SYNCPodcast_2024Energy

[00:00:00] Welcome friends to this episode of the Sync Your Life podcast. Today, we’re going to keep it simple as we head into the new year. I want to make sure we’re keeping your hormone health goals simple. Now I’ll link up for you in the show notes. We just did a recent podcast episode lately on the topic of creating your hormone health goals for 2024.

[00:01:16] But today we’re going to talk about how to do that and how to keep it really simple for yourself and how to really focus on controlling the controllable. So much about your lifestyle is within your control. Truly. You can control things, like your sleep routine. You can control things, like the food you’re putting in your body.

[00:01:33] You can control things, like the products that you’re putting on your skin and in and around your body, right? That’s what I want to talk to you about today. So I was recently afforded the opportunity to speak to several people, several hundred people, for the Hugh Grace January Masterclass. And it was an awesome opportunity because I got to speak to people on this topic of physical health.

[00:01:54] In the month of January, this is when we’re really focused, right? This is when we’re really focused on those goals. For a lot of people, it’s weight loss goals. But for the purposes of today, and for any time you listen to this podcast, I want you to take your sights off of weight loss, and I want you to focus instead on finding your maximum energy.

[00:02:12] If you have a weight loss goal this year, perhaps consider changing that to an energy goal. How do you want to feel? What is the aliveness, to use Brenna Burchard’s term, what is the aliveness that you want to feel heading into 2024? I find that at the end of the day, the number one thing that most women struggle with is energy.

[00:02:31] Either they wake up with low energy in the morning, they find themselves crashing in the afternoon. They’re really just dragging throughout the day, wearing the hat of mom, wife, caretaker, daughter, sister, right? But not truly filling their own bucket. As we look at really digging in to our physical health goals in 2024, I want you to focus on the energy.

[00:02:53] How can you really start to get your own energy back? And how can you control the controllable? So it really comes back to your hormone health, right? We can’t exercise our way into hormone balance, right? And we also can’t really reach maximum energy through workouts or even nutrition alone.

[00:03:10] In all cases, all four fundamentals are critically important. So what if it really was that simple? What if we could start by looking at these four fundamentals and saying, Okay, where do I need to improve? Which one am I really lacking in and how can I make it a focus this year?

[00:03:26] I’ve shared this before on the podcast, but in 2021, I had two simple goals for myself for the year. Yes, I was into cycle syncing. I was into, you know, all learning all about women’s physiology and how to train and eat according to my cycle. But ultimately, at the end of the day, my two focus points were on getting enough protein and prioritizing sleep.

[00:03:44] And just through doing that, the weight loss happened. Reaching the maximum energy happened. I started to just feel better. I started to show up differently in my life. And that’s what it’s about. So before we dive into the fundamentals, I just want you to know this. The first step that you can take in this process, especially entering the new year, is to go out with the old and in with the new.

[00:04:07] This is a concept that I’m embracing for myself as well, for my family. I know through my years of health coaching, we always would start with this, right? Because I can give you the grocery list to go out and buy all new healthy groceries. to really set you up for success. But if you have the Oreos in the pantry, and you have a lot of junk food and candy or whatever laying around, you’re going to be tempted to eat it.

[00:04:29] So, what we do is a pantry clean out, right? In health coaching, we say, okay, let’s clean out the fridge, let’s clean out the pantry. I want you to think about doing that this year in your life as it pertains to your hormones. Where could you make simple swaps in your daily routine that are just healthier for you?

[00:04:45] Could you swap out your skincare? Could you swap out your household cleaners and your home care? Could you make different choices when it comes to your nutrition? Making this one step, this just tackling one thing at a time month to month throughout this year out with the old in with the new is step one because if we keep the things in iron in our environment If we keep the things in our environment that are holding us back, it’s a lot like buying a brand new Peloton and eating doughnuts while riding the Peloton, right?

[00:05:12] Like you’re still in the environment of endocrine disruption. So as much as you can tackle your fitness and nutrition, we also have to tackle the things that are in and around our bodies. I will link up in the show notes for you. The link to my Hugh and Grace site, which is my favorite place for swapping out all these things.

[00:05:29] Make sure you swipe up for that information as well. So let’s dive deeper into these concepts of the four fundamentals. Now I’ve talked about the four fundamentals before, I’ll link it up for you in the show notes. But I want to overview it now, because here we are. Start of the new year, people are like, okay, I’ve got my hormone health goals, what can I control?

[00:05:45] Like, what are the things I need to be focusing on? Well, the first fundamental of hormone balance, and I do put these in priority order. Sleep. Our brain literally reboots during our sleep. Our pituitary gland, our HPA axis, our muscles recover, our brain. Everything really starts to rejuvenate and rebuild during sleep.

[00:06:04] So if we’re not getting enough sleep, then we’re really not resting our body and getting the right cognition. We’re not getting the right hormone balance just from simply not sleeping enough. The idea here is to focus on at least seven hours of quality sleep per night. We know that the average American is averaging seven hours of screen time per day, but they’re not averaging seven hours of sleep.

[00:06:26] This is a very simple swap that you can make. Limit your screen time and instead focus on that bedtime routine. I will link up for you in the show notes a podcast episode that I did on sleep. That way you can look more further, deeper, whatever, into the concept of bedtime routine. But that is fundamental number one.

[00:06:44] Fundamental number two is paying attention to your supplementation. Now, what supplements are best for people? Well, it depends on you. It depends on your deficiencies. Everyone is unique. Health is individual. So, doing the proper testing, working with the right type of functional medicine doctor, these are the things that you need to be doing to get to the root of what’s going on for you and to figure out what those imbalances are.

[00:07:05] There are some simple supplements that I do recommend for most people, magnesium, vitamin D, omegas, those types of things. I will link up my favorites in the show notes. But really, ultimately, you also want to make sure that you know what you specifically need. And that is fundamental number two. If you’re dealing with an imbalance, again, exercise is only going to get you so far.

[00:07:26] Fundamental number three is nutrition. What goes into our bodies, right? So listen, I like to pay attention to the research that’s done on the woman most like me. And for me, I am in perimenopausal years. I just turned 40. I like to train and exercise. So I like to pay attention to the woman who is a menstruating female who likes to train.

[00:07:46] And here’s what I know for sure. I know that most women in my category are under fueling or overtraining or they’re in a state of LEA, low energy availability. Right? We’ve got to make sure we’re fueling enough for our activity level. If we want to reach maximum energy, we’ve got to be eating enough of the right foods.

[00:08:04] You wouldn’t send your kid off to basketball practice with an empty stomach. Right? We know that it takes fuel, but somehow we get caught up in diet culture and society, especially as women, and we underfuel. And we wonder why we’re so freaking tired. So I’m telling you, fueling is one of your goals for this year.

[00:08:20] Eating enough protein and healthy fat especially. I also want to just say a short little caveat here to my women in perimenopause. I get it. Here’s the deal. We have got to focus more on working smarter and not harder. You don’t have to be doing all the HIIT training. You don’t have to be doing six or seven days a week of high intensity exercise.

[00:08:40] In fact, you shouldn’t be, right? We don’t have to be cutting back on our calories and restricting portion sizes. We can actually just start to work smarter. We can fuel. We can work out in alignment with our cycle. We can focus more on strength training and just active mobility. It doesn’t have to be complicated.

[00:08:59] So, you guys know I’m all about rehearsing diet culture. You’re going to hear that a lot on the podcast this year. But I want to lead us into fundamental number four, which takes a lot of unlearning for many of us, and it is exercise. Yes, exercise is one of the four fundamentals of hormone balance. We need movement in our lives.

[00:09:15] Turns out, our bodies are made to move. They’re not made to sit still, but yet most of us are sitting still most of the day. Whether we’re sitting in front of the TV, or we’re sitting at work, or we’re sitting at our desk, we’re sitting too much. So maybe your goal for this year as it pertains to exercise, pertaining to this fundamental, maybe it’s as simple as, I’m going to strength train four days a week, and I’m going to take a walk every day.

[00:09:37] That would be a really great goal. Yes, cycle syncing is amazing, but it’s also kind of just that next step, right? Keep it simple. Focus on strength training, walking, steady state cardio, and I promise you you will achieve results. Now, if you get these backwards, if you say, no, exercise is number one, I’m going to join the gym, I’m going to go ham, I’m going to start lifting, I’m going to do all the HIIT, I’m going to do all the stuff, and also I’m going to cut back on my food, and you don’t address fueling enough, you don’t address recovery, you don’t address sleep, you don’t address your unique supplementation, I’m telling you, my friend, you’re just burning it into the ground, you’re burning it into the ground.

[00:10:14] So these are the four fundamentals and honestly, I told the masterclass this today as well, you’re doing yourself a big disservice if you focus on these four fundamentals, but you’re still in a very fight or flight state of mind. Listen, I say this from experience. No one is more type A than me. I’m telling you, I like to control what I can control, as I’ve already mentioned in this podcast.

[00:10:39] But here’s the thing. If we are constantly working from a place of fight or flight, if we’re not down regulating our nervous system, if we’re not dealing with our stressors, if we’re not dealing with our traumas, if we’re not dealing with the emotions of the day to day roller coaster that is life, again, all this other work doesn’t matter. We’ve really, really, really got to harness the way we’re feeling. We’ve got to calm ourselves down. I will link up in the show notes a podcast for you that I did called Calming the F Down. I think it’s so key for women in controlling our autonomic nervous system, really helping ourselves to downregulate, to stay calm, which in theory and in turn will actually help us improve our hormone balance.

[00:11:20] So we’ve covered it all, right? We’ve covered those four fundamentals. We’ve talked about stressors. Here’s my final thoughts on this. We’ve got to focus everything on our energy this year. I’m telling you, as a mother of two daughters, I can’t be hung up on the scale. I don’t want them to grow up living in an environment where their mom is always worried about how she looks or what the scale says or how much food she’s eating.

[00:11:44] Instead, I want her to be focused on how mom showed up. Did mom show up with energy? Was she enthused? Was she passionate? Was she excited to be around me? Did she chase me around the yard? Right? These are the things I want. I want you to measure everything in energy because that’s what it’s all about. So finally,

[00:12:02] let’s shift this conversation this year to all about energy, not weight loss. It’s going to start with our hormone health. We can’t exercise our way to hormone balance and we’ve got to address root issues. Like I said, the things that we’re putting in, on and around our bodies, the way we supplement, the way that we live our lifestyle, we got to do it for ourselves.

[00:12:23] We’ve got to do it for our daughters. Ultimately, if we do this for ourselves, we’re doing this for our daughters. We’re doing this for the people we love because we’re filling our own buckets. So as you set your physical health goals this year, as you head into 2024. Or, think about this full picture.

[00:12:40] Maybe it really is this simple. Maybe it is as simple as mastering these fundamentals. Maybe we don’t need to overthink it. Maybe we don’t need to go look for keto recipes or figure out how many hours to fast, right? Or whatever. It’s really, let’s just not overcomplicate it. Let’s look at everything through the lens of energy.

[00:12:59] Okay, my friends, thank you so much for tuning into this episode. I always am so grateful that you guys take time out of your day to listen to me. I was just telling my husband the other day. We’re over 200 episodes in and if you would have told me that we would be in this position two years ago I would have thought you were crazy because I didn’t think I had enough to talk about for 200 episodes But it turns out every week when I sit down to do this, I have more and more and more to share So I’m so grateful for you tuning in, subscribing, sharing, leaving a review, anything that you can do to help boost this podcast You’re serving women really by doing so.

[00:13:29] So thank you so much for tuning in my friends until next time. We’ll talk soon. Bye. Bye