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Many women hit midlife and feel something they cannot name. They are still doing the right things, eating well, exercising consistently, showing up for everyone, yet life suddenly feels harder and less familiar. Age Like a Girl gives language to this experience and explains why it is not a failure, but a shift happening beneath the surface.
This is not a motivation problem.
This is not a discipline issue.
And it is not “all in your head."
This is not a discipline issue.
And it is not “all in your head."
In this hol+ conversation, Dr. Taz sits down with New York Times bestselling author and leading voice in women’s health Dr. Mindy Pelz, host of the hit podcast The Resetter Podcast, to explore the core message behind Age Like a Girl: menopause is not a decline, it is a biologically wired reinvention.
Instead of treating perimenopause and menopause as a crisis to manage, Dr. Mindy reframes the transition as a neurochemical and cognitive remodel designed to make women more focused, emotionally resilient, and aligned with who they truly are. She breaks down why modern life often clashes with this primal design, and why brain fog, mood shifts, and emotional intensity are not random symptoms, but signals that the brain is asking for a new way of living.
This episode explores why women can feel anxious, disconnected, or unlike themselves even when they are “doing everything right,” and how metabolism, stress chemistry, and neurotransmitters shape mood, clarity, and identity. Dr. Taz and Dr. Mindy discuss why many women initiate big life and relationship changes after 40, why community and connection become essential, and why reinvention is not a midlife crisis, but biology.
From perimenopause into postmenopause, this conversation reframes aging as an awakening. Not the end of youth, but the return of clarity, boundaries, and self-trust. If you have ever felt dismissed, confused, or afraid that something is wrong with you, this episode offers a validating and hopeful roadmap forward.
From perimenopause into postmenopause, this conversation reframes aging as an awakening. Not the end of youth, but the return of clarity, boundaries, and self-trust. If you have ever felt dismissed, confused, or afraid that something is wrong with you, this episode offers a validating and hopeful roadmap forward.
Dr. Taz and Dr. Mindy Pelz discuss:
• The core message of Age Like a Girl and why it reframes menopause
• Why the female brain is biologically wired for reinvention after 40
• Brain fog and mood shifts as signals of a cognitive remodel
• How modern life clashes with primal biology
• Why women often make major life decisions in midlife
• The role of neurotransmitters in clarity, calm, and confidence
• Why community and deep connection matter more than ever
• How to reclaim vitality without another exhausting checklist
• The core message of Age Like a Girl and why it reframes menopause
• Why the female brain is biologically wired for reinvention after 40
• Brain fog and mood shifts as signals of a cognitive remodel
• How modern life clashes with primal biology
• Why women often make major life decisions in midlife
• The role of neurotransmitters in clarity, calm, and confidence
• Why community and deep connection matter more than ever
• How to reclaim vitality without another exhausting checklist
About Dr. Mindy Pelz
Dr. Mindy Pelz is a New York Times bestselling author, visionary educator, and trailblazer in the field of women’s health and hormone science. With over two decades of experience, she’s built a global movement to help women understand the power of their bodies at every stage of life. Her bestselling books, including Fast Like a Girl, The Menopause Reset, and Eat Like a Girl, have helped millions of women use fasting, nutrition, and lifestyle shifts to balance hormones, boost energy, and take back control of their health. Her newest release book, Age Like a Girl, redefines what it means to grow older as a woman.Rooted in the latest science and rich in personal story, the book challenges outdated narratives about menopause and aging offering instead a roadmap for awakening. Dr. Mindy shows women how to use the neurochemical shifts of midlife as a launchpad for purpose, leadership, and bold reinvention.
Dr. Mindy’s Resetter Podcast consistently ranks among Apple’s top U.S. science shows, with guests ranging from LeAnn Rimes and Rachel Hollis to Dr. Rangan Chatterjee. Her YouTube channel has surpassed 110 million views, and her teachings have reached hundreds of thousands through workshops, online programs, and live events.
Dr. Mindy Pelz is a New York Times bestselling author, visionary educator, and trailblazer in the field of women’s health and hormone science. With over two decades of experience, she’s built a global movement to help women understand the power of their bodies at every stage of life. Her bestselling books, including Fast Like a Girl, The Menopause Reset, and Eat Like a Girl, have helped millions of women use fasting, nutrition, and lifestyle shifts to balance hormones, boost energy, and take back control of their health. Her newest release book, Age Like a Girl, redefines what it means to grow older as a woman.Rooted in the latest science and rich in personal story, the book challenges outdated narratives about menopause and aging offering instead a roadmap for awakening. Dr. Mindy shows women how to use the neurochemical shifts of midlife as a launchpad for purpose, leadership, and bold reinvention.
Dr. Mindy’s Resetter Podcast consistently ranks among Apple’s top U.S. science shows, with guests ranging from LeAnn Rimes and Rachel Hollis to Dr. Rangan Chatterjee. Her YouTube channel has surpassed 110 million views, and her teachings have reached hundreds of thousands through workshops, online programs, and live events.
Order the book: Age Like a Girl
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Website: https://drmindypelz.com/
Podcast: The Resetter Podcast
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Get your copy of The Hormone Shift: Balance Your Body and Thrive Through Midlife and Menopause
Host & Production Team
Host & Production Team
Host: Dr. Taz; Produced by ClipGrowth.com (Producer: Pat Gostek)
Creators and Guests
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What is hol+ with Dr. Taz MD | The Future of Medicine is Holistic?
hol+ with Dr. Taz MD is redefining holistic medicine as the future of healthcare—integrating modern science, functional medicine, and time-tested healing systems to treat the whole human, not just symptoms. As a 2025 Webby honoree and pioneering show, hol+ dares to enter the next dimension of health-where both science and spirit converge to drive our health, happiness, relationships and family ecosystems.
Recent guests include mental health advocate and author, Sophie Gregorie Trudeau, best-selling author, Katherine Schwarzenegger, Emmy-winning host, actor, and health enthusiast, Cameron Mathison, supermodel Carol Alt, veteran actress and sometimes medicine woman, Jane Seymour, author and journalist, Tamsen Fadal, wellness advocate and cancer thriver, Kris Carr.
From cutting-edge and innovative experts to celebrities and thought leaders, veteran TV personality, author, and trople board-certified physician, Dr. Taz MD, the host of hol+, leads these game-changing conversations - redefining the future of medicine.
On the heels of her successful 8-year-long podcast, Super Woman Wellness, which boasted over 1 million downloads, hol+ continues to be recognized as a show to watch, recognized in the same category as the Mel Robbins Podcast in the 29th Annual Webby Awards.
Dr. Taz: [00:00:00] Before we get into today's topic, I just wanna say thank you to everyone who's been listening and reaching out. Your dms mean the world. They tell me what's helping, what's confusing, and what's next for you. So if you haven't yet, come connect with me on Instagram at Dr. Taaz md. I'd love to hear your story and what brought you to whole.
Dr. Taz: Now let's dive in.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Depression, anxiety, insomnia, suicidal thoughts. Like I could just feel that I was no longer myself and my [00:00:30] brain wasn't a fit to the life I had created. Mm. So the brain makes a change that changes your behavior.
Dr. Taz: My next guest is here to rewrite the narrative around midlife. If you haven't heard of the book Fast like a girl, I don't know where you've been.
Dr. Taz: I have been such a fan of that book, but Took the World by Storm. Dr. Mindy Pelz is my guest today. She's a New York Times bestselling author, a leading voice in women's health, and the host of the popular [00:01:00] podcast, the Resetter podcast. She's joining me to talk about her newest book, age Like a Girl. 70% of
Dr. Mindy Pelz: divorces are initiated by women.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Mm-hmm. After 40, her brain rewired, and in that rewire, she's making new decisions. Right. I think there needs to be a new discussion with couples that have been married a long time of. Okay. I do things for myself now. I do things differently. My brain is rewired and is behaving differently, so [00:01:30] we need to have new conversations within the relationships.
Dr. Taz: So many women feel like they're falling apart. So many women feel like they become a shadow version of their original selves, right?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: In all the research I did, we are not victims to this experience. We, our brain is literally rewiring itself. So that we can start to take on new identities, live life on our terms, instead of being held hostage to what everybody [00:02:00] else wants us to do.
Dr. Taz: Her newest book, it's here today, age Like a Girl, reframes, midlife, not as a decline, but as a biologically designed brain and identity reset.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: The worst thing you could do is keep doing the same over and over again, over and over, and over again. And if you look at like the generations that were ahead of us, that's kind of what they, what they do.
Dr. Taz: Yeah. They kind of get set in their,
Dr. Mindy Pelz: in their
Dr. Taz: ways, right? We eat dinner, we watch a show. End of the night, we go to bed, [00:02:30] we wake back up. Worst thing you
Dr. Mindy Pelz: could do.
Dr. Taz: And I think that's, is that why retirement is the worst construct ever invented by mankind?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: The stimulation. To your brain goes way down in retirement.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Whereas if you're using your brain in creative ways at work or you're interacting with other people and now you're at home, the, the statistics on retirement terrible. They're terrible. Like, and you, you're aging starts to accelerate. So, yeah, [00:03:00] exactly. The complacency, the same, same, same, is going to keep us depressed.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Anxiety, I believe, is, is you're fearful about the future, and so you're fearful about the future because you're, you haven't created anything to be excited about in your future.
Dr. Taz: Well, this is exciting. You're here today with me on Pub day.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah.
Dr. Taz: The book is Age Like a Girl. Just the title itself feels like it.
Dr. Taz: Those words don't go together.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Excellent. And and you really age like a girl.
Dr. Taz: Is that excellent? [00:03:30] Is that, can we still be girls? Yes. Is that all possible?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yes. It's so funny because like a girl is the brand, right? Right. So we did fast like a girl, eat Like a girl. So then I was trying to think of a title for this and.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: What was really interesting is that in writing the book, I realized that the title means something completely different than it did for Fast like a girl and Eat Like a girl. Yeah. In the sense that there are qualities that we had when we were little girls that I think we lose as we a hundred
Dr. Taz: percent.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Right?
Dr. Taz: Yeah.
We
Dr. Mindy Pelz: become like grown [00:04:00] up responsible women. We lose that playful essence of who we are. And in all the research I did for the book, I'm like, wait a second. We're supposed to bring those qualities back. Back
Dr. Taz: to my giggling. Yes. And all of the pranks I played on, all the nurses and teachers and all that, that's also supposed to, oh my God,
Dr. Mindy Pelz: you did.
Dr. Taz: My team is gonna be like, we're out.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Oh my gosh,
Dr. Taz: we're out. Yeah. Oh gosh. It was pretty mischievous as a girl, honestly. Yeah, I was definitely more playful. Definitely a lot more [00:04:30] fun. And then life kind of happens, right? Yeah. And you become, you know, a wife and a mom and a, you know, a leader and a C, all these other roles basically.
Dr. Taz: Yeah. That we have to play. And that kind of disappears, you know? Right. And every now and then it comes back out, and especially comes back out when I'm with my friends from those periods of time. Right. True. And you forget that that's. You know who you used to be. Yeah. Do a lot of women feel that way?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: So it's really interesting because one of the main concepts of the book came from [00:05:00] Carol Gilligan's work. Do you know, are you familiar with her work? No, I
Dr. Taz: dunno. Her.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Okay. So she was a, a, a feminist psychologist.
Dr. Taz: Okay.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: And she actually studied girls in the 1980s, which was me and grow. What, what happens to teenage girls when they go through?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Puberty. And here's what she discovered.
Dr. Taz: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Was that if you ask a girl at nine what she wants, um, she'll tell you exactly what she wants. So you ask a boy and a girl, what do you want to eat? Let's say, and she'll tell you, ex, they'll both tell you [00:05:30] exactly what they want. By 11 boy will tell you exactly what he wants.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: I've
Dr. Taz: seen this.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yes. The girl will start to waver by 13. The boy still tells you what he wants and the girl will say, I don't know. What are you going to eat?
Dr. Taz: Oh my gosh.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Right. We all resonate with that. And what she discovered was that the culture, we could call it the patriarchal culture, whatever you wanna call it, trained girls, that you are worthy if you are selfless.
Dr. Taz: Hmm. By the time they're 13.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yes. This [00:06:00] is the world we've all grown up in is look this way and you will be loved. Act this way and you will be, you can, you can be, you know anything you wanna be, as long as you act kind and compassionate. Don't be too emotional, don't be too much this. And so we are constantly getting this message, uh, by the culture, by teachers, by El authority, telling us to behave a certain way so we are worthy.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Hmm. And if you actually start to unpack [00:06:30] that, you realize that when we move through menopause, a lot of this we don't care anymore, is really a, we can't keep up with that messaging anymore. We can't keep wrapping ourselves up in little bows and making ourselves feel and look like we fit into the culture.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: And I think what happens to a lot of women is they start. Telling their truth, acting the way they wanna act, and it's very similar to what they were as little girls.
Dr. Taz: So many women feel like they're falling apart. So many [00:07:00] women feel like they become a shadow version of their original selves. Right? So many women I talk to, I'm sure you do as well.
Dr. Taz: How do we help women find that girl again? How do we help, you know, kind of bring that light back into her eyes and, and really help light her back up? I know that, you know, people feel like it's over when they hit midlife, they feel like they're done or they're clock is ticking and there's almost this profound sense of grief or sadness, you know, associated [00:07:30] with that phase of life.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah.
Dr. Taz: But I think you're trying to reframe it Yeah. In a very different way. So tell us. A little bit about what you're hoping, you know, all of us will start to think about when we think about midlife and aging and how it's not necessarily a sentence or a closed chapter.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Right.
Dr. Taz: But something to really open us back up.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: That's right. Yeah. So what's interesting is what I'm hoping we see is that instead of bitching and moaning about this phase, which I think we've gone from not talking about it [00:08:00] to complaining about it,
Dr. Taz: right.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: And like in that. It's almost like we are victims to the, to the process. Mm. And in all the research I did.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: There's no, we are not victims to this experience. We, our brain is literally rewire, rewiring itself so that we can start to take on new identities, live life on our terms, instead of being held hostage to what everybody else wants us [00:08:30] to do. So what I'm hoping to accomplish with this is. A better understanding that this is a process that's happening for us.
Dr. Taz: Mm.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Not to us
Dr. Taz: or against us,
Dr. Mindy Pelz: or against us. So think of it like this. I mean, I'll use myself as an example. Um, you know, in my late, I'm 56 years old, in my late forties, I started having a lot of the symptoms that so many women have. Mm-hmm. Depression, anxiety, insomnia, um, you know, suicidal [00:09:00] thoughts. Like, I could just feel that I was no longer myself and my brain wasn't a.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Fit to the life I had created.
Dr. Taz: Mm.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Fast. Like a girl had come out, like my career was taking off. Um, but there was like something inside me that was like, I don't know if I wanna play this game anymore.
Dr. Taz: Right? Right.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Like, why am I playing this game? I'm playing this game so people love me. What if I just love me?
Dr. Taz: Mm.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Those kind of. Thoughts started to kinda rumble underneath me [00:09:30] and, um, I'll never forget I ended up going into therapy because of it
Dr. Taz: around that time.
Yeah.
Dr. Taz: When you're at the height of your success.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah.
Dr. Taz: Wow.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, because I, and, and here's what some of those therapy sessions look like, is. I don't want my success to define me because if I'm addicted to this, what happens when it goes away?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: What happens when people stop wanting to watch what I'm my videos or read my books? Like what happens? Who am I if all of [00:10:00] that goes away? So we spent, my therapist and I, we spent a whole year of like, who am I? Can I, what is Mindy like outside of the brand that I had built, and one of the things that my therapist said to me that I encourage every woman to say to themselves is like.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: What do I wanna do now?
Dr. Taz: Mm. I love that. You know, we are so in sync because I recently had the same realization.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yep.
Dr. Taz: And I'm a little bit younger than you, but recently it was like there's this character, [00:10:30] Dr. Taz out there.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yes.
Dr. Taz: And this character does a lot of stuff Right. And you know, a whole list of things.
Dr. Taz: But at the end of the day, who is Taine Batia? Who is that person? Yep. That started out in childhood, did all the things she did, you know who is that person? Yeah. And when Dr. Tiles goes away, what is actually left? And the weird thing for me, with as much as I know. I wasn't actually depressed by it. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Taz: I was actually looking forward to it. [00:11:00]
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah.
Dr. Taz: Because I think there's so much responsibility and so much that's put on us for whatever reasons, whatever our motivations are, right? Yeah. Whether that's acceptance or ambition, whatever you wanna call it. That I was like, oh my gosh, wouldn't it be fun to go back to that person and do the things?
Dr. Taz: Whether it's like, I was sitting in a, a florist shop the other day and I was like, I would love to just arrange flowers.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Right? I
Dr. Taz: don't arrange flowers anymore. I would love to just make. Fabulous meals. Yeah. You know, [00:11:30] right now it's like, it's a scene in our house. There are 12, 12 burners going, and I'm throwing things all over the place just so food's ready for three days.
Dr. Taz: Yeah. You know what I mean? But I would actually love to make one dish and make it really, really well and enjoy it and savor it.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah.
Dr. Taz: So I. I am not fearful of what's next, but I know so many women are.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah.
Dr. Taz: And so many women feel like they're falling apart, feel like midlife is the end, don't know how to navigate the transition, but at the same time are incredibly [00:12:00] tired.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Right.
Dr. Taz: Not to be mean, but are incredibly tired of the menopause conversation.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Oh yeah. Agreed.
Dr. Taz: Incredibly tired of like, do I do HRT? Yes. Or do I not? Thank you. Let's talk about hormones again. I, I wrote a book on hormones and I'm tired of it too. Right. Me, you know what I mean, too. Me too. So me too. I'm so exhausted by it.
Dr. Taz: Yeah. So, you know, what, what would you like. To help women with
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah.
Dr. Taz: Who wanna get to this place that, where it feels like we both have had this realization. Yeah. How do we all get there? How do we all [00:12:30] get to this place? Yeah. Where, you know, we are looking forward to whatever's next.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: That's right. Um, I'd love, thank you for sharing your story, by the way.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah. That's,
Dr. Taz: I, it's just so similar.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: So similar. So I did the same thing. I was like, who is Mindy? Outside of Dr. Mindy?
Dr. Taz: Yeah.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: And like. Like, I need to make sure I don't become the thing I created.
Dr. Taz: Right.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Right. And it was like, I need to be an individual from that caricature. So thank you for saying that. So I, I wanna start there.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Here's what I think we need to look at [00:13:00] this time of life. And I too, by the way, am exhausted with the menopause conversation and. Part of why I'm exhausted is that we just have taken this whole idea of menopause and now we're telling women like, make sure you lift weights, make sure you eat enough protein.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Oh, you didn't get the right patch. Yeah. Follow
Dr. Taz: up with all the protein.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah,
Dr. Taz: it's so much
Dr. Mindy Pelz: protein. It's too much protein. And like, oh, you, you did, your doctor won't prescribe you HRT, you found the wrong doctor. You need to go a different doctor. Oh, HR t's not working for you. You didn't [00:13:30] get the dose right.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Like it's, it's more. For women to do in a period when they're exhausted. Yeah. And here's how I'd like to reframe this. The version of who you were. She served you for a time in your life. You get to put parts of her down now and you get to create new versions of yourself.
Dr. Taz: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: And in these new versions, you might find that you liked parts of you as a little girl and you get to bring this back.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: You were not. Meant to stay the same [00:14:00] through this process, and I think the depression, the anxiety, the insomnia, the suicidal thoughts, all of that that's stirring in women is really this authentic version of a woman that is unfolding. I always use. The concept of a butterfly. Mm. And I speak about it in the book, and I know it's a very overused metaphor, but actually if you dive into what the butterfly does is that it's a caterpillar that has something [00:14:30] inside of it, is born with something called imaginal cells.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: That is its true essence. And when the caterpillar gets tired of consuming. Consuming life. It's bloated on grass. It actually, something inside itself triggers it to start to create a chrysalis around it. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Taz: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: It creates a chrysalis around it and dissolves its entire being inside this chrysalis, it's dark, it's gooey.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: There's not anybody else in the [00:15:00] chrysalis, it's just the caterpillar, and eventually becomes. Just the imaginal cells.
Dr. Taz: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: And the imaginal cells are what start to build the butterfly. So when you look at this process, what I metaphorically want women to understand through a story like that is that there is an essence of who you were meant to be.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Like maybe you were, I love that you were like humorous because I was that too. I got in a lot of school trouble for being the funny one in the [00:15:30] group or in the classroom. But I'm bringing that playful version of me back that was in my imaginal cells. And so we get to butterfly it, turn into a new version of us, and the caterpillar and the butterfly are completely different.
Dr. Taz: Yeah.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: And so this time of our life is meant for a transformation. And that if we looked at it like that, you have a daughter?
Dr. Taz: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: When my daughter was in middle school. We were besties. [00:16:00] Like I was like, I don't know what every anybody's talking about. The mother daughter, right. Fighting. That doesn't happen.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: We're besties until she went through a hormonal change. I
Dr. Taz: was about to say we were not besties middle school.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Oh, well we were besties, but in high school,
Dr. Taz: yeah.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: I became the enemy.
Dr. Taz: Yeah.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: And we all know that a teenage girl, when her hormones come in, she's changing into a different version. She's preparing for adulthood.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Why don't we give menopause that same conversation? You have a woman who [00:16:30] has played by the rules, most of us, that society set up for us, and when we start to break down the neurological changes that are happening to the brain through this, it really appears to me, and I think to a lot of women when they start to hear this, that you're supposed to become somebody different.
Dr. Taz: So I love the fact that you frame all of this in this idea of brain resetting or brain remodeling. Yeah. Not to get too geeky, but you know, let's get into the science. Yeah, let's do it. I like it. You know what exactly is happening. [00:17:00] Yeah. If we get down to chemistry and physiology and. Biology and all these different things.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah. So, okay, so there's a couple of things. So the first thing that I think is really interesting, and this is gonna be really fun to talk with you about, is that women have a thicker corpus callosum in the brain than men do. What that means is that our ability to bring in our right hemisphere and our left hemisphere fear of our brain is, we're very agile with that.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: So we're smarter. We are smarter. Sorry. Well,
Dr. Taz: [00:17:30] let's, let's, I'm just gonna slide that in
Dr. Mindy Pelz: there, but let's break it down because it, you're right though. When you, when you study the female body and the female brain, we're very sophisticated. Mm-hmm. I, this is the way I like to explain it, and, and no insult to men, but we are like a, a, a violin that you need to finely tune and we have a lot of notes that we can play, whereas a ma, a male body and brain is more like a kazoo.
Dr. Taz: Mm.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: No, I I don't mean that in a put down.
Dr. Taz: We love you all guys.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: You have one note?
Dr. Taz: Yeah.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: You have one note. [00:18:00] Just play one note. And your body and brain works. We have to be tuned.
Dr. Taz: Mm.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: So the, with this added highway between the right and left hemisphere, we actually can bring our logical mind in with the left hemisphere, and we bring our relational creative mind in with the right hemisphere.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: And we use them both at the same. Time, and this highway gets stimulated by estrogen. So when a girl goes through [00:18:30] puberty, all of a sudden, if we go back to Carol Gilligan's work, you have a girl that's using both her right and left hemisphere to make every decision. The right hemisphere is highly relational.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: The left hemisphere is highly logical. So we're bringing both of these to every single decision we make, which is why I think we become. Easy to manipulate. Right. Do you see what I'm, where I'm going with this?
Dr. Taz: Yes. I absolutely see this. I'm even [00:19:00] thinking about just how we make decisions, right? As women, you know, our decisions are not always like A plus B, equal C.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: That's
Dr. Taz: right. You know what I mean? Many times they're like, okay, well I feel this way. I understand the facts, but this is where I'm gonna land on my decision. Yeah. It's a lot of what makes us. Successful. But at the same time, if we're not careful, it's a lot of what leads to manipulation and Yep. Like wrong turns along the way.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: So like if the culture says, behave this way and you'll be loved, you start [00:19:30] using that right side of your brain in every relationship to make sure that you don't. Disrupt a a or upset anybody because then you might not be loved in a decision that you're, you're trying to make. You're always bringing that right hemisphere.
Dr. Taz: Mm. Interesting.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: So, so I've even gone as far down the road as the rabbit hole, I should say, as to really think about, um. Narcissists Uhhuh and how we fall prey to narcissists.
Dr. Taz: Yes. So many women fall prey to narcissists,
Dr. Mindy Pelz: and I think it's because of this relational brain. We [00:20:00] also have more oxytocin receptor sites in our amygdala.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Mm-hmm. So we tend, there's a, a stress response called tend and befriend. Mm-hmm. And so we often go in and start to connect to other people when we're stressed. And I think a narcissist can come in and really be charismatic and love us and we've attached oxytocin to that.
Dr. Taz: Interesting.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: And then they turn on us, but we still attach oxytocin to it, which keeps us captive.
Dr. Taz: So her brain's a really powerful tool, really. But we spent no time [00:20:30] thinking about it. Training and understanding, like the way you've just explained it, like probably would've helped me five years ago when I was with, you know, in the throes of things with my daughter. Like understanding which lever she's pulling.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yep.
Dr. Taz: At which time, but bringing us back to now and into middle age, you know. How do we navigate those two brains? Like is one brain collapsing a little bit? Yes. Is the other brain coming more forward?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, so this was Lisa Moe's work. When you actually dive into the depths of what she studied is that the brain [00:21:00] lateralizes itself, and so we stop using this cross connection.
Dr. Taz: Interesting.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: So this is why the subtitle is for more mental clarity, better confidence. Mm-hmm. Because when you dive into the science, we're actually meant to be more focused on the other side, on the other side of menopause, because our brain goes from this cross-referenced mentality to, oh, I can sit on a couch and I can have a bed.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Deep conversation with a girlfriend, and [00:21:30] I'm in my right hemisphere only. I'm not bringing the left hemisphere in because remember, estrogen connected the two without the same levels of estrogen, our brains will operate more in this lateralized way. So I can be fully emotional and. Click out of the logical, and I can do the opposite.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Where I can go fully into logical and be really good at my business, be really good at goal setting, and not bring the other side of the brain in. We will [00:22:00] stay more, it's more like a male brain. We are more in tune with one side of the brain at a time, not both together.
Dr. Taz: Is this why women make big decisions when they hit mid-age?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: That's
Dr. Taz: right. Is this why people get divorced or get married? Yes. Or start that business or go back to school? Or is this what's going
Dr. Mindy Pelz: on? Exactly. It's exactly. So the brain, literally, this is why I'm like, we have to talk about the rewire, not you didn't get enough enough. HRT, like. And even if [00:22:30] you're on HRT, you're not having the same estrogen levels that you had, right?
Dr. Taz: Four.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Right?
Dr. Taz: Yeah.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: So the brain makes a change that changes your behavior. And so when we look at the divorce rate, 70% of divorces are initiated by women after 40, her brain rewired, and in that rewire, she's making new decisions. Now, I don't mean that every woman needs to get divorced. Right, right, right, right.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: In fact, we spent a lot of time, me and my collaborative [00:23:00] writers on this like this. I don't want this to be a divorce book.
Dr. Taz: Right.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: I think though there needs to be a new discussion with couples that have been married a long time, there needs to be a, an added discussion of like, okay, I do things for myself now.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: I do things differently. My brain is rewired and is. Behaving differently. So we need to have new conversations within the relationship. So
Dr. Taz: can a male, if you were looking at a male female relationship Yeah. Going through these [00:23:30] changes in both brains, right. Going through changes.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Right.
Dr. Taz: Can they get there?
Dr. Taz: Can they get to where? Especially if attachment was based on something else way back in the beginning. Yep. Right. Can as people, as people's brains basically change. And I had another super fascinating podcast episode that we did with someone who talked about us, Sarah Hill. She talked about, oh
Dr. Mindy Pelz: yeah.
Dr. Taz: How the birth control pill can change who we are and who we're not attracted to.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah.
Dr. Taz: Crazy. Right. It's
Dr. Mindy Pelz: crazy.
Dr. Taz: But we're having [00:24:00] kind of the same conversation on this side of Yeah. The the age equation. Right. Where now like our brains are changing, so we're gonna start to see each other a little bit differently.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah.
Dr. Taz: How does a couple, you know, how do couples kind of get through that sticky.
Dr. Taz: Space. You know what, what, what you see?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Well, the, so the first thing is we have to open the conversation up, right? And so I put a, in the book, I put an appendix to men so that, that I, 'cause I knew women would read this book and see themselves and they'd turn around and try to explain it. If they were in a heterosexual relationship, try [00:24:30] to explain it to their husband.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: I was like, well, let me just write a chapter.
Dr. Taz: Texas are like, huh?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, lemme just write a chapter for Ben so you can hand the book to. And just say, just read this one chapter.
Dr. Taz: Yeah.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: So, so we have to open the conversation up is the first thing. Second thing, you know, I've turned to a couple mental health experts and brought them on my podcast Yeah.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: To try to understand this, right. Uh, Jillian Treki. Mm-hmm. And Terry Real.
Dr. Taz: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Um, Terry Real, uh, he specializes in, in men and helping men. And understand [00:25:00] how to be fully present in a heterosexual relationship. So I think we need to, first thing is bring it to a bigger conversation where we all step into it and we start to look at this differently.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Because what's happening is women are like, he doesn't understand me. And yet she doesn't understand herself. She just, her behaviors and her opinions changed. Mm-hmm. And then we have a culture of that is really hyper independent right now. Yes.
Dr. Taz: Yes. And I think that's a [00:25:30] problem, actually.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: I think it's a problem too.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: And people like Aire Perel
Dr. Taz: Yeah.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Are starting to talk about it.
Dr. Taz: Right.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: So I can only share what I've done in my 30 year marriage. Right. Which I think is, I'm really proud of what we've done.
Dr. Taz: That's huge.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah.
Dr. Taz: Yeah. You should be, you should be proud.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah. It's
Dr. Taz: incredible.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: So what we did is we started classifying our marriage as different phases.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Mm. So the marriage we had before, children, we call marriage 1.0.
Dr. Taz: Okay.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: The marriage with once children came is Marriage 2.0 and the marriage [00:26:00] as an empty nester is marriage 3.0. And so the discussions we have is what are we creating now in this time of life as opposed to trying to do it the way we've done it always and
Dr. Taz: trying to go back to something.
Dr. Taz: Yeah. Yeah. And that, and I think that's where a lot of couples get lost. That's right. It's like you have to, you literally have to reinvent. Yeah. So for women, going back to women who are in this phase, you know, you. Paint a picture that's very hopeful, very promising. Really exciting, right? Yeah. But the reality, and I'm [00:26:30] sure you see this on your end too, is that the majority of women can't get through the phase.
Dr. Taz: Yeah. The majority of women, I feel like are stuck in either a state where they're irritable or they're depressed, or they're uncomfortable, or they're just unhappy. I don't know how else to say it. And the. The worst sort of iteration of that is the women who truly are starting to experience like brain deficits, right?
Dr. Taz: Yeah. They have brain fog, they have low levels of dementia, [00:27:00] they're forgetting things they can't perform at work. Yeah. You know? So for these women who are just kind of swimming, you know, they're struggling and they're swimming.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah.
Dr. Taz: How do we reconcile? This message of hope where hey, the brain can actually be, you know, something more powerful and used to your advantage in this next phase of life.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah.
Dr. Taz: How do we get them over there? You know, when they're kind of like sitting in in the depths. Yeah. It just feeling,
Dr. Mindy Pelz: yeah.
Dr. Taz: Like a different person
Dr. Mindy Pelz: and I, I really wanna honor that. I'm not [00:27:30] trying to smooth over Right,
Dr. Taz: right,
Dr. Mindy Pelz: right. That phase. 'cause I've been in that phase. Yeah, sure. I shared in the book, but here's a couple of things.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: I call this the brain remodel project. Mm-hmm. I think if we label it like a project, like understand if you've remodeled any part of your house, there's dust and there's, there's confusion and the timelines seem ambiguous and they always go longer. So understand your brain is remodeling itself for the better, so that gives a lot of compassion there.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Second thing, and something I think we really need to bring forward [00:28:00] in the hormone conversation. Mm-hmm. Is you are not just losing a few sex hormones,
Dr. Taz: right?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: When you actually look at estrogen, specifically estradiol, she stimulated over like 12 neurochemicals. Ones. We depend on dopamine, serotonin, acetylcholine, gaba, glutamate, oxytocin, BDNF.
Dr. Taz: So many,
Dr. Mindy Pelz: so many. She's like the diva. So like when she's in main
Dr. Taz: character energy, for sure.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah. When she's like, peace out.
Dr. Taz: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: I'm going away. All of [00:28:30] those neurochemicals are vulnerable. But what we haven't really brought forward that I really want women to understand is everything you do every single moment of your day is providing a neurochemical reaction in your body.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: So let's use dopamine as an example. Okay? Dopamine loves novelty. So if you go rushing into your forties and you're like, same routine, same thing. Dress the same, workout, the same, drive, the same, everything's same, same, [00:29:00] same. You might hit a point where you're like, I'm bored with this life because, or I'm depressed because nothing's bringing you the juice, uh, anymore because estrogen brought.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Dopamine in, and now she's going dopamine's going down, but the environment's not dopamine stimulating. So how do we bring novelty into our lives? That could look like rearranging your living room.
Dr. Taz: Hmm.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Like rearrange the furniture in your living room and see how you [00:29:30] feel. That might look like you start going to a different supermarket.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: You might do a different workout. I've been thinking a lot about this weightlifting, like stress we're putting on women, right? Like, if you don't lift weight, you're gonna get Alzheimer's.
Dr. Taz: Right.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Well, what if I go into a gym? I hate it in there. I'm lifting weights because I was told I was supposed to lift weights.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Cortisol's going up, up, up. In the one hour I'm in the gym. I'm not getting natural light. I could take that same hour, go hiking [00:30:00] or go walking, or go somewhere with a. Friend, I'm getting oxytocin from the connection to the friend I'm outside in, in and getting, uh, receptor site. We have receptor sites in our eyes for serotonin.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: I'm getting take your sunglasses off, let light turn, uh, make your receptor sites, turn that into serotonin. Maybe you start storytelling in a walk and so you're making your brain make acetylcholine. These neurotransmitters we can bring back through. [00:30:30] Something as simple as changing our lifestyle. If you weren't meant, you're not meant to stay the same, you're not meant to have the same identity.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: So guess what? Change up your lifestyle and dopamine and all those neurochemicals will come back.
Dr. Taz: So is a part of aging, just complacency.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Uh, yes.
Dr. Taz: Just like, oh, yeah. Accepting the status quo. Oh, yeah. Not being willing to take a risk. Not being willing to make a change. Yeah. Not being willing to try something new or, or kind of being a, a prisoner to, to fear or just to some of these [00:31:00] things.
Dr. Taz: Is that just a part of aging?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: I think it's a beautiful way to look at this because it is complacency. Like the worst thing you could do is keep doing the same
Dr. Taz: over and over again,
Dr. Mindy Pelz: over and over and over again. And if you look at like, the generations that were ahead of us, that's kind of what they, what they do.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah. I, I, my pa parents are 89 and
Dr. Taz: 86. Yeah. They kinda get set in their Yeah. Ways, right? We eat dinner, we watch a show. End of the night, we go to bed, we wake back up. The worst thing you
Dr. Mindy Pelz: could do,
Dr. Taz: and I think that's, is that why we're retirement? I [00:31:30] think is the worst construct ever invented by mankind.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: The stimulation to your brain goes way down in retirement, whereas if you're using your brain in creative ways at work or you're interacting with other people, and now you're at home, the the statistics on retirement terrible.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: They're terrible. Like, and you, your aging starts to accelerate. So yeah, exactly. The complacency, the same, same, same is going to [00:32:00] keep us depressed. And an anxiety, I believe is, is you're fearful about the future, and so you're fearful about the future because you're, you haven't created anything to be excited about in your future.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: So I wanna like start looking at this as we need to have a neurochemical view of the lifestyle that we create after 40, because our whole neurochemical system changed. So what are we doing with our lifestyle to adapt to that change? [00:32:30]
Dr. Taz: What else would you tell women? And we can probably include men too.
Dr. Taz: Like if you really wanna age like a girl, you know, in addition to finding new opportunities, new experiences that trigger dopamine. Yeah. That's the science of this, you know, what else do we need to be thinking about if we are willing to accept the fact that we need to remodel our brains?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah. Well, so the, and just so we are clear.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: The brain's gonna remodel itself anyways,
Dr. Taz: even if we don't participate.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah. Even if we don't [00:33:00] participate.
Dr. Taz: Yeah.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: So, so I just don't wanna create another have to for women. Right. Exactly.
Dr. Taz: Like
Dr. Mindy Pelz: your brain's going there.
Dr. Taz: Yeah.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: So, um, there's another concept I put in the book.
Dr. Taz: I, I wanna stop for a second. Yeah.
Dr. Taz: The have to, I think that's a really important point, right? Yeah. Because I hear that from a ton of women, you know, like, yeah. I don't have energy for this. No, but like, it feels overwhelming. These are some of the words, like to get the diet right, to get the fitness right. Now. Now to your point, you're right.
Dr. Taz: Like, okay, now we have to remodel our brains too. Like [00:33:30] where's that on the list? Right? So, so yes, please tell us like what, what is naturally, easily. Something women should start to be thinking about as they hit 40 and maybe then as they hit 50.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah. So, and, and yeah. This is such a big point. I love, we're in alignment on this because the worst thing we can do as, I hate this term, but as health influencers mm-hmm.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Is create another long, another thing
Dr. Taz: to do.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Another thing to do. So this is about coming back. To you [00:34:00] and starting to take parts of you back that were taken away from you. So this isn't, there's nothing to do other than if you are noticing you're depressed, you're anxious, um, you're not sleeping.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Understand that there are little micro things you can do in your lifestyle every day that don't cost money that. Fun to do. Like wouldn't you rather go walking with a friend than go to the gym, put a rucking vest on if you want the added weight than go to the gym and hire a trainer so that you can do what [00:34:30] you were told to do on Instagram?
Dr. Taz: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Like, let's, let's start to look at this through a neurochemical lens. Okay. But to answer your question, at 40, I wanna create a good checklist for women. Yes, absolutely. So the first thing I think we need to talk about, um, is that the brain becomes less. Able to use glucose. So this means that our food matters more once we go into this process than it ever did.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: If you are on ultra processed [00:35:00] foods that are high glycemic, high glucose, and ba, all the bad fats, your brain doesn't know how to use that glucose as well at 45 as it did at 35. Hmm. So the brain fog. Can really be helped by cleaning up your diet. Let's get natural foods, let's get protein. If you're vegan, great.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Just make sure you're getting enough protein. Let's just eat real food that it's in the book. I have [00:35:30] something called the Primal Menopausal Diet.
Dr. Taz: Mm.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Where it's really back to what? What are the hunter and gatherer women do at this point? Easy. It's not counting anything. It's looking at quality of food.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Second thing I think we need to do is really bring back this idea that there's another fuel source for the brain and it's called a ketone.
Dr. Taz: Yes.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: And I know I'm like a fasting zealot. Right. But I have watched Well,
Dr. Taz: I've heard that about you.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah. Like I know, and I've watched too many women [00:36:00] Yeah. Succeed at fasting to not, and I've seen the science I, you can't prove me.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: You can't change my opinion on this.
Dr. Taz: Okay, so fasting for women as they hit 40 and 50 is a part of aging like a girl.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, but let, let me explain a modified fasting, because again, I don't wanna create another half to, I wanna give an opportunity, okay. To a brain that might be ailing. So. My version of getting a ketone doesn't mean you restrict carbs.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: So that's the first thing. I'm like, eat a clean diet. If carbs are great, [00:36:30] um, protein's great, vegetables are great, let's just eat good quality food.
Dr. Taz: And I think most people, when they hear. Ketone. They hear keto.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yes.
Dr. Taz: And when they hear keto, they think keto diet. Yes. Which is really bringing those carbohydrates down significantly.
Dr. Taz: That's
Dr. Mindy Pelz: right.
Dr. Taz: And that's where I've seen women struggle terribly when they do that. So that's not what we're talking about.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: I'm not talking, I'm not asking women to restrict carbs. So please know that the second thing is I'm not even talking about like a [00:37:00] three day water fast. I'm not talking about long, fast, although I do think it's long, fast, or very helpful to the postmenopausal brain, not the perimenopausal brain.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: I think something as little as if. 13 to 15 hour intermittent fast every single day. What that does is it allows you to metabolically switch over to your fat burning system. Mm-hmm. That will burn the fat that you're already looking in the mirror and deciding that you're a horrible person and, and you're all the
Dr. Taz: [00:37:30] negative,
Dr. Mindy Pelz: all the negative talk.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Mm-hmm. What you can do is if you do 13 to 15 hours every single day, your body will burn that fat and it'll make a ketone.
Dr. Taz: So is this for the. Perimenopausal, menopausal or postmenopausal?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Well, let's start with perimenopausal. Okay.
Dr. Taz: So we're in perimenopause. Yeah, we're talking 40 to maybe 51, 52, 53. Perfect.
Dr. Taz: Yeah, somewhere in that range. Yeah. So there's been a lot of back and forth about fasting and some of the, the research and I'm so curious what you about. Yeah, let's go
Dr. Mindy Pelz: there.
Dr. Taz: Some of the research has said [00:38:00] that. Consistent fasting that way, 15 to 16 hours actually lowers your metabolic rate when you do it for a long period of time.
Dr. Taz: Yeah. And then there are others that are saying this sort of fasting is creating more cortisol, more stress for the body, and worsens the whole cortisol, you know, resistance, insulin resistance picture that perimenopausal women experience. Yeah. Tell me what you would say to that.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah. Okay. So first, perimenopausal women, we're assuming you still have a cycle.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: So I really wanna point [00:38:30] that out. And in fca, girl, I still stand by everything I put in that book. Right. Which is the week before your period. Do not fast.
Dr. Taz: Okay. I want to make sure everybody heard that.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah.
Dr. Taz: That is the most critical time when we look at Ayurvedic medicine, Chinese medicine, all these older systems of medicine.
Dr. Taz: That week before your period is a depletion state.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: That's right.
Dr. Taz: That's where we're saying, please don't fast.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Please don't fast. The phrase I say is, when cortisol goes high, progesterone becomes shy.
Dr. Taz: Mm. I like that. Ooh, I like that.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: That's how I steal that. Yeah. [00:39:00] Take it.
Dr. Taz: When cortisol goes high, progesterone goes shy.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah.
Dr. Taz: That's easy to remember.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Right?
Dr. Taz: There we go.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: So anytime your body's trying to make. Progesterone. You don't need cortisol. Cortisol is the enemy of progesterone. Yes. So that means fasting is like exercise, even in a small dose will raise cortisol in the body. Mm-hmm. So you don't wanna be fasting the week before your period.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: The other thing that I taught my patients a lot is once you women in perimenopause starts spotting right. So you, a lot of women are like, well, I'm on day [00:39:30] 60,
Dr. Taz: right?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: My period doesn't come. I don't know what's going on. And they're like, I started spotty, and I'm like, stop fasting. Mm-hmm. More carbs. 'cause progesterone also needs glucose to go up.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: This is why we crave carbs the week before our period. Right? Our brilliant bodies are like, Hey, gimme a little more glucose, gimme some more carbs, gimme some chocolate. Then I've got all the right ingredients to actually make enough progesterone. So, but what we do, we are like, oh, I can't stick to my diet.
Dr. Taz: Right.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: I can't [00:40:00] fast. I don't feel like working out. It's the week before my period.
Dr. Taz: It's much noise. So much noise.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah.
Dr. Taz: Yeah. So don't fast the week before your period and if you're spotting, don't fast,
Dr. Mindy Pelz: you stop. You. You
Dr. Taz: okay? What about everybody
Dr. Mindy Pelz: else? So, okay, so otherwise day, if you have a, a fairly regular cycle, like day one of your cycle, which is the day your period starts, I know a lot of women I learned don't know.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: That's day one. Mm-hmm. That's day one. All the way till about day 20. You can do, you can intermittent fast and be [00:40:30] totally fine. It's just the week before your period. Please know, fasting, so. I think that's pretty simple for perimenopause. Mm-hmm. Um, I, I, I know I wanna add a side conversation Okay. On this that's really being had and, uh, Stacy Sims Yes.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Has been, uh, she, she has been promoting no fasting. For all menopausal women, but I actually brought her on my podcast and [00:41:00] we, I'm like, can we talk about this? Because women are getting confused. What she's saying is that if you are a very active woman, that fasting can is not a good combination with hard workouts.
Dr. Taz: Right.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: So if you are an endurance athlete, yes, you might start to look at fasting at from a different angle. And this is the angle I would look at it. And it doesn't matter where you are in, like if you're 45, [00:41:30] 55. I think once we go into post menopause, we just have a lot more stability. Mm-hmm. Um, over there.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: But understand if you're about to go into the gym, you're an active woman. In perimenopause and it's day 15 of your cycle and you're gonna go do a killer workout in the gym. Doing that in a fasted state may not be of benefit to you. That is what Stacey is saying.
Dr. Taz: Gotcha. Okay.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: She is saying get some protein.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Makes sense. Yeah, [00:42:00] get some And that makes sense to me too. Get some protein, get some amino acids before that workout. That makes perfect sense to me.
Dr. Taz: Now, does the type of workout matter, what about the women that are going in and lifting super heavy weights versus the woman,
Dr. Mindy Pelz: right,
Dr. Taz: you know, training for a marathon versus the woman going in to do yoga or Pilates or something along those lines.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: So if you're lifting heavy weights, you need amino acids and you can get that from food. You could get that from supplementation.
Dr. Taz: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: So I'm like [00:42:30] you, you said this earlier, I tried the one gram of protein for every pound of ideal body weight, and all I did is gain weight.
Dr. Taz: I gained weight.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah.
Dr. Taz: It was ridiculous.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: I've seen so many women do that. And I did that in conjunction with weightlifting. Mm-hmm. And, and actually my muscle mass went up, but so did my fat content. I just felt. Thick. I did not like that. And so I switched over to amino acid supplementation or like a powder in your water?
Dr. Taz: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: So [00:43:00] that I had the amino acids to go do my weightlifting, but I wasn't eating all this.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: I wasn't doing so much protein. So that, and then we,
Dr. Taz: that's like a sigh of relief to women everywhere. Yeah. I'm sure as they're listening to this right now, because so many of them have just looked at me and like, I can't do it. Yeah. I can't do the one gram of protein. No. You know, per pound of body weight a day.
Dr. Taz: Yeah. Yeah. And, and I empathize with them. I'm like, I can't either.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Right. Yeah. I can't do it either. My, one of my favorite memes that came out recently is like, I'm sorry I can't go to work today. I've gotta count my protein.
Dr. Taz: I know. [00:43:30]
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Right. And then you have women. That's so sad. It's so sad. And then I'm sure you have, you have on your, on, you know, all over your socials.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: I have women that are like, can you just show me what you know all the
Dr. Taz: time?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: What 30 grams of protein looks like? Yeah.
Dr. Taz: All the time.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: So we got, we're intuitive, we're sophisticated, we know our bodies. We've been taught to outsource. Everything when it comes to our female bodies, we out outside outsource what we want our body to look like.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: We outsource all the food we think we're supposed to eat. How about we go back into [00:44:00] what feels right for us?
Dr. Taz: So this fasting for women. Connected back to aging.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah.
Dr. Taz: And longevity in the brain.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah.
Dr. Taz: How is it helping us when we do do that 15 hour, 16 hour fast per day? How's that actually helping
Dr. Mindy Pelz: us? You are getting a splash of ketones and let me tell you what ketones do for the brain.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: The first, they bring all those neurotransmitters back. They calm the brain by bringing GABA back. They br. When a ketone at your body, your brain gets a ketone. It stimulates [00:44:30] dopamine production, it stimulates serotonin. You start to see oxytocin and BDNF, like all of those neurochemicals start to come back online when the ketone appears.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Mm, which is. Amazing. Second thing, the mitochondria in the neurons in our brain, they respond as we age. They are more fueled by a ketone than they are fueled by glucose.
Dr. Taz: Wow.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Lisa and I actually talked about this on my podcast when she was promoting her book.
Dr. Taz: [00:45:00] Right.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: I asked her, I was like, okay. But. Then are you telling me that the menopausal brain likes ketones more than glucose because of how much energy it can get from a ketone?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: And she's like, yeah, I've heard that from so many women. And I was like, okay, but you just said it's not as sensitive to glucose, so what are we supposed to do? And she's like, well keep glucose low. I said, but there's another fuel source here. [00:45:30] Couldn't we go over to that fuel source? And she was absolutely in agreement.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: People can go hear that on my podcast. Mm-hmm. I said, well, what's the research on that? And she goes, we don't have any. And I was like, can't you study it
Dr. Taz: right next?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Like, isn't that your job?
Dr. Taz: Yeah.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: She goes, one day I will.
Dr. Taz: Yeah.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: But, but what I've seen, I'm, I'm not joking. We have over 3 million women. Across all of our platforms.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Mm-hmm. And we have asked for feedback over and over and over again. I literally [00:46:00] have a team of people that bring back what are women experiencing with fasting. And the menopausal women are saying, my brain came back online within days.
Dr. Taz: Wow.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Once I started to do these short fasts every single day, my mental clarity, my calm, my my happiness came back.
Dr. Taz: So do you recommend, okay, so we've seen a lot of research and anecdotal, you know, reports from women around microdosing, GLP ones. Yeah. And their brain suddenly [00:46:30] clearing.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: There you go.
Dr. Taz: Go. So is this again. Getting women basically into a lower, you know, more of a fasting ish state.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah.
Dr. Taz: But with the use of a GLP one.
Dr. Taz: Yeah. That's taking down inflammation. I don't know if it's providing ketones necessarily.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah. I mean, it's giving you, if, if it brings glucose down, it stabilizes your glucose, you're gonna get ketones much quicker. Your glucose is more stable. Mm. So in order to switch over into the fat burning energy source that [00:47:00] gives you ketones, you have to have a stable, you have to have a stable glucose system, a metabolic system first.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: So I think it's bringing women there and then they maybe skip breakfast and all of a sudden they're like, wow, actually my brain's working really well.
Dr. Taz: So glucose ketones. Producing ketones. Fasting. A big part of aging. Yeah. And aging success. And brain remodeling.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah.
Dr. Taz: We talked about, you know, not being complacent, finding new activities, [00:47:30] new experiences, new things to enjoy.
Dr. Taz: As a part of brain remodeling that should be happening as we move from period to menopause to post menopause. Is there anything else we should be thinking about as we hit this phase of life?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, so the, the one of my favorite is the oxytocin system.
Dr. Taz: Okay.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Because estrogen just complete, like her bestie is oxytocin.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: I don't know if you know this, you probably do, but one of the things that I've geeked out the most on in, in research for this book is two days [00:48:00] before estrogen hits her peak during ovulation, oxytocin appears, mm. Isn't that brilliant of our bodies to give us a mega dose of oxytocin, right? Bef to
Dr. Taz: get you through that like little bump
Dr. Mindy Pelz: to get you to want to bond so our species can continue forward.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: You know what else happens? Two days after an egg gets released, melatonin appears.
Dr. Taz: Hmm.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Our body makes melatonin so we can start to rest because what if that egg was fertilized? Then we gotta go into a rest and repair phase. Like [00:48:30] we're brilliant.
Dr. Taz: Yeah.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: We are so sophisticated. But with oxytocin, what you see a lot of women do, uh, start to do is they can't do superficial connection anymore.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: I can't go and that's it. Yeah, right. I can't go out to ladies night and like bitch about, you know, everybody in my life, I can't like talk, go, you know, retail therapy might not do it for me anymore. Um, the, the superficiality, I'm not gonna talk to you about the weather. I wanna [00:49:00] talk to you about what I'm feeling right now.
Dr. Taz: Connect.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah. I wanna connect. Yeah. And I think this is a big piece of what happens in divorces. Especially in heterosexual relationships is you have, the man hasn't been taught to be vulnerable. Terry Rail and I talked about this, men are not taught to be vulnerable in this culture, and you have a woman who's going through this phase and wanting a deeper connection from her man, and the man doesn't know how to.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Even what that feels like or how to do [00:49:30] that. And so all of a sudden we feel disconnected from this primary relationship of our life. And maybe our girlfriends are, are situational girlfriends where they're just, our kids went to school together,
Dr. Taz: happens all the time.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Right. I, we were, I, we used to call it mommy dating when my kids were little.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: I'm like, I gotta find some moms that have similar situations. Like, but all of a sudden we want that one or two bestie next to us all the time. We don't wanna go out [00:50:00] to ladies night out. Right. We wanna be in our PJs on the couch.
Dr. Taz: Yep.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Talking about the depth of our feelings with our favorite human. That is where we're gonna get oxytocin, not from all the superficial connections.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: So you, I use Jane Fonda as an example. She talks all the time about how she could not be even breathe as she aged if it wasn't for her girlfriends.
Dr. Taz: Oh yeah.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Well, when I went back and I looked at the oxytocin system and I combined that with the [00:50:30] grandmother hypothesis, which says, in the primal days all the post-menopausal women gathered and went out and forged for.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Food together. I think there's something about the gathering of women at this phase, which is why we have to open this conversation up. We are meant to go deeper into connection with our besties. We are looking for oxytocin in a new. Way we need to go into deeper connection with our spouses, but our spouses also need [00:51:00] to know what that looks like for us.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: If everything stays on the surface and we're not getting oxytocin, we're adding to the depression that we're feeling.
Dr. Taz: Oxytocin is honestly something I have not spent a lot of time thinking about, and I'm thinking right now about all the women I know who actually retreat.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Right.
Dr. Taz: And isolate in this phase.
Dr. Taz: Yep. Rather than embracing other women or seeking connection. And some of that may be the first reaction, like, I don't have patience for this, or I don't have time for [00:51:30] this.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yep.
Dr. Taz: But I think we need to encourage women to push through and find those people that kind of feed your soul. Yep. You know, because I think that's really what makes life, you know, so enjoyable.
Dr. Taz: And I think as women, I, I don't know how you feel about this, but I think we're meant to be in a community. My husband always made fun of me. He's like, you're like a lone wolf all the time. He goes, it's so
Dr. Mindy Pelz: yeah.
Dr. Taz: Anti being a woman. He goes, why are you like that? And, and I. Don't know why I was like that, but I know for a fact that I cannot be like [00:52:00] that anymore.
Dr. Taz: And I've been in groups of women now very similar, you know, very, you know, made up of, you know, similar values and similar goals and things like that. And it's been, you know, so fulfilling. Right? Versus going to a ladies night where everyone's like comparing their outfits and their bags and all that stuff, which I.
Dr. Taz: I personally, if that's your thing, that's great. But I personally don't have a lot of patience for that. Yeah. You know, so I think that helped me understand the lone wolf versus pack mentality. Yeah. Just because you may have not found your people yet is not a [00:52:30] reason for you to stay alone.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Thank
Dr. Taz: you. You need a pack, you need, you need those connections, you know?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: So we always put the Okinawa women up as, yes. Look at these women live to a hundred. They're doing so great. Yeah. They're doing so great. You know what one, one of their secrets is they create MOIs. MOIs are gathering of people, and it happens to both men and women. But in the, for the Okinawa women, when they specifically lose their spouse, the women come together in a PAC mentality and they share [00:53:00] resources.
Dr. Taz: Oh my gosh, I just got chills. That's incredible.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: So if, if a woman doesn't have a home, she's invited into another woman's home. If a woman can't cook a meal, another woman will cook a meal for her. We, if you start to break down our primal ways, we are meant to co more of a PAC mentality as women and, and supporting women and lifting women up when we get, go through this menopausal process.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: But what are we doing [00:53:30] here? In, in Western culture,
Dr. Taz: the opposite.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: The opposite. And we're isolating ourselves. We're becoming hyper independent. Um, we're freezing our faces because we don't want you to see the wrinkles. And God forbid you would see some gray hair because women are so scared of becoming invisible.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: And one of the things I really want women to understand with this book and conversations like this is we're meant to come together now and we're meant to lift each other up and support [00:54:00] each other and help each other through this. We're not meant to do it in this hyper independent world that we are living in and, and we need each other.
Dr. Taz: I think the hyper independent world is actually making us sick.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah.
Dr. Taz: Honestly, what would you tell women out there who are listening to us today and they're curious about the book? You know, age like a Girl, they are scared to take that next step.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Taz: You know, they are feeling like, you know, like that Caterpillar story that you told us in the [00:54:30] beginning, that they are molting and something shedding.
Dr. Taz: But is super uncomfortable and they, they really don't know what to do next. Yeah. What would you tell them?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah. Well, first thing is I really do believe knowledge is power. Like get to know yourself and once you understand how your body and your brain is working, then the fear starts to go away. So, so become knowledgeable, read as many books.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: I mean, there, we, there's so many great hor moments, there's a
Dr. Taz: lot of resources,
Dr. Mindy Pelz: there's so many resources. So just get curious about yourself. [00:55:00] Um, second thing is get to know yourself. I think for me this was like, really important, was like, and this is where the isolation, temporary isolation can be. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Like really get to know your likes and your dislikes outside of everybody else's expectation of you. So get to know yourself. And then the third thing is don't go at it alone. Find other women or other, there's a lot of great men out there that are cheering us on.
Dr. Taz: Yeah, definitely.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: And, and [00:55:30] surround yourself with a group of cheerleaders, people who are lifting you up, that are understanding the days where you're really moody, that are understanding what it's like to watch you not sleep night, after night after night, or, or women that have been through the process.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: I call 'em butterflies. Mm-hmm. There's so many beautiful butterfly women out there who have gone through this. Look to the wise elders and use them as emotional support. We need to come together. Not a part on this [00:56:00] conversation.
Dr. Taz: Ugh. I love that. And I think I would encourage women, there's still so many chapters to write.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: So many
Dr. Taz: so don't, don't stop.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah.
Dr. Taz: You know, just redefine them. Yeah. You know, that's what doing and you're
Dr. Mindy Pelz: coming into your best years.
Dr. Taz: Yes. It's like you exciting
Dr. Mindy Pelz: this. I keep saying it's a get out of jail free card.
Dr. Taz: Yeah.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Like you are gonna experience yourself. In new ways, and you're gonna find, once you get through the brain fog and the irritability and all that, you're gonna find yourself standing in the most authentic version of you ever.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: And it [00:56:30] might look like your little girl.
Dr. Taz: Yeah,
Dr. Mindy Pelz: it might not. But you're gonna, if you allow it, you can fall in love with yourself in a way you never have. Oh,
Dr. Taz: I love that. So that's what people can expect from age like a girl. Yep. Is there anything else you're hoping that this book will do?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Um, I write books to open conversation, so I'm hoping all of us in the women's health space, in the relationship space take this idea and support women is in.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Keep the [00:57:00] conversation going. That's really what I want is I felt like there was a menopause conversation that was so centered around fear
Dr. Taz: and fear
Dr. Mindy Pelz: and, and I wanted to say, this is a beautiful time if we understand it. So I'm hoping that. The world will take this and share it. We're actually gonna do a conversation card deck around it.
Dr. Taz: Ah,
Dr. Mindy Pelz: yeah, bet. So we can start conversations that are, are different than the ones being had right now.
Dr. Taz: Well, this feels like a breath of fresh air, so I wanna thank [00:57:30] you for being on the show today. The book is Age Like a Girl Available Everywhere Books are sold. Yeah. No, I don't even have to use the
Dr. Mindy Pelz: word powder anymore.
Dr. Taz: Out rehearse now. All right. I have a final question.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Okay.
Dr. Taz: What makes you whole.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Oh, I will give you the new answer. Okay. There's
Dr. Taz: a new
Dr. Mindy Pelz: answer like that. Yeah, I have, I have really found wholeness in bringing back my little girl.
Dr. Taz: Oh, I love that.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah. Thank you.
Dr. Taz: I think that gives the rest of us so much encouragement and hope.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah,
Dr. Taz: for sure. Thank you. So I love [00:58:00] that answer. That's that's a unique one too. I love that. If everyone embraces their little girl and finds it and unleashes their creativity, finds their people, finds connection, because we're not talking about this enough. Yeah. You know, we're not talking about it in the context of some of these other ideas around the brain and remodeling the brain.
Dr. Taz: We're talking a lot. I'm, I'm a part of that conversation. We talked a lot about hormones and hormone balancing and all the other physiological things, but we're not talking about. So thank you for taking time out [00:58:30] today to join me on the show and for everybody else, I'll see you guys next time. Before you go take a second to reflect on what stood out for you today.
Dr. Taz: Then if you can leave a quick review wherever you're listening, it really helps other people discover Whole Plus and start their own healing journey. And don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Dr. Taz md. I love hearing how these episodes are supporting you.