idea of really changing the, you know, how you look at diet and working in with your particular hormones. How. What do you advise people? Like, how do they figure this out? Like, what type of doctor should they be seeing? How, what, what do you recommend?

Yeah, so the first thing I would say is start with your lifestyle before you, like, jump into, you know, to trying to find the most perfect doctor. Because I feel like we got to clean up our lifestyle. And actually I wrote a book called the Menopause Reset. We're actually adding a sleep chapter and it'll come back out on Amazon in May. But I will tell you, in there, I have six different things that you should be focused on, and they're very simple. It's like varying your fast, your hormones, which is what? Fast Like A Girl is all about varying your foods to your hormones, which also is in Fast Like a Girl. So you can get those two things right now in that book. And then we've got to repair our microbiome. Too many women have been on birth control and antibiotics and steroids. We've got to bring back the health of our microbiome.

And that's not just by taking a pair of probiotics.

No, and no. It's. I, I, this is lifestyle. This is all not using supplement supplements. This is like eating polyphenol foods and probiotic foods, bringing sauerkraut back in and, and keep raw kefirs and looking at prebiotic foods like chia seeds and hemp seeds and things that will help feed that good bacteria that might have been destroyed by birth control and antibiotics. So, so there's that. And then we gotta look at our toxic load. What's our, what's our beauty? What are our beauty products? Are we putting endocrine disruptors on our beauty products? Are we eating organic? I understand organic's a little bit more expensive, but the problem we have is that pesticides are an endocrine disruptor. They will go in and act as synthetic estrogen and change all of our hormones. How do we.

I want to, I want to not rush through this one part that you just mentioned. So endocrine disruptors are really important. And I think a lot of people will focus on what we're putting in our bodies around that. Like, okay, they got it. But then we are not doing that on the outside. And I'll say, I'm guilty. I use Tide detergent. I said it because I don't want my clothes to smell. Can you talk about a little bit about how that's affecting us and really what that's doing? Like, what is that? And how important is this? How much do we really need to be looking at that part?

So here's the beautiful thing about the Dutch test is if you do the Dutch test, look at your four oh. Your four oh is these endocrine disruptors? How high are they getting? If your 4oh is good, then your toxic laundry detergent is going to be. Is working for you. You. We all have a toxic bucket, so there's a point at which it just gets to the top and now it spills over and it causes us a big problem. So if you're really, like, have your favorite makeup, or you're like, I'm not eating organic, or I'm not changing my detergent, just run. Run a hormone test and look at your four oh. How is it? Is it working? Is it. Is it is estrogen breaking down into a respectable amount of 4 oh?

And if it's not, it's not just about tweaking your hormones. It could be about this. Yeah, makes sense.

I had a patient who we ran a Dutch on her, and her four oh was like, ten times higher than it should be. And one of her biggest complaints is she couldn't lose weight. And when I broke down her lifestyle, she and her husband ate out all the time. And so I said, can you stop? Just stop eating out as much? Like, let's just cut it in half. And she said, well, that would really put a strain on my marriage, because this is what we do together. And my response to her was, your husband will not have a wife to go out to dinner with if you don't get this 4 oh under control. And so we. And I. I'm usually, like, pretty flexible and flowing, but I was like, this woman needs to know, like, if she doesn't change her habits, this is. This is a matter of a cancer diagnosis or no.

Wow.

So I think if you have these products, you don't want to give them up. Then get a hormone test. The second thing you can do is there's great apps. Like, there's a beautiful app put out by the Breast Cancer Prevention Fund. It's called Think Dirty.

I have that app. It's great. Yeah.

Go scan your products. And then what I see a lot of women do is go, okay, I can do my laundry detergent. I can do my cleaners. I'll switch those over. But I'm not doing my makeup. Yeah. Or, you know, like, one of the people that I've worked with this year that's been really fun has been Leanne Rimes. And so we had this whole thing about her beauty products. And so we came up with, like, when the lights are on and you're performing, you got to have stuff on that's not dripping down your face. But then when you're at home, you don't need makeup, or you can use the natural stuff stuff, so. So there's a perfect example of she used the more synthetic stuff when it needed to be there for her. But then she went into natural stuff.

That makes sense. Like, I'm not gonna smell, so I'm gonna use my Tide. But I can be willing to give up the lip gloss, maybe something different. So it's all compromise.

Yeah. And then run a Dutch test on yourself and see where you're at. Yeah.

This has been. This is so helpful. Today. Tell us about your books. Where do you. Where can people find you? How do they learn more?

Yeah. So you can get fast like agirl@fastlikeagirl.com. it comes out December 27th. I don't know. I don't know when episodes coming out, but grab the book. All the lists and things I'm talking about are in there. My other book, the Menopause Reset, which is really appropriate for this conversation, will come back out in May, and it's been wildly popular, so stay tuned for that. But otherwise, I'm literally all over social, and it's a really exciting time if you're a perimenopausal woman, to follow me because I'm about to go into this massive research on what goes through the. For the female brain. So you're going to see on my social, as I teach about neurotransmitters and what we can do to keep neurotransmitters up as our hormones decline. So you can just go to my website if you lose all of that and go to Dr. Mindy pelz.com.

So good. Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you for having me.