Fast Like a Girl: An Honest Book Review

The book fast like a girl by Dr. Mindy Pelz was recommended to me by health coach after I had been using the 20 hour intermittent fasting schedule for about one year when I first started fasting. There wasn’t much information on fasting available Dr. Jason Fung‘s book the complete guide fasting was helpful, but it didn’t differentiate fasting for men and women fasting was fasting or so I thought Pelz has a different theory. Women should fast differently than men.

In her book reasons that since women’s bodies are on a different hormones schedule than men monthly cycle as opposed to a 24 hour cycle, women should fast in a way that considers the fluctuations and estrogen, progesterone and testosterone that happened over the course of a woman’s 28 day monthly cycle  When this book was first recommended to me I immediately thought it wasn’t for me after all. I don’t have a monthly cycle anymore. I’m a mistakenly believed that now my cycle was into a man’s 24 hours cycle looking back. I realize how ridiculous that is and now pills advice makes more sense to me  Even though I don’t have a monthly cycle anymore. My body still follows a 28 day hormone cycle, my body still has to regulate my hormones, so I looked into the distinct ways that palace suggest women fast as opposed to the one size fits all approach

Pelz breaks the monthly cycle into four phases, power, manifestation power, and nurture  For each phase pills gives recommendations for fasting time windows and food suggestions in the power phases for example days one through 10 and 16 through 19 she suggest autophagy fasting as hormone levels are low and women are as hungry during this phase healthy along healing fast could have serious benefits during this phase autophagy fasting benefits, kick in around the 17th hour of fast of a fast and reaches its highest peak at 72 hours that’s three days  Three day fast may not be for everyone, but even fasting for 20 hours can provide a short window of benefits, such as detoxification improved brain function, cold prevention and hormone and hormone balance.

Since Paul believes that what you eat is just as important as when you eat, she gives guidance on eating  During each phase, the power phases during the power phases she recommends a keto biotic diet, her term consisting of plenty of good fats, some protein and removing antic carbs for the manifestation and nurture phases. She recommends what she calls hormone. Feasting foods consist primarily of healthy carbs like fruits and vegetables, lower protein and unlimited, healthy fats. Thankfully pills includes list of foods for each phase and recipes that look amazing like chipotle black bean, stuffed sweet potatoes with cilantro, lime, cabbage, slaw.

While I have read the book I haven’t tried this particular method of fasting, but I have started paying more attention to what I’m eating during my fasting window. I committed next month to trying this, so I’ll keep you posted to how it goes since I don’t have a cycle anymore I can’t base the phases off of that schedule, but I can’t start at the beginning of a calendar month.

Dear Reader, if you’ve already committed to fasting or you want to read more about how to fast and why it’s helpful fast like a girl may be a worthy read the rest is alone look promising. Do you have a book recommendation for to share with the pain-free community, send a message with your latest read so that I can share more of what helps to keep us all healthier and living well.

All the best,

Jennifer K.