WARNING: Any man who listens to this show will have one up on all other men, this is HOW you become “woke”…. We promise this episode will be just as enlightening for you fellas as it will for you ladies.
Mercedes here!: I’m so excited to be checking this one off my dream guest list! The woman we’re talking to today is one of the reasons I’m now living in more harmony with my body, and I’d even credit her work for helping get my relationship with my husband to better place because of his openness to explore the wisdom she’s bringing to the world!
Today’s guest, Alisa Vitti, is a functional nutritionalist and women’s hormone expert who has spent the last 15 years studying, researching, personally applying, and globally teaching both men and women how to stop hormonal chaos and get into flow.
Her brand “FLO” houses an online health center, an incredible app, and multiple books- all focused on changing the landscape of what it means to be a woman! Empowering both women and men everywhere to view our intricate hormonal bodies as the miracles they are, reducing the stigma around menstrual periods and all that they come with them; steering us all toward a more harmonious tomorrow.
In this episode we discuss:
- Her journey
- PCOS
- Blood sugar stabilization
- WHY Menstruation is one of the last taboo topics
- What the monthly hormonal cycle consists of
- Menstrual phases, moon cycles
- The infradian rhythm
- What a healthy/normal menstrual cycle should look and feel like
- What menstrual blood should look/smell like
- How to track your cycle
- Often overlooked red flags that are likely signaling our hormones may be off
- BLOATING
- CONSTIPATION
- IRON DEFICIENCY/ANEMIA
- Headaches
- Mood swings
- Panic/ANXIETY
- NIGHT SWEATS
- Fatigue
- How woman should be eating for optimal hormonal health
- How to repair our hormone imbalances
- How much water should women be drinking -how we should be supplementing
- The effects of diet trends on female hormones: intermittent fasting, keto diet
- What happens when we work out on an empty stomach
- Caffeine intake
- Why birth control might be causing problems for some women
- How to transition off the birth control pill
- Common imbalances in women TRYING TO GET PREGNANT, and how to resolve them
- How can men better support their woman in her hormonal journey
MAJic Tricks:
•PMS = Prioritizing. My. Self.
•Crying as a Cortisol Cleanse
Book recommendations:
• Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD
• Cirsei by Madelyn Miller
• In The FLO by Alisa Vitti
• Women Code by Alisa Vitti
• The Body Keeps The Score By Bessel Van Der Kolk, MD
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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majic hour episode # transcription
00:00
greetings boys and babes it’s the magic hour a place where we navigate through life’s Peaks and valleys with all the vulnerability and shamelessness we can muster with the help of worldclass guests from all walks of life we uncover new truths and valuable tools for manifesting our Highest Potential I’m your host Mercedes Terrell along with my partner in shine Jade Bryce hey you guys today we’re going to be diving into the world of women’s hormones and fellas before you shut this off let me just say
00:28
that any man who listens to this show we’ll have one up on all other men because this is how you become woke we promise this episode will be just as enlighting for you fellas as it will for you ladies and this is a big day for us because we’re interviewing one of Mercedes dream guests yes I’m so excited to be checking this one off my dream guest list this woman we’re talking to today is one of the reasons I’m now living in more harmony with my body and I’d even credit her work for helping me
00:56
get my relationship with my husband to a better place because of his open to explore the wisdom she’s bringing to the world yeah was it easy to get Chris on board because I know most men I’ve dated previous to my current boyfriend would not have been open to learning more about the female body and especially our hormonal Cycles yeah uh actually no it wasn’t at first he was really resistant but luckily he was open to watching today’s guest Ted Talk and absorbing some other information um around the
01:25
subject regards to why it’s so critical for for men to be in the no when it comes to women’s hormones considering all men’s lives would be improved dramatically by knowing this stuff since all men have relationships with women whether it be with their mothers or sisters daughters friends or obviously their romantic partners and if they’re single this is the info that’s going to help them get and keep a mate yeah I’m pretty sure that uh my boyfriend was hooked after her first email um it is critical I can’t wait to
01:55
talk to our guests about all this and I have so many questions and of course my boyfriend gave me some of own questions ask as well so let’s get her on let’s do it please welcome a functional nutritionalist and women’s hormone expert who has spent the last 15 years studying researching personally applying and globally teaching how to stop hormonal chaos and get into hormonal flow she built her virtual online Health Center flow living to help women solve their hormonal symptoms from anywhere in the world she published a book called
02:27
woman code which has been in the top 50 bestselling women’s Heth books of all time since it was published along with her newest book in the flow she also created a truly life-changing app called my flow that’s not just helping women everywhere track and balance their menstrual cycles but is also inviting the men in our lives to the party by allowing them to better understand and support us through the syncing tools it provides a graduate of John Hopkins University and The Institute for Integrative Nutrition she’s contributed
02:55
widely in the world of Public Health media including her web series on Lifetime as well as her contributions to CBS FOX Shape Women’s Health mindbody Green and The Huffington Post and as the writer of Yahoo Health’s hormone Whisperer column and you may have seen her on Dr Oz or on her very impactful Ted Talk where she spoke on the intersection of hormones neurochemistry feminine energy entrepreneurship and success these are just a few of this Wonder Woman’s credentials did I mention she’s also a
03:28
mom I don’t know how she manages it all but she’s truly changing the landscape of what it means to be a woman empowering both women and men everywhere to view our intricate hormonal bodies as the Miracles they are reducing the stigma around menstruation and the menstrual cycle and all that it comes with and driving us toward a more harmonious tomorrow I couldn’t be more pleased to welcome Alys aiti to the magic hour damn that intro is two pages long okay greetings boys and babes it’s the magic hour a place where we navigate
04:12
through life’s Peaks and valleys with all the vulnerability and shamelessness we can muster with the help of world-class guests from all walks of life we uncover new truths and valuable tools for manifesting our Highest Potential I’m your host Mercedes Terell along with my partner in shine Jade Bryce hey you guys today we’re going to be diving into the world of women’s hormones and fellas before you shut this off let me just say that any man who listens to this show will have one up on all other men because this is how you
04:41
become woke we promise this episode will be just as enlightening for you fellas as it will for you ladies an this is a big day for us because we’re interviewing one of Mercedes dream guests yes I’m so so excited to be checking this one off my dream guest list the woman we’re talking to today is one of the reasons I’m now living in in more harmony with my body and I’d even credit her work for helping me get my relationship with my husband to a better place because of his openness to explore
05:07
the wisdom she’s bringing to the world yeah sorry yeah was it easy to get Chris on board because I know most men I’ve dated previous to my current boyfriend would not have been open to learning more about the female body and especially our hormonal Cycles I I feel you um actually no at first was really resistant but luckily he was open to watching today’s guest Ted Talk and absorbing some other info in regards to why it’s so critical for men to be in the know when it comes to women’s hormones considering all
05:43
men’s lives would be improved dramatically by knowing this stuff since all men have relationships with women whether it be with their mothers or sisters daughters friends or obviously romantic partners and if they’re single this is the info that’s going to help them get and keep a mate yeah and uh you know my boyfriend was hooked after her first email so um she’s really really got a lot of beneficial information in all of your relationships like Mercedes was saying it really is critical and I
06:12
can’t wait to talk to her guest about all of it I have so many questions and of course my boyfriend gave me some of his as well so let’s get her on let’s do it please welcome a functional nutritionalist and women’s hormone expert who has spent the last 15 years studying researching personally applying and globally teaching how to stop hormonal chaos and get into hormonal flow she’s built her virtual online Health Center flow living to help women solve their hormonal symptoms from anywhere in the world she published a
06:42
book called woman code which has been the in the top 50 best-selling Women’s Health books of all time since since it was published along with her newest book in the flow she also created a truly lifechanging app called my flow that’s not just helping women everywhere track and balance their menstrual cycles but is also inviting the men in our lives to the party by allowing them to better understand and support us through the sinking tools it provides a graduate of John Hopkins University and The Institute for Integrative Nutrition
07:13
she’s contributed widely in the world of Public Health media including her web series on Lifetime as well as her contributions to CBS FOX Shape Women’s Health mindbody Green and The Huffington Post and as the writer of Yahoo Health’s hormone whisper SP column and you might have seen her on Dr Oz or on her very impactful Ted talk as we mentioned where she spoke on the intersection of hormones neurochemistry feminine energy entrepreneurship and success these are just a few of this Wonder Woman’s
07:46
credentials did I mention she’s also a mom I don’t know how she manages it all but she’s truly changing the landscape of what it means to be a woman empowering both women and men everywhere to view our intricate hormonal bodies as the Miracles they are reducing the stigma around menstruation and the menstrual cycle and all that it comes with and driving us all toward a more harmonious tomorrow I couldn’t be more pleased to welcome Alysa Viti to the magic hour how are you hi sorry about the delay this morning
08:23
was my daughter’s graduation fromen that’s what all morning I’ve had like parades of cars honking their horns and the teachers I live right next to a preschool and a middle school yeah it ran a little longer and then anyway yeah she was like not wanting me to come in and do this oh good no problem so it’s good to meet you both you too good to see you um I love your background Mercedes oh thank you know hers is so good I love your brick and plant oh yes well we are doing our best over here I like how all three of us are
09:07
curly haired today this is I don’t do it any other way I don’t don’t you feel like a different person when you straighten out your curls yeah not yourself no because I’ve straightened it I’ve worn it straight longer than I’ve worn it uh C most of my jobs most of our jobs wouldn’t let us wear it curly for some reason because we should do like yeah I’m wearing this shirt because of show today World Dom I need that shirt I need that shirt I will tell you a funny story I had my hair blown out I came back from like a a
09:39
salon in SoHo and somebody had blown up my hair and this is maybe I don’t know 10 years ago and my boyfriend at the time I was I told him to meet me somewhere like on an outdoor Plaza he walked by me twice oh my gosh did not recognize me don’t look the same without some curl in my hair just straight yeah it’s important I know it’s like a silly thing or whatever but it really does it’s like eyebrows you know it just frames the face so I have until two given our late start if that is helpful to you ladies
10:17
two what time are you time zone are you in I’m sorry I’m East Coast time so half an hour later it’s it’s just about to turn one o’clock here okay so we have a lot to cover so um yeah so let’s jump in I’m going to read your bio which is fairly extensive but yeah let’s do it and then we’ll get we’ll just you can you can just cherry pick what you like from it from oh okay or we can just skip it I mean we can read it off screen or however you want to do it let me I’ll read it maybe start
10:47
it start it owering at the end let okay that way we just get a clean yeah okay okay where is that in my little here we go okay cool and then we will just try to you know go through these as quickly as possible we’ll yeah do we have 30 minutes or do we have an hour we have as much time as you give us so awesome okay great then we yeah we’ll get it so that we can wrap right when you need to yeah okay okay so we are good to go on my end we’re already recording okay empowering both women and men everywhere to view
11:22
our intricate hormonal bodies as the Miracles they are reducing the stigma around menstration and the menstrual cycle and all that it comes with and driving us toward a more harmonious tomorrow I couldn’t be more pleased to welcome Alysa VII to the magic hour yay here so glad to have you here I’m a huge fan we talked all about it before you got on um you have a really interesting story of how you came to the work you’re doing now so could you maybe explore that Journey with us yeah I mean I think I long and short of it is that I
11:59
had this experience of hormonal chaos at a young age and and had it totally you know interrupt everything about my life not just my health but also my life and so there was this early on Connection in my mind between um my hormones and what I what I could do with my time and my life and for for those of you who are listening who have um hormonal imbalances or endometriosis or PCOS or per menopause or whatever you’re dealing with infertility the the not not it’s not just a factor of the time that you put into trying to
12:45
deal with your symptoms or get well it’s also this the the decrease in energy and life force Vitality that you have because your system is not functioning optimally and so without realizing and I guess guess I embarked on a journey at a young age of of female specific biohacking which I’m pretty passionate about you know sharing with women because we’ve all been duped into do into biohacking as if we’re tiny men and it’s and it’s making us so so sick and symptomatic but yes I mean I I struggled
13:20
with a a condition called polycystic ovarian syndrome although I was not diagnosed for seven years seven long highly symptomatic years um and that looked like uh only five menstrual cycles from the age of 12 to 22 uh two of which were chemically induced with synthetic progesterone and it looked like massive weight gain you know on my 5 foot six frame I was T TP tipping the scales at 210 um and it looked like a lot of cystic acne I mean so much cystic acne on my face chest and back that I I would have to take so much time every day to
13:58
just cover that up to feel like I could walk outside and not feel conspicuous and ashamed of how I looked um and then it also manifested as insomnia and you know depression with a little bit of anxiety as well so it was it was a very uh overwhelming disorder um and I felt very isolated alone because it didn’t seem like anybody else that I knew was suffering with that even though the statistics are one in 10 women have PCOS one in 10 have endometriosis um one and 10 have fibroids and the vast majority of women
14:42
um when you add the aggregate of all of these one and tens you know we it it turns out about half of all women are struggling with hormonal imbalances but my doctors had no idea what was wrong with me and they kept dismissing my uh concerns about how was feeling and saying it was all in my head and that I was just a you know having difficult teenage years and that I should just go on the pill and and kind of be quiet and that’s also a common experience for so many women right where you are told to ignore your pain or
15:17
let’s look at Lena Dunham right the poor she she she is a I would say a modern martyr of uh you know the failings of our Healthcare System system for women right that should have been caught her Endo should have been caught so much earlier and so much support been given to her so that she did not have to end up having to have a hysterctomy at such a young age right that that should not be the quote unquote final solution and best option I mean just think about it this way too if we compare the the lack of research and
15:54
solutions for women with reproductive health issues compared to men’s you know physiology right and this area of their health if men um had a a an erection dysfunction or prostate dysfunction um or something that was you know bothering their testicular performance they would not just say well there’s nothing we can do we should just remove them right yeah it’s the last thing they would literally opt for yeah would not even be it would not even be a thought it would just not even be a thought instead you have quite
16:34
the opposite I mean just think about I think it was in the ’90s remember when Bob Dole would get on TV and talk about his Ed do you remember that no it was groundbreaking but that’s amazing PSA like little little commercial public service announcements Bob Dole who was once a presidential candidate would get on TV and talk about his erectile dysfunction and how there’s medication that and you shouldn’t be ashamed and you should talk to your doctor this is a non-life-threatening situation and compared to what I was
17:11
facing in my teens and 20s with all of these systemic issues from metabolic to mental health to physical appearance to reproductive health so many systems right there where’s the research where’s the funding instead they put you know I don’t even know how much money but I’m certain it was into the multiple Millions if not a billion dollars of research went in to fund the development of medications like Viagra right in fact nitric oxide in 1992 was deemed the molecule of the year just to show how nerdy I am and that is
17:49
the basis of Viagra where is the equivalent yeah for women and we see that that when there’re isn’t an equivalent what is happening to us it’s it’s you know my experience of that decade of my my young life my youth where it should be all you know lovely pubescent normal stuff it was co-opted by something that could have been avoided with proper information and support and you can’t get that time back and for anybody who’s struggling with chronic health issues or hormonal issues it it’s a it’s still your time yeah and
18:30
your time is your precious that’s your precious gift so I vowed pretty early on that if I could figure out how to get well that I would build a platform a place for women to come and get that kind of information education support products programs tools to make this easy because the fact that we don’t have that um in our modern recorded history a place for women to go and just get that hormonal support they need is very telling and and I don’t think it’s acceptable at this point it’s time you
19:06
know ‘s up so to speak on yeah women not having the health care that they need and you know to wrap up the story of my journey I was at I was at John’s Hopkins University planning to become an OBGYN and I um was just still struggling so much and so I would do research on Friday nights and Saturday nights because you know I was not going out on Dat given my situation and so I was researching in the library and found an article on Stein lenthal disease and and all the light bulbs went off of recognition that this is in fact the
19:42
disorder that I’m struggling with was able to bring that to my gynecologist the very next morning and she confirmed my diagnosis which is a very empowering experience right where you figure something out yourself the doctor confirms for and then she said you know we just don’t have any options for you we can just medicate you along the way you’re going to struggle with infertility and heart disease and obesity and diabetes and potential cancer and you know we’ll just give you as much medication as we can to
20:13
help you but there’s no cure and I just remember feeling like very clear message from the cells of my body saying there was a different path for me that I needed to take so I gracious told her that I said no I’m not going to do that right now I’m going to try something else she said what are you going to try I said I I don’t know yet but I I will get to the bottom of this and one of the things I always had was great faith in my ability to figure things out and so um that served me really well and then I would say within
20:45
two years of that conversation I had restored my cycle my ovulation dropped 60 pounds cleared my skin recovered my mood and got my life back and have been on fire ever since to help any woman who’s going through this because it just should not be that decade after decade generation after generation women still experience their hormones as a plague upon their life when they there really are supposed to be this extraordinary Advantage because nature literally imbued you with the best of everything the best brain the
21:25
best immune system the best reproductive system the best metabolism the best absolutely everything because you are encoded to 3D print tiny human beings whether or not you choose to do that because you’re the gender that can do it you have to have all the best ofs in order to be able to do that and and we don’t experience ourselves that way and we should because that’s our biological wiring beautiful if if one of our listeners or one of us found that our hormones are out of whack or felt some of these
22:00
symptoms what would be our first move I think the best thing to do is to evaluate your cycle in 2015 or 16 the American College of obstetrics and gynecologists decreed that your your cycle as a whole is to be considered your fifth Vital sign and just to be clear the other four Vital Signs they take when you go to the emergency room like your temperature your blood pressure right you want to take very seriously the you want to start tracking your cycle any symptoms you’re having for example do you have a lot of
22:32
symptoms during ovulation do you have a lot of PMS what is the color consistency and texture of your bleed how long is it how regular is it um do you produce visible cervical fluid what is going on you have to get in there so to speak and start observing your cycle in real time it is it is every month um valuable biof feedback about what is going on with your hormone ratios in fact back in 2013 I went on Dr Oz and made TV history Believe It or Not uh being the first woman or person to to ever talk about menstrual color as it relates to
23:12
hormones and to simulate these menstrual fluids on national television and it was groundbreaking because to have you be able to visualize these four or five different color combinations that your period can be is very empowering for example if you have heavy dark clotty bleeding every month and you’re struggling with little excess weight and you have some breakouts and you feel Moody you could be struggling with excess estrogen right if you have brownish prune juice colored like fluid that starts at the beginning of your bleed or
23:50
at the end of your bleed you could have a progesterone insufficiency and these are things that change it’s not that you would have the you don’t necessarily have to have the same kind of bleed month over month you often do until these hormones are resolved but it can change not just very rapidly month to month but definitely over the course of your entire reproductive lifespan it’s important to understand and evaluate so that’s the first thing um I built a very well-loved period tracking app because I you know when
24:21
people ask me after woman code came out they asked me to people started asking me to build an app and I said well I’m not I just don’t want to make an app that just says hey your period’s coming you know most of us know when that’s about to happen like a little too it’s almost like when I get the alert that my period starts in two days it’s almost like a downer like uh like I have to get this message exactly and it’s not very empowering and I even saw some that had been developed by men
24:50
no no question that had had ground ulation like the image for ovulation to represent ovulation was like a tube of lipstick or a high heel because that’s when you were sexually uh more open to I guess men I mean it’s a little not a little there’s a lot of still not good gender bias that exists so I built an app called mylow mylow tracker.
25:14
com and it helps you track not just your symptoms but helps to teach you in micro does as it’s happening like let’s say you get a breakout day 14 right you’re ovulating this is when your skin is supposed to be magically the most beautiful your face actually changes slightly in symmetrical uh symmetry um you have more collagen production I mean this is supposed to be the good skin week right but you’re having chin breakouts you’re G to click that as a symptom and then it’s going to tell you why that’s happening to you because none
25:47
of this should be mysterious so that’s the first thing is start tracking and start getting the education that you need to really understand what’s going on what you’re going to find is that you’re having an imbalance of Esten and progesterone and then what you want to do is start taking steps to help your body break down estrogen make more progesterone if needed and start to balance your endocrine system and also take care of your infradian Rhythm as a whole which I know we’ll we’re gonna
26:17
dive into that’s something from my new book but um it’s it’s so important to start doing that cleanup work uh and the flow protocol that’s described in woman code and that’s part of the well-loved monthly flow program really helps take you through what do you do from start to finish I don’t want any woman to feel like they have to figure this out on their own like I did I’ve laid out all the steps all you have to do is log in and follow them yeah we’re already following we’re already we have the apps
26:46
we do we do all the tracking I track all my friends because they won’t track themselves so that’s a good friend you are a good friend I I call I mean they’re my science experience she had a little journal for me before before I had one for myself so I love that is like what I my husband good ovy every now and then like I would tell her how I was feeling about something like oh I’m feeling really bloated today or like oh I’m experiencing this with my boyfriend and she would like her first question what
27:15
day of the month are you on like it was and then I realized she was tracking me I love that I love that it gave us so many answers it’s given us so many answers and I learned it from you so Alyssa so uh this important work you’re doing you through your story it’s obvious you’re in your calling and you know you whatever way you want to look at it the universe brought you you know your own struggles and laid it out right in front of you plain as day I did want to before we jump into first of all how
27:43
to how to understand when something might be off you know what are the symptoms and signals to look for there and then how to go about healing ourselves I wanted to kind of back us up for a moment just to get anyone listening on board which by the way we have about a 50-50 male female audience for the show and that’s something super important we talked about a little bit before you got on is getting men on board and getting our you know getting our life Partners on board with this whole journey because it’s they have
28:12
women in their life no matter what you know if you’re a man you have several different women in your life whether it’s your sister mother lover um and the the first thing I want to cover there is why is menstration and the female reproductive cycle even childbirth all these things why are they still taboo they’re like the last taboo topic it feels like what is the resistance we’ve got going on there I think it’s getting so much better listen about five years ago I started seeing something that was historic which was
28:46
the and it started with a few really beautiful Smart Genius intelligent and brave Millennials who were posting pictures of their bleeding on Instagram like oh look here’s my bloody spot on my pants or my bed or here’s my period cup full of my menstrual fluid or I’m GNA run the London marathon with no pad on because that’s G to be a big problem obviously um and that sparked a conversation in Wellness media Outlets like well and good and mindbody green and even other larger Publications um that really started to
29:29
ask that same question of you know it’s time to normalize menstruation and it was the first time in recorded human history and I have I am U you know I’m I’m a to my calling is science one of my passions is his is history and so really looking back at all of the from the Renaissance to the the feminist first wve movement that nothing like this had happened before where it was just so much uh penetration into the mass media because of the internet and it was so it’s so exciting and and it it has only expanded and
30:05
improved and and and normalized the conversation more and more has it completed its work Are We There Yet with this being normal no and it and it goes back to what you had just said about how important it is to Loop in men as allies so I think that you know this is a something in the medical community is uh when you’re when you’re a resident right when you’re you’re learning how to become you know the head surgeon of your area your department the the rule of thumb is you learn one and you teach one
30:38
right so you learn a procedure and then you teach a procedure because if you do that you’re continuing the knowledge bank and expanding the circle we need this to do the same thing as women first we need to learn right we need to learn about how our biology works we need to let go of this toxic mythology that we’ve all been infected by that says that this is a curse that your hormones are mysterious unknowable unpredictable undefinable you know on their impact on your body that you are just this creature of the mysterium right a witch
31:17
this is bur her at the stake yeah utter BS and nonsense when you look at the biology and that’s why I’m so excited about my my new book in the flow because I lay this out so clearly for you there should be zero questions left about how you Body Works after you read this book and then once you are totally familiar and intimate with your function then you teach right so that looks like for example my husband um since the F since our first date we have been to obviously have been talking about me we obviously
31:54
been talking about hormones and women and the gender bias that is very unconscious that we have in our society the cultural narrative that is toxic and so I’m educating him on a um women’s history feminist Theory and hormones so that he can have some education about it because he has not had any exposure and I never let anything slide right for example here’s a great example my father the other day who I love who’s who who has contributed greatly to my confidence and self-esteem and has been like a
32:32
feminist without realizing it all his life because of his relationship with his mother who um was just an extraordinary woman um he said you know oh we were having some conversation he said you know men are really simple you know they need like food and they need whatever right he’s saying these like this the things you always hear um about what men need three simple things right sleep and food and some affection okay and I said to my dad because it just was coming right out of my body I said where is the
33:06
equivalent conversation for women that says oh women are so simple they just need these three things and he said well because they’re not and I said let’s pause right here and let me tell you why that’s not true and why that is a representation of some unaddressed gender bias that you’re holding without even wanting to and I gave him a little education about the three simple things women need in a relationship from my point of view we need to be witnessed in all that we’re doing right I want my husband to notice
33:40
gosh I I’m so impressed with all the school research you’re doing thank you for doing I just want him to notice and verbalize that yeah like credit a little bit of credit little bit of appreciation yeah right and you know in the uh the world of masculine and feminine relationship Dynamics um they would call that the Divine masculine witnessing the divine feminine in her dance of all her multifaceted talents right so we want the the man to just notice and say I see you right which a lot of men forget to
34:12
do they notice they see but they don’t say it and then the woman chis are you listening the woman feels unappreciated oh yes by the way men I am literally now giving you several keys to the kingdom of your happiness if you’re in a relationship seriously take copious notes copious number one is watch what she’s doing register it in your brain and say wow I’m seeing this even if you don’t have an opinion about it just say I wow look at what you’re doing you do so many things I really appreciate and
34:42
acknowledge that about you and then we need um help right offer your help on anything that we’re doing like oh can I help with the dishes can I help take out just help just volunteer your support with physical help and then three physical affection in the way that we want to receive it very simple women in relationships want very simple things equivalent different but in the equivalency of the simple things that men want why is that not the cultural norm why is that not part of our cultural narrative to even have that
35:19
assumption well it’s because of all this gender bias and it comes from this outcropping of the the the legacy of this toxic mythology we have around menstration and and reproduction and birth and postpartum for example this thing about postpartum really really gets me fired up uh there’s an there’s this cultural conversation that says oh gee my wife if you’re in a heterosexual relationship this is more common my wife is not the same person that she was before she gave birth and got pregnant and I I wish she was when is that going
36:01
to come back and and here’s something that was just so important that came out research and um I’m going to I do not remember the researcher’s name but you can Google her she has a very important Ted Talk um I wrote about her in the new book so she’s in the book uh but she coined a brand new term and in her research doing brain scans on postpartum women they discovered that the structural changes to the female brain pregnancy and postpartum are an order of magnitude way greater than the massive
36:37
structural changes that happen in puberty wow so first thing is one you are definitely not the same person and it will never be the same again because those structural changes are permanent second we have a culturally normalized in our cultural narrative right that we have to give a wide birth for teenagers as they go through this massive brain shift until they emerge and become the new self the new young adult self but we give zero slack to new moms because we don’t look at the science and we’ve ignored it and and and so until we bring
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the science forward and H and actually work have a working relationship with facts and not toxic mythology we will never have a society that is egalitarian we will have a society that perpetuates a gender imbalance that is not healthy for anyone wow yeah there I mean there’s hormones themselves is just like one of those words people think oh yeah I know what those things are but the depth of I mean that’s all we are we’re these chemicals that make up our personal ities and uh responses and I think
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anyone man or woman is going to be greatly their life will be greatly improved by getting any kind of extended knowledge or wisdom in this area and like you said the hero’s journey you’ve been on in your own life of testing it on yourself applying it to yourself and learning the depths of how those chemicals in your body work and how to you know change them with your own um tools and willpower that and then be able to teach that to the world which you’re which you’re doing so beautifully here and thank you
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for for bringing men along with us because I think that’s a the critical pie love yeah I mean I grew up without sisters I have two brothers I have a father I have great relationships with the men in my life and that’s why I actually built the partner SYNC feature in the app because when I would when I teach often when there are men in the audience they you can see that they have been like hungering for this because all they want is to have the information that they have about themselves men have been taught from a young age about how
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their hormonal patterns work and how to optimize their lives around it for example every man knows he wakes up with the largest concentration of blood serum testosterone right so he’s going to organize certain activities if he can to take advantage of that testosterone women have their pattern is circadian right rinse and repeat every 24 hours so they know how to organize their their day their life their time every time management program every success Guru every Power Morning Routine everything like that that you’ve heard
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workout time of day when to eat all of that is oriented around male biology yeah and and the Circadian rhythm um and men without even being consciously aware of this they because of cultural narrative that they’ve been fed about their bodies and their biology they know to take advantage of these things and they again I think it’s subconscious wish that there was a similar recipe for success with the women that they love so that they could have an easier time interacting with them like gee I wish I knew why is it’s because if we don’t if
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we don’t have an organized pattern to look at everything looks like chaos right so if a man is saying gee I notice sometimes my wife is tired sometimes my wife is Moody um sometimes she’s really interested in sex sometimes she’s not is it me a lot of men have reported to me that they feel um insecure in relationship to women because they don’t understand these pattern changes and they love when I give them the it’s a grid it’s a 4×4 grid here’s the hor four hormonal shifts here’s what you need to know about um
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spending time together sex and foreplay and socializing right and domestic stuff yeah and here here you go now you have a here’s a map a map to interacting with the female person in your life in a way that’s going to optimize the interaction it’s so simple that it’s like how has this not been laid out before and that’s why I just love your work and I know it’s so groundbreaking and it is changing it’s changing the world as know it as we speak literally I love I love that we can also offer you a
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platform here five love languages got super trendy and like the archetypes got super trendy so hopefully this does hopefully everyone jumps on board sooner rather than later so I do want to go back to what we’re speaking about to kind of cover the basics before we get into determining whether we have hormonal imbalances and how to how to heal those first let’s cover the basics for women in their childbearing years because that’s largely what we’re speaking to here um regarding what the the phases you’re talking about the map
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you’re talking about what the hormonal cycle consists of and uh maybe you can also break down your inferium Rhythm as well so yeah so let me give a little backstory and I’m gonna just hold up a picture of my my new baby so I want to give a little backstory on this new book okay so I had written woman code and it’s been a bestseller ever since it was published in 2013 and I thought great I’ve built the platform I’ve written a guide now and now because of all the free bleeding Millennials there’s more media coverage
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to talk about menstrual Health perfect now we have an equation you know more content more access should equal more healthy women yes but instead what I’ve been tracking is that uh there’s been a worsening of hormonal issues for women and like I said 50% 47% of women are struggling with hormonal issues and in reproductive years it’s a huge number when you compare it to the male cohort which is something like under 10% wow so why is that I started asking myself why is why am I not seeing an improvement if
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we have historically now moved into a place where women can access all this content online there are no barriers to information what is going on and what I found was a little bit disturbing but also really exciting okay the first thing that I found was that women are being left out out of medical Fitness and Nutrition research entirely okay which means that every time you read an article that says intermittent fasting confers life extending health benefits that that actually has not been researched on women in their reproductive years and
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the research that I dug up the little bit of research I dug up which I put in this book actually shows that it’s the opposite for women in the reproductive years intermittent f fting does the ex exact opposite instead of improving insulin sensitivity it worsens it no way instead of um improving your brain performance it increases brain fog there’s a whole list and by the way to boot it shrinks your ovaries which not what you want to be doing in reproductive so everything that you read about Wellness about how to set up your
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day about um you know what the best workout is we’ll talk about high-intensity interval training too in a minute all of these things are being researched on men so that’s the first thing the second thing that I uncovered was that we have a second biological clock that that no one knows about so we all have heard about the Circadian rhythm yes we it’s now become famous in biohacking circles and in fact two years ago two male scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize because they discovered the genes that
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control the Circadian rhythm wonderful Discovery and the science of biological rhythms is a new one within the biological umbrella it’s a vertical called chronobiology um and so the fact that they’re doing more research on it is good the problem is that they have ignored the female biological Rhythm and it has a name and the name is called the infradian Rhythm I NF r a d i a n infradian get that out there girl yeah I know it’s so important I mean we without vocabulary exactly we can’t describe our reality right and think it
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think back to 20 30 years ago before sex in the city was a TV show there there was a book that was published called The Vagina Monologues by E ensler prior to that book women did not know what the names of their genitalia were like the parts wow and so they would call them different things like little silly pet names like kuha and coochie and whatever and um that book by Eve ensler was really revolutionary because it gave women vocabulary and then it exploded a conversation into our cultural narrative that normalized proper vocabulary reference
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to our body parts and then empowered the sexual expression of a generation and then you see that reflected in let’s say mainstream media like sex in the city right so without vocabulary to describe who you are you don’t know who you are and you walk around disempowered and so that’s why I want you to know how to spell your biological Rhythm because it is extraordinary and I’m going to tell you more about it in a second the Circadian rhythm you experience in the course of 24 hours everyone has that the
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infradian Rhythm activates at puberty and deactivates at menopause and only women have that in their reproductive years it runs concurrently with the Circadian rhythm and just like the Circadian rhythm affects way more than waking up with the sun and going to bed when the moon comes out right regulates when you have the peak blood pressure during the day versus low is when your bowels are more active versus when they’re not the Circadian rhythm influences many systems of the body as does the infradian it influences your
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brain your metabolism your microbiome your stress response system your immune system and your reproductive system so you experience it in the course of the 28 day cycle but it affects way more than your period as as I just outlined right from your brain down to your immune system it it governs those systems and when I saw that it became so clear why so many women were suffering because if we’re taking research and saying here this is what’s good for you these are the new gold standards of you know intermittent fasting and
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high-intensity Dural training and this supplement and this medical thing this is good good for you but oh by the way we’re completely not being transparent about the fact that there the studies were only done on men then women apply these things hoping to get healthy right doing a workout plan waking up at 5: in the morning and doing a power morning uh eating fasting for 18 hours a day doing all these things and their symptoms are getting worse and worse now we can explain very simply why if you’re using tools
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programs methodology that op optimizes their circadian rhythm it is going to disrupt your infradian Rhythm if you are not using a system that is designed to optimize your infradian Rhythm so once I sort of unpacked all of this then I wanted to create that system and so the system that I created which is outlined in the book in great detail is called the cycle syncing method where you simply it has three pillars what how you eat MH when you what you do for workouts and how you organize your time and it factors in your infradian and circadian
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rhythms which and you can get this program off of your site now right yes so you can learn about it in the book but you can also join us we have the cycle syncing membership.com um where you will be given for example recipes grocery list meal plans for the different phases of your infradian cycle workout video to go along with each phase um I built the world’s first time management planner like a daily planner that incorporates both the infradian and the Circadian rhythm it’s in chapter six of in the flow if you’re planning your
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day and you’re not factoring in what’s happening with your brain chemistry based on where you are in the infradian rhythm you’re not going to be as productive period pun intended right and men do this all the time uh airgo corporate culture corporate culture is optimizes the male hormonal biological circadian pattern getting to work early when men have that flood of testosterone and cortisol they’re ready to go women actually because we have more complex brains we actually need 20 minutes more
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sleep every night compared to men um makes sense so if you have a male partner if you’re in a heterosexual relationship and you’re saying oh gee I should if you even have the thought that you feel badly about yourself that you don’t wake up at the same time as your male partner that is indicative of the fact that you’ve been fed a bunch of BS about who you are and you don’t have the right education chap section one of the book will lay out everything about your extraordinary biology about your brain and why you
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need more sleep and it’s you got to know this stuff to stand in your own skin to stand in your power you you you’ve been given such a gift like you know how we all do these gratitude lists the first thing on your list or at least one of the things on your list every day should that be that you have a female set of biochemistry it’s amazing what you have been given um I’m thankful for a functioning healthy body all the time because it’s it’s your vehicle to to be in action in your life so so
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there’s that um and these simple pillars are are so extraordinary once you put them into practice because I you know it ends this silly conversation that we’ve been having for a long time which says okay what should I eat what’s the perfect diet what’s the best workout what should I do um how do I what’s the perfect daily routine this question is too simplistic what you need to stop doing is asking what and you need to start asking when when do I do things such that takes advantage of my biology so that I can
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get things done with less friction in my system so for example just to go back to that comparison to the male corporate culture men know to schedule deep work in the morning because that’s when they’re most focused and they also notice schedule meetings and social time after lunch because that’s when their testosterone levels and cortisol levels start to dip and they cannot concentrate as much and in fact this is why biohacking has become so popular among men men because they fall off this physical and mental stamina Cliff every
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day around 3:00 when is happy hour in some countries it starts at three in the states it’s like four or five right um and and that’s syncs up with the male hormonal pattern so men are by default setting organizing their eating their exercising and their project planning or time management around their biochemistry I’m simply suggesting that that’s a brilliant idea and that you should do the same thing for but you should do it for your infring Rhythm not the Circadian so you have these four phases of your cycle you
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have the follicular phase the ovulatory phase the ludal phase and the bleeding week or menes um I I’m so I always find it so frustrating that we call the menstrual cycle that could be your period week like you see what I’m saying the words become interchangeable and that the lack of specificity just would not exist in the male side of things right they don’t have one word that describes like seven million things it would be very spe specific so I like to call it the bleeding week because that’s specific
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and then your cycle is the entire month um so in the first half of your cycle I want to just take you through how the infradian Rhythm um causes these four pattern changes in your metabolism in your stress response system and in your brain chemistry so that you can see why you must start adapting your life um according to your infradian Rhythm because doing it otherwise actually disrupts everything about these systems of your body and makes gives you symptoms like PMS or worse and then makes you like totally lose your
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creative Edge and your productivity Edge so this is now like the ultimate hack for your health and life um so in the first half of your cycle the follicular and ulatory phases um which is not where you start counting you start counting on day one of your bleed right because that’s been the ver that’s been the vernacular for medical professionals who need to track day 14 for ovulation purposes but the the if anybody who has a cycle knows is the is your bleed the beginning of the cycle does it feel like
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a A New Beginning No it feels like the culmination of the hormonal Journey so it is the it’s the completion It’s The End so the follicular is the new start so follicular and ovulatory phases first half of your cycle again keep in mind so many textbooks were written by men describing women’s experiences and they they are not uh they need updating and this is one of the ways I think they need updating so folicular and ovulatory first half your metabolism slows down and your resting cortisol patterns
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are uh lower which means that for you to be optimizing your metabolism you need to eat fewer calories and you need and if you want to use fat stored uh fuel efficiently you want to do high-intensity and cardio workouts this combination of eating lighter and Less Foods um and working out more intensely optimizes your metabolism in this phase and makes you firing on all mental cylinders and and takes ADV really is a powerful cocktail of of self-care and and diet and lifestyle uh during this time then the research shows that in the second half
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the ludal and the bleeding week your metabolism speeds up you in fact need 247 more calories per day and the research shows that if you keep doing cardio and high-intensity interval training in the second half of your cycle you’re going to turn on fat storage and turn on muscle waste and I saw this countless times in my practice over the past 20 years because women you know we all there’s always these like Fitness trends that come and go one of them was um training for a triathlon as a way to get in shape and
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these women would come to me after they had done it and they had put on 20 pounds and needed answers because they were they were pretty upset yeah how is it possible that somebody’s running biking or psych or swimming five miles the day and doing the diet that their coaches have been giving them and they gain weight after the competition mhm well if you do the same workout every day and eat the same caloric value every day as a female with an active INF frean Rhythm that’s exactly what will happen you will lose lean muscle and you’ll
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gain fat W and this is groundbreaking information for you because and and let’s just think about the psychological impact that this has had on all of us right so we’ve been told that women have just the slower metabolism compared to men and we have to compensate more by restricting more having more willpower working out harder no pain no gain No sacrifice no bikini you know the whole thing right meanwhile you’ve been fed such an enormous oversight about your biology and you’ve been so diligently
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showing up at the gym eating salads all day and not having the scale budge at best and at worst gaining weight and gaining p period problems right and thinking the whole time that something’s wrong with you it’s you you’re the screw up you’re not good enough you’re lazy all the nasty little inner voice dialogues that you have not based on reality based on this fantasy that we’ve created in our cultural narrative that says oh we don’t know what’s going on in your body so you’re just you’re just
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weaker you’re just less you just need less calories and hopefully you can work hard hard enough and be one of the few beautiful women who attain the perfect physique it’s nonsense it’s toxic it’s hurting women psychology it’s creating Eating Disorders unnecessarily it’s it’s making women sick and I just can’t I just can’t tolerate the Injustice of it because the science is so clear first half of the cycle eat lighter eat fewer calories I there’s a chart in chapter 4 it’s called the food
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flow chart it Maps out each of these four phases it gives you a list of foods to eat in each of these phases so that you don’t have to worry about oh no which one’s right in fact it’s not just about the calories it’s also you do also have to work with the hormonal ratios as well and so I outlin that for you too meaning in ovulation if you’re someone who breaks out on your chin during ovulation that’s because you have this peak estrogen surge during ovulation a hair you get a hair yeah
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okay that you can I get forehead breakout I don’t know if that’s oh interesting so that’s a combination forehead here forehead on the side uh both mostly mostly up here is so something you’re eating is not working with your digestion but also there’s some liver stuff going on which could indicate this excess estrogen you’ll be eating specific foods that are listed in the ovulatory week that help maximize the flushing out the metabolism of that estrogen because you can’t just eat random fewer calories you have to take
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into consideration these four hormon Al ratios that each of these phases represent ovulation is an estrogen dominant uh ratio so you have to eat foods that are lighter yes but that are full of glutathione and vitamin C that are going to help your liver do the three phases of detoxification to get that estrogen out through the bowel so it’s a very intelligently designed eating plan to factor in not just your metabolic rate but also your hormonal levels so that you’re always optimizing those hormonal ratios in each of the
1:00:27
four phases the ludal phase for example in the second half you need more calories and what where women make the biggest mistake is they try to be good and retain the same restricted dietary patterns of the first half of the cycle which felt easier to do of course because your metabolism is that’s works for your metabolism then if you deprive yourself of those extra almost 300 calories a day you know you don’t need me to tell you what happens you live this every month you are good during the day you have your smoothie in the
1:00:58
morning you have your salad at lunch and then you on your way home start snacking on things and almost in a trans-like state where you’re not even really sure what you’re eating it could be a croissant from a bakery and then you get home you’re cooking you’re shoving cheese and crackers or chips into your mouth and then after dinner your ice cream and CH and and then like the end of the night you’re like oh my gosh I screwed up what did I eat what’s going on you feel like you’ve been taken over
1:01:26
yes you have worked against your biochemistry and it is desperately trying to write the C it’s trying to make a course correction right by by not eating enough calories early enough in the day and spaced out through the day to stabilize your blood sugar your body is going to send out powerful neurotransmitters called gin to get you to eat more I call them Gremlins because it’s and they well they it’s like that right feed the hungry little gremlins and then uh at the same time you’re not eating enough complex carbohydrates
1:01:58
which is which we’ve been taught to fear eating carbohydrates well it turns out carbohydrates provide some pretty key building blocks for you to M manufacture progesterone and guess what you need in abundance during the ludal phase in order for you to have zero PMS which is not something you’re ever supposed to have and it’s a sign of a hormonal imbalance progesterone if you have I was hoping it was carbs same but but you want to eat more comple carbohyd to get the building to make more progesterone
1:02:28
so yes you you were there I must be hungry more progesterone versus estrogen in the ludal phase is the optimal hormonal ratio okay and eat properly to achieve that and so the food list breaks that down for you it’s so exciting to be able to hand this to you all because we can just end this culture of toxic dieting and working out let me do a quickie on the workout as I said in in the first half you can do cardio and high-intensity interval training in the second half you must not okay this is what I need to know you must not screw
1:03:04
this up every time every what is what is weights which one is that you can do non-c cardio strength training in the second half of your cycle okay so what does that look like that looks like a lot of Pilates is non- cardiio based strength training holding plank position squats up against the wall long long um so if you’re doing like a yoga that has where you’re holding poses for long periods of time this is all non- cardio strength training your body loves this during the ludal phase because you your
1:03:38
metabolism is very fast meaning you’re going to burn through you sto your your fuel very quickly and because resting cortisol levels are higher so if you do too much cardio in the second half you’re going to dip into your adrenal Reserve start that fat storage spiral So non-card based strength training in the ludal phase is really the key you can walk you just can’t go to your boxing class or your boot camp class or your cycling class you don’t want to do those things save it all for the first
1:04:09
half of the month and what you will find how have I maintained a 60 pound weight loss for 20 years yeah and how did I recover my body postpartum which and I gained 40 50 pounds during my pregnancy um which is reasonable for me because I’m estrogen sensitive right um how did I do that I did zero deprivation I worked with the science of my body and I still do and when you do that everything becomes effortless right coaches train male athletes this way right they know when the right time to train men so that
1:04:43
they build most muscle right and reduce injury we don’t get that education so we just do it whenever and we think we have to do it yeah as hard as we can every day whenever the class is scheduled yeah that’s right not on your time on somebody else’s time and it’s hurting you it’s it’s thwarting your your desired results um sometimes preventing them from taking place in the first place and it’s just it’s just so wrong uh but the the great news is that we have a wonderful leader in the space the
1:05:15
US Women’s Soccer Team they’re they have looked at the science and they’ve decided you know it is illogical for us to train our female soccer athletes on a circadian rhythm we’re going to train them on an infring one fantastic and it’s a wonderful um new Milestone I think that I hope has an extraordinary trickle down effect not just to other female sports teams but also the way that um girls in school um you know have physical education right yes um because ke I remember running sometimes it was
1:05:47
like I can’t do this you listen let me be clear and I write about this in the book you can do anything that you want at any time so can a man right the the issue is that we should do it when it’s optimal right on our own timing right so if for example a girl is going to school and it’s the first day of her bleed and she is cramping and she is feeling a little bit lower energy she should feel fine right but she it’s not optimal for her to run 10 laps around the gym she can do it without question but it’s not
1:06:26
optimal for her so why would we force her to do that right when she could just instead walk it so what I’m saying is we should have an inclusive culture not just in schools not just in sports also in the workplace which we’ll talk about because we’re going to talk about brain chemistry next that’s that allows for these differences to coexist right because you know if if it makes sense for boys to train at gym earlier in the day and to run last whenever is optimal for them why can we not also have an inclusive conversation
1:07:01
that says okay well let’s let the girls do it when it’s optimal for them right right and if they’re all tracking their cycle and that’s information that they can verify with their gym teacher she it’s not going to be turned into an excuse which I think everybody worries about like oh we don’t want to use our Peri as an excuse to opt out of things I’m not suggesting that at all what I’m suggesting is we use that information as a powerful tool yeah absolutely healthier to be happier to not drain our
1:07:29
energy as much starting in school when you start getting all the way throughout the rest of your life and if we can normalize that for girls in middle school they will become very different leaders in in the culture as a whole the brain chemistry piece is pretty powerful too and I won’t there’s I know we’re sort of getting close on on our time here but what I’ll say is that there are times of the month because of what is happening hormonally that certain regions of your brain are hyper stimulated and understanding when these
1:08:03
regions are being stimulated is very powerful because then what it allows you to do is organize projects for example um during the ovulation phase because of that estrogen surge you get super stimulated verbal and social centers of your brain now you intuitively know as I’m talking to that yes you do feel different in in these ways but no one’s ever put a picture frame around it and you’ve been taught to distrust your intuition so you brushed it aside and powered through stop doing that in fact you have a a a bigger region of the
1:08:34
brain that houses the in the intuition um and so your intuition is a really powerful tool what I would say is that when you have these hyper stimulated times of verbal and social skills why not plan networking events or say yes to going to them or why not um plan a presentation at your office to present your new ideas or why not give a talk depending on what you’re doing for a living pick that time because it happens every month in the ovulation phase you can plan six months out from now if your cycle is healthy and regular and there’s
1:09:12
a whole biohacking section in the book if it is not and go to please go to flow living.com if if you’re struggling with anything that’s disrupting your cycle from a diagnosed mental disorder like PCOS amena disys Menara fibroid endometriosis you got to clean that up first which the flow protocol will help you do and then you can start taking advantage of the cycle syncing method your cycle has to be functioning at least in some basic way um in the ludal phase your brain has the first uh moment where it’s gets
1:09:46
access to Progesterone this has a very calming effect and a focusing effect this is the longest phase of the cycle 10 to 12 days this is where because you are calm and focused you can get so much done in fact this is when I try to finish any project that I have on my project map um I do it at this time and it’s predictable month over month over month I know when I’m working on certain categories of projects this is there’s also a chart for this in chapters six and seven um that talk about the time
1:10:21
management piece and how to apply this in a corporate setting and I go into corporate ations all the time so if you are in one and you’d like me to come and teach your male and female teams how to have an inclusive workplace to make sure that we’re bringing in both realities of what’s optimal work uh you know what is optimal work schedule look like for men and what is optimal work schedule look like for women we have to have a corporate culture that’s inclusive for women right now it’s highly gender
1:10:47
skewed to the male biological Rhythm and it’s making women sick and symptomatic at work and opting out of working in corporate cultures because they cannot fit into that circadian lifestyle they need less productive yeah less productive and it becomes diminishing returns and women as logical and sensible as they are say this is not a good environment for me I have to find something else I’m in the ludal phase now but I’m not having the same effects because I’m doing a mimicking fast so you’re doing a What fast like a
1:11:16
mimicking uh a mimicking fast is that what it’s called Mercedes I can’t even remember fast yeah yeah okay I’m not familiar with that at all but but here’s another thing I talk about time like you should not start a new diet plan or do a detox in the second half of your cycle because more you’re gonna you’re going to disrupt your blood sugar which is why you can’t concentrate Jade right now and you’re going to jack up cortisol production which is going to make you feel anxious and Insomniac and give you
1:11:46
more PMS so if you’re going to do any detoxing or fasting you do that in the L the follicular and ovulatory phases never never after ovulation I would stop immediately if I were you and pick it back up after your bleed is completed because you’re going to disrupt ovulation for next month and you will likely have very bad PMS the next month oh no well you talked about intermittent fasting and calories um does the time a woman is supposed to start eating and stop eating does that change out her phase or it’s it’s the
1:12:19
same no so the research that I outline and and dug up for you all is that intermittent fasting as it’s being publicly shared like the the 18-hour fast is a mail-based research that only is is only safe and gives the research documented benefits for men and postmenopausal women okay if you’re in your reproductive years you cannot do that without disrupting your cycle your ovarian size your thyroid Health your brain health your metabolic Health all of those things will become disrupted um what you can do is a 12-h hour fast
1:12:57
every day that’s what I do during your reproductive years from dinner time to breakfast 12 hours is great and then focus on liver support focus on using the the the tips of how to eat from uh your Cycles yeah you want to start using the cycle syncing method to basically eat what what you’re supposed to eat when it the is the right time for your biochemistry so I have a something we brought up yesterday we actually spoke to a fasting expert yesterday who um is supposed to be a fasting expert for women specifically which she does say
1:13:34
not to do it in the second uh half of your month you know your cycle wonderful um however so for me I’m not actually going to ask about fasting but I did bring this up on in that conversation of when I’m in my second half of the of my monthly cycle um ludal I if I run a lot it seems I get constipated or I’ll get these symptoms that are almost like my body is shutting down digestion and kind of going into more of a fight ORF flight phase which is something I’ve struggled with for most of my life but so that I’m just
1:14:10
trying to put these Keys you’re giving me here in this talk together and that’s making sense because you’re you’re disrupting your cortisol your adrenal Health by doing an intense workout and fasting you’re disrupting insulin levels and blood sugar levels and then you’re also taxing your adrenals and you’re making more cortisol which is going to make you feel bad yeah so you definitely need to really there’s no other way to take care of yourself as a woman in your reproductive years if you you have to
1:14:40
look at this infring Rhythm you have to see the four pattern changes in the month and you have to change what you’re eating when which workouts you’re doing when and when you’re taking advantage of these amazing brain chemistry gifts that you’re being given throughout the month so that you can do more with less stress because right the the stress burden on women of course because of our gender bias Society is a real problem and uh just just living in an environment that does not include your biological clock
1:15:11
is a huge stressor right you have to try to fit your life into a circadian clock it that creates stress then add on not eating the right things at the right time doing the same workout every month all month long you’re stressing out your system more than just trying to work however long you think you’re supposed to work on whatever you think you’re supposed to work on without factoring in your brain chemistry shifts more stress so now you’ve got compounded stress multifactorial stress inputs you are
1:15:40
going to buckle under that and that’s going to show up as insomnia mood destabilization brain fog at first then physical symptoms like breakouts headaches bloating PMS symptoms and then it’s going to get progressively worse with a disrupted cycle or then developing menstrual dis disruptions of some sort it then can affect your fertility decrease your fertility shut off your sex drive before you know it you’re feeling terrible and then you think gee I have to use something for my skin something for my mood something for
1:16:16
my fertility something for no like zoom out and look at the bigger zo out and look at the root the deepest root Factor here is your infring Rhythm if you’re if you’re not working with it you’re disrupting it and everything will start to become dysfunctional as a result this is what female biohacking looks like by way it does not look like um extreme stuff right now is it fun to go do cryotherapy and saunas and yeah and do they have benefits for everybody sure I love that you say that yeah biggest bang for your buck the biggest
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bang for your buck that’s going to get get you healthy now keep you healthy for the long term and and set you up to have a healthy postmenopausal life is the cycle sinking method yeah and it sounds like so much of that leads us back to literally being in our femininity in our feminine energy that is not about extreme and it’s not about being you know overly stressing the body it’s about being gentle receiving accepting self-love these type of things I I think that’s a trigger for a lot of women
1:17:20
because think about it when you’re in an environment that doesn’t include your reality you feel like you have to put your you have to put your guard up you got you got fight and so this idea that you would now all of a sudden still be in the same environment S soft um that’s a that’s a deeply triggering that’s not something that’s going to make you feel safe and here’s also the other reality is that it’s not needed not the way that we’re not the way that we have been discussing it
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what’s needed is for us to recognize that we have both masculine and feminine energy in fact you can map that in your cycle in the embody one or the other depending on where you’re at your follicular and ovulatory phase is a more masculine energized phase the ludal actually depends sometimes I feel like my ovulatory and ludal is a more masculine forward phase I’m doing I’m going forward I’m getting things done my menstrual and follicular is more feminine meaning I’m I’m evaluating
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things I’m looking at my life in my menstrual face and my follicular phase I’m planning I’m ideating I’m imagining visioning that’s creative feminine energy both of these masculine and feminine energies feel strong to me equally powerful and I I don’t experience them as um this the way that we’ve just sort of been talking about it in let’s say the um spirituality movement of like your feminine energy I think that that isn’t if that’s not something that you’re comfortable with I
1:18:56
I welcome you to start looking at how the biochemistry of your cycle actually gives you access to both of these energetics they’re both equally powerful and if you do have some residual judgment about your feminine energy by practicing the cycle syncing method that will quickly evaporate like nothing else you can’t think your way out of your already always way of being but you can live your way out of it and by practicing a new lifestyle you’re going to get to know yourself in a new way and your what you know what you think
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will be changing and then how your life turns out will change because what you’re thinking is different so it’s really powerful yes to think about a world in which um women feel so differently about themselves from the beginning like that they are these powerful creatures that that they get to have access to this second biological clock starting at puberty and it’s a precious gift that doesn’t lasts forever it’s only from puberty to menopause that they want to take advantage of it that we have this inclusive conversation in
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the media full transparency when a new study is published it says oh this was only done on men women don’t we don’t know yet what this might do to you be careful if you’re going to try it be very careful look at your period and how being impacted to think about a future in which corporate culture is more inclusive of these biological rhythms to think about puberty in in schools as a very different experience for boys and girls one that promotes learning and appreciating about each other’s differences so that set you up for
1:20:25
healthier relationships the possibilities are enormous when we actually start using real facts and how that be our foundation as opposed to this um mythological toxic rhetoric that has been the basis of our society for far too long it must change I I definitely preach on the show maybe too much um maybe in every of our like 70 plus episodes that we’ve aired so far hormones over anything you know like think about how this is affecting your hormones as you try it you know and look out for all the signs there um and we’re
1:21:02
winding down a course with you here and it’s been incredible to speak with you I we’ve got we got a lot of questions about um people struggling with being able to get pregnant um and that seems to be even in my friend group just a ongoing concern and I think you spoke to a lot of of course what could help balance people out and get them to a place where if you simply start using the cycle syncing method you’re going to take away several of the factors that are disrupting your your hormones right right out of the gate yeah so what
1:21:37
you’re likely doing right now is causing stress on your reproductive system and you’re not eating enough of the right foods that are going to boost your micronutrient levels um I would definitely have you guys check out this the special balance by flow living supplement formulations that I put together to help the endocrine system especially if you’re trying to conceive or if you’re just recently off the birth control um of some sort you need to replenish those lost micronutrients um in order for you to be
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ripe enough so to speak biochemically to have the abundance to produce a healthy egg and to conceive and hold that pregnancy it all comes down to like hormone levels and those are of course things that you manufacture from the foods that you’re eating and the supplements that you’re taking and uh combined with living a self-care practice um that doesn’t drain your energy deplete your blood sugar balance and put stress on your adrenals so that’s again why the cycle syncing method is just such an essential
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practice for us as women in our reproductive years if you have a functioning cycle you must do this it’s not a nice idea it’s a need to do yes we so often go to the doctor and their men giving us the advice too on on all of this so that’s just something to keep in mind but okay so before we close out here with you Alyssa there’s a few short questions we like to ask everyone who comes on the show if you could hug your younger self right now what would you say I would say you are so beautiful if you could have the whole
1:23:13
world read one book which would it be oh my gosh that that is probably the hardest question I’ve ever been asked gez I have you should see my bookshelf um wow it’s a can I give a few I can’t answer I just cannot it’s an impossible can’t I can’t I can’t do it um I would have you read uh women who run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinola eses I would have you read Cersei by meline Miller is the first fictional book based on real Greek mythology that that documents the heroine’s journey and how that is it
1:23:58
just so I was blown away I I hope someday to to sit down with that author she did a huge service to womankind um I I would have you read in the flow uh because of what’s in there to give you the keys to who you are um what else would I have you read I have you read the body keeps the score oh that’s such a beautiful book so well done one book that Al also opened my mind to the way women work was um Dr Leen brisen dy’s the female brain oh I love that yeah it was really incredible I’ve recommended that here on the show I
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think I’m gonna have to put a a library together of recommended to help women quickly get an education and orientation to a great idea know yeah yeah the flow living Institute we need that information I’ll get to work on it add it to my list if you could whisper one phrase everyone on the planet what would it be you guys asked some good questions if I could whisper one [Music] phrase learn about who you are and get to know other people authentically okay I like that I love that before we let you go where can
1:25:22
people find you online you you can find me on Flow living.com if you’ve got any hormonal issues that we can be of service to you around please reach out to us um you can find the app at myflow tracker.com you can join the cycle syncing Revolution at cycle syncing method.com and you can find us on Facebook and Instagram atlow living and my personal is Alisa VD Alisa VD yes highly recommend all of it folks so Alyssa I think a big part of what you’re doing for our imbalanced of often hyper masculine culture at large is
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helping women like Jade and I be okay and maybe even empowered being female which is often looked at you know as kind of like a sin in our culture and I’ve personally experienced the effects of your wisdom and your work by applying it to my life especially in becoming a more compassionate listener to my body and responding to my body’s needs and I also want to thank you for including men in this journey as I mentioned a bunch in the show which I think is something that’s often overlooked but is so
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important to include our partners in life and give them the tools to be able to wake up from the collective nap we as a culture have been in so thank you for all of that and for teaching me how to live smarter in a woman’s body in my body thank you for being a light oh my pleasure thank you it’s been a pleasure we’re going to uh send you a course when our launch dat is for this and any promos we make for it which I’m sure will be plentiful yeah thank you so much thank you have a good rest of the day
1:26:58
bye thank you oh that was a lot she was the she was the perfect guest because we didn’t even have to ask questions she just was like next we’re going to brain health it like we have a question for that but go on we need to know this stuff um yeah and I trusted her which was nice because like we know her work it’s not like someone that like you know we familiar with so we’re like go whatever give us whatever you’re going to give us we’ll take it yeah exactly um I I just and we had so many more questions of course for
1:27:33
her that we couldn’t get to many hopefully there’ll be another show in the future well hopefully what honestly my biggest hopes is that this area of expertise will will widen amongst people in the medical field and the nutritional field you know this this type of um study will be something more people get interested in I know I’m completely fascinated by it and I’ll keep interjecting my my invitations to the public world to to get deeper in this work but I hope we have other guests that really embody this to a point where
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we want to have them on and share it with the world and we’ll cover the rest of the questions we had today for her that we didn’t get to yeah so um I want to give a shout out before we move on to magic tricks to the ladies who are listening and are probably gonna do a deep dive into the hard work that this episode is asking them to do um maybe a shout out to you and I Jade because I know we’re about I know do some work on it ourselves her book about to become my Bible right and I also want to commend
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the men listening for now being the man who knows enough to be dangerous with the ladies this is part of what we call being a woke man so thank you guys for helping us make that change and um bringing a more balanced uh generous world together yeah yeah I I it’s it sounds like a very dedicated lifelong journey it is it’s not it’s like once you know the information yeah but I mean I guess like inter fasting was like that for me too in celery juice and now it’s been it’s four years and it’s like I don’t even
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think about it I just do it so I’m sure once you get in the mode of it you don’t you’re not having to like reference the book it’s just you know oh yeah it’s just I mean it’s a lifestyle change you have to commit to it but then you you have to do that thing we talked about before which is letting the person who you were yesterday die off you know grieve it and move forward because who wants to stay the same every day for the rest of your life like what she was talking about regarding uh a story about
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a a man who said you know after our baby my woman was never the same and I wish she would go back to that way it’s like what person really in their right mind when they’re being honest with themselves would want to be with someone who never evolves and never changes so um I think if we’re supportive of each other in that way we’re supportive of ourselves to continue to evolve we can allow who we were yesterday who might have known less to evolve into the day the person we are today which has better
1:30:05
knowledge and is better able to take care of ourselves and others so yeah for it let’s keep what’s your magic what’s your magic I asked you first okay I was gonna say jinx you gotta buy me a Coke or something um I don’t drink caffeine we didn’t even get to caffeine with her by the way elisab is 100% against people women drinking caffeine during their childbearing years she has a whole talk on it um on YouTube if you want to look it up and it’s super important women if you’re listening take that into consideration I
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think that that’s a huge and important factor we didn’t get to cover here but um yeah caffeine is just like it’s a man’s drink if anybody okay kick it out of your life okay um my magic trick today comes from a Instagram account called think for yourself and they posted something that said did you know that cortisol is released in tears cortisol is a hormone that is created in the body as a response to stress that’s something we probably all know but you probably didn’t know that when we cry in
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addition to other benefits we are physically cleansing our body of stress so allowing ourselves to cry is an act of self-care and I just found that really beautiful yeah that ties into mine uh which I was going to do download her app but I feel like we talked about that enough on the um talk with her so I something we didn’t get to was that she re um rephrased it might be the right uh word here uh for PMS she changed she changed it to um prioritizing myself yeah she Chang the acronym for PMS to prioriti prioritizing myself so that
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would be my magic trick for you is is that when you’re on your period to just um do some extra self-care to take it easy to not overwork yourself to prioritize yourself and then if you’re a man listening to just encourage your woman to do that and maybe um make it easier for her to do so yeah and and I just to add to that I would say you said on your period but PMS premenstrual syndrome so before your period which is when we have the really kind of well at least for me is that week before the period my period starts it’s like a more
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I don’t know volatile side of me comes out and that’s the time when I need to be getting the massages and relaxing a little bit more and kind of amping up for my bleed essentially so that I’m I’m in a phase of uh calmness yeah that makes sense allowing yourself to cry or whatever needs to happen so that cortisol comes out you know yeah all the things all right magic mover thank you so much for tuning in and taking this journey with us if this episode EP held some magic for you please share it with
1:32:56
your friends and family this would mean so much to us and don’t forget to join us on our Instagram page at themagic hour and let us know what your favorite episodes have been so far we appreciate all of your feedback and really want to know what’s lighting you up yes and we release a new episode every Monday so you can catch us again next week or go listen to some of our past episodes in our podcast library now we’ll meet you there until then