I'm Hormonal | functional hormone insight + advice

Cycle Syncing Series, Ep 4: Workshop to get clear on your phases | Ep. 43

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Follow along with this workshop by downloading the Cycle Syncing Workshop! CLICK HERE.

Not sure which exact days in your cycle correlate with each cycle phase? This episode will be perfect for you. Download the guide, above, to follow along and get clear on the phases of your cycle: menstrual, follicular, ovulatory, and luteal.

Download your free cycle syncing guide to get more familiar with how you can incorporate this practice into your routine. CLICK HERE.

This is episode two of this cycle syncing series. In this series you will hear about:
1. Why cycle sync? What's the benefit? 
2. How to prepare for cycle syncing 
3. Why your hormones should be balanced before cycle syncing **this was last week's episode
4. Workshop: Mapping your cycle to sync it effectively **today's episode
5. Why ovulation is important for cycle syncing
6. Replay of "Getting Familiar with Cycle Syncing"

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to I'm Hormonal, your source of information about women's hormone health and how to support your body. Naturally, I'm your host, bridget Walton, and I'm a certified functional hormone specialist and menstrual cycle coach. I am on a mission to hold these hormone conversations with as many menstruators as possible because you deserve easier access to accurate information about what's up with your unruly menstrual cycle and with your fertility mysteries. Don't you think it's time that we figure this out once and for all? Hey there, thanks for listening to I'm Hormonal. I'm Bridget Walton, your host, and on today's show we are going to be doing a workshop to really walk you through how to set up your cycle syncing plan. This is the fourth episode in this cycle syncing series that we've been doing. If you haven't listened to the last three episodes and you want to kind of set the foundation for our conversation today, go back and check out the last three episodes. Today we are going to be doing a like real workshop style episode. If you are driving or cleaning or running whatever you're up to and you want to listen, great. But if you want to also check out the link in the show notes to download a PDF that you can follow along with, it has fill in the blanks. It has a rate so you can map out which phase of your cycle falls on which days and really put together a plan of what you want to do and how to implement and integrate cycle syncing principles into your week and into your month. So that's what we will be getting into today, talking more about cycle syncing, which is, if this is your first time listening.

Speaker 1:

Cycle syncing is the practice of adjusting certain aspects of your life, like your nutrition, your exercise and movement, things like your work tasks and more, tailoring those to which of the four phases of your menstrual cycle you're in Now. Why do this? What's the point? Phases of your menstrual cycle you're in Now. Why do this? What's the point? Well, cycle syncing, first and foremost, is a great way to get familiar with your cycle, what you're like, how you change throughout the four phases, but it's also a good way to take advantage of the natural fluctuations in hormones that you do have. So, when estrogen is high, how can we kind of capitalize on that hormonal fluctuation? And, on the contrary, when our hormone levels, like estrogen and progesterone, are quite low and energy levels are lower, how can we plan ahead for our future selves, who may have lower desire to get out and try new things, et cetera. So we'll get into more of that in just a moment here, but first I want to say welcome again and thanks for listening. If you just started listening to I'm Hormonal, then I'm so glad that you found me. It's been really great to see more and more listeners joining over the last couple of months.

Speaker 1:

If you're here, it's probably because you're curious about how your cycle works, how your body works. You're curious to learn more about how you can work with your hormones instead of against them, and so, if that's the case, you're in the right place. I am a women's hormone coach and I do also work one-on-one with women. If you have irregular cycles, a missing period, if you have PCOS or another concern that you want some one-on-one guidance and support on, then check out the link in the show notes. You can set up a free consult call with me and we can talk more about what's going on with you, what are your goals and see if a partnership together would help get you there. As always, I like to give the disclaimer that the information I share with you today and always, is for educational purposes only. It should not be used as any sort of replacement for one-on-one support from a certified practitioner or from your healthcare provider.

Speaker 1:

So, that being said, let's get into it. And again, if you are in a space where you can pull up a document to follow along, grab your planner, grab your laptop, wherever you keep your calendar, grab a piece of paper to take some notes on and let's dive in. Take just a second to get oriented to the workbook download. You'll see that on the first page, we are going to walk through how you can identify which specific days of your cycle correlate with which of the four phases in your cycle. There's also tips on how to use this, this being cycle syncing in your real life. And then the second page has a guide for you. It's split up by phase of the cycle and reminders on which seeds to incorporate if you're seed cycling, what types of work, tasks, workouts, self-care and other considerations when it comes to food and cooking that you can align with each cycle. So let's start from the top. That you can align with each cycle.

Speaker 1:

So let's start from the top. We want to get clear on which days of your cycle is each phase right, because once you know okay, my menstrual phase, that's normally days one through four. You know that your follicular phase is days X through Y, so on and so forth. Then you can take a look at your calendar and plan out for those days and so forth. Then you can take a look at your calendar and plan out for those days. So how many days on average does your period last? Now, don't count any days of spotting, but how many days does your period last? Right, that will be your menstrual phase.

Speaker 1:

So for me, for example, my menstrual phase is normally cycle days one through four. So if you've got your notebook or wherever you're jotting down information, then just write down. If for you it stays one through seven, write that down. If it stays one through five, so on and so forth. The next thing we're going to do is consider how many days, on average is your entire menstrual cycle. So count from the first day of your cycle to the first day of your next cycle. So first day of full bleed to that next day of your full bleed. Is it normally 28 days? Is it normally 30 days, 27?

Speaker 1:

I'm sure if you track your cycle in an app, then you're already reaching for your phone or clicking for your app to find out what that information looks like. If this isn't something that you're familiar with off the top of your head and you don't track your cycle yet, it could be a good idea to start tracking so you can get more specific and more refined. But this is a good opportunity for me to remind you that if you're not sure or if you want to just start kind of at a baseline, real easy template to follow, then just say okay for one week. So for seven days I'll follow the guidance in accordance with my menstrual phase. The next seven days follicular, seven for ovulatory, seven for luteal, I think you know. I would really encourage you to refine it beyond that, but for starters, that certainly is not a bad place to start. So, coming back to the task here, make a note of how many days, on average, is your entire menstrual cycle. For me this normally looks like 29 days, so jot that down in your notes.

Speaker 1:

And then the third thing I want you to think about, or ask yourself are you familiar with which day of your cycle you normally ovulate? Okay, so if you track symptoms like cervical positioning, if you track positions wow. If you track, yes, positions of your cervix, if you track your body temperature and how it might change over time. So if you have a smartwatch, maybe it tracks your temperature. If you use something like TempDrop or another thermometer, you know that when you see that change in temperature, that rise in temperature occurs the day after ovulation. Or you know that if you're looking for cervical mucus another marker the more stretchy and the more liquidy your cervical mucus are, you're getting closer to ovulation. So that can kind of clue you in.

Speaker 1:

Think about what is the last day of your cycle. So maybe it's the 14th day of your cycle when you see the most cervical mucus and that's your final day of cervical mucus. So for me, for example, I normally ovulate around the 17th or 18th day of my cycle. Based on temperature tracking that I do, for you it might be the 14th. And if you are just listening and you're like Bridget, I do not know when I ovulate, no worries, just divide the average number of days in your cycle by two. So if your average cycle is 28 days long, you'll go with the 14th day of your cycle for ovulation. Let's put that all together.

Speaker 1:

So, looking at this in order of phases, you've identified that your menstrual phase and I'll give you my own examples. So my menstrual phase is cycle days one through four. Of course, follicular phase ends or starts the following day. So for me it would be days five through a couple of days before the ovulatory phase. So I did this a little bit out of order.

Speaker 1:

If you let's come back to the ovulatory phase, if you normally ovulate on the 14th day of your cycle, then normally this phase is three or four days. So you can say, all right, well, the 13th, 14th and 15th days of my cycle, that's my ovulatory phase, those three days. If that's the case, go ahead and write that in the blanks on the paper or jot it down in your notes. For me, given that I normally ovulate on the 17th day of my cycle, I consider my ovulatory phase to be approximately days 15, 16, 17, and 18. There's no exact science whether it's three or four. You can go based on how you feel, right, what is your mood normally like, your energy normally like? And remember that none of this is set in stone, so you can always change it. So if you say that your ovulatory phase are days 13 to 16, then you know that naturally your follicular phase will fall in between the end of your menstrual phase and beginning of ovulatory. So go ahead and jot those dates down as well.

Speaker 1:

Last but not least, the luteal phase naturally begins one day after the end of your ovulatory phase. For me, this would be day 19 or day 18 approximately and go through. For me, the last day of my cycle, which is, on average, 29 days. For you, if you normally ovulate on day 14 of your cycle, could be the 15th or 16th day. That's the first day of your luteal phase, and then, if you have a 28-day cycle, naturally that would go through cycle day 28. So all of these phases are not necessarily the same length, right? They won't be. Your ovulatory phase and your luteal phase will not be the same length.

Speaker 1:

But figure out what works for you here. What I would do is put this so hopefully you just wrote this down, either on a physical piece of paper, maybe you opened up some notes on your phone and each month, as you're practicing cycle syncing or as you're learning more about how your hormones change, you can come back to this and refine it and tweak it so it better reflects how you feel, your energy levels, etc. All right, so now that we have this information together, what do we do with it? Good question. So go ahead, open up your planner, open up your digital calendar, whatever wherever you keep notes about your schedule, what you want to get up to.

Speaker 1:

For me, I'll give examples just using my Google calendar, and what I like to do is I put a note or I put a recurring calendar event on my day of expected ovulation and I put a calendar event on the expected first day of my period, because I can easily make changes to those, but it's a good visual reminder for me to when I'm planning meetings or I'm just planning coffee with friends, whatever it is that I'm going to put on my schedule, I can say, okay, well, maybe I don't want to overload myself during my menstrual phase. For me, that's something I try to avoid, and so it gives me this really easy visual cue to do so to avoid, and so it gives me this really easy visual cue to do so. If you are somebody who has a calendar up on the wall, you can always I don't know get a sticker or get something else that you can move from one month to the next, and you can keep that in mind too as you write things up on your calendar. Try out a couple of things. You will figure out what works the best for you. So an extended way to do this for another consideration point would be to go ahead and write. You know, maybe you write an M on the top right of each day in your planner, that's for your menstrual phase, an F for follicular O and L for ovulatory and luteal.

Speaker 1:

You see where I'm going with this, and so why would you want to note all of the four phases? Well, as you are getting familiar with your cycle and incorporating cycle syncing into your life, you can easily, for example, take a look at your planner. You can say you can say, all right, today is Sunday and this week I've got two days in luteal and five days in menstrual. So when I go to the grocery store today, I'm going to keep in mind that I'm going to be buying mostly food that aligns with and nourishes my body like optimally during my period. You see how that can apply to all of the other phases too. And especially you know, if you're like me, most of the events and reminders on my calendar relate to work and tasks that I need to complete, as well as social events.

Speaker 1:

So this comes back to the example I mentioned before of being cautious about over committing myself during the end of my luteal phase, over committing myself during my period or when I am looking to schedule you know, hey, next month I'm going to be doing a speaking event somewhere, or next month there are some networking events that I want to go to I say, okay, well, let me prioritize the ones that take place during my ovulatory phase. But those are a couple examples of how you can use it. But let's see two more things. If you are going to be planning out which sort of exercise classes you're going to be taking later in the week, you want to get them booked on the calendar. Same thing, taking into consideration which phase of your cycle you'll be in and, along with that, naturally, how much energy do you normally have? What kind of workouts do you normally want to do or not want to do? Would you rather go for a walk, which a walk is still exercise?

Speaker 1:

And I'll just mention this again, that as you practice this more and more, you will be able to better refine it, and then, eventually, you'll spread your wings, you'll fly a beautiful butterfly now and you don't need to follow this curriculum so strictly. You'll say, okay, I know it works for me and these other parts of cycle syncing. That doesn't really apply to me so much you can really make it your own. Really apply to me so much, you can really make it your own. One more thing, and then we will get into page two. But are you planning a date night anytime soon, or is that something that you do? You know you say, okay, each month me and my partner are going to go out on one date. Well, up to you. Follow what works best for your schedule. But maybe that's something you want to plan for a certain time in your cycle, maybe during your follicular phase, when you want to get out and about and try new things.

Speaker 1:

I've mentioned a lot of recommendations like this and you can see them all consolidated in my cycle syncing guidebook. I know that sounds suspiciously similar to this cycle syncing workbook. You'll find both links in the show notes so you can download it and that'll really walk you through, phase by phase, what you can do to cycle sync. Next week, if you come back and listen, I'm going to do a replay of an earlier episode where I overview those same exact things. So one more episode in this cycle syncing series.

Speaker 1:

Now, moving on to page two, this is something where, if you are a gal with a printer, go ahead and print it out. I like to print out notes like this and keep them like taped to the inside of my kitchen cupboard, because, well, I'm in my kitchen a couple times a day and so I can pretty easily reference it and you know, as opposed to keeping it in my journal on my nightstand, something like that that I won't see. So this page, it'll give you a graphical kind of representation of each phase of the cycle and what you want to consider doing during each phase. Now there are spots in each corner associated with each phase where you can write in your specific cycle days. So, for example, again in the top right corner, by the menstrual phase, you would write under cycle days you know one through four, or one through seven For me. Under follicular phase, underneath cycle days, I would write five through 16, or you know seven through 12, whatever it looks like for you. You see where I'm going with ovulatory and luteal as well. It'll make it really easy for you to understand. Okay, this is the phase of my cycle that I'm in today. So let me know what you think about that document, if there's any information that you don't see on here that you want to see on here. I would love to just hear from you and hear how this is working for you as you are filling it out, definitely open to making any revisions or just additions that could make things easier for you. So let me know what you think is easier for you. So let me know what you think.

Speaker 1:

Come on back for the next two and final two episodes in this cycle syncing series. I mentioned one a second ago which will be a review of each phase, what you might want to consider and incorporate in each phase as you're starting out your cycle syncing journey. I'll also be talking about why ovulation is relevant for cycle syncing, why you want to make sure that you're ovulating and really the benefits of ovulating for your overall health and wellness, and how you can use cycle syncing as a tool to make sure that that's happening. So I love to talk about why that's so important, because I think it's under communicated at least everything I've ever been exposed to you know before the last couple of years, and so this is something I feel really passionate about and hope you'll have interest in too.

Speaker 1:

If you have any other gals in your life you've got a sister? You have any other gals in your life? You've got a sister? You've got a friend who's interested in cycle syncing or who you want to invite to go on this journey with you? I would be so appreciative if you would share this episode with them. I know it seems probably really minor to just, you know, for you to just share this episode with one person, but for me it is really a huge gesture and is hugely important to supporting me and helping me in growing the I'm Hormonal community. So if there is somebody who comes to mind when I say that, then thank you in advance for sharing this with them.

Speaker 1:

Connect with me on Instagram. You can find me at Bridget Walton. Check out the link in the show notes. You can just text me a message. It'll pop up for me if that's the easiest way for you to submit your questions or comments. I would really love to hear how cycle syncing is working for you as you get started. Send me any questions that you've got and I can't wait to be here again with you next week. Thanks so much for making all the way to the end and I will talk with you soon. Thanks.