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I'm Hormonal | Hormone balance, gut health & nutrition insights
Welcome to I’m Hormonal — the podcast where we make sense of your bloating, brutal PMS, and missing periods… without blaming it all on “just stress” or “being a woman.”
Hosted by Bridget Walton, Women’s Hormone Coach, this show is your no-BS guide to decoding your cycle, calming your gut, and actually balancing your hormones (not just crossing your fingers and hoping for the best).
Each week, we break down what no one taught you about hormones, nutrition, and gut health in your 30s — especially if you're tired of guessing what your body is trying to tell you.
Expect solo episodes packed with real talk and root-cause tools, plus the occasional expert guest to help you feel less confused and more in control.
Because you deserve better periods, better digestion, and a better shot at getting pregnant — without burning out trying to figure it all out alone.
I'm Hormonal | Hormone balance, gut health & nutrition insights
Short vs Long Menstrual Cycles: What Your Period Length Means for Fertility | Ep. 128
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I'm Bridget Walton, a Women's Hormone Coach helping ambitious women ages 25-40 naturally restore hormone balance, fix irregular periods, feel confident in their fertility, and resolve gut health issues without restrictive dieting.
If you struggle with missing periods, PCOS symptoms, bloating, or unpredictable cycles, this women's health podcast will teach you how to support your hormones through strategic nutrition and lifestyle changes that actually fit your busy life.
On I'm Hormonal, you'll discover natural solutions for period problems, learn how gut health impacts your hormones, and get practical hormone balance tips from a functional nutrition perspective - no more guessing what your body needs.
Today's episode covers irregular menstrual cycles, short cycles, long cycles, ovulation problems, fertility issues, and how cycle length affects your ability to conceive. Learn the difference between normal period length and concerning cycle irregularities that could impact your reproductive health.
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A lot of gals don't know that if your cycle varies by more than four days from one cycle to the next, to the next, that is technically considered to be an irregular cycle. So today we're going to be diving into what your cycle length actually means, what that can teach you about your fertility, or what that random 26 or 32 or however many day cycle can actually teach you about your body and your fertility. 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? Hello, hello. Welcome to I'm Hormonal. This is episode number 128. I'm your host, bridget Walton. Thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 1:Today we are going to be talking about cycle lengths, right? What does it actually mean? What can you learn from your cycle length? What would you want to know about cycle length, especially if you're somebody who is wanting to conceive. So that's what we're going to get into, because this is something that I see gals not dismissing but like not even knowing that they should consider it, which is fair, I mean, like nobody really taught us this stuff. But despite that, the length of your cycle, the length of your menstrual cycle, meaning from the first day of your period to the first day of your next period that can be really telling about what's going on with your hormones, what your fertility health is like. So, again, if you're somebody who wants to maybe you don't even want to get pregnant sometime soon, but you like want to understand what's going on with your hormones like shocker probably, why you're listening to this podcast, and I love you for that then this is going to be a really good episode for you too. Just a little bit of a reminder we'll kind of cruise through here, but I just I can't emphasize enough that having an awareness of how long are your cycles, are they changing in length, being able to kind of connect the dots between what is impacting your cycle length, it's gold, gold, gold, gold, baby for understanding how you can support your body.
Speaker 1:Let's talk first about cycles that vary in length, right, because if you have a cycle that varies in length by more than about four days, each cycle that is kind of like textbook considered to be an irregular cycle. So what that means is you know, in June I had a 27-day cycle. You know, in June I had a 27-day cycle. In July I had a 31-day cycle. In August I had a you know, 28-day cycle, and then maybe this next cycle is going to be, I don't know, 35 days. You see what I'm getting at, in that each of those cycles differed by more than four days, cycles differed by more than four days.
Speaker 1:What the takeaway is from this is that, like, what's going on with ovulation? If you're not having regular or consistent cycle lengths, then that's going to tell you something about ovulation timing or lack thereof, and so that's why let's just hone in on this regularity aspect and next we'll talk about, like, what about short cycles, what about long cycles? And kind of go from there. I'll just share this one more time, though, because in my coaching practice, I see gals who overlook cycle irregularities for like not months, but years, right by the time they get to me and we say okay, well, let's take all this context, all of this data, let's figure out a plan that's personalized for you. But, that being said, my hope for you is that you don't have to spend years fighting with your period. You can start to understand how you can work with your hormones, how you can work with your cycle, and you won't have to sweat it.
Speaker 1:So if you are having cycles that vary by, again, more than four days each cycle, what that's suggesting to you is that you're not ovulating at a consistent time in each cycle, most likely. So how does that actually look? That could look like, or I should say, in contrast with maybe a different person who ovulates around cycle day 14 each month. Maybe stress has a bigger impact on you, or maybe blood sugar dysregulation, maybe there's something else inflammation in your body, infinite number of factors Well, that sounds dramatic. There are more factors than just those three that I mentioned anyway that can impact when you ovulate. We'll get into that more here shortly, but that's the main takeaway. If things are balanced, if your hormones are balanced, if there is like optimal levels of inflammation, optimal stress levels, things with your cycle should be more consistent and should be easier to. It doesn't have to be a catastrophe, it doesn't have to be. You know, we don't have to call 911 if you know our cycle is a little bit long or a little bit short, one month or the next. But take that as a part of your report card to teach yourself about your health and make adjustments so that you can support a more consistent cycle.
Speaker 1:Let's talk now about short cycles and what that can mean. So you know, we all know, that approximately a 28-day cycle is kind of that golden number. If your menstrual cycle is less than 21 days, that is the textbook, kind of hey girl, your cycle is short. I would say, though, that if you are trying to conceive, or if you someday want to conceive, you want to be shooting for at least a 25-day cycle. Of course, everybody's cycle is different, everybody's body is different, but that's the rule of thumb that I would operate off of.
Speaker 1:Now, a couple things to know here when it comes to short cycles, because a lot of the time, the well, okay, okay. There are two scenarios here that are most common with short cycles. Scenario one you're not ovulating. Or scenario two ovulation is kind of weak. So, coming back to scenario one you didn't ovulate that cycle. What can? What that can mean is that your estrogen levels are at at least in the second half, maybe relatively high. You're probably not producing any progesterone. That's the hormone that's produced after you ovulate, and so you don't need me to tell you that this will be important if you want to conceive.
Speaker 1:We'll talk through some of the reasons why you might not ovulate, or at least not ovulate regularly, in just a moment here. But I want to talk for a second, too, about weak ovulation, because maybe, yep, the egg got out, but you didn't have a strong foundation for that new little baby endocrine gland that you just produced, and so by dialing in things like your nutrition, your stress, your sleep, your hydration, all of those foundations, those will be really impactful on your period health. Absolutely Right, this is exactly what I work on with my one-on-one clients. It's going through the rooted method with them is part of that. Saying how do we focus on the foundations? Because those are the things that will definitely move the needle and they're also going to set you up for success, to see the most success once you do have different interventions like supplementation or what have you.
Speaker 1:Okay, I got a little bit off track there, but let me bring us back to center. Okay, so if you're thinking all right, bridget, I hear you Short cycle, no ovulation, maybe weak ovulation, but how do I know which thing applies to me? Right, that's one area where using hormone panels can be really essential. Right, I don't use hormone panels with all of my one-on-one clients, but for some folks it is very helpful to see exactly what's going on inside your bod and how are your hormones being produced and what amounts. Also, it's worth noting that some hormones are made from other hormones, right, hormone A kind of transforms into hormone B, and so you can track backwards, essentially to see where is something kind of going awry and where can we support your overall hormone production, not by just like putting a band-aid on it, but by saying where is something kind of foundationally going wrong that we can address through diet, lifestyle etc. Changes I think it's worth mentioning now. I alluded to this earlier.
Speaker 1:But what are some underlying causes of short cycles? The big dog option, unfortunately or I should say contributing factor, not option is stress. Stress is going to bamboozle your hormones every time. If you've listened before, you know that stress doesn't have to be just like emotional stress. It can also be physical stress, like overexercising or under eating, or exposure to chemicals or inflammation in your body. There are a bunch of different types of stress beyond just work stress or frustration with your partner. So that's really important because when cortisol levels are high, that is going to cloud the communications between your brain and your ovaries and can delay or just forego ovulation altogether.
Speaker 1:Forgoing it again might be part of this short cycle equation. Another factor here could be poor nutrition. Right, are you lacking certain components in your diet that you really need? Cholesterol is one. I did an episode recently about fat, why it's so important for your hormone health. So go back and check that out. If this feels like a new area for you. Hormone health so go back and check that out if this feels like a new area for you. But making sure that you're getting in all of the essentials that you need through your diet, that's going to be really important. Again, this is something that I go through with all of my clients, so if you're like dude, I don't even know where to start with my diet, I got you, girl, I got you. Yeah, check out the link in the show notes.
Speaker 1:The last thing I want to mention here, for a potential underlying cause, would be just thinking back to those inadequate building blocks. Right, and when I say this I mean inadequate building blocks of other hormones. So being able to understand how your like, how are your hormones, that you know your non-sex hormone hormones, what's going on with them, that can be really helpful to getting to the root cause Super important, focusing on the root cause to start bringing your cycle lengths back into a good, healthy, like strong ovulation kind of length. And so that's yeah, that's where I'm going to leave us for short cycles. No lie, I guess. My last thought here is really like just emphasizing again if you have a short cycle like that and I'm not going to go into all of the phases of the menstrual cycle right now but if you have a short cycle, your luteal phase is definitely a shorty. And if you want to conceive, if you're thinking about conceiving in the future, then having a longer luteal phase, normally like 10 to 14 days, and that's going to be really helpful in making sure that you're producing enough progesterone to support a healthy pregnancy through your first trimester.
Speaker 1:So just one other big emphasis for this section long menstrual cycles. If you have a cycle that is more than 35 days long, I would say she long. If you have a cycle that is over 32 days, I would keep my eye on it. 30 days, I would keep my eye on it, but let's use 35 as that like. Okay, this is where I should take some action. I need to figure out what's going on Now, a lot of the times when we're looking at long cycles and why they occur.
Speaker 1:It can also be because ovulation is absent I know this sounds like what we just talked about, which is kind of annoying, right? Or, in addition to ovulation being absent, it could also be that it's delayed. So the same factors that can delay ovulation can also just like cause it to skip altogether, right? So, coming back to the conversation we just had about stress, that can definitely impact the timing of your ovulation. I know that for me, when I've had a really packed work weeks, my period that month has been longer. I'm like, okay, that makes sense, right? If you are somebody who you track your basal body temperature, then you'll be able to kind of see that in. Well, it's not real-time feedback, but almost real-time feedback of, okay, I'm stressed today and I'm like kind of waiting for ovulation. I normally ovulate around this time and then you're going to see that it comes a couple of days later.
Speaker 1:Everybody's body's response to stress is different duh, so how stress impacts me might impact you totally differently, but this is something that we can't ignore. Like we gotta stop acting like stress is normal and like operating at a 6 out of 10 stress is, you know, cool. Okay, I'm going to challenge you to think about one thing this week that you can do to be less stressed, enjoy less stress, relax more and actually go ahead. If you feel so inspired, take a little screenshot of the podcast player that you're listening to now. I would love for you to share a story on Instagram. Tag me at I'm underscore, hormonal and just like what's the thing that you're going to do differently that you're going to stop doing or that you're going to start doing this week? It doesn't have to be complex, it can be quite simple, but what's that one thing that's going to support your optimal, ideal stress levels to start bringing your cycle back into a healthy and consistent length? Okay, so, coming back, gosh, I'm really going on some rabbit holes today.
Speaker 1:But coming back to my notes here, stress is the main culprit, because it's going to tell your brain not to prioritize reproduction. The interesting thing, though and I know I just mentioned this that, like stress, can show up differently for everybody. But this is another area where I think that testing can be helpful Again, not essential for every single client Like I certainly don't use it for everybody but if you are somebody who, like you've been trying to get to the bottom of what's going on with your period for a long time, that can be really validating to see in black and white what's going on with your stress hormone or with any of your other hormones, what's going on with your stress hormone or with any of your other hormones. I also kind of bring this up just to say that I have, uh, I recently I had a client who, when we did her testing and she was like, yeah, no, I, I'm lucky, I don't have a lot of stress going on lately, and we got her test results back and her adrenal output was like low, low, low, um, which was surprising, right, but that helped us to put together a more specific and clear kind of protocol for her that was going to support her energy levels and support her hormone production, her overall hormone balance.
Speaker 1:I want to kind of start wrapping this up by talking about why cycle length matters for fertility, in case we need to clarify that a little bit. And that's because if your cycle lengths are unpredictable, if they're long, if they're short, if there's something weird, if they're atypical okay, got a lot of words to say weird if your cycle lengths are being weird, then that can be a strong indicator that ovulation is not consistent. And if you want to, like, make a baby, and especially a really strong, healthy little baby, then you're going to want to grow that consistency. Then make sure that everything is in good shape ahead of trying to conceive. You might be familiar with this little fun fact as well, but just know that it takes about a hundred days for the follicle that will eventually release an egg to develop. And so if you kind of like, let's trace time backwards from that egg releasing, like, those 100 days leading up to ovulation are really important in how is that corpus luteum forming. And so you want to. You know, I think I just talked in a total circle, but hopefully you're following me.
Speaker 1:I guess really what I want to say is that the health of the egg or the health of a potential pregnancy, it doesn't start at the time that you ovulate, it starts before that. We got to do a little bit of prep work we got to focus and support a good, healthy, strong ovulation for a healthy pregnancy. Now, this also kind of makes me think, too right, like I mean, I've mentioned, hey, you got to track your cycle. You got to track your cycle. Maybe you've heard that or you've talked to your friends about it. Your friends are tracking their cycles and if this isn't something that you are doing yet, my girl, I think you really got to start doing this.
Speaker 1:This is something that can help you just see how your cycle is changing over time. It can help you to understand how, as you make changes, or when you went from your you know vegan diet back to your kind of omnivore ways, like when you stopped doing CrossFit and started doing yoga. It doesn't have to be that traumatic, but it can help you to see, when it like different times in your life or different interventions, how those impacted your cycle, and that can be helpful. That can be such an incredible tool to have in your back pocket when you're trying to do some troubleshooting. Or and I'm crossing my fingers over here my hope for you is that you are able to kind of get ahead of these things so you don't have to do troubleshooting. You can be more in a proactive kind of position, and that's exactly what I work on with my one-on-one clients.
Speaker 1:Of course, these gals are coming to me because something is already off, but my real focus, like my priority in our work together is, yes, like let's get your cycle regulated, let's support your digestion, let's bring your energy levels up, let's clear your skin up. Beyond that, it's so important to me that you know how to maintain this. You know how, moving forward, you can read the signs that your body is sending you. You know how to like just listen to your body and trust your body more, and that will take you a long, long, long, long, long way, my friend. So that's, I think that's all I've got for you today.
Speaker 1:Gang, I hope this was a helpful episode for you. I'm going to talk a little bit more about the same thing on Thursday, so come on back if this is kind of hitting home for you. If this episode did open your eyes to this conversation of cycle length, I would really appreciate it. Honestly, if you went ahead and left a rating or review for the podcast. It helps other gals who maybe have the same questions as you to find the podcast. So, whatever podcast player you were listening on. Go ahead, rate and review before you move on to whatever is next for you in the day. That's it, gang.
Speaker 1:Again, I'm Bridget Walton, and this is I'm Hormonal. We'll see you on the next one. 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. All right, we'll see you on the next one.