How To Use Your Hormones To Optimize Training – with Miesha Tate

Dr. Mindy  

So we’re going to just dive right in. And I have to say because my audience doesn’t even know this, you now know this is our first ever mobile resetter podcast done. And like the most amazing setting ever for me, it’s

Miesha Tate  

actually a sea lion. I

Dr. Mindy  

don’t know if I know I wish you all can see there’s a sea lion sitting on rock, which is amazing. So, um, so welcome. Thank you for being my first mobile recenter podcast guests.

Miesha Tate  

Oh, I love it. Yeah, thanks for letting me pop the cherry

Dr. Mindy  

conversation. I love it. Okay, so I was started tell you that the I Am. Well, you know, my background is as a competitive athlete. I played tennis in college. And so I love the athletic brain. And I love women who like see a way where women can just kick ass but they may not be welcome. And the first time I heard you speak, I literally it was like eight o’clock on a Saturday morning at one of the IHA conferences and you told your whole story about how there were no women in the UFC fighting world, and you were the first one to shepherd women in. So you have to start with that because you broke a frickin glass ceiling for women. And it’s so cool.

Miesha Tate  

Well, I really appreciate that. In all fairness, it wasn’t just me, it always takes two to tango, you know. So I think I have to give credit where credit’s due. It was Ronda Rousey and I who had this huge rivalry, and we had this big fight, and it was in StrikeForce for a world title. And it was the fight that changed Dana White’s mind on women, that we could not only be competitive, but we could sell fights, and we could entertain. And we because you have to sell tickets. Oh, yeah. And we fought hard. And he I think he saw that there was real substance there prior to that. He believed that the talent pool wasn’t deep enough, and that there would have been too many mismatches. And he was very adamant that women would never be a part of the UFC. And it’s funny because I don’t consider myself a cocky or arrogant person. But I am confident. Yeah, remember? Yeah, I mean, I work hard, right? I think when you work hard for something, it’s it’s your rightful ownership to be able to say like, I’m confident about what I do. So I remember thinking that Dana had never seen me fight. And I knew if I could just show him the way that I thought that he would change his mind. And that was years before because I was hearing him for so many years. Yeah, women will never really was seen as like, Well, you haven’t seen me fight yet. Because I know, I have that warrior spirit, you know, and I didn’t win that fight. So it wasn’t about the winning. It was just about showing up and being competitive and changing mindsets and perception. That’s been my whole career.

Dr. Mindy  

But what happened in that fight that changed his mind.

Miesha Tate  

I think we just fought with such ferocity. We just really went out there and we fought hard. But not only that, there was a lot of skill. I think there was a lot of back and forth. And we’d have this rivalry. We really had some momentum some following going in to this fight that people hadn’t cared about women’s MMA to that degree yet. And so I think it started to change some minds on maybe there’s something here that could actually propel women forward and sport

Dr. Mindy  

and so from there what like after that then women are allowed into the UFC. Is it a class and excuse me for my lack of fighting knowledge, but is it like a UFC? Is that

Miesha Tate  

wait? Yes. So they brought in the bantamweight division. It was the only Division at the time. Okay, so I think earlier in my career, I would have probably been a 120 FiVER, but that was the only weight class that was available. Okay, at the time, right. It’s only weight class in StrikeForce. And it was the only weight class that came over into the UFC. So it was just what it was right? But they brought us over, they actually bought StrikeForce. And it was a really nerve wracking time for women because we were kind of assuming that that was the end for us. StrikeForce was the UFC. For us. It was the pinnacle, it was the best we could get, right? So when the EOC bought, we were kind of really nervous that we weren’t going to have a job. Wow.

Dr. Mindy  

Okay, so then when, when they, when they opened it up to women, how many women went flooding in to I mean, how many women are in the UFC? But you

Miesha Tate  

don’t, I would have to guess there’s around 25 in each weight class, and there’s three weight classes right now. So just dependent. It’s probably around that 100 ish, Mark. Okay. And 75 Maybe mean right around on there. But at that time, it was just a handful of us tent 12 of us. And I think they just continued building on that division. And my mentality was if you build it, they will come. Yeah, you got to show women that there’s an opportunity here. Yeah.

Dr. Mindy  

So do you sell as many tickets as men do?

Miesha Tate  

Sometimes more? Yeah.

Dr. Mindy  

I wondered. Yeah,

Miesha Tate  

absolutely. I think women are some of the more enjoyable fights. A lot of the times, people will adamantly say how much they love watching women fight because we just fight with a lot of heart.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, a little more, a little more. or a little more flowery sort of compassionate vibe about you? Do women get injured more than men?

Miesha Tate  

I don’t think so. I don’t think that’s fair to say. I think in all fairness men obviously hit harder. They’ve got testosterone on their side. Yeah. Yeah. You know, yeah, and bad. I would never want to be a heavyweight male fighter because it’s just like, Okay, who’s gonna get knocked out? Every fight? Could you imagine? Right? You know? Oh, they Yeah, yeah, from Yoda knockout. That’s for me. That’s not something I really think about each fight. I don’t think it’s a high probability. Of course, it can happen. I have been knocked out before I was gonna say, you know, it’s I don’t think we get hurt more often than the men not in fights. Anyways, perhaps in training, though, I do know that knee injuries and we train a lot with men.

Dr. Mindy  

Oh, interesting. Still. So

Miesha Tate  

it’s changing though. Now I primarily train with women, I would say 90% of the time. But okay, beginning of my career, there were no, it wasn’t a it wasn’t a thing. It was a it was a real treat to be able to train with a female. Oh, interesting.

Dr. Mindy  

We’re gonna dive into hormones. But you know, like, again, I want to I, the conversation I’ve been dying to have with you is to like walk through the menstrual cycle and be like, Okay, do you know when estrogen comes in, collagen goes up. And when collagen goes up, that you’re going to be more injury proof. So you’re actually going to have less, even if you got hit with the same punch. When estrogen is in her glory compared to like in the front half of your cycle compared to the back half of your cycle, your body’s actually going to take that same punch differently based off the sex hormone that’s showing up at that time.

Miesha Tate  

That is so wild. To me. This is something crazy or new. Yeah, my whole career. Yeah. You know, where were you? 15 years ago.

Dr. Mindy  

I just stumbled upon this stuff, trying to solve my own menopausal like situation. And then when I started to understand hormones, I was like, Wait a second, why aren’t we doing this as women? Like, why aren’t we looking at the characteristics of these hormones and then building everything around it? So the other thing I wanted we’ll chat about is testosterone. So when you say men have more testosterone, you and I talked about this? Yeah, they get it every 15 minutes. But you get it in in full glory at ovulation. So now we put you up against another female. If you’re at ovulation, she’s not your punches technically could be stronger because of testosterone behind you compared to her, you’re gonna be at a testosterone imbalance.

Miesha Tate  

That is so interesting, really a mind blowing statistic and also something to just think about, right? How I mean, that’s what we are. We’re coercing hormones. Right. So how do we? And I’m really curious about training.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, we’re gonna go down that path. Yeah. Yeah. Here’s the funny thing. Again, I just thought about this right now I’ve literally I’ve been like, I’ve been like, I gotta get to Misha, we got to talk about your hormones, we got to talk about training. But do you know where your competitors are in their cycle? Would there ever be a way for you to know?

Miesha Tate  

I don’t feel like that’s typically voluntary information. So I don’t know how I would know. It would be kind of like, trying to find it. Like, yeah,

Dr. Mindy  

but it would be real interesting. I know, this is a podcast, and everybody can listen to it. Hopefully, your competitors don’t listen to it. But it would be a really interesting competitive advantage. You knew where you were in your cycle compared to where, where the woman you’re fighting was, we could have some interesting conversations about what might she might be either thriving at or not, because if again, if you had testosterone peaking, she didn’t, that would be a really different. It’s a very powerful situation. If you had more estrogen, and she had more progesterone, there’s a personality go that goes with this, depending on that, depending on where you’re at. You are in your cycle.

Miesha Tate  

No, this is so interesting. And there’s no way for me to know about the opponent. But what I can do, and what I tend to do is just focus on being best with myself. Yeah, like, I don’t care what she’s doing. Right. That’s probably where she said, Yeah, as long as I’m good. I’m solid. Like, that’s all that really matters to me. So I do have that information as far as I go. So,

Dr. Mindy  

so we’ll go there, and we’ll go there. Yeah, good. Good point. Okay. The other really interesting thing, so I heard you speak at the IHA conference. And then I was fascinated. I was like, I became a Misha fan. I was like, I’m gonna this woman is badass. I love badass women. So I started following you. And there was a scenario you must have had a fight right after the conference. And there was a scenario you were nursing one of your children. And you had had like you posted something on Instagram, you had like a black eye it was like swollen and you were nursing your child. And I all I could think was that just took motherhood to a whole nother frickin level. So how, how do I know you probably are just like, I’m a woman. I fight that’s my profession. When I get out of the ring. I nurse my baby. That’s what I Do but tell me what goes through your mind when you step off the ring and then you step into motherhood. And you’re nursing your child, do you think like, holy shit, I’ve got hormones surging through me, I just did this extreme thing. And now I’m the soft, loving mother,

Miesha Tate  

I’m so thankful for you for pointing out the hormones, because it wasn’t something I was aware of my whole career, until just as of recent, was based off of a male model. Yeah, everything that I did was just what the guys do and how the guys do it, and almost trying to be like one of the guys so that I could fit in and have a place in this world of fighting. So I had no understanding of that. Now, in hindsight, I look back at it and say, you know, how much more powerful could I have been? If I could have trained you know, and I’m at the tail end of my career, I think I’ve got maybe a year left and I’m so happy with that. I’m happy with everything I’ve accomplished. No becoming a UFC world champion, you have captured the dreams. It was on a five year retirement when I had two kids and met my wonderful fiance. And then I just decided, You know what, I think I want to fight again. And so I came back. And you’re right, I was nursing my son was one year after having my second child that I fought, I got back into the octagon. I nursed him the day of my fight. Yep. And that fight, I came out relatively unscathed, but I was still nursing him for my second fight in November, about a year and a half. And that fight, I got a giant black, I got my first laceration of my career, how to cut under my eye. And it’s funny because I was more nervous about how they were going to react than anything your kids. Yeah. And my children actually responded a lot better than the adults. Oh, interesting.

Dr. Mindy  

Tell me what, tell me how, you know, when

Miesha Tate  

my son was a year and a half, and my daughter would have been three and a half at that point then. So my daughter had a lot of questions, but she wasn’t alarmed by the face. And I mean, um, you saw my eyes

Dr. Mindy  

got swollen shut and you’re nursing your son.

Miesha Tate  

Right? And, and he was like, Mommy, he was like, looking at me. And and he was like, do your boobs still work? He was fine. You know? So he’s like, Yeah, okay, well, this is fine. I don’t really care what you look like your mom’s still Right, right? And Amaya was like, Mommy, does it hurt? And I said, No, honey, it doesn’t hurt. It’s just, I’m just healing. It’s okay. Yeah. And she questions about the finest that Mommy likes to do that, you know, have to break it down into her way that makes sense. And I let her be a part of changing the bandages and getting to be Dr. Maya and really trying to harness her empathy and just not being afraid of that whole process by me not being afraid of it. You’re just showing her that it was okay. Yeah, it was a normal part of the process

Dr. Mindy  

does do they watch your fight? They do.

Miesha Tate  

They’re still learning and their attention span is that of a gnat, you know, so of course, they don’t pay attention to the whole thing. But they cheer for me in their own ways. And they’re certainly supportive.

Dr. Mindy  

And they don’t they don’t mind that mom’s getting beaten up. In essence, they, they see it differently, probably, you

Miesha Tate  

know, my so I’ve had three fights since my children have been born. And my last fight my daughter was, she just turned four. And I didn’t win. And she said, Mommy, I really wanted you to win. And I said, I know I really wanted to win, too. She’s like, what, why didn’t you win? And I said, Well, I tried my best, and I just didn’t win. You know, sometimes we try our best and we just don’t win. Such a good listening opportunity. I that’s like, I tried my best and I got a laceration and that the same cut opened up again. So I had a similar look about me. So it’s, they’re they’re evolving. As they get older, the questions become different, the reactions become different. My son was a bit more alarmed at this point. And, you know, he definitely understood that, oh, this was an injury and he was a bit taken aback by it. So I had to calm him and say, It’s okay. Mommy’s okay. I like to do this. It’s okay. But you know, it’s all I’m sure it’s gonna be different for my next fight. You know, she’s gonna be five. And my son will be almost three so, so you’re just gonna have to see how they react.

Dr. Mindy  

And I’m also thinking like, we so and people on my podcast know this, I like to swear. And I used to always say to my kids, like, there’s some words we just don’t say outside the house in the house. You know, this is not acceptable for everybody. But you know, if I if I throw an F bomb down here, they’re like, this is just we don’t we don’t go out into public and say this. Like, I tried to say that. So I’m thinking, like, Do your kids try to fight each other? Do they mimic you?

Miesha Tate  

They wrestle? Yeah. Oh, yeah. They wrestle with each other? Am I is in wrestling and she loves it. And the thing is, she doesn’t even see that it’s different. Right? Oh, boy. I’m sure they don’t run up with gas that are fighters. We go on the gym and we spar. Yeah, train and I just tried to relate to her like we’re playing. Yeah, that’s what I like to do. I’m enjoying it. There’s nothing to be done. worried about

Dr. Mindy  

she’s not like taking down kids at school?

Miesha Tate  

No, not yet. There might be a point though she’s actually, she’s a very sweet girl. But I think she’ll be one of those people that if people assume her kindness as weakness, she’ll be able to kick your ass. So I

Dr. Mindy  

want to fast forward like 20 years.

Miesha Tate  

Because I’m sure it’s coming really fast. I hear that this happens way too fast and really fast. But

Dr. Mindy  

I mean, talk about strength. And, and that, you know, I think that this is what really ties so well into hormones is that as women we can be so strong and our hormones can be so such an amazing example of how our strength can really shine, right. But we can also be so soft, and we can be so emotional. And we can, we can be so empathetic. And it’s a beautiful combination of strength and softness. And I would think, you know, I have a daughter and a son as well, same kind of combo or daughter first son. Second, I really can’t wait to see what happens with your daughter, because she’s going to see both sides of that she’s going to see the ridiculous strength that a female body can do. But then she’s going to feel the mother’s love and the softness that you give her right, and then your son on the other side of that, you know, it’ll be really interesting to see his relationship to women, because of your example, as such a strong but yet nurturing woman, he’s going to see that in women, and he’s going to search for strength and women. But then he’s also going to be looking for that that softness pace,

Miesha Tate  

I think my son will be a real catch. Yeah, for a woman someday because he is going to understand what it means to support strong women and that there’s nothing to be afraid of. I think a lot of men are intimidated by women going out and being strong and being a force to be reckoned with, like some men just can’t handle it. And that’s fine. But I really appreciate the men that can to propel us forward who just help us to like to want us to be have those voices and be strong. You know, I’m very appreciative of my fiance and all the support that he gives me. So I want my son to have that example that. Yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s okay. We want to support our partners equally. And I want my, my daughter to be that woman. Yeah, well, I

Dr. Mindy  

can’t wait to fast forward to that. i One of the things that I’ve been saying is that we’ve come in you just spoke of this about how you trained like men, because that’s what you’ve been taught. I think most of us whether it’s healthcare, or we’re athletes, or we’re in a job, or biohacking we are talking about this in the biohacking world is that we have as women we have had to play in this masculine patriarchal system. And I think for so many years, we didn’t even realize we were playing in a system that was so heavily dependent, you know, focused on on the masculine energy. And what we’re seeing now is that women are kind of like waking up, and we’re having conversations like this, and we’re saying, well, where’s the feminine in all of this, right? And just that the sheer, I hope you have a picture of it somewhere, the sheer picture of you with a black eye post fight nursing, your baby, to me is the perfect example of how we blend the feminine and the masculine. It’s saying I can do this because I’m a kick ass woman. But I also can still be a nurturing loving mother. And that is the direction I see women going. Women are so powerful, crazy, powerful, crazy. They can do it all. And I think when we’re not stifled when we can really be allowed to flourish. I think

Miesha Tate  

we’re we are powerful beyond measure

Dr. Mindy  

crazy. And if you look at our hormones, we actually built to be all everything. So and you and I talked on your on Instagram about this, we talked about protein cycling and fasting, and how do you actually build muscle while cut weight? Which is really important for a fighter? Right? And we’ll chat about that. I don’t know. Did you? Do you remember what it was? Did you apply any of them?

Miesha Tate  

Yeah, I’ve broken my fast with protein after a workout. Okay, trying to get great, you know, a boosted muscle. And I’ve taken a lot of those things into account. I focused a lot on my gut too. So a lot of times I I will break it with probiotic drink. And I mean, I’m definitely trying to implement these things. Because I’ve had my own issues with hormones and cutting weight and trying to move a weight class. And it’s it’s been a real stressor on my body. Yeah. So I’m really focused on healing myself. Yeah. From the inside out. And I believe there’s some really powerful tools here to help me do that. So feel like I’m just getting my my toes wet. Yeah. But the testosterone. That’s really interesting, super

Dr. Mindy  

interesting. So so let’s go through your cycle. So before I do that, tell me what, just give me a sort of a general idea of what your training schedule looks like is it’s a weekly schedule right now, right? Correct. Yes. Give me Give me an example of the different variations you do.

Miesha Tate  

I do strength and conditioning three times. A week, okay, and then I usually do a pro practice, which would be everything from grappling to sparring, Okay, a few times a week. And as I build into my training camp, when I’m about eight weeks out from the fight, I will hit twice a day, just about every day, once on Saturdays. And sometimes they do half day on Wednesdays too, because I’m trying to also be more mindful that more is not always more. Right. Right. So sometimes, I’m listening to my body, I’m learning to be my own CEO. Right? Yeah, my life, my trading. You know, at the end of the day, I’m the one who has to go into the octagon. So I don’t really feel like there should be somebody telling me you have to do this when it doesn’t feel like I have it to give. So I’m trying to find out what are your What are your coaches say with that? It depends which one that you talk to. But I also encourage athletes to remember that you are the boss. Yeah. It’s so easy to forget that, you know, not only do we hire our coaches and pay our coaches, we do want their advice, but they don’t rule us. We do have some say in this beautiful. And it’s the similar concept for me with women and birth. I really want to be a strong advocate someday, I’d love to be a doula as well. And you know, all these things, because I want to empower women to take back their power and make the choices for themselves. Just because the doctor says, You’re gonna have a big baby, you need a cesarean. Not necessarily true. They can’t even actually measure the baby after like three months, seven and a third, you know, so what I’m trying to say there was this, there’s been a lot of that where it’s like we’re just being told, right, we just think we have to do Yeah, but we also have intuition. We have things that our body tries to tell us. And when we continually manually override, I think it can be very detrimental. And I’ve felt that myself. So it depends which coach that you talk to I have coach Sam calvia, who I love working with, with training lab, who is very mindful of the workload. But I don’t know if he knows as much about the cycle for women, he might, but the workload is still what it needs to be when my request was to move down a weight class. Like we said, we had a timeline, we had to do what we had to do, you know, sometimes to hit the mark, you don’t get to do everything the right, right way. You got to do it. The way to get it done. Right. Right. So I didn’t feel like I had a lot of room for air for air or a lot of room to relax. Right. So that was a really hard training camp. This last one, I tried to move down a weight class, what did move down a week?

Dr. Mindy  

How many? How many? How much weight do you have to go down?

Miesha Tate  

So it’s 10 pounds lighter than I normally compete at?

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, and you’re, you’re like sick muscle.

Miesha Tate  

So I had to lose a lot of muscle. Because I was very lean. I were round 10, nine or 10% at 135. Why I went down to 125.

Dr. Mindy  

So So you were 9% body fat. And then

Miesha Tate  

I went down. And I I think I was around 8% at 125. Which means I had to lose a lot and just didn’t have a lot of body fat to lose. Yeah, but

Dr. Mindy  

you know, there. I mean, women are supposed to be at like for a healthy hormonal like that. 19 20%.

Miesha Tate  

Like, you’re telling me that for sure. He’s like, you don’t want to stay here. This is not healthy for you. And once it started to impede my cycle, I knew he was alarmed. But it was like we have to stay the course though. If this is this still the objective? Yeah. And it was like that’s still the objectives. So we push through it, but I’m still paying the price. Yeah, yeah. We accomplish the goal. We made the weight. We did the weight class, right. But I’m still paying the price.

Dr. Mindy  

But it’s not like I can’t imagine like, let’s say you make the weight class. You do the fight. But it’s not like two weeks later, you pop from 8% up to 20%. You’re I mean, you’re probably what do you think you are right now?

Miesha Tate  

Oh, probably around 19 or 20%?

Dr. Mindy  

And how so? How long do you think it took you to pop? I mean to go from 19% to 8% on your hormones? Like how long do you think it took you to get back up to a healthy body weight?

Miesha Tate  

I mean, at least a few months. Yeah. Yeah. Two, three months. I mean, you you put on I put on some in just inflammation, not eating as clean, but to actually put the body fat back on to be a healthy woman again. It takes time for that. I think that’s why I’m still seeing some hormonal repercussions. Yeah. Do you have a regular cycle? It’s not regular anymore. It used to be How old are you? I’m 3636. Okay,

Dr. Mindy  

so does it have any irregularity rhythm to it? Like is it every 60 days every

Miesha Tate  

No, it’s around that 28 day but it can be four days later two days early. So I’m usually still within a week. Yep. But I think even have pushed sometimes like that seven, eight. days, and it’s slowly been starting to get better. Okay? And then sometimes when it’s like four or five days late, it’s sometimes only two days long. Okay? And then as of recently, it was like, two days early and it was like 10 days long, right? And I was like, What is going on here? Like it’s all over the so

Dr. Mindy  

it is all over the all over the US. So here’s what we’ll do is we’ll go through like a month, a monthly cycle, and then you’re gonna have to get take this back to your coach. Right? See how you how you can work with that. Okay, before I do that, the one of the big things that I always and I asked Danica, this Danica Patrick one night, one of the first questions I had for her, when I first started to get to know her, I was like, Okay, what did you do in a, like, six hour car race, when you had your period? Like, this is where we’re at a bit of a disadvantage, because she was competing against men. So I was like, how did you? How did what did you have to take more bathroom breaks, you can’t do that, because it’s gonna affect your, your, your race time, depends on, she just said she was on birth control, she had it all manipulated by birth control, oh, that’s scary, which is scary as well. So she had, like, you know, synthetically manipulated it, which made sense for what she had to do.

Miesha Tate  

Sometimes to hit the mark, we really pay a price on the back end. And I think it’s important, we can be more aware of that, before we make that decision, a grade.

Dr. Mindy  

And we can do we can do better at educating the younger. Yeah, girls that are, you know, going and following your footsteps, and they’re moving into that professional athlete. Status is like, how do we have to first acknowledge and I think this is really hard. And I can say that as a I would consider myself a feminist strong woman is that I don’t want to ever say like, I can’t do something, right. But when you look at us hormonal either it’s things that we need to do differently at different times of the month. And there is strength in acknowledging that. Yeah. So I just think in with athletes, we don’t give you all enough grace to say, Gosh, that has to be hard given wherever you are on your hormonal cycle. So now you’re fighting women

Miesha Tate  

never has that? Yeah. I mean, when we’re on our cycle, I think it’s to the point where men recognize that’s something I don’t fully understand. And it makes sense. You know, she’s a little more emotional right now. So maybe this will take it a little easier. Maybe they’re starting to wrap their brains around that. Right. But I mean, when I started, it wouldn’t even be something I would talk about and like surrounded in a room of men, you think that that’s the last thing that I’m going to talk about, right? I don’t I’m trying to fit in, right, not trying to write to stand out and be like, Oh, my period, you know? Yeah, it’s like, I had to pretend like it didn’t exist. Yeah. And now, the science, the research, the understanding, even the consideration, yeah, that we’re so different. It’s starting to make a head grade. And I really think it’s important. Yeah, yeah. There’s so many studies that have been done on male models, as well, like, almost everything. And, you know, I was talking to one of my trainers recently, you know, it’s like, yeah, that’s because men are easier to study. Women are

Dr. Mindy  

so much easier to study and complicated. Yeah. Yeah. And and in the science world, you know, to researchers credit, you know, a lot of women have been crying like, why don’t we have enough science on women? Why don’t we have enough science on women? And I think a lot of it is because we’re so hard to study, you’d have to take women’s cycling at the same time, same age, and really put your efforts into categorizing women on different hormonal trajectories. But what we have to get out of is comparing putting men and women lumped together the same study, yeah, the most common one that I always point out is the intermittent fasting study that came out like a few months ago, and it said, oh, people can’t lose weight with intermittent fasting. And it made all the headlines. And it was like intermittent fasting isn’t your weight loss tool. And I dove into the study. And it was a study of like a good sample size, it was like 1000 people, and it was everything from a 17 year old man to a 65 year old woman were lumped into that. And I’m like, You can’t compare a 65 year old woman to a 17 year old man when it comes to weight loss. You can’t compare us to anything, but you and then you lump us all together and you’re like, Oh, well, it didn’t necessarily work it’s because we didn’t categorize them out. So I do think that’s changing but we are very difficult to study. Right? So you know, I always

Miesha Tate  

understand it and I think is if we could even get some general concepts like what you’re talking about, about how to train according to when or what hormones are present and is it possible to be mindful about scheduling fights? You know, is that something that I can even can you do get to determine when you I can tell them around about when I would like to fight you can’t Yeah, okay. Annabelle great. Okay, so I’m gonna go down this Yeah, I think this is gonna be really powerful. Yeah, like your opponent

Dr. Mindy  

doesn’t doesn’t determine it.

Miesha Tate  

It’s a little bit of combination of Both I’m fortunate that I’ve been with the company for a really long time and having been a former world champion. I’m very blessed. Not everybody gets this opportunity. But usually I can hit up the matchmaker and say, Hey, I’d like to fight in May, towards the end of May or this time say, You know what I mean? Okay,

Dr. Mindy  

so so we’re going to get you to fight during ovulation. So okay, so here we go. Because that’s when you got all the testosterone, this is gonna be so fun. Okay, so let’s go through your cycles. So, day one to day 10. So day one is when you bleed, and today, 10, you’re building estrogen. So two things, the couple things know about estrogen, very forgiving of cortisol. So you know, any stress you can push your workout. So if your coach is listening to this, or if you take this back to to whoever’s the head person training you, like, if you want to really improve your fitness and push that workout till you’re in complete exhaustion, do it from about maybe wait till the second day of your period, maybe the third but then from there until about day 10 Go for it that week, you a little over a week, you’re making estrogen you shouldn’t be you should be pushing yourself. The second thing to know is that you want to keep glucose down and you want to keep you know, insulin down. So I assume you probably don’t do low carb. No, ever. And I’m not I don’t think you should. But if you were to err on the side of like, higher protein, more of nature’s carbs do you do like, Do you are you Where do you get your carbs from?

Miesha Tate  

A lot of its sweet potatoes. Excellent. I love sweet potatoes. I mean, off camp, I’m not perfect. I’m not gonna sit here and say like, I’m perfect. I’m not. But I generally try to be mindful of getting cleaner sources of carbs, fruits, sweet potatoes, Harpham vegetables are also a great source of carbs. I mean, I’ll have oatmeal sometimes. Perfect. Those kinds of things.

Dr. Mindy  

So what I if if I was designing a nutritional program, I would say from day one till day 10 You should do a plenty of meat variety of meats, because you’re gonna get different amino acid profiles and different types of everything from chicken to to Turkey to fish to grass fed beef, like you want good variety. And then I would say you definitely want to lean into more fruits. And I would go maybe to the more lower glycemic fruits. So I would do like the berries, the apples. I wouldn’t necessarily do the tropical fruits. I’d save that for the back half of your cycle. Okay, and then you could add in you could do the sweet potatoes there. You could do the potatoes, you could do rice, like like a wild rice or a forbidden rice. Quinoa is amazing. Yeah, amazing. Yeah. So yeah, so but when we look at things like breads, pastas, cakes, cookies, like all that, there’s just there’s nothing there for us other than it is going to raise glucose. So you can really keep yourself lean, but power up your muscles in those first 10 days by choosing smart carbs that are nature carbs and massively powering up on on protein. And for for an athlete like you, you would want a protein load of about 1.6 grams of protein for every pound of body weight you are and then you would want to be divvying it into your diet every two to three hours, like we talked about when on on when we did the Instagram Live. So it’s like if we look at like how much do you weigh?

Miesha Tate  

Now about 149 one and what are you trying to get to? I will have to weigh in at 136 pounds. Okay, I will not die it down. I naturally lean down to about 143 pounds. Okay. And then I cut from there anywhere from 139 to 143. Okay, yeah. So so let’s

Dr. Mindy  

say just rounding out the numbers like you need, you probably need about 200 grams of protein a day. And I would put that in that front part of your cycle. But the way I would divvy it up is I would divvy it up in like 50 gram chunks. Okay, so you would do four meals of 50 grams, and you would want that every couple of hours. Does that make sense?

Miesha Tate  

Yes. So how long would you say would be a good range too fast. When I’m in a training camp? I it would be harder to hit those longer fasts. What I did my last training camp and went slightly ketogenic. Um, so a little less on the carbs, but I still need a pretty good amount of carbs. I think my protein intake was around 150 to 170 grams at the time, but I was lighter. I was in the 130s. And the fats were around 80 and the carbs were whatever would make up the rest of 1900 calories. That’s about what I was at. Okay, so numbers of eight me. I’d have to look it up.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah. So karma hydrate wise in that, and again, we’re going to break it through the cycle day one to day 10, you wouldn’t, you would probably keep your carbs a little bit lower. And for you, I would say 75 grams, maybe 100 grams, but you really your macro to focus on in those first 10 is protein. Okay? And I’ll show you you’re going to focus on carbs in the back half, right? You can focus on him a little bit and ovulation. But if we just look at it from front half of your cycle is that protein load? You can do longer fast to answer your question. And I would say for you, when you’re actively training, we’re looking at like 15 to 17 hour fasts. I’m not talking to 24 hour fast. I think you have to decide if you lose energy. Right. Do you train in a fasted state

Miesha Tate  

are often trained in a fasted state? Yeah. But I could I have to pick the kinds of workouts that I do. So strength and conditioning, in my pre camp, groundwork sort of area, I’ll often hit that no problem, right, fasted, great. But what ends up happening sometimes is if I hit a long, fast window, and then I hit the strengthening and conditioning in the morning, and then I’ve got to get enough in to feel okay for sparring or something live later. I’m also hat and compiling to practices that, then sometimes I would, I feel, feel it like I feel weak. Okay, I feel a bit depleted like not as explosive. Yep. So my last camp, I hit around a 13 hour fast, pretty consecutively. Yeah, well, this was before. I knew anything about fasting for hormones, but I would hit between 12 and 13 hours. Yeah, which should

Dr. Mindy  

be good in general should be good, right? The closer you get to fight day, you might and I don’t know what the space is between training camp and actual fight. But you might go up more to 15 1617 hours if you can, if you can take it just to keep yourself lean. Right. So the other trick, and I don’t know if you’ve tried this is in your fasting window, putting amino acids and like in a drink, just aminos. Because it’s a form of protein, it’s going to fuel the muscle, but it won’t pull you out of a fasted state. Okay, so you could take like, I would do like a pack of element with some, some protein or some aminos, you could do your one that you love, I’d put it in a big jug of water. And while you’re, you’re in your fasted state training, just drinking it constantly, because now you’re giving a fuel source to those muscles, but you’re keeping yourself in a fat burning state.

Miesha Tate  

So aminos, if you looked at the food label, do they have any calories?

Dr. Mindy  

They don’t have any calories, calories, but they do have protein in them. Yeah,

Miesha Tate  

that’s perfect, then I think I was looking recently at glutamine was that something I’m looking to just have in my diet more regularly, but it had per serving was like five calories. I’m like, I’m pretty sure that will pull me out of a fast. So I’ll wait until I’m in my eating window. Just to make sure that I don’t Yeah, mess that up. But that’s good to know about the BCAAs. Yeah.

Dr. Mindy  

Have you put Have you ever put a continuous glucose monitor?

Miesha Tate  

No. But I want to do that. I want to do that. And let’s see what it

Dr. Mindy  

does. And we’ll interpret it no one that you recommend neutral sense is the one Yeah. And we’ll put it on and like, I’ll go through the whole cycle, we’ll create a training prep program or plan for you, you take it back to your coach, you guys work it out. And then let’s put a monitor on you. And then let’s watch what happens. Because what’s really interesting is that what I’m seeing with a lot of professionals is that when they’re doing their craft, they actually their blood sugar drops because you’re in a flow state, right? And that blows me away, because it makes no sense in the person I’ve learned. I’ve tested this now with both Leanne and Danica Leann we every single time she goes on stage, and she’s dancing and singing her blood sugar goes down. That makes no sense,

Miesha Tate  

right? Because you would think it would be being released because of the activity. But is it because it’s being so quickly burned? No,

Dr. Mindy  

because when you are in your flow state, your brain goes to a different place. It goes into a gamma Brainwave. And you are literally in the zone. And when you’re in the zone, blood sugar goes down, regardless of the doesn’t matter how much so I’d be curious on your Danica, the same thing. She was driving her car one day, and she had the monitor on and she sent me a message and was like, Oh my God, my blood sugar just went down. And I’m like, of course, you’re in your car. And you’re driving like she was in her flow state. Yeah. So it’s really what would be so fascinating, would be to look at blood sugar from where are where is it affected in you? Because you might be surprised because of the level of sophistication that your body has with fighting, right? So we could if we go back to this theory that we take you at 15 hours, you’re training, we’ve got you in aminos. We’re trying to get you into ketosis, so you need that blood sugar down to get the ketones. The ketones are going to power you up when you’re when you’re actually fighting. But we’re also going to be helped by the situation that your body in what it’s fighting loves that right. And so it this doesn’t have to be like fight day, this can be just you’re enjoying a workout in the arena. And now your blood sugar drops, we’d have to test all that. But it would be really interesting to see if that actually is putting you more into a state of ketosis than you think

Miesha Tate  

I’m so interested, right? Very intriguing. fascinating to me.

Dr. Mindy  

So but that’s how you can, you could get away with a different like you’re in a fasted state, but you need your muscles to perform. So we put aminos into a liquid water and you’re just drinking those to keep those muscles well nourished, so that you can do what you need to do to train. But we’re also allowing you to lean out so that you can hit what you want it to hit that weight.

Miesha Tate  

Right. I’m really curious, then, as I search to wrap my mind around this that would this change. Day of weigh ins or Day of the fight. weigh ins is a whole other right element to my sport. But let’s just talk about the day of the fight. Would I be considering doing any kind would fasting be beneficial at all that period? I’m gonna don’t fight until but sometimes is sometimes as early as three, but sometimes not as late as late as eight or nine just depending on the fight cart. I mean, is there an element to producing ketones a day of the fight? That could be beneficial?

Dr. Mindy  

It could be beneficial, but what I would probably do is have you eat earlier in the day? Are you allowed like can you do exogenous ketones? I mean, like drinking them? Yeah, yeah, they don’t like test you for that when I don’t know I don’t think that’s ever considered. So what I would do is I’d actually have you protein load, like really high protein a couple of days before the fight, you compare that with a little bit of fasting, maybe a little bit more, because you got to cut weight with weigh ins a couple of days before the fight one day, one day. So you’d have to you could maybe do it up until the weigh in day. And then on the fight day, we would do protein in the morning. And then we would keep you doing a ton of protein and then add in some exogenous ketones and see if that we’d have to play with it in your training schedule. And then see if that now you’ve got the amino acids from the protein and you’ve got the ketones and your blood sugars up. And now you’ve neurochemically got all the resources to kick butt. So amazing. Well, wait, let’s play with it. Yeah, try it. Yeah. So okay, so to just keep, just remember that day one to day 10, push your workouts, push more of the protein, a little more fasting, depending on what you what you can take. If you’re finding that you’re weak in your workouts. Can we get you doing amino acids in that fasted state? And that goes all the way till day? 10. Okay, and then let’s see what what what performance looks like when you go into ovulation day 11 To day 15. Now, this is this is key because this is where you’ve got testosterone come surging in, so testosterone is at our highest. So you should be building muscle during that time, right? So something that I’ve thought a lot about is like when we look at a weekly training schedule for a woman, we’re like, oh, you know, buys and tries on Monday, cardio and Tuesday, you know, recovery on Wednesday, like long distance running on Thursday. No, why don’t we just put in that ovulation window? Why don’t we do baizen tries one day, you know, legs, and but the next day ABS the next day, we do all strength training, right? Using testosterone when she shows up. All right, have you had I mean, I think you your strength could

Miesha Tate  

go through the roof. It makes so much sense. Because you

Dr. Mindy  

have testosterone testosterone is at that time, you’re not getting it any other time in the cycle.

Miesha Tate  

So it’s an uphill battle to build the muscle, the Bing Bing,

Dr. Mindy  

bang. That’s it. So how do we take that time period and do heavy heavy weights, right, like, make you as strong as we can. Now here’s the trick. You also have estrogen at her peak. And what estrogen does is it tightens the ligament and the ligament is where the tendon attaches to the bone. So it tightens the ligament and it makes the tendon really flexible. So when you lift the weights, you want to do slow heavy weights, you don’t want to do a lot of plyometrics you don’t want to do a lot hit training, right you want to do a heavy weights for the testosterone and you want it to be slow so you don’t injure yourself because the estrogen

Miesha Tate  

I’ve heard that on your cycle is not a favorable time to do things that would like knee injuries are more prone hip injuries are more prone Is that true? Because the things are more relaxed, right? So might not be a good time to do active sparring, for example, or something box jumps or anything that’s like really hard on the joints or potentially could cause something to Yeah,

Dr. Mindy  

during ovulation plyometrics that kind of jumping is that you are going to be more prone to injury. Right. But on fight day, I’d be curious if you know you, you need flexibility? That’s part of the skill of the sport, correct?

Miesha Tate  

Yeah, I think to a degree flexibility is beneficial. I wouldn’t say it’s like on the top priority, okay. But if you’re in a place where you’re having to test your flexibility, you may have already messed up. Oh, really?

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah. So it would be I mean, you can always backfill in with some collagen, right, make sure that you’re like getting enough stability in there, and you have so much muscle that it may not be as much of an issue. So but again, we’d have to test that. Yeah. But in training, and this is what I say for all women. Is that why are we not using testosterone to build muscle during ovulation? You’re not getting it any other time. You instead of doing cardio during that time, take that five day ovulation window and power up on your strength training.

Miesha Tate  

How much testosterone are we getting in that one month, that period of the month? You know, so you say men get it every 15 minutes? Yeah. Are we getting it every 15 minutes for five days? Like, like, how much are we actually getting? Yeah, so

Dr. Mindy  

you know, hormones in general Polson, right? So they’re never it’s not like a faucet you turn on. But I don’t know what the frequency is. It’s but you’re getting it like when we look at it on a map. You it’s coming in, in those five days consistently at what rate? I’m not sure. But it’s probably I’ll go look it up for you. But I’m guessing it’s probably you know, every few minutes, it’s just coming in as another pulse and then it relaxes and then another pulse and then it relaxes, okay? Because you what you’re made to do during that time is procreate. So what your body is doing is it’s saying, Okay, well how about you know, we make sure you have plenty of testosterone so your libido goes up, right? So that you go and find a mate and we can reproduce. So it’s got to come in very, very consistently. I would doubt that it comes in in the morning and then like later in the afternoon it comes in again, I think it’s like a low hoes that might be like pulsing in pretty consistently throughout the day. So fascinating, right? Yeah, so we do we do cardio in the front, in the in the first 10 days, push it you can do plyometrics you can do all the all the speed work like really push those workouts, then we get into ovulation for five days you power up on all the all the muscle building. I’m not saying you can’t do muscle building in the first half of the cycle. But the heaviest heaviest weights should be during that time. Now nutrition wise, this is where you want to power up on all your probiotic prebiotic and poly phenyl foods. So this is going to be fruits and vegetables, every like big green salads that you can find with a variety of vegetables in there. A lot of nuts and seeds. Hemp seeds are amazing. Chia seeds are amazing, because you want to support your microbiome, all your fermented products. So all of your salary for kefir, like you could do tons of rocky for at that time was the best. But you really want to focus on the microbiome during that time. The liver is really important to break those hormones down. So if there was ever a time to avoid alcohol, that’s the window to avoid alcohol because you need your liver to really be there to break these hormones down. Okay, so you would have a toad, that five day window would look a lot different diet wise, and that’s day 10 To 1510 to 15. Okay, like day 11 to 15. So day one to 10 and then 1111 to 15. Okay, so it’s about a five day period. So and then zinc, like there would be nutrients, I would tell you like you really want to power up on your zinc because you go into that ovulation because that helps with all the hormonal production. Whereas there’s another nutrient to power up at the end of end of the of the cycle. So you would come in strong like five days with a whole bunch of zinc to help make sure that you had enough resources to make estrogen and testosterone and zinc

Miesha Tate  

is something that’s in the electrolytes. It’s some of them.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, depending on which ones you can get zinc rich foods or like, you know, oysters. I don’t know if you’re negative. You’re doing a lot of oysters. But that’s like the most common one that we’ll talk about it.

Miesha Tate  

Maybe if they’re cooked. I can’t do the raw oysters oyster shooters. Okay, okay,

Dr. Mindy  

well, we’ll come up with a bunch of zinc rich fins, but that’s the one that you know, everybody says oh, it’s an aphrodisiac. Well, it all it’s doing is raising testosterone because it’s high in zinc so that’s why it’s you know, it’s it’s it is an aphrodisiac it because it’s helping you raise testosterone, right if you eat it during your ovulation window.

Miesha Tate  

What if you were to try to raise testosterone naturally outside your testosterone window?

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, it i You will raise it to its natural capabilities. You’re never going to really testosterone. You know, it’s the one of the interesting things is PCOS is the most common hormonal disbalance or imbalance for women. And it’s high too. testosterone rates and then women are like growing facial hair, their cycles stop. It is more of an abnormal situation. And that’s a completely different discussion. But what we see in general with women is low testosterone, right? So we want to maximize that during ovulation. That would be the best time but the other times you’re you’re not supposed to have a lot of it. Right? Which also again,

Miesha Tate  

but if you’re an athlete, and you want to try to get the most that you can get Naturally, this right, you could probably try to incorporate some of those things a lot more regularly, regularly.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, I could do it more regularly. So have you done a hormonal hormone test?

Miesha Tate  

No, I wouldn’t say specifically, I’ve had blood work done looking at certain things, but it wasn’t, you know, it was more like if I was having a problem. Yep. Or, obviously checking vitamin D levels. I don’t be trying to be optimal in my nutrition. Make sure those are on point. And I do have hypothyroidism. Hmm. So Wow. So checking for that. When I came off of Celebrity Big Brother, and I was on that for a month, and it was extremely stressful. I was away from my kids for a whole month, like no contact. And it’s just a house where you have to make friends. And then you have to like devour them. Basically. It’s terrible. It’s very cutthroat. And it’s like this is I feel like a horrible person right now for trying to win this game. Right? Like you’re making me feel like a bad person. Yeah. But it was so stressful for me that I just remember having all kinds of little issues come up the hypothyroidism, my luteal phase stayed high. So I lost my cycle. At that point, yeah. And I started having Yes, the stress on top of trying to maintain the workout suppose and then on top of trying to maintain the diet, which I couldn’t even write things down to like measure my calories. It was fast, really hard. So the mental load and emotional load on top of everything else trying to maintain my my trainings in there was crazy. And that’s when I noticed the cycle start to spin out of control.

Dr. Mindy  

Well, so when cortisol goes up consistently, it makes you more insulin resistant. And when you’re more insulin resistant, whether doesn’t matter what you’re eating, because it’ll just all of a sudden shut everything down, right? So it shuts down the insulins ability to push glucose into the cells. And then when you’re insulin resistant, it brings down your sex hormones, so it shuts the whole hormonal system that makes so much sense. So now if you have bursts of cortisol, it won’t shut the system down. But that was a month long. Yeah. Did you win? I did. I couldn’t watch it.

Miesha Tate  

Oh, you know, I am a competitor. I do like to do that. So and a strategist so I’m constantly trying to strategize inside that house. Like how do we how do I win at this game? You know, I did. I did. I won. So it was worth it in the end, but it’s extremely stressful. And not a recommendable experience. Yeah. It sounds horrible. Because I get so excited sometimes. Like how was it being on Celebrity Big Brother? And I was like, I wish I could say it was it was awesome. I mean, I’m grateful for the experience. Yeah, don’t get me wrong. But yeah, it was not recommendable experience.

Dr. Mindy  

That’s crazy. So okay, so in ovulation, so you’ll change to more of like a ton of like, you can still do still do the same protein, but I really want you to focus in on more vegetables, more of the like, I don’t know, if you like sauerkraut, or the Kiefer’s, like, we got to get those probiotic foods into more of the nuts and seeds because we got to get the prebiotic foods into us so that we can break all these hormones down. Okay, and then we’ll focus more on on weight training really heavy weights, but slow, so we can use testosterone to build up your your muscle during this little unique five day window. Okay, fasting wise, 13 hours is fine for someone like you, I wouldn’t go very far with fasting because when you come out of ovulation, now we got a dip in hormones again, and there’s another little four day window, we can do a little longer fast, we can go a little lower carb. So day 16. Today 19. Let’s elongate that fast. Let’s put it to 15. Somewhere between 15 and 17 hours. Let’s go back very much to what I told you from day one to 10. Okay, let’s maximize protein. Let’s eat the like we can do fruits and vegetables. But protein is really what I like I’d almost want you to overdo protein in that phase along with day one to day 10. Whereas in the ovulation phase, I want you to overdo the vegetables and the fruit and all those prebooked prebiotic foods and nuts and the seeds so we can support the microbiome. So is

Miesha Tate  

that when progesterone would be present at this point

Dr. Mindy  

right about it? We’re almost there was there Okay, so

Miesha Tate  

we’re phasing out of testosterone being present and we’re not quite to the point where progesterone has made her appearance.

Dr. Mindy  

That’s right. That’s right. So yeah, it’s like a dip. Okay, so we can go and for someone like you wants to cut weight, we can go into a little longer fast or Workout wise you can go back to your cardio you can go back to more of your like overall your body, you know, going into a hit plyometric kind of phase that would be that would be great, because I assume you have to get endurance up a bit. A bit. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So you can go back into all of that. Okay. Then when we hit day 19 Now this everything has to flip on its head. So, day 19 day 20. That should be like a vacation. Yeah. watch some Netflix. Recovery. So, you know, I don’t what do you do for what are your what’s your recovery day look like other than sitting and watching Netflix?

Miesha Tate  

I wish I never said well, I don’t even watch TV. So I joke about that. That would be I have two kids, right? It doesn’t happen. But for me, recovery day is a workday. I literally go I get in the hyperbaric chamber, I do red light, I will get physical therapy, I will get a massage like amazing all these things. So I make sure I’m being mindful, I’ll do my meditations, I’ll make sure that I’m getting those things on my breathwork whatever it is ice baths, sauna, whatever it is, like, it’s a full day. It’s not like I just sit and relax. And maybe I should incorporate a little bit for me, it’s like, okay, if this is a rest day, it’s a recovery. It’s a recovery day, more so than just resting I’m, I’m out of the gym, I’m not stepping foot in the gym, but I’m actively pursuing recovery. Okay, so

Dr. Mindy  

that is that’s an awesome routine. And it should be done pretty consistently from about day 20 Until you bleed. Okay, so I’m not saying you don’t work out. But I am saying that you don’t want to push your workout during that time. So you can whatever workout is like your like, let’s say, like a workout where you’re like, Yeah, that was a solid workout, or a solid training day. And it let’s give it a number of like a nine. Now let’s give it a number of like a seven, and a day where you’re like, oh, my god, that was the hardest we’re training day is a 10. Right, the 10 should be done on the first half of your cycle. And then we should have a little bit of a like a six or a seven on that back half. You don’t want to be pushing the workout that was not be the time to do something new and heavy and and have your coach go, Hey, today we’re up in New so that we can get you in, in a more fit state. Right, it has to be more recovery. And then what I would do with your recovery days, is I would probably do a, you know, several of those in a row. You know, I don’t know how often you go in in a hyperbaric chamber, but I would go in every day from day 20 Until do an hour maybe hour and a half every day from day 20 Until you bleed, okay, because it’s going to bring cortisol down. And so that’s going to help you be able to recover imbalance. Whereas the rest of the cycle, you could pop in maybe once or twice a week. But the week before your cycle, Let’s power up on hyperbaric a little bit more so that we’re putting your body in more of a parasympathetic state, which is what it naturally does already.

Miesha Tate  

Right. So do you think there’s anything adverse to doing the hyperbarics? That other points?

Dr. Mindy  

No, you can do it? No. But I think it becomes a powerful tool for your parents. Because now I call it the nurturer phase in the book because I was like I want people to I want women to understand and nurture themselves, right? And what when you say it’s an all day event, I hear nurturing in that. And that’s what we’ve got to get you doing. But you can do at any other time of the of the month. I’m not saying don’t do that. But it needs to be the primary focus from day 20 Until you bleed. So if you end and you don’t push your workout to a new height, right, it needs to stay at a comfortable level a little Yeah, I still lift weights. I don’t know if you do yoga, but you like yoga, pilates, hiking. It during that cycle, if you woke up one morning and you’re like, I don’t want to train, don’t train. Yeah, that would be the time to say no, you know, as an athlete, we’re so good at like pushing through the No, right like you just train your mind to like not to just go Yeah, well, we’re going to do it anyways. Right? So totally fine to do that every other part of the cycle except starting at day 20 Till you Blake, okay, because now you’re working really working against your hormones, right? And then you do that until day and then you’re gonna up your carbs. So we want to go into the sweet potatoes like potatoes, squashes, we want the bananas we want the the mangoes, the papayas, the pineapples, citrus fruits, like really go into those higher glycemic foods during that time because now you’re supporting progesterone. So then once you bleed, now you believe you’re getting your cycle back, you’re bleeding and all in you know the thing about blood, that’s the menstrual cycle. It’s so interesting is it’s a bit of a detox. We’re like writing about it. We’re shedding so any like the lactic acid or stress hormones that you’ve accumulated along the training schedule, you know, if you can get progesterone at her peak, you’re gonna have a really good shot of blood. And those first couple of days you’re getting rid of the stuff that doesn’t serve you as you move into the harder training period starting date, you know, tour A three year cycle. That’s incredible. Does that make sense? So you got it. So now we’re like now we’re working with each hormone. We’ve got cardio set when when, at the beginning, we’ve got testosterone now that we’re working with pairing up on your on your muscle, we come out of ovulation, we go back to some cardio. And then now we’re in that progesterone building, and we’re nurturing ourselves, we’re doing a little more recovery.

Miesha Tate  

Okay, so this brings me to my next question. I think I understand that very well. When would be the worst time to try to cut water Wait, because we die it and we try to get down and wait lane. But what people don’t understand is the difference between losing weight and cutting weight cutting weight refers to the dehydration process. That’s all just vanity weight. It’s just to make a number on the scale. And then we go right back up to the number that we were before we started dehydrating, we stopped drinking water we got in a sauna until we made weight, essentially. So if I understand it, right, progesterone is going to be a hormone that’s going to want to hold water a little bit, right? Because it wants you to be in a nurture phase. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy  

you got it. Okay. So like the worst time for you to fight. And the worst time for you to cut weight would be from about day 20. Until you blade. So if you could schedule your fight? Yeah, don’t like make sure it’s not at that time. Okay, because cutting weight is going to be harder. And you’re also the other thing, I think the interesting thing about these hormones is estrogen makes us very outgoing. Right? It almost I mean, you could almost call it aggressive. You know, it makes us very like outward. So you need aggression and outwardness in your sport.

Miesha Tate  

Whenever I’m too talkative, I blame it on the estrogen. It’s like, it’s yesterday, we’re explaining Sorry,

Dr. Mindy  

I was talking Mindy way you talk by attacking. But then progesterone makes us very inner. So you’re gonna have to fight against that inner to be able to just get in the ring, right? So you’re literally biologically going against what you were designed to do by doing a fight the week before your period, and you’re gonna make cutting weight so much more difficult.

Miesha Tate  

This is so powerful. Crazy, right? This is crazy. Well, I know that a lot of females will start their period when they start cutting weight. And talking with you, it makes me theorized that potentially, it’s because they have had hormone dysregulation because of all the intense training. And that’s been 10 810 12 weeks of just go hard. Yep, with no mindfulness to the hormone cycle that we are on or should be on. And then we get to fight week, which is a is a like a D load week. So it’s the first week that they probably are seeing a relaxation and the training, there’s no more hard sparring. There’s no more hard lifting. It’s all about peaking. So we bring the training way down. So is it potentially then that progesterone like, oh, okay, we’re here. I can show up now?

Dr. Mindy  

Absolutely. Because when cortisol goes down, progesterone can start to shine. So what you’re doing in that week is the body’s relaxing, right? Even though there’s a big fight at the end of it, your body’s like finally it can relax. And so when cortisol goes down, progesterone takes that moment and builds and then and then you actually will strike

Miesha Tate  

so it makes so much sense because that would be about four to five days after progesterone maybe got to have a chance to become president. It’s right, that the weight cut and the fight actually comes to then the bleed starts even off cycle potentially

Dr. Mindy  

even off cycle because I bet a lot of fighters female fighters have their cycles messed up.

Miesha Tate  

Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I have a friend of mine who she couldn’t stop. Yeah, bleeding. It was just it was just so bad. She was just so tired. And I was like, get in a hyperbaric chamber is like the one thing that I could offer, or at least get the recovery on point because I think she was just training herself into such a hole, right? Such a deficit, right? Think of it like a deficit like a hole, like you’re digging yourself into this hole. And maybe you take one day off, but you’re not out of the hole. I’m gonna go right back into digging and digging, digging, digging. And sometimes athletes just think they’ve just got to go hard all the time, or they’re not gonna win or they’re not doing enough. Yep. And I think it’s coming to light that it’s too much.

Dr. Mindy  

That’s exactly right. And this is where, you know, like, I feel like as women we’re so crazy capable. And we have to remember in in this ability to do anything a man can. We do have to mind progesterone. We have to realize that when progesterone comes in the week before our periods or in this scenario, you’re not really knowing when progesterone Cummings is coming in, but she’s using the moment that there’s a relaxation moment to come in that there There has to be a softness. It’s like an ebb and flow, right? Like hormones have a dance to them. And you know, with men, they’re on a 24 hour cycle, we’re on a 28 day cycle. So we need a longer period of recovery or longer period of softness. And if we don’t do that, now the hormones are completely off. They’re completely out of balance. And, and that’s, it’s hard, because I’m sure you think about this as like, I’m a woman, I can do anything, right, except we also have to embrace when we’re supposed to do nothing. And there is power that is powerful to embrace when we’re supposed to do that.

Miesha Tate  

Right. I think that’s so powerful. I mean, it’s, we can do anything, but we also have to be mindful of everything. That’s right. In a sense, you know, we have to be mindful. My other question to you, then is, how detrimental? Is it for athletes who are losing their cycles? Because of hormonal dysregulation? What’s going on there? Yeah. Sometimes I feel like it’s the it’s kind of like, oh, this is great. I don’t have a psychoanalyst. Because it’s something we have to feel like we have to worry about or that it’s a negative, right. So anyways, just because you like me on that, let’s

Dr. Mindy  

go back to the idea that that the shedding of your uterine lining is a detox. So you’re literally like so estrogen. Let’s let’s use estrogen as example. During ovulation estrogen builds, now she’s at her peak, but you’ve got to detoxify estrogen. So the liver and the gut break her down, and they get ready for her to get out of the out of the system. And part of the way she gets out is through the shedding of the uterine lining. Well, if you don’t have that shedding, where’s that estrogen going to go? So it gets recirculated back into the body? Well, estrogen breaks down into three different types of metabolites, one of them is helpful, and two of them are harmful. So if those harmful metabolite estrogen metabolites are not shedding and getting out of your system, they’re getting stored in your tissues. And where they’ll get stored is typically in fat. So they’re going to accumulate more fat, or they’re going to it’ll somehow affect your brain, or worse yet, go to go to your breasts. And now we’ve set you up for long, you know, if you have a genetic predisposition to something like breast cancer, you’re going to have a long term chance or more of a possibility of getting that?

Miesha Tate  

Well, that’s scary, because a lot of athletes that are losing their periods are so lean solely, they don’t have a lot of body fat. So where is it going? Right? And when you say it’s toxic, like in what way like what are those two?

Dr. Mindy  

Well, so any toxin will go into the cell and it can trigger any kind of genetic predisposition. I mean, cancer cells are basically rogue cells that toxins took over and now they’ve turned them into this cancerous cell that starts to replicate, and it’s a rogue cells. So it can’t, it just starts to replicate and starts to replicate. So we are meant to shed and this is not just, this isn’t just female athletes. This is birth control. This is like the IUD. You know, a lot of like, if you put a Mirena IUD in, you are not going to have a cycle. And I’m not I mean, it’s, that’s a whole nother interesting conversation that birth control is really messing up women’s cycles. But we’ve got to have that shed that shed is the way that we get out. Estrogen is the way we get toxins out. And if we’re not shedding, it’s just like, if you’re not having a bowel movement, you’re getting toxins out through daily bowel movements, you’re getting toxins out through your monthly menstrual cycle.

Miesha Tate  

So do women who are postmenopausal have to worry about a buildup of toxins,

Dr. Mindy  

but not as much because we don’t have as much estrogen.

Miesha Tate  

Okay, there we go. See the body balances balanced it out. Yeah, sometimes we think we’re smarter than the body. I see this happen with athletes all the time, I try to work so appealing. I’m like, the body smarter than you.

Dr. Mindy  

It’s, it’s, it’s just it’s actually right. We just learn how to how to read it. Yeah. And that’s what we’re we’ve never as women been taught, I love having this conversation with women is like, how were you taught about your menstrual cycle? Who taught you? Your gym teacher? Didn’t your coach didn’t?

Miesha Tate  

My mom kept me out on those sex ed days. So I would have to say my mom taught me about it. But I mean, we didn’t know what there was to learn. Right? Okay, so you start your period. Okay. It’s gonna happen every 28 days. That’s about all you know. That’s it. I mean,

Dr. Mindy  

I, so many women I’ve talked to say, it was in PE that, you know, in seventh grade, that they said, Hey, you’re having a cycle now. So here’s how you manage blood. Yep, that’s it. Yeah. And you can get pregnant. But we weren’t taught how to eat and train and socialize and work with our ebbs and flows, our hormones like to the level of that we’re having now. And to me, that’s what we like. You talked about what you know, retirement is, is on the on the horizon for you. And I would think there’s a desire to go back and help the younger women that are coming through the ranks. So one of the things that would be really cool is could you go back to those female younger female athletes and teach them what We just talked about and show them how to fight and train and live in accordance with their hormones. Now we’re taking on this message and we’re passing it down and we’re changing the next generation so that they a I would think, you know, I’m we see this in, in women in sports, that what we were able to accomplish women were able to accomplish years ago till today, like look at Chris Everett compared to Serena Williams, like vastly different skill set, because we’ve learned so much since the years of Chris Ebert’s training compared to Serena does, you can do the same thing with the women going in into UFC fight.

Miesha Tate  

I hope. So that is my goal. I want to continue to empower women on all levels. And you know, I mentioned birth earlier, I mean, everything from being an elite female athlete, to having the right to say how you want your birth experience to be. Whatever it is, I just want women to feel like they have some choices. They have a lot of choices. Yeah, they’ve all the choices, and they have some answers so they can make informed decisions. That was what I was missing in my careers. I just didn’t know these things. And in spite of, I feel like I became a champion because I felt like I had I gave myself no choice. But I couldn’t hold it. And my body started to break down, I started to have all these issues I developed as hypothyroidism. I didn’t know I was cutting weight even harder. I was dieting even harder. I was like I’m eating nothing. I’m like a rabbit. I’m so weak, I still was not barely losing weight, I almost couldn’t make weight sometimes. So I had no idea these things were going wrong. So it was a tough close to the first chapter. And then I’m coming back into my second chapter, and I’ve really enjoying the ride. I’m trying to learn as much as I can. But for me, it’s about the future. It’s about the young women who are coming up who I know that I could share from my experiences and my mistakes. And I want my daughter to know these things. Exactly. To have these answers.

Dr. Mindy  

Exactly. Oh my gosh, I get chills. I also have to say that I laughed when you said that you are something about being a doula. I was like, Who wouldn’t want me to take me through that experience? Like, there’s no way you’d ever be like, I can’t do this. If Misha is next to you going, come on girl writes, do this.

Miesha Tate  

I hope so you know what I mean? I hope that I can empower women, I would love nothing more than to be a voice of strength for any woman who’s going through that process. And in all assets. I mean, I have so many aspirations to help women, I want to start hosting retreats that empower women that have you involved that teach them about hyperbarics, about breath, work about hormones cycle about all these things, so they can leave this comprehensive wellness can get together with women supporting women feeling good about how they can change their life moving forward. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy  

amen. Sister.

Miesha Tate  

So I’m here for it, ya

Dr. Mindy  

know, and I’m right there with you. Because I think what we’re seeing is a generation of adult women like you and me that are waking up to our hormones. But then we as we learn, we have to turn around and teach others and then we’ve got a real love when you said teach your daughter, you know, we’ve got to go down to the younger generation and teach and teach the younger generation. One of the things we do as women so well is connect. And and when we unify, and if we can take this hormonal knowledge like you and I talked about today, and we can show people, women how to do it in every aspect of their life. Now we are going to change women’s health. Now we’re going to end PCOS, we’re going to end the infertility, we’re going to end the breast cancer and ovarian cancer, because every single one of those hormonal problems, the mental health and mood disorders, every single one of those situations has an imbalanced hormonal situation that was a woman not living in accordance with their hormones, like End of story. That’s how we change it, right? And a voice like yours and, and I really, you know, really, really feel strongly about this, I can stand up and teach it. But when Misha Tate, all these, all these women, all these young girls that look up to you, when you stand up, and you teach it and you say this is what I did at the highest level of fitness or professional athlete that a woman can be I took these tools and did it this way. Now you have amplified the message just because of who you are.

Miesha Tate  

Well, I appreciate it. Because I wouldn’t be able to do without you. It’s a synergy, right. And that’s what I think we need more of, we need women supporting women giving that empowerment back to each other. So I like like I said, I’m here for it. I’m so grateful to have these conversations are really grateful to learn. And I hope to continue to inspire women worldwide to take back their power. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy  

I can’t wait to see what you do. I can’t wait. So I’m cheering you on. I will be there right alongside of you. So I’m here to support that mission and in any way that I can because like I said, it’s Yeah, I mean, it’s really a beautiful marriage of, of information with application and then turning around and teaching. That’s really what we need to do. So really, but Before I finish up, I have to ask the final question that I ask everybody on the podcast. Every year we have a theme. And this year, I decided that the theme needed to be self love. And the reason for that is because I did want to have more conversations about how women can really take better care of themselves. What is your practice of self love? If you have one? And what do you think you’re just the total badass that?

Miesha Tate  

Oh, well, my practice for self love is mindfulness. I think that’s so important. We do so many things every day. And sometimes we think we’re doing it for ourselves. And our mind is somewhere else. Like I’m going to take a bath. But if you’re thinking about your to do list tomorrow, that bath didn’t really count towards me time it was spent it was meant to, but if you’re not mindful in that moment, what is your intention? Yeah, so for me mindful intention, setting my intentions, whether it’s 10 minutes of mindful time with my children, where I’m not multitasking, I put my phone in a drawer, and it’s like, we’re just gonna play that is fulfilling to me, if I set my intention on my breath, work, and we breathe over 2300 times a day, if I could take 10 of those breaths and say, You know what, I’m just gonna be in the moment with myself and my thoughts for a second, I’ve set a mindful intention. So for me, that is self love that it can be as short as one breath. If you’re short of 60 seconds, it can be as long as 10 minutes. You know, it’s what I have to give in that moment. But it’s that intention that I’m setting, this is for me love it, even if it’s for my children, and a lot of times that’s for me, yeah, me being there with my children enjoying their giggles and their laughs in that moment of them being cute toddlers. Yeah, that’s for me.

Dr. Mindy  

So important. Yeah, I just want to say one thing on that, you know, my daughter is 23. And we’ve had a lot of conversations about, you know, what it was like to have me as her mother. And one of the things she said is, you know, you’ve worked so much in my life. And I started to break it down for her. And I’m like, I really, you know, I was with you as in your, in your preschool classroom. I did a lot of things. But what I realized is that I didn’t do what you just said. Even when I was physically with her. I was often thinking about something else. And they sense that. Yeah. And I was able to apologize at 20 I was like, You’re right. You’re right. Bodie, like, I was physically there many times, but not mentally. So what you just said was wisdom at its highest for a mother,

Miesha Tate  

thank you so much. It’s so important. Our children do definitely sense that. And it’s hard. Because the that’s the expectation today. That’s right. That is that we’ve got to do all these things. Yeah. But I look at life. Sometimes I’m like, What are these things? Right? What did we just create? What is this? Why do I have to live up to these standards? That’s right, why can’t I just be in the moment with my children? That’s right. Why not? Because that is actually the purpose of my life is not to provide for tomorrow. Although Yes, it’s important to provide a future, but not at the cost of missing today. So us, right. So for me learning that I’m so grateful at this point, because I catch myself doing it all the time. Not saying that I’m perfect at it. I’m certainly not. But I’m aware of when I’m doing that. And so I think that self awareness is maybe I could say that would be my my growing superpower is just becoming aware of when I’m losing my focus. And when I’m not taking the mind, I’m going through the motion. Yep, I’m there. But I’m not really there. Right. Now. I’m really there for my kids. I’m not really there for myself. I’m taking 10 minutes. I’m in the bathroom on my phone. That is not restorative time to me. I have to be mindful with my intentions. Yeah. So I would say that and then, you know, I just I care a lot. I love people can sense that and I want to make a change. Yeah. So that’s, that’s what I plan to do. And I will be powerful in that.

Dr. Mindy  

I love it. Okay, well, I’m right there with you. When people find you, I mean, outside of your badass Instagram, like and come watch you at a fight. Where do people find you? Um,

Miesha Tate  

I mean, well, my Instagram is just at Misha Tate right now. Maybe by the time this podcast has launched, I will have a new branch. So I’m going to start I have recently snagged mama Misha as the Instagram handle and I haven’t developed it yet. It’s Ma Ma Ma Misha, it’s a nickname that I had. Well, before I had kids because of my house has always been a revolving door. I love helping up and coming fighters I understand the struggle or people in general, I just have it’s part of what makes me feel good as a person is seabank. So I think I’m gonna work on really developing that and just diving more into the wellness side of things. So you could just find me on online and either one of those. And, and I have a Wellness Center too doesn’t run wellness in Las Vegas. hyperbarics Yes, have yikes red light brain tap neuro check lots of different things. We’re looking to be more comprehensive to you know, I want to incorporate more breathwork I think that’s so important, how we breathe for ourselves, you know, some mindful breaths can really make a big difference. So I’m just looking to make change. I love it. And I’m really inspired by you. You’re amazing. Thank you for that. I appreciate that.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah. Awesome. So awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you. I appreciate it.