Eat Like A Girl – by Dr. Mindy Pelz

We previously reviewed Dr. Pelz’s “Fast Like A Girl”, but what about when we’re not fasting? So, this one covers what to indeed eat, with female health in mind first and foremost.

We say “first and foremost”, because most of the advice in this book is applicable to men too, and that which isn’t, is at worst irrelevant to men, and not actually problematic. Contrary to popular belief, eating foods that are “good for estrogen” will not increase men’s estrogen levels in the slightest; in fact, what’s good nutritionally for estrogen is usually good for testosterone too, as they are made of the same fundamental stuff and there’s just one molecular difference between them. Which gets made (if either) just depends on what you have going on anatomically and physiologically before you ate what you did.

But let’s face it, most health books out there that don’t specify female focus, are usually based on assuming maleness as a default condition, and women’s health is the same plus breasts and different genitals, which is simply not the case. So, it’s refreshing to have books like this one.

The advice Dr. Pelz gives here is varied and yet consistent; that is to say, she approaches health from numerous angles:

• She talks about integrating what to eat around fasting, how best to break the fast etc
• She talks about why blood sugars matter but calories don’t
• She talks about what to eat for natural hormone support (for hormone production and hormone metabolism; the latter is often forgotten, but not by Dr. Pelz!)
• She talks about how to handle things nutritionally if you have no cycle (or if you do, but it’s a HRT-mediated cycle and you’re not bleeding)
• She talks about what to do for gut health in the context of both eating and fasting

As the subtitle promises, there are indeed recipes, which take up the latter half of the book. They’re respectable and yet not too complicated; ingredients are the kind that can be found in any large supermarket, though if you live in a rural area you might struggle with some. The recipes are mostly not vegan and many are not even vegetarian, but they are still quite low on meat by default and avoid unfermented dairy, and substitutions are mostly easy and obvious if you are vegan or vegetarian.

Bottom line: if you’d like a dietary approach that’s optimized for female health around intermittent fasting, then this is it.

Click here to check out Eat Like A Girl, and eat like a girl (a healthy one, at that)!