THE BIG PICTURE = HAPPY HORMONES
As a woman, one of the most important things you can do for your health is to start paying attention to your period. Your period is like a road map that guides your health and wellness choices each month.
Our favorite MBODY8 mantra around here is this: When you take care of your mombody, YOUR MOMBODY WILL TAKE CARE OF YOU.
To get started, let’s imagine ourselves in elementary school art class. You know that feeling when you stand up close to a mosaic and it looks like a bunch of random, small pieces of glass placed in no particular order or pattern? But then, like magic, when you take a few steps back from the mosaic you finally see “the big picture” revealed to you? You realize that those small pieces of glass were used to create a much larger picture.
Now, I want you to take a few steps back and look at the health of your mombody through the lens of your 28-day monthly cycle. Yes, your monthly period is “the big picture” of your overall health and it tells you everything you need to know.
That’s right, your period is going to be your guide to the healthiest, most vibrant version of you because when you have a healthy period, you can be certain your hormones are balanced, and happy too.
Let me ask you this:
Are you someone that suffers from a painful, debilitating period that leaves you feeling horrible every month? Or are you someone who wouldn’t necessarily call your period “debilitating” but can relate to feeling cranky, bloated, irritable, anxious, or unhappy as your period approaches? Then let these symptoms of PMS be your wake-up call (a red flag!) that something has to change.
A healthy period depends on maximizing the chances of your hormones coming back into balance and minimizing those choices that knock your body out of balance. As you progress through the program you are going to become an expert on making the best food and exercise choices that make sense for each of the four phases of your monthly cycle - this is called cycle syncing (a term coined and trademarked by Alisa Vitti).
Cycle syncing is the easiest way to take care of your mombody for lasting health and wellness because you are working in partnership with your mombody, never against it. Advocates of cycle syncing claim it has changed their lives and it’s been so wonderful to me personally, that I’ve incorporated some of Alisa’s major principles into this program.
Some exciting things to look out for as you begin cycle syncing: a smooth period, health and wellness that feels effortless, and a face that radiates with a vibrancy that only comes when you take care of yourself from the inside out.
The 4 phases of your cycle are: follicular, ovulation, luteal, and menstruation. Each particular phase asks something different of your mombody, and REBUILD will guide you through each one.
Here’s what to start looking for as you continue through this program:
The color of your blood during your period is VERY important. Your period is a tangible, monthly symbol that tells you if you are on the right track. That’s why it’s so important to look before you flush! When you are truly hormonally balanced (and therefore, truly healthy) your blood flow will be bright, cherry-red in color. It will have very little clotting and it will last 3-7 days. If your period is different from this description, then you have a fantastic baseline from which to measure your progress as you start to give your body more of what it needs, and less of what it doesn’t. As you do this, the color of your blood will return to bright, cherry red with an easy flow - not too heavy, not too light. (Check the FAQ section of this program to figure out what the other colors of your period could mean).
Bloating, pain, pimples, cramps that keep you in bed, irritability, and all the lovely things we consider “normal” parts of PMS are a clear sign you are hormonally imbalanced, and your body needs help getting back into balance. As you do this, all symptoms of PMS will disappear. Seriously, this pain-free (PMS-free) way of life can be yours.
Is weight loss hard for you? It doesn’t have to be. This is the best part of your 28-day cycle - you can learn how to leverage your hormones to work for you, not against you. You will learn how to do this through exercise and nutrition strategies tailor suited to what your mombody is saying it needs throughout the four different phases of your cycle. Turns out, your mombody calls for different food and exercise choices during each of the four phases. I was so tired of the roller coaster of exercising hard to make up for my poor nutrition choices when cravings hit the week before my period. It’s been so freeing now that I’ve been able to successfully jump off this crazy train for good. And speaking of cravings,,,
Do you have cravings that control you and possibly sabotage all of your hard work throughout the month? I hear women say they can be “good” at exercise and nutrition for a couple weeks a month and then they blow it all the last two weeks. It doesn’t have to be this way.
It’s amazing how much information your period can tell you about your well-being. When I wanted to feel better quickly, and up-level my health in a whole new way, I was amazed that making small changes could have such a major impact on fixing my pms. It seemed too good to be true. This is by far the easiest way to take care of myself, and you will see it feels effortless once you get into the rhythm.
The key to optimal mombody health is having a healthy monthly cycle. You cannot have full mombody health without a healthy period. And you shouldn’t want to, either.
Get ready, because cycle syncing is going to rock your wellness world.
Time for videos explaining cycle syncing and how this is the perfect way to MBody8 your mombody. There is also a written summary of the videos below for reference.
THE ENDOCRINE SYSTEM & YOUR MENSTRUAL CYCLE (THE BIG PICTURE)
KEY items covered in the video:
Your endocrine system is comprised of glands, organs and hormones talking to one another. Some describe this system as an “orchestra” - any part of it playing out of tune will throw the whole thing off. The important hormones to pay attention to here are cortisol, insulin, and oxytocin. In other words, when you implement ways to control stress (cortisol), improve blood sugar levels (insulin), and seek out ways to feel good about life (oxytocin is the feel-good hormone), you will automatically have a spillover effect that balances the other sex hormones in your mombody.
When you support your endocrine system, you are automatically supporting your 28-day cycle. And vice versa - there are also profound effects on your endocrine system when you support your cycle.
In this program, we are doing everything we can to support your menstrual cycle because the health of your period IS the big picture of health. This IS the path to mombody wellness.
Your monthly 28-day cycle consists of a predictable pattern that repeats itself every single month. There are four phases within your cycle: follicular, ovulation, luteal, and menstruation.
Your sex hormones are testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone. A woman’s sex hormones fluctuate in a predictable pattern over the course of a month. This is important to point out because a man’s hormone levels fluctuate in a predictable pattern over the course of 24 hours. Our hormonal patterns are very different from men, while in our reproductive years.
You have two clocks. Men and women both have a circadian clock (our hormones wake us up with the sun and make us sleepy at night). But only women have an infradian clock - this is the clock that’s tied to our menstrual cycle. This clock is vital to pay attention to because it tells us how to live our healthiest, most vibrant life.
Each week we will teach you about one phase of your menstrual cycle and all the best ways to support that system through our four pillars of health: EAT, MOVE, REST, DETOX. Again, it’s all about balancing cortisol, insulin and oxytocin first so the other key players like your sex hormones can more easily follow suit.
Your body heals quickly. Be prepared to have a healthy, vibrant, well-balanced gorgeous mombody in very little time and very little effort than what you are probably used to. When you listen to your body and then get out of its way, your wellness can truly soar.
Listen to your mombody all month long and give it all the good things it needs to feel healthy and amazing. When this happens, your period becomes an easy part of being a woman and no longer the curse we’ve been taught to believe it is.
If you would like to explore more ways to support your cycle (believe me, this is just the tip of the iceberg) then I highly suggest checking out the books In the Flo by Alisa Vitti and The 28 Days Lighter Diet by Ellen Barrett. The best information on how to have a healthy period is coming from those books and is the basis for “the big picture” part of this program.
We’ve never met a woman in balance that has to deal with weight issues, pms, or anything else that makes your momlife harder than it has to be.
Many moms in their reproductive years do NOT have a period for medical or birth control reasons and that’s ok. You can easily skip over the parts of the program that teach about cycle syncing - which are the parts known as “the big picture.” Don’t worry because there is still so much mombody goodness to discover in “the small details” section woven throughout this program.