The Impact of Diet on Hormones & How Seed Cycling Helps with Kaya & Yasmin of Beeya

Dr. Mindy Pelz
On this episode of the Resetter podcast, we are going to talk about a really cool food that can be hormonal medicine. So let me give you a little idea of what you're about to listen to. So I want to introduce you to Yasmine and Kaya. They are the co founders of Bea, is their company. It's a wellness company that is helping women overcome hormonal imbalance, is using natural food based solutions, and they have a deep education around the impact of lifestyle on body health, which you know, as hopefully you all know is a big message of mine is, let's use lifestyle to heal ourselves.

And they started a company, this company that does seed cycling. So if you haven't heard of seed cycling, it's been around for some time. I call it an ancient healing strategy where you eat certain seeds. You're going to hear the four seeds here. They are flax, they are pumpkin, they are sesame, and they are sunflower seeds.

And we break each seed down and what they do and what part of the cycle. So cycling these seeds in at different parts of the menstrual cycle to help balance hormones. Now, for my menopausal women, don't jump off because there was so much discussion in here about how seeds can balance, specifically estrogen and progesterone. If you are a menstruating woman, there is a cycle to do that with. And seed cycling can help you not only produce hormones, help you break down hormones, but help keep this balance of estrogen and progesterone intact.

If you are menopausal or postmenopausal, we already know progesterone and estrogen are out of balance with each other. It's part of the nature of these hormones on their decline. So using something like seed cycling can be really helpful for balancing. You'll hear in this discussion, balancing moods and energy and sleep, which are big issues that perimenopause and menopausal women are dealing with. So this is a very nuanced conversation.

I am very interested in bringing you topics that show you that food is hormonal medicine. And I could not go many months longer without bringing you seed cycling because it's standing the test of time. Everybody can do it. So here you go, Kaya and Yasmine, such lovely humans. And those of you that want to test their products, check the show notes.

We do have discount codes, we have links, so you can go there. And I say, give it a try. After this episode, they convinced me. So let's see what you learned from it and let's all give it a try. Welcome to the Resetter podcast.

This podcast is all about empowering you to believe in yourself again. If you have a passion for learning, if you're looking to be in control of your health and take your power back, this is the podcast for you.

We have launched something called give like a girl. And it is our way of giving back and supporting many nonprofits that are lifting women up. And as many of you know, that my mission is to help women believe in themselves, believe in their power of their own body. And there are some incredible nonprofits out there that are lifting women out of horrific situations and helping give women a normal life when a normal life wasn't presented to them. So I want to talk about the first nonprofit that we are aligning with.

It's called Vao. And what's really interesting about what vow is doing is that what many of us. I didn't know this until I read this statistic that there are literally 12 million girls worldwide who, on their 18th birthday, are not given a choice of freedom. They are actually put into a marriage that they did not choose. And what vow is doing is helping these women pull them out of a horrific situation and give them a life of freedom that they deserve.

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I am now bringing you eat like a girl. And this is a cookbook, so I want to point that out first. It has over 100 recipes. I hired two professional celebrity chefs to bring you some incredible recipes. Everything from a ton of plant based recipes for those of you that live a plant based diet, along with an incredible chef who did omnivore recipes that will have you salivating just reading the recipe, it is so incredibly good.

But that's not all. The whole front part of this book, I call it a food book, are the rules of eating for women. And I've gone through five foundational ideas, so I haven't complicated these rules. I am trying to take everything that's out there in the universe right now around food and bring it all together in a very simple formula that many of you can follow effortlessly. So now, women of all ages, and yes, postmenopausal women, you are included in here.

I have a whole chapter in here for you. And now we can put these two books together and we can complete the metabolic conversation for women. And this is eat like a girl is now out for pre order. And it is with great honor I bring it to you and I hope it changes your life and points you in an incredibly healthy direction and helps you discover just how miraculous this feminine body is that you get to live in.

I just want to welcome you both. I'm really excited to have this conversation with you. So let me just start off by saying, welcome. Let's dive into seed cycling. So we're happy to have you gals here.

Kaya Purohit
We're so happy to be here. Thank you for inviting us. It's such an honor. It is. We love your work so much.

Yasmin Nouri
So we're excited to be here. Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. You know, one of the messages that I think we both share, all three of us share, is this idea that food is medicine. And I have learned that at a very early age, I had a mother that knew from the get go back in the seventies that food was medicine.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
I had a healing crisis in my twenties where a homeopathic doctor showed me the door out. Through changing my food choices and then my perimenopausal and menopausal years, I really started to combine this concept of food and fasting to use it as hormonal medicine. So I feel like my life has been on this journey of looking at food, literally, like we look at medicine. Seed cycling is really interesting for me because I'm going to be really transparent. The first time I heard it, I was like, there's no way.

Hormones are so complicated. There's no way you're going to tell me to eat some almonds or eat, you know, whatever seeds, pumpkin seeds. And my hormonal situation's going to be better. So my first question is, what is seed cycling and why does it work for hormones? I know we've all kind of gone through that same thing of hearing about seed cycling and feeling like, is this witchcraft or what is this?

Kaya Purohit
There's no way that seeds could do anything. But we like to say that seeds are a little bit. Seed cycling is a little bit like magic and a little bit like science combined. Really. What it is, is that there's not a lot of research, actually, there's not any research specifically on seed cycling, but there's so much research on the nutrients in the seeds.

So what you do with seed cycling is essentially you're rotating for specific seeds throughout a menstrual cycle. So let's just say the average menstrual cycle is 28 days. You're rotating these seeds throughout the menstrual cycle to support the two main sex hormones that we're trying to balance, estrogen and progesterone. And typically imbalances in these hormones are what cause things like PM's or irregular cycles. More often than not, it's too much estrogen in relationship to progesterone that causes these sort of gnarly periods.

So the seeds, the nutrients in these seeds are supporting essentially the balance between estrogen and progesterone, the healthy elimination of estrogen and the production of progesterone as well. So the four seeds are flax, pumpkin, sesame and sunflower. And we added hemp to our blends because they taste really good. And they're a complete protein too. Yeah, we love hemp too.

It makes it taste way better because, as you can imagine, grounding seeds every day, like there can be, you know, a little bit of a challenge there. But we really wanted to make, like a great tasting product that people would love to take every single day. And mindy, you know so much about this, but when you think about those seeds and you think about the nutrients in them, you can understand why this could potentially work to support hormones. Because you have fatty acids, you have fiber, you have antioxidants, you have all these things that our hormones need to not only be effectively eliminated in the body, but also be produced and balanced as well. So that's just seed cycling in a nutshell.

But we can dive into all the nutrients in the seeds too. Yeah. You know, the other thing that's interesting I find about seeds in all my research is it's an incredible prebiotic. So where I go with the statement you just made was, okay, if it's a great prebiotic, then do we have any research on just the prebiotic component of seeds supporting the astrobillome, that set of bacteria that break estrogen down? Because I could take what you just said and go, okay, so, and I want to dive into some of these nutrients.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
So if it's bringing a mineral or a vitamin in the seeds, and then it's also feeding this part of our microbiome that breaks estrogen down, that makes it wickedly powerful. So do we know if it supports good bacterial growth? Yeah, well, you know, the. The star of seed cycling is probably flax seeds, because there's so much research on flaxseeds. And so for the first half of the cycle, through men, from menstruation through the follicular phase, you're taking flax and pumpkin.

Kaya Purohit
And the reason flaxseeds are so powerful, they contain fatty acids, they contain fiber, but they also contain lignans. And we know that our gut bacteria break down lignans into these things that are kind of like phytoestrogens, basically. They have weak estrogenic properties. So I hate to say that, because a lot of women who have estrogen dominant conditions get scared of things like flax. It's kind of controversial.

And some experts like to avoid, like flax and soy and these phytoestrogens. If somebody is dealing with something like that, it depends. It depends on the expertise. I'm just like that discussion. We have to unpack.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. But actually, there's really cool research that. Yeah, again, the estrogenic properties are weaker. And actually, what we're seeing instead is a more modulating effect, so it can help to effectively eliminate and antagonize the effects of estrogen. So if somebody is dealing with estrogen dominance, it can actually be pretty helpful.

That was what happened to me. I've had a case of estrogen dominance since I started to get my periods, and especially postpartum, I had really, really horrible periods. They were heavier than normal. They were. I was getting more cramps than normal.

And seed cycling was pretty much the only thing that worked for me. Within one month of seed cycling, my cramps went away. My periods were so much lighter. They went from being like eight days to being six days. So, speaking from personal experience, as somebody who has estrogen dominance, I love flaxseeds, but I know that, you know, some people feel differently.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
Right, right. You know, it's interesting. So I don't want to leave the estrogen dominance talk for a hot moment, because when you acknowledge that you understood that you had estrogen dominance, was it because of exposure to chemicals or, like, because our experience that we've seen now, my experience with the dutch test and looking at hormones tests is pretty much in women over 40. And we don't see a lot of estrogen dominance. We see, actually a lack of estrogen.

But then if you go and you look at the breakdown of that estrogen and the metabolites, you see a dominant four o h. Which is toxic estrogen. So I don't know if you're comfortable talking, you know, a little bit about how you discovered you were estrogen dominant, because I think that might be an important nuance that would be helpful. Yeah, totally. It really started off as signs for me as a teenager especially, really struggling with acne for over a decade, having really bad, painful cystic acne, and then having pretty bad periods.

Kaya Purohit
Not debilitating, but they were heavier than I knew that they should be. They were a little bit longer than I knew. And then I worked with a naturopathic doctor who ran a dutch test on me. And similarly, I found that I had estrogen dominance through that dutch test, and then again later running tests, and actually estrogen dominance runs in my family now. There's so much environmental factors that can come to the table, especially, like you said, toxins, imbalanced blood sugar, stress, you know, so many different things that probably.

As a teenager, I was on a vegetarian diet for 25 years, and for ten of those years, I was on a vegan diet. No shade to any of those things, but I was like a junk food vegan. So I was essentially like, as long as it didn't have animal products in it, I thought it was fine and great for me. But that probably led to a significant amount of blood sugar imbalances, insulin resistance, which I think really drove my estrogen dominance in particular. But if anybody's struggling with acne, hormonal acne, heavy periods, painful periods, that's something that they probably should look into.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
Yeah. And I think. And Yasmin, I want to hear about your story with seed cycling, just so people understand the power of this before we break it into why it actually works. But. But you said something, kaya, that was really interesting, which is, I think when we talk about sex hormones, we kind of pull them out and we make them like individuals.

But actually, you can't do that because they all interact with each other in fast. Like a girl. I talk about how estrogen and progesterone are like twin sisters, and, like, we call them the same, they look the same, but they have vastly different personalities. But the conversation that I think needs to happen deeper beyond that is if one of them's in a bad mood, you know, the other one's gonna get in a bad mood too. So we need to know how to put them into balance with each other.

So is that what we're seeing with seed cycling and. And Yasmin? Is that what you noticed when you said you had some hormonal? Bumps. I'm wondering if it's because seed cycling brings estrogen and progesterone together and starts to balance them in this unique way.

Yasmin Nouri
You know, Mindy, it's interesting because I didn't know I was estrogen dominant or what was going on. I just knew I wasn't feeling well for majority of my life, probably 20 years. And it started maybe when I was 13. I had debilitating periods. I remember being in high school and not being able to go to my class.

And at the time, which was very common, a lot of doctors recommend going on the birth control pill, right? So we were all on it. I took the birth control pill only because of debilitating periods. And I was on it for a good maybe 15 years. And for those 15 years, I thought I was like, oh, all the horrible cramps.

My skin looks clear. I thought it was doing this incredible thing. I wasn't getting my period for 15 years, which is wild now, being in this space, how that was happening. Um, but, you know, we weren't talking about stuff like that in the past. And I personally got off of it in my late twenties, and that's when it was horrible.

So I had something called post birth control syndrome. Again, didn't even know what that was. And it felt like my hormones were completely out of control and was. Came back with a vengeance than when I was even at the age of 13. So I think going back to your question of, you know, did I see an impact with, I think my, you know, I didn't test at the time, to be honest, where my hormones were, but I knew just straight, straight from my experience that it was just debilitating.

I, you know, like Kaya was saying, I also had cystic acne. I had debilitating cramps. You know, I know we're all so passionate about showing up as our best selves, and that was like, how can I show up in this job that I love? And four or five days out of every month, I'm completely out of commission? Like, but I thought for the longest time that was normal until saw a functional medicine doctor.

She mentioned seed cycling, which, similar to what you said beginning of the podcast, I was like, this is B's. Like, what is she talking about? Seeds? And I have this, like, major hormonal issue. And, yeah, and Kaya had brought it up.

She was getting her masters, and, you know, they were learning about seed cycling. So that was my first foray. It took me two years to do it. Cause I thought it was bogus and witchcraft. I was like, there's no way.

But also similarly to Kaya one month, and for me, my symptoms, specifically breast tenderness, which was so painful back then, completely went away. And my cramps the first month was, like, 50% better, and it only got better in time. So I know it sounds so crazy, but, you know, both, just from my personal experience, it was just life changing. So, you know, I always love to watch the trends that go through, or I call it the cultural zeitgeist. Like, what are all the trends?

Dr. Mindy Pelz
Like, right now, the trend is everybody's like, hrt, bioidenticals. Like, I call it. We've been in a cultural hush around menopause, and now everybody, it's like cultural chaos. Like, everybody's like, yeah, cream me up. Patch me up.

And so I like to just, like, watch the trends and go, is that trend gonna stick around? What? What are people gonna do with that? So, with seeds, I've been watching this trend. I mean, it's an old, ancient habit, so maybe you guys can talk to that about that.

But I. It's like, every once in a while, I just see it keep coming back in and coming back in, and I'm like, this trend is not going away. There has to be something there. So, outside of the estrogen and progesterone balance it creates, can you talk a little bit about why it works? Like, what is the seed actually doing?

You're getting a nutrient, but I could take a supplement. I could cycle those nutrients. What is it about the seed? Yeah, so the cool thing about seed cycling is that it honors that we are cyclical beings, basically, that women have this 28 day cycle. And so we use flaxseed and pumpkin seeds in the first half of the cycle, and then sesame and sunflower in the second half.

Kaya Purohit
And those are, you know, everybody says that seed cycling is ancient. We actually cannot figure out who invented it. We've had a few people say that they were the one or that some. Yeah, right. This other guy, this naturopathic doctor, this guy.

So shout out to you, whoever you are, you haven't made yourself really known. But it's become very popular, I think, recently, because, Mindy, as you were saying, people really want to use food as medicine. They want a very natural and holistic approach. And especially people who, like yasmin said, who are in birth control for years, for people who are just kind of putting band aids on the symptoms, they want something that they can take and feel really good about. And that's the cool thing about seed cycling, is it's seeds.

It's literally food. Right? So there's, other than somebody having an allergy or an intolerance to the seeds, there's virtually no harm that can be done with having seeds, for sure. Right. So, you know, it's not like taking a medication.

But we talked about flax, which has the fatty acids, it has the lignans, it has magnesium. Let's talk about pumpkin seeds, which are also used in the first half. So those have things like iron rich source of magnesium, tryptophan, which we know is a precursor to serotonin and then melatonin. So we hear so many women who say they are sleeping better than ever when they, when they implement seed cycling. And it's kind of a cool circle because we know that we need sleep for progesterone.

And so it's kind of like working on the melatonin aspect, but it's also working to support progesterone levels. And then we have sesame and we have sunflower seeds, which contain also, again, these fatty acids, and then things like manganese and vitamin e, these antioxidants and flavanols that essentially help with blood sugar imbalances and also with inflammation. And so a lot of what we've noticed and a lot of what we've talked to with experts is that women who really struggle with their periods, probably one of the number one things they can do is focus on their blood sugar. So anything that they can implement in their diet that supports healthy blood sugar is going to be a win, which is why I think the seeds work in that sense, also with reducing inflammation, also with bringing in all these nutrients that our hormones need to be produced and to be modulated as well. So it's kind of like hitting your body from all different sides, essentially using food as medicine.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
Yeah. So, okay, so then does it matter what type? Like, like, then I, you know, when I sit at, like, I go to the farmer's market and I. There's one vendor there that has nuts and seeds. I know, okay, it needs to be raw.

If I can get a sprouted almond, that would be better, you know? So is there something we need to know about the quality of the seed, or can I just rush off and start putting pumpkin seeds on my salads at a certain time of my cycle? Yeah, well, if somebody can get their hands on these in any which way, I mean, that's going to be better than nothing. But quality definitely matters, which is why we wanted to create a product for people, because so many of the seeds that are sitting at the grocery store have been on that shelf for God knows how long. We know that seeds, when they're exposed to light and they're exposed to heat, they become rancid.

Kaya Purohit
So we want to make sure that people are choosing seeds and nuts. So we're making sure that people are choosing highest quality. So for us, we go with organic. We try to ground grind them as frequently as possible so they're freshly ground, because you. You should take ground seeds when you're seed cycling, not whole seeds.

That's when all the oils are released. That's when you get the beneficial compounds. So we're. Yeah, we have freshly ground seeds in our product, organic. We get them from a high quality farm that we love and work with, so the quality does matter.

And then we also recommend refrigerating your seeds when possible, because, again, when they're exposed to light and heat, they can become rancid. And nobody wants rancid oils in their body. No, no. Just to add what kaya was doing. Cause I was doing seed cycling so incorrectly for a while.

Yasmin Nouri
But even when you go to, I thought, oh, let me go to the grocery store and buy grounded seeds, I can just create it. But what I learned through the process of us creating our own product, when you buy cold milled seeds, which is what you have in the grocery stores, that strips out all the oils, which k mentioned, that's the magic and the nutrient value in the seed. So I just want to share that because I was doing it wrong. And also, we do third party testing for all the metals, since we know there's been some. Thank you.

Yeah. Conversation around, especially flaxseed. So, yeah, we. We do all the checks just to kind of make sure of that as well. So you're just.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
So I have a visual. Yours comes in a powder. Is it like a powder or. Yeah, I guess you could describe it as a powder. It's not as fine as a powder, but they're imagine, like, coffee grinds, essentially, but they're seeds.

Okay. And I've watched on your instagram, you guys put them in everything, like, which seems really brilliant. So are there certain foods? Do you just take a scoop of it and eat it, or are there certain foods that they pair better with? Have you experimented with pairing with other foods, like squashes we know will help with progesterone production?

Like, have you. Have you looked at that combination? Yeah, that's a good question. We haven't gotten too much into the food combining, other than saying that seed cycling is not a miracle cure. So you can't just throw seeds at your life and be doing every other unhealthy habit and expect for changes to happen.

Kaya Purohit
So the nice thing is that all of the healthy habits that we recommend, including seed cycling, are going to support all of our hormones, our testosterone, our progesterone or estrogen. We recommend putting them in anything as long as you're not cooking or baking them. We don't want to lose the value there. So I love to blend it in my smoothies. Yasmin sometimes will put it in yogurt, or she'll just take it by the spoonful.

It really depends. People put it on their avocado toast. They. They definitely are versatile, which is really nice. Yeah.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
Yeah. Because it's gotta be easy. This has been my thing that I've discovered with fast like a girl was people got such women got such incredible results, like dropped weight, got off medication, the fertility. Oh, my God. The number of women that got pregnant following the fasting cycle that was in there.

And a part of why I've thought, actually a lot of, like, how it worked so well for so many women. And I think what fasting does is it gives you a break from the toxic food. And if you can put that in the appropriate part of your menstrual cycle, then, okay, now you're recovering from this western diet. So if I start seed cycling, but I'm eating inflammatory foods is what I'm interpreting. You're saying is that it may not be that miracle cure that both of you experienced with us and many of the women that have used your product.

Kaya Purohit
Totally. But I'm sure similarly to you, Mindy, the people that are looking out for you are not necessarily partaking in very unhealthy habits. They're already primed for doing what works for them. And I love that you're incorporating that because that's just. That's such a mission for us, because it's.

We're actually not taught to think about our menstrual cycle unless we are a. Have really bad periods or trying to avoid pregnancy or trying to get pregnant. And those first two, it's like, forget about it. You're trying to avoid pregnancy or you have bad periods, somebody just throws hormonal birth control at you and you're like, okay, check that off. I don't even have to have a period anymore.

I don't have to think about this. And then what we often see is women in their twenties and thirties who get off of hormonal birth control after all these years, and they're like, I don't understand my body. I don't understand my hormones. I don't even know what's going on with me. Maybe I'm experiencing infertility.

I need to get back on track. Hopefully they get pregnant. If not, then they have to go on this whole journey. And Yasmin and I just want to reach the younger group of women specifically, because if we could help them avoid all of the downstream consequences of not taking care of your hormones and things like pcos or infertility or fibroids or cysts or all of the, you know, acne that we had to deal with, then that would be so nice. And they don't have to have, like, a crazy, in depth understanding of it all, but just basic enough to know that their everyday choices can make such a huge impact on their hormones and avoid all of these, like, painful things that I had to deal with.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
Right. You know, it's interesting you say that. I was actually just coming upstairs into my office to do this interview, and my son's girlfriend was over, and I said, oh, I'm going to go do an interview on seed cycling. Do you know? And she's in her early twenties.

I'm like, do you know anything about it? I was thinking that I was, like, old and, like, was, like, behind the curve. Like, surely the 20 year old would know. And she's like, I don't know anything about it. She's like, I don't even really know anything about my hormones.

And of course, my brain was like, well, we're going to fix that. But I do want to zero in on this younger generation because, you know, I remember when my daughter went through puberty, she had horrible, horrible periods. And so as your company has grown, what are you seeing with the. That, you know, teenagers, 20 year olds, are they embracing this idea? Are they wanting to know more?

Cause we have a lot of menopausal women that have. Have daughters in this category, and we're as equally concerned about our hormones as we are, you know, our own daughters. So what do we need to know about that generation? You know, what just comes to mind, which is so interesting? We actually have a lot of women in perimenopause and menopause using our blends as well.

Yasmin Nouri
And so once they are on it, they're like, I need to get my teenage daughter onto this. And we have so many. Cause they think, and I know you talk a lot about this, they're like, if I only knew how to support my hormones in my twenties, thirties and forties I wouldn't be where I am today. So we have so many mothers advocating for their daughters, and we have family seed cycling. So I just think that is such a cool generational shift and seeing that.

So it's just been really fun. Yeah. I can't even imagine. My mom would have never said to me, what? In my twenties, like, hey, take some seeds.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
And, like, we weren't even thinking about the menstrual cycle back there. And I feel like now it's, like, coming in vogue, and we're, and we're actually starting to talk about it, so. Oh, it's so nice, too, because when I was growing up, it actually wasn't really that cool to think about your health in general. Like, no. Kind of wanted to go, my family is south asian, we're indian, and there's so many ayurvedic principles that my parents would bring into our lives of, like, if you're feeling, if you have aches and pains, take turmeric, take honey, don't go.

Kaya Purohit
Just reach for, you know, tylenol or this or that. And I kind of fought against those things because I wanted to be so westernized. I wanted to be so cool. I wanted to eat pop tarts with my friends. I didn't care about any stuff.

I wasn't exercising. And so what, what I've seen, the shift that I've seen recently with these younger generations is it's actually cool to care about their bodies. It's cool to care about their health. It's cool to take care of themselves. And I'm so, I'm just so hopeful for those group of people because they have, they have so much accessibility with social media.

I know there's a downside to it, but just to see, like, what's in, what's trending, what's healthy, what they can do, and I'm just happy they're getting educated. And Kay and I always talk about, like, how do we make hormones fun for women? Like, us, younger women. So we talk about that every week with our content. Like, let's make it fun.

Yasmin Nouri
Even for me, if it's too technical. I'm like, you lost me. You know, you lost me. So we talk about it all the time. You know, that's what, when I put the fasting cycle together, I actually did it for my patients.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
And then I was like, okay, follicular luteal. Like, you know, it's just so. And then you start luteinizing hormone, follicular stimulating. Like, at some point, your eyes roll back in your head and so that's why I was like, okay, let's just call this what happens here, power phase manifestation. Like, I came up with those fun words, and it was actually a conversation with Doctor Carrie Jones.

Yasmin Nouri
Oh, she's amazing. She's incredible. And I learned how to read the dutch test from her. And when she went down to teach me all that, I looked at her, I'm like, these. This is way too complicated.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
She goes, yeah, you know, we really should be giving hormones nail polish names. Wouldn't it be a lot easier if they were nail polish names? I love that they would be so. I love. I love that you guys are making it fun.

And I think hormones are fun. We curse hormones, but if you actually knew what hormones were doing for you, you would be like, I have a lot of progesterone today. I'm gonna sit on the couch. This is so great. I have an excuse, or, I have a lot of estrogen today.

I'm feeling very social. You know, if we truly understood it, we wouldn't be cursing them. So I love that you guys are keeping it fun. So thank you on that. Oh, yeah, for sure.

Kaya Purohit
And I think us women, and younger women, too, even I can think back to my high school days. I think intuitively we know we understand those shifts, but we can't explain them. And because society is set up in a way that does not honor those shifts, we fight against them. But I remember, even from an early age, feeling like this deep reverence for, okay, I feel different when my period comes. I feel different the week leading up.

What does that mean? And I couldn't put words to it until I got much older. But it's so cool when you understand it and you lean into it and you accept that this is all women go through this in one form or another. And when we honor it and when we respect it, it can be such a huge superpower. Yeah.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
Amazing. So I want to break down a couple of the seeds because I have a few questions on them. Like flaxseed, I heard you should never have the full flaxseed, that now you're grinding them. But I've heard that the oil, like, the. The power of flaxseed, isn't actually in the seed.

You have to sort of manipulate it a bit to be able to get the healing power. Is that true? That's definitely what we learned from our medical advisor, who's a naturopathic doctor, and everybody who recommends seed cycling to ground the seeds specifically. And that's when you really get the nutrients out of them. Hey recenters.

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You put flaxseed in from which days. Of the cycle, so flaxseed and pumpkin seeds. You're taking a tablespoon of each from day one through day 14 of your cycle. So day one being the first day of the period and then day 14 being roughly around average ovulation. You're taking those two specific seeds to support estrogen and also healthy estrogen elimination, and then also pumpkin to help with progesterone, which is coming, you know, after ovulation.

Kaya Purohit
So for day 15 to 28, you take sesame and sunflower seeds. So that's interesting because the way I always understood pumpkin seeds was it was pro, it was for progesterone. Like I always like. It helps to build progesterone. So you're using flaxseed to help with estrogen, good estrogen balance.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
And then you're bringing pumpkin in with the flaxseed to help support estrogen, progesterone balance, specifically coming out of ovulation heading into the back. Do I have that right? Exactly. Exactly. Okay, that's, yeah, pumpkin seed was the first, was the one that I didn't really understand why it was always put in that follicular phase, for lack of a better term.

So I like that. And I think we can take a rule like that and we can apply it to a lot of things because what I'm hearing you say in that combination is use flax for more estrogen, use progesterone for more, or use pumpkin for more progesterone. So you can balance that, those two out again, we're not pulling these hormones out into little silos. We're looking at how they go together. Is that, am I understanding that logic was re.

I think it's important because otherwise people are going to start, oh, I'm just going to dump some flax seeds on my salad. But it's really the interchange between flax and pumpkin that works at that part of your cycle, is that correct? Totally. And that's, again, what we see so often these days, especially amongst younger women, is their progesterone is in the toilet and their estrogen is maybe too high. And that's what's causing their PM's, causing really horrible cycles.

Kaya Purohit
And also, I think a lot of it has to do with stress, because we know that progesterone and stress, the relationship between them is, is iffy. If stress is playing a dominant role in, then progesterone is going to say, see you later. So we really want to support that specific balance. And sometimes it's not, oh, somebody's flat out estrogen dominant. It's just that they don't have enough progesterone to support that balance, as you mentioned.

So that's what those seeds are doing at that particular time. Not to mention all of the other beautiful qualities that they have in there, too. Yeah. You know, one of my other chakras from fast, like a girl going out into the world. And you all probably see this from your podcast followers and your, the people that are using your product is how many 20 year olds do not have a period?

Dr. Mindy Pelz
Yeah. And it's either because of birth control or. I think it's largely because of stress. I think the stress levels of the teenagers and the, and the 20 year olds is so high. And whenever stress is high, progesterone is shy, she's out.

She doesn't do well in with cortisol. So could, have you seen anybody start to use seed cycling and specifically leaning into estrogen, are leaning into flax and pumpkin and they actually start to get their cycle back? Yeah, that's one of the coolest ones, I think there's, there's so many cool ones getting, helping people get pregnant. I love to see that. And then also, people who have not had a regular cycle or a cycle sometimes in years, all of a sudden get their period back.

Kaya Purohit
We've had, I mean, Yasmin, maybe you can kind of point out some of the more specific stories. I can't remember now, but we've had people who haven't had a period in maybe like two years, and then all of a sudden they start seed cycling, and within like three months, they get their cycle back. And gosh, what a wonderful feeling that must be. Right? They're always shocked.

They're always shocked. Especially if they're kind of thinking about family planning. They want to make sure they're menstruating. They're ovulating. We've had a lot of women, we spoke to a woman recently who was having anovulatory cycle, so she was having a period, but she wasn't ovulating.

And so seed cycling was help, basically able to help her get her ovulation back, which is we know the main event of a menstrual cycle. And so important. So anytime I can get people's phases to come back, we feel super excited. Yeah, that. Yeah.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
And I mean, I was just shocked, shocked at how many women don't have a period. And it bothered me so much that I actually started to look into what happens when we shed each month. Like, you know, if you, if you think about the menstrual cycle, it's like nothing in there is a mistake. And so why would our uterine lining every month shed? And of course, you have to let the unfertilized egg out somehow.

So you got to get all the hormones that came in at this big peak during ovulation. It has to go somewhere. But the shocking thing that I found was that there's actually four toxins in menstrual blood. There are pesticides, there are phthalates, there are forever chemicals, and there are plastics. And this is based off a pubmed study.

So literally, shedding every month is so much more than your ability to get pregnant. It's actually how we detox. So using something like seed cycling seems like a really cool way to bring that cycle back. Do we know anything about these seeds and what they do for detox? I feel like you had mentioned something earlier about that.

Kaya Purohit
Yeah, well, we know that. And, and Mindy, you explained this so eloquently in your videos, that healthy estrogen elimination is really key. And that happens through our gut and our liver. And so I think specifically things like flaxseeds also help with that. Anything that has a lot of fiber in it is going to help with that elimination of estrogen that you don't want recirculating through your body, causing all these issues.

So I personally believe, and just looking at all the nutrients in the seeds that it is helping with that. And it's such a good point, too, because when we shut down our period, we're not getting this beautiful thing we get every month, which is a report card for our health. And so essentially, like, every month, your period tells you, like, how am I doing? Am I so stressed that my period went away, or am I so going through something that my period is super heavy or super light or it's irregular, I don't know when it's coming. And so our periods give us so much valuable information.

And it's really sad for me to see somebody want to just voluntarily shut that down versus thinking, how can I optimize it and make it what it is? And I think that's why so many women are so in tune with their bodies. Because we get that monthly report card, we understand more. So how our bodies are doing versus men. They don't get that information and they don't get that way to properly detoxify.

I remember when the raw food movement was really popular in the early, I mean, when was it? 2008, 2009? All these women were stopped getting their periods and they thought, oh, that's good. That's a good thing because, you know, and really what it was is they were just, they were not eating enough food. They were under eating so much that their bodies were like, we're shutting down reproduction or any opportunity of reproduction so that you're not getting a period.

But again, we really want women to feel like their periods are powerful and their periods can be really beautiful. Yeah. Thank you for that. I, too, I love the analogy of a report card. I am working a lot more with the perimenopausal and menopausal women, but in perimenopause, one of the things that's very classic, and I'm.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
I'm thinking about the seeds through. Through this lens, is that you start clotting. Yeah. And that's a sign of low progesterone. So it's a sign like, hey, we got to work on stress.

We got to bring glucose up. And now you have me thinking we need to bring in some. Some more seeds. So have you seen, with menopausal women, the symptoms balance a little bit. Periods change a little bit.

Kaya Purohit
I actually tell Yasmin all the time we talk about this, that seed cycling is probably the best suited product for women in perimenopause. We've had so many women in perimenopause who feel like they're not themselves. Their periods are out of whack. They've shortened, they've lengthened. They don't really understand what's going on.

They're not sleeping well. Their libido is gone. And then they start to use seed cycling, and their cycle becomes regulated again. So they almost feel like they're not perimenopausal anymore. So anytime you can get that extra, extra time or those extra years to have a regular cycle, that's really nice.

Especially a lot of women who report their libido coming back after seed cycling. That's. That's amazing. And so we've also had a lot of women who are going through menopause and post menopausal use seed cycling and Yasmin. And I want to look into this a little bit more and hopefully one day create a product specifically for them.

They can use seed cycling as it is. But, uh, what we understand from our medical advisor is that it's really the flax and the pumpkin phase that's most important for them. So if anybody is at home listening to this and they're going through menopause or post menopausal and wants to do seed cycling on their own, they can just take a tablespoon of flax and pumpkin every single day. They can use our product, too, and it's still great. But if you just want to focus on one phase specifically, it's really that flax and pumpkin that's going to help with estrogen and help with progesterone and all of that in those years, I love that.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
I love that. I mean, again, you know, I just got off a call with my membership academy and we went through all the different ways you can detox. And I was like, before you spend money on expensive detox programs, let me walk you through the basics of what it looks like to detox that will actually save you money. So when I hear what you're saying, I'm like, yeah, like, you know, if you could take the, you know, things like the timing of fasts and the things like, I really believe that there's moments for women to go high carb, low carb. And then we've got great conversations right now about protein and adding protein back in.

And then we put seed cycling into this. Now you're actually giving approachable, cost effective strategies for women that are suffering. Instead of us bouncing from doctor office to doctor office to doctor, trying to get the antidepressant right and the patch right and the cream right, like that is causing as much crazy making as the symptoms themselves. So I love what you just said about the perimenopausal and menopausal women taking this, and I'm excited to try it myself. So.

Kaya Purohit
Yeah, and I think too, you know, thinking about those years and specifically perimenopause and menopause and making them more manageable. Like, I love the food as medicine approach. And I've learned from experts such as yourself that really everything that we do leading up to those years, specifically with stress management, because at a certain point, our ovaries shut down and our adrenals take over. Anything that we can do to support the body when it comes to stress, when it comes to nutrients, when it comes to gut health can be so valuable. And that's why I love seed cycling, because I actually think that you can also eat to improve your stress response by eating specific nutrients.

So I think all of these things help at every stage of a woman's life. Of course you want to, you know, make sure you're older. I don't, I'm not going to give my toddler these seeds right now, but when she's older, you know, and she starts to get her period, I'll give them to her. And that's the beautiful thing about using food is anybody can use it. Yeah.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
And, and there's no, there's no consequence if you're using clean. I mean, that's the most obvious. Like your body, you know, it's, your body figures it out because it's in harmony with what your cells want as opposed to a chemical that is out of harmony. So I I really want to point that out. Um, the two other seeds, the sesame and the sunflower.

Okay. This one's interesting to me, because sunflower seed oil is not healthy, and. And it's highly processed and it's inflammatory. But what you're saying is sunflower seeds actually is. So can you break down the.

Kaya Purohit
The what. What's going on with those two seeds? Yeah, I think all the refined seed oils. So. So right now, we're seeing a lot of people talking about vegetable oils and these refined seed oils and how problematic they are.

And that's essentially it, because they're so processed. They're so refined. We don't want to be getting our omega six fatty acids, which are important, by the way, from those sources. When we get them from real, whole food sources, that's when it's good. And when you're also eating them with enough omega three fatty acids, too, which, you know, flax has.

Gosh, I'm having such bad pregnancy brain right now. Aha. Which converts to ap. I don't know. You're allowed to have a pregnancy, surely you brought Lisa Moscone on your podcast.

Yeah. She explains. You're actually. Your neurons are pruning away, so you're allowed to not feel. I feel it.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
I feel it. But, you know, you want to make. Sure that you're getting a good balance of omega three to omega six. The nice thing about these seeds is that they're whole. They're not seed oils.

Kaya Purohit
They're not refined, they're not processed. They're really in their whole form, other than the fact that we ground them. So they are definitely a much better choice than taking something like a vegetable oil or seed oil. And then sunflower and sesame seeds, they have selenium, they have manganese, they have antioxidants, flavanols, all these things that are anti inflammatory. We were also a bit confused in the beginning.

Flax, I get pumpkin, I get sesame, I get sunflower. We're still learning more about. And actually, what's really exciting is that Yasmin and I are going to be doing the first ever clinical trial on seed cycling pretty soon. So we just started. Awesome.

Yeah, we just started to work with a company. We're going to be recruiting about 40 women to go through this process. And so, hopefully, we'll be able to bring so much more information to the table, because, anecdotally, we've seen just how powerful this can be for thousands of women who report back to us. And now we'll be able to bring some research to the table and show really what it's doing. That is.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
I'm so excited you all are doing that. I mean, I've watched, I've listened to your podcast, I see your reels and stuff, and I know you've had conversations around how little information there is out there for women. And putting together a research study is not really easy. And I don't think it's cheap. As far as I know, we've been.

Yasmin Nouri
Wanting to do it from, like, day one when we launched. But like you said, there's a lot of investment that goes in there. And finally, we, we just are so confident in this. Like Kaya said, we see thousands, tens of thousands of women seed cycle on our product offer product, and we know there's something there. So we're just so excited.

The time has come, so we'll keep you posted once we go through it. And it's such a good point, too. We. It's like you don't know how bad you feel until you feel good. And so we both personally know that when, how our cycles are, when we're not seed cycling and versus when we are seed cycling.

Kaya Purohit
So for me, I, during my first pregnancy, obviously, I'm not seed cycling when I'm pregnant. When I have a newborn, I wasn't really thinking about anything other than keeping a newborn alive and keeping myself going. So I wasn't seed cycling that whole time. And then it's always a nice reminder when Yasmin and I bring it back into our lives more ritualistically, that we're like, wow, this works so well. And we can see it in ourselves.

Like, our periods are so much better. We feel so much better. Mood. Oh, my gosh. The mood thing, that was huge for me because about two days before my period, most of my life, I would feel like the world was falling apart.

I would question everything. I would pick fights with my husband. Whatever it was, it was just, it was bad. And then since seed cycling, I have not been experiencing those intense mood shifts, which we hear a lot from our, from our community, too. I'm going to do the game that everybody does to me, which is who shouldn't seed cycle?

Dr. Mindy Pelz
Everybody always asks me that with fasting, who shouldn't fast? And I'm curious if there's some of an overlap, but of the same type of person. But who is there anybody who should not seed cycle? Yeah, totally. Well, our specific blend does contain a little bit of chamomile in there, so if anybody's dealing with a ragweed allergy or an allergy to flaxseed, pumpkin, sesame or sunflower.

Kaya Purohit
Sometimes people don't even know they have an intolerance to those things, and then they try our product and they might discover that they have that. So allergy or intolerance for sure. Again, anybody who's dealing with any sort of active breast cancer or estrogen dominant related condition should work with a practitioner. Now ideally, that practitioner will be well versed in some of these things and maybe tell them, like, it could be safe for you, depending on where we're at. My mom, she went through breast cancer and the doctor that she worked with was able to bring back things like soy and flaxseeds into her diet, and we felt really good about it.

But it really depends on your practitioner. We also recommend that, you know, if they're younger, if they're, if they're younger, their family members evaluating them or their doctor feels good about it, just because under the age of 18, you always want to make sure everything's okay, even though it's real food. And there are so many teenagers who work with their parents and it works for them. If you don't have a menstrual cycle, you don't need to seed cycle if you're pregnant. I don't recommend seed cycling if you're breastfeeding.

It depends again what your doctor says, but there's really not a long list of people. Yeah, why not during pregnancy? Because if it's just food, you just don't want to mess the hormonal rhythm up. That's. Yeah.

There's so much going on with your hormones already when you're pregnant. There's so much to think about. I use it right now being pregnant. I'll use it as extra source of fiber in my smoothies here and there. I'll just add it to things.

But there's not a cycle to regulate at that point. There is just this huge production of hormones happening all at once. So you don't necessarily need to cycle something when you're not cycling. But post. But you can add it in.

You know, you can add it in here and there. Some people are weary about hemp when they're pregnant. Depends on the person. Post pregnancy, postpartum. It's been so critical for me when I got my period back, it was one of the things that really helped get my hormones back in balance that I recommend to everyone who, once you get your period back after, after you've given birth, it can be so crucial.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
What do you, what about people with the oxalates and lectins. Piece of the conversation. You know, the. And I had a really interesting discussion with Stephen Gundry on this, because my feeling around the oxalates and the lectins are if you have gut dysbiosis, then yes, you could have a reaction to a toxin that's in, you know, something that nature has provided us in vegetables, vegetable, or seeds, or nuts. But actually, if you have a healthy gut, you actually are fine to be able to lean into some of these.

And Steven actually agreed with me. He's like, yeah, everybody thought it was like an absolute. I'm like, well, you. You are the guy that's created the plant paradox. Like, but, you know, but I think this is something that we do with nutrition that is no, is.

Is a disadvantage to us, is we take each nutritional idea and we become zealots for it. We think it's an absolute, and we. And then we struggle because it wasn't the thing that, like, you know, turn. Made our life completely different or it made our life really worse. So do we know anything about the oxalates and lectins from seeds?

Kaya Purohit
Yeah, I have to admit, this is a conversation I'm not super well versed on and mostly want to roll my eyes when I hear, because I, sorry. You need to upset the pregnant woman. Not, not from you, not from you, but more so from when it's made to be this huge thing. Mostly because I feel like so many people are not even eating enough whole foods as it is. And now we're telling them to eliminate an entire group of foods that could potentially be a source of whole foods, and then they're.

That's like leading to some sort of orthorexia. I personally will say I do think it is an issue for some people. And we do have a lot of women who are using seed cycling who have gut imbalances. That's pretty common, I think. Especially when women who have really horrible cycles or they're navigating perimenopause and it's really tough.

Or menopause and it's really tough. Gut imbalances are common. We haven't had anybody experience any sort of negative side effects when it comes to their gut health that are outright. Um, Yasmin, you can correct me if I'm wrong. It's may, maybe some people feel like, oh, I'm a little extra bloated.

Yasmin Nouri
I would say if anything, we have a small percentage of people who are like, oh, I feel a little bit bloated, but I think they're just not used to getting that much fiber in their diet. So we'll tell them, start with half a scoop and slowly build your way up. And they feel fine with time. Right. And make sure that you're hydrated enough.

Kaya Purohit
Right. Because if you're eating more fiber, you want to make sure you have enough water to support that. Otherwise you could end up getting more constipated or more bloated. We haven't personally seen that, but maybe if somebody's listening to this and they've tried seed cycling and they have an issue with lectins or oxalates, then I would love to hear from them. But again, sorry, Mindy, it was not about you.

Yasmin Nouri
It's more. So. It's really just because I feel that we're. We're. Who says it really good?

Kaya Purohit
We're majoring in the minors when we talk about things like oxalates and lectins, like, I would just love for the majority of the population to be eating more real whole food. And I think that would solve a lot of our problems. Yeah, no, it's. You know what? I got so frustrated with this the other day because I'm like, when people get like, but this, this health influencer says this, and then this health influencer says this, but.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
And then my doctor said this, and then they're all opposing each other, and I finally, like, lost it one day, just like your frustration right now. And I was like, look, we have to look at this like a toolbox. If you were going to build a house and you had a set of tools, you wouldn't pick up the hammer and then look at the screwdriver and be like, the hammer is better than the screwdriver. Screwdriver is not good enough. You would actually know that each tool was used for different things and you would stop comparing them with each other.

But I think. And again, you guys are very much deep in this health and hormone movement with your podcast and your product. I feel like one of the biggest disservices we are doing right now is trying to say there's one way and that's the only way. And then the people are like, well, forget it. You know, they're like, yes.

I don't even know what to do now. Totally, totally. We have to invite it all into the conversation and then say, you play with it. You see what works for you. So that actually brings me to even the seed cycling, you know, does it come in, like a bag?

Like, does it come in four different bags? Does it come in two different bags? What happens if I. If I take some of the seeds at the wrong time of the cycle. Can I mess this up?

I know these are the kind of questions that our listeners are thinking about. Yeah. It comes in two bags. The first one is with the flax and pumpkin, all grounded. We add hemp and a little bit of chamomile.

Yasmin Nouri
And then the second is the sunflower and sesame and the hemp and the little bit of chamomile. And we get that question all the time. Mindy, we have women emailing us. They're like, I was so perfect, I missed two days. I'm like, listen, don't let perfect get in front of good.

Like, it's just all about consistency and what is even good for your lifestyle. And how can. How does it become just easy for your own habits? So. Exactly.

If you miss a few days, no issues. Some people mess up, you know, the phase, because they're kind of confused with their cycles, and they'll email us and we'll kind of help them get back on track. But it's food. You can't mess it up. It's all about the long term ritual that you incorporate with seed cycling.

Kaya Purohit
Yeah. And they're totally seasons to life, too. Jolene Brighton explains it so beautifully with seed cycling. She says, there are seasons of my life where I'm not going to be focused on this particular thing. I'm traveling, I'm going around, I'm focused on my kids, whatever it is.

And then I notice that I feel off track with my cycle, and I bring seed cycling back in. So it's definitely not about being perfect by any means. Thank you. I'm hoping everybody's hearing that because we. We get a lot of questions about, like, oh, my God, did I break my fast?

Dr. Mindy Pelz
What if I, you know what this. And I think that there is a concern amongst women that, oh, I'm gonna do it wrong, and then I'm gonna have wasted money, and I just wanna free women from that mentality, too. And so everybody listening, you can't do it wrong. It's food. So.

So, yeah, so thank you for that. Yeah. What? So we've talked about puberty. I'm gonna say postpartum, because you said, don't necessarily do it during pregnancy, and then perimenopause.

And you talked about how important this would be during the perimenopausal time. Of all those categories of people, do you see? Who is it the younger generation that's gravitating to this? Is it the perimenopausal like, is there an avatar, I don't know another way to say this, that gravitates to seed cycling. Is it women at the end of their rope?

I mean, you guys have a lot of people buying this product. What are you seeing as far as the person that really is gravitating to this? Yeah, we ask this question all the time because, actually, when Kay and I launched, we thought it would only be about women in PM's, but we had so many other women reach out and want to try it. So we've done many surveys, and I would say the average, at least that we're seeing are women who are around 28 to about, like 50 who are seed cycling with us. Yeah, that's the time.

Kaya Purohit
Yeah, that is the, that's definitely the time. And it's so interesting that a lot of these women, in a way, we are the end of the line for them, which makes me a little bit sad, but also, like, I'm so happy to be there for these people. And, mindy, I'm sure you feel the same way about your community, too, that they've been dismissed for years, that they've been looking for answers for years, that they suspect they have endometriosis or they, you know, had a hysterectomy at a very early age, and they're navigating some challenges later in life, and they're really just seeking out answers. And they come to us, really as kind of a last option. And we.

We're not necessarily the experts in the way that can help everybody, but we point them in the right direction. We say, seed cycling can be a part of your toolkit. We try to give them as much education as possible. We're all about, like, how can we give as much free education so women can take control of their health? But it really does speak to this movement of women who are like, okay, you know, my doctor couldn't help me or this person couldn't help me, and I need to start to look for my own answers.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
Yeah. My biggest cry right now is we. I love that we're talking hormones, finally. I love that this cultural conversation is happening, but let's not forget lifestyle. It has to be.

Lifestyle has to be. So I. When I hear you say it's, we are the last resort for a lot of women. I'm like, okay, together, our voices can start to change that because it should be the first resort, then you don't have to be looking for a last Alaska resort. Totally.

And then one of the questions I know that I'm going to get. And I'm actually, my fasting brain is looking on this is. Can you use it in your fasting window? What does it do for blood sugar? If it's a powder?

I'm like, could I put it in my coffee? What could I like? What have you. I don't know if you both. I know, Kaya, you're probably not fasting, but.

Right now. But I hope you're not fasting right now. But. Yeah, exactly. Is there.

I'm wondering like a, what does it do to the metabolic system? And I'm wondering how we can add it to something that would go in the fasting window, perhaps. I haven't tested it on, like, a CGM or anything like that. I would love to, but, you know, Mindy, just kind of asking you, have you seen certain things like hemp, which technically are complete protein that would potentially break somebody's fast, I suspect, even if it is ground. So I'm not sure, but it would be really cool to experiment and see what it does to somebody's blood sugar or if they're trying to, you know, stay in ketosis or something like that.

Kaya Purohit
Maybe that'll be an experiment. I should try that. Yeah, because we know people put it in their coffee. So I'll try it one day fast and see what it does. Put a seed.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
Yeah, and I'll try it as well. It'd be interesting to note, because one of the ideas around hunger is that our human cells are not hungry, but the bacteria in our gut that is hungry. So in my community, we actually played a lot with, okay, what if you put. You did a probiotic while you were fasting? You know, what if you do some of the prebiotic powders?

Like, we've played with everything to see if we could get the microbes to be satisfied so they stopped sending you hunger signals. I also am wondering, you know, I'm really a fan. Lately, I've been talking a lot about how the first meal matters. That first meal into your eating window. You know, everybody got excited about fasting.

Some people got critical of fasting. And I always say it's only one side of a metabolic equation. We have a fasting window, we have an eating window, and we have switching between these two. So that first meal into your eating window, I'm thinking something like this. I.

I actually used to put hemp seeds on avocado with sauerkraut. That was my break fast meal all the time. So I'd be curious if you guys, if you all try adding in the powders I mean, again, yasmin's fasting. Kaya, you're not, but. And see if.

If that would, you know, what that would do to stop hunger, how you would feel if that would be another level, we could unite our messages to get more rhythm going with these hormones. So you may have an answer to that. If not, go. Go experiment and let me know. Yeah, we love telling people to take it in.

Kaya Purohit
The more some people take it at night, actually, because they feel like they sleep better when they take it, which is really cool. But we love to tell people to take it in the morning because as you mentioned, that first meal, the way that you break your fast, whatever kind of fast you're doing, 1214, 16 hours, is so important and can set you up for a disastrous day of a blood sugar roller coaster and feeling moody or hangry, or it can set you up for a really good day. And so getting that balance of protein, fat and fiber is so nice in the morning. And the nice thing is that seeds have all of those things. They have the protein, they have the fat, they have the fiber.

So it's a good addition to, you know, something like you said, avocado with sauerkraut with seeds. That sounds great. That sounds great. Yeah. It was literally my go to forever, like, because I was trying to, you know, see what I could do for my microbiome.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
And so that was. And then sometimes I'd add chia seeds. Like, I got. That's where I got into seeds. I feel like you all have just taken this to another level, which is beautiful.

And I'm just a fan of food as medicine. Like, I just. I agree with you, Kaia, about, like, let's get off the absolutes, let's get off the rhetoric. Let's just come back to nature provided some amazing hormonal medicine, and you all are doing an incredible job showing us how to use that. And I think we won't have to lean into all of the HRT and bio identicals as much.

And I'm not opposed to those. I just think you're taking women that are so lost and they're trying to grip onto the patches, hoping that's going to be the thing without looking at something as simple as adding seeds back in. Like, it's. It's so simple, so totally. Yeah.

Kaya Purohit
Anything that we can do earlier on to kind of prevent having to take, not that they're necessarily drastic measures, but they can feel drastic to a lot of people is so beneficial, and we're so lucky to get to learn from you, Maggie. We've learned so much from all of your education and everything that you've taught us. So, you know, the love is so mutual. Yes. Thank you.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
Well, we're way more powerful together. I really. I don't know if you all are feeling this, and I'll end it on this women's empowerment moment, but I really feel like women are waking up and they're like, wait a second. My body's different than a man's body. So what does that mean?

Like, that. That. Aha. Is happening in so many women's heads. That is where we start this discussion.

Now, the challenge is that there still is a big pharma has every desire to keep us medicated. I'm not anti medication. I just think it should be last resort. So I just think we have to take conversations like this and spread it out so that we can all just at least go from a mind that was closed to a mind that's open now. And then together, we can really figure this out.

We're way more powerful together. So I just have this. So. Okay, my. Well, before I ask you my final question, how do people get ahold of your products?

And I'm going to really encourage my followers to give it a go. And what would the go be? Is it 30 days? 90 days? Like, what do you typically tell someone to do?

Yasmin Nouri
Yeah, we always like to say give it, which I'm sure you know, Mindy, at least three months, 90 days to kind of see the impact. So on our website, which is be a wellness.com, we allow you to do one month if you just want to try it. See if you can even add it to your day to day. Or it's, you know, we give you a bigger discount with the three months just because we really want to encourage women to get that real experience. And then you would just continue from there.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
Yeah, and I would say, I agree with that. It takes the body sometimes 90 days to adapt. But like you said, often people see changes within 30. So. Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's absolutely brilliant. And then you guys will have codes for us, discount codes. We'll leave that unless you know it off the top of your screen. Pels, P E L Z. We'll get $5 off, but we'll make sure to give you all the information that you can add in your show notes as well.

Great. Wonderful. Okay, my last question, and I always love this one because I don't know what anybody is going to say. And, Jasmine, I'm going to start with you. Oh, my goodness.

Yeah, we're going to give the pregnant woman a moment. She's been on a roll. Yeah. They're so proud. I know.

She probably needs to go eat here. I'm over here sweating.

Exactly. Exactly. So what is your definition of health? Because we're all chasing something that we have not given a unified definition to. And how do you know, what's your personal measurement for health?

So what's your definition? What's your personal measurement? I would say the way I would personally define health is how I'm personally feeling in my own body. I think we can get so. And I've been there before and I have to reel myself in.

Yasmin Nouri
You can get. You can just compare yourself to other people, what works for this person, how this person is feeling, how this person is showing up. And I'm like, what really matters is how do you feel in your own body? And that even goes to, thank you. Not doing certain trends, not eating something that doesn't feel right for you.

So I think about that a lot. And then your second question, Mindy, remind me I'm not pregnant, but I don't remember.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
Thank you for that clarification. Where are you in your cycle? Maybe that'll help me understand. Oh, my gosh. I'm on my luteal phase for sure.

Kaya Purohit
Okay. Okay. That's good. Yeah. We've already had enough stress going on then for you.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
Like, how, you know. How do you know you're healthy? Like, I think you probably just answered it. Like, I think there's. We.

We tend to ignore health until we aren't healthy. Yeah. So do you have, like, a day to day check in to say, yeah, I'm moving in the right. The right direction? Yeah.

Yasmin Nouri
And I know you've been talking a lot about burnout, and my whole life, I think I've been chronically burnout and my own hormonal journey. It makes sense. Yeah. So I'm on my path and I think for me, it's, am I giving myself permission to take care of myself right where I think we're all here and we're so passionate about our mission, I can get lost with work every hour of the day because I genuinely am. So both.

All of us here are so passionate that I've had to reel myself in and be like, Yasmin, are you giving yourself permission for you to take that walk in the morning, take a second to truly eat your breakfast? So I think, you know, I've been telling Kay I've been recently doing that, but only this past week, and I already feel significantly better. So it's like giving myself permission to take care of myself. And, you know, as much as I want to give to the world and everybody else. Yeah.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
You know what I've been doing? I so resonate with that, because one of the things I've been doing is when I look at a day, if it has space in it, my brain used to say, oh, I could do this project. I can do this project. And I've been reminding myself, wait, I could go for a walk. I could call a friend.

I could read a fiction book. I could, you know, like, stop filling the space with more production. So I love that. I love that hundred percent. And I think we all have to hold each other accountable.

Yasmin Nouri
Yeah. One of the statements I've been using lately is, I call it the patriarchal hex. I feel like we've all been, like, in this, like, days, like, I gotta perform, I gotta perform, I gotta perform. And yet our feminine bodies can't keep up with that, so we have to remember to rest. So I love that.

So totally. Okay, Kaya, what's your definition of health? Yeah. Thinking of just what's my measurement of if I feel healthy or not since becoming a mom, for me, it's, do I have the energy? And am I present with my child?

Kaya Purohit
And that is my measurement of how I'm doing that day. Because if I don't have the energy and I don't, and I'm kind of scattered or I'm looking at my phone or I'm thinking about work, then I can tell that something's off in my body, and I hope that extends into one day. One of my biggest hopes and desires in this world is to be a grandparent to many children. I've always loved that vision of just being a grandmother with so many grandchildren around me and being able to play. Yeah, I just want to be able to play with them and keep up with them for my life.

So energy is a huge, huge thing for me. And the ability to be present to the people in front of me and what's in front of me, the food in front of me, everything that I'm doing versus feeling scattered is. Is really the way that I look at it. And then also being able to step into gratitude at any moment and just feel really, really thankful for everything in my life. Those are probably the two presents in gratitude.

And then the third, energy. Yeah. You know, at the tail end of my practice, we did lifestyle, all kinds of lifestyle tools in my practice, and I started to see a trend in women that were five years out from retirement, and they would come in because my practice was in Silicon Valley, and they would come in and they'd be like, I got five more years and then I'm out. But the way I feel from the stress of work is that when I get to that five year mark, I'm going to have not be healthy. I need to know how to be healthy.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
So I love that you have that long term vision. I think that's part of where we fall apart is we're only thinking of today and where we're comfortable today. I always say every single day, every workout I do, every fast I do, I'm thinking about my 90 year old self. Like, what does she need? So I just, I think that's beautiful.

So, well, I love you gals, and I could talk to you all day. And again, we're just. Thank you for having this collective conversation with me. I just feel like we're so much more powerful together when we just keep opening this up. And I knew in my heart that as I'm talking more and more about food as hormonal medicine, that I couldn't leave seed cycling out, that there had to be a discussion.

And you gals were it. So thank you for everything you're doing. And I want, when you get your research done, I want you to come back and tell us everything that you've learned. Oh, yeah, we would love that. And we're so grateful for, we're so excited for your upcoming book.

Kaya Purohit
I can't wait to read it and talk about it. And thank you for every. Share it, all of the things. So thank you so much for having us. Thank you, Mindy, for paving the way for all of us.

Yasmin Nouri
We're just so inspired by you. Thanks for having us. Thank you. Appreciate you. Thank you so much for joining me in today's episode.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we'd love to know about it. So please leave us a review, share it with your friends and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.

The Impact of Diet on Hormones & How Seed Cycling Helps with Kaya & Yasmin of Beeya

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1: Introduction to Seed Cycling

2: The Science Behind Seed Cycling

3: Personal Stories and Product Information

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