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Dr. Mindy Pelz and Debbie Potts on Mapping out your Month

By: Debbie Potts
Date: May 4, 2022

The Low Carb Athlete Podcast with Dr. Mindy Pelz on Fasting for Female Athletes

If you’re an athlete, it’s essential to fuel your body properly to improve performance and longevity! We know that men are different than women… and we know that the nutrition and fasting recommendations for metabolic health should be different for the high charging athlete AND the aging FEMALE athlete.

We, the driven, ambitious, high performing low carb athlete, needs to adjust the recommendations individually (N = 1 experiment) that we hear for fasting, fueling, training and racing. Did you know that we can personalize a cycling female athlete’s fasting, fueling and training schedule based on their hormone cycle? We can actually map it all out each month and track with our CGM (NutriSense), OURA or WHOOP, Garmin, Training Peaks, and other trackers to create the ultimate personalized fueling, training and performance schedule!

In today’s episode, we are joined by Dr. Mindy Pelz, a Women’s and Fasting Expert, Best Selling Author, and Podcast Host who offers virtual detox programs, functional testing, coaching, and online courses through The Reset Academy, where she teaches hundreds of “resetters” around the world how to create long-lasting health and wellness through a fasting and ketogenic lifestyle.

Dr. Mindy talks about the biggest fasting myth, the typical fast for a female athlete, the types of exercises you can do during your fast, the nutrition for the different days of the menstruation cycle, and the areas where fasting does not work. She also shares some insights on the perfect time for women to detox and the different ways to know your proper nutritional exercises without using the app. Tune in to learn more on this and other exciting topics!

During this episode, you will learn about;

[04:06] How Dr. Mindy became so passionate about fasting for women

[08:19] The biggest fasting myth

[10:27] The typical fast for female athletes

[15:02] The types of exercises during your fast

[17:52] Where fasting does not work well for women

[23:33] The nutrition for the different days of the menstruation cycle

[27:57] The perfect time for female athletes to detox

[34:37] Ways to know your proper nutritional exercises

[41:50] Counting macros and calories

[45:42] The type of food Dr. Mindy Pelz eats

[49:38] The different types of fasting and how to plan for them

[57:15] Metabolic flexibility and metabolic switching

Resources Mentioned:

In Defense of Food

https://www.drstacysims.com/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/

Notable quotes

“When a woman goes to fast, she has to think about her hormones.”
“When you have that push-on through mentality as a female athlete, it suits you so well in many ways, but there are some ways it doesn’t serve you at all.”
“A female athlete should be breaking her fast with proteins because they hit the sensors stronger hence building strong muscles.”
“ When you are fasting and working out hard, and there is no replacement of what those muscles need, you can start to conk. over time”
“Our cholesterol levels change according to our cycle. Naturally, your body will elevate cholesterol when it needs to make estrogen, and then it goes down after ovulation when estrogen goes down.”

Connect with us:

Dr. Mindy Pelz

Website: https://drmindypelz.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-mindy-pelz/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drmindypelz

Twitter: https://twitter.com/drmindypelz

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4cNjUPc2gQKucX3hLUayYQ

Debbie Potts

Website: https://debbiepotts.net/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thewholesticmethod/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lowcarbathlete/

Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/thelowcarbathlete

Twitter: https://twitter.com/thewholeathlete

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/lowcarbathlete

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC__1aTDqHjrbAOHcfne7kuQ

LIFE IS NOT A RACE book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2pESNZE

The WHOLESTIC Method Manual & Workbook on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2zTDrWQ

***Thank you for listening to The Low Carb Athlete Podcast. We focus on discussing content to help you burn fats, improve health, increase performance in life and sport and transform the whole you from the inside out with The WHOLISTIC Method. Please consider leaving a review and sharing the podcast with your friends! Also, don’t forget to follow us on social platforms***

Click the link below to get access to our new client specials https://debbiepotts.net/new-client-special/.

Transcript:

Debbie Potts: Okay, I got the energetic Dr. Mindy on the show again to talk about her favorite
specialty topic, fasting, fasting variations. And we’re gonna go in a little deeper on fasting low carb
keto for athletes, but specifically, I want to go even deeper for the female athlete and then the aging
female athlete as myself as we reach to menopause as I turned 50 last month, and it says, what do
we need to do to change things up? So thanks for coming on. I know you’re so busy doing all your
lives every day and your podcast and you’re all over the place.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Thank you. Now, thank you for having me. This is a conversation that needs to be
had amongst women, because there’s some nuances we need to know about fasting. And if we don’t
pay attention to it, it can really take us down a really bad hormonal path. So I’m excited to be here.
Debbie Potts: Yeah, I was telling my audience that I kind of stopped last half of the, what year is it,
2021, podcasting as much. It’s like, I had to get clarity step away, like, what am I trying to
accomplish here? And I realize there is this missing area that we’re not talking about, because
everyone’s keto, carnivore, fasting, it’s like, wait, what about this whole category of the endurance
athlete training for triathlons, Ironman is running races, cycling long distance? And I feel like people
are hearing all the information out there and incorporating it into their lifestyle. But I know myself,
you know, eight years ago, now I was doing all this stuff, and I created this metabolic chaos. And I
feel like it’s my purpose, I found out like, okay, that’s my purpose. This is what happened to me is to,
for reason help other people avoid going through this downhill spiral that’s going to happen if they
don’t learn when to break up fast when to add some carbs. Not all carbs are evil, and vary their
fasting, vary their keto plants. So let’s kind of give a little update what you’ve been working on so
hard, you’re getting all these people around the world to fast, you’ve created such a huge impact
2021, we’re posting this, it’ll be 2022. What’s going on?

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, you know, it’s funny, I was thinking as you were talking that how I became so
passionate about fasting for women was the same reason because I had my own journey with it.
And the short version of a very long story is that at about 45, I really found fasting. I’m 52 years old
now, and I loved it so much. I felt like my energy, mental clarity, everything was just at its best that
of course, as athletes, we want to do more of it, right? It’s like have a little bit, it’s good. A lot would
be. So I just started fasting a ton. And then I started noticing everything from my changes in my hair,
my hair got was falling out, it got really flat. My cycles were really off now for a 45 year old woman,
you know, that would be you would think that would be normal, but I’ll kind of explain how once I
course corrected it, it actually came back and anxiety. I think that was the biggest one and it was
body anxiety. It was like I could not get I couldn’t sit on the couch and just relax. So what I did is I
ran a hormone test on myself and found that at 45 years old, I had my hormones were lower than a
postmenopausal woman. And I was like, this is not right. So this is how I discovered that women
need to fast differently. And I think this is the start of the conversation is that when a woman and
this is the most basic way I can explain it. When a woman goes too fast, she has to think about her
hormones, whether she’s postmenopausal, whether she is in the middle of perimenopause, or she’s
20 or 30. So for fasting alone, we have to think about that. But then if you put on an endurance
athlete, you put on in over exerciser, which is a little bit what especially as we get older, we have to
modify our exercise as you’ve discovered. Now, we’ve got ourselves a real hormonal mess. And I
think that’s the nuance that women need to know.

Debbie Potts: Yeah. I think I always say you know, I’ve learned from my own experience more is
not better and less is more that we need to pay attention to that and when to, you know stop as we
said a fast and when we should eat before workout, when you shouldn’t and I think it’s really
people have to learn how to pay attention to those red flags. But I think for me, I had them going on
for years that yeah, it was like pushed through it. We’re tough. We’re over achievers driven
ambitious females that we’re not gonna get to let anything stop us and be, you know, a wimp or, you
know, break something that was like, I can do this. And I think it’s realizing what is that okay, to let
go and less is more philosophy?

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, yeah. And I think that’s a really good point. And I would just say like, when
you have that push on through mentality as a female athlete, it serves you so well in so many ways.
And there are some ways it doesn’t serve you at all. In fact, it harms you. And I think that’s the thing
to understand when it comes to fasting is that we need to have a rhythm to it, it shouldn’t be more
as better that is definitely for a woman not the scenario. And if we understand our hormones, then
we can know when to fast and go into a big fast and when we need to not fast. So I think that’s the
overarching idea I want women to know is we’ve got to do it different. And the athletic woman
needs to know push on through is not the mentality you have when it comes to fasting. It doesn’t
serve you here.

Debbie Potts: Well, I just got my thyroid panel, full thyroid panel done a few months ago. And as
Dr. Amy, the thyroid fixer, we’re going over it, it’s like, alright, how many other women are doing
this fasting and not eating too later on and pushing their fast too long with their exercise routine,
causing their thyroid panel as well as like looking at their Dutch test to just go downhill and not
even know it. You don’t really correlate all these odd symptoms that like oh, that’s, you know,
typically eating gluten and we and causing that dysfunction, all these other little things that kind of
add up into our metabolic chaos.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: But with the thyroid, I just want to point out that because this is a big fasting myth,
which is that fasting is calorie restriction. It is not calorie restriction. It is time restricted eating. So
when we look at the thyroid and fasting, all the studies done on the damaging effect of fasting to the
thyroid, we’re on calorie restriction diets. And this might be something helpful for your audience to
realize is that when you’re fasting, all you’re doing is compressing your eating window and then
when you eat, you gotta eat and that’s it’s not a time to restrict.

Debbie Potts: Yeah, and I think that’s what a lot of Taipei, athletes are doing. They’re exercising a
lot during that fast. I saw some gal and I have to message her privately she was, you know, really
excited. She could do a 48 hour fast and do two CrossFit workouts in that she’s like, I can’t do this
all the time. Like, no, don’t do it. And then other people’s, you know, just kind of like, oh, I can go
fast as long and not have anything and you know, do all these different workouts, but I think it is, is
that combination of exercising during the fast and then as you’re saying we’re eating and not eating
enough calories, because there’s still kind of that diet mentality, trying to be fat burners and lose
weight.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: And a good place to start on that conversation is to just realize, here’s how this is
how I recommend female athletes do a typical fast is, you pick your fasting window, and you pick it
ahead of time. So I do this every morning, I just asked myself, when am I going to break my fast?

And what am I trying to achieve? So if I’m going longer, maybe I want more autophagy where I’m
like, Oh, I overdid it. And I need to like detox myself a bit and just kind of clean some cells out then
I’ll go 17 hours or more. If I want more gut repair, I’ll go 24 hours or more. But if I’m like I don’t
know what I want, I just want some ketones. I might go like 13 to 15 hours so I decide ahead of time
what I want to do. And then when I decide to break a fast what a female athlete should be breaking
her fast with almost every single time is protein. And it should be at least 30 grams of protein
because that 30 gram mark is what hits those sensors that will build their muscles stronger. So you
can use fasting to your fitness advantage if you do it that way. And then like literally when I break it
all, and the hardest part is sometimes you’re not hungry.

So you got to really eat -we do sausages, eggs, like just really dive into the protein. And then if you do this where let’s say you fast for 15 hours, you’re stimulating are about, let’s say anywhere from 15-17 hours. You’re stimulating autophagy, you’re cleaning cells out, you’re making your body more effective on
a cellular level, then work out in the fasted state and then immediately following power up on
protein. Okay, now we’re actually using a lot of Cellular Healing responses that will work to your
advantage. When you power up on protein, you stimulate mTOR, an mTOR, builds this muscle, the
muscle back up. So you got to think about it for the female athlete, we’ve got to hack it a little more
specifically.

Debbie Potts: And how would that be different for men than for male athletes. Do you find them
similar?

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Men do the same thing. Men could do that same routine. I think for women, we
after 40, we have to fight for muscle. And so you really need to, especially if you’re talking with
endurance athletes that might be breaking muscle down. Now the CrossFit woman isn’t going to
need to know that as much. But if you’re triathlete or a marathon runner, you’re gonna have to
think about that a little bit more. But I just think for women, we have to fight for more muscles. So
we have to be even more intentional about how we break our fasts.

Debbie Potts: Because Dr. Gabrielle Lyons protocol is one gram of protein per body weight
pounds. So if you want to weigh 130 pounds, you want to eat 130 grams of protein throughout the
day, but then you know, you can’t take that in all at once. You want to break it up throughout the
day. So having it in liquid form as bone broth or aminos and water capsules, and then have you
know, one or two meals with more protein based Is that what you kind of?

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah exactly, it’s the research shows that, it’s best in 30 gram chunks every two to
three hours. So I would agree with her on that. And I actually think it’s, fast, shorter fast means
shorter fast is, you know, 15 to 17 hours, anything over 17 is starts to become a little longer fast. So
I think if you do, if you pair it with a shorter fast, you’re actually hacking in to making your muscles
ridiculously strong. So it’s a good balance of two principles.

Debbie Potts: So the type of exercise I’ve been trying to pull up research, and it’s always hard with
females to get good at research on fasting and exercise. But I find that it’s the fasted exercise in the
morning to do before you break your fast would be low heart rate type of easy exercise that you’re
not driving your heart rate up, that’s fat burning. So we got Maffetone Max Aerobic function, our
rates went 180 minus age something around there, that fat burning state, if it’s walking, you know,
a lot of people I find as they’re getting more fit walking doesn’t get their heart rate up enough if
they’re trying to get exercise, but just you know, riding a bike, spin bike or doing cardio machine are getting ideally outside. But do you find like, what are you able to do in hormone healthy stay
when you’re fat doing fasted exercise, do you have a, I know you’ve some ideas?

You know, you’re like, Okay, I’m emptying glycogen stores out. So now, I worked out in a fasted state. Now I need to put some glycogen get more glycogen stores back in, because you’re going to need it for the next day. So I think there are we can say, Yes, strength training, you’re going to go after muscles in a very deep
way, which is why you can do it in a fasted state, but then let’s really power up on protein because
you just broke your muscle down. Whereas if you’re doing endurance like a long run, I would say
you’re going to want to break your, you can do it in a fasted state but you’re going to want to break
it with more carb rich, you’re going to want to because you’re going to need those carbs for the next
long run that you do. So that’s how you can start to get real strategic about it.

Debbie Potts: So if you’re doing a speed run, like we did this morning, we did high heart rate, low
heart rate, so you’re going to deplete that muscle glycogen more so than a running at, say, your fat
burning heart rate range. So you might need to add a little bit more carbs in your meal afterwards.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. Whereas if it was your pure weightlifting, or I like
the TRX and do a lot of that work, then you’re really working those muscles, then you would break
it with protein only. So think about what you’re going to replenish when you go back after
something like that, because this is where fasting really doesn’t work well for women, is that if you
are fasting and really working out hard, and there’s no replenishment of what those muscles need,
over time, you can start to conk a little bit. And that’s what we don’t want, or overtime, it’ll affect
the sex hormones. And the one sex hormone that is not going to respond well, to any extreme
anything is progesterone. So and this is the hardest one for those of us that love to exercise and love
to fast. This is the hardest one for us to keep in check. And that’s because it progesterone needs you
to keep cortisol down. So remember that exercise spikes cortisol, and fasting spikes cortisol. So if in
the front half of your cycle, when your body is building estrogen, that’s not going to be as much of a
problem. But in the back half of your cycle, especially the week before your cycle. If you have those
two spikes of cortisol going up at the same time that is going to throw your whole hormonal cycle
off.

Debbie Potts: Wow. Yeah, and that’s when you want to eat certain days a month that progesterone
you had good list of what foods to have and your projections higher in those days and how to work
with your hormones to match your nutrition with your hormones keep them balanced.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, so what a way to approach the week before your cycle would be? Okay, a
little shorter fast if you’re like if you’re listening to this and you’re like but I love to fast and I love to
work out and I feel so good. Then just start by the week before your cycle keep the fast shorter. So
13 hours would be the top I would go and then when you break your fast, break it with
progesterone building foods. So this would be your squashes, potatoes, beans, citrus fruit, tropical
fruits, even some grass fed meats can be can be can be thrown in there. But that’s you’re gonna it’s
not keto. Just want to point this out that is not. In fact the week on just for every woman the week
before our cycle. We are not meant to go keto. What your body actually naturally raises its glucose
during that time and so that it needs more blood sugar so that it can make progesterone this is
where it will kill every single athlete female athlete that is fasting too much and exercising at that
time you’ll they’ll start spotting, they’ll lose their period. You know you start, again you see hair
changes all of that. So that’s really the week you got to be super focused on giving progesterone
what she needs.

Debbie Potts: And then days that you ovulation. Do you change nutrition intake then?

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, so ovulation is interesting for that, especially if we’re talking the female
athlete, which is super fun. Because there’s so many ways we can take all these great tools and like
mix and match them. So ovulation is day 10 to day 15 ish, and this is when estrogen is at its highest
and testosterone is at its highest. So this is actually a really good five day window to power up on
your weight heavier weights because you have testosterone surging through you. So use it and
power up all of that great, you use it to help you build muscle. But the thing about estrogen and
testosterone is that they respond in that ovulation when they’re high. They are going to respond
best to a lot of leafy green vegetables, things that will help you break those hormones down and
move them into through your body. Get them of your toxic estrogen and get it out of you. So lots of
salads, lots of variation of vegetables, this is where I throw in we call it the plant diversity score.
How many different vegetables can you get in a day? Can you get 20 to 30 different types of
vegetables in during that ovulation window? Now you’re using estrogen and testosterone to and
really maximizing them. And then you’re working out in more strength training, maximizing what
you already have been given. And you can you see how you can start to just like alter your patterns
of eating, fasting and working out when you time it all to your cycle and it’s pretty damn cool.

Debbie Potts: I think so many people out there, they’re into keto, they don’t understand as an
athlete and the female athlete, it’s okay to add carbs sometimes. There are specific times of the
month for female athletes to not feel guilty, like they’re cheating, but you’re actually benefiting your
body, you’re building those hormones versus breaking your body down, creating that metabolic
chaos, that you have to go, okay, that’s what I need to eat. And this is what my body’s asking for and
listen to it, versus, I think so many people think, Oh, I gotta stay 50 grams of carbs, because that’s
what everyone says. And I need to just, you know, stay there be strict carnivore, whatever they’re
into, but not realize that it’s okay, some days of the month to change it up and vary what you’re
doing and everything.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, yeah. And so let’s do this. But why don’t we just go through the cycle, so
people have a good foundation. And then I know, the perimenopausal women and the
postmenopausal women are like, what about me? Because I get this all the time. So day one to, day
10, your body’s making estrogen. This is where you can go keto, you can fast as much as you want.
And you actually will be best doing a lot of cardio during those first ten days. I’ve actually, and I
don’t know if you’ve thought about this, Debbie. But I don’t know why we vary our workouts in a
weekly manner, we should actually vary our workouts in a monthly manner, according to our
hormonal cycle. But for the 52 years, I’ve been on the planet until I learned these principles. It was
always like, you know, one day of endurance, couple days of strength training, throw in some yoga
all in a weekly period. But we should actually do it in a monthly period.

Debbie Potts: Yeah, we do.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: So day one to 10 is estrogen, more cardio, more cardio, more fasting, those three
will go together really well.

Day 11 to 15, you’re now in your ovulation window.

This is where you want to do more strength training because you have testosterone. So use testosterone to your muscular advantage.
You want to keep your fast, a little, little shorter, you know, closer to 15 hours.
You want to really go in hard with the vegetables like we talked about.
You want to support your gut.
You can even during that time, focus in on the polyphenol probiotic prebiotic foods that will really create great gut health.
This is also the time if you are you know, if you’re focused on alcohol or no alcohol, anything that’s going to be stressful on the liver during that time the liver breaks down estrogen and breaks down testosterone
I would avoid alcohol during this time and any medications if you can, then when you come out of ovulation, we have a weird little four day window.

So we have about day 16 to 19 where you can go back into keto.

You can go back just like the first part, you can do more cardio, and you’ll be fine. But remember, it’s only about four days.

And then about day 19 until you bleed, your body’s making progesterone and that is when you really need to eat more carbs, step out a keto, don’t fast and ideally slow your this would be a great
recovery time, more yoga, more Pilates things that are going to be a little slower paced that don’t
raise cortisol.

Add Progesterone Building Foods

Here are some tips on what to eat to rebuild hormones. Some of my favorite progesterone building foods are:

beans

Squash

Potatoes

Quinoa

Citrus and tropical fruits

Dark leafy greens

Sunflower and pumpkin seeds

Grass Fed beef

Organic poultry and wild seafood

For women of all age groups, hopefully you see that the point is not to stay in a static state of ketosis or long fasting, but to regularly step out of ketosis to support diet variation and building healthy hormones necessary for ultimate wellness. https://drmindypelz.com/women-and-fasting-myths/

Debbie Potts: They’re not hit training that week.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Not, no hit training like hit training you can because it’s cardio with weights if you
do it that way. You can probably do it throughout the whole cycle except that week before your
period.

Debbie Potts: Yeah, that’s what I find is that last that week before you got to just bring it all down.
Bring it all down but carbs up.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Right, exactly. And that’s a hard one for female athlete.

Debbie Potts: Yeah. Well, I think everyone gets in the routine and they’re following a program
because they’re again usually ‘Type A’ organized follow everything to a tee and not listen to other
things that they might go. Okay, it’s okay to take that we got but a lot of times when I’m coaching
athletes and I’m writing out their programs, I have a de-load week. If males and females that their
build, build, build three weeks and one week off, so for the female athletes, we just switch at that
based on their hormonal cycle, when is your week before your cycle starting, that’s your off week
and match it with that month.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, we can actually, I started like, once I identified this, I was like, oh my god, I
think we could map everything to our hormones like social events, you know, you shouldn’t say no
to your social events the week before your cycle. You know, we could map detox we’ve been in our,
my world, I’ve been trying to figure out like, Okay, we don’t push a big detox the week before a
woman’s cycle. So you once you start to see the lens, you know, use your hormonal lens, you can
really dial in a lot of this stuff.

Debbie Potts: So a good question there. So when should we do detoxes? It’s you know, beginning of
the year, people start to do their detox, and you have the different fasting variations. When is the
best time for cycling female to do a more of a liver detox digestive reset program?

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah. It’s a great question. And nobody talks about it’s funny, I’m happy. We’re
talking about this. So let’s go back through the cycle. So you can detox really well. In that first day,
one to day 10, you’re going to be great. They’re in the middle of that in the ovulation period, that’s
the period where if you are detoxing, you need to make sure you’re having bowel movements be. So
that’s my only hesitation during that ovulation period, your body is breaking down estrogen. If you
don’t mobilize estrogen out of it, it will store it in the tissues. And this is where we end up with like
breast cancer and things like that. So if your detox is providing you daily bowel movements, you can
you can do detox in that ovulation. If it’s not, you need to switch more to the micro biome at that
time. I also think if you’re trying to build muscle switching more, really ramping up your protein
because of all that testosterone. So and then you come out of out of that time period. And again, the
five days afterwards, you can do detox again, and then the week before no detox because it’s too
stressful on the body. So the only real nuance you need to be aware of is that week before and then
the ovulation window, a lot of detox provides constipation. So you need to make sure you’re having
bowel movements then.

Debbie Potts: Yeah, so then you can tie in when is it best to really hit a sauna? And when to do hot
therapy? They’re all that into. It’s like, all right this week, because if people don’t have a sauna,
there’s so many I find new little franchises around each city that has the access to a sauna and cryotherapy and different things. So then when do we tie in those detox type of bio-hacks to add in to
the routine so maybe they’re doing that a little bit more? Their week of their cycle does maybe that
week is kind of their detox week, they’re going to do a sauna session, they’re doing more fasting
keto, do more cardio days, 1-10, something like that.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, exactly. I mean, that’s the let’s go to the bio-hacking thing here for a moment
because that I’ve been I’ve been really thinking about this. Is our women’s supposed to cold plunge
all the time? Are they supposed to sauna? Are we supposed to sauna all the time?

Debbie Potts: Nothing all the time is what…

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Nothing all the time, that’s right. I think that’s, you know, I’m writing a book called
fast like, it’s gonna be called fast like a girl, and it’s how women should fast. It’s Hay House is
publishing it. It’s a really fun book to write, and I’m so excited to get it out there in the world. But
now I’m thinking the title should be “Nothing all the time”.

Debbie Potts: Well, that’s what I keep saying that people like no, you know, like, you know, we’ve
talked to Ben Zotty, it just talking to Cynthia and it’s all like flexibility on off. It’s hormetic stressors
and not fast all the time. Don’t do low carb keto all the time. You know, don’t do Carnivore all the
time. Just mix it up and very everything just as a personal trainer is my background that I don’t have
people do the same routine all the time. It’s muscle confusion. So we shouldn’t do the same thing of
anything all the time because, like, I tell people I did Iron Man’s and I wouldn’t lose weight at all. I
was training 20 hours a week did it change my body? No, because it got so used to it. So you got to
mix it up to get results.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: You bring up such a good point it. We know this as a anybody who’s an extreme
athlete knows you vary it to keep getting better performance. But then we don’t do that with our nutrition. We don’t do that with our fast. We don’t do that with our bio hacks like you know, if
you’re going to look at a sauna, a sauna is going to be good all the time and it’s very
parasympathetic, raising but it is going to be the best in your ovulation window because you got to
mobilize that estrogen. And it’s going to be the best the week before your period because it’s
parasympathetic, driving. So it’s going to make it better for you then cold plunges.

Now, this I have been really thinking a lot about and I’ve had some really interesting conversations. So I you should not be cold plunging the week before your cycle, hands down. You should not be doing that, because it’s too many too much cortisol. But what you could just take that off the plate during that time. The next time that you could be cold plunging, would be ovulation window. Because it does help with
production of neurotransmitters that will help with estrogen and testosterone. The other time that
cold plunging could be interesting. And I don’t know if you’ve seen this new research and actually,
Ben Greenfield talked about this recently. Is that athletes that are working out with cold mittens on.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: There’s a research study out showing that women were able to perform more
push-ups when they put cold cryo-therapy mittens on while they were like right or right before
they actually did the pushup they could actually do more push-ups. So you could do some extremity
coldness like feet and hands, the day 1 through day 10. You could also do full plunges, and then you
could, you could do full plunges in the ovulation window and then come out of ovulation and do the
cold hands and feet and then do nothing the week before your cycle.

Debbie Potts: That is getting complicated, but just keep the calendar. But yeah to like, put
everything out there. I know, you know, Dr. Stacey Sims is totally opposite of everything we talked
about. But they do have that wild AI app. I know last time I talked to you, we were talking, they
were working on it. And so they have a wild AI app for matching your fasting and exercise, they are
not fasting because they don’t like fasting but exercising based on your cycle, how to change
exercise with their menstrual cycle, but it’d be cool to be able to track like, how I use training peaks
with athletes. I think we talked about this last year that having it you know if you could have the
cycle on there on training peaks, and then when to do all this and kind of have an actually couldn’t
save it as a program because then you can have it go in every month once you know, days, the week
if it changes, you have to alter it.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah. I think so there’s a couple if you don’t have the app or this is new concept,
here’s a couple of ways to look at it. For starters, if you have like an OURA ring or a whoop, watch
what your recovery is? Watch your heart rate variability. Watch your sleep as you move throughout
your 30 day cycle. And then when you do an activity, then look to see if the next day how it affected
heart rate variability and sleep. The second thing that we see a lot is when women wear the CGMS.
And they put those on for 30 days. You can see this is why I’m like, 100% convinced that women
should be not going keto, the week before their cycle, because every woman I have analyzed the
CGM and matched it to her period has an uptick of blood sugar the week before the cycle and then
the minute day one starts the blood sugar comes down. It’s crazy. So you can do the same thing with
all the bio-hacking stuff is look at your whoop, look at your blood sugar. And now take the tools that
you have and see how they vary over a 30 day cycle. And then you’ll know what’s right for you.

are getting ideally outside. But do you find like, what are you able to do in hormone healthy stay
when you’re fat doing fasted exercise, do you have a, I know you’ve some ideas?

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah. Let me give you some basic ideas, and then let maybe what we should do is
go around the woman’s cycle. So we can talk about the different hormones because it really
depends on what time of your cycle, you’re doing it. So the first thing I would say is, strength
training is done is really good in a fasted state. And here’s why. So let’s go back to maybe, you know,
in a decade ago, before you knew all these principles. You’re eating a lot of carbs, especially the
female athlete was probably carb loading as her pre workout routine. Your body had over all those
years had to store that extra sugar somewhere. So it stores it typically it’ll start by storing it in your
liver, then we’ll store it as fat and then it stores it in your muscles. Now every time you work out,
you’re releasing that storage from your muscle and the harder the workout, the more release of this
of this glucose was which is great. The way I look at that for that process is when you are doing a
hard workout and you’re wiping this is like wiping the slate clean. You know, you’re like, Okay, I’m
emptying glycogen stores out. So now, I worked out in a fasted state. Now I need to put some
glycogen get more glycogen stores back in, because you’re going to need it for the next day. So I
think there are we can say, Yes, strength training, you’re going to go after muscles in a very deep
way, which is why you can do it in a fasted state, but then let’s really power up on protein because
you just broke your muscle down. Whereas if you’re doing endurance like a long run, I would say
you’re going to want to break your, you can do it in a fasted state but you’re going to want to break
it with more carb rich, you’re going to want to because you’re going to need those carbs for the next
long run that you do. So that’s how you can start to get real strategic about it.

But that’s you’re gonna it’s not keto.

Just want to point this out that is not. In fact the week on just for every woman the week before our cycle. We are not meant to go keto. What your body actually naturally raises its glucose during that time and so that it needs more blood sugar so that it can make progesterone this is where it will kill every single athlete female athlete that is fasting too much and exercising at that time you’ll they’ll start spotting, they’ll lose their period. You know you start, again you see hair changes all of that. So that’s really the week you got to be super focused on giving progesterone what she needs

Debbie Potts: And then days that you ovulation. Do you change nutrition intake then?

But the thing about estrogen and testosterone is that they respond in that ovulation when they’re high. They are going to respond best to a lot of leafy green vegetables, things that will help you break those hormones down and move them into through your body. Get them of your toxic estrogen and get it out of you. So lots of salads, lots of variation of vegetables, this is where I throw in we call it the plant diversity score.
How many different vegetables can you get in a day? Can you get 20 to 30 different types of
vegetables in during that ovulation window? Now you’re using estrogen and testosterone to and
really maximizing them. And then you’re working out in more strength training, maximizing what
you already have been given. And you can you see how you can start to just like alter your patterns
of eating, fasting and working out when you time it all to your cycle and it’s pretty damn cool.

Debbie Potts: I think so many people out there, they’re into keto, they don’t understand as an
athlete and the female athlete, it’s okay to add carbs sometimes. There are specific times of the
month for female athletes to not feel guilty, like they’re cheating, but you’re actually benefiting your
body, you’re building those hormones versus breaking your body down, creating that metabolic
chaos, that you have to go, okay, that’s what I need to eat. And this is what my body’s asking for and
listen to it, versus, I think so many people think, Oh, I got to stay 50 grams of carbs, because that’s
what everyone says. And I need to just, you know, stay there be strict carnivore, whatever they’re
into, but not realize that it’s okay, some days of the month to change it up and vary what you’re
doing and everything.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, yeah. And so let’s do this. But why don’t we just go through the cycle, so
people have a good foundation. And then I know, the perimenopausal women and the
postmenopausal women are like, what about me? Because I get this all the time. So day one to, day
10, your body’s making estrogen. This is where you can go keto, you can fast as much as you want.
And you actually will be best doing a lot of cardio during those first ten days. I’ve actually, and I
don’t know if you’ve thought about this, Debbie. But I don’t know why we vary our workouts in a
weekly manner, we should actually vary our workouts in a monthly manner, according to our
hormonal cycle. But for the 52 years, I’ve been on the planet until I learned these principles. It was always like, you know, one day of endurance, couple days of strength training, throw in some yoga
all in a weekly period. But we should actually do it in a monthly period.

Debbie Potts: Yeah, we do.

Day 1-10: more estrogen, more cardio, more fasting

Days 11-15: ovulation window- more strength training (more testosterone); Fast 15 hours; Hormone building vegetables.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: So day one to 10 is estrogen, more cardio, more cardio, more fasting, those three
will go together really well. Day 11 to 15, you’re now in your ovulation window. This is where you
want to do more strength training because you have testosterone. So use testosterone to your
muscular advantage. So and you want to keep your fast, a little, little shorter, you know, closer to 15
hours. And then you want to really go in hard with the vegetables like we talked about. You want to
support your gut. You can even during that time, focus in on the polyphenol probiotic prebiotic
foods that will really create great gut health.

This is also the time if you are you know, if you’re focused on alcohol or no alcohol, anything that’s going to be stressful on the liver during that time the liver breaks down estrogen breaks down testosterone, I would avoid alcohol during this time and any medications if you can, then when you come out of ovulation, we have a weird little four day window. So we have about day 16 to 19 where you can go back into keto. You can go back just like the first part, you can do more cardio, and you’ll be fine. But remember, it’s only about four days.

And then about day 19 until you bleed…

your body’s making progesterone and that is when you really need to eat more carbs, step out a keto, don’t fast and ideally slow your this would be a great recovery time, more yoga, more Pilates things that are going to be a little slower paced that don’t raise cortisol.

Debbie Potts: They’re not hit training that week.

Debbie Potts: Yeah, that’s what I find is that last that week before you got to just bring it all down.
Bring it all down but carbs up.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Right, exactly. And that’s a hard one for female athlete.

Debbie Potts: So a good question there.

So when should we do detoxes? It’s you know, beginning of the year, people start to do their detox, and you have the different fasting variations. When is the best time for cycling female to do a more of a liver detox digestive reset program?

Debbie Potts: Nothing all the time is what I say!

Debbie Potts: Well, that’s what I keep saying that people like no, you know, like, you know, we’ve
talked to Ben Azadi, it just talking to Cynthia and it’s all like flexibility on off. It’s hormetic stressors
and not fast all the time. Don’t do low carb keto all the time. You know, don’t do Carnivore all the
time. Just mix it up and very everything just as a personal trainer is my background that I don’t have
people do the same routine all the time. It’s muscle confusion. So we shouldn’t do the same thing of
anything all the time because, like, I tell people I did Iron Man’s and I wouldn’t lose weight at all. I
was training 20 hours a week did it change my body? No, because it got so used to it. So you got to
mix it up to get results.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: You bring up such a good point it. We know this as a anybody who’s an extreme
athlete knows you vary it to keep getting better performance. But then we don’t do that with our
nutrition. We don’t do that with our fast. We don’t do that with our bio hacks like you know, if
you’re going to look at a sauna, a sauna is going to be good all the time and it’s very
parasympathetic, raising but it is going to be the best in your ovulation window because you got to
mobilize that estrogen. And it’s going to be the best the week before your period because it’s
parasympathetic, driving. So it’s going to make it better for you then cold plunges. Now, this I have
been really thinking a lot about and I’ve had some really interesting conversations. So I you should
not be cold plunging the week before your cycle, hands down.

You should not be doing that, because it’s too many too much cortisol. But what you could just take that off the plate during that time. The next time that you could be cold plunging, would be ovulation window. Because it does help with production of neurotransmitters that will help with estrogen and testosterone. The other time that cold plunging could be interesting. And I don’t know if you’ve seen this new research and actually, Ben Greenfield talked about this recently. Is that athletes that are working out with cold mittens on.

Debbie Potts: Oh, I don’t think so.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah. I think so there’s a couple if you don’t have the app or this is new concept,
here’s a couple of ways to look at it. For starters, if you have like an aura ring or a whoop, watch
what your recovery is? Watch your heart rate variability. Watch your sleep as you move throughout
your 30 day cycle. And then when you do an activity, then look to see if the next day how it affected
heart rate variability and sleep. The second thing that we see a lot is when women wear the CGMS.
And they put those on for 30 days. You can see this is why I’m like, 100% convinced that women
should be not going keto, the week before their cycle, because every woman I have analyzed the
CGM and matched it to her period has an uptick of blood sugar the week before the cycle and then
the minute day one starts the blood sugar comes down. It’s crazy. So you can do the same thing with
all the bio-hacking stuff is look at your whoop, look at your blood sugar. And now take the tools that
you have and see how they vary over a 30 day cycle. And then you’ll know what’s right for you.

Debbie Potts: Yeah, I’ve been using OURA ring but I’ve been trying to tag on there when my signal is
and when my temperature goes up see if that correlates because you’ll see on the aura ring and the
whoop will show it to, but if you’re sleeping overnight your body temperatures up say you know whatever present and then if your heart rates up higher all night long versus like I’m typically around 40 something heart rate, when I’m sleeping and then there’ll be 50, where when I’m fighting something or cycling it might go higher. So it’s interesting kind of put all your biometrics together and track that in personalize your nutrition access program which I do for our clients when we’re doing the VIP coaching that we kind of look at all that data and really dial it in and personalize that nutrition program because I think you know getting into fasting window but then what to eat?

We’re talking about you know for female athletes tweaking what they’re eating days of ovulation
and before their cycle with those good hormone building carbs. But in general, your onboard keto
for just general people 50 grams when they have their fast or not fasting feeding window. So time
restricted eating they’re having about 50 grams in gym more fats and proteins or do you how do
you vary for if it’s like little more higher protein carnivore-ish? What are yours?

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, if you go keto, on your keto days, and you’re timing it to your cycle, I call it
keto-biotic because I think that your carbs should be coming from nature’s carbs. So foods that are
going to feed the microbiome. I’m also think that every woman should be thinking about sauerkraut
and kimchi that needs to be especially in that ovulation window when we’re trying to get the
microbiome to really be proficient. So 50 net carbs, I think is great. I think any lower than that is the
only reason to do what I call it low keto, where you go into like 10 grams, or 20 grams of net carbs.
You could maybe dip into that for a day or two to kind of unstick some weight loss but I wouldn’t,
especially for a female athlete, I wouldn’t go that low. I have now kind of refined my Keto biotic and
I have the protein a little higher, I think 75 grams of protein when you’re trying to stay into ketosis.
When you look at Gabrielle Lyons, 100 and what you said like, you know, one gram per forever. I
think that I don’t think that is going to let everybody go into ketosis. I think it can be a little bit so if
you’re in a in the front half of your cycle, I feel like you’re going to want to stick to more of like 75
grams of protein, not 103, if you weigh 130 pounds.

Debbie Potts: I think that’s where it gets really confusing out there. All right, because there’s the
Keto carnivore. And then we got the flexibility and how many carbs which are right, but protein is
so confusing, because Okay, do we need to be in ketosis all the time? And then is it bad as to have
more protein? If that’s going to kick us out of ketosis, then we need more protein, because raging
athletes are aging in general, we need more but like, what’s the little Goldilocks effect? How much is
the right amount for you?

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Right. Well, and I think this is why you have to test it. And I really do feel like the
two best tests are the wear of the any kind of wearable, so the aura ring or whip. And yeah, and the
CGM, though, I think those are the best ways to know so that you can dial it in for you. But what I’ve
seen after and I’m sure you see the same thing after working with so many women, what I’m seeing
is that the first month they kind of try to do this, it feels very awkward. And you’re like you’ve got
like all these tools and you’re like okay, ovulation what’s going on? But after you get one month
through, you go now the second month, and you’re like, Okay, I’m in the first half of my cycle. Let
me go keto. Let me do cardio. Okay, now I’m moving into ovulation. Let me up my vegetables, let me
do a little less fasting, more strength training, and you like get this rhythm that is in alignment with
how your body was designed. So that literally by the third month, it’s just innately like it becomes
so natural that you’re not having to count macros, you’re not because you’re in a groove with your
body. I just did this with. I love working with real high performing people. And I have a really fun
woman I’m working with right now. And when I first started working with her, we were talking
more about like calories, and she was coming from that place of calories. And so then what we ended up doing is the first month I taught her everything we’re talking about and it was clunky. It
was like what am I doing? Now we’re like getting close to the end of the second month, and there’s
like a momentum that happens. So just I feel like that’s something we really need to take into
consideration that as women as we play with these tools, it just is going to feel weird in the
beginning. But once you dial it in you’re so in alignment with your hormonal needs that it becomes
very intuitive.

Debbie Potts: Yeah, intuitive eating, intuitive fueling, I think is important for athletes after a while,
you know, go through that process. Try it out. And then as we get going into that routine, we create
that intuitive feeling and intuitive training, I call it that we kind of feel it and know what to do
without having to look at the calendar maybe and look at what time of day it is, when we should
break or fast and what we should eat, but listening to your body. What does my body want today,
and looking at it that way. But the macros, do you have people starting out count their macros and
counting calories and all that just to get an idea?

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, so that when it comes to ketosis, here’s the way I look at it is the first step is
you want to remove all the, the manmade carbs. So you know remove all of the breads, the cakes,
the pastas, and stick with nature’s carbs. So to me, that’s the first step of keto. So you’re pretty much
eating meat and nature’s carbs. Now, that might be fruit that might be potatoes. But let’s just take
the refined stuff out. Then once you’ve got a rhythm there, then now you’re ready to start to count
macros. And the macro counting is kind of this temporary phase and I what I’m noticing in my
community is the advanced people, they stopped counting macros, they’ve got the rhythm they
know what’s going on the beginners the macros are too rigid sometimes now your audience might
be different because you’ve got a lot of athletes that are already using these principles, but it’s really
hard in the beginning it’s the in between in that middle phase where the macros are powerful. So
but once you get a rhythm with all this most people aren’t counting macros.

Debbie Potts: Yeah, I just have flashbacks when I start counting calories or macros from when I
was dieting too much in high school. I know, I can’t go there that was bad memories of doing the
soup diet and this diet that counted calories is like crazy.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: You know, we do it every other month in my recenter community. We do what we
call a reset, and I take people through a 15 day experience of varying all this stuff. And so one of the
things that we do is we count macros, and my staff is like, Oh God, really? We’re gonna like, I don’t
want to lead these people through macro counting. Well, I finally this, I’m this January, I’m rolling
out a reset, that is no macros and everybody, including my staff, the women in my group where they
were like, thank you. But I think for the person who these concepts are new for, we’ve got to count
macros, so we can see where we’re at. And I think that, like I remember I have a friend who went
keto, and want to lose a bunch of weight, and she wasn’t dropping weight, and she didn’t
understand why she wasn’t getting into ketosis. And when I had her counter macros, her carbs
were fine. But she was eating like 250 grams of protein a day. And I’m like, that is not going to help
you with weight loss.

Debbie Potts: Yeah. So that’s that fine line of testing on yourself to find out how much protein is
too much kicking you out of ketosis if you’re trying to do ketosis, nutritional ketosis to burn more
fat and lose weight.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: That’s right, yeah

Debbie Potts: So the funny thing, I was at my parents last week, and my mom was, how do you say
the kind of food you eat? I was like, that’s a good question. Do I said, I eat real food?

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Right. Well, that’s good.

Debbie Potts: Like thought about it overnight, because my sister’s stepdaughters being vegan right
now. And so it’s like, well, Iris is vegan. What are you? So then I thought about it. Well, maybe it’s I
low carb natural food or food from the ancestral health or, you know, it’s really hard to say I eat real
food and does this to people that don’t know necessarily, what does that mean that you know,
without the vegetable oils, without refined sugars and flours and blah, blah, blah. But it’s so funny
how confusing it is to teach people, okay, I don’t eat gluten, and I don’t wheat. I don’t eat the
vegetable oils, but how do you say? I just say, I don’t put a title on a Keto, or carmines and is like,
what I want. I eat real food that’s not processed. So it’s funny. So how do you explain when people
ask you, how do you eat?

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, it’s a great question. I always say that I eat nature’s foods. So I stay away
from the ultra-processed, and I don’t eat gluten, that’s just a personal thing for me. But even
ancient, there’s some ancient grains that are some people can do. So I just say, you know, I eat
nature’s food. So anything that comes from the land or lives on the land, I’m a fan of, and I eat meat.
And then I kind of have to say, you know, I eat meat. And what I don’t eat is refined flours, sugars,
bad oils. So and most people have then are like, well, what is you know, tell me more of what that is.
The oils are the ones that people don’t understand very well.

Debbie Potts: Especially when you have people that buy things prepackaged at the grocery stores
or Costco and the ingredient list is like half the label is so long, what’s in it like, Okay, we were just
gonna make that with three ingredients or two ingredients, and it shouldn’t have all that stuff in it.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: So you know what I did? And even the Keto foods, like I was on vacation this
summer, and I went into a supermarket that I’ve never been in before. And I saw that oral we had
keto bread. And I was like, No way like this is going to be crap. And so I of course pulled it up. It had
about 25 ingredients in it. And that yes, they were all toxic. And I was laughing to myself thinking if
I opened up a recipe book, and there were 25 Ingredients for that recipe I’d probably be like that’s
gonna be a pain in the butt. I’m not gonna make that. But we’re willing to eat a food that a company
has put, you know, these toxic ingredients into and yeah, it’s gotten that the food industry has
destroyed our health no doubt.

Debbie Potts: Yeah, I mean, just real quick. I was just recording this post holidays I made
shortbread cookies. It was coconut flour and Kerrygold butter or any grass-fed butter and like
vanilla. And it’s so funny that if you bought cookies, it’d be a gigantic ingredient list. It was so easy
to do and then like making stuffing for Thanksgiving Christmas is what the ingredients are pre
made stuff and all that. So it’s just funny to teach people, pay attention to what you eat because I
really get frustrated with all these keto foods out there because I knew it was going to happen and
all this you know the low carb keto marketing out there the grocers that people you know, clean
keto, dirty keto, but that’s why I don’t like saying keto I like to say eat real food. Because all those
labeled foods and there’s a lot down here in San Diego, California, there’s you know, keto, this keto
that but then it’s like, that’s crap. It’s not real good.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: This is why I like the term nature’s carbs or nature’s foods. I think we should
always be asking ourselves did this come from nature did this? Did a man make this or did nature make this? And that way you can always you know, and when you read you can always steer
yourself right and if you read an ingredient list and you’re it sounds like a chemical it probably is. So
that’s how my litmus test.
Debbie Potts: Well, how many years ago do I read the food rules by Michael Poland, if you want to
easy book, you know, bathroom reading, it’s one quote, per page. And it was what, you haven’t read
it before.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Years ago I read it.

Debbie Potts: This is so old. I don’t even know, I lost it. Someone took it. But it was like eat what
your great grandmother ate and don’t eat anything with more five ingredients on the label. And I’ve
read all that so many years ago, probably 10 years ago, and it was just like, that’s so easy you know
how you simplify it? So anyways, I’m getting off topic, but fasting variations, kind of watch how we
look at the next year planning out a year. You have fasting each month with your group and the
resellers kind of, should we look at kind of an annual plan when we should do some fasting?

Dr. Mindy Pelz: That’s a great question. Yeah, I mean, okay, so this is actually a really interesting
conversation that again, I don’t think enough people are having.

Debbie Potts: I’m going to pull up your screen. Hold on. I found all these I have your chart.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: So I’m like do I have oh, look at what I insert.

Debbie Potts: Oh, thanks to Dr. Google.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: You know, here’s what I would say is that in the winter time, we are meant to go
more into keto. So when you’re looking at and that if we go back to caveman days, we’re really
looking more cavewoman days. We’re really looking more at going keto is good but whereas in the
summer, when nature provides you more access to food, then we can look at going more into more
of the vegetables so and moving in and out of Keto more. So that’s from a yearly standpoint that
would be how I would do it. Yeah, this was, Oh my God, this was one of our original charts that we
ever did years ago. You found it. I don’t know where you found it.

Debbie Potts: Google

Dr. Mindy Pelz: But here’s what I…

Debbie Potts: I found next one and this was your fasting mimicking one.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, that’s yeah.

Debbie Potts: I don’t do fast mimicking anymore because they don’t like me to talk about it. It’s not
prolong

Dr. Mindy Pelz: It’s not, I got scolded. So yes, so let’s see what’s that alternate day? Eat stop. It’s
just different fasting. Oh, that’s Amy. I’m like, this doesn’t sound my languaging. Okay, got it.

Debbie Potts: So anyways, a fasting like, because you have your different fasts each month that you
do, you’re trying to get how many million people around the world to fast?

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah

Debbie Potts: And my question is always, these people doing say a 3 to 5 day water fast is not
always appropriate or 36 to 48 hour water fast that I think for the athlete and the females, we have
to kind of go okay, is that the right time of my life to add that in and when is it?

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, so let’s go through this pyramid, and I’ve now kind of evolved it into what I
call six different fasts. And so when we look at them over the long haul, the first fast is intermittent
fasting. You can, that’s 13 to 15 hours, you can do that. Anytime except the week before your period,
I really encourage you to not fast if you’re if that’s really difficult then keep it at 13 hours. So that
would that intermittent fasting should be your go to. The next fast is what I call autophagy fasting
and again, I’m looking at this at this pyramid and I’m thinking we didn’t have it quite dialed in back
then we’re learning a lot more. So 17 hours is where you’re stimulating autophagy and cleaning the
cells out. If you love fasting and you want to do that on a daily basis, except the week before your
period, you can do that. I think you know it’s again how you want to vary it. 24 hour fast honestly
once a week are great. I wouldn’t do them more than once a week. I think they and they’re really
forgot repair when those people sibo any kind of candida the really help the 36 to 48 hour fast. 36 Is
your fat burning fast. So people who are really struggling to lose weight. I think they should do that
one. Maybe once a month at the most. I’ve seen people do it every week, but that would be in an
extreme situation. So once a month 48 hour fasts are for resetting dopamine receptor sites in the
brain. So a lot of the mental health people with mental health stuff can do a 48 hour fast, but again
once a month, and then the three to five day water fasts once or twice a year. It shouldn’t be done.
More than that. I have coached people who have had really bad, like, cancer symptoms, things like
that. I’ve coached them through all of that. Through like, really regular three day water fasts, using
Vulture Longo’s procedures in the sense of, of watching white blood cell count, and it’s pretty
profound. And we’ve done it. This one guy in particular, he had leukemia, and we literally did a
three day water fasts, every week, for a year, he did Sunday night through Wednesday night. And I
kid you not by the end of the year, his leukemia numbers were all improved. It was crazy. But that’s
an extreme situation.

Debbie Potts: It’s crazy, I think, for then kind of apply that to the Lean athlete, when they should
not be doing all this, but they should do a cell autophagy occasionally, but not do exercise with it.
Like a 24 hour fast once a week on their rest days, kind of the mobility yoga type of day walking. But
those people that are needing to lose weight I’m finding that are doing too much fasting because
you’re exercising the high performing individual that they are doing, you know, 36-48 hour water
fast, but then they’re doing a lot of exercise still do during that time. So when to do these longer
fasts that I would say low intensity exercise, right?

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, when you start to get above 17 hours, a little lower intensity exercise, for
sure. And I’m on a three days water or three to five day water fast, no exercise that is not the time
that would be really damaging to your hormones. So when we go into a 3 to 5 day water fast, what I
want women to know is and people in general, but specifically women, the goal is you’re literally
saying to the body, okay, I’m going to take food out of the equation, I want you to heal. I know you
know how to heal better than I do. I’m not going to take supplements, I’m not going to exercise. And
it’s a real this is why it’s almost like a spiritual so fast, depending on what you’re trying to
accomplish. And then what you’re really saying is I’m going to go into this healing state and not let
any outside noise come in. So it’s a real trusting experience with your own intelligence.

Debbie Potts: So when you do a 24 hour fast, would you also do no supplements during that time?
Because that’s the whole long fast?

Dr. Mindy Pelz: No, you can do supplements during that

Dr. Mindy Pelz: No, you can do supplements during that time. Yeah, it’s just a three days the only
one that I say no supplements.

Debbie Potts: Okay. Yeah, there’s so many, you know, you can talk for hours on fasting. And
because you’re always, I don’t know how you have time to read all this research that you’re always
coming up all these research studies that it’s like a full time job.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, it is. Well, so I’ll tell you a little bit of my secret is I have a husband that loves
research. So but between the two of us we spend 10 hours a week for sure, sometimes 20 diving
into the research.

Debbie Potts: Wow, just do you go to PubMed or what is that?

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, PubMed. We go to PubMed. He has, and I don’t know where all the trackers
are. But he’s got like alerts on all different kinds. So when a new study comes out, we’ll get alerted.
But even you know, for my book right now like to dive into, last week is a great example. I dove into
metabolic flexibility and metabolic switching. What kind of research do we have on switching? Well,
when you dive into it, there’s a tremendous research on metabolic switching. So you know, before
you know it, you were like attempting to look at one study and four hours later, you’ve found about
20.

Debbie Potts: Yeah. Well, you can just send me the ones for the athletes because as I speak next
year at kiacon or a low carb cruise, my topic is for the athletes.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Great. Okay, when I find them I’ll send you. Yeah.

Debbie Potts: You give me my research assistant.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, you know, this is totally off topic, but it relates to menstrual cycle. I found a
study last week, two weeks ago, that blew my mind that I hadn’t really wrapped my head around.
Our cholesterol levels change according to our cycle. So naturally your body will elevate cholesterol
when it needs to make estrogen which is the first part of your cycle. So it raises LDLs, HDLs, it
brings it all up because you need cholesterol to be able to make estrogen. And then it goes down
after ovulation when estrogen goes down. So that got me thinking like, oh my God, what happens if
you walk into your doctor’s office in the first part of your cycle, and they’re like your cholesterol is
high. And then they give you a statin. And it may have just been a natural elevation to make
estrogen. And then what I tried to figure out was what happens if you take a statin to your estrogen
levels? And I haven’t found that yet.

Debbie Potts: Wow, see, that’s why I can’t research, there’s so many rabbit holes to go down.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: That’s exactly what it is.

Debbie Potts: Actually work to do for clients and get, you know, get paid for what to do. But
researching, you could do that for hours. So I know, it’s like rabbit hole rabbit hole on that. But
that’s interesting, because that totally makes sense. Because cholesterol is precursor to your sex
hormones. And that’s where I was explained to people that freaked out about high cholesterol, and
they think you know, lower is better than cholesterol. And I always have my like, little suggestion
there not to think less is better on your class Joe’s friend, but then you have to decide when you’re
going to doctor what type of your cycle is a doctor’s appointment for females.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Right, right. That’s right. That’s right.

Debbie Potts: Add that to your monthly planner.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: What I did do with that piece of information that’s really applicable. And again, I
put this in the book, we haven’t even really talked about it on a public platform. So here you go,
you’re getting first, you’re getting first info, is I think this is where seed cycling and seed oils can
work. So if you go in with flax oil, and help to bring in some healthy oils that might be had lead to
more HDL cholesterol, the good cholesterol, you’re going to actually support that estrogen
production in that first half of your cycle. So I don’t know if you’re familiar with Andrea’s seed oils,
but we love his products. And I’m asking him if we can come up with a female bundle that would
time his oils according to our cycle. You literally can start mapping everything to it.

Debbie Potts: Yeah, you’re gonna have a map “A mapping” book. As a new your next book will be
the “Mapping your life out”.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: That’s a great idea. That’s a great idea.
Debbie Potts: Okay, I just have my new planner for next year. That’s like plan your year, so then
you have to kind of make a book like that planner for this little old-fashioned spiral notebook. Plan
it out.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, right.

Debbie Potts: Okay, awesome. Well, we’re out of time already. But what links we want to share in
the notes, you can send to me and anything, any programs and whatnot you’ve got your?

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, I don’t know when this is going to come out. But I’ll tell you a passion project
that I’m really excited about is we’re launching the first ever international fasting day on January
24th. So we’re trying to get the world to fast. An exciting research on that is if you take somebody
who eats a really crappy diet, and you just have them eat it in an 8 to 10 hour eating window, they
actually don’t get the metabolic damage that the diet normally creates. You become immune from
that. So I think it’s going to be easier for the world to compress their eating window than to change
their foods. So that’s international fasting day. Yeah, we’re doing a reset, we’re doing January, and
we’ll do a reset. So you can find that on my web page, and you can find everything on my web page.
My true passion is my YouTube channel. That’s where all the science goes. So you can find me there.
If you see what I eat and break my fast with, you can follow me on Instagram. We kind of dribble
out different stuff on different places.

Debbie Potts: Yeah, yeah. Lots of good content. That’s for sure.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Thank you

Debbie Potts: Because have a lot of good information. So thanks for doing what you’re doing and
keeping up. You’re always filled with energy and never stopping. So you know, keep going and
sharing that information out there with the world to make an impact.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, thank you, Debbie. You do the same. We need more voices amplifying them.

Debbie Potts: Yeah, teamwork.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yep.

Debbie Potts: Good deal. Thank you.

Dr. Mindy Pelz and Debbie Potts on Mapping out your Month

The Low Carb Athlete Podcast with Dr. Mindy Pelz on Fasting for Female Athletes

During this episode, you will learn about;

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Dr. Mindy Pelz

Debbie Potts

Day 11 to 15, you’re now in your ovulation window.

So we have about day 16 to 19 where you can go back into keto.

Add Progesterone Building Foods

But that’s you’re gonna it’s not keto.

And then about day 19 until you bleed…

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