Welcome to the SYNC Your Life podcast episode #2! On this podcast, we will be diving into all things women’s hormones to help you learn how to live in alignment with your female physiology. Too many women are living with their check engine lights flashing. You know you feel “off” but no matter what you do, you can’t seem to have the energy, or lose the weight, or feel your best. This podcasts exists to shed light on the important topic of healthy hormones and cycle syncing, to help you gain maximum energy in your life.
In today’s episode, I’m giving you an overview of the four phases of the menstrual cycle. I’ve learned that most women don’t know how good their bodies are designed to feel, and don’t know what to expect during each phase of their cycle. We dive into each phase in detail:
Menstrual phase: When this starts, what it entails, what your energy is like, what tasks are best for this time of month, and what types of workouts you should be doing when it happens.
Follicular phase: What should be happening as your body produces a follicle, along with your overall mood outlook and exercise focus.
Ovulation phase: An in-depth look at what happens in this 48-72 hour window. This phase really is the most pertinent to your cycle and hormone health, yet most women don’t know if/when it’s occurring.
Luteal Phase: When this phase starts, how you’re likely feeling for these several days, and what workouts are best for optimizing your hormones at this time in your cycle.
If you realize your cycle sounds nothing like this overview, or you feel something is “off,” check out the FREE hormone imbalance quiz at sync.jennyswisher.com.
To learn more about the SYNC Digital Course, check out jennyswisher.com.
Let’s be friends outside of the podcast! Send me a message or schedule a call so I can get to know you better. You can reach out at https://jennyswisher.com/contact-2/.
Enjoy the show!
Episode Webpage: jennyswisher.com/podcast
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Welcome to the SYNC Your Life podcast. I’m your host, Jenny Swisher, certified personal trainer, nutritionist, hormone health expert and girl mom, I believe all women should be able to understand how our bodies are designed to feel. And I teach you how to sync your lifestyle to your cycle to reach maximum energy. You deserve to feel your best and this podcast is going to teach you how. Let’s dive in!
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This podcast is sponsored by the sink digital course, to take the free hormone imbalance quiz to see what your symptoms could mean about your health. Visit SYNC dot jennyswisher.com. That’s SYNC s y n c dot Jenny swisher.com.
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Hi, ladies, welcome to this edition of the SYNC Your Life Podcast. I’m so excited to be doing a solo round today. That means it’s just me, yours truly talking about a subject that is near and dear to my heart, the four phases of the menstrual cycle. This is something that really we kick things off in my digital course talking about the menstrual cycle and what it’s supposed to look like. Because I’ve found in working with dozens upon dozens of female clients over the years, that most women don’t know how good their bodies are designed to feel. And most of them don’t understand what their menstrual cycle should look like. Maybe they’re dealing with irregular cycles or painful periods or migraine headaches, or they’re coming up with a birth control pill. And they’re not exactly sure what to expect, you know, most of us if not all of us have had some form of sex education. But I know when I look back on those middle school years, you know, 30 years ago, I realized that they really didn’t dive too deep at least at that at you know that day and age. So we we learned about you know, the parts of the female body and the parts of the male body, you know what sex is? And what sex does reproduction, but we didn’t really dive super deep into what happens. What is a woman going through on a week to week basis over the course of her cycle? Is she you know, when is the egg being produced? When is she? When is she most fertile? When is she potentially dealing with low energy or low fatigue or those types of things. So what I want to do is I want to take a look at what the ideal menstrual cycle would look like. So for a healthy cycling female that is seeing very little hormone imbalance, if any, what would it look like for her? What are the four phases of her cycle? So let me just start by saying that disclaimer, we’re going to dive into you know what an average menstrual cycle a 28 day cycle would look like. But please know that I don’t think I’ve ever met a woman who’s like, yeah, I have a 28 day cycle like clockwork, it’s very, very rare in our in our time of life. So there’s a lot of women out there that are dealing with short cycles, they might bleed every two to three weeks. There are other women who are out there dealing with long cycles, maybe they don’t have a period for 45 days or more. So anything between I think it’s 23 and 40 days is considered normal. So just know that even though we’re going to be talking about it as if it’s a 28 day cycle, that that’s usually not the norm for most women, especially for women dealing with some sort of imbalance. So okay, let’s talk about it.
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So obviously, it’s probably easiest to start with day one of the menstrual cycle and day one happens when you start your bleed. So if you hear terminology, I know sometimes when women come into my course, and they’re in this Facebook support group, they’ll say, you know, I saw women talking about what day of their cycle they’re on, how do I know what day of my cycle I’m on. And it sounds you know, so simple, but I just want to make sure I clarify for anyone who’s unsure, when you start your bleed each month, that first day of bleeding is considered day one of your cycle. So your cycle is essentially starting over. The uterus is shedding its lining, the body has decided there is no pregnancy. And so it’s going to sort of reset, right, it’s going to clean out and reset the process for the next month. So the first favorite phase of your cycle is known as the menstrual phase. So like I said, it’s when the bleeding begins. We call that day one. And what are your hormones doing when that happens? Well, a lot of women can probably raise their hand and say, yep, I feel that way. When I say that, you know, at this point your cycle, your hormones are at their lowest. So estrogen and progesterone have hit rock bottom, which is actually the trigger for your uterus to shed its lining. So a lot of times, women will say they feel extra tired. They feel like they just kind of want to curl up and watch some Netflix in their sweatpants. Like they’re feeling a little bit more introverted at this point in their cycle. And so I like to tell women to listen to your body. If that’s the way that you feel, then that’s what you should do. You should just chill and relax and rest and take care of yourself. Other women will say they actually feel a sense of rejuvenation and they feel like they’re ready to push In their workouts, so if that’s you, that’s also totally fine it is actually, at this point in your cycle, you’re actually your hormones are most like a man’s. So you know, a man never sees rises and drops in his hormones, right, he always has sort of a steady flow of testosterone and other hormones in there as well. But, but basically, he doesn’t have the ebbs and flows that a female has. And so when you’re in your menstrual phase, when your hormones are rock bottom, you’re most like a man at that point. So it’s actually a great time, from a fitness perspective to be picking up some heavyweights pushing through some some tough strength, strength training workouts, sorry, I got a little jumbled up there. But you know, pushing yourself in a strength training sort of way. Now, like I said, For some women, they feel really fatigued and tired in the first couple of days of their cycle, especially when they’re heavy bleeding. If that’s you, I highly advise that you take those days off from your fitness regimen. So you just simply rest, read, relax, whatever it takes self care is so key. So that when you get to day three, or four and you’re bleeding is letting up, then you can start to push, then you can start to really capitalize on those strength training gains of your cycle. So that would be you know, my overview of the menstrual phase. Of course soon after the menstrual phase, we start to see estrogen rise for a typical 28 day cycle that might be toward the end of the first week.
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So days six or seven, we start to see the estrogen start rising in preparation for you know ovulation to occur. Now ovulation can occur really at any different time of the cycle. There are some women who ovulate early around day seven or eight and there are other women who ovulate late around day 20 or 21. So really anywhere in that in that window, you can actually ovulate, I advise that you check between those days. So from days eight to 21, that you’re checking with your sink scope, or your basal body temperature to see what your hormones are doing if you’re in fact possibly ovulating. So during that follicular phase, when your hormones are starting to rise, your estrogen still starting to rise. Now remember, progesterone doesn’t come into play until later in the cycle. So at this point, your estrogen surging, your LH starts to surge, and everything is preparing for that follicle to drop in for you to ovulate.
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The actual ovulatory phase which is phase three, really only happens over the course of a couple of days. So it’s really short and sweet. Usually 48 to 72 hours, hormone levels will peak and then estrogen will take a drastic drop and ovulation will occur. Now again, this is for a healthy cycling female. So what happens if you’re not ovulating? Well, this could potentially not be happening for you, which of course would mean there’s some sort of imbalance happening. So when with ovulation comes a drastic drop in estrogen and a rising surge of progesterone. So as that follicle drops as you ovulate, progesterone comes in and says I’m here to save the day, I’m here to protect a potential pregnancy. And so it starts to rise as the estrogen starts to fall midcycle, the progesterone rises to support that potential pregnancy. And once again, our hormones make a shift. So here we go from we were high estrogen, now we’re entering sort of high higher progesterone rising progesterone toward the latter half of our cycle. So I usually tell my clients that during their ovulation so that during that 48 hour window, when your SYNC Scope is showing the burning, right when you’re potentially fertile, or if your basal body temperature is up, then that’s usually when I advise that you kind of take it easy, not necessarily take off from your fitness regimen. But maybe that’s when you do some Pilates or yoga or a long walk or a bike ride or a jog. We don’t necessarily need to be pushing our body with weights when our body is trying to ovulate. The example I like to give is, you know, you don’t really want to be consuming a large meal before you run a marathon, right? Or you don’t want to be consuming a large meal even before an intense CrossFit workout. Because your body can really only do one thing well, at a time. It can either digest your food, or it can you know put its energy into your workout. And so the same thing goes for ovulation. Your hormones are at an optimal peak. So they’re right. They’re super high. Your body is totally focused on you releasing this egg and ovulating. And so your body the workouts most likely could be a little bit of a drag. I can’t tell you the number of times that I’ve had women tell me, gosh, you’re right. Like when I hit that ovulation phase. I’m just I’m trashed in my workout. I feel like I can’t lift the weight. And it’s so so so true. So during those one to three days, it’s cool to sort of scale back do some light cardio. Like I said, go for a long walk, do some yoga. You don’t necessarily have to push during that point in your cycle.
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So after that when we enter the luteal phase, which is phase four, we start to see a real shift in our energy. So progesterone comes into play. It’s rising drastically over the course of our luteal phase. and progesterone is a naturally calming hormone. So it helps you feel much more relaxed it helps with your sleep might even help you. I know for me, it helps with my anxiety levels. And it even kind of gives you a little boost your metabolism. So it’s a really great time in your cycle to really be optimizing some fat burning workouts. So things like HIIT training, high intensity interval style workouts, those are usually best for the latter half of your cycle. Now, that doesn’t mean that you should completely not pick up a weight, you should be, you know, still strength training in the first week of your cycle. And even in your luteal phase often on every few days. But I would put the dominant focus on cardio in that third and fourth week of your cycle. So of course, as we sort of as the luteal phase goes on, you know, for a typical 28 day cycle, it could be around day 25 or 26, we start to see that progesterone and estrogen hit a drastic decline, which once again signals the uterus to start shedding and then the cycle starts over again, you start your bleed, you start a new day one, and the cycle starts over.
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I hope this helps you get a really, you know, a much better knowledge of what could be going on. For you in an ideal scenario, you know, we usually find that as far as energy goes, you know, the menstrual phase will often reveal itself as far as women finally feeling sort of like a breath of relief. When the period finally comes. They I know for me personally, I feel this sort of like it’s, you know, it’s a sort of almost like a stress relief period comes and then we feel exhausted. I mean, at least for myself and most women that I talked to for the first couple days of your cycle, you might be heavy bleeding, you might be cramping, you might be having headaches, especially if you’re dealing with imbalances. And if that’s the case, it’s okay to rest of the follicular phase. When estrogen starting to rise, that’s when we really want to take advantage of our energy, we start to feel more sociable, we want to get out we want to see our friends, we want to go on date nights, our sex drive is starting to increase. And so of course that during that part of our cycle, our energy is high. Ovulation once again, we’re hit with that two digit two to three day window of fatigue. And then luteal phase sets in and we feel this overwhelming sense of calm. For those of us who are Type A, maybe we stop worrying about the dishes in the sink during luteal phase, right? Like, I know for me personally, I usually tend to be like a little more carefree, when I know when my progesterone is surging, and I feel that sense of calm. So luteal phase is a great time to really dial in the fat burning to really, you know, spend time with your children and split in and really just kind of hone in on relationships because you’re feeling good, you’re nice and relaxed. And you know before, especially before menstrual phase sets in again. So hopefully that gives you an idea of what we’re looking at when it comes to a healthy female’s menstrual cycle. Now most women will tell me Wow, that’s so far from what I’m experiencing. A lot of times I hear of women who are dealing with short cycles, and so they’re bleeding super frequently. And maybe even dealing with heavy, painful periods that frequently which, if that’s the case for you, you know, you don’t have to live that way there are supplements you can take there is testing that you can do to get yourself on a more regular pattern and a more healthy pattern so that you’re not living in pain. There are other women who are having long cycles. And that’s very indicative of perhaps no ovulation occurring or things like PCOS potentially. And so once again, to have proper testing proper supplementation, listening to your body, and even journaling and tracking your, your symptoms and your your cycles is absolutely key. So regardless of where you are, unless you are a perfectly cycling healthy female with absolutely no symptoms. It’s so so crucial for you to know what your body’s doing. You know, I had a woman tell me once, why don’t think I need to do testing because I’m pretty regular. And I don’t really have any signs or symptoms. And I told her well, that might be true. And of course, it’s up to every woman to decide. But at the same time wouldn’t you want to have a glimpse of what your hormones are doing when you feel good, so that you can compare it to potentially in the future if you’re dealing with perimenopause or menopause or symptoms, that you have something to compare it to. So let me just encourage everyone who’s listening to take the time out, to do the proper Dutch testing, to really dig into your hormone health, you know, to make sure that you have the right practitioner that will listen to you and to really take your hormone health seriously because, as Laura Bryden says, “Our period health and our hormone health, our menstrual cycles, our period itself is essentially a vital sign to our overall body.” And so just like your blood pressure, or your heart rate, or all these other things, your oxygen level, those are all key to your survival in your life. So is your menstrual cycle. So I hope this gives you some insight into what your menstrual cycle should look like and how you should be feeling on a monthly basis. Of course I’m always here for questions you guys can reach out to me on social media or send me an Email at Jenny@jennyswisher.com I hope you’re having a fantastic day. I hope this added value to your life
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Thanks for listening to this episode of the SYNC Your Life podcast. I hope you found value from today’s episode. If you did, please share it out to your friends or leave a review. Remember your cycles are your superpower and by aligning with them, you can live your life with all the energy you need to be a mom, Wife, Daughter and friends are those you love. Until next time