225-SYNCPodcast_FBLiveAlyssaBroadwater

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[00:00:57] Jenny Swisher: Welcome friends to this episode of the Sync Your Life podcast. Today I’m sharing with you a small clip of a recent live Q& A that I hosted with Alyssa Broadwater. Alyssa is a registered dietitian. She’s actually the person that I filmed the fertility awareness course with that launched earlier this year.

[00:01:16] Jenny Swisher: So this is not her first time on the podcast. In fact, I will link up in the show notes for you. All of her previous episodes here on the Sync Your Life podcast. But I recently asked her to do a Q and A with my Sync digital course takers. So we went live together in our Facebook group. We answered questions and it really just blew my mind.

[00:01:33] Jenny Swisher: I love talking about nutrition. It’s one of my favorite topics and to have a registered dietitian who is very familiar with working with women, especially women who are either looking to conceive or women just really looking to optimize their hormone health. is just bar none. Like you’re really, it’s the best advice out there to hear from somebody who is literally working in this space.

[00:01:52] Jenny Swisher: So on this episode, you’re going to hear her talk about different things. We talk about fiber. We talk about protein. We talk about how much women should really be eating, especially if we are training females and so much more. So without further ado, here’s Alyssa. I hope you enjoy.

[00:02:07] Jenny Swisher: well, as promised, welcome to our Monday Night Live.

[00:02:11] Jenny Swisher: I’ve got my friend Alyssa Broadwater here with me. We’re, going to talk to you about all things related to nutrition, things that you need to know just as a training female. Um, we’re also going to touch on a functional fertility approach. Uh, she and I actually just recently launched a functional fertility course.

[00:02:27] Jenny Swisher: so we’ll, we’ll talk about that too. But I’m excited that she’s spending her evening with us here. She’s, she’s granted us her time. And so I want to be efficient with her time. I want to make sure that you guys, can ask any questions as we go as well. So if you want to just type in the chat, if you’re on here live, feel free to type in the chat and ask questions and we can kind of come back to them full circle at the end.

[00:02:46] Jenny Swisher: If you’re not on live, that’s totally cool because this will live here in the group forever. So you can always watch it later and record it. So, without further ado, I just want to say welcome to all of our new Sync course takers. So if you’re new in the last week or so, just know that I do these live streams usually by myself on Monday nights at 8.

[00:03:03] Jenny Swisher: 30 Eastern Time. And I, I answer your questions from the week. I cover various topics. Sometimes I have guests on, like Dr. Page and tonight, Alyssa. Looking to bring more guests to you this year, but it’s really about just how can I add more value to you on top of the course you’re already taking? How can I help you really, learn different things that are beneficial to you and your health?

[00:03:22] Jenny Swisher: And sometimes it’s a matter of unlearning. Alyssa and I have talked a lot just previously to this call about how we really need to, um, step into this. Awareness of reverse diet culture. And we’re going to talk about that tonight. We’re going to talk about what it can look like. Hormonally speaking, if we’re not eating enough and we’re training excessively or what it might look like.

[00:03:43] Jenny Swisher: If we’re not, paying attention to ovulation and our menstrual cycles. So we’re going to touch on those things. But without further ado, Alyssa, I’m going to let you introduce yourself. Registered dietitian focusing on functional fertility, but I’d love for you to just share with my people here, your story and how you got to doing what you’re doing and more about you.

[00:03:59] Alyssa Broadwater: Yeah. So I am a dietitian. \ I call myself a kind of real food, functional dietitian. Um, Maybe not necessarily like the conventional dietitian, but I focus primarily on the perinatal time period. So working with women, couples from fertility through pregnancy and postpartum and, um, even that concept of fertility just encompasses so much.

[00:04:21] Alyssa Broadwater: So I ended up, I ended up working with a ton of, um, women on just like hormone health in general, because that’s really what fertility is. It’s hormone health and, you know, a lot of those things. Kind of tie in. Um, I started way off in the industry as a personal trainer. So very much kind of have that like exercise background as well, and then transitioned fully to the dietetics world.

[00:04:43] Alyssa Broadwater: And it’s, um, you know, had my own private practice since I think 2016. And I’ve really been focusing on that, like hormone health, perinatal time period in the last three or four years or so. So the large majority of what I do is working. One on one with women and couples, kind of somewhere in that fertility pregnancy, um, journey where they

[00:05:07] Alyssa Broadwater: are.

[00:05:09] Jenny Swisher: So it’s interesting. Dr. Paige introduced us, um, I guess it’s been well over a year ago, and I knew that I wanted to, to expand into more than just cycle syncing and, and fitness, and I wanted to do something in the realm of functional fertility because Without sharing my whole story. You guys have heard it before.

[00:05:27] Jenny Swisher: If you’ve taken my courses and you’ve, you’ve listened to the podcast, um, I’m now 40, but when I was 27, I wish that I knew then what I know now. And I mean, I would not trade my girls and the adoption processes and things that we went through for the world. But I was just very I guess the best phrase would be hormone illiterate.

[00:05:47] Jenny Swisher: Like I did not know what was going on with my body. I didn’t know what my options were. I was really just counting on the fertility specialist to guide my husband and I through this really scary and emotional journey. And so, um. You know, when I entered the hormone health space through fitness with cycle syncing, I knew in the back of my mind, like someday I’m going to create something for couples looking to conceive women, looking to conceive, um, because there is this whole other world out there.

[00:06:13] Jenny Swisher: You guys have been in the same course. So, you know, That, you know, I advocate a root cause approach to your health, a functional wellness journey, as opposed to, you know, maybe sometimes what modern medicine can offer. And so I wanted people to be aware that there’s another option out there and that we do need to be looking at lifestyle factors and nutrition, um, when we are looking to carry a child or, or, you know, start a family.

[00:06:37] Jenny Swisher: So, Alyssa and I launched our course, the functional fertility course. I’ll make sure that I put a link. After we’re done here, I’ll put a link in the comments in case you guys want to check it out or share it out with a friend that, you know, might be in that position. But I learned so much from her just in the videos that she recorded on her own time and the videos that we recorded together for that course.

[00:06:55] Jenny Swisher: So it’s been really awesome to just hear more about how important this really is. I mean, you guys have heard me say. Yeah, I don’t know if it’s Laura Brighton or Jolene Brighton or who it is, but one specialist doctor out there has made, you know, coined the phrase that ovulation is our fifth vital sign.

[00:07:10] Jenny Swisher: And so just like Alyssa just said, whether you’re looking to conceive or not, paying attention to your menstrual cycle and understanding if you’re having healthy ovulation each month is really, um, productive to you knowing what your overall health really is. So I’d love to touch more on that. Um, maybe let’s start at like a high level of why ovulation matters, and then we can move forward into nutritional things.

[00:07:33] Alyssa Broadwater: Yeah, so I mean I I kind of came to this, you know from like a selfish perspective of you know It was really when I started wanting to learn about all of this I realized just how much I didn’t know. And I was like, oh gosh, you know, I know nothing about the menstrual cycle. I know nothing about how nutrition influences fertility.

[00:07:53] Alyssa Broadwater: You know, I had a hunch that nutrition did probably influence fertility cause that only makes sense. Um, but it’s not something that we learned about in school at all. So even just from. From my journey, you know, realizing kind of opening my eyes to when we think about the menstrual cycle, we tend to think about, the period kind of being like the main star of the show.

[00:08:15] Alyssa Broadwater: Um, and after learning more about the menstrual cycle, I really believe that ovulation is kind of the star of the show because that’s, that’s truly the driver of it all. But it’s a little less obvious than our period so it doesn’t tend to be kind of highlighted and unfortunately we’re just not really taught much about ovulation or our menstrual cycle in general.

[00:08:42] Alyssa Broadwater: So, to me, like, at the highest level, ovulation matters because, one, it’s an indication that our body is working properly, I completely agree that it is, like, this vital sign, so it’s one of those things that something is off with our ovulation or with our menstrual cycle as a whole. It can really kind of tell us like, Hey, there’s, there’s something going on here.

[00:09:07] Alyssa Broadwater: It’s like, if you, get your, blood pressure or heart rate tested, and that is kind of out of the normal range, it tells us there’s something going on that we need to look a little bit deeper into. It’s the exact same thing with our menstrual cycle and ovulation. So it’s, it’s really just one of these views of how is just your overall health.

[00:09:27] Alyssa Broadwater: Um, And then I think too, when things are off with ovulation, um, and oftentimes this is low progesterone, which we can kind of get into if we want to, but, um, we just don’t feel good, you know, so many of us have these periods of time where We’re less motivated. It’s harder to get in the gym. We’re hungrier.

[00:09:55] Alyssa Broadwater: We have more food cravings. Um, mood is challenging and it can take a really long time to realize that probably a lot of those things are, they have to do with where we are in our menstrual cycle. And that simple knowledge, I think is huge of having the awareness of, Oh, I tend to feel this certain way.

[00:10:19] Alyssa Broadwater: This time of my menstrual cycle just that simple awareness can be so so freeing in a lot of ways But again that can tell us so so much So those like typical kind of PMS type of symptoms that you might think about the moodiness the sugar cravings You know lack of motivation to get in the gym like all of those types of things are very common.

[00:10:45] Alyssa Broadwater: They’re not necessarily normal though. And those, for example, are all potential signs of low progesterone. And that comes from, for lack of better term, kind of a weak ovulation. So again, it just points us to, okay, something’s going on here. Our body is trying to tell us something and we just have to be able to To actually listen to it and then kind of dig into, okay, what exactly is kind of causing these symptoms?

[00:11:11] Alyssa Broadwater: And how can I fix that?

[00:11:12] Jenny Swisher: Right. So, from a very basic elementary level, just as a reminder to those listening, right? Like, when, when ovulation occurs, if ovulation occurs, it’s not always a given. Like, I had to actually learn that for myself during my fertility journey. Um, when, when the specialist said, it’s Are you ovulating?

[00:11:28] Jenny Swisher: I was like, I thought we all ovulated. Like, I thought this was just part of the textbook scenario that was presented in school. Right? You don’t realize that there’s an option out there that maybe you’re not ovulating. Um, and I learned very quickly in my 20s that I wasn’t ovulating. And I, I look back now and I was at a very low body fat percentage.

[00:11:44] Jenny Swisher: I was training in the gym. I know I was under fueling. And my body was just, of course, it’s going to prioritize survival over reproduction. Right? So it was like, nope, no ovulation for you. And so, of course, then that put me into a low progesterone state. So why is that? Right? So let’s cover that really quick.

[00:11:59] Jenny Swisher: So when you ovulate, your follicle will turn into essentially the corpus luteum and the corpus luteum will emit progesterone. So why ovulation matters outside of just. conception is because without ovulation, there’s no progesterone or very little progesterone than produced, right? Because there is no corpus luteum to produce that progesterone.

[00:12:19] Jenny Swisher: And so we’ve talked about this before, but progesterone is really, in my opinion, your superpower hormone, right? It’s your calming, it’s your, um, your calming hormone. It helps you sleep. It’s, it’s, I always say, you know, in the first half of your cycle, you’re ready to be out on the town. You’re, you’re very,

[00:12:36] Jenny Swisher: extroverted. You’re ready for date night, you’re sociable. You’re ready, you know, maybe if you’re an entrepreneur, you’re ready to go on camera, you’re ready to record the podcast and the second half of your cycle, when progesterone kicks in, you’re like, I’ll get, I’ll clean out the pantry another time, you know, you’re like, I think I’ll just chill.

[00:12:52] Jenny Swisher: Um, and so we need progesterone, right? We need that good balance. We need it not only to protect a potential pregnancy, but even if not. It’s a good indication that our body is functioning in the right way as it’s supposed to, we as women are supposed to cycle, we’re supposed to have highs and lows of our hormones, we’re supposed to kind of ebb and flow in our energies.

[00:13:09] Jenny Swisher: And so, um, I just wanted to say that as sort of just like a reminder to people of why it matters, but I like my story has been in a low progesterone I mean I could write a book on just my journey with low progesterone so we could go down that rabbit hole. But I want to make sure that we touch on the fact that.

[00:13:27] Jenny Swisher: You know, let’s remind people that if you are on birth control, there’s no ovulation happening. So that means there’s no progesterone happening, that means you’re on a synthetic version of hormones that are suppressing your natural hormones from going through those highs and lows. So I just wanted to say that too, because sometimes I’ll get the question of like, well, what about if I’m on birth control?

[00:13:46] Jenny Swisher: Um, so I would love for you to just touch on, you know, this is a question I wanted to ask you too. I follow Dr. Stacey Sims. Um, I’ve taken her courses and she talks a lot, especially recently about the newest research on, I guess, for lack of better terms, like cycle syncing your nutrition. And this is something, this is a change that we’re making to the nutrition plan in my course, um, which these ladies will see by springtime, but we’re going to be incorporating what’s called like an extra program.

[00:14:16] Jenny Swisher: extra calories in the second half of your cycle. So after ovulation, during that sort of like increase in progesterone, it makes sense physiologically as to why our bodies might have more cravings because of course it might think it’s pregnant, right? It’s like producing progesterone trying to protect that pregnancy.

[00:14:33] Jenny Swisher: But she talks about adding 300 to 500 calories per day for a training female. In the 2nd, half of your cycle, I would love to hear your take on that. And if we’re going to do that, we’re going to incorporate a little bit more to curb those cravings and to satiate ourselves and to fuel ourselves the right way.

[00:14:50] Jenny Swisher: What might that look like, like, as far as. Macros, etc.

[00:14:54] Alyssa Broadwater: It’s a great question. I mean, I think it’s very reasonable. We know for sure that energy expenditure absolutely goes up in the luteal phase. And if you’re doing something like tracking your temperature as a way to track if and when ovulation is occurring.

[00:15:10] Alyssa Broadwater: Um, you, you know that your temperature rises after ovulation, and it’s because of that rise in temperature that your body produces more energy. Uh, when we burn calories, we produce heat. So we’re burning more calories. Our temperature is higher. So it, you know, makes, it makes sense, you know, especially if you kind of have that tie in of, yeah, I, you know, I see my temperature goes up half a degree, maybe a full degree In the second half of my cycle, my luteal phase makes total sense that you would be burning more calories.

[00:15:44] Alyssa Broadwater: I think to what degree those calories increase can be very individual for sure. So I think that like 300 or so is reasonable. Honestly, what I typically do with clients is I focus on how do you simply feel? I mean, it’s being able to like track calories and macros is such an amazing tool. Um, but it’s definitely not necessary for everyone, not every stage of life.

[00:16:14] Alyssa Broadwater: And like there are certain periods of time where it’s, it’s most beneficial. And there’s periods of time where you want to try to eat without tracking those things. So a lot of times I use that as an opportunity to say this is a great experiment to see if you can actually be flexible with yourself when, when you notice the increased hunger, can you allow for an extra snack, allow for your meal portions to get a little bit bigger, um, without Wow.

[00:16:50] Alyssa Broadwater: Worrying about those extra calories too much. So I think there, there’s a, um, balancing point, right? If you’re really struggling, um, you know, really worried about your, you know, going to eat too much during that time period or what does that 300 calories even look like? Then I think tracking it and being specific about how you’re going to.

[00:17:10] Alyssa Broadwater: Increase that can be a really good idea. Don’t, even if you’re tracking it though, don’t let that get in the way of you just listening to yourself too. Because some days you’re going to need 500 extra calories. Some days you’re not going to need any extra in that, that luteal phase. So there’s, there’s going to be some differences day to day.

[00:17:32] Alyssa Broadwater: As far as like the, the makeup of that, I mean, I’m always, the first kind of piece is always protein because I feel like just for the large majority of women, that is the macro that we just have to focus on getting enough of the most. That is the hard one. It’s hard to get enough protein. Um, and it is You know, one of the most satiating, so if we can get enough protein, it’s going to help with all of those potential cravings that we might have, whether it be sugar cravings or salty, crunchy cravings, if we get enough protein, that’s going to increase our satiety and kind of stave off some of those potential cravings.

[00:18:14] Alyssa Broadwater: The other really big key, I think, to protein is when we focus on increasing protein, especially from, you know, whole real food sources. We’re also increasing a lot of our micronutrient intake, you know, things like iron and zinc and vitamin a, all of those nutrients that are so important for Hormone health and just health in general, but especially for, um, menstruation, you know, we’re losing all of those nutrients when we’re menstruating each cycle.

[00:18:45] Alyssa Broadwater: So it makes sense to kind of focus on increasing the intake of those things. Especially, you know, leading up to menstruation, and you know, a lot of it’s psychological too, right? I mean, I, I work with a lot of eating disorders and disordered eating, and this is very much anecdotal. I don’t have any data to back this up, but just from years of working with women, I have noticed a pattern of this shift in our psychological state and our like physical nutrient needs.

[00:19:21] Alyssa Broadwater: during this luteal phase can lead to a lot of like psychological issues around food. You know, you’re more hungry. So it’s, it’s a much harder to stick to your diet plan. And it’s so easy for them to that, like spiral into this, this guilt cycle. Um, so again, just having that awareness of being able to say, no, I actually, Feel my body is just hungrier today or hungrier this week and being okay with eating a little bit more because of that.

[00:19:52] Alyssa Broadwater: And then kind of having not that you need it, but almost like this kind of permission from, you know, understanding what’s going on with your body. Helps you accept that a little bit more as well.

[00:20:05] Jenny Swisher: Yeah. I mean, I hear women almost every day say, thank you for giving me permission to listen to my body.

[00:20:09] Jenny Swisher: Somehow we got, we get caught up in these, you know, maybe we’ve done low carb, we’ve done keto, we’ve done IF, we’ve done all the different things. And so I do find that women just like overanalyze. Like, if I think about my husband, he’s not really concerned about like, what’s on his plate. He just eats when he’s hungry, you know what I mean?

[00:20:26] Jenny Swisher: But for some reason, women are just like, Oh, but this and we overthink it. Um, there’s so many things that I want to say about what you just said, but let’s see where I want to begin. Okay, the first thing I’ll say is this, right? So we know that progesterone is a catabolic hormone. We’re new, we’re going to burn more.

[00:20:41] Jenny Swisher: Especially as training women, right? This is a perfect example. I’m on day 24 of my cycle. I track through a mirror wand. So, um, I know that I’m at peak progesterone. My estrogen is actually kind of in that mid luteal peak as well. So today I did a little bit of a HIIT workout before I will start my taper leading into my period, right?

[00:20:59] Jenny Swisher: So we talk about that when we talk about cycle syncing. But today in particular, I was just a lot more hungry. And so what I’m going to go for in that is going to be like she said, a protein and vegetables, because that’s how I’m going to get my micronutrients. And so I feel like I’m going to beat a dead horse and they’re going to say, Oh, here’s Jenny again, talking about the same thing, but.

[00:21:18] Jenny Swisher: We are so I think conditioned to think about macros like how many grams of carbs do I get per day or how many whatever as opposed to really understanding that like a lot of us are very micronutrient deficient. And so in the luteal phase, when you are doing those HIIT workouts, or you are spending more energy and your body is naturally burning it more.

[00:21:38] Jenny Swisher: Um, given that progesterone rise, this is when you can go for the extra protein, grab extra veggies, and don’t, there’s no reason to feel ashamed for it, right? It’s your body is hungry. When people say, how can I curb cravings before my period? My response to that is, maybe your body’s hungry. Like, maybe if you’re having the cravings, we should pay attention to that, right?

[00:21:57] Jenny Swisher: So, um, that’s what I wanted to, to share there. Goodness, so I want to answer Shireen’s question, because it’s a good one. I have some women in this group who are Moon sinking, which means they don’t have a menstrual cycle, whether they have had a full hysterectomy or their post menopause. We sink them to the moon when it comes to their workouts.

[00:22:14] Jenny Swisher: But nutritionally, Shireen, because you’re not ovulating and producing that progesterone rise mid cycle, this would not necessarily apply to you. Right? So I would follow just. Intuitive eating or, you know, what, whatever you’re following at the current moment. But if you’re hungry or pay attention to that, right, but I wouldn’t necessarily think about adding the extra calories in the 2nd, half of your moon, sinking moon cycling.

[00:22:39] Jenny Swisher: Okay. So I want to touch on, you know, this idea, which you kind of already grazed a little bit, which is. What I find to be the most common issue, um, with my course takers and actually it’s, it’s no surprise because it was what led me to want to create this course to begin with was my own experience, living in a state of LEA.

[00:23:03] Jenny Swisher: And I didn’t know what I didn’t know. And so let’s rewind back to my days as a gym owner. Um, the 1st piece of this is I had a 1 year old, um, during my gym ownership era. And so here I was up through the night with my 1 year old. I was teaching and then I was setting my alarm and teaching a 5 am boot camp.

[00:23:24] Jenny Swisher: I would come home and go back to bed for a couple hours if she took a nap, and then I would go back to the gym to do personal training and an evening, class as well. So I was really burning the candle at both ends. I was training too much. I wasn’t sleeping enough, and I know for sure I wasn’t eating enough.

[00:23:41] Jenny Swisher: And so what happened for me was I could do that for so long and feel good. Like, it’s like my adrenals took over. It’s like, we got this, right? And for a really long time, I felt like I was kind of living the high life. Like I was like, this is amazing. I feel so fit. I feel so strong. And then all of a sudden the rocks came tumbling down.

[00:23:59] Jenny Swisher: Right. And it was like, wait a minute, where did my menstrual cycle go? Like, where did my period go? Why is it late? Um, you know, then I started learning through our fertility journey that I wasn’t ovulating. Then I started learning there’s a low progesterone issue. Then I started learning that my blood sugar was out of regulation.

[00:24:14] Jenny Swisher: You know what I mean? Like, I started learning all of these things and I started to see through my own experience how the overtraining and underfueling, also known as low energy availability, Was really affecting my metabolic health and my endocrine health. So I want to share this because, you know, you guys know, I’m doing consults alongside Dr.

[00:24:34] Jenny Swisher: Page, um, with many of you who’ve taken the course and we’re able to really look at your Dutch tests. We’re able to look at your blood work. We’re able to hear about your lifestyle. And 80 percent of the time, a lot of you are living in a similar situation where this, this course has really taught you how to unlearn diet culture, how to.

[00:24:54] Jenny Swisher: Eat more for your activity level or how to scale back the activity level. Um, depending on where you’re at in your life and with your hormones. And so I would love for Alyssa to just touch on this idea of making sure that we’re eating enough as women. So however you want to go with that, I’ll let you take it away.

[00:25:12] Alyssa Broadwater: I mean, honestly, that’s kind of the. Um, foundation or base or starting point for all of this stuff, whether it be hormone health or hormone health related to fertility or, you know, just all of those things. If we’re not simply eating enough overall, then all of the other things that we’re worried about are a macro ratios, what supplements we’re taking, are we getting enough vitamins and minerals?

[00:25:41] Alyssa Broadwater: None of that really matters. I think it’s good to understand kind of like the whole hormone cascade. So the female physiology. is very much built on this concept of safety and fertility, I think is where this shines the most because as Jenny alluded to earlier, fertility is not necessary for survival.

[00:26:06] Alyssa Broadwater: We can, you know, go on to live years and years without ovulating that is not necessary for survival. And it’s very energy intensive. It takes a lot of energy for our body to go through this process of ovulation and then menstruation every month. So your hypothalamus and your brain is your hormone command center.

[00:26:32] Alyssa Broadwater: It’s constantly scanning the environment for threats and to see if it’s safe. So, you know, things related to our current modern kind of way of living that could potentially be viewed as threats would be not eating enough, not eating enough of the right things, um, having blood sugar spikes and then drops, environmental toxins.

[00:27:00] Alyssa Broadwater: overtraining, lack of sleep, um, lack of nervous system support overall, so like just poor stress management, um, gosh, there are just so many things there. So your hypothalamus and your brain is constantly scanning the environment for those types of things. Is the environment safe? The hypothalamus tells your pituitary to adjust things as needed.

[00:27:25] Alyssa Broadwater: Okay, the environment is, is, uh, not safe. I’m not, I’m sensing that we’re not getting enough, um, you know, total energy intake to meet our needs. So, I’m gonna need you to like turn down certain things. So then the pituitary will adjust. And the pituitary is what makes your LH and your FSH. Both of those are hormones that are critical for ovulation.

[00:27:51] Alyssa Broadwater: Without those, we do not ovulate. Um, so if your brain is sensing that the environment is unsafe for any reason, those processes start to adjust. So our goal here is really to convince our brains and our bodies that it is a safe environment. Nutrition is one piece of that puzzle. Um, but like I said, there’s other pieces to like just overall stress management and nervous system regulation and, um, exercise balance and environmental toxins.

[00:28:27] Alyssa Broadwater: And there’s, you know, a bunch of other pieces to that nutrition. Arguably is, I mean, I buy it, I’m biased, but I would say that that’s maybe the most important one. Um, the simplest way that we can send that signal to our hypothalamus that the environment is safe. is to eat enough. The, I think, amazing thing that, that one of the amazing things that makes us human is our ability to adapt.

[00:28:57] Alyssa Broadwater: And, uh, it can be frustrating that the body adapts in ways that, that, you know, we see as, um, unpleasurable in the, in the moment, but it’s If we can understand why the body is doing it, we can really work within it and kind of appreciating our body for adapting. If our brain senses that we’re in a famine, for example, we’re going to be really thankful that our brain has the ability to turn down and turn off ovulation when we’re in a famine.

[00:29:30] Alyssa Broadwater: Because ovulation takes a ton of energy that we don’t have around. So simply eating enough is really that like first line of defense. Now it certainly matters what you’re eating, like I said, blood sugar spikes and drops and just kind of being on that blood sugar rollercoaster throughout the day. is a stress signal to the brain.

[00:29:55] Alyssa Broadwater: So if we’re just eating, um, you know, simple carbohydrates without enough fiber and fat and protein, that’s not necessarily going to give our brain all of those good safety signals. But if we’re eating enough of that good kind of balanced nutrition. That’s what’s really going to give our body those safety signals.

[00:30:16] Alyssa Broadwater: Our body’s really smart about knowing if we have enough around or not. And, when we’re in a restrictive diet, whether we’re trying to lose weight or whatever it is, that is always going to be a stress to the body. If you are managing all of the other stressors in your life well, You can you your body can usually handle that. Okay. Um, there becomes a point though where that stress becomes too much.

[00:30:48] Alyssa Broadwater: Or the other stressors are piling on so much that it’s not a good time for you to try to lose weight, for example. And then you’re only just going to be like spinning your wheels because there’s too much stress. And that stress of being on a restrictive diet is only going to worsen that. And then your hormones get out of whack.

[00:31:06] So, and all of the other things, nutritionally that be a part of that equation. For example, um, not getting enough of micronutrients, um, keeping our blood sugar balanced, they’re all going to be improved by just simply eating enough. So that’s a great, area to kind of start and to focus on.

[00:31:27] Jenny Swisher: Yeah, no, that’s perfect.

[00:31:28] Jenny Swisher: And all I could think of when you were saying that is Is so I just recorded a solo round podcast that will actually launch tomorrow. Um, I stopped my, my planned podcast. Like I had 10 mapped out for the next several weeks. And I was like, Nope, we gotta, I’ve gotta do something. It’s gotta get something off my chest.

[00:31:44] Jenny Swisher: I did a total soapbox rant on how to know if the right doctor is the right doctor for you. And part of the podcast, which you guys will hear tomorrow. Um, I talk about the fact that too many doctors are telling women to work out harder and eat less and it is completely counterproductive to this entire idea because, um, just like you just said, right, like, if we are, if we’re not fueling enough, then we’re putting our body into that survival mode.

[00:32:12] Jenny Swisher: And if we’re in survival mode, then reproduction is going to be affected. Menstrual cycle could be affected. Hormones systems could be affected. So I’m glad you touched on that. I mean, they’ve heard it from me before, but. I wanted to hear them to hear it from you too because At the end of the day, we want women to understand that, like, if you’re struggling to lose weight, I mean, I see this every day in these consults, I see this every day in women that I’m talking to, if you’re in a position where you’re like, I’m doing all the things, right?

[00:32:39] Jenny Swisher: I hit 40 and I don’t know what happened, but things changed, right? Well, we don’t need to go into the perimenopause dissertation because you guys have already heard me talk about that enough, but things do shift, right? Your progesterone does start to decline. Um, And if we start to say, well, I’m going to go back to those diets I did in my 20s, I’m going to start to eat less, whether it’s eating less carbohydrates is what I typically see women do is they go low carb and then they try to add in more hits or, you know, more intensive training, you could just be very counterproductive to the whole thing.

[00:33:08] Jenny Swisher: And , like you said, if your brain senses, um, danger, right? If it senses danger in the form of not eating enough and. Or and or over exercising or a combination of the two, that’s when you’re going to start to see the ramifications of that and your body’s going to hold on to the weight, which is.

[00:33:25] Jenny Swisher: But you don’t want, right? But it’s going to do it because of survival. So, um, I’m glad you started earlier with that, that whole like female physiology, like the hormone cascade. Because I think it’s people, important for people to understand that like your body’s number one goal is to survive. So it’s, it’s number one goal is not to give you a six pack.

[00:33:42] Jenny Swisher: Thanks you guys so much for tuning in. We’ll talk soon.

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