[Mini] Nourishment Strategies for Busy Days | Ep. 93

Unpredictable cycles can severely impact your schedule, quality of life, and family planning goals. Today we explore how proper nourishment during busy workdays can support hormonal balance and help regulate your cycle.

• Recap of three common causes of irregular periods: stress, perimenopause, and PCOS
• Additional factors include elevated prolactin levels and medication effects
• Many women are unknowingly undernourished, creating hormonal stress
• Chia pudding cups provide excellent protein, fiber, and versatility for meal prep
• Protein-forward smoothies with minimal sugar help maintain stable blood sugar
• Trail mix with nuts and seeds offers portable nutrition without sugar crashes
• Quality protein/superfood bars provide sustained energy during busy days
• Fat-forward options like guacamole offer satiating nutrition on-the-go
• Creating habits around proper eating prevents the stress of day-long fasting
• Regular nourishment helps prevent blood sugar spikes that impact mood and hormones

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Unpredictable Cycles
• 0:31 Recap of Common Causes
• 1:09 Nutrition Impact on Cycle Regularity
• 3:18 Chia Pudding for Hormone Balance
• 6:19 Protein-Forward Smoothies Strategy
• 8:39 On-the-Go Nutrition Options
• 11:03 Making Healthy Eating Habitual

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello and welcome to episode number 93 of I'm Hormonal. I'm your host, bridget Walton, and on today's episode we're gonna be talking a little bit more about unpredictable cycles. If you can ever anticipate when your period is showing up, if it feels like it is just all over the place and it is impacting your schedule, it's impacting your quality of life, it's impacting your ability to grow your family the way that you want it to, then this week's content is for you. On Tuesday, in the longer form episode, I covered what are three of the common reasons or causes behind irregular periods. I'll recap those in just a moment for you. But also, what I really want to get into today is how you can nourish yourself during busy back-to-back days of meetings, or rather, days of busy back-to-back meetings.

Speaker 1: 0:56

Now, this relates to cycle regularity, because it is surprisingly common that we are not properly nourishing our bodies. When I'm working one-on-one with clients, we will often do a food log and it is, I mean, so common that my clients will realize like, oh my gosh, I thought that I was eating enough, or I thought that I was getting enough protein, but actually it turns out I'm not. I'm eating the same thing every day and it's not enough. So that's why I want to focus on easy ways, a couple of just things to chew on. Well, I meant that metaphorically, but also literally some ideas for you when it comes to what is good to sustain you between meetings, like kind of quick things to go to during the day with, again, this goal that if you are properly nourishing your body, if you are preventing your body from experiencing the stress of being undernourished or the stress of blood sugar spikes throughout the day, that's also going to be a little bit better for your mood If you're, like you know, most people out there who are kind of hangry when their blood sugar is low and they're stressed on back-to-back meetings. So, anyway, this is a bunch of word salad. What I mean to say is, if you have your regular cycles and you want to figure out how to get them back in shape, this is absolutely something that can't hurt and that is a great start, using the foundations of nutrition to get things back in shape.

Speaker 1: 2:28

So let's first take a quick review from Tuesday's Longer Form episode and if you haven't listened to it, go back and listen to it. The main reasons or causes behind irregular cycles that I mentioned were one stress, stress in its many forms, but number one stress. Two is perimenopause what's causing your irregular cycles? And three we talked about PCOS, a couple of honorable mentions is prolactin high? Is that hormone, prolactin high? Maybe, if you're investigating with a doctor or with a practitioner right, and you're seeing, oh okay, that's high, well, that explains it. Also, just remembering that medication can certainly impact what's going on with ovulation. So have you started taking a different or new medication or a different amount of a medication since you started seeing these changes in your cycle? That could be a good, good, big clue that you don't want to ignore.

Speaker 1: 3:27

Now, for today, again, I want to walk you through. I've got one, two, three, four, five easy snack ideas that are going to be good for you for back-to-back meetings. Now, it's not rocket science. We'll walk through things that you've surely seen before on Pinterest or elsewhere, but I'm also going to walk you through why I would pick that, because hopefully that context will help you, of course, to make better selections for your midday meals. It's also worth mentioning too. Ideally you would be eating really full, savory, robust meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But like I get it, this is planet earth. This is not an ideal world all the time, and sometimes schedules are packed. So if you can't block out some time for lunch, you can't block out some time to, you know, meal prep or otherwise. Have that robust meal for you, then these are for you.

Speaker 1: 4:27

Now, the first thing I want to suggest to you is spending a couple minutes early in the week to put together a handful of chia pudding cups. This is one that I think is really good, because chia seeds are actually relatively pretty high in protein, also great on fiber, which is going to be great for your gut health. But not Coming back to the protein right, what we know about protein and fat sources is that those keep you more satiated. They're not necessarily going to spike your blood sugar, and so chia seeds, I think, are the unsung hero of your pantry, or at least I hope they're in your pantry. It's totally a make it whatever way you want to make it kind of thing. If you've seen these before on Pinterest, you'll see 87,000 different varieties.

Speaker 1: 5:17

Get some frozen berries, put some almond butter in it. You can make ones that are like carrot cake, you know. Shred some carrots If you want to get some extra vegetables in there. Put some nutmeg and cinnamon. You can use dairy milk, non-dairy milk. You can use yogurt instead, right? Yogurt would be great to get some more probiotics in. You could even use a banana I've seen some people do instead of a milk or yogurt, if you just mash it up.

Speaker 1: 5:47

So chia pudding or chia seed pudding, super flexible. Make it with what you've got in the fridge, in the freezer. Make them on Sundays so you have them for a couple of days that week and it's really easy for you to go ahead and grab while you're working from home and it will keep you feeling satiated and it's not going to leave you with just a drop in energy, a drop in blood sugar after an hour or two once you're done eating. So number one chia seed pudding. Number two, also for while you're at home working from the home office I think that a savory protein forward smoothie is really underrated. This is also something that you can make ahead. Maybe you make it the night before and you put everything, except for the liquid, into your blender cup in the freezer. Maybe it's something that you pre-package and put into little zip bags and put into the freezer so you can grab them out throughout the week whenever you're ready for them. But the main thing I want you to think about when you're putting a smoothie together is how you can grab them out throughout the week whenever you're ready for them. But the main thing I want you to think about when you're putting a smoothie together is how you can no surprise here minimize the sugar content, maximize the protein and fat content.

Speaker 1: 7:04

For me personally, when I make a smoothie because at least when it's warm out here, I'm a big smoothie gal I like to include a frozen banana, frozen blueberries, some protein powder. Sometimes I'll put collagen in there, and then I'll put chia seeds in it. At the end. Shout out to chia seeds. Again. You can also certainly put in spinach or avocado or hemp seeds, right? The main thing, though, thinking what are you going to put in there for protein source and or fat source? So, going back through that list that I just mentioned, I'm looking at the protein powder, the collagen, the chia seeds, hemp seeds and avocado. There are a lot of good additives. If you're like, oh gosh, why are you putting an avocado in there? It's really neutral in flavor. It'll make the smoothie really creamy.

Speaker 1: 7:56

So it's not going to be as weird as you think it is, and I know that when I'm stressed and running from meeting to meeting. I'm not thinking about, like, okay, how can I make sure I'm getting my good variety in my diet this week? But if you're making ahead these baggies of ingredients to throw into your smoothies, then you're doing that work ahead of time. So it's not so much as a chore, right? This is just an easy thing to throw into the blender. Now if you are thinking, okay, cool, well, I am on the road a lot and that's mainly when I'm finding myself without food, then these are the three things that I would really kind of focus on First, trail mix. Next, what is the right protein bar or superfood bar that you like? And then, third, I'm thinking of what's something really fat forward that I can incorporate or kind of keep on hand, which is, for me, guacamole, because I'm like a huge Chipotle gal.

Speaker 1: 8:56

Let me go through one by one. Let's start with Chipotle, with guacamole, because you're probably like Bridget, explain this, but really right, focusing on something that's satiating, not going to spike your blood sugar. Spike your blood sugar. That's why guacamole is great if you want to maybe grab it with the chips, depending on how you feel about fried foods, but sometimes, you know, just keep half your chipotle bowl I know this is so niche. What are all of the other places that serve guacamole, though, too? And can you just save a little part of your bowl? Save a taco, save whatever it is for later, if you know that you're not going to have the chance to eat a full, proper meal? Now let's get past that kind of niche one and come back to trail mix.

Speaker 1: 9:43

Focus on getting a trail mix that has a lot of seeds, has a lot of nuts, not a lot of sugary candy in it. Sometimes those dried fruits are also really laden with sugar, so just finding one that is not as sweet, okay, you guys see the trend there. And then, last but not least, I know that protein bars it's not that life-changing, but just keeping in mind what is a protein bar that you like? I see these superfood bars from Paleo Valley. They have a great amount of protein, fat, different superfoods. They're going to keep you feeling good for a long time. So I think that is just whatever it is for you that works. Maybe it's not Paleo Valley, but maybe it is the option that Trader Joe's has on their shelves, or whatever is your other local grocery store.

Speaker 1: 10:29

If you put in the work and by work I mean not that much work, just intentional time to look at the options available to you, look at what actually tastes good to you and try a couple things, if you're just keeping those on hand, so whenever you're about to run out for a meeting, great, this is on my checklist. I'm gonna bring this with me. You are going to thank yourself and it will be so worth it. Now I'll just close out on that same note of how can you really make this a habit instead of a chore. And so, coming back to that packing list, do you have a note in your notes app that has okay, license, corporate card, laptop charger, et cetera, and put your snacks on that list?

Speaker 1: 11:21

Don't allow yourself this is a separate item don't allow yourself to go all day without eating, right, if you are repeatedly waiting until 4 pm to have your first meal because you're having a really busy day, like, take yourself seriously and you know plan ahead for that, because that's not going to best serve your overall health. Okay, that's all I've got for you today. I hope this was helpful. I hope this was just quick food for thought and something that will help you in the next couple of days here. Put one of these into practice this week and let me know on Instagram, at Bridget Walton, how you felt about it. Okay, thanks, guys, we'll see you on the next one.

Speaker 1: 12:08

If you loved today's episode and got something good out of it, make sure you subscribe so that these episodes show up automatically in your feed, no work needed on your side. Let's put it on autopilot. As always, I need to give you my reminder that the information I share with you here is for educational purposes only, and it should not be used as a replacement for medical advice or diagnosis. Now, if you are, on the other hand, in the market for some one-on-one support, then I would love for you to take me up on my offer for a free strategy call. You can find these links and more in the show notes.