HAPPILY HORMONAL | hormone balance for moms, PMS, painful periods, natural birth control, low energy, pro-metabolic

E66: BONUS - How I Support my Hormones in Follicular Week

• Leisha Drews, RN, FDN-P, holistic hormone coach, period expert

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Continuing on with the 1 year podcast birthday celebration series...we're back for Part 2 of 4 in this CYCLE SYNCING series! THANK YOU for listening, sharing with your friends and for trusting me with all things hormonal over this last  year.

We kick things off today by exploring Phase 2 which is the follicular phase - it is also that magical time when your estrogen is on the rise! Let's unravel how to support this FUN phase effectively. I'll share key pointers on sweating it out, basking in the sun,  getting in those fruits and veggies and maintaining a healthy circadian rhythm.

In this episode:

  • [01:12] What is the follicular phase and what happens during it ?
  • [03:01] Supporting Estrogen detoxification
  • [04:54] Supporting your circadian rhythm and stress in Phase 2
  • [08:14] How to fill your cup in Phase 2 of your cycle
  • [10:00] Ideas how you can support your cycle in Phase 2


Resources
- Nourish Your Hormones Course: use the code HHPODCAST for $50 OFF Nourish Your Hormones!
- 3 secrets to balance your hormones workshop
- Free hormone balance guide

Connect with Leisha
Instagram: @leishadrews
Website: www.leishadrews.com
Apply to work 1:1 with Leisha HERE

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Disclaimer: Nothing in this podcast is to be taken as medical advice, please take informed accountability and speak to your provider before making changes to your health routine.

This podcast is for women and moms to learn how to balance hormones naturally in motherhood, to have pain-free periods, increased fertility, to decrease PMS mood swings, and to increase energy without restrictive diet plans. You'll learn how to balance blood sugar, increase progesterone naturally, understand the root cause of estrogen dominance, irregular periods, PCOS, insulin resistance, hormonal acne, post birth-control syndrome, and conceive naturally. We use a pro-metabolic, whole food, root cause approach to functional women's health and focus on truly holistic health and mind-body connection.

If you listen to any of the following shows, we're sure you'll like ours too!
Pursuit of Wellness with Mari Llewellyn, Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark, Found My Fitness with Rhonda Patrick, Just Ingredients Podcast, Wellness Mama, The Dr Josh Axe Show, Are You Menstrual Podcast, The Model Health Show, Grounded Wellness By Primally Pure, Be Well By Kelly Leveque, The Freely Rooted Podcast with Kori Meloy, Simple Farmhouse Life with Lisa Bass

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Happily Hormonal Podcast. Now, if you're a little iffy on whether or not the word hormonal is a good one, you're in the right place. My name is Leisha Drews, registered nurse and functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner, turned holistic hormone coach, and, after going through my own hormone journey and having my three babies, I actually believe that our hormones are one of the greatest gifts that we've been given as women and that, no matter what you've been told, it's possible for you to have thriving energy, good periods and a stable mood all month long. And I am here to show you the way. I think it's time to change the narrative around words like hormones and hormonal and start to reclaim the power that we truly have as women, which is a power to change not only our own health but the health of all of our family for generations to come. Hormone balance doesn't have to feel hard. It can actually feel simple and fun when we do it in a way that aligns with how our bodies were made. If you're ready to start trusting your body again and feeling really good in that beautiful body that you've been given, then grab yourself a yummy drink and maybe a snack and let's do this.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so let's just dive into cycle thinking in the follicular phase. Follicular phase is essentially days somewhere around like day six or seven of your cycle, whenever you're done bleeding up until ovulation occurs. The follicular phase is where your hormones are doing a lot and oftentimes this is a part of the cycle where you actually feel really good, really on it, really creative, all the things, and sometimes there are symptoms too. I'll talk about that in just a minute, why that might be happening. But hormones are building during this phase of your cycle and this is a phase of your cycle where you are most fertile and we're actually the only phase of your cycle where you are fertile. This is really the phase where you can be most in your feminine which is so fun and also where you essentially are most in your power as a woman. This can be something to really lean into as you get into this phase of your cycle. When I'm thinking about my follicular phase and thinking about how to support my hormones, I always want to take into consideration what is happening.

Speaker 1:

Estrogen is rising in this phase of your cycle and rising pretty dramatically, especially those last couple of days before ovulation, where it triggers the follicular stimulating hormone FSH and LH, which is what shows up on an ovulation test. It triggers those hormones to prepare the egg inside of the little follicle which is essentially like a capsule that holds the egg, to prepare that egg to be released into the body. There are several follicles being prepared in each ovary so that one of those eggs can be released into the body. And then the luteinizing hormone LH, which shows up on your ovulation test. That is kind of like the last trigger to actually cause that egg to release and ovulation to occur. As we're coming up to ovulation, when we know that estrogen is rising, especially if you have hormone symptoms which I assume you've got some sort of hormone symptoms if you're here a lot of times, those symptoms are estrogen symptoms. Sometimes symptoms can come up around ovulation, but also this is a time to note that estrogen is building during this time.

Speaker 1:

However much estrogen is building during this time is what your body needs to deal with and detoxify in the second half of your cycle. Supporting that estrogen building in a healthy way and also supporting estrogen detoxification even here can be really helpful. Some of the things that I focus on is I do focus on doing castor oil packs, doing some herbs like milk thistle. I sometimes will do chlorophyll to help support detoxification, and even bioavailable copper in the body and liver support. I also do focus on with exercise. I focus on working out a little bit harder and sweating more, and so sometimes I will work out and then go in the sauna at this time of my cycle, or I'll just make sure that I get outside and work in the garden. Get some sunshine, get some sweat on. If you are not sweating, that is a sign that your body is not detoxifying well in many ways. Fatigue support is something that is really important if you are not sweating, but also just like practicing sweating, to be honest. So going in the sauna, going outside in the sun we live such a comfortable life these days where we can essentially be in like temperature controlled environments all the time, and I don't think that's honestly very good for us because we're number one, we're not getting sunshine, but we're also not sweating, we're not working hard a lot of the time, and so thinking about how you can actually move your body in a natural way, get some sunshine, get some sweating in in this phase of your cycle is really important and it just feels good so much of the time. So during this part of your cycle too.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes your body can be more susceptible to stress similar to when you're on your period, and so, really, a couple of the things that I like to do are just supporting my circadian rhythm, supporting my stress, and so one of the things that is my very favorite lately is just getting outside right away in the morning, just as soon as possible when I wake up, and if it's five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, something like that get outside with no glasses or contacts, just let the sunshine be in your eyes. This is uncomfortable for me, to be honest, because I wear glasses and contacts and I can't see without them. So I don't like to do this or I didn't, but once I started doing it, I noticed that it really truly made a difference in just my overall mood, capacity, energy to get that sunshine, and I have been craving being outside so much more and I just honestly, like when I get stressed out or overwhelmed, I'm like I just need to be outside, need to take out my contacts, get outside, get some sunshine. It is so nourishing to the body, and so that is one thing that you can do in the morning and then around sunset, ideally both times a day if possible, and even in the middle of the day to get outside and get some sunshine, because that really helps support your circadian rhythms and tells your body that things are safe. And so this is something that I like to do around ovulation, but really throughout the whole cycle, for mood and stress support. And then something else that I do that is essentially cycles thinking during this phase of the cycle is this is where I really pay attention to my BBT tracking, and I don't want to miss any days because I really want to see what my hormones are doing with my temperatures, and so, specifically, I use BBT tracking as pregnancy prevention, birth control, and so this is the time of my cycle that I really need to be paying attention to what my temperatures are doing so I can confirm ovulation, as well as paying attention to cervical fluid. And so I really just take a little bit more focus in this particular phase to make sure that I'm paying attention to those two things. And that is cycles thinking to me, because I know where I am in my cycle and I'm paying attention to that so that I can prevent pregnancy in this season.

Speaker 1:

And then I also with food, I like to focus on high energy foods, and so high energy foods are going to be foods that really feel good to your body, that don't make you feel heavy or weighed down, that give you nourishment, protein, carbs and a lot of times in this phase of your cycle and follicular it might be a little bit lighter foods. You still want to make sure that you're getting your nourishment through organic meats and getting organ meats and shellfish. And if you don't eat shellfish like I actually don't eat shellfish I will do like whitefish, like cod or even sardines. Those type of fish have a lot of similar nutrients that are going to be really, really nourishing. So I still try to do a variety of protein and not just like the white meats, because I think that we think of that as a lighter food. But I also think more about fresh vegetables and fruits during this part of the cycle, because antioxidant support can be so helpful for not only estrogen support and estrogen detoxification, but also for progesterone production as well. So I focus on those like bright and light foods. I focus on sweating more and I focus on lots of sunshine and then also just filling my cup in a different way during ovulation.

Speaker 1:

It's going to be more social. It's going to be more interactive because, as we are in that fertile ovulatory phase, we are going to be craving more that social interaction, and our bodies were created to crave reproduction during that time too. So you may notice a higher libido, more interest in your partner, and that is because our bodies actually were created to reproduce. Whether that's something that you want to do right now or ever, or not, during your menstrual cycle, during ovulation, that's what your body is essentially trying to do and created to do, and so when we're looking at what you're able to do in your ovulation or in your start, your follicular phase prior to ovulation, it's really interesting to see that you really may be feeling more social, you may be feeling more creative. This is the time in my cycle that I really like to create and be more in front of the scenes. Essentially, whether that's in my life, in my business, this is a time where it would be a good time to plan social things or vacations or you know those things where you just really want to be on and feeling your best. So much of the time feeling more creative and feeling more social.

Speaker 1:

During this phase, feeling your cup is going to look different than it does in some of the other phases of your cycle, and so that can be trying things that are new and doing more social interaction and things like that. Versus in some of the other phases, it may be more like chill self-care and taking a bath. And the other thing to note is that as we're shifting into ovulation, especially if you have estrogen symptoms, you're going to want to just really continue to support detox After ovulation, which I'll talk about in the next episode, but for today, I want you to think about what are the some of the ways that you can support that just on a regular basis, and so that can look like doing the daily carrot salad, that can be some herbs like milk, thistle or dandelion, and then I talked about castor oil packs before and sweating. So all of those things are going to help support your cycle in a really easy, specific way during this phase.

Speaker 1:

And if you do notice that you have mood change symptoms or even pain with ovulation, or headaches or things like that, sometimes that can be from an immune response with mast cells, and this is something that I personally have dealt with more recently because we have had mold at our house and we have been dealing with that on and off in different ways. I will tell that story another day. But we have been dealing with that and so I have been supporting my mast cell optimization a little bit more around ovulation, because estrogen and mast cells and histamine if that's a term that you're more familiar with all of those things work together and so it just is helpful to know that antioxidant support and things that are going to be anti-inflammatory, like stinging nettle and milk thistle for liver support, all of those can be helpful around ovulation if you do happen to have symptoms. But if you don't have symptoms, then this is a time to just enjoy enjoying being a woman, enjoy leaning into your feminine.

Speaker 1:

You may feel more fun, you may feel more creative, you may feel more flirty, and cycle sinking for me in this part of my cycle is just leaning into that and being the fun mom and the fun wife that I want to be, and that comes with my enneagram too. Enneagram sevens love to have fun. So this is one of my favorite parts of my cycle to just be kind of in that high phase and just to be feeling my best. And I honestly think that sometimes cycle sinking is just knowing where you are and enjoying it, and that can be what it is during ovulation. So I'm going to talk about the kind of like post-ovulatory phase next, and that one is shorter, so that's going to be our episode for tomorrow, so I'll see you there.