Cycle Syncing Series, Ep 5: Ovulation ovulation ovulation... it's a central event to be in tune with when cycle syncing | Ep. 44

Are you interested in cycle syncing but you're not familiar with your body's signs of ovulation? Listen to this shortie episode to learn why ovulation is key to think about so you can get the most bang for your cycle-syncing-buck, but also because it's a key marker of overall health. I don't think ovulation is talked about enough in the context of cycle syncing but it's essential and I am going to stay up on this soapbox for a while! Join me.

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 
4. Workshop: Mapping your cycle to sync it effectively **this was last week's episode
5. Why ovulation is important for cycle syncing**today's episode
6. Replay of "Getting Familiar with Cycle Syncing"

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

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, and welcome to this week's episode of I'm Hormonal. I'm your host, bridget Walton, and today is episode number five of the cycle syncing series. So if you have been with me for the last couple of weeks, then you'll know I'm talking about cycle syncing, which is the practice of aligning different components of your lifestyle, including what you eat, how you move your body, what sort of tasks you do at work, and aligning those things with the phase of your menstrual cycle, because our cycle breaks down into four different phases, because we have four distinct and different hormonal landscapes or different ratios of one hormone to the next throughout our cycle, and that's totally normal and natural. The only thing we know for sure. Well, one of the things we know for sure is that our hormones will change throughout the month as we travel through our menstrual cycle. So it's all about how you can work with your hormones instead of working against them. If you've been here before, then welcome back, and if today is your first time listening, then I'm so glad that you found me. I hope you find this podcast to be a good resource to understand how you can do what I mentioned just a moment ago how you can work with your hormones instead of against them but also so that you can understand what are the signs like. What are the signs mean that your body is sending you? What do certain you know? What do cramps mean? What does a missing period mean, et cetera. And then, with that information, you can have a better understanding of how you can treat yourself, how you can nourish your body, can have a better understanding of how you can treat yourself, how you can nourish your body, give it what it's asking you for and, at the end of the day, so you can feel better and do whatever you want to do, because it's your life, you feel good and nothing's holding you back.

Speaker 1: 2:38

So today we are going to specifically be talking about ovulation as it relates to cycle syncing, to specifically be talking about ovulation as it relates to cycle syncing. If this sounds a little bit familiar to you, then you're not far off. Because this is so important, I want to come back to it again, even though I kind of touched on it on an earlier episode in this same series. Ovulation well, you know I won't spoil it, I'll get into it in just a second here. Ovulation Well, you know I won't spoil it, I'll get into it in just a second here.

Speaker 1: 3:09

But as always at the top of the episode, I need to give my disclaimer for you all that the information I share with you today is for educational purposes only. It should not be used as a replacement for any sort of one-on-one support from a certified practitioner, from your healthcare provider, or in place of any sort of diagnosis. So let's straighten that out up front. Or in place of any sort of diagnosis. So let's straighten that out up front. As always, if you want to connect with me, I would love to touch base with you. I'd love to get to know who you are on the other end of these headphones while you are. I don't know, maybe you're sewing right now, maybe you're walking your dog, maybe you are refilling your cat's water bowl. Whatever you're up to, I'm just glad that you found me. I would love to connect with you and know who you are. You can find me on Instagram. My handle is at Bridget Walton. If you want to learn more about me, you can check out my website, which is wwwbridgetwaltoncom.

Speaker 1: 4:02

So let's get into the meat and potatoes of ovulation and cycle syncing and why it is so important and why I'm here talking about it again. So throughout our menstrual cycle, we have two key events, right. The first one is your period. Right, this is an unavoidable event. This is. By that I mean that this is the event in your cycle that you know when it happens. You know when you're on your period. This is the one that you see with your eyes, that you feel with your skin, that you probably unfortunately feel or see on your clothes sometimes. So this one is super easy to track because we have the blood to track it.

Speaker 1: 4:49

But the second key event in our menstrual cycle is ovulation. But we don't have the ability to see it as clearly, or at least without some additional information context to build that awareness, you might not know what to look for Ovulation. I mean, you don't need me to reiterate this 87 times. You know that there was a time in your life, or maybe even now, which would be totally fine, when you're like I don't know if I ovulated, and that happens to all of us from time to time, month to month. But it's certainly a skill that you can grow and develop and learn about. That I hope you grow into and that you become curious about.

Speaker 1: 5:36

And why is it so important. Why am I harping on it? Ovulation is so important because, especially as it relates to cycle syncing, without ovulation we aren't following that same hormonal pattern, namely in the second half of the menstrual cycle, when progesterone goes up high. And that's when we have those warm, cozy, luteal phase feelings of wanting to stay at home, wanting to nest, becoming more calm and starting to look inward a little bit. But what progesterone does for you is it helps to calm your nerves, right, take a deep breath in, take a deep breath out. It's helpful for getting in better sleep too. So, beyond just these quantifiable benefits of progesterone, it's just this is me saying in another way that if you want to cycle sync and get the most out of cycle syncing, you want to make sure that you're ovulating. If you're not ovulating, then that's something separate to dig into, to investigate and to work on correcting in my recommendation in advance of really getting into your cycle syncing practice, and that's because cycle syncing isn't really designed to fix a hormonal imbalance.

Speaker 1: 7:09

If there is something that's quite wonky, let's talk about the signs of ovulation. So if you're listening and you're like Bridget great, yes, I'm one of those people. I do not know if I'm ovulating, no worries, we got to start somewhere. Let's run through a couple of these signs. So the first thing that you can notice maybe this is most common, you've already noticed this is that your cervical mucus will change throughout your menstrual cycle. So at some points in the cycle you won't have it. At some points there will be a lot of it. Sometimes it will be creamier, sometimes it will be more liquidy, sometimes kind of sticky. So which consistency is the consistency that is a sign of fertility In the middle of your cycle? Approximately in the middle there is when you ovulate, or maybe you know right.

Speaker 1: 8:07

This is a good way to find out which specific day in your cycle you do ovulate. You want to look for an increased volume of cervical mucus and so it's going to be probably more watery, also more stretchy. So if you ever have that cervical mucus the consistency of an egg white kind of stretches, like if you were to grab it with two hands, you could stretch it a little bit. That's what we're looking for. Quick side note cervical mucus super cool because it is designed. We have a couple of different kinds of cervical mucus that can like shuttle sperm up into your uterus. It can feed and nourish sperm until you ovulate, right. So that's why you have this fertile window, because if you are somebody who's looking to conceive, right, you don't have to have intercourse on the same day that you ovulate. There's that window a couple of days in advance, generally about five, when your cervical mucus is there and it can nourish the sperm and keep it alive. I'm getting a little bit off topic because I think cervical mucus is dope. What cool functions. Oh, actually, one last note here it also can like select for bad sperm that it doesn't want to carry on, and it like just kicks it out, it's like a bouncer and rejects it. Okay, for real this time.

Speaker 1: 9:39

Coming back to signs of ovulation. So cervical mucus, yes, second cervical position. So if you're somebody who, well, if you haven't kind of investigated to see where your cervix is at, then maybe this is a good little reminder for you to do so. Or, if not, no worries, you don't have to take on this metric as well. But here we go your cervical position. When your cervix is in a higher position, so like deeper, high, soft, open and wet, that's when you have that's like during your fertile window, right. Conversely, if your cervix is lower, if it's harder, feels closed, not a lot of moisture going on. That's when you know that you know that's not your fertile window.

Speaker 1: 10:38

Let me take a pause and zoom back out, because I want to clarify that these signs cervical position and cervical mucus these are signs that you may be about to ovulate, but these are good signs that your body is going through these four different phases that you want to see it go through in your cycle syncing. But how do you confirm ovulation? The way that you can confirm it is by tracking your temperature. So the day after you ovulate you would notice that your temperature goes up and it stays that way, slightly elevated, through the rest of your luteal phase until your period begins and your temperature goes back down again. The reason for that is because progesterone is higher and with your thyroid hormone in combination, your temperature goes up Super quick. Note If you want to hear more about cervical mucus, go back and check out episode number 27.

Speaker 1: 11:46

It's called cervical mucus why, when, how much and who cares and you'll get a much more thorough rundown of what to look for there. Now, if you find that you are not ovulating, you don't see any of those signs that we talked about. Now, if you find that you are not ovulating, you don't see any of those signs that we talked about, or something else is wonky with your cycle. Right, let's say you are getting into the practice of cycle syncing. You're realizing that your emotions don't necessarily align with what is quote unquote prescribed or suggested or classic for different phases. Don't stress, there's a lot you can do, but the first thing and I think that you're already doing is growing that awareness of what's going on in your body. That's the first and most important step, because you need to know where you are now so you can grow in whatever direction from there.

Speaker 1: 12:37

There are a lot of providers, myself included, who can work with you to understand how you can refine different areas of your diet and lifestyle, how you can eat differently, what you can do to support your blood sugar levels, what you can do as far as exercise goes, supplementation and more, to get you back on track, and that's when cycle syncing will really you'll be really get the most bang for your buck when it comes to adjusting your diet and lifestyle to those four phases. Okay, my friend, I'm going to wrap it up here shortly, but I hope that, like maybe, you came to this episode and you were thinking that, okay, I'm going to learn about cycle syncing, I'm going to learn how to implement this, and instead you're like oh, bridget, you did the bait and switch right, you've just talked about ovulation. But just know that being sure that you're ovulating and really making sure that your hormones, your cycle, is in line, that is going to ultimately strengthen your cycle-syncing game, if you'll allow me to put it that way, because your overall health is really or I should say your menstrual cycle is a good indicator of your overall health, and once you've got things in line, cycle-syncing will make more sense. You'll really feel the benefit of ebbing and flowing your workouts, of modifying your work and your at-home tasks. You see where I'm going with it, so I hope this is still helpful to you. If you have a friend. If you have a sister, maybe your work BFF you guys are talking about cycle syncing. I would be really grateful if you wouldn't mind sending this over to her and helping to spread the word and grow the I'm Hormonal community. If you thought this was helpful, if you've liked this series on cycle syncing and you wouldn't mind going down and rating or reviewing the podcast, that would also be really helpful to me, because then other people can find it when they're searching on podcasts or Spotify, whatever platform you listen on.

Speaker 1: 14:46

If you are somebody who has irregular periods, missing periods, you're working through PCOS or another frustration with your menstrual cycle and fertility, check out the link in the show notes. You can schedule a free consult call with me to learn more about how I can support you in your journey of refining your nutrition, your lifestyle, your supplements and even going through and using functional lab testing to really find out what is the root cause of your imbalance, because, at the end of the day, you just want to feel better. I want to help you feel better and reach out through the link in the show notes if that sounds interesting to you. Okay, I'm going to leave it here for today. Can't wait to see you again soon. Next week will be a replay of an earlier episode. I did going through everything cycle syncing phase by phase, so come back for that and let me know what you think. Thank you.