EP 11 - PERIOD MYTH BUSTING

For most of us learning about our body and – specifically, about our cycle and fertility– wasn’t something that we knew until we sought that info for ourselves.

Public school s3x education truly suuuuuuucks. 

[The Mean Girls sex ed scene comes to mind.]

Perhaps you started (or are currently taking...no judgment!) hormonal birth control to regulate your period, manage PMS and hormonal breakouts. Or maybe you simply wanted to avoid catching a baby!

No matter your goals with your fertility, our intention in this episode is to cut through some period and HBC myths, offer an overview of what a natural cycle really does [including why progesterone is the best] and answer some listener questions! 

Before we dive in...In this episode we touch on pregnancy loss and fertility challenges. If that is something that you are facing right now we are sending you a big hug and invite you to listen through if you have capacity for it.  

This is the first of many episodes about hormone health and fertility, and we look forward to diving deeper with you. As always you can submit questions and topic requests on Instagram @getyourshittogetherpod or via our contact form.

In this episode of Get Your Shit Together we cover

🧡 The four phases of a natural cycle
🧡 Period myth busting: do you need one, impacts of hormonal birth control, the fertile window
🧡 Tips for supporting your fertility (whether you want to conceive, or just feel your best)
🧡 Listener questions: our picks for cramp relief, hormonal imbalances and insomnia, what’s the deal with period poops and more.

Resources & Good Shit

What We’re Consuming

• Adina was watching In the Heights (HBO Max) from Lin Manuel Miranda and really getting into some homemade gravlax with her kiddos.

• Underwire who? Diane is into bralettes like this one from Abercrombie. Need a strapless bra that supports you through sweating and dancing this summer? Kinesiology tape is the hack you’re looking for. Skip the SKIMs (sorry, Kimmy K).

Other Good Shit

• For guidance learning about your natural cycle and the Fertility Awareness Method (FAM), check out our friend Talia at @organic_fertility 
  

Connect with Adina:

Instagram: @adinarubin_ 

Website: www.adinarubincoaching.com 

Connect with Diane

Instagram: @dianeteall 

Website: www.diteawellness.com 

Root Cause Reset: www.rcrprogram.com

Transcript

Transcript was auto-generated! There may be some errors, but you get the…GYST 😜

Diane: 0:33

And we're back. Welcome to G Y S T. Welcome back. You may have noticed a new guest in our intro. Thank you till miss Minnie,

Adina: 0:45

cute.

Diane: 0:45

do a Dina for your wonderful editing. I know we've had quite a lot to work with between, um, you know, the summer noises of leaf blowers blow in my pug. Snoring

Adina: 1:01

My air conditioning blowing. I mean, I think, I think our sound is like good. And my objective is just to make sure that it's not offensive. Like obviously we're not recording in studios and there's going to be some pups in the background. Some train, some leaf blowers, but we hope that it doesn't hurt your ears. That's our hope.

Diane: 1:21

and thanking. Thank you for letting us into your earballs as Adina as well. How are you doing.

Adina: 1:27

I'm good. I'm good. It's certainly summer here. It's like hot and humid as Jersey does.

Diane: 1:34

say, it's not the heat. It's the humidity.

Adina: 1:37

Exactly. Yeah. So it's nice. Nice to see the sun shining. It's nice to be outdoors, but I got to get to the beach. I think.

Diane: 1:45

Oh yeah, that sounds wonderful. Well, what have you been consuming?

Adina: 1:50

What are we consuming? Okay. So on the food end of things, my mom actually just dropped off some of her gravlax. She makes really good gravlax. Have you ever made gravlax at home?

Diane: 2:03

I've just consumed it and loved it.

Adina: 2:06

Yeah, they're so good. They're just so gravlax are. Salt cured lox so you basically just take raw salmon and you cure it with like a salt and you could use sugar and herbs and you leave it in the fridge compressed for like two to three days, basically. And it's one of those things that's super easy to make, but my fridge is just such a bad shape that I can't like get a tray in there. Well, so I never do it for myself, but my mom makes really good gravlax and Minnie gobbles them up.

Diane: 2:36

I think you texted me or like my kids just ate like 10 ounces of salmon

Adina: 2:40

yeah, they literally just shovel it down. So that for me is such a good, like fresh summer protein. We always talk about that kind of IRR Vedic, warming of stews during the winter and just light fresh meals during the summer.

Diane: 2:57

Yeah.

Adina: 2:57

Yeah. So. In the summer. I just love things that are like flash cooked on the grill or raw and tons of hydrating fruit and things like that. So really been enjoying gravlax and also been making some collagen ice pops too, because mini's in a little summer camp right now and they make some food choices that I'm not totally into. And so I do give them, replacements and things for her, but it's just, it's been a little challenging with the communication with the teacher in this little camp. And so they give her ice pops at the end of the day, every day. And that's totally fine. Like I got the good pops, the organic whatever, but still there's some ingredients in there that I don't love, but more than anything it's that, that sugar and those ice pops is not offset by any fat or protein. And so I heard that good pop makes a version of like a creamsicle with some coconut milk. I'm going, gonna look for that. But she comes home. Like a completely different person. They give her this ice pop at the end of the day and it's like blood sugar crash. Right. When she gets home, like, yeah, it's just like, she's so not herself. And it's been really challenging that transition home. So I'm trying to make an ice pop that has some protein in it as well. So just mixing up some fruit juice in college and, and freezing that. And it's like super nutrient dense, refreshing, less blood sugar, offensive ice pop.

Diane: 4:23

When you say icepop, I can't help. But think of those things that we all had kids the plastic like long strip

Adina: 4:31

That's what they give

Diane: 4:32

that's it. Okay. That's exactly I'm thinking of, and now I'm like, oh, no wonder I was

Adina: 4:35

dye, number 12.

Diane: 4:38

and sometimes when I was real desperate for a sugar hit, I would just get into it before they're frozen and like straight to the dome. So gross

Adina: 4:44

Yeah, those ice pops it's really wild. So yeah, they do make better options that have like organic fruit juice in them. But I prefer something that's going to offset it with. I thought about just like bringing some like pads of butter in the car when I pick her up so that she can just shovel those in and try to mitigate it. Um, we'll see how that goes. Playing around with some new strategies.

Diane: 5:03

A spoonful of butter helps the sugar go down. If that what they say, that's what

Adina: 5:07

We should start saying that.

Diane: 5:11

Yeah. Making a note. That sounds fun though. I think, I mean, we've talked so much about ice cream and we love seeing what y'all are making from the gyst mini course cookbook. We've seen a few tasty photos in our DMS. Thank you for sure. But I've been heavy into making ice cream. And one of my friends here, she has a beautiful garden sexologist Megan, on Instagram, she is going to make some gourmet popsicles. And I was like, man, between the two of us, we just need a jingle, a little truck, and we're just gonna ride around. It's like an hour gourmet ice cream and popsicles. I think that could be like a backup gig.

Adina: 5:49

little gourmet treats there. Oh, so this actually makes me think of my media. What are you consuming? Because this weekend, Dani and I watched in the Heights, which is okay. So originally it was on Broadway. Am I obsessed with musicals?

Diane: 6:05

I think you

Adina: 6:05

I, I didn't know. Notice how many musicals I've watched recently, but I feel like because of how much you hate them, it

Diane: 6:13

it makes you like a

Adina: 6:13

aware. Yeah.

Diane: 6:16

you can watch enough for the two of us.

Adina: 6:18

yes, exactly. So I grew up really loving musicals. My mom is obsessed with musical theater. Her dad was really into musical theater and they shared a birthday. So they always used to go to the theater on their birthday together. And so like, my mom used to take us out of school for Wednesday matinees. It was like big Broadway family. So anyways, guess I love musicals, but. In the Heights was originally on Broadway is Lin Manuel Miranda. So creator writer of Hamilton. This was his first show before that actually, and not a lot of people saw it and then they brought it to the big screen now, or for a lot of us, the smallest

Diane: 6:51

okay.

Adina: 6:52

And it's great. It's really delightful. I lived in Washington Heights for years, and they filmed on location and I lived around the corner from all the locations. So it was really fun. Yeah. It was really fun to see that world brought to light there. And part of what's so beautiful about this story is how much the life there is a musical. There's always, you know, fire hydrants, open and kids dancing in the street and music playing. And it's a very beautiful culture, rich community. However, when you are a student in grad school and up late writing papers, it's not as wonderful to be living around that much music. So certainly challenging, but beautifully represented. Yeah. Just a fun story in the city, summer time, music, community. And I mentioned this last time we talked about movies and how, like, I think it really felt comforting because of how alone so many of us have. So many of us have felt this year. So seeing that vibrancy of a community that is family just felt good.

Diane: 7:53

miss that. It sounds like a very nice summer watch. So yay. Love that for you.

Adina: 8:00

I love that for me. I know. You're like, okay, go ahead. Something else now.

Diane: 8:05

No, no, no. I appreciate that. You appreciate it. I don't really have anything to speak of on the show and we front, I did start a show called tell me your secrets that someone recommended. If you enjoy the undoing with Nicole Kidman. And I don't know, I'm not, I think it gets worse. The more I watch it, and I don't want to ruin anything. It's a thriller drama, but I'm not so thrilled. So I don't know if you, if you

Adina: 8:30

No, it's a not so

Diane: 8:31

Yes. There's just, there's a lot going on.

Adina: 8:34

did you watch, there's a lot of good stuff coming back this summer. Like a lot of my shows that I'm really excited about. Did you watch

Diane: 8:39

Yes, I do. Like Dave will Dicky.

Adina: 8:42

Yes. So little Dickies show. Dave is coming back for season two. I've heard it is just as fun as season one, pretty gross, which I'm curious if it's how it could be much grosser than season one. Like when they say gross, do you think they mean like poop stuff or sex

Diane: 9:00

Oh, maybe both. Uh, you know, what's funny about that word is my grandpa, my Lolo, my Filipino grandpa. He is 96. And for whatever reason, he loves that word, but like, he'll use it so much. And he'll if he doesn't like somebody say, oh, gross, oh, that's gross. His other favorite is guacamole. And he thinks it's like the funniest word. He's like, did you have some guacamole?

Adina: 9:24

Wait, Minnie loves both of those out. Whereas I feel like they would get along

Diane: 9:27

I bet they would. Um, over here, I, so not much in the way of film and movies, but as far as into it over I'm over bras. I mean, underwire bras, what are

Adina: 9:38

we all

Diane: 9:40

I put one on recently. I was telling you before we started recording and I was like, oh, this is so uncomfortable, but really into bralettes and Abercrombie. Wow. Um, Abercrombie has a lot of really cute things right now, whether it's bodysuits, crop, croppy toppies love those their jeans. So been really into that, but someone asked me recently about, uh, the bra hack that I had shared. I think it's been a month now, but KT or kinesiology tape, I love that. Especially if you have a backless situation, perhaps you're going to some summer weddings or events, and instead of trying to hack it with those sticky bras, those chicken cutlets, that just never stay in place. I think KT tape works really well and because it is so strong, I think people of all sizes and boob I says can enjoy this and it really holds you in there and it doesn't rip your skin. Oh, I found that that's a nice DIY bra that actually works. And you can save yourself some coin instead of getting like skims or something like that. I found it at target. So really like.

Adina: 10:48

That's awesome.

Diane: 10:49

Highly recommend.

Adina: 10:49

Diane. Because it's like designed for that. It doesn't move with sweat.

Diane: 10:56

Yeah. I mean, the first time I wore, I think it was for a new year's Eve party a couple of years ago. It stayed in place. No matter how sweaty it got, it was really helpful. So highly recommend KT

Adina: 11:07

a new year's Eve party. You are wild. Did you see that meme that was circulating this week? That was like, The event starts at 8:00 PM. Not all of us are on cocaine.

Diane: 11:18

And I mean, gosh, it's been so long since we've been out, but, but yeah, by eight, 9:00 PM, I have my night pants on. I've got my night creams on my little brother. Like, do you want to come out? I'm like at nine o'clock on a Friday, I'm going to

Adina: 11:30

What are you nuts?

Diane: 11:31

Yeah. What do you want cocaine anyway.

Adina: 11:35

Okay. So what's going on? We noticed that apple podcast is now offering a subscription model, so quite like patron. And I'm curious if this is something that they've just mentioned to creators, or if consumers are aware of this as well, but we, Diane and I were chatting like this sounds so cool. And thinking about utilizing it, like maybe, uh, some sort of membership community for like premium content, maybe some live workouts or cook with us session type things. So let us know, let us know in the DMS, if that sounds interesting to you guys, because whenever these platforms roll out new features, they always reward the people that use them. So we're definitely thinking about it and we'd love to know what you guys are interested in so that we could best support this community.

Diane: 12:27

Tell us what you want to see. I think that's super interesting. Would love to, to try it out, but let us know what you think. All right, let's get into the meat and the duck fat potatoes here. This episode is going to be about period myth-busting. Now this is our first episode around this topic, and we're going to give some high level overview of this, whether it's cycling hormones or hormonal birth control. Also get into some of your questions as well, but know that there are going to be many future episodes around this topic. So if there's something that you specifically want us to jump into first in any of our upcoming episodes, let us know, but know that there's more coming. So we wanted to start out with talking about what a natural cycle looks like now. Unfortunately, this is something that many of us did not have the opportunity to learn about until later in life, perhaps mid twenties, or when you are figuring out what your natural cycle does. That's such a disservice to women to not. Understand this about their cycle. So let's get into it in a high level overview. So there are four phases to a natural cycle, and ideally you want to kick us off with how that all starts.

Adina: 13:38

Yeah. So I think if this is the first time you're hearing this, first of all, whenever you talk about like the way we were taught about our bodies or like health class or anything like that, I can't help. But think of the mean girl scene

Diane: 13:49

you will get pregnant and die

Adina: 13:50

you will get chlamydia and die.

Diane: 13:52

sex. Yeah, me too.

Adina: 13:54

Right. It's so that is just so it's sad how close that is to the picture of what so many of us learned, like everyone has these ridiculous memories of health class and what they were taught. And even at higher levels, like my friend, Talia organic fertility on Instagram, she is a fertility awareness educator. And I saw her posting this week, actually that she went to nursing school and she graduated as a nurse. And after four years of like undergrad nursing school knew nothing about how her body worked and that she couldn't get pregnant every day of her cycle. And it's like so wild that you're in a higher education schooling to learn about the human body and how to help people. And this isn't even mentioned, so that's horrifying and we about to change it. So hopefully we can simplify this for you and help you to understand. A good introduction to how your body works. Cause it shouldn't, we all know that, like that seems like a good life

Diane: 14:51

yeah, knowledge is powerful and empowering.

Adina: 14:54

Yeah. So if this is the first time you're hearing this, I think it's sometimes we can simplify it down to just two phases of your cycle and understanding that you have this first half of your cycle where your body is kind of preparing for ovulation. And then the second half of your cycle where your body is preparing for a pregnancy, a potential pregnancy. That's kind of the easiest way I like to simplify it

Diane: 15:16

your goals are to conceive or not. Your body is always trying to be fertile. If you have a uterus, it's always trying to do that. So that's important distinction.

Adina: 15:27

Yeah, if you have a uterus and are in your cycling years, your body's main objective is pregnancy. So whether or not that is a goal of yours, that is your physiological design. So. This first half of the cycle, your follicular phase, it's when those eggs are being prepared to lead up to an ovulation and like the main event of your cycle and the main event of that half of your cycle is leading up to that ovulation. And the main hormone I would say is estrogen in that half of your cycle. And then the second half of your cycle is the luteal phase. And this is your body trying to build toward that pregnancy. So the main event there is trying to build toward pregnancy, or again, if you don't get pregnant that cycle, it would lead toward your period. And the main hormone of that half of your cycle is progesterone. So those are kind of, that's like my high level overview, but you can kind of see it as four distinct phases. So Diane, why don't you break down like what those four would look like if you broke that into

Diane: 16:25

right. So when you said that there are two phases, I mean, years passed. I thought, okay. I'm either on my period or I'm not my period, but there's more to it. And so too often we think of our menstrual cycles just as period. Am I getting it or am I not? But the main event of your hormonal cycle is ovulation I wish we focused more on that instead of, am I getting my period or not? Because you can still have a bleed. You can still bleed without ovulating too. So, if we're thinking about four phases, that first one starts with menstruation. So again, day one of your period is the beginning of your cycle. And then you move into that follicular phase that Adina was talking about. So as you transition off of bleeding into follicular phase, to prepare you for our ovulation astrogen is increasing steadily. And then as you get into the ovulatory window, that's like, what five days? So that is the only time of your cycle that you can get pregnant. We're going to go into this again later in this episode, but that is your fertile window. And there are different things that you can track there. If you do have a natural cycle, whether you're trying to conceive or trying to avoid pregnancy. Now, after that window, you're moving into the luteal phase where progesterone.

Adina: 17:33

I do want to clarify you only ovulate one day of your cycle. Diane's referring to you have a fertile window because your body produces cervical mucus and could hold onto sperm for about five days, three to five days, whatever. There's kind of some

Diane: 17:48

Yeah, you're not ovulating every day of that fertile window. Yeah. That's good clarification.

Adina: 17:52

Ovulation is one day, but you are fertile for probably about five based on, when we start to see your body producing that cervical mucus and your body leading up to and preparing for that ovulation, it's giving you a better shot at getting pregnant. If that is your goal, because it's not just like, you absolutely need to time sex perfectly and have sex the day you're ovulating, the moment that that egg drops.

Diane: 18:16

right. With your legs up a wall, like she thinks we can't really talk, unfortunately, can't talk about, on some platforms like Instagram, you can't even talk about cervical fluid, cervical mucus, like, and that's just such a shame again. This information is not something that is commonly given to people through their cycling years. And so unfortunate. So, yeah. So there's that?

Adina: 18:38

I even noticed when I mentioned hormones, sometimes I get censored, which is so outrageous. Like, come on, come on

Diane: 18:45

So again, if you like this tent and learning about your body, share it, share it. It's so helpful for so many people out there. So the ovulatory windows is not as long as you think. So it's, again, you're not fertile that your entire cycle are going to get into that a little bit more. So after that ovulation window progesterone should increase because that's going to, you think a progesterone is pro gestation. Again, your body's always working towards being fertile and being able to hold a pregnancy. Your fourth and final phase of your cycle is that luteal phase. So this is about a couple of weeks before your dot drops before the whole cycle begins again. Now in this phase, we should see an increase in progesterone. So think of that as pro gestation, your body's always trying to prepare for a possible pregnancy there and to sustain it. So that is that hormone is going to help sustain that. We want that to be strong so that our, those are the four phases. If you want to think of your cycle in four different parts of the menstruation menstrual phase follicular phase ovulatory phase and the luteal phase.

Adina: 19:48

And so if you don't get pregnant, that's when that luteal phase would shift into your periods, starting all over again. So your uterus would clear out clear house, no baby, everybody out. And so that would happen and you would transition into that bleed again. And so oftentimes we see, I would say again, we don't like to generalize about health stuff, but one of the most common. Occurrences with women that we work with is not getting adequate progesterone in that back half of the cycle, that body not producing enough progesterone in the back half of the cycle. And we're going to get into some myth-busting, we're going to answer some of your questions, but know that progesterone is a super important hormone and we don't make it when we are stressed out. Okay. Whether that is mental, emotional stress, or our body is stressed out because we're not eating enough or we're overexercising. And if you are struggling with, be it fertility or PMs, hormonal headaches, like all the stuff, really bad hormonal acne, terrible period, poops. If you're struggling with insomnia around your cycle, those things are mostly because of low progesterone and progesterone not showing up. And again, progesterone is not showing up because so many of us are so stressed out. So know that no matter how shitty you might feel right now, Regarding hormones around your cycle, that kind of stuff. There is so much that we can do to support the body, to better produce that progesterone and just kind of even things out like if you think about Diane saying pro gestation, it's this protestation hormone. When you think about that, like pregnancy glow or that thick pregnancy hair, that supple pregnancy skin, like that is all progesterone. So if your skin is ashy and your hair is falling out and you're not sleeping and you just don't look healthy a lot of times, it's because we're just not making that progesterone.

Diane: 21:52

And after those cycling years, progesterone is still important. So if you are someone who is pre-menopausal or, or peri-menopausal, or post-menopausal stress and stress management is so, so important, this is the case for everyone, but yeah. In that phase of life, your adrenals are taking on the role of making some of those sex hormones. And if they are overburdened with cortisol flowing all the time, you're going to likely experience some more symptoms. Those classic post-menopausal symptoms that people talk about, heat flashes, insomnia. So we always want to walk back to those basics no matter what season of life you are in. So stress management is really important, whether that's physical, reducing those physical stressors or mental, emotional stress.

Adina: 22:35

Yeah. I always think that's so important to mention and to really discuss the physiology. I break this down a lot inside my programs inside strong foundations, because I was a person who thought that saying that stress impacted your health was so like, woo. You know, I was like, oh, okay. It's stress sure sure sure but when we think about how. This works like physiology inside of our bodies and the synergistic nature of certain hormones and the inverse relationship between certain hormones like cortisol and thyroid hormones or cortisol and progesterone, and they're inversely related. So when we are stressed out and we're making that cortisol, we're not making those thyroid hormones, we're not making that progesterone. And so if you struggle with period problems or these extreme hormonal imbalances things like PCOS, Hashimoto's even, I consider that a hormone imbalance and at a period problem too, because oftentimes they do go hand in hand because of how important the thyroid is for conducting our metabolism and sex hormones. So if you are struggling with these things, like, I know it's so easy to get trapped into this thinking of I'm a person who has this thing and I am doomed to have this thing. And so we just want to let you know. If you are struggling, we see you, but your period problem does not have to be your personality. You don't need to define yourself by your PCOS. Your Hashimoto's like so many of these things are things that we can support the body so you can feel better. You can feel better, you can have better cycles. You don't have to have such painful periods, such stressful cycles.

Diane: 24:23

Yeah, unfortunately they're all too common, but they're not normal. It's something that we do say a lot. And perhaps you are dealing with period problems. You want to strengthen your fertility, all of that. And so, unfortunately, we'll see a lot of people who go right to adaptogens and supplementing with exogenous hormones, but. The order of operations still apply here. So Adina was just talking about how there's a connection with thyroid health in your sex hormone health, and to your gut too. We've talked about that in earlier episodes. So instead of just going straight to addressing or trying to address hormone issues, hormonal issues, we invite you to go back to those basics of managing your stress and sleep. Those are always easier said than done, but that's so, so important for reducing that stress load, but also to your, there's such an intimate connection with your food and your gut health to your hormonal health, which we can always get into first. So there's an order of operations, and you're going to find that you maximize your resources best when you stick with those foundations. Oftentimes these things work themselves out. It can take some time to shift, right? Like what we're doing now will affect our cycle on a few months from now. So just stay the course and. Our intention here is to open your eyes to some of these things that you probably haven't heard in a mainstream space before, or you're a GYN did not have one, then the knowledge or the time and the space to talk about them. So

Adina: 25:46

yeah. And I want to say. If this conversation is really triggering for you, if that was really just tugged at your heartstrings and you thought to yourself, they don't know what they're talking about. The, I, I, not me. It's not this doesn't apply to me. They're talking about, you know, and you've really struggled with these things. We know what it's like. We really know what it's like. And the more that you are triggered by this conversation, the more important it is for you to listen and to open your eyes, to the idea that you have tools. There are ways that you can better support your body. And I also wanted to say, Diane was talking about the order of operations. Like both of us are trained to order hormone labs and how many Dutch tests have you ordered

Diane: 26:29

Only only a few, to be honest, I really just would never start there.

Adina: 26:35

Yeah. And we got these questions in our question boxes all the time. Like, what do you do if you have high cortisol, if you have low cortisol, if you have high estrogen, low estrogen, like whatever the hormone imbalance is, It starts with the foundations. It starts with the metabolism. It starts with supporting the thyroid. It's there's so many things. Again, it starts with lowering stress. Like you've been talking about there's so many things we need to do first before I would even care what your specific hormone imbalances

Diane: 27:03

We're all about efficiency here. And I mean, truly we both are very familiar with Dutch and with other, there are a bunch of different hormone hormone panels, whether you're looking at your adrenal hormones, your sex hormones, but we never start there. And we don't even order them unless it's after or alongside other functional lab testing. But honestly, in the hundreds of women I've worked with it's. We always, there's more value in us starting with the basics. Even if you think that you've been on this course for a while and just coming about at a different way.

Adina: 27:35

Yeah. So with that, let's hear about some period myths. Let's hear about some things we've been told and some things that some of us may still hold to be true about our cycles, about our periods.

Diane: 27:47

this first one is on the biggest one, especially if you are taking hormonal birth control and you have those sugar pills, those placebo pills at the end of that pack, and then you have your period right? So this myth busted is that that bleed that you experienced during those placebo pills, that is not an actual period. It is a withdrawal bleed from synthetic hormones.

Adina: 28:11

Yeah. How many clients do we have who tell us that they just finished their period? And then I look back at their intake form and I was like, I could've sworn she was on hormonal birth control and just realizing how many of us don't have the understanding and the language around what that bleed actually is, because I know I was definitely not taught what hormonal birth control was and what was doing to my body. I was never really given that information when it was prescribed to me. And so certainly there's a time and place, and there are people who. May feel in this stage of life, that's the best option for them and power to you. If you have been given all of the information and made that informed decision for yourself, but if it was forced on you by a provider saying that it was going to fix your period, which we're going to get into in a second, or if you were just not given any information and told, oh yeah, this is for your acne. It's not going to have any lasting side effects on your health, your fertility, anything like that. Then that is a problem for me. That's really frustrating for me. And that withdrawal bleed was just built in to make women feel normal

Diane: 29:21

they had, yeah. Uh, uh, normal I'm using air quotes 28 day cycle. Right. Because after 28 days, then you have those sugar pills, which I used to just skip. I was like, all right.

Adina: 29:32

Didn't we all.

Diane: 29:33

And like you just said, I mean, I took hormonal birth control for almost 10 years and it served me, Well for some time until it didn't. And I do wish that I had learned more about that and have been given full informed consent, which I think is absent from a lot of these conversations before women get on this for a year, five years, 10 I've even worked with clients. Who've been on it for 15 or 20 years. So

Adina: 29:57

Yeah. And longitudinal studies are missing too. We are the longitudinal study. Like those of us who have been on hormonal birth control for years, that data about what our health looks like in 20, 30 years. Like that's the study. That's where we're really learning about what this pill is doing in the body. So again, if you make an informed decision and you choose that route, go ahead. Like, that's incredible that we have that option. However, the amount of people that are put on this pill without any information, without any game plan for then how to best support their body, if they do want to. Get pregnant, or if they do want to try to support their body in a more natural method, like how we are in a fertility crisis right now. And so if you're going to ignore the role that the pill is playing in, that I think that is a little wild. Um, you know, just knowing what we know about human physiology, knowing what we know about pill depletion. And we're going to get into that a little bit too, but yeah, that's a bit of a tangent. So yes, your withdrawal bleed is not your period

Diane: 31:02

Yeah. Yeah. So it's call it what it is. It's a withdrawal bleed from synthetic hormones. If you don't know now, you know, um, and then this next one Adina hinted at, and that is that hormonal birth control fixes your period, your period problems. She also mentioned skin problems. That was a big reason I got on the pill

Adina: 31:21

cramps that's

Diane: 31:22

That's why I got on it. And that is a very common narrative. So perhaps that is how you were introduced to hormonal birth control as well. Oh, you have skin issues. Just get, just get on the, on the pill. You have cramps get on the pill. It was, it's become like this

Adina: 31:38

You have PCO S get on the

Diane: 31:40

Yeah. Like you get a pill and you get a pill. Everyone gets a pill. So that is a huge misconception. It is, I think a bit as a band-aid. So again, you might decide given all the information that this is something that you want to try for some time, but it does not actually fix those things. Oftentimes. Many times I've worked with clients who, when they get off of hormonal birth control, those symptoms, come back with a vengeance or perhaps even worse. And that's just not something that is talked about.

Adina: 32:10

right? Because if you're on, say you get on the pill for your PCOS and your provider tells you that it's going to regulate your cycle, and then you start to get this withdrawal bleed. So you feel like, oh, it's working. I now have a normal, a normal cycle. It's 28 days. And I bleed at the end and. Then what happens is we're going to get into this more. And I think we should probably do a dedicated episode about the pill because we just have a lot to say. And again, this isn't about the pill. This is about your period. So we do have to bust some myths around the pill to really understand your cycle. But if you are struggling with PCOS and there's a component of insulin resistance, which again, we're also going to do a dedicated episode on PCOS cause we know that there's a lot of misinformation in this space, but if you're, if you're struggling with PCOS, there is certainly a factor of insulin resistance. There are certainly a factor of necessary nutrients to better support estrogen clearance, progesterone production. And here's the thing. The pill makes you more resistant to. And it depletes a, not a lot of those necessary nutrients. So it's going to shift things in the wrong direction. And when you do transition off of it, if you are a person who is looking to get pregnant, or you're just trying to support your cycle on your own, now you're dealing with that. And you've kind of dug yourself a little further into that hole with some of those things. So it's really frustrating. It's really frustrating when women come to us and they just want so badly to support cycle health and fertility. And there's so much that we now have to undo because we kind of dug ourselves a little further into that

Diane: 33:49

Right. It does not regulate your cycle. So like Adina was just saying, there's that withdrawal bleed. So you think, oh, I have, my period now is 20, 30 days. Great. But those synthetic hormones are suppressing. Ovulation. Ovulation is not happening. That's the whole purpose of being on this. Right. So that's not happening. And like we said, at the top of this episode, ovulation is the main event of, of your cycle.

Adina: 34:12

Yeah. So I actually, I like to ask people this question too, because growing up, and especially when I was put on the pill, I was told that it would trick my body into thinking I was pregnant, which like we talked about, pregnancy has this component of, to sustain a pregnancy. You need to be producing adequate progesterone, which is an incredible hormone and makes us feel invincible and if you are put on the pill, it's actually more like you're tricking your body into thinking you are menopausal. So your ovaries are just not producing your own natural hormones. And that's why there isn't this. Fluctuation like we are as women, we are cycling beings. We are supposed to have a natural shift in our hormones and we are supposed to flow with those energy shifts. And if you are on the pill, oftentimes you are not experiencing that fluctuation, which is why this is a little bit of a tangent too. But a lot of the studies conducted are like studies for anything. So say studies regarding intermittent fasting or regarding exercise science. A lot of them are conducted on like college age males and women on hormonal birth control, because they think that they're controlling for hormone fluctuations. When an actuality, then you're just doing a study about women on hormonal birth control. And it's not telling us anything about the impact on cycle health.

Diane: 35:30

I love that you brought that up because that's, it's not a quality study in that way, so

Adina: 35:37

Yeah. It's not controlling a variable. It's just studying a different

Diane: 35:40

right? Progesterone doesn't get enough accolades, I think. And enough, a lot of, no, I mean, he's great. We love progesterone and it is a natural antidepressant and makes us feel good.

Adina: 35:54

Wait, this is important to mention too, because I struggled with my mental health considerably when I was on the pill and I didn't make the connection. I started the pill and then would just be like crying alone in my apartment and everything made me irritable. And I didn't first I made the connection and my provider told me, yeah, that's normal. When you first start hormonal birth control, like it'll level out and in college and early grad school, I really, really struggled with my mental health and I did not understand the impact that hormonal birth control was having on that.

Diane: 36:26

especially for a lot of our clients who get on hormonal birth control, maybe right after they first start their period when it is normal to have just irregular cycles, or they vary in length, right. When you first get your period. And so, I mean, so many women, I know immediate, almost immediately got on hormonal birth control, so they never really knew or experienced what a natural cycle was. And certainly there are other ways that your mental health can be affected, but. is such a big side effect that I think people don't talk about enough of hormonal birth control is how it affects your mood. So progesterone, your natural progesterone also helps you feel good, helps calm and focus your brain function. And in addition to preparing a body for a potential pregnancy, it affects our mood as well. So that's so important to natural, relaxing and

Adina: 37:15

Yeah. And it's, and it's really pro thyroid and pro metabolism, which is why, if you track your cycle with your temps, you take your, your basal body temperature. That's why your temperature rises in the second half of your cycle because your body is just working overtime to try to prepare for pregnancy. it increases metabolism. And that is what we're always looking for. Like, that is why, if you've seen me talk about like cycle syncing as far as your workouts, this is why you start to feel so strong and powerful around ovulation because progesterone is kicking into gear.

Diane: 37:49

we definitely have to do a dedicated cycle. syncing workout episode progesterone also will help increase your libido. I mean, I can't tell you how many clients I've talked to. Who've been on hormonal birth control for years and just say that they experienced totally absent. Now they don't have any of that libido.

Adina: 38:08

It may, that was a really big struggle for me as well again, and I didn't because, okay, so background, I'm an Orthodox Jew and I did not engage in sexual activity prior to marriage. And so the transition to getting married and then trying to sort out my own sexuality, which is like a whole. Thing that I definitely could talk more about, but, and then being on hormonal birth control and not even feeling any sense of libido, like it was, it was really challenging. And I was trying to figure out like, what the hell is wrong with me? And in actuality, it was just all these exogenous hormones that were suppressing my own, my natural body function. And if you think about what libido is, libido is a craving for sex. And if you are not fertile, your body will not crave sex. If you are in a stressed out environment, you are telling your body there's a famine because you're not eating enough or you are overexercising. And again, telling your body like this is a really stressful environment. It won't be fertile because it doesn't want you to make a baby if it's a famine or a really stressful

Diane: 39:14

right. It's like, cool. Clearly this is not a good time. I'm very stressed.

Adina: 39:18

Yeah. And one of the ways to accomplish that is just by not to really suppress libido and not have you crave sex. So if you are. In a place where you are on hormonal birth control and not making these natural hormones. So you are not fertile. You don't have this natural fertility, you are not producing progesterone. You are not ovulating then oftentimes libido can just tank with that.

Diane: 39:40

Yeah, that is a huge common side effect that we hear from our clients that their mood is affected both how they are feeling. Maybe they're experiencing depression and mood changes, or also no libido. So, Ooh, hormonal birth control it. Doesn't fix your period.

Adina: 39:56

Yeah. So this is a big one too, which we hinted at earlier the myth would be, you can get pregnant every day of your cycle. You just don't have unprotected sex. If you don't want to catch a baby, because you are always fertile.

Diane: 40:11

Yeah. I remember thinking in college. Oh my gosh. I was like, not only do you have to be on hormonal birth control, but when you condom, when you pull out like all of it, because I can get pregnant any time of my cycle. No, that's not the case. And we had a few questions about this and the women that were surprised to learn this. So. I know that if you've never been, if you've never had the opportunity to learn about your cycle, then of course that might be a myth that you believe. And if you don't want to catch a baby, then you're going to err on the side of caution. Right. But you really are only fertile for about five days of your cycle. And so that ovulatory window can shift. And if you are someone who tracks your cycle naturally, then you can hone in on those signs. Or certainly there are test kits. If you're someone who's trying to get pregnant, but you don't necessarily need those things either. We can get into that in another episode, but

Adina: 41:06

Have you seen those, um, progesterone testing kits? Those are pretty cool. So there's this company. I forgot the name of it. We'll put it in the show notes, but they make like a little, I know we've all been familiar with like the ovulation predictor kits. And so that's kind of testing LH which we're not going to get into the exact mechanism of the cycle, but that is not a real accurate predictor of if you are ovulating and making progesterone. So if you're a person who's kind of trying to figure out your hormonal imbalance, but you're not going to invest in a Dutch test. And like we said, we don't recommend

Diane: 41:38

right. It's only a snapshot to it, depending on which.you go. So

Adina: 41:43

but there's this company that started making these progesterone kits where you just pee on a little strip and it detects progesterone metabolites in the urine, I think. And so that's kind of helpful if you are trying to figure out if you're making progesterone at the back half of the cycle, which, like we said, we, we could talk all day about how much we love progesterone, but if you're really struggling with like PMs, insomnia, that type of thing, leading up to your period, that can kind of just give you some information. But again, I wouldn't start there. It can be a tool in your toolbox, like as you start to support the foundations and just better metabolic function

Diane: 42:20

yeah. Knowing this information that I couldn't get pregnant any day, my cycle just blew my mind. And again, this will be another potential other episode if you're interested in learning about it. But when I started tracking my cycle, using fertility BR oh, fertility awareness method. I realized, oh, there's like the rest of your cycle. When you're infertile. If you want to have unprotected sex with a trusted partner, you know that you don't get pregnant during that phase. So that's really, that blew my mind. I grew up thinking that you could get pregnant.

Adina: 42:52

Yeah. And I know I've reached this opposition with providers too, where you tell your GYN that you want to start doing that, and they scare you into thinking that you're going to get pregnant.

Diane: 43:04

I definitely experienced that.

Adina: 43:07

so recognize that even if you think of your gynecologist, as someone who totally understands the cycle, they may be missing some of this information. And I would certainly talk to your doctor. That's important to do, but if you really want to learn how to use this method for affective birth control or to optimize your chances, Of conception. Like if you're really trying to make a baby and you want to understand when you're ovulating and better, those chances work with a fertility awareness educator. These are women who are trained in really understanding your cycle. That is the thing that they know how to do. So your GYN is a great place to go for your pap smears. But if you are trying to learn about your cycle, seek out someone that is solely trained in that, and really understands female hormone health, and how to teach you about how your cycle works and how to utilize that for fertility or to optimize conception.

Diane: 44:05

that's great note. And we can put a couple of recommendations in the show notes. I know that, um, some of our clients have seen Talia and done classes with her, so there's a lot of nuance to in, in every cycle, so different. So you'll not only learn about the phases in closer detail, but how that translates to your unique cycle. So that's

Adina: 44:25

Right. Like a fertility awareness educator will help you read your own chart and understand how to understand your cycle better. It's not just like learning out of a textbook. You need to understand how this applies to your body and how to then see, oh, this is the pattern that my temperatures are making. This is the pattern that my cervical fluid is making and how to put those pieces together and understand your own cycle

Diane: 44:46

Okay. So I know in the that, so that's one of the things that you can track is different cervical position and cervical fluid. I remember I have, I've had a couple of clients come off of the pill and they're like, things are changing down there. Like, I don't know if this is normal. I'm like, oh yeah, well, you're not on hormonal birth control control anymore where you don't notice those fluctuations. And she's like, this is so fascinating because I had been on hormonal birth control for so long. I didn't know that my body does these things. So

Adina: 45:10

Oh, wait, I have to say this. Okay. So we've been rewatching the office, obviously, because like whenever I get in a stressful season, I just like dip into the half hour comedy hugs. I've been joking about how like, as life goes on, I just like turn more and more into Ron Swanson and Dwight Truett. Diane and I have talked about this, but I say this because I wanted to, when you come off of hormonal birth control and you're trying to understand your body, think it's so important to remember that like our cycle is our super power and we just watched the episode where, which episode was it? Oh, where like Michael has to apologize for like sexual harassment in the office. Oh. Because Phyllis gets flashed and Michael like makes it into a whole

Diane: 45:49

and there's another class that they all have to go to and it's super awkward.

Adina: 45:52

yeah. So no, Michael takes him to the mall and is like trying to chat with them and like whatever. Anyways, everyone in that office, like completely misunderstands female health. So yeah, Michael's like sorting out the sexual harassment stuff and he's trying to say that he understands women anyways. There's this cut to Dwight? Just saying I wish I menstruated because then I wouldn't need a calendar. I would just know when my last cycle was and I was like, Dwight, we are the same.

Diane: 46:17

tracking his cycle. I have to find that clip. I wonder if it's out there floating on the YouTubes. Yeah. You know, back to GYN is not really being aware or perhaps maybe you've had the experience of them trying to usher you away from tracking your natural cycle. It's just so unfortunate. I think have to think that there are a lot of them that just don't know about this approach. I know when I told mine that I was interested in coming off of the pill and tracking naturally, she said, oh, you will get pregnant. And I remember he even had this chart in her little room. That's the exam room that said mean condoms are not very effective, that you should really only be an, an IUD or homo hormonal birth control. And I thought that is just not true. And why are we painting condoms in that light? But I digress. It was just so frustrating to see that they would shame women away from taking charge of their cycle.

Adina: 47:16

it's really frustrating. I mean, with, with conventional medicine, again, like there's a time and place and conventional medicine is amazing for emergencies and. Sometimes that is an approach, but we always need to remember that with a lot of these chronic health conditions and certainly hormonal imbalances, we're seeing a major rise because of we are extremely stressed out. Our environment is extremely estrogenic. Like we have a lot of plastics. There are a lot of endocrine, endocrine disruptors in our environment. And so this is a very new issue, you know, and again, like post pill PCOS a lot of people are getting PCOS from having been on the pill for so long. And so a lot of these issues are modern day issues and chronic health conditions that conventional medicine is not designed to deal with. So the solution for chronic health conditions. Is a chronic health solution. Like we need to be thinking about daily diet lifestyle, like the things that we do every single day, not the pill that we take when this goes wrong, or the procedure we get when this goes wrong. Like, if this is something you struggle with day in and day out, the solution has to happen day in and day out. And we do that through food and lifestyle.

Diane: 48:32

yeah, healing is an inside job and we know that access varies. Right. But there are things that you can do to improve the root cause and not just put a bandaid on it. So while our, we spend the most in our country on medicine pharmaceuticals, and, um, we have some of the best, I mean, emergency medical care in the world, but at the same time, chronic disease rates of chronic disease and infertility, Just starkly increasing. And that's just so unfortunate. So if you're here, we want for you to, understand how your body works and how you can improve these things.

Adina: 49:08

Yeah. Yeah. And I think, I think it's always important to say again, like this is the first time you're hearing this. I know, I know you I've been there. It's going to be triggering there's. You might have to listen to this information over and over again for it to really set in. Or you might have to just start implementing, like, trust us for a second and start implementing and see if things don't shift for you. We've seen it time and time again, where the clients who are the most hesitant and the ones who are in our DMS over and over again, will this work for me? I don't know. My GYN said this. Those are the ones who, when they do show up for themselves, have the best success. Like they jump in both feet forward. They is that an expression.

Diane: 49:49

sure

Adina: 49:50

They, they jump in with two feet and they whole ass it. And that's what we love to see. But once you start implementing these things and really supporting yourself day in and day out, things shift dramatically and. This, there's just this huge reveal of like, wow, this is how good I can feel. And this is how I can support my hormonal

Diane: 50:11

Yeah. And you did that too. I like to say, I mean, I didn't, I don't help them directly. It's it's, we're providing tools as nutritional therapy, practitioners as a strength coach and empowering you to change your life, change your situation. And that's just so cool to experience when you're like, whoa, I took charge of my cycle of my health and that opens so much of your life to yourself.

Adina: 50:35

Yeah, you hold the keys, you hold all the keys to your own health.

Diane: 50:38

you have to display that little, little hug in there. Now this last one, we understand this one can also be a sensitive topic, but if you're someone who is starting to think about, supporting your fertility, or you want to conceive soon, um, this is an important conversation to have, this final myth is that you need IUI or IVF. So fertility treatments in order to achieve pregnancy and to achieve it, you know, on your timeline and. What we need to talk about is what is a realistic timeline to get pregnant? So I have definitely had the experience of talking to clients and to friends who are like, I'm, we've been trying. And I asked them so for how long. And so for some, they say three months and I ask, are you, how are you tracking? Oh, I'm not, or just, we're practicing. We're just, we're doing it. We're literally doing it. And it's just hasn't happened yet. And so that is where there may be an opportunity to work with someone, to learn about your natural cycle and to hone in on that ovulatory window. You, again, don't need to necessarily seek out, just strips or test kits and that timeframe, but in three to six months, you know, how fun have fun with it, keep doing it, uh, and learn a little bit more about your cycle. You don't necessarily need to go towards more extreme measures of that.

Adina: 51:53

Yeah. And we know this is an extremely sensitive topic. And if you are a person who conceived your children through IUI IVF, we are not discounting your experience at all. And if you are a person who listens to this episode and then still goes that route, that is totally fine. We just do. Want you to understand, like we've been saying this entire time that you hold more keys to your health and you are led to believe. And even if you do end up going an IUI or an IVF route, eventually having taken measures to support your health day in and day out will make for better outcomes with those procedures as well. So like we've been saying this entire time, we've gotten very far away from understanding our fertility and our ovulation as a measure of our health, whether or not we ovulate is our body telling us whether or not it feels safe to reproduce. And so we've gotten very far away from that in conventional medicine, where oftentimes we look at an issue like that, where you're not ovulating and you're not producing enough progesterone. And we say, okay, well then how can we just inject ovulation? How

Diane: 53:01

the event.

Adina: 53:03

yeah. And instead of taking those steps back to think. Is there first a way that we can better support the body to see if it'll do this on its own. And like we've talked about stress is such a huge factor because again, cortisol and progesterone are inversely related. And so haven't, we all heard stories of someone who was trying was trying, was trying, did all the fertility treatments, and then they just got so exhausted. And finally, when they stopped trying, they went on vacation and it happened for them. And so sometimes with the nature of this path of all of these treatments, it can be such a stressful experience and everything we know about female physiology is pointing to why that is making it even harder for this to take and for you to successfully produce that pregnancy. And so. We know, we know how sensitive this topic is. And again, we are not discounting your experience. we do just want to invite you to think about if we are not ovulating can we first ask why can we view ovulation and a healthy cycle as this fifth vital sign as the same way, our temps, our pulses, the fact that our heartbeats, like, we want to understand why our body doesn't want this for us first.

Diane: 54:24

too often the solution in the conventional space is how to get it to work. Just how to force it without understanding why it's not happening the first ways. And like I was saying earlier too, you might be early in, in trying to, you know, maybe just started trying to conceive last month and haven't had the opportunity to learn about these different phases to hone in on your ovulation if that's happening. And so that is some of the basics that we would encourage you to start with if you are just starting out, because it could also save you a lot of frustration and pain and resources too. Right. So, because sometimes we've noticed that people might seek these out pretty early, There are no small investment in both time, energy and, and financially too. So again, if this is something that you ultimate, you ultimately decide for yourself, that's awesome. But if you are feeling nervous about what that might cost emotionally and financially, like let's, let's see where we can change things right now, because we're going to have to eat. We're going to have to sleep and manage our stress eventually anyway. Right. So doing that, those things can make for an easier time for you later.

Adina: 55:40

I would go back and listen to a lot of our earlier episodes about laying that nutritional foundation and understanding fitness from this perspective, too, because if you're a person who's doing IVF, but you're going to orange theory seven days a week, and you're eating 1000 calories a day, let's start there. You know, like let's tell the body that we're safe through these various measures first and then start to track the cycle and see if any of that is shifting. So there's a lot there and I just. It's important for me to mention this in the context of this conversation, but trigger warning. This is a story about pregnancy loss. Um, when I first came off the pill and tried to start getting pregnant, this was before Minnie was born. I had an extremely early miscarriage, what my GYN referred to as a chemical miscarriage. And it was really traumatic for me because it was my first time trying to get pregnant. And I felt so broken. I felt like will my body ever work? I felt like I didn't even know anyone who had a miscarriage. Nobody had ever told me that this was a thing that happens to so many people. And so I felt very alone. That's first of all, I also had an awful experience with the GYN who delivered that news to me. And so just horrible bedside and that type of thing can be really, really just stressful to a woman. And. Outside of that. So I literally had come off the pill like three months before this, after having been on it for years. Okay. And eating very little and overexercising and I was told, oh, it's just a chemical miscarriage happens all the time. It's totally fine. Just start trying again and now understanding everything I know about female physiology. It's like, of course I was not making progesterone. Of course I was not. I was doing two high intensity hit trainings every single day, seven days a week, I was eating a banana and a 48 ounce coffee for the first seven hours of the day. And how did I think that that was going to be an environment for fertility that's first of all, but to leave that situation feeling like my body is broken, I have no game plan. Like I have no tools, no one told me any information about, and again, we don't know why these things happen, but. Maybe why this might have happened, maybe some tools for how to better support your body. And I'm so grateful that I found this space and I came to this information on my own, and I have two beautiful babies that I felt so grateful to carry in my body. And I felt so healthy when I was carrying them. I've made a reel about this before, but of like, you know, my real about, could I be leaner, sure. But would it be worth, potentially jeopardizing my fertility and my ability to breastfeed my babies. Like, we focus so much on certain things in our society when, I kind of want a little extra body fat right now. Like these are the years where I'm trying to make babies and I'm breastfeeding. And I just want those things to always be options for me that extra body fat that helps me sleep through the night and ensures my ovulation and my fertility sign me up for that.

Diane: 58:54

Yes, putting that fuel in that tank. You were sharing, I didn't know that you had that experience and I appreciate you sharing that with our listeners too, because I know that's something that in talking to, to friends and to clients who've experienced that, that so many people are not talking about this. So perhaps they don't. know what others are going through. And I know it's a very personal thing too, but I'm so happy for you and that I get to love on Abe and Minnie through the, through this.

Adina: 59:21

Yeah. Those

Diane: 59:22

Yeah, the cutest.

Adina: 59:23

the more people that we can get talking about this, the more supported women will feel.

Diane: 59:28

absolutely. Now let's move into some listener questions. So perhaps some of your questions were answered through our episodes so far, but we want to do some, some rapid fire here. Now, first up midol for cramp relief, good or bad from a nutritionist view, actually we had a few questions about cramp relief. Similarly your go-to remedy and can lifestyle manage all cramping or how do I manage major cramps? Oh, okay. So first up, we'll start with midol. You know, that is the go-to all. Gosh, I went deep. In years past, but if you was backing up and say, if you are someone who gets cramps, whether they are kind of just slightly cramping your style, or they are taking you out, remember how we talked about order of operations. We want to walk back to the basics. So this is a sign that things are, um, this is common but not normal. So this is a sign that we want to walk things back to other support. So we talked a lot in this episode about stress. Um, and if you have a lot of high stress, mental, emotional, physical, that is going to lower your progesterone, that latter half of your cycle is also going. If you have a lot of, uh, inflammatory fats and oils in your diet, that's pro-inflammatory. So that's going to also contribute to experiencing more cramps. Some slight discomfort on the first day of menstruation is normal. You might notice that you feel a little more tired that day want to rest, but if you are feeling doubled over, like you need to call out because you are in so much pain, that is not normal. So some of the first things we want you to consider is to look at what you are consuming in the way of refined sugars, processed foods, those oils. That's the biggest one. If you take nothing else away from us, if we're food and lifestyle out of the kinds of oils that you're using. And then also looking at your stress. I know this one is easier, said than done for many of us, but what relationships you have in your life that are really stressful. And how can you adjust those and surround yourself with more supportive people? I know this is kind of going on a tangent here, but it truly is not. Woo woo. As we were saying, and the, your adrenals and your ovaries are going to make progesterone, right? So if your adrenal glands are overburdened with so much stress, chronically, that is going to affect your cycle, it's downstream. So where can you walk back to some of these basics, both in food and lifestyle to support you.

Adina: 1:01:56

yeah. And like we said, what you do now will probably impact your cycle in like three months from now. So while you're kind of supporting these foundations, if you are looking for some symptom relief, I I'm being bad at speaking to this because my cycles have been. So non-symptomatic recently, which is, again, something that you can look forward to when you do support your body in this way. But I don't remember the last time I had cramps. However, growing up, like in high school, when obviously I was not producing enough progesterone, I was feeling real crappy all the time. I was eating a highly processed diet, very low fat. This is something I struggled with in a major way. Like I would miss days of school all the time for cramps and couldn't sleep through the night. That was like insomnia and cramps were what I really, really struggled with with my cycle growing up. And so things that can be helpful. We love heating pads. I love movement like light gentle movement can help kind of just break things up and get things moving. And ginger, like high dose ginger can be helpful as well. That's just anti-inflammatory and can calm things down a little bit. Is there something that you have as like a go-to for clients

Diane: 1:03:09

yeah. Hot water bottle and heating pad. Definitely. But let's say it's summer and I don't want to sit in my hot living room with a high heating pad. Um, I might go into a bath for a little bit epsom salt bath. That's really helpful. Um, but in addition to ginger, Ginger and peppermint. And we're going to get into this one in a second too. Have you experienced period, poops. Um, but I guess two of you, if you do feel like it is so significant, you want to take something, I'd be more of a fan of an aspirin instead of an NSAID. So that's where I would go. If you do need something like that right now, while you work on those basics. This is another common question. And someone asked what's the deal with period poops. Yikes. So, if you are not familiar, so period, poops might be like that day or before your dot drops before your cycle starts, or maybe the first couple of days you notice an increase in transit time, maybe looser stool. So I do hear this very often.

Adina: 1:04:08

I love that clinical. You get like

Diane: 1:04:10

Until I say my dot drops.

Adina: 1:04:12

I know. No. Right. It's like your dot drops and then the increase in transit time. And looser stools

Diane: 1:04:17

Oh yeah, you have to shit. It was like, I blended my, uh, like practitioner, like session mode into this anyway. So what's behind the period poops. So prosteglandins is like a hormone, like substance that's going to cause that cramp or more motility your uterus is trying to shed that lining. Right. So in order to do that, it's got to kind of, I'm like, this is not visual, but I'm like squeezing my, it looks like I've

Adina: 1:04:41

Diane's doing like a gross visual with her

Diane: 1:04:43

Yeah. Gross visual. So your uterus is trying to shed its lining, but because of its proximity to your GI tract, right. You might notice some kind of cramping and diarrhea, loose stool increase in transit times. So that's behind that. And so you might, I mean, some slight changes in your BM normal or that's fine, but if you're noticing diarrhea and other gut cramping, that's something we want to work on. So we want to, again, backup and support that root cause I always, even when someone comes to me and has a lot of period problems, we always start with gut healing first because of the

Adina: 1:05:23

Yeah, this is one also like you mentioned, with the last one, getting those inflammatory oils out will make a big shift here to prostoglandins are going to be in higher amounts if there is large inflammation in the body. So lowering that inflammation with an anti-inflammatory diet. So focusing on those quality animal foods, focusing on those quality saturated fats, again, we busted this myth early on, but those are going to be much more stable and much more anti-inflammatory and that is going to make a big shift.

Diane: 1:05:54

yes. Next step. How does it impact sleep insomnia? So how does your period, I'm guessing, I'm wondering how your, how your period affects sleep and the latter half of your cycle. Yeah. We both have experienced this one.

Adina: 1:06:11

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like early on, we used to text about this too.

Diane: 1:06:15

can't sleep.

Adina: 1:06:17

this didn't shift for me till more recently in the last few years where I really shifted into more nutrient density, really supporting metabolism and all that good stuff. And so, like we said that back half of the cycle progesterone needs to be the main event. And so many of us are not making enough progesterone. And the thing about progesterone is that is, it is extremely important in offsetting estrogen. And it is that anti-inflammatory hormone. It is that pro thyroid hormone. It is that pro sleep that really supportive of good mental health hormone. And so when we struggle with insomnia in that luteal phase, in that second half of the cycle leading right up to your period, like that's how I would know I was getting my period. I was like, oh, I didn't sleep through the night last night, like, oh, okay. Um,

Diane: 1:07:02

you have blood sugar, dysregulation, insulin resistance on top of that, that's I mean, you might have even rougher time yeah.

Adina: 1:07:08

Yeah. So things we want to be looking to are, like we said, really lowering stress through managing stress in your lifestyle, but also lowering that stress through a super nutrient dense, supportive diet, lowering stress through fitness as well. So focusing on two to three days of a well-designed strength training program, supporting metabolism through all that good stuff, and that really helps to get progesterone going. And then another thing I would think about too, because we know that we need to offset that estrogen with progesterone. So oftentimes this is a picture of that estrogen dominance as well, whether it's relative, just because the progesterone is so low or that excess estrogen. So I would really look at the food that you're eating. Like what in there is estrogenic, are you eating a ton of soy?

Diane: 1:07:52

do you have a lot of plastic in your environment? Fragrance?

Adina: 1:07:55

Yeah. Look at your personal care products. Look at your diet and see if. Super estrogenic and try to lower some of that estrogen load there. Um, obviously if this is something you really, really struggle with both of those things, we work on with our clients inside of our programs. And so when you really want to take that holistic approach, it's not just like, okay, I'm going to stop using plastic and then I'll sleep through the night. It's like, we need to look at this whole picture of lowering that inflammation, supporting estrogen clearance, supporting progesterone production. And that environmental piece is a part of it, but it is this holistic big picture of supporting better cycle health.

Diane: 1:08:33

yes, we have, we both work on this very closely with clients. I just get so excited when I've had clients tell me that they had irregular or missing periods and poor sleep. And they're like, not only am I regular on the regular, like pooping regularly and getting my period, but I'm also sleeping like a baby that makes me so excited because when you've struggled with poor sleep, it's so frustrating and just kind of laying there tired, but wired. And it's maddening. I definitely experienced that in the past.

Adina: 1:09:01

some people get offended by the expression sleeping like a baby, because some people have babies that don't

Diane: 1:09:06

Hmm. Oh, my B

Adina: 1:09:08

my, yeah, my babies actually, thank God are sleepers, but I feel like we should shift that expression to sleeping like a husband, because I don't know about you, but like every man I know, just like passes out,

Diane: 1:09:22

you'll go. I'm going to bed now and

Adina: 1:09:24

yeah. Boom.

Diane: 1:09:26

goodbye. hilarious. Yeah, he can sleep through anything and I used to be a light sleeper, but it's so funny. He'll just knock out, sleeping like a husband.

Adina: 1:09:36

Yeah. And I think that a lot of that is because of this because they don't have those hormonal fluctuations. So they are less sensitive to these large blood sugar dips and those big hormonal

Diane: 1:09:46

yeah, absolutely. That I retired that after our abs episode, let's here, it's back. Next step alternative birth control, non pill, like NuvaRing and their effect on ovulation on cycle.

Adina: 1:10:00

So when I read this question, I thought it meant like birth controls that are not the pill, but are still. Kind of have a hormone component to them. So things like NuvaRing, maybe IUD, that type of thing. Cause we talked specifically about the pill, but then outside of the pill.

Diane: 1:10:16

Yeah, the patch insert.

Adina: 1:10:18

yeah, it doesn't sound like, this is asking about fertility awareness. Um, so outside of the pill, we have things like the IUD, the copper IUD things that have less hormones or even like the mini pill, that's just progestin. So make sure you understand that it is not progesterone. It is a synthetic progestin that does something completely different in the body than progesterone. And again, you are not, not the same and you are not making your own progesterone when you were on it, but things like the IUD or like the hormonal IUD or the copper IUD, they work a little bit differently than the pill. So the pill, like we said, might trick your body into thinking you're menopausal. So suppressing your own natural hormone production suppressing your natural ovulation. You might still ovulate on something like the copper IUD or even a hormonal IUD, because it is locally in the uterus. And what it's doing is just making it a hostile environment for sperm. So I have had people tell me that they switched from the pill to an IUD and their sex drive improved a little bit because some people will still ovulate on the copper IUD or a hormonal ID or something like that, because it's not necessarily suppressing that ovulatory function. Some people might not ovulate because when there is that hostile environment in the uterus, it might communicate to the body shut down ovulation. Like there shouldn't be a baby in here. So it's different for different people there with that. You always want to consider again, if that's something you're looking to, you could try it out. And if it feels better than the pill, it might be a better option for you with the copper IUD, like copper is a mineral and our minerals all need to work synergistically. And they're really important for. Metabolic function on a whole, so

Diane: 1:12:00

or buddies that we need to consider. So that's what you mean

Adina: 1:12:03

yeah, exactly. So like with copper, if you are putting a copper IUD in your body, you do want to kind of think about how that's going to impact your other minerals, which are so important for ultimately your fertility health and your metabolic health, but yeah, can be a better option. It's kind of it's individual to the person. Um, our, our favorite option is always going to be fertility awareness method, but there is certainly a learning curve with it. Um, we want you to know that you are amazing and you're capable of tracking your cycle and managing your fertility in that way, but we know it can be, um, it can be a little intimidating if you've never done it before.

Diane: 1:12:39

We can do separate episodes about that. And I think something that people are not aware of is that fertility awareness method or fam is 99% effective when used correctly, if you are trying to avoid pregnancy. But as we've mentioned also in this episode, it also can be really helpful if you're trying to hone in on your fertile window and to achieve a pregnancy, to catch a baby. So this next question asks, getting cycle back after babies slash postpartum hormones and health while breastfeeding. Oh, you had a few at postpartum.

Adina: 1:13:12

yeah, like we mentioned, last episode, we're going to have to do an entire episode on postpartum nourishment on the whole like food and movement. But for the purposes of this episode, just like eat enough and sleep enough. It's so hard when you are postpartum. And those two things sound crazy and like unachievable, but prep, foods. Seek the support of your family and try to get sleep whenever you can. Those are really the things that are going to support, lowering that stress load and telling your body it's safe to resume your cycle again. Like, like we said, this entire time, your body is trying to protect you. If you've just gone through the stressful event of birthing a baby, and now you are going through the stressful event that puts a huge demand on your metabolism to breastfeed a baby. The only thing your body is trying to do by suppressing your fertility is protect you. Like it just wants you to take care of that baby. You just birthed and take care of yourself. So do that to the best of your ability.

Diane: 1:14:10

yes. When I was transitioning off the pill again, I think this is another one that would be an excellent standalone episode, because we did talk about the pill here, but, we wanted to give space to talking about your period just generally as a whole, so same notes as well. Hormonal birth control is going to deplete a lot of nutrients, especially when you're on it for a longterm, like many women are maybe for several years, a decade, right? So hormonal birth control contains a lot of iron, which is going to mess with mineral status and therefore impact your metabolism. We talked, in this episode about how the pill can affect your mood and your libido, but also to some women experience, more weight gain in when they are on the pill more than they would like, and just don't feel at home in their body. So that is another common side effect of the pill. So you want to think about how the pill is going to affect that. We recommend, if you are able to, to work with someone, to help you figure out what your mineral needs are and what opportunities healing opportunities are present. So I think Adina will agree here, when I have clients who are thinking about transitioning off of hormonal birth control, whether it's just they're done with it, they've had enough or they want to start thinking about nourishing their fertility. I try to encourage them to think about that transition as early as possible and giving themselves extra nutrition and nourishment. So through sleep movement and through their diet before they come off, because that transition is going to make for an easier, smoother transition off and to getting their natural cycle back faster and, easier. Honestly,

Adina: 1:15:45

Yeah. I mean, I shared my story earlier, but man, I wish I had known this information. Like I wish it, wasn't your provider telling you, like, okay, you're ready to start trying to get pregnant, just stop taking your pill and get started. Um, there's so much more that, you know, we need to be tactful with this. We need, there's so much more that can support your body for better outcomes, whether that is fertility or whether that's just trying to successfully come off the pill. How, how many stories do we hear of our clients with PCOS who were put on the pill because they were told it was. Fix their symptoms and fix their cycle and they're on it for so many years. And then they decide they want to come off and they feel so much worse and they go to their provider and the provider says, okay, you know what I can do for you. I can put you back on the

Diane: 1:16:30

yeah, let's try this other pill.

Adina: 1:16:32

Yeah. And so we understand that supporting the body while you are transitioning, we need a strategy there because of those mineral needs, because of that inflammation, because of that impact it's had on your cycle. Like, we need to get your cycle back up and running. We need to tell your ovaries how to do what they gotta do. Again, like they've, they've been offline for a while, so let's hold their hands. And that's a cute cartoon. I'm picturing holding those ovaries hands and just make that transition a little smoother for you.

Diane: 1:17:03

Yeah. We talked about how the pill affects, minerals, but upstream from that is also how it affects the gut too. So, I mean, so many of my clients who have been on hormonal birth control for years also have gut issues They're taking synthetic estrogen. And so if they don't have things going regular on the regular with their, their poop shoot, then that is going to set them up for some estrogen dominance and the symptoms associated with that after the pill. So if you are able to, or interested in working with a practitioner, we highly recommend it. We both support clients in this space. When I transitioned off of the pill, I thought about, you know, a few months before I decided to finally stop taking it to, um, give myself some extra TLC with that in mind. This next one, again, another one that I think we can do a full episode on, but someone asked Adina's take on cycle, syncing your workouts from the perspective of strength, coach

Adina: 1:17:58

Yes. Ma'am. So I said this before, but I think that this is a place where the holistic health space is kind of missing the mark. And so is the conventional fitness space so the conventional fitness space is telling you, go, go, go push through it. There's not really much attention to oh, but this is my menstrual phase. And so for that, I am a little more reserved. I am weaker. I am not recovering as well, or I'm in my luteal phase. So again, I'm not recovering as well, or I'm leading up to my period. I'm feeling more tired and fatigued. And so that is not enough attention being paid to the cycle. And I think on the other end of it in the holistic space, we see a lot of, oh, you're in your menstrual phase, just walking and gentle stretching or, oh, you're, ovulating great time to take a high intensity class or, oh, you know, it's just such a. It's so disjointed, right? And so if you are on a well-designed strength training program, that is two to three days a week, that is low rep. That is high rest. You should not need to shift very much about your workouts throughout your cycle, except for that intensity, just, just scaling up and down the intensity. So maybe lighter loads, more focused on form, more focused on some mobility in that first, in like your menstrual phase. And then leading up to ovulation. I love having people work on skills because then when we do ovulate and you have all that energy and power, that's a great time to PR. And so if you've spent the time leading up to it, working on those skills, oftentimes that goes much smoother because you've nailed down the movement patterns. And now you're putting a super heavy load over your head, or you are working on a skill and increasing load there. And so that can be really beneficial and then just transitioning gently out of that. As things start to wind down towards menstruation again. So in that luteal phase, maybe you're increasing rest periods a little bit. Maybe you're lightening the load slightly, and it's more of a de-load week, but listen to your body. Ultimately, that's the most important thing, and you'll kind of get into a stride there and some weeks are going to look different than others. So usually your body will clue you into when your.is dropping. If you start to feel super weak load, like I always say, if you want to know, if your period's coming, just try to put a heavy press over your head and you'll feel like it's going to crush you and be like, okay, period tomorrow. Um, so yeah, it's, there's a lot of nuance to it, but ultimately if you're following a good strength training program and honoring rest and recovery, you shouldn't have to shift too much.

Diane: 1:20:28

you have this next one might be kind of a, a quickie and I have a hot take here. So hormonal imbalance. Why, why are there normally no custom approach in traditional medicine? So wondering why there isn't a more attention perhaps to supporting hormonal imbalances in a traditional medicine while

Adina: 1:20:48

think they meant conventional medicine because when I think of traditional medicine, I think of like traditional Chinese medicine. But I think that, yeah,

Diane: 1:20:55

I think they might conventional medicine there. So the Western.

Adina: 1:20:57

the traditional conventional Western model.

Diane: 1:21:00

So my theory here is there's not money and there isn't money and you taking charge of your cycle. If you feel empowered to naturally understand your cycle, and you're not refilling that prescription every month for your hormonal birth control, they've lost a customer that might sound somewhat extreme to some folks. But, oh my gosh, I think I mentioned in one of our first episodes, I wanted to be a pharmaceutical sales rep. Like again, these things, medicine, modern medicine is incredible in so many ways, but that is just the go-to narrative in most GYN, offices. Um, and that is to get on the pill.

Adina: 1:21:37

And pharma has a large hand in the medical curriculum. Like your doctor is learning how to prescribe medication. They are not learning how to support your body from the root cause. So we need to understand that when we do go to a doctor, they have been trained to prescribe medication. Um, Dani is actually reading the empire of pain. Have you heard of it? It's like this thick book by one of his favorite authors about the Sackler dynasty and how the opioid epidemic got started through drug marketing. And it's fascinating, but yeah, it's just like, when we think about the conventional medical model, we need to understand that it is designed for emergencies and it is designed to prescribe medication. So when we are telling you. Buying your food from a farmer and sleeping nine hours and lowering your stress is going to support better hormone outcomes. Like there's not really any money in that, so that it's just not going to fit this model and it's not their fault. It's not your doctor's fault. It's just the way that this is set up in our country. So

Diane: 1:22:37

right. Some of them do want to do better and they also don't have the time. I mean, they are so booked in so many of these offices, so it's easier to just say, all right, you have acne, you have cramps here, take this pill. And so with that model too, they're going to see you as parts instead of a holistic person with so much nuance. And, um, that's just too unfortunate.

Adina: 1:22:59

Yeah. It's not what their job is. And again, it's set up with these insurance companies in minds where they only get five minutes with you. It's not, they're not trying to rush you out the door. It's just, this is what the model looks like right now. And it's really frustrating, but that's just why we're so passionate about providing this information for you because we can sit here for an hour, an hour and a half. Dispel these myths and teach you everything that we've spent years and years learning about the female body and how to better support it. So thank you guys for showing up and listening because we love to share this information and it's been so amazing to see how you are receiving it.

Diane: 1:23:37

I know we went deep and again, this was our first episode specifically about periods and about cycling sex hormones. We know there's some other questions we didn't have the opportunity to get to, but we will be doing many future episodes around this topic. If there are some specifically that you want to hear about first do let us know via DM. Uh, we love to hear what is resonating with you, what you want to learn more about, and we look forward to helping you take charge of your fertility, whether you want to avoid catching a baby, or you're trying to catch one.

Adina: 1:24:07

and oh, okay. When you are listening to this enrollment for strength training for happy hormones is open probably for like one more day. Yes. So if you are a person who's trying to shift your workouts from cycle stressing to cycle supportive, my community is amazing. I love the women that I get to teach how to get strong and support them in building muscle, balancing their hormones and boost in that metabolism because we know metabolism is at the root of everything when it comes to our health. And so this is a great first step. If you are a person trying to seek out fitness that better supports optimal cycle health.

Diane: 1:24:44

Yeah, I love it. So if you're a last minute, Linda, and you've been thinking about training with Adina I highly recommend it. So get in there before those doors slam shut, and we'll see you next week.

Adina: 1:24:55

See you next week.

Diane: 1:24:56

Aye.