How To Fast Like a Girl

Finally, a fasting manual created specifically for women.

While most fasting advice has offered a one-size-fits-all approach that leaves women with more questions than answers, in Fast Like a Girl: A Woman’s Guide to Using the Healing Power of Fasting to Burn Fat, Boost Energy, and Balance Hormones, Dr. Mindy Pelz shares the proven strategies, protocols, and fasting hacks that she has used to help hundreds of thousands of women thrive with their fasting lifestyles.

If you have never gone longer than eight hours without food, you probably have not experienced the healing benefits of your fat-burner energy system.  One of the most comprehensive analyses on the science of fasting was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2019. The authors reviewed more than 85 studies and declared that fasting should be used as the first line of defense for obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative brain conditions, and cancer.

The report also stated that intermittent fasting has anti-aging effects and can help with pre- and post-surgery healing. According to Dr. Pelz, numerous studies are also proving that outside of the cellular changes, the most important part of improving your metabolic health is changing WHEN you eat, not WHAT you eat.

Because not all fasts are created equal, Dr. Pelz breaks down six fasts in her book, the research behind them, and when to use them for your own healing journey. The six fasts are:

• Intermittent fasting: 12-16 hours
  • This is the most popular style of fasting, which can help just about everyone.
  • Clear reasons to use intermittent fasting include:
    • If you want to lose weight
    • You’re experiencing brain fog
    • You’re suffering from loss of energy

• Autophagy fasting: starts at 17-72 hours
  • The healing powers of autophagy are vast.
  • It’s time to use this fast when you want to:
    • Detox
    • Improve brain function and cognition
    • Prevent a cold
    • Balance sex hormones

• Gut-reset fast: 24-plus hours
  • This fast has a major impact on your microbiome.
  • Use this fast to:
    • Counteract antibiotic use
    • Offset birth control use
    • Help tackle small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO)

• Fat-burner fast: 36-plus hours
  • For some women whose bodies are resistant to weight-loss, the 36-hour fast worked like magic.
  • You’ll want to lean in to this fast every once in a while to:
    • Minimize weight loss resistance
    • Release stored sugar
    • Reduce cholesterol

• Dopamine-reset fast: 48-plus hours
  • This fast is what Dr. Pelz considers a mental health boost. Often, just one 48-hour fast will do it, although it doesn’t bring mental clarity immediately, but rather it’s in the weeks that follow when your whole dopamine system is regenerated.
  • Use this fast when you want to:
    • Reboot dopamine levels
    • Lower anxiety levels

• Immune reset fast: more than 72-plus hours
  • This fast is often referred to as the 3- to 5-day water fast, and it acts like a body reset. Dr. Pelz has recommended that people do this once a year, if possible.
  • Use this fast when you want to accomplish one of the following:
    • Ease a chronic condition
    • Prevent chronic disease
    • Alleviate pain and stiffness of relentless musculoskeletal injuries
    • Slow down the effects of aging

Building a fasting lifestyle is a personal journey where you discover a path that works best for you. That means figuring out how to incorporate fasting into your life, no matter how busy that life is. If you want to let fasting work for you, Dr. Pelz asks that you consider what she calls the “four pillars” as you start your journey. They are:

1. Identify Your Goals

It’s important to look at the healing effects of the six different fasting types and consider which one is in line with what you want to achieve. Typically, women use fasting for three reasons: to lose weight, balance hormones, and/or to overcome a specific condition.

2. Vary Your Fasting Lengths

The goal with fasting is to learn a pattern that works for you and that you can maintain effortlessly as an ongoing health habit. Dr. Pelz says that most people find their first fasting groove eating within an 8-hour window that goes from about 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Once you have this base fasting time and length, your next step is to think how you might start to incorporate different length fasts. That way you can avoid plateaus, to honor your hormonal surges, and to give yourself flexibility.

3. Vary Your Food Choices

Your feminine body thrives when you make new, unique, diverse food choices. One of the benefits of varying both your fasts and your foods is that over time you change the terrain in your gut and kill the critters (microbes), which also kills cravings.

4. Surround Yourself with a Supportive Community

A large part of success to any diet regimen rests on having a support system who has your back. Community is also key for healing. Lean in to a community of other women as you build a healing lifestyle for yourself.

If you are among the many women who have felt unheard and unseen by their doctors and health professionals, or if you have become exhausted by the promise of quick-fix diets that only disappoint, Fast Like a Girl is for you. This book will help you take more control of your health and find a better path to wellness with fasting.