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

E67: BONUS - My Easy + Effective Ovulation Week Routine

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

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We're jumping in to part 3 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.

I'm so excited to chat with you today about Phase 3 of our cycles - the phase where the magic happens: ovulation! In this short three to four day window, our bodies are brimming with high levels of both estrogen and testosterone - a cocktail of hormones that can propel our energy, libido, and social interactions to new heights. I'll share some of my tips to harnessing this power spike. Things from making space for deeper conversations and higher-intensity workouts to concentrating on supporting my body well to detox estrogen appropriately.
 

In this episode:

  • [01:35] What makes sense for me and makes Phase 3 easy
  • [02:32] What actually happens during ovulation?
  • [04:06] What I like to concentrate on during Phase 3
  • [11:37] Foods I like to eat to support ovulation


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.

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Speaker 1:

Hello, hello. We are back with day three of these bonus episodes about cycle sinking and really just about how to support your cycle during each phase. So today I'm going to be talking about the ovulatory phase, which actually happens just as ovulation is occurring and right after, and this is a super fun phase, and if you are not aware of all of your superpowers in this phase, then you are going to love this. So let's dive in. Welcome to the happily hormonal podcast.

Speaker 1:

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. Okay, so as a reminder, in these bonus episodes I am sharing more just what I do to support my cycle, after years of understanding my cycle and cycle thinking and honestly like my own tendencies to hormone imbalances, and so these things are again like. These are not across the board advice, but this is how I have learned to cycle think in a way that is very easy and makes sense for me and for my body and for my lifestyle, and so a lot of these tips are things that you can pick up and ideas, but they are a little bit more personalized as far as what I have done and not a kind of like across the board cycle thinking training. I do have a couple of those in some of the previous shows that we can link in the show notes, but I just wanted to share that as we're diving in.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so the ovulation phase is the shortest phase of your cycle and this one is just like a short three to four day window, not because you're ovulating for three to four days you are not, but you have a about 24 hour window between the time that you ovulate and the egg is still viable in your body. So about 24 hours of fertility that peak fertility and the ovulatory window kind of covers like essentially that day that you're ovulating and then like the couple of days after ovulation, because your hormones are similar at that time and what your hormones are doing is you have, at the beginning of this ovulatory phase, you have high estrogen, because the estrogen peaks to cause ovulation to happen and then the estrogen is going to be dropping off and then you're going to have a rise in progesterone and as that rise in progesterone happens, this is kind of where we are in this ovulatory phase, kind of post ovulatory phase. But there are other hormones that are high at this time too, including testosterone, which gives you a different feeling in your body. Sometimes it's a little bit more energy, higher libido, those type of things, with a little more testosterone, and so this is a phase that is very Generally like a very steady phase. Usually you still kind of have some of the high social energy left over from ovulation and you're moving into your progesterone peak time during luteal, and so it usually is a phase where you're starting to feel a little bit more of a sense of calm and it can be a very productive, very clear-headed type of phase.

Speaker 1:

The few things that I like to focus on is I know that this is a really great phase for communication, so if there are things that I need to like have a good conversation about, maybe I would just enjoy really like having some good deep conversations with friends or with my husband or family and just knowing that, like, my social energy could still be high. These are times of my cycle that I probably do plan more socially and things like that that I would enjoy, and I know that this is still a phase where creativity is often high and physical energy is often high, and so I try to plan that accordingly, especially with my workouts and with the other things that I need to be doing that might be requiring more energy or more focus from me. So what does that actually look like when I know that I'm in this post-ovulatory phase, I am going to be doing a little bit more high intensity workouts, not necessarily hit workouts, but if I am in a phase where I'm lifting more often, I'm probably going to be able to lift heavier for less reps during this time, and so I like to plan a little bit longer workouts, and by that I mean literally. My workouts have been like 15 to 20 minutes lately, so I like to try to plan for like a full 30-40 minute workout. So it's nothing crazy. That is just where I am in this season of life with the amount of time that I can be semi uninterrupted with my kids. So that is something that I focus on is hopefully getting a little bit more time for working out.

Speaker 1:

And when you're moving into this second half of your cycle, when ovulation has passed, there is that big estrogen spike just before ovulation, and so estrogen support and detoxification is really important in the second half of the cycle, and so I start this right away, because this estrogen that has just spiked needs to clear from the body, and so a couple things that I always am paying attention to right after ovulation is just making sure that my gut is in good shape. Thankfully, that is a consistent thing for me. But if you are constipated and you are struggling with that, this is not a time to let it go. You definitely need to be supporting good digestive habits during especially the second half of your cycle, but even this early second half of your cycle, to make sure that estrogen can move all the way out of the body. The raw carrot salad is a favorite for me with that and you know I talk about raw carrot salad and I talk about adrenal cocktails as kind of like tips a lot of the time and they are really helpful and I use those things with my clients really consistently and I see good results with them. And I think it's really important to note that if you are having trouble detoxing estrogen, carrot salad can help because it can bind it.

Speaker 1:

But we've got to look at the root cause too. We've got to look at the reason. Why do you have this excess estrogen or why is your body having trouble clearing it? Are there liver pathways that need to be supported? Are there methylation pathways? Are there nutrients that are depleted? Are you getting adequate amounts of protein? What is going on? What stress in your body is causing this excess estrogen production in the first place, and then what are we going to do about it? And so that's why it really is important to have a method and support when it comes to balancing your hormones, versus just following like quick tips and I do give tips on this podcast and I do think that they can be helpful. And if you are still struggling and you're not seeing you know the results that you want to see from kind of like following tips on podcast or Instagram or different things like that, sometimes it's because you don't have the full picture, it's because you don't have the full method, and so that's really where testing and having an expert's eyes on your hormones and on your symptoms and all the things is so helpful, because we can see the full picture and even in nourish your hormones, I have more of the full method available to you versus just you know, kind of like some tips here and there, because it truly does matter what you have going on as a baseline and where you're, where you are with nutrition, where you are with stress, all of these things. And so I say this about estrogen detox and I mentioned this in the other last two podcasts too these, these cycle sinking episodes, are meant to be kind of a cherry on top, but you have to have the ice cream sundae underneath or else who wants just plain cherries? Not me. So when we're talking about estrogen detox, carrot salad is really helpful.

Speaker 1:

Things like sweating extra are really helpful, replenishing with electrolytes if you're sweating. Of course, I really like the LMNT electrolytes. Those have been, honestly, my favorite thing this summer because I've been spending so much time outside, which I love, but I'm able to replenish with those really well and they are really high in sodium, which is actually so good for your adrenal glands, and they also just taste really good. They have such fun flavors. So I've been really liking those and I will replenish electrolytes and minerals more in my follicular and ovulatory phases, because those are phases where I'm going to be going harder, probably spending a little bit more time being active, sweating things like that, because I am supporting estrogen detox there.

Speaker 1:

And then I also like to use some herbs like milk thistle or dandelion root. Those are some of my favorite for supporting the liver and just they're really really nourishing as well, and I also really like nettle and you can do those all of those things as teas in the summer. Ice tea is really nice in the winter I like to have like a cup of warm tea before bed and you can use that for cycle sinking. And so a lot of times that's actually where I started with cycle sinking is I started by just doing teas. In the first half of my cycle I would do like Tulsi tea and nettle tea and then in the second half of my cycle I would do dandelion tea and there was another like liver detox blend tea that I would do. But I actually would recommend nettle tea the whole cycle now because it can be so helpful for stabilizing histamines and a lot of times histamines and estrogen problems go hand in hand. So nettle tea is great or you could do a tincture or something like that.

Speaker 1:

But I like to kind of pay attention to where I am in my cycle, if I'm going to drink tea or have a some sort of drink, whether it's even electrolytes, and kind of pay attention to what I might need in that phase and that's a really easy way to support my body. I also like to do sometimes in this ovulatory phase something that I call detox lemonade and I. That recipe has some chlorophyll in it and chlorophyll is really supportive because it has high bioavailable copper in it and that's really important for iron and other mineral balance, and then it also has some additional minerals that support the liver and it's also really purifying for your blood, and so I really like chlorophyll in the second half. I don't do it every day by any means, but I'll do it a couple of times just to help support detoxification of estrogen. So that's really a big theme for me right after ovulation is just making sure that my estrogen pathways are supported and that my body is going to be able to move that estrogen out, so I don't have any issues or symptoms later in the cycle and I am not having estrogen symptoms or issues right now. And so that is.

Speaker 1:

I just like to do it as kind of like a preventative measure and as support for my body and just giving my body what it needs. So with with food, with supplements, that's really my focus with food during this phase, I like to just again make sure that I'm getting what I need. This is a phase where it might be easier to feel good and not take care of yourself, and so I will still focus on making sure that I'm getting my nourishment and not skimping on that, and then just essentially enjoying the high of the ovulation part of your menstrual cycle, because it is like the high point and this is what your body has been working up to for your whole cycle. And then, after ovulation, your body is going to essentially hibernate a little bit and wait to see if your pregnant, and so I'm going to talk about that luteal phase next in the next part of this series tomorrow, and tomorrow will be the final bonus episode for this week, but I hope that they have been fun for you and enjoyable and I will see you there.