83: Planning Food and Exercise For Your Monthly Cycle
Ever heard of cycle syncing? It’s making dietary and exercise adjustments based on the phases of your menstrual cycle. Hormonal fluctuations influence how your body uses carbs, stores fat and handles exercise. You can adapt your diet and exercise routine according to these changes so that you’re working WITH your body and not unknowingly making things harder on yourself.
Listen to this week’s podcast to hear how to plan your meals and your workouts according to your cycle. There are some tidbits for menopausal women too!
EPISODE 83: Planning Food and Exercise For Your Monthly Cycle
SHOW NOTES
(0:00) Intro
Welcome back to the club!
Feast 2 Fast is starting on November 2nd!
Today we are talking about how to better customize your diet and your exercise intensity in relation to your cycle.
Hormones fluctuate throughout the month and those fluctuations influence how our bodies use carbs, store fat, have cravings and handle exercise.
There are better times for certain foods and certain exercises based on your monthly cycle— some people call it cycle syncing.
In the episode Circadian Rhythm Feeding and Fasting, I talked about how it is normal for us to change our diets and fasting times seasonally.
(4:29) The Two Phases of the Cycle:
Generally speaking there are two main phases of your cycle:
The first half is the Follicular Phase (associated with estrogen).
The second half is the Luteal Phase (associated with progesterone).
You could break into 4 phases (your period, the follicular, ovulation and luteal). I’m going to try and keep it as simple as possible and hit the highlights of the two main phases.
(4:48) The Follicular Phase:
Known for rising estrogen as your body prepares to mature and release an egg for ovulation.
Once you get through your periods and your estrogen levels are rising your body can handle more carbs and more intense exercise.
Estrogen:
Estrogen has insulin sensitizing properties, meaning your cells are more insulin sensitive during this phase.
They will more readily and efficiently use glucose (also known as sugar).
It’s when the cells are NOT receptive to receiving glucose and so the body pumps out more insulin trying to get the cells to let in the sugar for energy.
Insulin is an energy storing (or fat storing hormone) so we don’t want the body to have to pump out a lot of insulin.
Dietary considerations:
We want to eat foods that support healthy estrogen levels - cruciferous veggies are wonderful for that.So you want to incorporate things like broccoli and brussel sprouts and cauliflower regularly in your diet. These foods have balancing effects on estrogen. They help your body metabolize and detoxify estrogen safely and efficiently so that you don’t become estrogen dominant.
If you’ve heard of seed cycling, it’s the practice of eating certain seeds depending on the phase to help promote and balance hormone levels. In the follicular phase the seeds you want to focus on are flax seeds and pumpkin seeds. Flax seeds can naturally support healthy estrogen production. They also contain a component called lignans which can help bind to excess estrogen to be taken out of the body. The pumpkin seeds are full of zinc which actually help the body prepare to make progesterone for the next phase.
In the follicular phase you would incorporate 1-2 tablespoons each of freshly ground flax and pumpkin seed.
But You could easily add these seeds to yogurt, smoothies, oatmeal, chia pudding, salads, you could make pesto with them. Lots of good options.
Follicular phase is the phase that can handle more carbs.
Your body is a little more insulin sensitive and is going to use carbs a little more efficiently. That’s not a greenlight to binge out on carbs for two weeks but if you’ve got a target carb range (like we do in Feast 2 Fast) you could be at the higher end of that during this phase.
When it comes to exercise, the follicular phase is when you want to do your more challenging, more intense exercise. Like this is the time to HIIT it - get it?
Estrogen is an anabolic hormone which means it’s a building up hormone. You can build more muscle and build it faster with rising estrogen.
As you get closer to ovulation your testosterone is also going to peak which helps in strength training too. Testosterone is also an anabolic hormone so you have both of these working in your favor when it comes to working out, endurance and building up strength.
Another reason it’s good to do your most intense working out in the earlier part of your cycle is because these anabolic hormones like estrogen and testosterone help counteract cortisol which is catabolic hormones and the hormone of stress.
So to sum up for the follicular phase: You want to get plenty of cruciferous veggies, incorporate flax and pumpkin seed, you can eat more carbs, and it’s the time to do harder, more intense workouts.
(13:29) The Luteal Phase:
Progesterone is the more dominant hormone. This is the time when cravings are more common but unfortunately the body doesn’t handle sugar and starch as well.
Where healthy estrogen can help the cells be more insulin sensitive, progesterone can make them a little more resistant.
In this phase you want really focus in on protein, fiber and healthy fats.
Seed cycling:
You want to focus on sunflower and sesame seeds. The sunflower seeds have things like selenium and vitamin e which can help boost progesterone production and lessen PMS symptoms. And the sesame seeds have some those lignans that can help bind up excess estrogen.
You would incorporate those in the same way that you would the flax and the pumpkin in the first half of your cycle. 1-2 Tablespoons of each per day.
When it comes to exercise, this is the time to take it more easy.
Focus on things like walking, yoga and maybe some light resistance training training but nothing too hardcore. This is a more catabolic phase. Your body will be a little more sensitive to stress at this time and so you don’t want to over stress it with hard exercise whether that’s super intense cardio or weight training. Your body won’t recover as well, you’ll be a little more tired and less energetic in this phase and so, again, this is not the time to try and crush it in the gym.
Quick overview for luteal phase: Focus on protein and healthy fats for blood sugar regulation, keep carbs under control, sunflower and sesame seeds for seed cycling and lighter, more restorative exercise like walking and yoga.
(17:07) Now I know you perimenopause and menopause ladies are like what about me?
Things to keep in mind during perimenopause is that your hormones are a little less predictable, there’s a lot of shifting going on. That in itself is a little stressful to the body.
Plus a lot of your hormone making responsibilities will be taken over by the adrenals and so more than anything in the perimenopausal and menopausal years when it comes to hormones is making sure to watch stress.
Lots of stress and high cortisol will make your peri and menopause experience a nightmare. It’s also not a time that the body is using energy as efficiently, your body will lean toward being more insulin resistant and not using carbs as well.
Walking is one of the best exercises you can do because it doesn’t increase cortisol, in fact it helps lower it, AND it helps sensitize the body to insulin. I would make walking a given and then if you don’t have too much other stress in your life you can layer in more intense exercise, but walking is golden. Put on a good podcast or some good jams and then take a nice long walk.
And I would say this is true for post menopausal - probably not going to utilize carbs as well as you once could, but if you stay in that low to moderate range, exercise regularly (especially walking) and manage stress, you’ll help keep your adrenals producing hormones, your fat as an endocrine organ producing some estrogen (but not too much).
Now you can still seed cycle as a menopausal and postmenopausal women as a holistic way to help your body produce hormones naturally.
Since you don’t have a regular cycle it’s recommended to use the phases of the moon as a guide to cycle dates - so day 1 would be the new moon and with day one of their cycle falling on the new moon.
You could also add Blackcurrant seed oil or Evening Primrose oil as a way to help boost progesterone production, you can take that in the second half of the cycle along with seed cycling or on it’s own.
(25:38)Outro & Disclaimer
Thanks for listening! Have a healthy and blessed week!