EFR 510: Three Factors That Compromise Your Immune System, Using Fasting to Lose Weight, Boost Energy, and Improve Sleep and How to Reduce Household Toxins with Dr. Mindy Pelz, DC

Chase: I was telling you right before we hit record that I think this is very, very timely personally, for me, and hopefully my audience as well. I always try to share everything that I'm doing, learning experiencing both here on the podcast and in social media. And you know, really, it all kind of bleeds over for me, it's just what is what am I doing? What am I reading? What am I thinking about? What's adding value to my life? What are new nuances or, you know, completely big transformations in my life that help fitness, nutrition, mindset, all these areas of human optimization performance? And I was telling you that I just wrapped up Dr. Shanna Swan’s book, Countdown from our June Book of the Month Club, actually. And I've learned so much about male fertility, female fertility and it was really kind of this one big theme in the book that I took away of our environment of these chemicals of toxins, things that are seeping into our environment, seeping into our body, keeping us infertile, maybe contributing us to become fertile, or even in the womb problems and I know that's a big area of your expertise. So yeah, what is going on in our world? What is going on in our environments that are seeping in and having these toxic effects?

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, I mean, that's like, such a loaded question. You know, I, the best way I can explain it is when I hit I'm 51 now when I hit 40, and I started to go through hormonal changes associated with menopause, I had some really rough bumps in my hormonal profile and when I went searching for answers, what I discovered is that we are actually living in the most toxic time in human history. And I didn't really need to go far to figure that out. The first place I went to is I literally went to YouTube, and I typed in toxins and there were two videos that showed up and this was, by the way, like nine years ago. So this is this is like not this is like almost a decade ago, there were two videos that showed up. One was a woman, Robin O'Brian, I forget the name of her book, but she has a famous TED Talk and her story was that her son was eating a yogurt at the breakfast table and went into anaphylaxis shock, they rushed him to the hospital, he almost died and when she went to go the hospital told her the ingredients in this yogurt some of them are toxic. And she looked at them like what do you mean, I bought it in my supermarket? What do you mean, they're toxic? And she started to uncover what was going on in our food and she found out that we had 50,000 ingredients that have been put into our food over the last decade. Now, again, this was a decade ago, this was over the last 20 years 50,000 ingredients have been put into our food that they are claiming they have a label for it and it's called GRAS, G-R-A-S generally recognized as safe. So what the FDA has done is it is allowing ingredients to go into our food that are considered safe, but haven't been proven guilty. So they it they can be carcinogenic, they can cause hormonal disruption, because but they don't have to prove that you have to actually have a research study proving that these things aren't safe and nobody can afford the studies. So as long as they're generally safe, they are put in our food. That is horrific. That alone has to stop. So then I went and I looked at there's another amazing YouTube video. Well, it's on YouTube by Ken cook. He's the president of the Environmental Working Group. And it's called 10 Americans. And in this video, and people please go research this so you can be educated on it just type 10 Americans into YouTube. And he researched they took 10 different Americans across different parts of our country. And they wanted to see what their toxic load was, and if it was dependent upon where they lived in America. And what they found out was that these 10 Americans had over 200 cancer causing chemicals in them. They had, you know, chemicals that that lead to infertility. They had chemicals that were leading to thyroid problems and autoimmune conditions. And they were trying to figure out what the commonality other than these toxins in these 10 Americans, what was the commonality and the thing they tell you at the end of the video is that these 10 Americans were still in the womb. It was from umbilical cord blood that they are identifying over and this was 10 years ago, that they are identifying these cancer causing infertility causing, and they hadn't even walked out onto our human onto our planet yet. This is in the womb.

Chase: I was not expecting that I was not expecting the other foot to drop like that. That isn't. That's insane. 

Dr. Mindy Pelz: So as Dr. Swan told me, when I brought her on my podcast, I started getting mad, like listening to her and I said this is unfair and she said, you should be mad, you should be mad. And I asked her why she brought Countdown now to the public and she's had a famous study on phthalates, and testosterone. And she went on to explain that the study was so profound that they had to bring it a publisher went to her and they're like, we have to get this to the public. One of the things about phthalates that she brings up in her book is that when you're exposed to these valleys, when you're in the first trimester in the womb, that your testosterone level goes down, in the end that testosterone level will stay down for the rest of your life. So it pre programmed your testosterone level. And when the testosterone level goes down, it actually changes the anatomy of the male penis. This is part of why, you know, Joe Rogan brought her on was like

Chase: when I was reading this, I was both mind blown and also, I think like a lot of other male readers may be kind of like hunched over feeling sympathy pain. I was just I was blown away at the level to which we could be affected in utero but then also the long term detrimental effects this was posing, especially for us males,

Dr. Mindy Pelz: right? It's crazy and it's the worst when you're in the womb. So think about how many couples dads wearing cologne all the time mothers putting, you know, perfume on her, they've got air fresheners in the car, they've got plug-ins in their, in their house, they've got plastics they're drinking from, and all of those phthalates are being exposed to mom lowering baby's testosterone, changing the anatomy of that baby, the baby comes out, has learning disability signs, other signs of low testosterone. I mean, when you all you have to do is go down and look at our lower our younger generation right now, look at how many problems they have, how many health problems they have and why is our health care system not addressing this? Why are we considering this normal? This is the kind of stuff that wakes me up at night and we've got to use podcasts like this, we've got to use people like Dr. Swan, to really educate people on something as simple as you put just putting your cologne on, you're just putting your perfume on. What's the problem with that? Well, there is a problem with that and that's what we got to wake people up to.

Chase: Wow, well, one hell of a way to open up the conversation. I'm sure everyone is like freaking out right now jaws on the floor. I know mine was the whole time you're kind of sharing that information. But I want to ask in your experience and your expertise is there really any level that is safe? It's unless we're living in a bubble? And after 2020 who knows maybe some people are now but unless we are completely living in a sanitized bubble what can we do to safeguard ourselves against these toxins while still maintaining an airport here normal life quality of life? We can't just live in fear, right?

Dr. Mindy Pelz: No, no, I know, I always say like I'm the most depressing person in the room when I start talking like do not talk to that lady she is going to bum you out. So here's the best way to look at it. We're all born with a toxic bucket size of how we can handle these toxins and that size of that bucket is determined by your genetics. So this is where genetics comes into place. So your toxic bucket may be very big, and mine's very small and this is why some people are like, hey, I eat whatever I want and I have no problems. So it well, good, that's awesome, you might have a bigger toxic bucket. So as we come into the world, we already come in with our toxic bucket full. That's what those two examples I started off with. You may come in with a big bucket and your toxic level is low. I might come in with a small bucket my mom was packed with toxins so my toxic bucket is high. So there's a certain point at which those toxins get to the top of the bucket. And now any little toxin that comes into our environment is going to cause us to be symptomatic. So the name of the game is to lower the toxic bucket and you can't change the size of your bucket but you can empty your bucket. Now there are different toxins that will affect the bucket differently. And like phthalates, what Dr. swans talking about She believes that what happens is that those phthalates go in and they make a hormonal change, they fill the bucket up, but they don't really bio accumulate like something like a heavy metal, lead, and Mercury that is bio accumulating, filling the bucket up. So there are a couple things we can do. The first thing is we just have to be aware of this and stop filling the bucket. Like, just stop filling it. So you know, if you have your favorite Cologne, and you're listening to this, let's just start off by saying it's time to switch it. I'm so sorry. If you love it, your girlfriend loves it. Like, let's switch to an essential oil. Let's try to do something different. If you have your favorite, you know, deodorant, but let's look at there's a lot of great natural options that are showing up. Let's look at your home environment. What you know, when you buy a new piece of furniture, do you know that it off gasses? Well, let's put it outside when you buy the new piece of furniture, and let's just let some air go run through it. So there are little tricks like that so we stop filling the bucket. And then you got to learn the art of detox. You think sleep is important. You think exercise important. The world we're living in as now demanded that you learn to detox.

Chase: And we're gonna get there absolutely. This whole world of detoxification is a big interest of me. And again, for a lot of reasons, especially the ones coming from Dr. Swan’s work but I want to go back if we could real quick to something you were talking about, of not necessarily what the toxins immediately do or what it immediately means when we are within earshot or, you know, consume them or it's absorbed. But it's the effect that it has on our hormones and hormones are really, really the culprits for well, I think they get a lot they get a bad rap sometimes because it's a hormone imbalances hormone, this hormone that, but they're so essential for a myriad of normal processes, things that running in the back in our system, but also things that we can directly manipulate and control to our advantage. So it's not so much that these toxins are coming in, and they're there and like you said, a bio accumulating, but they're causing changes to our hormones. Can you kind of walk us through? What does that mean? What does that look like? What does maybe even it feel like? What are some signs and symptoms, some things people may be able to reflect on and how they feel and how they're showing up in the world, that they might be able to trace back to a hormone that they might be able to trace back to a toxin? 

Dr. Mindy Pelz: well said. So let's go to the follow up discussion again, and let's go to low testosterone. So you're putting your cologne on every single day and in that cologne has this chemical called a phthalate and what phthalates are is they can mimic testosterone, so their testosterone mimicker. So when they come in the body goes, Oh, I've got testosterone, but it's not the testosterone, you need to keep your libido up and your muscles strong. It's a it's a synthetic testosterone, that testosterone from the phthalates will go into these receptor sites on ourselves where we are welcome hormones into the cell and it will go in and the body thinks it has enough testosterone, but it doesn't have the same effect as regular testosterone happens. Then you get a message your brain goes, okay, we seem to have enough testosterone here and it sends a signal to the testes and it says, hey, you don't need to make more testosterone because we got plenty of testosterone.

Chase: talking about down regulation.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, exactly. So the body's shuts down its production of this natural hormone because it thinks it has enough, it doesn't realize that what it's getting is not a usable form of testosterone. And so you're left with muscle loss, you're left with, you know, low libido, things like that, because the body regulated to the synthetic hormone that was coming in from this toxic chemical. Same thing happens with estrogen. You know, there are a lot of times where estrogen comes into the body, and from makeup and, you know, pesticides, I mean, the estrogen mimickers are huge and all of a sudden the body thinks it has enough estrogen and so it stops making the natural estrogens that are protective. And this amount of estrogen escalates. And so now you've got cancers, men start to get manboobs because they have to store it somewhere. I mean, you've got men with breast cancer now because all of these synthetic chemicals created more estrogen, the body stored it like it was estrogen, but you're literally still estrogen deprived because it's a synthetic version of estrogen. 

Chase: It's just like so, in one on one hand, for me, it's just like, oh, obvious, of course, these chemicals, these things we don't want in our body, but then we look at the daily living and how am I going to go without it kind of thing, which is, it is that I think it's that initial stage of awareness that always comes before behavior change. Right. So, you know, hopefully we can go from being overwhelmed, and maybe even a little shooketh as we should to take it in Yeah, as we should be, you know, because there's so many things that are wrapped up in the modern conveniences of life that are wrapped up in, you know, low costs, that are wrapped up in short distance, that are wrapped up in maybe just how we grew up the things, the products, the things that we just use in our house everyday life as we just take as norm. But have we ever actually maybe stopped to kind of look at the ingredients. So many of my listeners, myself included, we've gone through a lot of that in our nutrition, our eating habits, we look at the food label, we look at the, you know, the macros, we look at the calories. But I think this is a great kind of learning moment for us to take that same concept or similar concept and apply it to all these other things that are being absorbed in how we breathe, and our touch and skin. And you may not be directly digesting these things. But we can take the same concept of awareness of what we're doing on terms of labels and our environment. Like it's all coming in. It's all coming in.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, and the number one rule to detox is, is stop it coming in, don't let it come in anymore. Okay. So if you're listening to this, and you're like, I'm really depressed now. You know, I would encourage you to get motivated and look at everything in your environment, start with what you're putting on your skin. I think that's the most important because that will start to have get into the system and have a direct effect. Look at what you're inhaling. So we talked about phthalates I think the colognes and the perfumes anything fragrance that your laundry, you know, in your dryer, the little ball you put in to make your laundry smell good. Like let's start to change those behaviors, great resources, the Environmental Working Group had, go to their web page, they have great resources on everything. An app that I always recommend people get it's called Think Dirty and it's put out by the Breast Cancer Prevention Fund, but it's really for everybody. And you can take your phone, and you can go around your environment and you can scan your beauty products, your hair, your lotions, you can scan your shampoos, everything and you can get a rating of what it's doing to you. 

Chase: That's incredible. It's like, I feel like we're on Ghostbusters or something. 

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Right, right. Skin deeps, another one. So there are apps now that will really help. So if you're diligent about looking at your food ingredients, first, I want to applaud you. That's awesome. And now let's get diligent about any beauty product for sure. And men are using I mean, they say that men are putting an average of at least 10 different products on their body every single day that are cancer causing. So women, it's like in the hundreds. So we've got to get a start to change that. And then you vote with your dollars, you know, I think it's really important that we send messages to these companies that we don't stand for this anymore. This is that the corporate greed has skewed their lens on health. And it's really frustrating. So that corporate mentality is not going to shift anytime soon but we can start to vote with our dollars and by the natural stuff and understand where the products that are serving us and what's not serving us.

Chase: I was going to ask you one other question about the toxins here. And I guess slightly playing devil's advocate a little bit let's go back to what you were first talking about. It's these generally safeguarded levels, it's levels put out by governing bodies, agencies, whatever, that are saying, hey, we are recognizing these as synthetic, as unnatural as whatever but based on our due diligence research, whatever we recognize, at X amount of level, we are not seeing any immediate or maybe even long term negative effects. Do you really agree with that? Or can we walk into the situation of okay, well, there are just levels of these things that I may not like or may not be amazing, but long term, I'm good; if I can just monitor the levels, and I'm good. Does it need to be kind of an all or nothing kind of thing, I guess is my question?

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, I mean, it's a good question. I would love to see the FDA flip that and I’d love them to say we're gonna assume this is not a natural source, it's a chemical. So we're gonna assume that it's bad let me see what we can do to make it the safest way, the safest level possible. I'd love for them to sort of look at it from that way and then as far as, you know, can we just sort of keep an eye on this stuff? You know, I think it really depends. You've got to look at your genetic health. If you have hormonal cancers, because really, it's the hormones that are being the most compromised from this toxic world. If you have any kind of prostate cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, like any hormonal cancer in your family, you probably have the gene for that so let's make sure that you're really doing your due diligence. If you have any Alzheimer's dementia challenges in your family, the brain is made up of fat nervous tissue, and that's where toxins like to go, you're gonna want to do your due diligence. If you're struggling to get pregnant, oh, my gosh, like get the Countdown book for, for goodness sake.

Chase: everyone get that book. I'm recommending that to every person, not anyone just trying to get pregnant, it was mind blowing in terms of just another biomarker of health that I have not thought about.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Right. And there are some cool things we can do like, if you're if you are just thinking about getting pregnant, you're at the beginning of that course. Okay, well, why don't you go through a detox? Why don't you clean up your environment before you get pregnant, knowing that the first trimester is the time in which these chemicals are going to create the most hormonal challenge and create the biggest problems. So if we can navigate it with some simple just awareness tools, and not have to be totally bummed out about it, the challenge that I see is when we've got almost every person on the planet now has some kind of autoimmune condition. Or you go, I just went recently to the CDC website, and they were saying that 60% of Americans have a chronic disease, and 40% of Americans have two or more chronic diseases, and 90% of the money we spend on health care, the trillions of dollars is spent on a chronic disease, then, okay, that's when we have to start to take control of our own health and start to minimize the influx of these toxins. So and, and to Dr. Swan’s point, she said, Well, with phthalates, they're not necessarily bio accumulating, but they're coming in making a hormone, hormonal change, and then going out and then the next day, they come in, and they make a hormonal change, and they go out. So every day we're getting exposed to these. So you get to decide at what level you're going to be conscious of this or not, because the corporations are not doing it.

Chase: Exactly. They're doing the bare minimum to keep the public at bay, to keep these agencies, you know, out of out of their store rooms, you know, and keeping profit margins, I'm sure as high as possible. And another point I'll make there before we move on what really want to dive into kind of how we then work on it, you know, going through these fastings and maybe reducing toxins and things in the body. And that was something that Dr. Swan really drove home for me in the book was, it may be good for us now in terms of our health in this life but the concept of epigenetics and what it can do for up to two, three, even four generations, sometimes when we experience a major, significant stressful event, when we are our buckets are full of these toxins and while it may work for us, we are unique, we are bio unique, that does not mean our offspring, our second or third generations are going to be as strong in those areas as well. So it not only could be negatively affecting us or you know, we could be fine but also keep in mind, like you're just you, your children, your grandchildren, your great grandchildren may not be so lucky and what is written in your genetic code, you're passing down, and you could be doing a disservice. Or you could be setting them up for as much success as possible.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, the most famous study that showed that was done at a Washington State University and they did it with DDT. Again this was done years ago, I this is not a new study. And they found that people who had the obesity gene, if they expose them to DDT, the first person exposed didn't necessarily trigger obesity, but four generations down, they got that gene triggered, and were obese so now those kids, those kids come out, and they're like obese, and nobody knows why and they don't know why but it was a gene trigger that was triggered in mom and then it just keeps passing down. 

Chase: It's insane. The more and more I think I have this whole human body thing figured out the more and more I am proven, I wouldn't say wrong, but just there's another layer. There's another layer. Wow.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, yeah. And that's why I mean, it is really depressing. But if you once you see it, like I tell people just go through life, looking at your toxic lens, look at everything, you know, every piece of furniture you buy, every shirt you buy, if it has that funny smell, if your any food you buy, like wherever you are, start to be aware of that and if you even cut your toxic load in half, we're now doing some great work to end this. And then I think we really need to go to the people who are before they get pregnant. And then when they're pregnant. Those are the times I just want to like put somebody in a little glass bubble and make sure that they're not exposed.

Chase: Well said, well said so then if we could please let them into now that we've become more aware of these things in our lives and possibly in our bodies, what are some next steps to kind of work on detoxification, on cleansing the mind and the body for us and for future generations? What would you say are some immediate next go to steps for somebody wanting to work on it?

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, yeah, great question. So again, the first thing is awareness. Just you know, if you're listening to this, get the apps look at your environment, the first step to detox is stop it coming in. So that alone is a lot. The second step, and I like to do like, okay, what are what's from easiest to hardest, what's from cheapest to most expensive, that's kind of how I look at it, the easiest thing you can do is start fasting. This is why I love fasting. So fasting, the research is showing that if you stimulate something called an autophagy. Autophagy is a mechanism in the cell that gets the cell to repair itself. So 17 hours of fasting will start the process of autophagy, your cell will clean itself up it reorganize it, you were born with an intelligence inside of you that you can tap into if you start to learn too fast. The other thing we know is when these chemicals come in, we've got hormones that go off, we've got inflammation that comes up and when you start to fast that inflammation comes down and the hormones balance out. So even if like I have this real vision that we can end chronic disease by teaching people how to fast, and we wouldn't have to necessarily change their toxic load, we wouldn't have to change their food, although I would like to see everybody change their food and their toxic load but if all you did is every day do 15 to 17 hours of fasting, you're now giving your body a healing time, you're letting the intelligence inside the body start to repair the damage that's been accumulated from all of these modern toxins that are in our food and our environment. 

Chase: What then are some telltale signs that the fasting is working? If someone's going into let's say, this 15-17 hour fast you're talking about? And maybe they don't have any toxic symptoms, but they just want to see I've done this so many times, I just want to test a new dietary protocol. I want to test this test that what would be some positive biofeedback, that I could say, hey, yeah, actually, maybe it has some more toxicity going on than I thought.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, well, there's some positive feedback. And then there's some negative feedback. So yeah, so let's start with the negative and then we'll go the positive. So when we, you know, we've got on my YouTube channel and on Instagram and Facebook, we've got about a half a million people that we fast, once a month together, we do a five day period, and we train people it is a free group that we train people how to fast, I have seen a lot of different fasting reactions. When people get like they used to call it the keto flu. We don't talk about that so much anymore but when you get rashes, when you start to get inflammation in certain areas, when you get a little more fatigue, when you get kind of like dizziness, that's your body detoxing, it's pushing those toxins out that it's repairing itself and it's actually temporarily a very positive sign. But what happens as people go, no fasting didn't work for me, because they actually started to detox themselves in something as simple as a 17 hour fast. So that would be a negative sign. Now some people when they start fasting, all of a sudden, that three o'clock crash that they had goes away, and they are like, I got like I just was talking to somebody, they oh it was a patient the other day, who just started fasting for the first time and she's like, oh my god at three o'clock, I have insane energy. I don't need a cup of coffee on my mental clarity is up. So that would be a positive sign that those cells are repairing and they're becoming more efficient. People will drop weight. Let's talk about weight for a second. Weight; we all villainize weight, but weight is actually there to save your life. So what your body does is it says there's too much excess here. Too much sugar, too many toxins, too many hormones, instead of storing it in your liver, your heart, your lungs I am going to store fat around your belly. And so you look in the mirror and you're like, Oh my god, I'm gaining weight I must not be I need to cut down calories. I need to exercise more. But actually what you need to do is detox and start to learn to fast because what your body's doing as it's just trying to store it somewhere else to save your life. So with fasting we see the weight loss is insane like hundreds of pounds that people are losing because they've now using a mechanism to tap into detoxing that excess that is in alignment with the body. They're not on a treadmill trying to you know, outdo their calorie in calorie out that old theory is not working for people. So weight loss is great mental clarity and sleep, I mean, you name it, fasting can overcome this toxic barrage.

Chase: you hit on something there that I think is so profound, I want to kind of make sure the listener picks up on this and I would love to pick your brain a little bit more. Oftentimes, when we are seeking to improve the quality of our life to gain weight, lose weight to start working out, start eating better, whatever getting better, whatever wellness, whatever healthy means for us, we often jump into a lot of things, and we're trying to do a lot to ourselves for a positive result. But what you're talking about there is really the body's profound innate capability to auto regulate, to heal to change course, if we just make time and space for it to do what it is here to do. Can you please share with us a little bit of that innate ability of the body that may just feel like discomfort in the beginning may feel like hunger may feel like this or that everybody's gonna have a different experience but what is so profound about us as human beings that allows us this opportunity to have innate healing?

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, it's such a good question. The first thing I want everybody to know is you came pre programmed with healing a healing mechanism inside every cell inside of you. The problem is, you are never taught that you're taught the moment you come out. If you have a symptom, you need to put something from the outside in to fix that symptom. But symptoms are your body's way of healing. So let's use a fever as an example. A fever is a brilliant indication that the body has identified there's an infection, and it's going to raise its body temperature, so it can burn that infection out congestions. The same thing, when you get mucus, that's the body trying to create something sticky, so it can hook onto that bacteria or virus and get it out of you. So when we come to fasting, or we come to detox, what's happening is the body's having that same, you're asking the body, hey, I need you to go into a little more of a healing mechanism. And you might get some of these symptoms. But because we've been taught symptoms are bad the minute we feel we have a symptom, we go, oh, that's not working, or we want to put something from the outside in. So it's really the difference of do you want to run your health from a place of I always need something from the outside in to heal me? Or do you want to look at gosh, there's this inner wisdom inside of me, let me get to know it better, and live my life from an inside out place. And once you understand inside out living outside in will sound it'll become more and more ludicrous to you. It just makes no sense. On the on the hormonal front, let's just use that as an example. How many autoimmunity? How many people have like something like RA, where the body is attacking joints? Well, 70% of your of autoimmune conditions are from environmental toxins. So your body was so smart, that it decided, hey, there's toxins in the joint, I'm going to create an immune response against that. You walk into your rheumatoid arthritis specialist and they're like, oh, yeah, you have RA let me give you another toxin in a medication so we can bring that inflammation down. But you never stopped to say, why is the body doing that in the first place, and it's not your fault, you just haven't been trained to look at it that way.

Chase: It's not your fault. I really want the listener to remember that it's not your fault. And think back to what your parents told you or did for you think back to a friend, a mentor, I mean, hell, maybe even you’re like a middle school nurse you know, everybody is hopefully just doing the best they can with the tools that they have and especially when it comes to our health and our wellness. Well, a lot of that changes. I mean, how many times have we heard this study shows that cholesterol is bad for you? And then you know, the next year or five years later, it's like, no, it's good for you, or it's constantly changing, if you're constantly looking at the science and paying attention. So it's not your fault. It's just maybe what was done for you or to you in efforts to help you know, heal you, I guess, but pay attention to your body it's always gonna be the greatest code you have.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: And a really good question to always ask yourself with any symptom is why is my body doing this? Why is it doing it? Instead what I think most people do is they go this is uncomfortable. How do I make it go away? So let's just flip the question you ask yourself on any health condition, and you'll be amazed as you get to know your body how you can actually use lifestyle. I'm such a fan of this idea that maybe it's lifestyle medicine that needs to emerge right now.

Chase: Absolutely. Absolutely. 

Dr. Mindy Pelz: we can cure so much with lifestyle if we just asked better questions around our symptoms. 

Chase: Could not agree more. And speaking of lifestyle I'm wondering if you could maybe break down for us lifestyles in different age brackets. I'm curious if Maybe our late teens in our 20s in our 30s, in our 40s and beyond, could we or even should we do to where we are biologically be tapping into some more of these protocols, these lifestyle changes, because maybe that phase that period of our life, our bodies are more capable of handling certain things, or we have higher levels or lower levels of hormones? Should we maybe in different ages of our life, really be leaning more into these protocols?

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, well, the longer you live on this planet, the more toxic damage you have. So, you know, at some point, it's going to catch up with you. I mean, look at just what happened to us over the last year, why were we worried about the seniors, because their immune systems have been worn down from being on this toxic planet too long, so their immune systems are a little slower to react, whereas the younger kids are not as slow to react because they don't have as much toxic barrage. Although if we don't handle toxins, eventually that's going to change. We can look at one of my big passions is women over 40, I really feel like as women get over 40, they have to change how they work out, they have to change what they eat, I have a whole book on this, where as a woman goes, her ovaries stop producing as many eggs, she becomes more susceptible to different stressors and working out is a big one, like women over 40, less marathon running, less pounding, because you're actually getting less estrogen, which is giving you less collagen. And as you have less collagen, you're going to be more prone to injury. So there are like we can hack in at different times like that, men, as men start to age, you're going to get less testosterone because of the impact of toxins on you. So again, for you, you got to make sure that you're keeping yourself like a 50 year old man needs to be more concerned about his cologne content, or his cologne access than the 20 year old guy, unless the 20 year old guys trying to get pregnant, you know, sorry, have a baby. So we can look at hormones, when they're coming in and going, we can look at how long we've been on this planet but all chronic disease as we age is, is the body's not keeping up. It can't keep up with the lifestyle you've given it.

Chase: What is something maybe you've seen now here and you're halfway through 2021, as we're talking? Or in the last year, or recently, what have you seen is maybe a big new focus of yours or you think you know, humans in general, because like I was saying earlier, times change, studies change science changes, and we learn more? What have you seen maybe rise to the top that is a big interest or focus for you or you know, should be for us?

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, well, so my big passion right now is chronic disease. So and I'm just be really blunt. I am last year at this time, I walked around going, Oh my gosh, finally, everybody's caring about their health. This is amazing. We are going to get people off of sugar. We're going to get people sleeping, we're gonna get people doing the things they need to do for their immune system. But all the messaging they got was quarantine mask up, keep yourself away from other people, our politicians, our media had an opportunity and that opportunity is now gone. So now we are all debating vaccine, no vaccine, and I don't you do what feels right for you but if you get the vaccine, you still have to fix your lifestyle. We are more immune compromised. Yes, we had a viral problem but we had more importantly than that we had an immune compromised problem that absolutely has to be addressed. And when I looked through the research of what was making everybody immune compromised, it was three things. Low vitamin D. metabolic syndrome, which basically means mismanaged blood sugar and low glutathione. Those were the three commonalities between if you got COVID and had symptoms, or if you got COVID and didn't have symptoms. Okay, why does everybody have low vitamin D? We're not going out in the sun. We're lathering ourselves up with sunblock. We have, we're got cells that are inflamed so vitamin D can even get into the cell. Why does everybody have metabolic syndrome? Because everybody's eating the standard American diet, wrong oils, refined oil of flours and sugars. Why does everybody have low gluten ion? Well, glutathione the antioxidant that helps you detox. So you've been using your glue to fire up. If we just fixed those three things we could have been out of this pandemic within months, and we would prevent future pandemics. What is really like tearing up my heart is that we're not addressing these three things. And when a variant comes around when the next pandemic comes around, we're gonna blame it on people who didn't get vaccinated. That is not the problem. The problem is that we have an immune compromised A world that is not being addressed. And we're going to have to address it at some point or to Dr. Swan’s point; we are on a path to extinction.

Chase: Yes, I literally got chills from what you're talking about there, because I think it's, it's, it's inside of me, it's inside of a lot of us. Everything you just said, and you got to do what you got to do, of course, do what you feel is best for you for your health and your family. But I cannot agree more with what you just said. And I want to say something real quick as we begin to wrap up. And I want to preface this preface this by saying, I'm not saying this in an arrogant way in a cocky way, I I'm just stating what I have experienced. And that's all I ever do here on the podcast. And that's all I ever do in my content is just share my experiences of what keeps me going, what makes me tick, tick a little bit better. And I honestly feel and I get another preface. Illness death at no time is a positive thing. In fact, that's the whole reason of Ever Forward Radio came from the death of my father from a terminal illness, ALS and so I, I know death, I know death, and I wish it upon no one. And I know suffering. But there are so many things we can do to thwart that to build and stack the conditions in our favor. And I honestly, I'll say this, I really do feel like in many ways, what 2020 what this global pandemic did for me, and maybe you can relate was the ultimate test of everything that I've been testing. It was the ultimate test of, of taking care of my body, taking care of my mind, of nutrition, of training, of physical activity of stress of all these things. I was around, unbeknownst to me at the time, many, many, many, many people who had COVID, many, many people who had other chronic illnesses and diseases and poor lifestyle choices, poor healthy lifestyle choices. And I, by the grace of God, by all my, you know, choices in life, walk through just fine. Never once was I sick never once was I diagnosed and I've been tested many, many, many times. I didn't suffer at all again, thank God. But I do believe it has to have had something, if not everything to do with how I was stepping into that test how I was stepping into that challenge because of all the work that I had done with my healthy habits, my lifestyle and all the things we were talking about.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Spot on. I told my patients when it first happened, I was like, we've got this. We've been training for this moment. Let's go. Yeah, you're gonna be just fine. My 80 year old parents, I sat them down and I was like, okay, we have a plan. Here's the plan. We got them eating different I got an I have a biohacking center here. So we got them in my hyperbaric oxygen, I got them on a pulse machine, I got them fast, and I checked their vitamin D that was the first thing out the gate, check their vitamin D, we had a strategy, and then we got them out. We did not quarantine them because you need that social connection they are 81 and 84 years old, so they're healthier. Amazing, right? They are healthier today than they were a year ago. Because we came up with a plan and they thrive through the pandemic. So when everybody's like, I can't wait to hug my grandpa, my parents again. I'm like, I was hugging him in April 2020 because we had a plan. And this is what the media is not talking about. This is what people are asleep to so amen to that. Like it that that was a huge pet peeve of mine. So I agree with you, we trained for these moments.

Chase: We did we did and the training just because we made it through doesn't mean the training has stopped by no means right. This is a lifelong mission and I know the person listening right now, they wouldn't be listening if they, you know, didn't somewhat believe that, at least with me but that's the beauty. Everybody gets to make their own choices and find the things that work for them and take tools for me and take tools from you and put them in their toolbox and create a life of their design and a healthy one at that.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, yeah, Agreed. Agreed. And don't let anybody put you in fear. That's the other thing that I just really want to emphasize. When you go into fear you've now been taken away from the intelligence in your body.

Chase: Especially your immune system.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, hang around people that believe in your own healing power and you will I never want I don't know about you, Chase, but I never once felt scared last year. Never. 

Chase: I felt a lot of things. I can honestly say, um, let me think back. I never felt scared. If anything I was never scared for me. I was well, I'm really thinking hard I was scared for a lot of other people in my life that no matter how hard I tried to live by example, or even flat out to friends and family and like, hey, you need this in your life, you need to stop doing this, you know, however I tried to be. It didn't come across it was never absorbed by a lot of people that I cared about. So I was definitely scared for some people in my life but for me, no, I was I was so happy with the choices that I made leading up to that, and the ones that I continue to make to get me through that. 

Dr. Mindy Pelz: yeah, agreed. So you know, take your own power back and start to learn about your body and you'll be amazed at how miraculous this thing is. And I mean, who knows what the agenda or what was going on last year, but we do have still have an opportunity to say, okay, that was scary, that was like, no fun. Nobody likes quarantining, there are a lot of repercussions of being

Chase: the first two weeks, were fun for me. I watched a lot of movies, and it was 

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Did you watch Tiger King? So all of those things were, you know, we had an opportunity. And I just want people to realize that just because we're coming out just because the vaccine got rolled out. And this is not a pro Vax or anti Vax, you do whatever feels right for you but you're still gonna have to work on your lifestyle. And when the next one comes around, have you trained for it, because it's time to start training for the next one or the next thing, so that when it comes around, you're not you don't fall prey to the mass hysteria that got infiltrated into the world last year.

Chase: And that is exactly how I interpret the whole mission here at Ever Forward Radio, and it's a lifestyle. It's a mantra, but it has meaning and when we give meaning to anything in life, I think well just watch out world because we're gonna be, we're gonna be plowing through in a better way than yesterday. So I'm curious, what does that mean to you? How would you say you live a life ever forward?

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Well, for me, I'm on a mission to give people their health power back, and that I'm a big believer and live it to lead it. I love what you said about you are modeling for people. I think that it's really important that we start with ourselves before we start to tell everybody else what to do, you know, start with ourselves, discover how powerful our body is, and then be a shining example, that now inspires other people to be their best. So when I think of moving forward, I think of, I want to be the one that sits in the driver's seat of my own health and then I hope that I can turn around and inspire others to do the same.

Chase: There's never a right or wrong answer. I always just appreciate the honesty. That's why I love hearing that answer after a conversation because it's just you've had a chance to share with us your truth and your expertise and then we get to kind of come together at the end on everything that we do here at Ever Forward. So thank you for that.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: Oh, thank you, Chase, this was delightful. And thank you for what you're doing and allowing me this conversation I again, I hope we didn't depress people I really want to wake people up I really, I really because what's really sad is when somebody's suffering with their health, and they're not given a path out, that breaks my heart.

Chase: Indeed, indeed it does. Well, where can somebody go to learn more about you Dr. Pelz, of course, we're gonna have all the information down in the podcast show notes but where can they go to connect and learn more from you?

Dr. Mindy Pelz: you can go to my website, drmindypelz.com. My YouTube channel is my passion project. I put two videos out a week on fasting and all the research on fasting so if you can go there, Instagram, I'm you know, got a couple posts a day that come out on Instagram and if you want to fast with us, we have a group called the Resetter Collaborative on Facebook. But if you forget all that, just go the website and it'll point you in the right direction.

Chase: If you forget all that just go to the show notes. We got it all down there. Dr. Pelz it was my pleasure. Thank you so much.

Dr. Mindy Pelz: thank you keep up keep shouting from the rooftops really appreciate you.

Chase: I will do. Amazing.