Yeah, the pills handed out like candy, but most people don't
realize it's classified as a Group 1 carcinogen.
Birth control doesn't regulate anything.
It's shutting down your natural site.
It's just putting it to sleep. I wish I had had all these
little tips that aren't $500 worth of supplements.
I want to hear some of your favorite habits that every woman
can start doing on a daily basis to improve their hormonal
health. Welcome to grounded Wellness.
I'm your host Bethany McDaniel, founder of primarily pure, mom
of three and biohacking enthusiast.
We created this podcast to bring you practical advice to live a
more vibrant and intentional life rooted in long lasting
health. We record right here on our
regenerative farm, grounded with our feet in the soil, exploring
bold truths, overlooked wisdom and holistic tools that support
true well-being. These conversations will
challenge everything you know about health and Wellness.
Today, I am so excited to welcome Emily Dietrich, an
Integrative Nutrition health coach who has helped thousands
of women balance their hormones naturally.
After years of struggling with the side effects of synthetic
birth control and hormone imbalances, Emily has made it
her mission to help women break free of painful periods and live
in tune with their cycles. In this episode, we are diving
into the most common hormone myths, what your body really
needs in each phase of your cycle, and simple ways to feel
more energized, aligned and In Sync.
Let's dig in. Emily, thank you so much for
coming out to The Farm. I feel like I already know you
because I've been following you for so long and have listened to
you on several other podcasts, but it's so nice to finally meet
you in person. For anyone who isn't familiar
with your work, can you give a little breakdown of who you are
and what you do? Yes, OK, so I'm so excited to be
here. First of all, this is gorgeous.
This is the coolest podcast that I've ever been on.
So a little bit about me. I have been in the hormone
balancing space for six years now, and I got into it because
my own hormones were a mess. So I spent 10 years on hormonal
birth control. I got on when I was 15 for no
reason really. I think my sister was getting on
it, maybe she had acne something, and so they just put
me on it too. Literally the same story, yeah.
Yeah, it was just like, I don't even know why.
Probably 15 or 16, yeah, in about 10 years.
Exactly. Yeah.
So you stay on it and it was fine at first, like I didn't
have any issues with it. And then about 8 years and I
started experiencing just weight gain all of a sudden, like there
were so many things. I also was vegan for a little
bit if there was a lot of factors that went into it.
But all of a sudden it felt like my body was fighting back
against me. And I went to the doctor and
they were like, everything you're experiencing is normal,
of course. And it's like it's not.
I can tell you I don't feel normal.
And so after going to a couple doctors and I got problems at
the time too, I just was like, OK, I got to get off this.
So I got off hormonal birth control and I just did it
myself. My doctor was like, we'll see
you back when you're pregnant. And I was like, I still haven't
gone back. And she just was like, you don't
know how to track. Like basically treated me like I
didn't know what I was doing, that I didn't know my own body,
that she knew better than me. And that just grossed me out.
And I was, I got to get out of here.
So I took matters in my own hands.
I basically was my own Guinea pig at the time.
Like not much. This was almost six years ago.
No one was really talking about gut health or like gluten issues
or anything like that. And so I kind of had to do it
myself and went gluten free, went dairy free, did a bunch of
things, bounced my own hormones and you.
Weren't even seeing a practitioner, you were just
figuring it out and trying things on your.
Own I just went for it. I just went for it because I
figured, and this is what I tell clients now too, is yes, hormone
tests are important, but if you're just starting out, it's
going to tell you what you already know.
If you feel like your cortisol is messed up and all this, it
probably is. And so there's so many
foundational things you can do before you spend a bunch of
money on testing to get things honed in a little bit and to
work on foundations and then move into testing after that.
I. Totally agree with that.
There are basic things that every single person can do that
will improve their health and their hormones.
And yes, like it's great to get more specific and specialized
down the road if you need to. But I completely agree about the
foundational stuff, and I want to get into more of that later
too. Yeah.
People just want to go straight into testing, and I get it
because you want answers, yeah, Or you want a diagnosis, you
want a starting point. But there really are, like,
simple, cheap freeways that you can do all of this.
So yeah, then after going through all of that, I made it
my mission because I didn't feel like anyone was there to help
me. Like, my traditional Western
medicine doctor wasn't there to help me.
And it felt like even on the Internet, I wasn't seeing much
about, like, balancing hormones. So I made it my mission.
I was like, this is what I'm going to do.
I'm going to help women. I was already a health coach at
that point. And so that's kind of where my
Instagram went. I grew my Instagram and here I
am. What did you experience in your
own health? Like, how did your health
transform? What differences did you see
once you started balancing out your hormones on your own?
So it started, I think it started with a round of
antibiotics that then like messed up my gut that then did
this whole domino effect with my entire body, which I was also
vegan for a year. So there's a lot of these
things. That's a long time.
It's a really long time and it started getting messed up at
6:00. Months.
Wow. And yeah, after a year of being
vegetarian, I was like, this isn't working.
Yeah. But yeah, vegan, that's even.
It was real. I made a little YouTube channel.
I said vegan recipes. Here's why veganism is so
amazing and I guess I had to go through it because I don't know
if I would be here sharing the same story if I hadn't gone
through it and realized what really didn't work and what was
not optimal for, I would argue everyone, but definitely a
majority of people. So I was gaining weight out of
nowhere. I was eating healthy like I
wasn't eating junk food. It was still gluten free at the
time. Eating healthy, working out,
gaining weight. My periods went from being kind
of easy to really painful. And then they were gone
completely. What else?
My libido was negative. Like I felt so trapped in my
body. I had hormonal acne.
I felt crazy, like my mood swings were crazy.
I would cry all the time. It just, it was so bad.
And so that's when I went to my doctor and was like, this isn't
right. I tried three different birth
controls in one year because I just thought like Goldilocks, I
don't know, maybe it's this one, maybe this one.
No, none of them. And we're right.
And so I finally got off it and it took a couple years because I
didn't really know what I was doing.
So it took a few years, probably 2 to fully balance out and to
get my body back after being vegan and all of that.
But it was a journey. And so now I have clients where
it really only takes, I mean, you feel better pretty instantly
within a month, but then after four to six months, you're
you're having probably regular periods, pain free periods.
It doesn't take a long time and it's again not all consuming
like you don't have to do everything perfect to see
results. Totally.
And I think that's the awesome thing about this, is that
there's so much hope. Like, yes, we could paint a
really sad picture about, like, the pill and what it does, but
then there is so much hope to recover from all of that.
Yeah. You also recently got married.
How has your experience with fertility awareness and and
hormone stuff impacted your future journey into motherhood?
I, I've always wanted to be a mom.
Like ever since I was little, I wanted to be a mom and I'm just
so excited. And I think so in terms of even
going back to being on birth control.
And I say this to, like, my friends who have daughters that
I can't wait for them to teach them about their actual body.
I think young girls aren't really taught, like, the miracle
of getting pregnant and growing a child and like, truly the
miracle, like what a menstrual cycle is, which sounds crazy to
say and kind of silly, but it is.
And I just think if I'd known all of this sooner, I probably
would have treated my body better from the beginning if I
understood what it was capable of.
And so I think balancing my hormones, learning so much about
fertility and how the female body works, it's so incredible.
And it still blows my mind. Like I, we don't have kids yet.
I'm not pregnant yet, but I can't wait.
Like I can't wait to be pregnant and to like create a human and
to give birth and to experience all of those things connected to
my body. Because I think being on birth
control, I was so disconnected. Like it was like, that's over
here and I'm over here and I didn't see it holistically.
So now it's just like, it's beautiful and I just can't wait
to experience all of it, the good and the bad and everything
that comes with it. For sure.
I think you develop a reverence for your body and what it's
capable of and just all of the processes that we go through as
women when you have that understanding and connection.
I've heard you say that PMS is optional.
Yeah, which may sound crazy to some people, but can you explain
what you mean by that? Yeah, So PMS, like we get told,
oh, it's just part of being a woman.
Like, welcome to womanhood. Like, this is it.
This is the rest of your life, basically.
It's gonna suck. This is just part of it.
And that's not true. Like it's not normal.
It's common. And people normalize common
things. So if everyone you know is
experiencing it, it still doesn't make it normal.
And so I think there's this idea of everyone complaining.
I mean, the endless memes on the Internet about, like, being on
your period and feeling. And yeah, should you take it
easier on your period? Of course.
But like, this whole idea that women should get a full week
off. And, like, you shouldn't need a
full week off because it shouldn't be like that.
You shouldn't be calling out of school.
You shouldn't be staying home from work.
You shouldn't be canceling plans.
Like, none of that's normal. And I think no one's told.
No one's given hope. No one's given like, hey, this,
you don't have to live like this.
And so, so many women are once they have a pain free period or
whatever I say pain free, relatively pain free.
There is some discomfort, which is normal.
You don't want to feel nothing. Your body is doing things.
And I think again now you develop a reverence and a
respect for it instead of thinking your body's working
against you. So you feel like the.
Difference of like when I was in high school, I would get
nauseous, I would sometimes throw up from my period, I would
have to leave school. And now it yes, it's not
completely pain free. There's some cramping, but it
doesn't it's not debilitating. It shouldn't affect your
day-to-day life. Yeah, that's how I say it.
Like, you should know what's happening, but it shouldn't
affect your day-to-day life. Yeah.
And PMS symptoms are signs of like, hormone imbalances.
So like having cramps or heavy periods or tender breasts.
All of that is like high estrogen, which you can detox
naturally. So there's all of these things.
And I write, I try to think of them as like little smoke
signals, like little signs from your body to listen.
The symptoms are just invitations to listen to your
body. And I think we're just in so
many people. And I was for a long time in the
business of ignoring it and just kind of dampering it down,
quieting it, go taking ibuprofen, my doll, whatever it
may be, and just moving on with my day and it now I don't have
to do any of that. Yeah, we say the same thing
about the skin, like acne, like these things that show up on the
skin. They're, it's trying to tell us
something about what's going on internally and rather than
masking it, let's like listen and figure it out.
You have helped 20,000 women balance their hormones
naturally, which is insane. What's the most common
misconception that people come to you with?
Oh. My gosh, OK, gosh.
It's about hormones. Probably about if it we're
talking just like periods and hormones in Dragon Ball.
It's the idea that you can get pregnant every day of the month
that's the craziest one. Like I have women in their 30s
that are like, I didn't know this and like, that's crazy.
That says something about like the education in our country.
First of all, 'cause it's mostly women from the US, but.
We're just like moms like talking to their daughters about
these things. Yeah, I never got.
And I love my love you mom. I never got that whole talk.
Yeah. They give you like a book or
whatever and then you move on. Right.
And so it's it's no one's fault. It's just they were told and
they were. It's you know, we have a chance
to break the cycle, which is why I'm so excited to, like, have a
daughter. Hopefully, God willing, I don't.
Maybe I'll end up with all boys and I'll tell them about it.
I don't know, but I just. That's an important thing for
parents to talk about. With the kids, though, yeah,
yeah. Natural.
It's a normal taboo. It's crazy because then you grow
up and you have people, you know, girls whispering to each
other. Do you have a tampon?
And like, what? It's fine.
I mean, don't yell it, but it
shouldn't be something we hide. So yeah, it's just crazy.
Another misconception. I mean, other ones that you
probably get to like skin and dairy, that like dairy's the
enemy and dairy's bad for you, and some dairy's inflammatory.
But it depends on your gut health, and it depends on how it
was raised and it depends on the quality.
So there's so many things that we get told or like red meat's
bad for you, but it's actually so good for your hormones.
I probably low fat. That low fat is good.
That's probably the the worst one.
People still think that. Yeah, no, they don't.
I get messages all the time of like, are you worried about your
cholesterol? I'm like, you know, you need
cholesterol to make hormones. If you don't have cholesterol,
you literally can't make progesterone.
You can't make anything. So it's that's the crazy.
One for everything. For everything to synthesize
vitamin D, you need cholesterol. So it's just that's probably the
craziest 1 and I'm so grateful I wasn't my grandpa was like suit
my momma's dad super health conscious.
Like how did juice shop 40 years ago didn't believe in like the
eggs have high cholesterol, don't eat them.
Didn't believe in low fat so I love that.
I'm so grateful all. That all that property.
Ignore all of it. He was in Coffee Enemies 40
years ago. Coffee Enemies.
Yeah. So he was an OG.
So I think that's where I get a lot of this from.
The crunchier stuff. Yeah.
Like growing up my mom, like our one of the favorite things she
would make us was strawberries, bananas, raw honey, and then
like goat milk or fresh cream. Wow.
That was like my favorite thing. That's.
Incredible. We touched on this a little
while ago, but I want to hear some of your favorite habits
that every woman can start doing on a daily basis to improve
their hormonal health. It's my favorite.
So I love sharing tips and tricks.
I share so much on my Instagram. It's like a lot of people like
you share so much. What could your course be about?
And like, trust me, like people have changed their lives with
just my Instagram stuff because a lot of people gatekeep on
Instagram and on social media in general.
And I just again, when I was going through all this, I wish I
had had all these little tips that aren't $500 worth of
supplements and like crazy biohacking stuff.
So I would say my biggest tip would be to have breakfast, a
higher protein breakfast, like 20 to 30 grams, ideally within
one hour of waking up before coffee.
So no coffee and an empty stomach And no like waiting to
eat lunch or waiting to eat skipping breakfast completely.
It's just going to trigger cortisol and so many women that
fast constantly. There's a time and a place to
fast during your cycle and all of that.
But the women that are like, I have so much energy.
I feel so clear and like, that's cortisol, like that's
adrenaline. Like that's what you're running
on. And I fasted for a long time.
That was part of that whole journey.
And I felt the same way until again, all of a sudden my
thyroid was messed up. I was gaining weight, like
everything. I was fatigued.
My cortisol was dysregulated. And then I realized like, oh, I
need food. Like our bodies need to run on
food. We can't just fast all the time.
I'm with you on that. I I do appreciate fasting and I
think there is a place for it and I I've experienced benefits
from it, but now I time it with my cycle.
Yeah, maybe we'll talk about that a little bit later.
But yeah, I think doing it too much is not a good thing.
Yeah. And it's just I like circadian
fasting. So like eating with the sun.
Yeah. So having breakfast like when
the sun is coming up and then having your last meal before the
sun goes down. That makes sense to me.
OK. And then one more tip that I
have is probably about lymphatic drainage.
This is something I didn't take seriously at first on during my
hormone balancing journey. I just had other things to worry
about in the meantime, but then once I incorporated it, I
noticed not only did I feel less puffy and inflamed, but I just
felt better. And so I'll do like a facial
lymphatic drainage first thing in the morning right when I wake
up. I just like open up all the
drainage pathways. You just like do a little couple
pumps in like where your lymph nodes are and that helps so
much. And then I'll either like just
jump or if you have a rebounder, you can do that, but you can
just jump or get a $5 jump rope. Do it for like 10 minutes.
It's going to just move so much lymph and the thing like our
heart pumps blood, but our lymphatic system needs like
manual stimulation to move. The lymphatic system gets toxins
out basically, and it needs a little help.
So I noticed that that helped so much.
Just again with my skin, with everything, just when toxins are
able to circulate and get out of the body, it makes such a
difference. So that's another like little
hack that's not really food related.
Yeah, and it's free. And like you said, there's so
many different ways you can do that, whether it's the manual
stuff like I find myself just like I get lymphatic drainage
massages and you know, Gwah shot and all that, like go, I go
somewhere to have that. But then I just find myself
wanting to like move my, my skin, my lips, because I just
once you like experience how good it feels, you just kind of
crave it. And I'm always like after I like
take a sports bra, I like. Move, kind of move around.
Yeah, just like so good. Get things flowing and then the
jumping. Yeah, the jumping and it's fun.
It is just fun. It just kind of gets your energy
up. Easy becomes addicting.
I and like think about it anymore, it's just a part of.
I dunk my face in a bowl of ice water every morning, Love.
And now I'm addicted. Yeah.
My moms like, how do you do it? And like, I crave it now.
Like, I love it. It feels so good.
Yeah. So that's another thing which
can it supports your nervous system, too.
It stimulates like the vagus nerve, which nervous system is
super important for hormones too, because that's like you can
be doing everything right. But if your nervous system is
dysregulated and it's all it's lighting up and you're in fight
or flight, it really doesn't matter how much protein you're
eating. That helps.
But you really got to get your body feeling safe.
That's kind of what everything comes down to with hormones is
we're all, we're women especially are really on high
alert for danger at all times. So men have like a single focus,
They're looking for date, they're hunting.
Women have a diffused awareness and we're always scanning,
always scanning for danger, always scanning In the world we
live in now, there's so much going on all around us at any
given time. And so I think our nervous
system can get triggered a lot and we get so used to it that we
don't know what's going on. I think I was living in fight or
flight for a long time and just thought it was normal.
And so many women come to me saying the same thing.
They're like, something happened my periods later this and that.
Do you know what it could be? I'm like, well, what's your
day-to-day life like? And they're like, well, I'm
trying to plan a wedding and I'm still in grad school and I'm
this and I'm actually, I'm trying to get pregnant soon.
I'm like right there, right there.
And they're like, well, I don't feel stressed.
I'm like reading that makes me stressed.
So it's like they're just so used to it.
Also doing a million things at one time.
And I've heard you talk about this too, but like, I feel like
for me and regulating my nervous system, going outside in the
morning and just getting morning sunlight grounding has been a
game changer. Like starting my day out that
way versus picking up my phone and being exposed to artificial
light and drinking coffee before eating anything and all these
things that just put us in this state of stress.
And you don't realize it like until you start doing it, until
you take an hour off your phone. Like you wake up, keep your
phone another room, even get like an old school alarm clock
or just let your body wake up if you have the ability to do that.
And getting outside, getting morning sun, just sitting there
for a minute, maybe doing your lymphatic drainage there like
doing you can kill a lot of birds with one stone.
You can. It makes such a difference.
My neighbors probably think I'm so weird because I go outside
and our backyard, we have like the house we're living in now.
There's like a pond back there and so there's other houses that
can like see our back patio, but I literally go outside in the
morning and I just like lay down in the cement, just like laying
there. Charging they'll.
Probably think I'm like dead but yeah, I literally feel like I'm
charging my battery from the the ground because you can ground on
cement and then the sunlight and like listening to the birds.
It's like the best way to start my day.
And when you think of it like that's how we should be, yeah.
Like we're not, we're a we've, we haven't evolved, but our
environment around us has evolved so quickly and we have
not caught up yet. And so I think the more we can
get back to nature and basics and grounding and not being on
our phones first thing and it's triggering your fight or flight
100%. I've noticed the more I'm off my
phone in the morning, time feels slower.
I feel calmer, like I truly do. If I'm on my phone first thing,
if I have to be for work for the rest of the day, I'm like, my
brain is pinballing between things.
I can't focus. There's just so much noise and
so yeah, staying off your phone in the morning is so good and
just getting outside 5 minutes, 10 minutes, like whatever you
can get is better than nothing. Start.
Small. Yeah.
And they don't naturally like want more and more.
Yes, yeah. The more time I spent outside, I
truly it's a vitamin. It's a vitamin.
OK, I want to transition to the pill, and I have an alarming
stat here. A 2007 review by the Internal
Agency for Research on Cancer found that women who use oral
contraceptives for 10 or more years double their risk of
cervical cancer. What are your thoughts on that?
It's sad. It's really sad because they'll
tell you that it prevents cervical cancer it at first
because it can help reduce inflammation if you have
endometriosis, right, which can cause you to grow scar tissue
and cause a bunch of issues. Yeah, it can help in the
meantime, but you're just shutting down your hormones.
So you're introducing a constant stream of fake estrogen,
basically, and that's going to catch up with you.
So cancer rates, I mean, rates of anxiety and depression.
I think there was a Danish study done on over a million women,
and they found that they're 23 to 80% more likely to experience
symptoms of depression. Teen girls on the pill are 20
times more likely something like that to be diagnosed with
depression and to be on anti anxiety meds.
There's just so many staggering statistics that it's crazy to me
that young girls whose bodies and brains and bones are still
developing are being put on something that literally is
killing young girls. Without being educated only on
those. Just handed it.
Yeah. And it's like, it should have a
black box warning, like these poor girls and their families
who are fighting for them because it increase your rate of
blood clots. So you can get a blood clot.
It can go to your brain. And there's girls that have
died. And so there's a really good
documentary, The Business of Birth Control, which is done by
the same people as The Business of Being.
Yeah, I saw that one. That was so good.
It makes you feel like I, I went through all the emotions
watching it, like you'll feel angry and sad and just like
befuddled that the fact that this is still given to girls,
young girls, women, without being given like proper informed
consent, which is the saddest part.
Yeah. How does it impact your ability
to conceive later on? So we can, it can do a multitude
of things. I feel like we don't even really
know all of them because of the downstream effects that it has
on gut health and on triggering autoimmune conditions when you
get off, like you can get autoimmune PCOS when you get off
of birth control. All of these things can be
triggered one, if you don't get off birth control the right way,
kind of if you're not helping your body, supplementing
correctly, detoxing correctly, you can experience something
called post birth control syndrome where if you had
hormone imbalances before getting on, they come back
tenfold. They come back like kind of
angrier because all you did was mask them and so many girls.
I'll get commas. It regulated my period.
No, it didn't. Birth control doesn't regulate
anything. It's shutting down your natural
site. It's just putting it to sleep.
And I've heard you say it's actually a fake bleed.
Yeah, yeah, it's a withdrawal bleed.
So what does that mean exactly? So like when you have three
weeks of taking the pill and then one week of the sugar
pills, really that bleed is just a withdrawal symptom of not
taking the fake hormones. OK, Yeah.
So you're not having you're not ovulating.
So if you're not ovulating, you're not getting a real
period. Gosh, that is wild to think that
like I didn't ovulate for 10 years and I was put on the pill
for acne and it it worked. But then when I went off of it,
the acne was worse than ever. And by then I knew a thing or
two about diet and lifestyle and was able to like bring things
into balance. But for people that don't, I
mean, I mean, that's so sad. Like you're just left with this
mess and that you were never told was going to happen.
Yeah. And you just have to figure it
out. I never had acne until I got off
birth control. Wow.
And then it was so bad and I think even worse than I had
never experienced it, thinking I was like, oh, look at me, I'm
lucky. I'm God's favorite.
I don't have acne. Then I got off first control and
it hit me like a ton of bricks and it was so bad.
It was so like cystic and painful and I was so insecure.
I tell this story. I don't like driving.
I make my husband drive everywhere.
Passenger Princess, proper passenger Princess.
And when I had hormonal acne, it was mainly on this side.
And so I would drive so that he couldn't see it.
Oh my gosh. I like I was that insecure about
it that I like didn't want to leave the house.
It's so isolating. And so I understand why women
get on birth control if they feel like they have no other
option. But truly, like there's no,
there are some out there good Western Med doctors, but for the
most part, like if you're going to go to an OB, it's going to be
a traditional one and they're just going to tell you birth
control is the option. Yeah, the pills handed out like
candy, but most people don't realize it's classified as a
Group 1 carcinogen. It's insane.
I just again, like, why is no one talking about this?
We get, I mean, in the media now, like we're getting vilified
for wanting to help women work on their fertility, and I don't
get it. For women who are terrified to
go off of the pill because they don't know what's going to
happen with their hormones or maybe they're afraid of getting
pregnant, what would you say to them?
I was that I felt that way. It took me 6 months of being
miserable on the pill until I finally, I did so much research.
I was looking up the fertility awareness method like is this
legit? A year prior I had had a friend
tell me that she was doing that and I was like, that's sketchy
like you're going to get pregnant.
I was like that person and I was like, how could that possibly
work? Which the crazy thing is,
hormonal birth control for the most part is only 91% effective.
So that means 9 out of every hundred women that take birth
control will get pregnant on it. So that's not that effective.
That's almost one in 10 that will get pregnant on birth.
Control. Not very good odds.
No. And so the more one, I was just
so miserable that anything was better than being on it.
Like I was so at that point pretty depressed.
Like I just didn't feel like myself.
And so I was like, anything's better than this.
I got to get off. I didn't feel like, I honestly
didn't feel like I had the option to stay on it.
But to those girls, I understand feeling scared because I was the
same way. But we're not taught.
So the more you learn, the more you educate yourself, the more
you learn about your cycle, the more you learn how effective
things like the fertility awareness method, like the
symptothermal where you're tracking cervical fluid, you're
tracking your temperature. It's so accurate.
This has been around for so long.
It's highly accurate. I've been doing it for five
years. I've never had one scare or one
issue or anything. OK, can you explain more about
it? Like what all do you do to track
your cycle? So there are apps out there, but
I, I recommend all women learn hand charting, like just do it
by hand first so you understand what goes into it and you feel
more connected to your body. And, and I feel like I felt more
empowered and more confident in the method that because I knew
how to do it. So you track your temperature
every morning you take your temperature with a special
thermometer called a basal body thermometer, which goes to like
point, it goes to 2 decimal points.
So it's way more accurate. And the reason why this method
works is because right before you ovulate, your temperature
will dip slightly. And this is all due to hormone
fluctuations. It'll dip slightly and then
it'll spike. And when I say spike, we're
talking half a degree, just slightly and then it'll stay
elevated until you get your period.
OK, So you can as you as time goes by and you're tracking
this, you can see it and then? Then what happens when you get
your period? Then when you get your period
drops down, it drops back down to a baseline temp, which should
be like above 97°, like 97.5 is a good, is a good starting
point. If you're low 90 sevens or under
that probably some thyroid metabolism issue going on.
But yeah, the longer you track it, you start to see these
fluctuations. And what's really cool is you
can track like through apps or just hand turning.
You can also track your symptoms and you start to see how
cyclical everything is. You're like, oh, especially as
an entrepreneur, I'm like, oh, every day on day 26 of my cycle,
I want to burn my business to the ground.
So like there's certain and things are every day or every
time around this time, I'm super irritated and I need to like
take a step back and see the bigger picture.
My husband is doing something. Or if your kids or whatever, you
start to learn the reasons behind why you feel the way you
feel, and I think you're able to give yourself more grace.
So yeah, with the fertility awareness method, you're
tracking your temperature and your cervical fluid over the
course of the month. And through those patterns, you
can figure out your fertile window, which is only 6 days.
You can only get pregnant six days out of every cycle, not
every day. That's another crazy thing that
a lot of women and I didn't know until I was like probably 2223.
Yeah. So.
For a very long time. Insane and.
Mostly how our bodies are right before ovulation.
Yep. Would you say like how many days
before ovulation 555 is and one day following or the is the
window in which you can get pregnant?
Yeah. So 5 days before cuz sperm can
live for up to five days and then the day of ovulation and
that's it. That's it.
So I have women that are like I got pregnant outside of my
fertile window. I was like, you can't, so your
fertile window is just. Different than ovulating when
you think you. Are and so it's just so
important and I have a lot of women that come to me and
they're, they'll say this and I don't know what's going on in my
periods late. I'm like, well, do you know when
you ovulate? Because there's no such thing as
a late period there. It's just late.
It's the late ovulation. So if you can figure that out,
it's a lot easier. And same with when it comes to
getting pregnant. If you know your cycle and you
know you ovulate on day, let's say 16, but you get your period
on day 26. So you have a normal range
cycle, but your luteal phase is 10 days, which is not really
enough to sustain like implantation for a pregnancy.
It would indicate that you have low progesterone.
And so if you understand that, you can say, OK, then I'll boost
progesterone naturally versus I have women that will go to see a
doctor and the doctor will say you have fertility problems or
you need IVF or this and that without even asking them if they
understand their cycle or kind of what's going.
On So what you're saying is you can only get pregnant within
that six day window and outside of that it's OK to have
unprotected sex? Yeah, if you want to get
pregnant. Yes, yes, yeah.
It's literally those six days outside of your fertile window.
It is physically impossible to get pregnant.
That is the only time you're fertile.
So any other time of the month, outside of those six days, green
light, green light, you're good to go.
So whether you're someone who wants to have a child or you're
trying to prevent pregnancy, regardless this is something
that is valuable. Or if you're not having sex and
you just want to understand your body better.
This is something that is so valuable for every woman to pay
attention to. And I can't wait to teach like
my daughter right as she's getting over teaching her about
this and then as she gets older. This is a method that follows
you through life. So whether you're not having sex
at you're maybe trying for a baby or trying to avoid
pregnancy, the method works the same in all ways.
And so it's you just kind of flip the way you use it.
Yeah, so. What about other methods of
contraception? The IUD?
What are your thoughts on that? No especially so a lot of women
think the copper IUD is better from what I've heard.
I've I was never on it. It's worse symptom wise. 1
copper toxicity is an issue. You're putting something that's
covered in heavy metals into your body.
I've actually saw recently an article where they were talking
about how that like metal coil uncoiled in the uterus and it
disintegrated. So it's just literal heavy
metals absorbing into your body. It's a foreign device.
The way that it works. The copper 1 is just like
irritating the lining of the uterus, so nothing can stick,
but it can do permanent damage. It can get dislodged.
And what I've heard with that, So what we're learning is that
the inflammation is not localized to the uterus.
That inflammation spreads throughout the entire body.
And so from what I've heard from women who are on the copper IUD
and got on it because they thought it was better and non
hormonal, they experienced the worst side effects, the most
debilitating cramps and things like that.
So there's that. The hormonal IUD is releasing a
constant stream of hormones that works two ways.
One by irritating, second by just releasing exogenous
hormones constantly with the copper IUD.
Also, what I think no one really talks about is that you're still
ovulating. So if you if you do like have
unprotected sex, it is a possibility that something could
get fertilized, but never implant.
And so your body just passes it, which is really sad.
And no, I don't, I know women weren't told that.
So many women that were like, I never would have gone on it if I
learned that. So yeah, the hormonal ID, the
pill, the patch, it's all just fake hormones essentially
shutting your shutting your period off.
Well, OK, I want to get into cycle thinking.
I want to give every woman listening an understanding of
what happens during each of the four phases that we go through
every month and how to support our bodies in each phase.
OK, this is my favorite. This is my favorite little
workshop to do so. Cycle thinking, I kind of like
going with your flow. Cycle Thinking was coined, I
think trademark copyrighted by Elisa Vidi who wrote a book on
it. I call it going with your flow.
It's just living in tune with your cycle.
So we have 4 phases. It's not like when I was
younger, I just thought I was on my period or I wasn't on my
period and that was it. I didn't really know much.
And I also thought my period was like the main event.
And it's really not. It's like the byproduct.
It's like kind of the part that doesn't really matter, which is
fascinating. So you have 4 phases.
You have your menstrual phase, which is the first phase.
So day one of your period marks, day one of your cycle, you'll
move into follicular, which is like your inner spring.
That's how I like, I'll describe them as seasons.
So if menstrual is your winter, follicular is spring ovulation,
which is the main events, what your body is preparing for all
month long. The best I'm ovulate right now.
I was like good timing, good timing for the really good
timing. So that's like your summer, your
inner summer. And then luteal would be like
the fall. As leaves are changing, your
hormones are changing before your period.
So menstrual phase is the first phase.
This typically lasts between 3:00 and six days.
A healthy period would be like 3 full days to about 6 days.
Anything 7 or longer, there's probably something going on.
You know women that have like 7-8 ten day cycles.
Not normal, but this is a time. Again, if you think of how what
you would do in winter, you would hibernate, you would stay
inside. You would eat warm, hearty,
grounding foods like stews and slow cooked foods.
So that's what I like to think of.
If you think about your period as winter, just do things you
would do in the winter, introspective, write in your
journal. Just take some time by yourself.
Don't make plans. Don't book podcast interviews.
Don't put a news interview on my period.
This was just like last week or like a week and a half ago.
It took so much out of me. I feel like I still haven't
fully recovered from just not being able to rest during that
time. It was so important and crazy
and you'll realize. And it was like a full day
thing, like they came out here to the farms, the headboard.
It was like a big, big thing and I was just like, I felt so
depleted, like more than I would have.
Yeah, so I like to think of it also before I dive back in.
I was like instead of so women and men have different cycles,
right. Men have like a circadian cycle
which is 24 hours. So like they get to wake up,
they're like little robots every 24 hours, same thing.
We have a 28 day cycle. So we have an infradian rhythm
and we have to start seeing our like To Do List or our battery
as a monthly battery instead of a daily battery and everything
gets so much easier. So if you think about it, if you
spend the month charging your battery, living in tune with
your cycle and resting on your period, everything's going to be
easier versus if you try to go against it.
You're doing things on your period, you have nothing, you
have nothing to go off of. So it's really like you're in
the red and it does take longer to recover.
So I think it's so important to see it as like a monthly battery
and monthly To Do List instead of daily tasks and it makes it
so much easier. So your period is the inner
winter again, hibernation. Like that's what I want you to
think of warm, hearty foods, things like that.
Then as you move into follicular, this is like your
inner spring. So it's like the flowers are
blooming, your energy starting to come back after your period.
This is when your body is essentially working on the
little follicles that will then release an egg.
So your hormones are starting to come up where on your period all
your hormones are flat lined. Essentially This is why you feel
unmotivated. You just want to Netflix until
you want to hang out at home. So everything's at its lowest.
So that's normal to not be full of energy on your period.
But like I said, it shouldn't affect your day-to-day life.
You shouldn't feel like I can't get off the couch.
It should just be honoring rest and listening to your body so
follicular your energy is coming back.
This is a time when you want to focus on healthy fats and
fermented foods to support gut health, where your gut
microbiome also changes over the course of the month.
So this is a really good time to add in like kimchi or sauerkraut
to your meals. Eat more eggs, eat more nut
butter, eat more avocados, healthy fats to kind of help
boost progesterone as you come up to ovulation.
So follicular, flat, inner spring.
Then as you move into ovulation, the main event, this is what
your body's been preparing, preparing for all month long,
getting ready to release an egg. So another important thing, even
if we're not trying to get pregnant, our bodies always are
like our female bodies. That's what the menstrual cycle
is. It's always trying to get
pregnant. It's always doing that.
And regardless or not if we care, right?
So it's so important to support this process because truly your
period is like the Canary in the coal mine.
It is your health report card that you get every single month.
And you can kind of tell what's going on by the length and how
painful it is and all of that good stuff.
So you're leading up to ovulation, which is your inner
summer. This is when an egg is released.
Ovulation is a one day event, but I like to think of ovulation
as a week. So especially if you're new to
cycle thinking, I like to just say use a week for each one.
So like treat your period as a week, treat follicular as a
week, ovulation as you get into the hang of it versus kind of
trying to do it all at one time and.
You do kind of feel that high of ovulation for a few days before
a few days after. Yeah, that's what I've noticed
is like, you start and once you pay attention to these things,
you'll notice it. Like you'll notice your facial
features actually change your skin.
Skin looks better versus in your lateral phase.
You had a viral reel that got, I think, like, what was it, 20
million views talking about? How your bone structure changes
during ovulation? How?
Crazy. It's crazy.
So like I said, our bodies are always trying to get pregnant.
So it's during ovulation is when you're fertile, your skin is
glowing, you have like you might feel better.
Like people are like once I tell women they're like, oh, now I
notice it. Now I notice it every time now.
It's not just like, oh, I have ugly days.
It's like that's probably your luteal phase.
Yeah, before they probably just thought it's total random, just
that like some days I look great, some days I don't.
Love the reflection I'm seeing. But am I crazy?
Yeah. Yeah.
Am I crazy that I think I look, you know, uglier at this time,
and I feel hot at this time? You're not crazy.
That's totally normal. And yeah, during your luteal
phase, your skin is more dry, so your skin care can change
through your cycle. Ovulation, it's already going to
glow. And there's certain times where
it's better to exfoliate or it's better to use like a retinol
versus later in the cycle when your skin is more sensitive.
So all of these things, it's just so fast the.
Skin's more sensitive in the luteal phase and menstrual phase
maybe OK. Yeah, it's way more sensitive,
so you don't want to use any like harsh exfoliants or
anything crazy. This would be time for like a
mask or like soothing, you know, soothing bomb masks, things like
that to really calm inflammation and rehydrate.
So that's it. I just think it's also crazy.
But yeah, your bone structure shifts slightly to make you look
more feminine and more attractive.
It's it's just insane. Everything your body is doing is
trying to get you pregnant, which I think is fascinating.
Like I'm saying, I like to nerd out on this like I didn't.
Not that I never took my body seriously, but I didn't
understand how cool it all is that it all works together to do
this. It's.
Miraculous. Yeah, it's it truly is a
miracle. And so, yeah, ovulation is the
main event of your cycle. All hormones are peaking for the
most part. So your libido is high, your
energy is high. This is the best time for
outings, for podcast interviews, for date nights, for like if you
have a job interview, this would be a great time.
You're more magnetic. People are actually more drawn
to you also, and the right and the left hemispheres of your
brain actually are like more connected during that time.
So you can speak your like, you can talk better and you have
like your thoughts, you're more creative and you're it's just,
it's crazy versus we all know like when you're in your period,
you can't think like your brain doesn't work.
Your brain doesn't work. You fumble over words and it's
everything just feels harder. And that's where it comes back
to living in like with a monthly battery where you're really
living with your hormones instead of kind of working
against them or trying to do the same thing every day, fasting
every day. It's just your body's going to
reject that after a little bit during ovulation.
If you think of it as your inner summer, think about things that
you would be eating during the summer.
So like rash, like fresh raw foods, salads, things like that.
You actually might not have much as much of an appetite.
I've noticed that too that I want like lighter foods.
So this is when I'll do like yogurts and berries and chia
pudding. Sometimes you can hold more
water weight and it can like kind of make you constipated
during this time. So I just say more fiber, more
like fruits and veggies and things like that.
Seafood is really good during this time.
And another fun thing is I find that I crave these foods
naturally whenever I'm ovulating those, all I want is seafood.
All I want is oysters or salmon or fruit or things like that.
Interesting. Yeah, the food is the one thing
I haven't gotten there yet on. I pay attention to where I'm at
in my cycle in terms of my schedule.
I try to obviously didn't last. But like happens.
Yeah, sometimes things happen and then with like workouts and
things like that, like, but the food I can't quite, I haven't
gotten there because it's like feeding the family and like
planning. And sometimes it's so last
minute and, or I, I mean, my husband cooks a lot of the time.
So it's like maybe, maybe at some point.
But I will say like even if you pay attention.
To. Like a little bit.
Just implement a few of these things, they will help and I'm
sure like if you do it all it even is that much better.
It's even better, but don't stress you out.
Don't stress out trying to do it.
All that's The thing is like live in tune and if you notice
you're craving certain things, lean into that.
But there are times. Into cravings, yeah, Think more
about that, yeah. And you don't, again, like
simple things. You can do just seafood or just
remember if you're ovulating, oh, I'll get some oysters or
I'll do salmon or something like that, or adding in chia pudding
or something to add on top of it.
But in easy ways like OK, during your follicular phase, which you
can treat as the first half of your cycle, you know, you can
kind of treat them as longer, more fermented foods.
So just have it on hand, have a little spoonful of sauerkraut or
vitamin C rich foods is a really good time during your follicular
phase. So I'll move into luteal now.
So ovulation one day event, but it lasts for about 6 days.
You'll feel the effects and then as you go into luteal, which is
the longest phase. So luteal is like your inner
fall, your inner autumn. It's the longest phase that
lasts. About 10 to ideally 12 to 14
days is a healthy luteal phase. The first half, you're kind of
still riding the ovulation time. You still have energy, you're
still kind of riding that. And then as the second-half
starts to hit about the week before your period, that's when
you'll notice a lull. Your energy starts to come down
and you kind of have this natural proclivity to just
retreating. Another fun thing.
I you're kind of in a nesting mode also.
So this is the best phase to kind of finish your To Do List.
I try to think of it also, if your period is coming, what task
can you check off the list and what things can you kind of tie
up? What loose ends can you tie up
before you get your period? And you're not going to want to
do anything. I feel like that is the only
good thing about the end of the yeah phase because otherwise I
hate it. No, but I do feel like I wanna
organize, like I'm like organizing and getting rid of
things in the house. Yep.
And then yes, like checking things off the To Do List.
So if you can like lean into that, that's like how I would
think of like making the most of that time of the month.
Yeah. Is how can you set yourself up
versus, I feel like for a long time health, I was very
reactive. We're reactive to like our
period and our hormones and things like that versus cycle
tracking and all of that. Understanding it going with your
flow is, is more proactive. You're getting ahead of it and
you're kind of preparing for the next phase so that when it gets
there, you're ready like ludial phase, you organize everything,
everything's good to go. Maybe you meal prep, maybe you
set yourself up for your period and now you're fine.
And so you're not no longer like kind of treading water or trying
to get ahead of it. You've are trying, trying to
like catch up to it. You're getting ahead of it.
What about workouts? How do we adjust our workouts at
different times throughout the month?
This is a really good one. I used to be like a gym rat,
like I used to be obsessed with working out like no days off,
like hardcore. And that was another thing that
added into the whole perfect storm of my hormones.
And once I learned about cycle thinking and just living in tune
with my cycle, Oh my gosh, it seriously changed my life.
Because you again, you don't realize like how inflamed you're
making yourself by going to like people that I know that go to
Barry's boot camp like 3 or 4 times a week, which is a such a
high intensity thing or orange theory or these super high
intensity workouts that you don't need to do all the time,
you shouldn't be doing all the time.
Oh, there's like the 4:00 AM cruise at those places.
Like. I don't understand.
It you're ruining your life. The lights are all dark, the
music's so loud and like this isn't, this is so intense.
Like maybe once a month I can handle it.
But so on your period really take it easy.
I'm not saying don't work out at all but listen to your body
rest. Definitely don't do anything
high intensity but some girls I know lift weights on their
period and feel better. Definitely be walking.
I like to do walking it really helps move especially if you
have cramps. Like going on a long walk can
really help especially being in nature.
All of those things are getting all the benefits.
I walk with a weighted vest normally.
That's so good. That's my workout right now.
It's the yeah, I love. I'm obsessed.
And I think, yeah, I know eventually I want to start
lifting weights again and doing other things, but right now it's
working great for me. So I love it, but I don't, it
doesn't feel good on my period on like the first or second day.
Yeah, feels like too heavy. It's again, it's a normal walk.
Feels really good. What weight do you use?
I need another. 20 now, yeah, OK.
I started lighter and then like just kept going up and I feel
like 20 is good. I like 20.
I have a 15 and a 25 and now I'm at the place where like 15 feels
a little light but the 25 kind of hurts my shoulders.
Yeah, that's the thing with the heavier weights.
I started with 35 and I'm like. That's intense, this.
Is see, I can't do that. Yeah.
So then I got a 5 and I was like, this is way too late.
Yeah. So like both, yeah.
It's really good out. But now maybe I need to try 25
if you're doing 25. It's fun.
I and I kind of slide it to the side and now I figured that I'm
like, I think I just need to get used to it.
Yeah, but I think they call it rocking.
Yes, right. It's rocking primal.
Like it's so good for you. It's so good for your posture,
for your spine putting like it's.
I love it. I know I feel like I'm getting a
strength training workout like your core.
Yeah, yeah, it's the best. And you can start, you can do a
couple push ups with it. I mean, you could do so much.
I travel with it now because I love it so much.
So I will like wear it because you can't put it in your
suitcase or in your carry on. It's going to weigh it down.
So I wear it in the airport and always gets flagged by security.
I always get questions. Oh my God.
But I don't know, it's like worth even the hassle of that
for me because. No, I love.
That I love it so much. No, it is addicting and it just
feels like a little better than a walk and a walk feels great.
And if you can add a little extra weight, that's.
Awesome boost, yeah. Someone walked past me.
I was doing it the other day because I lived near college.
Like, what are you training for? And I was like, motherhood, like
carrying a child. Yeah.
Seriously. So yeah.
So on your period, take a little easy listening to your body.
If you feel like moving, go for it.
But if you don't, don't go against that like inner knowing
follicular, this is a great time for circuit training.
Your energy is coming back up. So weightlifting you really can
strength train because I think a lot of the gripe some people,
some women have with cycle thinking and tracking is OK.
Well, I'm only allowed to do weightlifting like this one week
of my period. How am I going to like build
muscle? And it's like you just have to
listen to your body for the most part like that.
That's what I go back to most often is you know your body
best. And it takes a while to get back
in tune with that because we are birth control.
All these things disconnect us so much from our body.
But I think like, you know, you know when to push yourself, you
know when to take it easy. But follicular again, your
energy is coming back. You're feeling more social.
This is a great time for group workouts or circuit training,
strength training, that's all great during follicular moving
into ovulation, more strength training is great.
You may feel like you give a ton of energy.
And just a side note, if ovulation is when you feel the
worst, that's a sign that there's something going on.
So it's when all hormones are kind of peaking.
So if you already have like too much estrogen or too much of
other hormones, it's going to make you feel worse.
When you should feel your best, you should feel like you have
the most energy is actually when you can get away.
Like there's been times where I've only gotten like 6 hours of
sleep during ovulation, but I feel great.
Yeah. I'm like, how do I look this
good for six hours of sleep? Sometimes too, I wonder, I
haven't paid attention to like when that happens, but yeah,
maybe it is. It's usually versus.
Ludy, I'll get 9 hours and I look like I slept too.
So that's a whole other thing. And that's also important that
even I take care of my hormones, I bounce on my pay attention.
I still go through these things. It's not like oh, everything's
fine all the time. No, I still experience the
fluctuations. They're just not as drastic.
Crazy mood swings, crazy differences, crazy intense
emotions. That's not normal, but you
should notice the fluctuations and that's part of the beauty of
it. So ovulation, great time to add
in some hit. So this would be a great time
for high intensity classes, for doing sprints, for doing things
like that. And then luteal first half,
you're going to want to kind of still ride that ovulation high.
So listen to your body. Then the week before your
period, you naturally have less energy.
So listen to that. This is when you can kind of
move into more like just Pilates, low impact, more
walking, and then you kind of start it all over again.
So you can still strength training, you can still work out
throughout your period. It's just small adjustments
because in the luteal phase, what I didn't mention when we're
talking about all the phases is this is when your body is the
most prone to stress. So your your threshold for
stress is way lower. And this is because during this
time, your body would be nurturing a possible pregnancy.
So it's on high alert for any dangers that's going to tell it
like this is not a safe place for a baby.
We'll try again next month. And so it's really important to
lower stress during this time. Luteal phase.
You want to pull back on caffeine, so like switch to
matcha, switch to decaf or half calf.
I like drinking half calf. I just mix regular and decaf
beans. That's a great time.
Really, if you drink alcohol, really pulling back during this
time, that's going to put extra stress on your liver and just
add more inflammation. So anywhere we can pull out
these little stress bricks, kind of lower that wall.
It's going to be so helpful. And again, help maximize that
monthly battery so that we're not draining it too quickly and
then we're running on empty. Probably not a good time for
like cold plunges. And not a good time for cold
plunges. The body can perceive as an
extra stressor because the body will feel the effects of that
stressor more intensely. Yeah.
And then immune function goes down a bit too, right?
That's. What I was gonna say too is so
in follicular is why I was saying vitamin C rich foods and
supporting your gut during that time.
There's so many women that are like, I always get sick before
my period. Your immune system is suppressed
again, so that your body doesn't reject a possible pregnancy.
So everything your body is doing, it's wants to get
pregnant. So your, your nervous system is
more like on high alert. Your immune system is
suppressed. All of these things which add so
much stress on the body. And our bodies don't know the
difference between stressors. We may not think it's stress.
It may be exciting to us and maybe travel, but our body
doesn't know that. And so really paying attention
to these things. And again, if we are going to
travel during our luteal phase, if we are going to do other
things, they go, OK, so I'm really going to reduce sugar.
I'm really going to reduce like staying up late.
I'm going to try to get as much sleep as I can and just kind of
overcompensating in other areas because you can't, we don't live
in a vacuum. You can't be perfect.
You can't do all of these things all the time.
And so like you're saying, picking one or two again, eating
red meat before your period and on your period you're losing
blood. It's just kind of these like
almost common sense things where it's like, Oh yeah, of course,
of course I would do that. Yeah.
It just becomes. Intuitive, like once you start,
it just kind of feels natural and you'll naturally want to do,
yeah, these things. And it that's with everything,
yeah. Practice comes the more you do
it, the longer you do it because at first it is overwhelming.
And I was like, I how do I do all of this?
Yeah. So I'm only going to eat chicken
and eggs in my follicular face. And it's like, no, it's not
realistic, especially like you're saying, with families and
different taste buds and things like that.
So just doing what you can, where you can, yeah.
Talk to us about blood sugar. What role does our blood sugar
play in our hormones? A huge role.
And I don't think this was something, again, I also didn't
really pay attention to at first.
I was like, oh, eat protein and this and that.
But truly managing balancing your blood sugar is so important
because when blood sugar spikes and insulin spikes, cortisol
spikes. And so we really want to avoid
these huge dips and spikes as much as we can and balance it
out. Eating protein, eating a lot of
protein with your meals, that's one way.
Healthy fats in there. Even simple things like changing
how you eat. So instead of going you have
maybe sweet potatoes and steak and a salad.
You can start with maybe some salad which is some fiber and
greens, have some steak, and then move into sweet potatoes
which have carbs. But now you've kind of dampened
it with protein and veggies first and it's really going to
stave it off. So for raw.
Carrots. Raw carrots, oh, the raw carrot
salad become. Addicted to I just like take a
big carrot as I'm like working on dinner Bugs Bunny and just
yeah. Bugs Bunny, yeah.
And then? My kids are like, I want one and
like everyone's just eating raw carrots and like normal.
It's and it's. Fun carrots are so good.
It's just like it's kind of an activity too.
It is. It takes a long time to eat it
and chew it and everything. And you want to leave the skin
on. I get a lot of questions of
like, oh, can I peel it? Can I do baby carrots?
It's not. You really want the insoluble
fiber that comes from the skin. That's kind of what helps to
bind to and flush out those excess toxins and hormones and
estrogen and things like that. So rock carrot, you can do a
rock carrot salad. I do that too.
You make that. So I do the ribbon.
So I take like a peeler, OK, and I'll peel the carrot into
ribbons. And then I just do a little bit
of olive oil or coconut oil, whatever you want, a little bit
of apple cider vinegar and then salt.
Sometimes I do apple shavings in it too.
Sometimes I do a little Dijon. You can really do like sesame
oil, sesame seeds, like green onions and make it kind of an
Asian style. You can do it have it every day.
And that's just one of those little like daily hacks to help.
One, it's good for you. There's fiber, there's
nutrients, there's vitamins and minerals, but then it's also
helping flush out excess estrogen, which is so important.
Our livers. There's, you know, your toxin
bucket nowadays, it's so easy to get it filled up.
And so the more we can help flush out and do all these
things and you know, Castor oil, there's all these little things
that we can do everyday. I saw you post about Castor oil
so I've that's one thing I haven't gotten into yet.
I love Castor oil like for skin care products and we have it in
some of our products but I've never done a Castor oil pack but
I saw you post about just rubbing it on your belly.
Yeah, so that rub it in, Yeah. Or you can now I bought you can
now buy Castor oil patches like on Amazon.
So it's like a little adhesive with a little pad that goes over
your. Belly button because I have the
whole Castor oil pack set up and I just like haven't.
It's a lot and it's I've ruined so many sheets.
I've ruined so many sheets and like.
Yeah, I don't want to. Because it kind of it can.
It can. Leak by the patch.
So I do that. Now.
What I do actually is like 3 sprays of the cycle soothing
spray, the magnesium, I'll do like 3 sprays and then a little
bit of Castor oil before I go to bed.
Sleep like a baby every night. Like a baby.
Yeah, just throw it on because Castor oil packs.
I was actually talking to an acupuncturist and she said every
day can be really intense on your liver.
And I was like, well, how about just a little bit in the belly
button? She was like, yeah, that's fine.
In the belly. Button.
I do it in my belly button and then I kind of rub it around.
Yeah, OK. But now with the patches, No, it
makes it easy. It just kind of keeps it all in
and it's not messy. Yeah.
So you do the cycle soothing spray.
You do metal spray patch on, and then I do a little like, yeah,
drizzle the Castor oil and then I lock it in.
And you do, even when you're not on your period, you do cycle
soothing. Yeah, just because of the
magnesium. That's just.
Good. I need to get the sleep one now
I just need to get your sleep one and then I'll be good.
But for now even I mean. It'll still do the same thing.
Yeah, still. The lavender smells so good and
that way like because it is the salty magnesium stuff, so it
just kind of keeps it locked in and it doesn't get anywhere.
But I love that. OK, so yeah, that's an easy way,
mess free. And then for blood sugar, I
also, I've seen you talk about apple cider vinegar mixed with
water before meals. I do.
I love that one. And then moving after eating.
Yeah, just like a 10 minute walk or I will often do air squats
after me and people think I'm so weird and I'm like cat raises
for not doing it. Half raises.
Half raises are actually the fastest way to lower blood
sugar. No way.
Yeah. How many do you do?
I have a friend who did it after she did, like, her glucose test.
She just stood there doing calf raises before the thing, and she
was was perfect. Yeah.
Crazy. So you can just, like, do it
for, like, a couple minutes. It's intent.
Enough of them over the years and I would like cramp if I
started thinking too. No, they do her, but after a
while. But yeah, so calf raises, 5
minute, even a 5 minute walk can reduce a glucose spike by like
20 to 30%. Wow.
Which is, again, any way we can just reduce a little bit?
Because some people, the goal is never to not raise your blood
sugar at all. That's normal.
It's going to happen. Even a sauna will spike a blood
sugar. So stress.
But another one. This is a crazy one.
I was wearing ACGM. This was probably a year ago, at
least now. And I, it's just a fun thing to
do to kind of like get some data points.
I was testing a couple things and that night I'd had dinner at
like 5:00 PM. I'm a big early dinner person.
I love a 5:00 PM dinner. Same when we have friends that
are like, so like dinner at 7:30, Daniel looks at me like,
and I'm like, absolutely not. I can't work 7:30.
No, I'm makeup off. I'm in bed by that time.
Yeah, you're then you're going to bed with a full stomach.
It doesn't feel good. It impacts your sleep.
Totally, totally. So I like an early dinner and
then that night we got on a walk and everything and then it was
about 9 PMI was in bed scrolling on my phone that the next
morning or that I think that night I checked it, I tapped it
to sync it before I went to bed. Blood sugar spike from scrolling
my phone from this stress. Wow.
So all of these things that again, I didn't and I didn't
feel like I feel like it was funny memes and reels, like it
wasn't anything intense. I remember thinking.
Wow, were you wearing amber like glasses or anything?
Yes, I was wearing blue light glasses.
Still wearing. I was wearing blue light
glasses. Wow, so that's the crazy thing.
I mean, maybe it's like the emfs and just the.
Oh 100% the. Dopamine.
I don't know. It's probably the dopamine, it's
probably whatever you're again, perceiving that we're not even
aware of all of this stuff that's going on, like just in
our like monkey brain, you know, that we're not aware of and it,
it all impacts it. And so it does feel like
sometimes I'll get DMS like, how do you live knowing all of this
stuff? Like, well, you don't have to do
it all. You don't have to do it all.
Do a couple things. So like we live in a modern
world. You can't not everyone can let
like one day the goal is to live on a farm like this, but we
can't all do it right now. And so yeah, right now I live in
an apartment and so there are EMF, there's people next to me
across. I unplug my Wi-Fi, but they
don't. So it's like I do what I can,
but I live in the real world. And so I just, I let it go.
I let it go as we're like getting closer to trying for
kids and probably in the next couple months.
I had for a long time, it's like I got to get this test and this
gut test and this hormone test and I have to like do all these
things. I was like, maybe I don't, maybe
I don't need all that like, of course, a blood test to see
where I'm at. But I've kind of let go of this
like everything needs to be perfect.
I need to see everything, like all the numbers need to be
great. And I've just let go of that
like control because that's probably that's more unhealthy.
Like that cortisol is more unhealthy than the EMF's from my
neighbor's Wi-Fi. 100 percent, 100%.
So yeah, I want to talk about period products.
Before we yes. What's your take?
What do you like? What do you not like?
This has changed over the years. I will say I've never used a
menstrual cup or a disc that I just couldn't get on board with
that. I tried the cup one time.
The logistics of it and being in public, I don't know.
Like I work from home and I'm home most of the time.
But if I'm not, I think I would panic.
I think I would like feel scared.
So I mean I used tampons for years and then and back in the
day I used like the Tampax sport, like the scented ones.
OK. I used those ones.
Oh my gosh, that's insane that they make me scented tampons.
No, it's disgusting. Yeah, horrible.
So then I moved to organic cotton because gas tampons
contain chlorine and bleat. Like, it's creepy.
And then I recently started just using pads.
It changed whatever discomfort and like pain I had gone.
No way. So I'm now convinced that like,
tampons also cause, which makes sense, irritation and
inflammation. And just like it can't, it feels
weird. Yeah, it's a foreign object.
I've heard you're not the first person I've heard say this, that
it helps to lessen any sort of like cramping and that the flow
also decreases. Yep, it's weird.
So interesting. I'm I haven't gone there.
Yet so I switched to that and that's.
Then try it. Yeah, that was like probably the
biggest difference because for years my peers are pretty easy.
Yeah. And then I switched to and it
sometimes every time it's like you can't control.
Sometimes I'm somewhere where it doesn't make sense.
But for the most part it changed the game for me.
I was like, oh, I had no idea how much even that was affecting
me. Yeah, so.
What brand new? I use garnu.
OK, I didn't know. That Garnu, Yeah.
I love everything they do. Yeah, I used to.
So I have it on subscription and then it's just easy.
Yeah. There's good brands like Nature
Care. Yeah, Attracare.
That's probably the best brand that I've found in like Sprouts
or Whole Foods. I get those.
But now there's so many. But yeah, you just want to watch
out for like titanium dioxide and a couple other things and
definitely buying organic and like things that are not
bleached with chlorine. It's like, that's creepy.
Chlorine in the. Yeah, I don't know, things I
never used to think of, and now they're just.
In there. Same with toilet paper.
Never used to think of that. And Nope, it's another thing to
be aware of Underwear. And now you've talked about
this, like why should women be wearing organic underwear?
Why is that important? So our skin is our largest
organ, like our dermal absorption, anything you put on
your skin, lotion, stuff like that sinks in to your
bloodstream in 30 seconds, which is crazy.
But even now our bodies are absorbing materials.
So most of the things we wear and I'm not perfect, I have
polyester, of course, a lot of my things are natural fibers,
but your underwear and like even bras and camisole, sports bras,
leggings, so many. Things.
Especially when you're sweating, especially near like yes,
exactly. And so and that's another thing
that I was radicalized on. I didn't used to shower right
away. Don't come after me after a
workout. And then I was like, oh, you're
sweating out all your toxins. And if you don't rinse them off,
your body's just going to reabsorb them.
So now I'm big on like rinsing right after, which I didn't.
I used to be lazy about that. I never did.
Yeah, until I had a naturopath explained that and I was like,
duh, duh. So now, yeah, it's your largest
organ and on the most sensitive parts of your body, maybe we
don't want to put plastic and absorb polyester and dyes and
things like that. So I love packed, they sell
organic underwear. There's so many good brands I
like. Packed and subset.
I've heard of Subset too, or even brands like Skims.
They have complete cotton ones, not organic, but cotton, yeah.
So just. Natural fibers, that's like the
first step. And then if you can get it
organic, even better. Yeah.
Emily, thank you so much for being here and making the trip
out to the farm. It was so fun to finally meet
you in real life. Where can people find you and
continue to learn from you? Yes, thank you.
This has been so fun. I seriously, this is so cute.
The animals are just right here. He's here.
To talk I ain't talking about how much I.
They hurt us. They hurt us.
They're the worst animal. Here to talk.
But you've got the sheep. I think the sheep have been in
the background a few times and they're so cute and just got
sheer. They're actually not that cute,
right? No, I saw that.
So I'm on Instagram. Little Ray of health is my
Instagram handle. I have a podcast, a little Ray
of Health podcast. Those are the two places I spend
the most time. Feel free to DM me, Come say hi.
I just, I love like I still run my Instagram.
It's just me reading my DMS and like interacting with everyone
is my favorite part of this. Like I think social media can
still be social. It can be daunting sometimes,
but it truly is one of my favorite parts of my job.
And so yeah, Instagram, little Ray of health is like my
favorite place to be. Thank you so much.
I know this information is going to help so many people.
I know it's helped me just everything I've learned from you
in the past. So thank you again.
You're welcome. Thank you.