How Fasting Can Support Hormones, Muscle, And Heal The Body

Episode 731 1h 4m

Overview

Contrary to popular belief, women cannot follow the same health and fitness protocols as men and expect to see the same results. Unlike men, women in their reproductive years have specific hormonal considerations, and their rise and fall throughout the month impact everything from energy to focus, mood, metabolism, and the ability to adapt to good-for-you stressors like exercise or fasting.

On today’s episode, I’m excited to talk to Dr. Mindy Pelz all about the benefits of fasting and how women, in particular, can cultivate a fasting routine in a way that honors their hormones. Most fasting advice offers a one-size-fits-all approach that leaves women with more questions than answers. Dr. Mindy and I discuss the menstrual cycle and life phases when women can benefit the most from fasting, and when to pump the breaks on longer fasts and fasting in general.

Dr. Mindy recommends avoiding fasting altogether during pregnancy and not fasting longer than fifteen hours while breastfeeding. She also urges anyone who has had an eating disorder or thyroid condition to work closely with their doctor before starting any fasting routine. Women in their forties often encounter specific issues, like night sweats, mood swings, and other uncomfortable and difficult symptoms resulting from hormonal shifts.

We talk about the five things women over forty should do to ease their way into perimenopause and menopause—fasting, carb cycling and getting adequate protein, repairing the microbiome, detoxing, and incorporating more mindfulness tools. In this conversation, we also cover the different types of fasting, how to properly break a fast, hormone testing, and so much more.

I hope you’ll tune in.

Sponsors

This episode is brought to you by LMNT, BiOptimizers, Thrive Market, and Happy Egg. The Doctor’s Farmacy podcast works with a select group of sponsors to allow for ongoing production and allow it to be zero-cost to anyone who wishes to listen to and watch the podcast.

Topics Covered

  • Will time-restricted eating kill you? Deciphering recent headlines

    (2:15)

  • Two major issues happening for women: Understanding hormone cycles and an evolutionary mismatch

    (9:30)

  • Differences in male and female hormonal balance

    (10:50)

  • The habits estrogen and progesterone would like us to live by

    (12:28)

  • Mindy’s approach to managing hormones through fasting

    (14:24)

  • What happens when we fast?

    (21:08)

  • The different forms of fasting

    (23:40)

  • Are there downsides of fasting?

    (27:55:00)

  • How fasting works to deep clean, removing the senescent cells

    (30:17:00)

  • Fasting for men and postmenopausal women

    (34:20:00)

  • Three different rules for reintroducing food after fasting

    (36:25:00)

  • People who shouldn’t fast

    (38:14:00)

  • Tips for women over 40 that aren’t talked about

    (43:30:00)

  • Hormone testing and the best ways to get a handle on it

    (52:10:00)

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Resources Mentioned

Host & Guests

Transcript

Automatically generated. Please forgive any typos or errors in the following transcript. It was generated by a third party and has not been subsequently reviewed by our team.

Introduction: Coming up on this episode of The Doctor's Farmacy.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: If women just looked at those two hormones and used fasting in the right place of the cycle, they started to see all of their hormones balance out.

Dr. Mark Hyman: Welcome to the Doctor's Farmacy. I'm Dr. Mark Hyman, that's Farmacy with an F, a place for conversations that matter. And if you're a woman or no a woman, which most of you do because you usually had a mother, you should be interested this podcast because we're going to be talking with Dr. Mindy Pelz about hormones and women and the challenge they face throughout their life cycle and how to actually address these problems in a coherent way..

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Ep. 731 - How Fasting Can Support Hormones, Muscle, And Heal The Body