There is a new way to track your fertility, and your hormone cycle, and it doesn’t involve those urine test strips from your local pharmacy.

Trust me, those are highly inaccurate, especially for fit women.

The truth is, most women have no idea what their body is doing on a hormonal level from day to day or even week to week until day 1 of their bleed arrives. Too many women, in my opinion, rely on oral contraceptive pills to block their bodies hormonal ebbs and flows so ultimately, there’s nothing really to track. But what about the woman who wants to optimize her health and sync her lifestyle to her cycle so she can maximize her energy?

Let’s start there.

Decades of research has been done on exercise science. Things like types of exercise, timing of exercise, and so much more. Unfortunately, this research has been done on males only, because, as researchers have been quoted, “women and their hormones make things too complex.”

Therefore, thousands of women across the globe follow modern exercise science methods proven to work for… men. They push hard in the gym 5-6 days a week, and often times, they feel drained at various times of their cycle and don’t understand why, yet stick to the plan regardless.

In the last 10-15 years, more and more research has been done on women in exercise, thanks to the viral TEDTalk done by Dr. Stacy Sims. She herself has been a leader in this field, and is someone I’ve studied under, achieving certifications in her online courses. The science is fascinating. As it turns out, if a woman is following a circadian (day-to-day) routine, as it pertains to both exercise and nutrition, and not an infradian routine (being mindful of your hormone phases), she is working against her female physiology. Often times this may appear as missed or irregular periods, low mood/PMS, low energy in the mornings and early evenings, and more. 

If I had a dollar for every woman who has come to me and said, “But I eat mostly healthy, and I exercise daily, and I can’t seem to lose the weight!” My friend, your following a man’s calendar. It’s time to follow your own. 

So how does one go about doing this? It starts with cycle tracking. And ovulation is the vital sign of your reproductive health. In fact, many experts agree that your menstrual cycle should be an indicator of overall health and right up there with your other traditional vital signs: heart rate, blood pressure, and so forth. It’s that important.

I’ll never forget, 10 years ago, when my husband and I started our infertility journey, after months of using those smiley face ovulation urine testing strips with no success, when our fertility specialist looked me in the eye and said, “Oh yeah, those don’t really work.”

Oh. Awesome. Here we are then.

Urine test strips claim pick up on a surge in LH in the urine, indicating ovulation is about to occur within the next 48 hours. For some women, this method works just fine. But for other women, especially women who may be following directions on the box of testing their urine on days 8-14, or women who are of lower body fat percentage, it’s completely null.

As a female, you have 4 ideal phases of your hormone cycle: follicular, ovulatory, luteal, and menstrual. In women dealing with hormone imbalances, these 4 phases could be more flatlined, meaning ovulation isn’t occurring, and therefore their monthly bleed is just that… a uterine shedding and NOT a true period. (Sidenote: If you’re someone using the birth control pill, that’s precisely what your monthly bleed is. It’s not a period at all).

It’s important that women track the phases of their cycle so that they know what their bodies are or are not doing. That is goal #1. If a woman is dealing with imbalances, those imbalances need to be observed, tested, and then treated holistically before we can truly optimize what I call the “icing on top,” which is SYNC’d fitness and nutrition. 

If we know when we bleed, we must also know about when we ovulate. And if urine testing strips don’t work, we have two other options: basal body temperature checking or using a SYNC scope.

A SYNC scope is a small, pocket-sized saliva microscope that shows you saliva patterns that indicate estrogen surges (ovulation) in your cycle. I recommend women start with testing their saliva each morning and evening starting on day 6 all the way through to day 21 (if the ovulation ferning is no tpresent). 

What will you see?

You will see one of three things:

1. Bubbles, which indicates estrogen is not currently surging.
2. Crystallization, like snowflakes on a window pane, which indicates your are in transition (estrogen is starting to rise).
3. Ferning pattern, like wide palm leaves, which indicates you are entering ovulation.

When I started using a SYNC scope 5 years ago, it changed the game for me. As a migraine sufferer whose trigger is estrogen dominance (when estrogen is high in relation to progesterone), this scope helped me track and predict upcoming migraines, and therefore supplement (with my BioHRT progesterone) accordingly. 

Game. Changer.

So why does all of this matter?

Because, sis, YOU need to know if your reproductive system is working the way it should. If your hormones are having the highs and lows they should, that comes with ovulation. Once you know the midpoint in your cycle and the starting point, you can start to optimize your workouts and your nutrition around those points.

For example, did you know that the beginning of your cycle, after your bleed when estrogen is just starting to rise, is when your hormones are most like a man’s. Thus, this is the best time of your cycle to pick up heavy weights and build muscle! And in the luteal phase, after ovulation occurs, when progesterone also surges, is best for HIIT training and fat burning intervals. Yes, there is science to this, and trust me, if you’re like most women I work with, your intuition is telling you “that makes sense” right now. 

Too many women are going through the motions and frustrated in their lack of results and low energy. It doesn’t have to be you! Learning how to SYNC with your cycle is a game changer for your life as a whole. You deserve to wake up each morning with renewed energy, to love how you look and feel, and to be your absolute best for the ones you love.

To read more about my SYNC digital course, where I cover this much more in depth, click here.