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Never is there mention of how a woman's schedule should change? That's a side topic, but infrared rhythm can you break it down?
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Like what is it and it's specific to women obviously, but just like what is it?
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So what you need to know about it is circadian rhythms are about, you know, a cycle that takes place over the course of the day.
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And in fradian rhythm is a cycle that takes place over a longer period of time.
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And in our cases women, it's our monthly menstrual cycle.
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If you live only from the circadian day in and day out, something is missing for you as a woman,
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which is that flow of shifting energy through your infradient experience over your menstrual cycle over the course of a month.
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As you go through that, having different ratios of these hormones estrogen,
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with then progesterone, you know, comes into the picture and alludial phase, all of this affects your brain chemistry,
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your metabolism, your stress responses, and your immune system.
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You are a different creature each week of the cycle.
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And by aligning your self-care practices with that eb and flow of what feels right and good.
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At least the BT, welcome to rooted in wellness.
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I am so happy to be here. Our chat is just long overdue and it's such a joy to be in your present.
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Oh, when I say her name pop up, it's a girl crush vibes I want to say because I've been following your work for so long.
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And it's been just such game changer in my practice also.
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So we're going to dive into all that goodness.
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But to kind of warm up, I want to give you a sense of what this podcast is all about.
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So rooted in wellness is all about merging ancient wisdom in our modern world.
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And really how we can all become more rooted in our health and our self and our life and our happiness.
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So let's start off the episode by starting about what helps you feel more rooted in who you are and why.
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Hmm, lately what's helping me feel more rooted is my exercise practice.
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I have gotten very into lifting heavy heavy weight and my morning work session as I like to call it at the gym where I am spending like an hour lifting really heavy things.
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It puts me in my body to such a degree that makes me feel super not just physically strong, but mentally clear and energetically focused and on mission.
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So I find that when I do come to my work as a hormone expert and running a fentech company that I'm really focused on what matters, what moves the needle.
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And then the same thing when I get into my mom's own time of the day, I'm just getting things done.
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So I and that's really for me this whole bigger conversation about, you know, how do we as women live in an embodied way in our feminine energy and the way to do that.
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In all the years I've been studying living in India, sitting with females and masters, trying all sorts of things.
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It's actually by getting into your body in whatever way you can.
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If that's dance for me right now, it's lifting heavy weights, whatever it is when you get into your body as a woman, that's when you're most connected to your feminine energy.
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And we as women don't do that enough because we spend lots of our time up here in our heads out, you know, out of our bodies and we need to come home to our body.
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I love that. I love these lifting heavy things when I wait, well, first of all, growing up with yoga, I remember so many teachers like don't lift weights don't run like just do yoga.
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When I lift yoga, I feel sexy like I feel sexy, I feel strong, I feel in my body.
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And to that point, I noticed I could get the same sensation from you class, but now on the gym floor, which is great, which is embodiment, right?
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That's a big topic. Let's really dive into that today. How old are your kids?
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I have, I have a 10 year old daughter and she is the love of my life. Absolutely.
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To see, to see.
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My son is 10 to it's the best. I have a daughter that's seven, but it's the best.
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You mentioned embodying. Let's dive into the opposite side. So I don't know if you've worked with people who today were making healing and health so complicated.
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And when people think about these practices to make them feel better, they're treating them like a checklist that they no longer, you know, they're doing the things whether it's meditation or breath work or working out, but they're not coming to the present moment.
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It's like they're not even like taking advantage of the magic that it's doing for their bodies.
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So I thought drifting like I find there's times when I just drift off of doing the things that make me feel good.
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Are there certain things that you know that I put you in your life and your happiness?
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Uproot or, you know, I would say if I, if I don't stick to my non-negotiable daily habits, you know, for example, things like taking my supplement stack, getting in my 10,000 steps of doing, you know, if I deviate from that in the practice of caring for my physical body, eating the foods that are correct for my cycle phase.
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You know, really just taking care of this vessel. If I drift from that, I start to feel it pretty much everywhere.
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You know, it's the opposite of what I described earlier, you know, I start to feel a little less focus, more foggy, more moody, less optimistic and positive, lower energy.
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So yeah, those things, I think having a daily checklist that's around empowering habits that you know, if I can just get these little things done, they really build a foundation from which I can springboard into other things in my life is so critical.
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But you know, don't overdo it with the list. I think in the world of wellness, there's like you could have a very long list these days, there's between social media and the regular media, like your list of things that you should be doing could be very long.
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But I think, you know, what I try to do and when I advise my clients is, let's figure out what are the essential things that are going to give you the biggest return on investment for your well-being so that you're not doing it all, but doing things that really need to lift you higher without burning you out at the same time.
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I love you brought that up. So I've been using this word non-negotiables with my clients for a really long time.
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And then I noticed as my non-negotiable list started to grow, it felt really masculine and I thought like if this is going to be something that's feminine and embodying for me, surely not have non-negotiables.
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But then I realized the more that I adhere to specific symbol non-negotiables sunlight in the morning, a walk before I start my day moving my body before I get on a screen.
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Simple things like that are the things that allow me to become more present, more productive throughout the day so that I can be more present.
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Let me, I just love that you open that hole. Let's go there. Okay. So when we, so I've been on a journey to reclaim my feminine energy.
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Pretty much since I figured out that that was a thing back when I was maybe 23 24 and I have really, you know, it's led me to create the cycle thinking method certainly, but it's also taking me on many other journeys.
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One of the things that makes it so easy to really connect with your feminine energy is to understand your biological rhythms.
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If you understand that you have a circadian rhythm and an infradian rhythm, right, then it becomes a lot easier to structure and to, to take away, let's say, arbitrary judgment of what is masculine, what is feminine, right?
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Because even your thought, like, oh, if I have daily non-negotiable, is that putting me in my masculine, I would argue, not at all, because what we are trying to do is live in a balanced or a dynamic flow of our masculine and feminine energy.
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Let's throw out the word balance. That's so loaded.
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So you have a circadian clock, which let's say represents more of the masculine energy, if you will, because it's rinse and repeat same day over day has more of a linear format.
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And it also matches the pattern of male hormonal production throughout the day.
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So you have this as well, but you need to support these daily practices like getting morning sunlight, you know, protecting your sleep hygiene in the evening, blocking the blue lights, you know, eating your calories at regular intervals, you know, doing things that support that circadian rhythm.
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Obviously, a very important thing.
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We also have this infradient rhythm, which lets you do what your heart was asking you for there, when you were asking that question, which was, am I being too much of a masculine?
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Yes, if you live only from the circadian day in and day out, something is missing for you as a woman, which is that flow of shifting energy through your infradient experience over your menstrual cycle over the course of a month.
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Because you, as you go through that, having different ratios of these of hormones estrogen with then progesterone, you know, comes into the picture and all this affects your brain chemistry, your metabolism, your stress response system, your immune system.
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Now, you are a different creature each week of the cycle, and by aligning your self-care practices with that, ebb and flow of what feels right and good for your female body as you go through the cycle, gives you the ability to honor your feminine through the month, while you express, let's say, your masculine energy throughout the circadian experience.
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So it's a both and, and I think that that is the issue when we, as women, try to figure out how do we reclaim our feminine, if that we think it's an either or.
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And I'm here to tell you, after 25 years of being on that journey for myself personally, it's a both and you want to do, you are both, so you want to express both, but having the structure for me, of the cycle thinking method has healed that patriarchal wounding.
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In the most profound way, and it's available to every woman.
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Okay, God, my, my blood is boiling, like getting excited about this conversation, but also the frustration of why don't we know, why don't we know this circadian rhythm.
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So that based on like Eastern medicine and growing up in the ashram was something that we were aware of, and the schedule at an ashram is the same every single day for this reason.
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Never is there mention of how a woman schedule should change. That's a side topic, but infrared rhythm.
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Can you break it down like in like, what is it? And it's specific to women, obviously, but just like, what is it?
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What is it? What do we need to know about in radiant rhythm?
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So the infrating rhythm was this thing that I stumbled upon in my research because I was asking myself a question maybe, I don't know, 10 years ago now, which was...
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Why is it that so many more women have hormonal problems compared to men? You know, it's 80% of women will have a hormonal problem that's important in her life.
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That's shocking. And then when we look at the sort of male cohort, it's under 20%, it's not the same.
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Obviously, I said, what's the blind spot? Now I say, well, obviously, because men are living their cycle syncing as well, but they're just doing it on a circadian clock.
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So they're organizing their food, their fitness, and their productivity all to support their testosterone and cortisol patterns in a 24-hour period, which is wonderful that the entire world orients itself.
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But it makes it so much easier for them to just biohack even without intentionality, right? They're set up to physiologically thrive because the world is organized around their hormonal pattern.
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And then when I discovered the infradian rhythm and I said, oh, well, this, this answers the question, why so many more women are suffering because we don't know that we have this rhythm, right?
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B, we are actively disrupting it constantly and C, the world is not orienting around this rhythm. And so even if we were going to try to do it, we would still face challenges that would lead to some disruption.
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So when I say it's not easy for ovaries out there, which I've said for many years, I really beyond endocrine disruptive chemicals and everything that we've, you know, have heard go through the list fundamentally this infradian rhythm blind spot is causing havoc in terms of women's health.
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So what you need to know about it is circadian rhythms are about, you know, a cycle that takes place over the course of the day and infradian rhythm is a cycle that takes place over a longer period of time. And in our cases, women, it's our monthly menstrual cycle.
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However, I want to draw careful attention to the fact that we used to have a simplistic view our understanding of the circadian clock, which was, oh, yeah, just governs sleep week cycles.
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But we now know it's vastly more complex. It controls the timing of every little function of your body from when your blood pressure tends to be higher or lower when your bowels are active when they're not.
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Can you imagine the chaos that would ensue without circadian orchestration. Here you are trying to get some deep REM sleep and all of a sudden you have to have a bowel movement at three 27 in the morning. I mean chaos right so we love this circadian conductor keeping the time everything in its place and time.
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Infradian rhythm is something we experience over that 28 day cycle, but it would be too simplistic to say it just governs when you're ovulating and menstruating because it has profound impacts on key systems of the female body, the brain, metabolism, the immune system, the stress response system.
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So when we think, you know, sort of 10,000 foot view, why are more women suffering with anxiety, why are more women suffering with autoimmune disorders, why are more women suffering from all sorts of hormonal problems, weight issues, because of this infradian disruption that we don't know that we have that we don't even know that we're doing.
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And so when I saw that it just became very clear much like we have a routine that supports our circadian health right what's that routine you wake up at a certain time you eat at certain times you go to sleep at basic routine.
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We needed a basic routine to support this infradian clock and that's how I created the cycle thinking method so it aligns your food, your fitness and your productivity with these four phases of the cycle so that we can really reap the benefits of healthy infradian function on not just our menstrual cycle and hormones, but all these other systems of the body as well.
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It's fascinating and I love a concept that you say which is that woman don't have to suffer a menstrual cycle shouldn't have to make you suffer and yet it's that you know the same story of oh, but it's so common so must be normal it's not normal and something that I love I don't know do you know Dr. Mindy Peltz yes yes something that I love that she says is that women are living at a generational mismatch for our physiology for our constitution.
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And I did a bit of a deeper dive on this just asking like my mom and some of my aunties around menopause and Harry menopause and the symptoms that they describe were just very different like even my mom's menstrual cycle was very different than mine I've never had a regular menstrual cycle my mom did.
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But the key things that are disruptive today so even to your point about our circadian rhythm kind of working inherently now science is also catching on to this we're understanding the impact of you know blue light and our sleep patterns and stuff like that which is great.
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So we have to make infradian rhythm go viral to end suffering for women so I'm hearing you say then that a woman based on her lifestyle and her lifestyle practices and then you're going to talk about diet also at different times during her cycle she's able to own and take her power back of what she should be doing during that time.
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So yeah so let's walk walk through like you know the different phases of a cycle and I'm also curious too for people like me you've never had a regular cycle what that looks like.
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Well in a regular cycle you have four phases you have the follicular phase the ovulatory phase the luteal phase and the bleeding phase aka the menstrual phase although it is a little dodgy that we have these vocabulary words that can be used kind of ubiquitously like the menstrual cycle could be the whole month but it's also the bleeding week.
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Nowhere in males medicine do we have these you know sort of doubling up on the language so I always just like to call a spade a spade the whole thing is your menstrual cycle and when you're bleeding that's your bleeding phase reduces confusion you know.
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I like to be very specific and clear so in these four phases you have different hormone ratios that are present that you know help orchestrate what is happening physiologically in the body so you have sort of different levels of estrogen in the follicular phase that cause.
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The stimulation of many follicles on the ovary venue have a surge of estrogen.
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In luteinizing hormone and FSH in the ovulatory phase that signal that one egg has you know past muster and this one is going to be the one shipped off to the fallopian tubes and then we move into the luteal phase where progesterone my favorite hormone enters the party and changes everything about how you're thinking and feeling and operating.
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And then after a 10 to 12 day period when there is no let's say moment of conception then we reach our lowest levels of all hormones which triggers the release of the endometrial lining which by the way just in case your art magically awestruck by your body enough you 3d print that organ every month from the foods that you eat you you manufacture that it's not it's not just.
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Like what do you do in lining is such a.
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Gaslighting of what it really is it is it's it's a highly specialized organelle that is has specialized immune cell receptor so it's super cool.
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And you manufacture that every month no big deal.
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So you have these different hormonal ratios and and they make you feel differently as you go through the cycle I love to start with the impact on metabolism because it's something that a lot of women can relate to.
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Unfortunately from the negative perspective when it comes to cravings in the luteal phase but let's start with what what is supposed to happen in a healthy cycle so in the first half of the cycle the follicular and the ovulatory phase is your metabolism is actually slightly lower right just slightly slower to your let's say average.
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And so you can get away with eating lighter having smoothies and salads and you know working out more and you're going to feel perfectly energized.
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Then when you cross over into the luteal phase your metabolism speeds up why would it do that right well remember how I said you 3d print that beautiful organelle right so now you need to be.
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metabolizing foods more quickly so that you can actually manufacture that endometrial lining and keep your blood sugar stable at the same time so studies show that you need 279 more calories per day in the luteal phase which is revelatory for us as women because often we think what's wrong with me I need to eat how I was eating last week.
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Even if you don't recognize that you're saying last week from the luteal phase vantage point you're saying I need to eat how is eating my ovulatory phase you cannot and you should not do that which I'll get into and if you if you know when you're in that.
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Faster metabolic please you have to eat more and when you do your blood sugar stable your moods are stable your energy is good.
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Progesterone is higher in concentration than estrogen and you have no pms whatsoever no cravings no bloating no insomnia no nothing right feel great.
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And then your hormone shift again and you move into that menstrual phase so changing our diet is absolutely logical and necessary when you understand this metabolic shift right so that's exactly what you'd be doing with cycle syncing as as I described it in the book and in our app you really kind of have to modulate not just your calorie intake.
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But also looking at food from a functional perspective to help you manage all of these different hormone levels in your body even as a nutritionist this was never taught to us in school had no idea and here I am my 40s oh any deep more than 279 calories during my luteal phase.
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The impact of that I can imagine for women who tend to keep possibly restrictive diets or here to a certain type of hardcore diet and they wonder why they're still not feeling well and I think that for women when we get lost in oh but this is a diet that I know should be healthy or should help me lose weight or should help me gain more muscle and yet it could be the one thing that's just out of alignment with how we want to feel.
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It's really fascinating when we deprive ourselves of calories in the second half of the cycle we trigger all sorts of you know neurotransmitter response and cortisol response to compensate for this missing polaric value so your body is going to win.
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Okay the game of trying to balance your blood sugar by you know any means necessary so first it'll secrete a lot of cortisol to talk to your fat cells to convert stored glycogen into usable glucose which is okay in the short term.
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But if you're someone who's already struggling with PMS or you're somebody who is feeling like you're having the symptoms of parimenopause too soon or if you're somebody who's struggling to conceive what that means is you're already progesterone deficient right in that luteal phase you should have more estrogen sorry more progesterone than estrogen.
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If you're having PMS it's the inverse you have more estrogen than progesterone if you can't conceive same problem if you're going through early parimenopause same problem not enough progesterone creates a lot of a lot of symptomology.
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So when you then force the body to use that cortisol to keep your blood sugar stable because you're not listening to that infreed in effect and you're not honoring your metabolic shift now you have to back into you know sort of master hormone regulation so we're now going to be talking about pregnant alone.
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And it's going to favor making more cortisol for you then progesterone further exacerbating your progesterone deficiency.
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So this is not what you want to be doing you want to nourish yourself during this month caloric during this phase of the cycle with your the right calorie intake.
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And then from a neurotransmitter point you know grillin is going to be in full effect making you have not just food cravings but I almost like them to sort of like a food trance where you are kind of in an altered mental state and you don't snap out of it till you hit the bottom of a bag of whatever it was you started down going down into right.
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And and only after that does some leptin kick in but it's because you're so calorie deficient that again by any means necessary your body will get what it needs to do its job as best as it possibly can which is sub optimal in this circumstance where you're relying on cortisol relying on grillin if instead you started your day with.
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Beautiful robust breakfast with slow burning carbohydrates proteins and fats like you know in the real phase I love recommending sweet potatoes for breakfast with like any protein you like from eggs to chickens a sand I don't care what it is but some good 30 grams of protein nice carbohydrates that are slow burning some good quality fats.
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And you do something similar for lunch and you have a snack and you have dinner first of all by the time you get to dinner you're going to not have any cravings you're going to have felt great all day and you're not burdening your body with this whole let's make more cortisol and not make enough for just your own and let's you know have this whole grill and left in chaos.
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You're going to have a completely different experience simply by proactively giving your body the right kind of nutrition in that will phase it's a game changer and we do it cycle over cycle that's when the magic happens around reversing slash eliminating pms and then starting to reap the benefits of protecting your future fertility slowing down you know ovarian aging in terms of period menopause and it really pays dividends.
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So cycle the cycle thinking method is great in real time each cycle but again as you cycle through every cycle it is compounding interest for you in terms of long term health and you know from a longevity point of view on a home model perspective.
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I think it's fascinating especially because I would say over the past 15 years I worked with women who have it's the succession about food and it's not that they're just constantly eating or that there's an eating disorder but it's a constant thinking of like either you know what am I going to eat next what's the next meal going to be.
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And it what's the right thing to eat thing to eat I know around the noise in the media it's very confusing and it sounds silly to think perhaps our intuition was just guiding us the whole time but we try to adhere to the standards that we're seeing in the media.
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And through that silencing now here we are looking to incredible people like you were saying hey there's another way so if we break down this amazing concept of cycle thinking can you give us a glimpse into like just like what are some of the meals in phase one phase two what are you.
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So I mean in the follicular phase this is sort of a time where I do you know lighter grains lighter proteins there's a whole food chart that's gone viral on on all social platforms in chapter four of in the flow which really breaks down the which specific foods but I think just to start before you get you know into the detail of like what well which vegetables and which proteins.
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Just think about you know fewer calories lighter grains I might have king wine might have light white fish I might bake it I might sting veggies keeping things lighter and easier to digest I definitely do a lot of fermented foods in the follicular phase as well.
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In the ovulatory phase this is sort of the phase where I will do more raw foods if you know if when I'm doing raw foods it'll be smoothies and salads and you know light everything the lightest possible you can even get away with more vegan sources of protein if that's something that's interesting to you.
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In the loodial phase this is your sort of more if you have to think of something think of it like macrobiotic meals right your bootables you're going to have your brown rice and your sweet potatoes and your your cooked leafy greens you're not going to eat raw foods here why.
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Progesterone slows down transit time in the gut and raw foods are also cooling according to many ancient practices and we want to warm up the body as metabolism moves us towards menstruation but also with progesterone slowing down transit time in the gut we want lots of fiber.
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And we want to make it easy to digest as possible so that we don't get lots of constipation air in the gut raw foods and so cook your leafy greens and have your sweet potatoes roasted and whatever you're going to do that is really great in the loyal phase.
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And then in the menstrual phase there are actually lots of research published research on PubMed that talks about how we are depleted in specific micro nutrients during the the bleeding phase and so you know in the method I really help women to sort of front load foods that are going to give you some of that return on your food investment to get those levels up so we're eating more.
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You know animal protein more fat and eat things that are easier to digest as well so in all the warm everything warm.
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You know hot and this yeah.
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So that's kind of a high level what it looks like and you can play within that structure with if you're someone who likes to follow macros you can play with it from a macros perspective and make sure you're getting the right you know amounts of of proteins carbohydrates and fats that work for your metabolism as a whole.
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But it's really just about modulating your calories a little bit differently in the second half of the cycle.
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The other fun thing which is a really excellent part of the food chart is that we want to use food strategically from a functional medicine point of view to help our bodies metabolize estrogen.
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For example in the ovulatory phase you go peak surge of estrogen liver needs a little help you know so we that's one of the reasons why we do a lot of fruits and veggies at that time because that really super loads the liver with vitamin C and selenium and zinc and all the things that help it go through its phases of detoxification.
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In the luteal phase we want to use these slow burning carbohydrates to keep blood sugar stable that is priority number one for you so things that are very slow burning essential and like I said in the menstrual phase using food strategically to both warm the body but also to replenish lost micronutrients because you are shedding that organ a and you know be there's there's blood loss so you want to make sure that you're finishing.
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Yeah which makes sense that there's a micronutrient deficiency right like just and intuitively so we said this organelle naturally we would probably as we do have a little bit more energy.
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The first two weeks of our cycle was there a reason behind the sour cream you're adding in the first two weeks I guess you're rewarding right after you should.
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Yeah I mean you can certainly fermented foods are great throughout the month especially if you're someone who's dealing with gut issues but if you're someone who's not like a fermented food lover and you want it to find a way to have that be a flexible experience that you float in and out of your monthly experience rebuilding sort of post menstruation can be really helpful as your body starts to warm back up.
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And your digestive fire gets a little bit hotter as you move towards ovulation so just a sort of replenishing thing but you can you can certainly add it in whenever it feels right and that's the thing about the cycle thinking method is it is not a diet at all it's a methodology and that gives you a lot of flexibility so you might be having menstrual issues and you might be having cyber right or you have.
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Crones or you have some gut issue you're going to need to needing to do things from a circadian perspective to manage those gut issues every single day of the month but you can also manipulate some of the caloric intake as you go throughout the cycle to help with the metabolic shift that is taking place because of your menstrual cycle so again.
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Parking back to what we talked about in the beginning it's both and and I think that as women we become we have been so conditioned by the media this is the right diet now this is the right diet this is the right one no no now this one that we've become kind of groomed to be very dogmatic with our approach to food and this method seeks to destroy that habit by virtue of the practice it's simply a practice being aware of which phase of the cycle.
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You're in understanding the biological realities of what is shifting in that phase and doing all that you can that is reasonable given the complexity of your unique circumstances and health issues to align with that cycle faith but to not be dogmatic about it at all right and I think that's important that's one of the ways we can heal.
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So I think it's important that we can heal from toxic diet culture for sure is to be flexible it's I call it compassionate listening and responding your body is always talking to you but you're often groomed to ignore it and I want you to start listening and responding love and tying this and you know dynamism right doesn't have to be the same all the time.
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It's so happy yeah I think that on a greater level we all know as women our bodies are magic like pure magic I believe that we all have the ability to heal ourselves but we have to give our body what it needs and in hearing about this process it's almost like you're rebuilding trust within your body
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to you know acknowledge the times when you do need a little bit more or a little bit less when you have a little bit more energy when you can take that away it's like you're bringing the trust back into your body so you're just getting the foundation right so for pulling back okay looking when we speak to the foundations yeah taking a look at your circadian rhythm.
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Now understanding on a deeper level you're infrading rhythm and then in the flow I know like the response to this book from women has been so inspiring to watch and cycle thinking I think is a method that's going to give that back to women.
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Let's just touch base a little bit then if there's women out there listening who are like me who don't have a regular cycle and I use air quotes around that because I did have a regular cycle but it was just every three months but doctors put me on birth control when I was really really young because that wasn't regular to them.
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So I use that with air quotes because I think that you know we can all be different but can you shed some light on the regular cycle and cycle thinking.
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Yeah so you know we want to have a cycle that is regular relative to you so if that's you know every 26 days to every 32 days there's a range but we want to be having ovulation happen at a regular interval in cadence.
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Because the ovulation is the star of the show in as far as so many of the health benefits that are conferred throughout the cycle to you as a woman.
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Ovulation is cardio neuro and osteoportective in that current cycle when every ovulation you have in your 20s 30s and 40s protects the same brain heart and bone tissue for when you're no longer ovulating postmen a positive.
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So you know there is a lot of conversation divergent conversation about it's okay not to have a cycle or it's okay to be on medications that suppress the cycle.
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So I take a very different view of that which is and I'm someone who did not ovulate or menstruate for 10 years you know from the age of 12 to 22 I was in the throes of PCOS although back then nobody knew what it was I was 210 pounds I was covered face chest and back and cystic acne I did not get my period.
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First bleed was a few months shy of my 16th birthday then I only had five more bleeds until I started figuring all of this out.
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And those were chemically induced and synthetic progesterone it was it was a crazy and I the mental health implications of all of this hormonal disruption were profound and obviously
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I was part of the reason why I am someone who loves your period more than anybody on planet earth and I've dedicated my career to studying the menstrual cycle certainly because I just didn't get to have one for 10 years and it really bothered me.
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So reclaiming ovulation is so important for women if you have any regular cycle you should seek to make it regular and that's why I wrote my first book woman code the flow protocol in that book was really what I used to restore my ovulation really looking at understanding how does the endocrine system function what is its order of operations and then how do we not interfere with that and make sure we're supporting that and that has been helping.
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Helping restore ovulation for women for 20 years plus now if you have PCOS as the cause of your irregular cycling you want to get a handle on that and cycle thinking is not the first place for you to go but the flow protocol is so I would have you pick a woman code if you have an irregular cycle.
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And get it to be regular because you want that obligatory heartbeat every month you want to have that you want to protect and preserve that and then once you reclaim your cycle regularity then you can start cycle thinking now let's talk about it on the other side of the spectrum which is perimenopause right and let's say you're not getting a cycle on a regular basis.
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It's pretty simple but first of all perimenopause begins at 35 for everyone in the brain just like puberty begins at nine in the brain but we don't start to really see it until 12 right ideally you're not having your first period before the age of 12 method the whole other conversation but just like it's hard for women to have hormonal balance we're now seeing that trickle down to young girls who are having massive exposure to endocrine disruptive chemicals their diet is fine.
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It's not a cycle of non real food and their stress levels are high enough that it's triggering early menstruation which is not healthy long term and should be something that every mother of a young daughter should be really thinking about you know as I have been obviously for my own.
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How do I reverse engineer an optimal pubescent transition and that starts with frankly what you're doing when that child is in utero with you and then every food you feed them until they get their first period and then beyond and then of course you're helping them learn how to cycle think you know once they start menstruating but from a perimenopause point of view you start at 35 you shouldn't really see anything different about your cycle until well after 45 maybe 46.
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Seven right ideally you'd start to maybe have some notice little things which you should you should and here's why I say this couple generations ago it was so problematic for women in their late 40s.
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From a fertility perspective problematic meaning they were having their eighth child at 48 at 49 that the advent of a chemical birth control solution was life changing for women right that's the your nature designs all.
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Beings to be maximally fertile for the maximum amount of time right that's just an elegantly efficient way for nature to replicate itself right so you're supposed to be ovulating or as long as possible and I have talked to many many women over the years the ones who get it right who really understand how to navigate perimenopause they're ovulating and menstruating well into their early in mid 50s which is ideal beautiful.
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Even we don't have a conversation early on enough which is you've got to protect your ovary and its functionality throughout your life you've got to take care of your cycle your cycle is a fifth vital sign which a lot of women don't know back in 2016 the American College of Obstetrics and Vanticologists decree that we must now consider our cycle a fifth vital sign you know the other four they take in the emergency room right or even want couple you take two vital signs at home on a regular basis.
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You probably have a blood pressure cuff at home and you probably have a thermometer at home so here you are taking two vital signs when needed no one's training us from a young age to take seriously the vital sign of our monthly lead right I made history going on national television back in the day on Dr. Oz in 2013 showing the simulated menstrual blood on national television for the first time in human history and what those back color means as a way for us to understand.
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You know this important vital sign and you should be looking at that you should be looking at your symptoms is why ultimately I built to the my flow app so that we could track our symptoms but understand have a tool that like a thermometer lets you know oh my periods getting worse this month my periods getting better I should make some changes or I'm good right now we need to be able to respond to this this important biomarker so that we can protect our ovary and the
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health in our 20s or 30s or 40s so that when we get to Perry menopause we don't have this falling off of the cliff of what I'm seeing happening now at historic highs of women going into the second stage of Perry menopause way earlier than they should having massive irregularity in the cycle hot flashes night sweats and you know just all the things that are really not things you should be experiencing in your 40s.
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And so cycle thinking the long answer to your question is cycle thinking can really be a way to protect your ovulation in your hormones so that you can slow down that ovarian aging process and have a much better perimenopause transition.
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That was so well put together just in terms of telling a story and the evolution so you took us from you know girls going through menstrual cycles far too young I think now you know women are finally feeling open to talking about her menopause and menopause and now it's all that we can think about.
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And you know we're accusing our body and sometimes like it really gets me upset when we get angry at the symptoms instead of moving to the compassion for the body or how we can make that shift so the distinction in the ages are really important so first of all let's just go back to the girls because I know that there's a lot of moms we're going to listen to this and girls are going through puberty much younger than ever before I was like you and thank you for sharing that story like I didn't get my cycle until we're going to go back to the girls.
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And then it was a regular and but when we think about environmental causes right and I know you talk a lot about this when it comes to things like the lights like you when I worked in cosmetics I had PCOS and I literally was inhaling perfume every day putting on oh my gosh toxic written cosmetics and body lesions and creams and perfume directly like on my or I'm upset for you.
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Yeah yeah time it snowing during my PCS PCOS was so bad doctor said that I would have a hard time having kids if I could stop getting my menstrual cycle and I was just pumped full of like progesterone to induce my cycle then DHA to give me some energy and then progesterone like vicious it was never monitored.
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And now that we're getting more understanding around hormones when we think about now Sephora kids are going into Sephora and you know you have a daughter how hard is it for a mom to find a pair of underwear or socks that doesn't have spandex elastane or plastics in it it's virtually impossible.
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And if you think I have I have I have found some fabulous organic underwear for my daughter on Amazon it's yeah so it can be done it can be done listen let's let me take the there's a balance that I think you have to has to strike as a mom which is.
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You know and this is what I say to my daughter to because she asked these very intelligent questions i've been educating her from the beginning when she was little we started with body awareness around you know hunger cues and and fatigue cues like you know are you feeling hungry are you feeling tired let's do that then we we moved up to let's look at your poop right now she was five or six.
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Okay let's look at your poop because that's a you know we've some biometric information here what is your poop telling us about how well your foods working for you right now do we need probiotics do we need water do we need more leafy greens right just even having her practice at five or six knowing that this was a stepping stone to what I will need her to practice when she reaches menstrual age of that compassionate listening and responding and being self aware proprioceptive.
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Starts with simple things in childhood and you have to be diligent I think as a mom in training your daughter how to listen to her body how to be friend her body how to understand her body from the beginning right.
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Right you have to be even willing to do things whenever you think it's age appropriate to show her your menstrual blood right in advance of her period so that it's not something that comes out of left field and scares her or grosses her out but it's like this beautiful story that you tell her of what this is right this is a special organ.
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That I make every month and here it is you know I gave it a nickname when she was younger I called it the nest I was like this is the nest the baby can grow in and then when I don't have a pregnancy the nest comes out every month isn't that so amazing that a woman's body can make a nest every month and get rid of the nest if we don't need it how cool is that she's like that's so cool you know at age eight and nine that was the conversation now she's 10 going on a woman the conversation is menstruation is coming out.
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Coming soon and you're and she knows all about her and Freudian clock and right now she knows she's a circadian only human she'll be a you know dual clock person pretty dual dual rhythmic person when she starts her menstruation and she knows what all of the different things are because she sees me practicing this method right and I constantly move her into it I say I'm now in this phase of my cycle so these are the kinds of workouts I'm going to do and she'll say why.
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And I'll tell her why you know and I do it in a more simplified way but I I don't dumb down the science for her at all I want her to rise to understand things about her biology and her hormones so I'm training her fully in this way before her first period so that when she gets her period all we're doing is celebrating.
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Yes all we're doing is totally celebrating the this portal that she's walking through of moving from being in a child body and morphing into the beginning of her woman self and woman identity and I am here as the guide on the side to just help her make that journey.
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And my privilege is to give her the education and the information that will empower her that we as women have been historically intentionally deprived us of which has held us back physically and emotionally and enough is enough.
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So where I think you should put your priority is getting educated yourself and then reaching your hand down and educating your daughter as far as all of the chemical exposure that can lead to precocious puberty that's the other big thing that you need to do which is make your home a hormone haven.
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Yeah for your daughter okay so for example there are no scented candles in my home there are no air fresheners in my home I do not wear perfume I do not use any products in the house that contain the word fragrance from cleaning products to laundry products to bath products to make up none of it at all and that includes my personal products my husband's products that
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the family like we're vigilant about that and then we do what we can with organic food know 80 20 90 you know whatever we definitely let we go out we eat from time to time to rest on do I worry about the rest no do I bring our own water bottles that are stainless steel or glass versus being reliant on classic water bottles when we go out 100% yeah so you make trade-offs where you can.
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Are all of her clothes organic no am I okay with that yep you know because and as I answer my daughter's question if you give your body enough of the support you know 80% of the time if you're there for your body you're giving it clean healthy foods you're eating the right way
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when you go to a friend's birthday party and they're serving she's going to a friend's birthday party this weekend and there it was part of the invite like as if this was an exciting thing they're like we're going to have chick fill up platters for the for the girls I was like okay you know I don't know if chick fill is healthy or not but it to me register that like you know fast food
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and I was like and she goes you know what do you think about that I said well what do you think about she goes well I think we eat so healthy at home that if I go and have that it's going to be fine which is exactly what she's heard me tell her over the years right so she's just repeating what she's learned and I was like that's exactly right and good for you so that's what you so go and have a good time eat the cake have fun make good choices don't have
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you know 17 pieces of chicken nuggets or whatever it is like be mindful of your hunger and all of those things but enjoy indulge just like you would tell yourself right but she needs to learn that skill of discernment and self you know
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not if what's the word being balanced when she's out taking care of herself and and making good choices for herself
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then and I really want to own in on something that you're doing and well done mama like wow is this concept of
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imprinting I'm convinced that I am what I am I eat the way that I eat because of all the things that
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were imprinted by my mom and for a lot of my clients are like yeah they won't do it they won't eat it
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just keep trying keep trying you're all of a sudden going to have a 10 year old my son will sit on a
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toilet and be like up I had too much sugar yesterday like he is so in tune with his bowel movements now
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just through education and he'll make informed choices they know that there's a time to go and have
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all of those things but like you I think it's the education piece for them to understand what's
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happening within their bodies and I think you and I have the additional benefit that we can share
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so many client stories and obviously you with all of your research in your books but so easy for
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us I think as a woman to do that and you're brought up with a good point I don't know about your mom
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but there's almost there's more of a stigma growing up with the girls in my classroom getting
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their period you know fear there was or shame around having their cycle the thought of touching
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your own menstrual blood I never even heard of until after I had kids and now I'm just like oh my
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gosh wow I created this right like this miracle within me the resilience of my body to be able to
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do this so I love that you brought that up because I think that if the girl can do that when she
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starts getting her cycle there's instant ownership of what is happening and what is happening with
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her biology and how her biology is shifting and what that could lead her through as she becomes a
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woman we've lost these rights of passages like we don't celebrate them as women anymore they almost
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don't exist but I think it's up to us to start creating them again and that's a good one yeah
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absolutely I think just the implication the trajectory shift of having a shame-based start
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to your life as a woman versus an empowered start just think about the two different
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tracks that you'll you'll be on and how much ground you have to reclaim later on as an adult to
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try to you know come back to yourself as a woman right like you're you're gonna really need to
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make a lot of make peace with a lot of different things just because you had that sort of shame-based
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start versus if you come at this next era of your life right with like an incentive excitement
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and information sorry I'm getting a lot of there's like scratching or I don't know just let
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your team know that something is good to know this at this time mark so if you start at that you
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know empowered place you know you're gonna just keep thriving there isn't anything you know that
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you have to sort of cycle through in terms of your understanding of yourself you can just kind of
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go hit the ground running in your life you know it is my assertion that if women were given the
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right information from the beginning it would be a very different world indeed for all of us
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couldn't agree more let's own in on you know that change of an era impairment opus so I
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have working through this one and I'm trying to be lighthearted about it and say that
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impairment opposes courting me very strongly and part of me wants to resist it like I feel like I'm
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too young I'm too healthy I'm a nutritionist why am I going through this but I can also you
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know go on the other side and feel I'm having a lot of empathy for my body also right now
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you know I'm getting my cycle later having to go on birth control to regulate my cycle for so
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many years then getting off and undoing the damage of all of those things like maybe like again
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just trusting this is my body's path that's right you've been through a lot and and it wasn't
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all optimal and so you do need to factor that in to where you are and you we weren't having a
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conversation around you know well what do I do for the long haul and and that's my fundamental
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problem we brought up earlier how we're now talking a lot more about perimenopause which is great
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and menopause but we're still taking a top down symptom down approach what yeah and we're just
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simply talking about and I think it's great I mean listen it's all part of the cultural narrative
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shift we have to say hey we as women should not step one of this conversation is what we're hearing
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now we shouldn't tolerate hot flashes there should be more research we should have access to more
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support you know but you know HRT or BHRT is not the only solution and we need to be thinking
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two decades before our perimenopause journey to be reverse engineering what that journey could
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look like because just like we said you said earlier how PMS symptoms are common but not normal
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what's happening for women with perimenopause right now is common but it's not
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necessarily normal right so I again worked with so many women over the years it really your
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perimenopause journey is absolutely completely dictated by the state of your health going into it
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and how well or not well you've taken care of your infruding rhythm your cycle your micronutrient
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levels how much bad dieting crash dieting over exercising on non-stress management lack of sleep
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lack of supplementation all of this ages the o hurry much more rapidly and you will start having
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more symptoms sooner but we don't talk about that we're just talking about okay well if hormones
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are lower we replace the hormones with BHRT and that is a path a valid path I'm not arguing that
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at all but we could do so much better by understanding the mechanisms that get us to the place where
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hormones start to decline in production by starting to support ourselves sooner right so that you
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can be 48 49 50 still with a regular cycle you may have less progesterone and less estrogen overall
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compared to your 25 year old self but you're still cycling you're still doing it and you're not
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having symptoms you don't have to have all of these crazy symptoms really and I've just worked with
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enough women to see it with my own eyes so that it was wonderful now that I'm going through you know
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be I'll be 48 in a few months still getting my cycle regular have no symptoms so good right so at
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all so in fact I feel it's I feel better than ever in fact and I think that and I'm not on any
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hormone replacement I'm totally open to that when and if that is needed but it happened to not
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needed at the moment and if you do need it that's okay but I think it's a gift that I ended up having
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PCOS it's such a young age because it forced me to make critical massive dietary and lifestyle
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changes in my early 20s that I have not deviated from for two and a half decades things like
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not having an abundance of sugar in my diet not being exposed to inflammatory foods for many
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decades I stopped drinking all alcohol at 35 not because there was a major problem with drinking but
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because I was like oh I'm about to embark on my fertility journey and there's no room in pregnancy
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or breastfeeding alcohol so and then I just never picked up the habit because when I came out on the
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other side of that I was like well that's a lot of calories it's a lot of inflammatory response
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and you know knowing what I know about the body I said let's skip that so I'm I haven't been
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age-inflammaging myself for 25 years and I am reaping the benefits of that now at almost 48
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from and from this biomarker or this vital sign of my cycle and that's available to all of us but
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we have to have a conversation that is very different from the one we're having now which is
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what what do I take for this symptom you know I take the mitle for the cramps yeah I take the hormone
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replacement for the perimenopause it's it's not um broad enough to really address and that's really
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the hallmark of my work throughout the books that I've written and all the things that I do is
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how do the systems of the body work and how do we support those symptoms systems right not how do
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we get rid of symptoms that the body will do for you when you support body systems into your point
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and even both of us sharing about our stories look at everything that's been happening in your life
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in your body your choices that led you to the moment that you're in today I've had so many
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incredible practitioners on this podcast summer on the fence of start you know HRT earlier than
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for prevention and others that say no like every woman it's got to be different for every woman it
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has to be a choice you have to have um somebody on the other end who's going to be monitoring you
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like your protocol for HRT should be bio individual and this is a big topic that I think that we're
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missing so for me the thing that came up was frozen shoulder and I was in denial no it's a shoulder
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injury from the gym um but leading up to that I had mold exposure massive period of stress living
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with that mold my nervous system completely dysregulated so throughout about a year 18 months
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there was a decline in the foundation of the way that my body was functioning so what I hear that
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you're saying and when we think about really psychosinking it's kind of building the foundation back
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and I think protecting the foundation for the long term yeah yeah and something that you brought
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up you know when we first started talking the thing that I think that this is doing and why your
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method is so beautiful is that it's building back resilience in our body and when we build back
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resilience in our body what do we see we see an increase of mitochondria mitochondria in my lens
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just taking kind of like more of an eastern view yeah we call them the powerhouses but I think of
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them as light in a woman's body and for many of us growing up the stressors that we endure
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got for bit miscarriages or sadness or whatever we've been through in life um it's almost like a light
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that starts to dim but we can bring that light back and something that I learned yesterday that I
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thought was fascinating was outside of your brain and your heart the highest concentration of mitochondria
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are on our ovaries which makes sense we're producing life what takes a lot you think you think
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a woman knew that and like to think about making the right food choices to bring that light to
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their body to optimize their mitochondrial function to be able to set them up for success at the
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different stage or whatever they are in their cycle god that just feels so much more empowering
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than the sense of fear or the the fear that something is coming that it just goes downhill from there
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I that was just beautiful I love that and I love the analogy of mitochondria in life that is
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that that that makes the nerd and the spiritual secret me very very happy which is why I can't
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wait for us to have tea together god knows what we're going to talk about when we are in person
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but I I think that um looking at it through the lens of this conversation of light
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you know look at your lifestyle as a whole you know are you engaging in daily habits and routines
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that are really zapping your energy draining your energy bucket and if so what are those things
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that are doing that and what can you do to start improving that and that's another place for the
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cycles thinking method can help right from shifting your exercise routines to be a little bit more
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in alignment with your energy throughout the month so that you're not you know taxing your body
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too hard at the wrong time of the cycle or to even just understanding where you have some natural
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gifts from a work perspective in the month so that you can play to those strengths and reduce stress
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all to keep stress low even understanding your libido cycle as it goes through that infradient effect
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so that you can start playing with oxytocin which helps with ovulatory regulation and you know
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reducing slowing down aging and all capacities um all of that is available to you and it's not like
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you have to buy a supplement or do something you know outside of yourself you gotta it's really
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about just aligning with what's inside of your body and then your body will do the rest for you
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and it will it will pay you back tenfold or just a little bit of the correct investment and so
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I love that idea of adding more light more energy um to your to your day so that you don't feel bogged
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down and and where you know that that's really having a stress impact and I mean so you know aging
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you in a way that you don't want to be yeah yeah such a great analogy uh and just description of
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the process I think that for people who are listening you know they're gonna go check out in the
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flow or woman code here two incredible books actually recommend both of them um but sure about your
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app so women are interested in learning more about cycle syncing and how to jump in you should
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make it more yeah so I built this app because women were asking me for it after after you know
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I was talking about cycle syncing and they wanted an easy way to you know integrate the method
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into their self-care practices so it's a pretty powerful tool you can track your cycle um you'll also
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be able to get a functional sort of route analysis of each symptom that you're having in each
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month so why are you having acne why are you having cramps from a functional medicine perspective
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and it will give you guidance from a food and lifestyle perspective on what to do to address those
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symptoms in real time it will give you a whole set of insights on your cycle as a fifth vital sign
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as a biomarker how are you how is your cycle performing every month is it getting better is it
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about the same is it worse do you need to take action this month or are you okay um and then from a
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cycle syncing perspective um that whole feature allows you to um meal plan you can click on ingredients
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that are in your pantry and say what should I make for today for my follicular phase you know
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give me recipes um there are workout videos that you can watch directly from the app that are
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in a line with your correct cycle phase um and then there's a daily tracker so that you can keep
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track of your daily cycle syncing habits to make sure you're doing those non-negotiables
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and understand where you are with work and productivity and help so it's really the ultimate
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menstrual health management tool and because I really think that every woman should be least giving
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that a try um I'm always giving it away so the app is free to download but the cycle syncing
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feature um I want you to you your listeners to have access to it so if they go and put a code
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Mona flow into uh if you go to flowliving.com forward slash app and you click on the
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cycle syncing membership um and you put in the code Mona flow you'll be able to get a month free
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and and just try what it feels like to be in alignment with your cycle phases uh it will you'll
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feel differently the first cycle so you know I want you to have that experience because it's game
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changing. That's so generous thank you so much yeah I think it's so much more than just the
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empowerment that comes behind it I think you're taking a lot of stress away I think that you're
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connecting so many women with their bodies I think that you're taking away suffering and I mean
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how many symptoms have we we talked about just in the past hour from our energy to our neurological
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function our energy how we're burning fat our PMS or symptoms like it touches on everything
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it's the foundation of who we are so thank you and what I love most um is that you really you took
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into consider um Eastern healing methods whether it's things like traditional Chinese medicine and
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I know you talk about acupuncture and the power of ayurveda and how we digest and everything I think
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it's so important because um you're incorporating the wisdom of our bodies with the wisdom of our
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ancestors the things that work for them and science wasn't even needed we just trusted
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I think that there is a genius in ancient traditions and it's very beautiful now to see how science
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has been able to validate some of these ancient practices that you know I've been quote-unquote
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questionable for so many years but now we're seeing the studies that show you know things from
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Eastern practices just really being true and valid and useful and so um you know and I think
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just as we can draw so much from ancient practices to help inform what healthy living should look
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like today we as women need to draw from our own feminine energy and really understand what
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living in the flow of that feels like to really become whole women and to come home to ourselves
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and for me after all of my searching and seeking this method this daily practice of being in that
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whatever cycle faith I'm at attending to my body's needs through the lens of that phase
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that commitment to show up for myself in that way that practice like coming to the yoga mat every day
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that daily act of love that phase-based loving alignment is um the way that I've built a bridge to my
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feminine energy in a world that has only sought to divorce me from that and it's available to all
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of us through this practice that connection is flow like that peak that's why I called the book
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in the flow because I was so frustrated like I would go to these events or everybody talk about
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peak flow state and they were always talking about it through the lens of the masculine or the
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hero's journey and it just didn't resonate with my vibration or or female vibration and so
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this was this was also a way not it and of course because that's truly when something works right
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there's an elegance to it working both on let's say a practical level but then also an esoteric level
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that we can as as in our bodies also are in our minds or hearts or our energetic selves
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yeah if we take care of our feminine cycle we also restore our feminine energy I love that
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speaking more flow state because of our bodies thank you and this went by so fast
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I can't wait to have you back I can't wait to have you in person happy happy to do it
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really quick rapid fire questions right sure all right what are the most common mistakes or
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misconceptions you're seeing women make with their health oh just eating the same amount of calories
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day in and day out you know throughout the cycle doing the same workouts day in and day out
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throughout the cycle ignoring the cycle basically and anytime you're ignoring your cyclical patterns
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chaos unnecessary chaos yeah or it's your favorite ancient healing remedy
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oh god so many things I love I would probably say
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oh it's a toss up between herbs and essential oils but they feel really like two sides of the same
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coin so I really love the power of adaptogenic herbs herbal teas I am a tea drink or I haven't
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had caffeine since the age of I don't know 19 or 20 so you know no caffeine so herbal teas I have
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a whole collection I think you know plant medicine you know talk about connection to your feminine
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now you can take that greater connection to the mother earth and when you start engaging
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in plant medicine whether that be through herbal teas or herbal remedies or essential oils now
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we're talking about a whole different vibrational alignment and it's very powerful it's one of my
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favorites lovely brought that up this is my year of like just understanding the power of different
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herbs nature heals that's like my whole thing amen okay if you have something about modern
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medicine that explains you what would it be oh I am there so I have a femtech company obviously
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low living the app what we do and I'm very very encouraged by what's happening in the world of
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femtech and some of the research and the new things that are being developed we absolutely in the
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next decade will have a completely different women's healthcare reality and that is historic
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feminist and totally exciting absolutely and we're ready to own it what are three things that
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women can start doing right now to optimize their health start cycle thinking start tracking your
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cycle start tracking your symptoms those simple things will get you really far if you just download the
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app and just for the first month just track your symptoms just understand which phase of the cycle is
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you're working well which one is not working well that's going to give you so much information to
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then start your game plan and then you can start cycle thinking to start really being a citizen
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scientist experimenting in your own body and ecosystem and start to really take action around
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improving your own hormonal reality you paint such a beautiful picture for women and women's
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physiology honestly like listening to you is just affirming our hormones are our super power
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when we learn to sync with them our energy or mood or vitality everything just kind of
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comes into being and imagine just going out into the world with that vibrant energy thank you so
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much for everything that you do how do you communicate with your audience you mentioned your website
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website I will soon be launching a newsletter so definitely make sure that you
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find me on social media at alisa.vd there's flow living you can sign up for the flow living
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newsletter and you'll certainly get updates about when my personal newsletter is launching and
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lots to come in 2025 for more communication with you guys directly beautiful thank you and thank
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you so much for the very generous discount code of Mona flow log go check that out and we'll link
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everything up below thank you thank you this one's so delightful so delightful
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Never is there mention of how a woman's schedule should change? That's a side topic, but infrared rhythm can you break it down?
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Like what is it and it's specific to women obviously, but just like what is it?
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So what you need to know about it is circadian rhythms are about, you know, a cycle that takes place over the course of the day.
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And in fradian rhythm is a cycle that takes place over a longer period of time.
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And in our cases women, it's our monthly menstrual cycle.
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If you live only from the circadian day in and day out, something is missing for you as a woman,
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which is that flow of shifting energy through your infradient experience over your menstrual cycle over the course of a month.
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As you go through that, having different ratios of these hormones estrogen,
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with then progesterone, you know, comes into the picture and alludial phase, all of this affects your brain chemistry,
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your metabolism, your stress responses, and your immune system.
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You are a different creature each week of the cycle.
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And by aligning your self-care practices with that eb and flow of what feels right and good.
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At least the BT, welcome to rooted in wellness.
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I am so happy to be here. Our chat is just long overdue and it's such a joy to be in your present.
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Oh, when I say her name pop up, it's a girl crush vibes I want to say because I've been following your work for so long.
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And it's been just such game changer in my practice also.
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So we're going to dive into all that goodness.
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But to kind of warm up, I want to give you a sense of what this podcast is all about.
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So rooted in wellness is all about merging ancient wisdom in our modern world.
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And really how we can all become more rooted in our health and our self and our life and our happiness.
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So let's start off the episode by starting about what helps you feel more rooted in who you are and why.
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Hmm, lately what's helping me feel more rooted is my exercise practice.
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I have gotten very into lifting heavy heavy weight and my morning work session as I like to call it at the gym where I am spending like an hour lifting really heavy things.
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It puts me in my body to such a degree that makes me feel super not just physically strong, but mentally clear and energetically focused and on mission.
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So I find that when I do come to my work as a hormone expert and running a fentech company that I'm really focused on what matters, what moves the needle.
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And then the same thing when I get into my mom's own time of the day, I'm just getting things done.
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So I and that's really for me this whole bigger conversation about, you know, how do we as women live in an embodied way in our feminine energy and the way to do that.
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In all the years I've been studying living in India, sitting with females and masters, trying all sorts of things.
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It's actually by getting into your body in whatever way you can.
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If that's dance for me right now, it's lifting heavy weights, whatever it is when you get into your body as a woman, that's when you're most connected to your feminine energy.
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And we as women don't do that enough because we spend lots of our time up here in our heads out, you know, out of our bodies and we need to come home to our body.
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I love that. I love these lifting heavy things when I wait, well, first of all, growing up with yoga, I remember so many teachers like don't lift weights don't run like just do yoga.
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When I lift yoga, I feel sexy like I feel sexy, I feel strong, I feel in my body.
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And to that point, I noticed I could get the same sensation from you class, but now on the gym floor, which is great, which is embodiment, right?
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That's a big topic. Let's really dive into that today. How old are your kids?
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I have, I have a 10 year old daughter and she is the love of my life. Absolutely.
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To see, to see.
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My son is 10 to it's the best. I have a daughter that's seven, but it's the best.
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You mentioned embodying. Let's dive into the opposite side. So I don't know if you've worked with people who today were making healing and health so complicated.
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And when people think about these practices to make them feel better, they're treating them like a checklist that they no longer, you know, they're doing the things whether it's meditation or breath work or working out, but they're not coming to the present moment.
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It's like they're not even like taking advantage of the magic that it's doing for their bodies.
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So I thought drifting like I find there's times when I just drift off of doing the things that make me feel good.
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Are there certain things that you know that I put you in your life and your happiness?
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Uproot or, you know, I would say if I, if I don't stick to my non-negotiable daily habits, you know, for example, things like taking my supplement stack, getting in my 10,000 steps of doing, you know, if I deviate from that in the practice of caring for my physical body, eating the foods that are correct for my cycle phase.
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You know, really just taking care of this vessel. If I drift from that, I start to feel it pretty much everywhere.
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You know, it's the opposite of what I described earlier, you know, I start to feel a little less focus, more foggy, more moody, less optimistic and positive, lower energy.
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So yeah, those things, I think having a daily checklist that's around empowering habits that you know, if I can just get these little things done, they really build a foundation from which I can springboard into other things in my life is so critical.
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But you know, don't overdo it with the list. I think in the world of wellness, there's like you could have a very long list these days, there's between social media and the regular media, like your list of things that you should be doing could be very long.
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But I think, you know, what I try to do and when I advise my clients is, let's figure out what are the essential things that are going to give you the biggest return on investment for your well-being so that you're not doing it all, but doing things that really need to lift you higher without burning you out at the same time.
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I love you brought that up. So I've been using this word non-negotiables with my clients for a really long time.
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And then I noticed as my non-negotiable list started to grow, it felt really masculine and I thought like if this is going to be something that's feminine and embodying for me, surely not have non-negotiables.
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But then I realized the more that I adhere to specific symbol non-negotiables sunlight in the morning, a walk before I start my day moving my body before I get on a screen.
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Simple things like that are the things that allow me to become more present, more productive throughout the day so that I can be more present.
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Let me, I just love that you open that hole. Let's go there. Okay. So when we, so I've been on a journey to reclaim my feminine energy.
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Pretty much since I figured out that that was a thing back when I was maybe 23 24 and I have really, you know, it's led me to create the cycle thinking method certainly, but it's also taking me on many other journeys.
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One of the things that makes it so easy to really connect with your feminine energy is to understand your biological rhythms.
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If you understand that you have a circadian rhythm and an infradian rhythm, right, then it becomes a lot easier to structure and to, to take away, let's say, arbitrary judgment of what is masculine, what is feminine, right?
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Because even your thought, like, oh, if I have daily non-negotiable, is that putting me in my masculine, I would argue, not at all, because what we are trying to do is live in a balanced or a dynamic flow of our masculine and feminine energy.
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Let's throw out the word balance. That's so loaded.
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So you have a circadian clock, which let's say represents more of the masculine energy, if you will, because it's rinse and repeat same day over day has more of a linear format.
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And it also matches the pattern of male hormonal production throughout the day.
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So you have this as well, but you need to support these daily practices like getting morning sunlight, you know, protecting your sleep hygiene in the evening, blocking the blue lights, you know, eating your calories at regular intervals, you know, doing things that support that circadian rhythm.
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Obviously, a very important thing.
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We also have this infradient rhythm, which lets you do what your heart was asking you for there, when you were asking that question, which was, am I being too much of a masculine?
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Yes, if you live only from the circadian day in and day out, something is missing for you as a woman, which is that flow of shifting energy through your infradient experience over your menstrual cycle over the course of a month.
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Because you, as you go through that, having different ratios of these of hormones estrogen with then progesterone, you know, comes into the picture and all this affects your brain chemistry, your metabolism, your stress response system, your immune system.
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Now, you are a different creature each week of the cycle, and by aligning your self-care practices with that, ebb and flow of what feels right and good for your female body as you go through the cycle, gives you the ability to honor your feminine through the month, while you express, let's say, your masculine energy throughout the circadian experience.
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So it's a both and, and I think that that is the issue when we, as women, try to figure out how do we reclaim our feminine, if that we think it's an either or.
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And I'm here to tell you, after 25 years of being on that journey for myself personally, it's a both and you want to do, you are both, so you want to express both, but having the structure for me, of the cycle thinking method has healed that patriarchal wounding.
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In the most profound way, and it's available to every woman.
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Okay, God, my, my blood is boiling, like getting excited about this conversation, but also the frustration of why don't we know, why don't we know this circadian rhythm.
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So that based on like Eastern medicine and growing up in the ashram was something that we were aware of, and the schedule at an ashram is the same every single day for this reason.
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Never is there mention of how a woman schedule should change. That's a side topic, but infrared rhythm.
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Can you break it down like in like, what is it? And it's specific to women, obviously, but just like, what is it?
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What is it? What do we need to know about in radiant rhythm?
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So the infrating rhythm was this thing that I stumbled upon in my research because I was asking myself a question maybe, I don't know, 10 years ago now, which was...
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Why is it that so many more women have hormonal problems compared to men? You know, it's 80% of women will have a hormonal problem that's important in her life.
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That's shocking. And then when we look at the sort of male cohort, it's under 20%, it's not the same.
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Obviously, I said, what's the blind spot? Now I say, well, obviously, because men are living their cycle syncing as well, but they're just doing it on a circadian clock.
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So they're organizing their food, their fitness, and their productivity all to support their testosterone and cortisol patterns in a 24-hour period, which is wonderful that the entire world orients itself.
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But it makes it so much easier for them to just biohack even without intentionality, right? They're set up to physiologically thrive because the world is organized around their hormonal pattern.
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And then when I discovered the infradian rhythm and I said, oh, well, this, this answers the question, why so many more women are suffering because we don't know that we have this rhythm, right?
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B, we are actively disrupting it constantly and C, the world is not orienting around this rhythm. And so even if we were going to try to do it, we would still face challenges that would lead to some disruption.
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So when I say it's not easy for ovaries out there, which I've said for many years, I really beyond endocrine disruptive chemicals and everything that we've, you know, have heard go through the list fundamentally this infradian rhythm blind spot is causing havoc in terms of women's health.
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So what you need to know about it is circadian rhythms are about, you know, a cycle that takes place over the course of the day and infradian rhythm is a cycle that takes place over a longer period of time. And in our cases, women, it's our monthly menstrual cycle.
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However, I want to draw careful attention to the fact that we used to have a simplistic view our understanding of the circadian clock, which was, oh, yeah, just governs sleep week cycles.
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But we now know it's vastly more complex. It controls the timing of every little function of your body from when your blood pressure tends to be higher or lower when your bowels are active when they're not.
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Can you imagine the chaos that would ensue without circadian orchestration. Here you are trying to get some deep REM sleep and all of a sudden you have to have a bowel movement at three 27 in the morning. I mean chaos right so we love this circadian conductor keeping the time everything in its place and time.
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Infradian rhythm is something we experience over that 28 day cycle, but it would be too simplistic to say it just governs when you're ovulating and menstruating because it has profound impacts on key systems of the female body, the brain, metabolism, the immune system, the stress response system.
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So when we think, you know, sort of 10,000 foot view, why are more women suffering with anxiety, why are more women suffering with autoimmune disorders, why are more women suffering from all sorts of hormonal problems, weight issues, because of this infradian disruption that we don't know that we have that we don't even know that we're doing.
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And so when I saw that it just became very clear much like we have a routine that supports our circadian health right what's that routine you wake up at a certain time you eat at certain times you go to sleep at basic routine.
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We needed a basic routine to support this infradian clock and that's how I created the cycle thinking method so it aligns your food, your fitness and your productivity with these four phases of the cycle so that we can really reap the benefits of healthy infradian function on not just our menstrual cycle and hormones, but all these other systems of the body as well.
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It's fascinating and I love a concept that you say which is that woman don't have to suffer a menstrual cycle shouldn't have to make you suffer and yet it's that you know the same story of oh, but it's so common so must be normal it's not normal and something that I love I don't know do you know Dr. Mindy Peltz yes yes something that I love that she says is that women are living at a generational mismatch for our physiology for our constitution.
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And I did a bit of a deeper dive on this just asking like my mom and some of my aunties around menopause and Harry menopause and the symptoms that they describe were just very different like even my mom's menstrual cycle was very different than mine I've never had a regular menstrual cycle my mom did.
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But the key things that are disruptive today so even to your point about our circadian rhythm kind of working inherently now science is also catching on to this we're understanding the impact of you know blue light and our sleep patterns and stuff like that which is great.
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So we have to make infradian rhythm go viral to end suffering for women so I'm hearing you say then that a woman based on her lifestyle and her lifestyle practices and then you're going to talk about diet also at different times during her cycle she's able to own and take her power back of what she should be doing during that time.
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So yeah so let's walk walk through like you know the different phases of a cycle and I'm also curious too for people like me you've never had a regular cycle what that looks like.
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Well in a regular cycle you have four phases you have the follicular phase the ovulatory phase the luteal phase and the bleeding phase aka the menstrual phase although it is a little dodgy that we have these vocabulary words that can be used kind of ubiquitously like the menstrual cycle could be the whole month but it's also the bleeding week.
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Nowhere in males medicine do we have these you know sort of doubling up on the language so I always just like to call a spade a spade the whole thing is your menstrual cycle and when you're bleeding that's your bleeding phase reduces confusion you know.
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I like to be very specific and clear so in these four phases you have different hormone ratios that are present that you know help orchestrate what is happening physiologically in the body so you have sort of different levels of estrogen in the follicular phase that cause.
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The stimulation of many follicles on the ovary venue have a surge of estrogen.
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In luteinizing hormone and FSH in the ovulatory phase that signal that one egg has you know past muster and this one is going to be the one shipped off to the fallopian tubes and then we move into the luteal phase where progesterone my favorite hormone enters the party and changes everything about how you're thinking and feeling and operating.
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And then after a 10 to 12 day period when there is no let's say moment of conception then we reach our lowest levels of all hormones which triggers the release of the endometrial lining which by the way just in case your art magically awestruck by your body enough you 3d print that organ every month from the foods that you eat you you manufacture that it's not it's not just.
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Like what do you do in lining is such a.
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Gaslighting of what it really is it is it's it's a highly specialized organelle that is has specialized immune cell receptor so it's super cool.
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And you manufacture that every month no big deal.
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So you have these different hormonal ratios and and they make you feel differently as you go through the cycle I love to start with the impact on metabolism because it's something that a lot of women can relate to.
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Unfortunately from the negative perspective when it comes to cravings in the luteal phase but let's start with what what is supposed to happen in a healthy cycle so in the first half of the cycle the follicular and the ovulatory phase is your metabolism is actually slightly lower right just slightly slower to your let's say average.
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And so you can get away with eating lighter having smoothies and salads and you know working out more and you're going to feel perfectly energized.
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Then when you cross over into the luteal phase your metabolism speeds up why would it do that right well remember how I said you 3d print that beautiful organelle right so now you need to be.
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metabolizing foods more quickly so that you can actually manufacture that endometrial lining and keep your blood sugar stable at the same time so studies show that you need 279 more calories per day in the luteal phase which is revelatory for us as women because often we think what's wrong with me I need to eat how I was eating last week.
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Even if you don't recognize that you're saying last week from the luteal phase vantage point you're saying I need to eat how is eating my ovulatory phase you cannot and you should not do that which I'll get into and if you if you know when you're in that.
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Faster metabolic please you have to eat more and when you do your blood sugar stable your moods are stable your energy is good.
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Progesterone is higher in concentration than estrogen and you have no pms whatsoever no cravings no bloating no insomnia no nothing right feel great.
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And then your hormone shift again and you move into that menstrual phase so changing our diet is absolutely logical and necessary when you understand this metabolic shift right so that's exactly what you'd be doing with cycle syncing as as I described it in the book and in our app you really kind of have to modulate not just your calorie intake.
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But also looking at food from a functional perspective to help you manage all of these different hormone levels in your body even as a nutritionist this was never taught to us in school had no idea and here I am my 40s oh any deep more than 279 calories during my luteal phase.
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The impact of that I can imagine for women who tend to keep possibly restrictive diets or here to a certain type of hardcore diet and they wonder why they're still not feeling well and I think that for women when we get lost in oh but this is a diet that I know should be healthy or should help me lose weight or should help me gain more muscle and yet it could be the one thing that's just out of alignment with how we want to feel.
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It's really fascinating when we deprive ourselves of calories in the second half of the cycle we trigger all sorts of you know neurotransmitter response and cortisol response to compensate for this missing polaric value so your body is going to win.
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Okay the game of trying to balance your blood sugar by you know any means necessary so first it'll secrete a lot of cortisol to talk to your fat cells to convert stored glycogen into usable glucose which is okay in the short term.
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But if you're someone who's already struggling with PMS or you're somebody who is feeling like you're having the symptoms of parimenopause too soon or if you're somebody who's struggling to conceive what that means is you're already progesterone deficient right in that luteal phase you should have more estrogen sorry more progesterone than estrogen.
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If you're having PMS it's the inverse you have more estrogen than progesterone if you can't conceive same problem if you're going through early parimenopause same problem not enough progesterone creates a lot of a lot of symptomology.
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So when you then force the body to use that cortisol to keep your blood sugar stable because you're not listening to that infreed in effect and you're not honoring your metabolic shift now you have to back into you know sort of master hormone regulation so we're now going to be talking about pregnant alone.
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And it's going to favor making more cortisol for you then progesterone further exacerbating your progesterone deficiency.
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So this is not what you want to be doing you want to nourish yourself during this month caloric during this phase of the cycle with your the right calorie intake.
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And then from a neurotransmitter point you know grillin is going to be in full effect making you have not just food cravings but I almost like them to sort of like a food trance where you are kind of in an altered mental state and you don't snap out of it till you hit the bottom of a bag of whatever it was you started down going down into right.
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And and only after that does some leptin kick in but it's because you're so calorie deficient that again by any means necessary your body will get what it needs to do its job as best as it possibly can which is sub optimal in this circumstance where you're relying on cortisol relying on grillin if instead you started your day with.
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Beautiful robust breakfast with slow burning carbohydrates proteins and fats like you know in the real phase I love recommending sweet potatoes for breakfast with like any protein you like from eggs to chickens a sand I don't care what it is but some good 30 grams of protein nice carbohydrates that are slow burning some good quality fats.
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And you do something similar for lunch and you have a snack and you have dinner first of all by the time you get to dinner you're going to not have any cravings you're going to have felt great all day and you're not burdening your body with this whole let's make more cortisol and not make enough for just your own and let's you know have this whole grill and left in chaos.
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You're going to have a completely different experience simply by proactively giving your body the right kind of nutrition in that will phase it's a game changer and we do it cycle over cycle that's when the magic happens around reversing slash eliminating pms and then starting to reap the benefits of protecting your future fertility slowing down you know ovarian aging in terms of period menopause and it really pays dividends.
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So cycle the cycle thinking method is great in real time each cycle but again as you cycle through every cycle it is compounding interest for you in terms of long term health and you know from a longevity point of view on a home model perspective.
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I think it's fascinating especially because I would say over the past 15 years I worked with women who have it's the succession about food and it's not that they're just constantly eating or that there's an eating disorder but it's a constant thinking of like either you know what am I going to eat next what's the next meal going to be.
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And it what's the right thing to eat thing to eat I know around the noise in the media it's very confusing and it sounds silly to think perhaps our intuition was just guiding us the whole time but we try to adhere to the standards that we're seeing in the media.
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And through that silencing now here we are looking to incredible people like you were saying hey there's another way so if we break down this amazing concept of cycle thinking can you give us a glimpse into like just like what are some of the meals in phase one phase two what are you.
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So I mean in the follicular phase this is sort of a time where I do you know lighter grains lighter proteins there's a whole food chart that's gone viral on on all social platforms in chapter four of in the flow which really breaks down the which specific foods but I think just to start before you get you know into the detail of like what well which vegetables and which proteins.
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Just think about you know fewer calories lighter grains I might have king wine might have light white fish I might bake it I might sting veggies keeping things lighter and easier to digest I definitely do a lot of fermented foods in the follicular phase as well.
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In the ovulatory phase this is sort of the phase where I will do more raw foods if you know if when I'm doing raw foods it'll be smoothies and salads and you know light everything the lightest possible you can even get away with more vegan sources of protein if that's something that's interesting to you.
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In the loodial phase this is your sort of more if you have to think of something think of it like macrobiotic meals right your bootables you're going to have your brown rice and your sweet potatoes and your your cooked leafy greens you're not going to eat raw foods here why.
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Progesterone slows down transit time in the gut and raw foods are also cooling according to many ancient practices and we want to warm up the body as metabolism moves us towards menstruation but also with progesterone slowing down transit time in the gut we want lots of fiber.
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And we want to make it easy to digest as possible so that we don't get lots of constipation air in the gut raw foods and so cook your leafy greens and have your sweet potatoes roasted and whatever you're going to do that is really great in the loyal phase.
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And then in the menstrual phase there are actually lots of research published research on PubMed that talks about how we are depleted in specific micro nutrients during the the bleeding phase and so you know in the method I really help women to sort of front load foods that are going to give you some of that return on your food investment to get those levels up so we're eating more.
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You know animal protein more fat and eat things that are easier to digest as well so in all the warm everything warm.
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You know hot and this yeah.
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So that's kind of a high level what it looks like and you can play within that structure with if you're someone who likes to follow macros you can play with it from a macros perspective and make sure you're getting the right you know amounts of of proteins carbohydrates and fats that work for your metabolism as a whole.
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But it's really just about modulating your calories a little bit differently in the second half of the cycle.
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The other fun thing which is a really excellent part of the food chart is that we want to use food strategically from a functional medicine point of view to help our bodies metabolize estrogen.
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For example in the ovulatory phase you go peak surge of estrogen liver needs a little help you know so we that's one of the reasons why we do a lot of fruits and veggies at that time because that really super loads the liver with vitamin C and selenium and zinc and all the things that help it go through its phases of detoxification.
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In the luteal phase we want to use these slow burning carbohydrates to keep blood sugar stable that is priority number one for you so things that are very slow burning essential and like I said in the menstrual phase using food strategically to both warm the body but also to replenish lost micronutrients because you are shedding that organ a and you know be there's there's blood loss so you want to make sure that you're finishing.
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Yeah which makes sense that there's a micronutrient deficiency right like just and intuitively so we said this organelle naturally we would probably as we do have a little bit more energy.
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The first two weeks of our cycle was there a reason behind the sour cream you're adding in the first two weeks I guess you're rewarding right after you should.
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Yeah I mean you can certainly fermented foods are great throughout the month especially if you're someone who's dealing with gut issues but if you're someone who's not like a fermented food lover and you want it to find a way to have that be a flexible experience that you float in and out of your monthly experience rebuilding sort of post menstruation can be really helpful as your body starts to warm back up.
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And your digestive fire gets a little bit hotter as you move towards ovulation so just a sort of replenishing thing but you can you can certainly add it in whenever it feels right and that's the thing about the cycle thinking method is it is not a diet at all it's a methodology and that gives you a lot of flexibility so you might be having menstrual issues and you might be having cyber right or you have.
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Crones or you have some gut issue you're going to need to needing to do things from a circadian perspective to manage those gut issues every single day of the month but you can also manipulate some of the caloric intake as you go throughout the cycle to help with the metabolic shift that is taking place because of your menstrual cycle so again.
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Parking back to what we talked about in the beginning it's both and and I think that as women we become we have been so conditioned by the media this is the right diet now this is the right diet this is the right one no no now this one that we've become kind of groomed to be very dogmatic with our approach to food and this method seeks to destroy that habit by virtue of the practice it's simply a practice being aware of which phase of the cycle.
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You're in understanding the biological realities of what is shifting in that phase and doing all that you can that is reasonable given the complexity of your unique circumstances and health issues to align with that cycle faith but to not be dogmatic about it at all right and I think that's important that's one of the ways we can heal.
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So I think it's important that we can heal from toxic diet culture for sure is to be flexible it's I call it compassionate listening and responding your body is always talking to you but you're often groomed to ignore it and I want you to start listening and responding love and tying this and you know dynamism right doesn't have to be the same all the time.
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It's so happy yeah I think that on a greater level we all know as women our bodies are magic like pure magic I believe that we all have the ability to heal ourselves but we have to give our body what it needs and in hearing about this process it's almost like you're rebuilding trust within your body
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to you know acknowledge the times when you do need a little bit more or a little bit less when you have a little bit more energy when you can take that away it's like you're bringing the trust back into your body so you're just getting the foundation right so for pulling back okay looking when we speak to the foundations yeah taking a look at your circadian rhythm.
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Now understanding on a deeper level you're infrading rhythm and then in the flow I know like the response to this book from women has been so inspiring to watch and cycle thinking I think is a method that's going to give that back to women.
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Let's just touch base a little bit then if there's women out there listening who are like me who don't have a regular cycle and I use air quotes around that because I did have a regular cycle but it was just every three months but doctors put me on birth control when I was really really young because that wasn't regular to them.
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So I use that with air quotes because I think that you know we can all be different but can you shed some light on the regular cycle and cycle thinking.
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Yeah so you know we want to have a cycle that is regular relative to you so if that's you know every 26 days to every 32 days there's a range but we want to be having ovulation happen at a regular interval in cadence.
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Because the ovulation is the star of the show in as far as so many of the health benefits that are conferred throughout the cycle to you as a woman.
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Ovulation is cardio neuro and osteoportective in that current cycle when every ovulation you have in your 20s 30s and 40s protects the same brain heart and bone tissue for when you're no longer ovulating postmen a positive.
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So you know there is a lot of conversation divergent conversation about it's okay not to have a cycle or it's okay to be on medications that suppress the cycle.
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So I take a very different view of that which is and I'm someone who did not ovulate or menstruate for 10 years you know from the age of 12 to 22 I was in the throes of PCOS although back then nobody knew what it was I was 210 pounds I was covered face chest and back and cystic acne I did not get my period.
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First bleed was a few months shy of my 16th birthday then I only had five more bleeds until I started figuring all of this out.
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And those were chemically induced and synthetic progesterone it was it was a crazy and I the mental health implications of all of this hormonal disruption were profound and obviously
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I was part of the reason why I am someone who loves your period more than anybody on planet earth and I've dedicated my career to studying the menstrual cycle certainly because I just didn't get to have one for 10 years and it really bothered me.
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So reclaiming ovulation is so important for women if you have any regular cycle you should seek to make it regular and that's why I wrote my first book woman code the flow protocol in that book was really what I used to restore my ovulation really looking at understanding how does the endocrine system function what is its order of operations and then how do we not interfere with that and make sure we're supporting that and that has been helping.
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Helping restore ovulation for women for 20 years plus now if you have PCOS as the cause of your irregular cycling you want to get a handle on that and cycle thinking is not the first place for you to go but the flow protocol is so I would have you pick a woman code if you have an irregular cycle.
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And get it to be regular because you want that obligatory heartbeat every month you want to have that you want to protect and preserve that and then once you reclaim your cycle regularity then you can start cycle thinking now let's talk about it on the other side of the spectrum which is perimenopause right and let's say you're not getting a cycle on a regular basis.
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It's pretty simple but first of all perimenopause begins at 35 for everyone in the brain just like puberty begins at nine in the brain but we don't start to really see it until 12 right ideally you're not having your first period before the age of 12 method the whole other conversation but just like it's hard for women to have hormonal balance we're now seeing that trickle down to young girls who are having massive exposure to endocrine disruptive chemicals their diet is fine.
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It's not a cycle of non real food and their stress levels are high enough that it's triggering early menstruation which is not healthy long term and should be something that every mother of a young daughter should be really thinking about you know as I have been obviously for my own.
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How do I reverse engineer an optimal pubescent transition and that starts with frankly what you're doing when that child is in utero with you and then every food you feed them until they get their first period and then beyond and then of course you're helping them learn how to cycle think you know once they start menstruating but from a perimenopause point of view you start at 35 you shouldn't really see anything different about your cycle until well after 45 maybe 46.
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Seven right ideally you'd start to maybe have some notice little things which you should you should and here's why I say this couple generations ago it was so problematic for women in their late 40s.
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From a fertility perspective problematic meaning they were having their eighth child at 48 at 49 that the advent of a chemical birth control solution was life changing for women right that's the your nature designs all.
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Beings to be maximally fertile for the maximum amount of time right that's just an elegantly efficient way for nature to replicate itself right so you're supposed to be ovulating or as long as possible and I have talked to many many women over the years the ones who get it right who really understand how to navigate perimenopause they're ovulating and menstruating well into their early in mid 50s which is ideal beautiful.
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Even we don't have a conversation early on enough which is you've got to protect your ovary and its functionality throughout your life you've got to take care of your cycle your cycle is a fifth vital sign which a lot of women don't know back in 2016 the American College of Obstetrics and Vanticologists decree that we must now consider our cycle a fifth vital sign you know the other four they take in the emergency room right or even want couple you take two vital signs at home on a regular basis.
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You probably have a blood pressure cuff at home and you probably have a thermometer at home so here you are taking two vital signs when needed no one's training us from a young age to take seriously the vital sign of our monthly lead right I made history going on national television back in the day on Dr. Oz in 2013 showing the simulated menstrual blood on national television for the first time in human history and what those back color means as a way for us to understand.
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You know this important vital sign and you should be looking at that you should be looking at your symptoms is why ultimately I built to the my flow app so that we could track our symptoms but understand have a tool that like a thermometer lets you know oh my periods getting worse this month my periods getting better I should make some changes or I'm good right now we need to be able to respond to this this important biomarker so that we can protect our ovary and the
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health in our 20s or 30s or 40s so that when we get to Perry menopause we don't have this falling off of the cliff of what I'm seeing happening now at historic highs of women going into the second stage of Perry menopause way earlier than they should having massive irregularity in the cycle hot flashes night sweats and you know just all the things that are really not things you should be experiencing in your 40s.
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And so cycle thinking the long answer to your question is cycle thinking can really be a way to protect your ovulation in your hormones so that you can slow down that ovarian aging process and have a much better perimenopause transition.
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That was so well put together just in terms of telling a story and the evolution so you took us from you know girls going through menstrual cycles far too young I think now you know women are finally feeling open to talking about her menopause and menopause and now it's all that we can think about.
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And you know we're accusing our body and sometimes like it really gets me upset when we get angry at the symptoms instead of moving to the compassion for the body or how we can make that shift so the distinction in the ages are really important so first of all let's just go back to the girls because I know that there's a lot of moms we're going to listen to this and girls are going through puberty much younger than ever before I was like you and thank you for sharing that story like I didn't get my cycle until we're going to go back to the girls.
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And then it was a regular and but when we think about environmental causes right and I know you talk a lot about this when it comes to things like the lights like you when I worked in cosmetics I had PCOS and I literally was inhaling perfume every day putting on oh my gosh toxic written cosmetics and body lesions and creams and perfume directly like on my or I'm upset for you.
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Yeah yeah time it snowing during my PCS PCOS was so bad doctor said that I would have a hard time having kids if I could stop getting my menstrual cycle and I was just pumped full of like progesterone to induce my cycle then DHA to give me some energy and then progesterone like vicious it was never monitored.
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And now that we're getting more understanding around hormones when we think about now Sephora kids are going into Sephora and you know you have a daughter how hard is it for a mom to find a pair of underwear or socks that doesn't have spandex elastane or plastics in it it's virtually impossible.
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And if you think I have I have I have found some fabulous organic underwear for my daughter on Amazon it's yeah so it can be done it can be done listen let's let me take the there's a balance that I think you have to has to strike as a mom which is.
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You know and this is what I say to my daughter to because she asked these very intelligent questions i've been educating her from the beginning when she was little we started with body awareness around you know hunger cues and and fatigue cues like you know are you feeling hungry are you feeling tired let's do that then we we moved up to let's look at your poop right now she was five or six.
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Okay let's look at your poop because that's a you know we've some biometric information here what is your poop telling us about how well your foods working for you right now do we need probiotics do we need water do we need more leafy greens right just even having her practice at five or six knowing that this was a stepping stone to what I will need her to practice when she reaches menstrual age of that compassionate listening and responding and being self aware proprioceptive.
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Starts with simple things in childhood and you have to be diligent I think as a mom in training your daughter how to listen to her body how to be friend her body how to understand her body from the beginning right.
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Right you have to be even willing to do things whenever you think it's age appropriate to show her your menstrual blood right in advance of her period so that it's not something that comes out of left field and scares her or grosses her out but it's like this beautiful story that you tell her of what this is right this is a special organ.
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That I make every month and here it is you know I gave it a nickname when she was younger I called it the nest I was like this is the nest the baby can grow in and then when I don't have a pregnancy the nest comes out every month isn't that so amazing that a woman's body can make a nest every month and get rid of the nest if we don't need it how cool is that she's like that's so cool you know at age eight and nine that was the conversation now she's 10 going on a woman the conversation is menstruation is coming out.
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Coming soon and you're and she knows all about her and Freudian clock and right now she knows she's a circadian only human she'll be a you know dual clock person pretty dual dual rhythmic person when she starts her menstruation and she knows what all of the different things are because she sees me practicing this method right and I constantly move her into it I say I'm now in this phase of my cycle so these are the kinds of workouts I'm going to do and she'll say why.
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And I'll tell her why you know and I do it in a more simplified way but I I don't dumb down the science for her at all I want her to rise to understand things about her biology and her hormones so I'm training her fully in this way before her first period so that when she gets her period all we're doing is celebrating.
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Yes all we're doing is totally celebrating the this portal that she's walking through of moving from being in a child body and morphing into the beginning of her woman self and woman identity and I am here as the guide on the side to just help her make that journey.
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And my privilege is to give her the education and the information that will empower her that we as women have been historically intentionally deprived us of which has held us back physically and emotionally and enough is enough.
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So where I think you should put your priority is getting educated yourself and then reaching your hand down and educating your daughter as far as all of the chemical exposure that can lead to precocious puberty that's the other big thing that you need to do which is make your home a hormone haven.
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Yeah for your daughter okay so for example there are no scented candles in my home there are no air fresheners in my home I do not wear perfume I do not use any products in the house that contain the word fragrance from cleaning products to laundry products to bath products to make up none of it at all and that includes my personal products my husband's products that
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the family like we're vigilant about that and then we do what we can with organic food know 80 20 90 you know whatever we definitely let we go out we eat from time to time to rest on do I worry about the rest no do I bring our own water bottles that are stainless steel or glass versus being reliant on classic water bottles when we go out 100% yeah so you make trade-offs where you can.
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Are all of her clothes organic no am I okay with that yep you know because and as I answer my daughter's question if you give your body enough of the support you know 80% of the time if you're there for your body you're giving it clean healthy foods you're eating the right way
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when you go to a friend's birthday party and they're serving she's going to a friend's birthday party this weekend and there it was part of the invite like as if this was an exciting thing they're like we're going to have chick fill up platters for the for the girls I was like okay you know I don't know if chick fill is healthy or not but it to me register that like you know fast food
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and I was like and she goes you know what do you think about that I said well what do you think about she goes well I think we eat so healthy at home that if I go and have that it's going to be fine which is exactly what she's heard me tell her over the years right so she's just repeating what she's learned and I was like that's exactly right and good for you so that's what you so go and have a good time eat the cake have fun make good choices don't have
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you know 17 pieces of chicken nuggets or whatever it is like be mindful of your hunger and all of those things but enjoy indulge just like you would tell yourself right but she needs to learn that skill of discernment and self you know
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not if what's the word being balanced when she's out taking care of herself and and making good choices for herself
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then and I really want to own in on something that you're doing and well done mama like wow is this concept of
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imprinting I'm convinced that I am what I am I eat the way that I eat because of all the things that
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were imprinted by my mom and for a lot of my clients are like yeah they won't do it they won't eat it
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just keep trying keep trying you're all of a sudden going to have a 10 year old my son will sit on a
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toilet and be like up I had too much sugar yesterday like he is so in tune with his bowel movements now
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just through education and he'll make informed choices they know that there's a time to go and have
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all of those things but like you I think it's the education piece for them to understand what's
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happening within their bodies and I think you and I have the additional benefit that we can share
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so many client stories and obviously you with all of your research in your books but so easy for
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us I think as a woman to do that and you're brought up with a good point I don't know about your mom
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but there's almost there's more of a stigma growing up with the girls in my classroom getting
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their period you know fear there was or shame around having their cycle the thought of touching
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your own menstrual blood I never even heard of until after I had kids and now I'm just like oh my
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gosh wow I created this right like this miracle within me the resilience of my body to be able to
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do this so I love that you brought that up because I think that if the girl can do that when she
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starts getting her cycle there's instant ownership of what is happening and what is happening with
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her biology and how her biology is shifting and what that could lead her through as she becomes a
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woman we've lost these rights of passages like we don't celebrate them as women anymore they almost
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don't exist but I think it's up to us to start creating them again and that's a good one yeah
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absolutely I think just the implication the trajectory shift of having a shame-based start
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to your life as a woman versus an empowered start just think about the two different
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tracks that you'll you'll be on and how much ground you have to reclaim later on as an adult to
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try to you know come back to yourself as a woman right like you're you're gonna really need to
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make a lot of make peace with a lot of different things just because you had that sort of shame-based
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start versus if you come at this next era of your life right with like an incentive excitement
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and information sorry I'm getting a lot of there's like scratching or I don't know just let
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your team know that something is good to know this at this time mark so if you start at that you
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know empowered place you know you're gonna just keep thriving there isn't anything you know that
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you have to sort of cycle through in terms of your understanding of yourself you can just kind of
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go hit the ground running in your life you know it is my assertion that if women were given the
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right information from the beginning it would be a very different world indeed for all of us
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couldn't agree more let's own in on you know that change of an era impairment opus so I
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have working through this one and I'm trying to be lighthearted about it and say that
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impairment opposes courting me very strongly and part of me wants to resist it like I feel like I'm
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too young I'm too healthy I'm a nutritionist why am I going through this but I can also you
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know go on the other side and feel I'm having a lot of empathy for my body also right now
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you know I'm getting my cycle later having to go on birth control to regulate my cycle for so
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many years then getting off and undoing the damage of all of those things like maybe like again
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just trusting this is my body's path that's right you've been through a lot and and it wasn't
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all optimal and so you do need to factor that in to where you are and you we weren't having a
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conversation around you know well what do I do for the long haul and and that's my fundamental
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problem we brought up earlier how we're now talking a lot more about perimenopause which is great
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and menopause but we're still taking a top down symptom down approach what yeah and we're just
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simply talking about and I think it's great I mean listen it's all part of the cultural narrative
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shift we have to say hey we as women should not step one of this conversation is what we're hearing
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now we shouldn't tolerate hot flashes there should be more research we should have access to more
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support you know but you know HRT or BHRT is not the only solution and we need to be thinking
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two decades before our perimenopause journey to be reverse engineering what that journey could
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look like because just like we said you said earlier how PMS symptoms are common but not normal
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what's happening for women with perimenopause right now is common but it's not
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necessarily normal right so I again worked with so many women over the years it really your
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perimenopause journey is absolutely completely dictated by the state of your health going into it
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and how well or not well you've taken care of your infruding rhythm your cycle your micronutrient
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levels how much bad dieting crash dieting over exercising on non-stress management lack of sleep
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lack of supplementation all of this ages the o hurry much more rapidly and you will start having
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more symptoms sooner but we don't talk about that we're just talking about okay well if hormones
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are lower we replace the hormones with BHRT and that is a path a valid path I'm not arguing that
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at all but we could do so much better by understanding the mechanisms that get us to the place where
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hormones start to decline in production by starting to support ourselves sooner right so that you
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can be 48 49 50 still with a regular cycle you may have less progesterone and less estrogen overall
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compared to your 25 year old self but you're still cycling you're still doing it and you're not
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having symptoms you don't have to have all of these crazy symptoms really and I've just worked with
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enough women to see it with my own eyes so that it was wonderful now that I'm going through you know
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be I'll be 48 in a few months still getting my cycle regular have no symptoms so good right so at
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all so in fact I feel it's I feel better than ever in fact and I think that and I'm not on any
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hormone replacement I'm totally open to that when and if that is needed but it happened to not
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needed at the moment and if you do need it that's okay but I think it's a gift that I ended up having
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PCOS it's such a young age because it forced me to make critical massive dietary and lifestyle
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changes in my early 20s that I have not deviated from for two and a half decades things like
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not having an abundance of sugar in my diet not being exposed to inflammatory foods for many
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decades I stopped drinking all alcohol at 35 not because there was a major problem with drinking but
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because I was like oh I'm about to embark on my fertility journey and there's no room in pregnancy
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or breastfeeding alcohol so and then I just never picked up the habit because when I came out on the
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other side of that I was like well that's a lot of calories it's a lot of inflammatory response
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and you know knowing what I know about the body I said let's skip that so I'm I haven't been
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age-inflammaging myself for 25 years and I am reaping the benefits of that now at almost 48
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from and from this biomarker or this vital sign of my cycle and that's available to all of us but
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we have to have a conversation that is very different from the one we're having now which is
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what what do I take for this symptom you know I take the mitle for the cramps yeah I take the hormone
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replacement for the perimenopause it's it's not um broad enough to really address and that's really
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the hallmark of my work throughout the books that I've written and all the things that I do is
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how do the systems of the body work and how do we support those symptoms systems right not how do
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we get rid of symptoms that the body will do for you when you support body systems into your point
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and even both of us sharing about our stories look at everything that's been happening in your life
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in your body your choices that led you to the moment that you're in today I've had so many
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incredible practitioners on this podcast summer on the fence of start you know HRT earlier than
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for prevention and others that say no like every woman it's got to be different for every woman it
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has to be a choice you have to have um somebody on the other end who's going to be monitoring you
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like your protocol for HRT should be bio individual and this is a big topic that I think that we're
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missing so for me the thing that came up was frozen shoulder and I was in denial no it's a shoulder
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injury from the gym um but leading up to that I had mold exposure massive period of stress living
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with that mold my nervous system completely dysregulated so throughout about a year 18 months
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there was a decline in the foundation of the way that my body was functioning so what I hear that
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you're saying and when we think about really psychosinking it's kind of building the foundation back
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and I think protecting the foundation for the long term yeah yeah and something that you brought
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up you know when we first started talking the thing that I think that this is doing and why your
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method is so beautiful is that it's building back resilience in our body and when we build back
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resilience in our body what do we see we see an increase of mitochondria mitochondria in my lens
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just taking kind of like more of an eastern view yeah we call them the powerhouses but I think of
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them as light in a woman's body and for many of us growing up the stressors that we endure
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got for bit miscarriages or sadness or whatever we've been through in life um it's almost like a light
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that starts to dim but we can bring that light back and something that I learned yesterday that I
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thought was fascinating was outside of your brain and your heart the highest concentration of mitochondria
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are on our ovaries which makes sense we're producing life what takes a lot you think you think
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a woman knew that and like to think about making the right food choices to bring that light to
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their body to optimize their mitochondrial function to be able to set them up for success at the
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different stage or whatever they are in their cycle god that just feels so much more empowering
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than the sense of fear or the the fear that something is coming that it just goes downhill from there
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I that was just beautiful I love that and I love the analogy of mitochondria in life that is
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that that that makes the nerd and the spiritual secret me very very happy which is why I can't
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wait for us to have tea together god knows what we're going to talk about when we are in person
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but I I think that um looking at it through the lens of this conversation of light
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you know look at your lifestyle as a whole you know are you engaging in daily habits and routines
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that are really zapping your energy draining your energy bucket and if so what are those things
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that are doing that and what can you do to start improving that and that's another place for the
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cycles thinking method can help right from shifting your exercise routines to be a little bit more
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in alignment with your energy throughout the month so that you're not you know taxing your body
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too hard at the wrong time of the cycle or to even just understanding where you have some natural
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gifts from a work perspective in the month so that you can play to those strengths and reduce stress
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all to keep stress low even understanding your libido cycle as it goes through that infradient effect
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so that you can start playing with oxytocin which helps with ovulatory regulation and you know
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reducing slowing down aging and all capacities um all of that is available to you and it's not like
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you have to buy a supplement or do something you know outside of yourself you gotta it's really
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about just aligning with what's inside of your body and then your body will do the rest for you
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and it will it will pay you back tenfold or just a little bit of the correct investment and so
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I love that idea of adding more light more energy um to your to your day so that you don't feel bogged
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down and and where you know that that's really having a stress impact and I mean so you know aging
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you in a way that you don't want to be yeah yeah such a great analogy uh and just description of
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the process I think that for people who are listening you know they're gonna go check out in the
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flow or woman code here two incredible books actually recommend both of them um but sure about your
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app so women are interested in learning more about cycle syncing and how to jump in you should
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make it more yeah so I built this app because women were asking me for it after after you know
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I was talking about cycle syncing and they wanted an easy way to you know integrate the method
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into their self-care practices so it's a pretty powerful tool you can track your cycle um you'll also
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be able to get a functional sort of route analysis of each symptom that you're having in each
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month so why are you having acne why are you having cramps from a functional medicine perspective
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and it will give you guidance from a food and lifestyle perspective on what to do to address those
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symptoms in real time it will give you a whole set of insights on your cycle as a fifth vital sign
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as a biomarker how are you how is your cycle performing every month is it getting better is it
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about the same is it worse do you need to take action this month or are you okay um and then from a
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cycle syncing perspective um that whole feature allows you to um meal plan you can click on ingredients
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that are in your pantry and say what should I make for today for my follicular phase you know
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give me recipes um there are workout videos that you can watch directly from the app that are
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in a line with your correct cycle phase um and then there's a daily tracker so that you can keep
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track of your daily cycle syncing habits to make sure you're doing those non-negotiables
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and understand where you are with work and productivity and help so it's really the ultimate
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menstrual health management tool and because I really think that every woman should be least giving
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that a try um I'm always giving it away so the app is free to download but the cycle syncing
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feature um I want you to you your listeners to have access to it so if they go and put a code
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Mona flow into uh if you go to flowliving.com forward slash app and you click on the
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cycle syncing membership um and you put in the code Mona flow you'll be able to get a month free
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and and just try what it feels like to be in alignment with your cycle phases uh it will you'll
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feel differently the first cycle so you know I want you to have that experience because it's game
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changing. That's so generous thank you so much yeah I think it's so much more than just the
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empowerment that comes behind it I think you're taking a lot of stress away I think that you're
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connecting so many women with their bodies I think that you're taking away suffering and I mean
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how many symptoms have we we talked about just in the past hour from our energy to our neurological
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function our energy how we're burning fat our PMS or symptoms like it touches on everything
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it's the foundation of who we are so thank you and what I love most um is that you really you took
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into consider um Eastern healing methods whether it's things like traditional Chinese medicine and
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I know you talk about acupuncture and the power of ayurveda and how we digest and everything I think
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it's so important because um you're incorporating the wisdom of our bodies with the wisdom of our
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ancestors the things that work for them and science wasn't even needed we just trusted
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I think that there is a genius in ancient traditions and it's very beautiful now to see how science
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has been able to validate some of these ancient practices that you know I've been quote-unquote
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questionable for so many years but now we're seeing the studies that show you know things from
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Eastern practices just really being true and valid and useful and so um you know and I think
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just as we can draw so much from ancient practices to help inform what healthy living should look
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like today we as women need to draw from our own feminine energy and really understand what
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living in the flow of that feels like to really become whole women and to come home to ourselves
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and for me after all of my searching and seeking this method this daily practice of being in that
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whatever cycle faith I'm at attending to my body's needs through the lens of that phase
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that commitment to show up for myself in that way that practice like coming to the yoga mat every day
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that daily act of love that phase-based loving alignment is um the way that I've built a bridge to my
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feminine energy in a world that has only sought to divorce me from that and it's available to all
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of us through this practice that connection is flow like that peak that's why I called the book
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in the flow because I was so frustrated like I would go to these events or everybody talk about
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peak flow state and they were always talking about it through the lens of the masculine or the
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hero's journey and it just didn't resonate with my vibration or or female vibration and so
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this was this was also a way not it and of course because that's truly when something works right
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there's an elegance to it working both on let's say a practical level but then also an esoteric level
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that we can as as in our bodies also are in our minds or hearts or our energetic selves
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yeah if we take care of our feminine cycle we also restore our feminine energy I love that
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speaking more flow state because of our bodies thank you and this went by so fast
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I can't wait to have you back I can't wait to have you in person happy happy to do it
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really quick rapid fire questions right sure all right what are the most common mistakes or
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misconceptions you're seeing women make with their health oh just eating the same amount of calories
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day in and day out you know throughout the cycle doing the same workouts day in and day out
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throughout the cycle ignoring the cycle basically and anytime you're ignoring your cyclical patterns
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chaos unnecessary chaos yeah or it's your favorite ancient healing remedy
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oh god so many things I love I would probably say
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oh it's a toss up between herbs and essential oils but they feel really like two sides of the same
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coin so I really love the power of adaptogenic herbs herbal teas I am a tea drink or I haven't
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had caffeine since the age of I don't know 19 or 20 so you know no caffeine so herbal teas I have
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a whole collection I think you know plant medicine you know talk about connection to your feminine
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now you can take that greater connection to the mother earth and when you start engaging
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in plant medicine whether that be through herbal teas or herbal remedies or essential oils now
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we're talking about a whole different vibrational alignment and it's very powerful it's one of my
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favorites lovely brought that up this is my year of like just understanding the power of different
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herbs nature heals that's like my whole thing amen okay if you have something about modern
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medicine that explains you what would it be oh I am there so I have a femtech company obviously
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low living the app what we do and I'm very very encouraged by what's happening in the world of
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femtech and some of the research and the new things that are being developed we absolutely in the
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next decade will have a completely different women's healthcare reality and that is historic
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feminist and totally exciting absolutely and we're ready to own it what are three things that
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women can start doing right now to optimize their health start cycle thinking start tracking your
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cycle start tracking your symptoms those simple things will get you really far if you just download the
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app and just for the first month just track your symptoms just understand which phase of the cycle is
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you're working well which one is not working well that's going to give you so much information to
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then start your game plan and then you can start cycle thinking to start really being a citizen
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scientist experimenting in your own body and ecosystem and start to really take action around
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improving your own hormonal reality you paint such a beautiful picture for women and women's
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physiology honestly like listening to you is just affirming our hormones are our super power
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when we learn to sync with them our energy or mood or vitality everything just kind of
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comes into being and imagine just going out into the world with that vibrant energy thank you so
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much for everything that you do how do you communicate with your audience you mentioned your website
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website I will soon be launching a newsletter so definitely make sure that you
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find me on social media at alisa.vd there's flow living you can sign up for the flow living
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newsletter and you'll certainly get updates about when my personal newsletter is launching and
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lots to come in 2025 for more communication with you guys directly beautiful thank you and thank
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you so much for the very generous discount code of Mona flow log go check that out and we'll link
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everything up below thank you thank you this one's so delightful so delightful
