E278: Your Healthy Summer Routine Is Ruining Your Progesterone And Making Periods Worse

Are you going to feel good all summer, or hit August wondering why you became a different person from the neck up? 

Summer always feels like the healthiest (and happiest) season - lighter food, a few drinks at the barbecue, more movement, sunshine, a slower pace. So why do so many women feel worse in July and August than any other time of year?

Turns out, summer is one of the sneakiest seasons for progesterone. It’s because everything you do looks completely right and healthy, but the habits that look the most innocent are the ones that cause harm. 

And your body keeps a running tab. So by mid-July, it starts sending you the bill, in the form of PMS that's crept back, mood swings you thought you'd fixed, and that specific kind of exhaustion that no amount of sleep seems to touch.

I’d like you to know: this is not a willpower problem. Your body is just running on less safety than it needs to make progesterone, and it's been doing that since May.

Here's what we get into:

• The summer-specific breakfast habit that feels like a healthy upgrade but spikes your cortisol every single morning (yes, even the organic macro-balanced version)
• Why your luteal phase in July and August is almost always the worst of the year, and the one thing that actually protects it
• What GLP-1s and rapid summer weight loss do to your estrogen and progesterone, and what to watch for if this is you (or your friend)

No one is telling you to skip the barbecue or eat a hot breakfast in a heatwave. This is an honest conversation that helps you actually feel good when August gets here, instead of just surviving it.

If you've ever looked at your calendar in September and thought, "Okay, now I actually have to fix myself," this episode is for you. Because the fix is a lot simpler than a full reset, and it starts right now, in June, before compounding even has a chance to happen.

Pop it on while you're making dinner tonight. It's about 20 minutes, and it might be the most useful thing you'll listen to all summer.

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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

Transcript

E278_ Your 'healthy' summer routine is ruining your progesterone and making periods worse

[00:00:00] It's summer, and you're probably already starting to eat a little lighter, move a little more, get a little time outside, and all of these things are so good for you at face value. But some healthy habits that we implement in the summer actually can make your luteal phase worse, your PMS mood swings worse, because they're tanking your progesterone.

So today, we are gonna talk about why you have felt worse in July and August than you typically do in June and maybe even in the winter, and what you can do about it to feel good all summer long. So this podcast almost does feel counterintuitive, I'll be honest, because in the summer, it honestly feels like the healthiest season to me in so many ways because we're typically a little bit more relaxed, at least some of the time, right?

Depending on the week that we have with the kids. Or we're typically, a little bit on our own time, like there's a little bit less going on in some ways and sometimes a little bit more going on in some ways. [00:01:00] And we're typically spending more time in the sunshine, which is, 10 out of 10 great for you in most cases.

And just, those things together, like being more relaxed, having more fun, being in the sunshine more, absolutely lines up with better health. And there are other sneaky habits that we typically don't even realize that we are implementing that can tell our bodies things are really not safe and start to really pile on by the end of summer.

So I'm gonna talk about those ones today. The first one that I wanna start with is, of course, breakfast. Breakfast is always the first one. And when we look at summer as a whole and the mistakes that we can make that will make our progesterone worse, make our mood swings worse, make luteal phase worse by the end of summer, the biggest one is changing up breakfast in an unintentionally bad way.

And that can look really healthy. So first example would be switching to a [00:02:00] bunch of light breakfasts, like a smoothie, like a bar, like just some, a little bit of yogurt, because you don't feel as hungry, if it's hot outside. Maybe you're just, not into it. Maybe you're eating a little bit later. And when you're doing something like that, like a smoothie, oh, it just feels so good in the summer, right?

It's cold. It's fresh. You don't have to cook. You don't have to heat up the kitchen. So it makes perfect sense logically, but in your body, it doesn't tell your body that things are safe. And so the difference between a smoothie, even the, healthiest, most beautifully macro-balanced organic smoothie that's so delicious, it is not going to show up in your body and keep blood sugar balance the same way as a protein-dense or just a, The protein is, is just a given in this context.

you're putting protein powder in your smoothie or something else with protein, or you're having, a protein breakfast. So the protein's not the thing. The density of the breakfast is really what makes a difference. [00:03:00] And so in the summer, if you're doing a smoothie, even if the macros are great, it is essentially pre-digested because it's so blended up, and it goes through your digestive system a lot quicker and often causes a spike and a crash in blood sugar that gives your body essentially like a low-key signal of stress by mid-morning because it causes that cortisol spike, and it tells your body that you are not in a safe place.

Even if you're just hanging out and, having a great time, you will often notice that a smoothie will give you more of an energy crash. You won't last as long till lunch, and this is a problem, okay? So this is not just like, "Oh, it's okay. I just had a smoothie, and then I'll just like..." You can eat lunch earlier.

You can make up for it, but especially in the morning, you do not want to start your day at a stress, at a blood sugar deficit and a stress boost essentially. Because when you do that over and over [00:04:00] again, especially if you're, out running around in the morning and breakfast is just not feeling like a priority, again, you are going to see over time that your body is getting less of those signals of safety from blood sugar stability and will start to ramp up hormone symptoms because that safety is not there to prioritize the estrogen, progesterone balance in production.

So smoothies are the number one mistake that we make. And if you're like, "Okay, smoothies are not my mistake," good, perfect, great. Also, I love a smoothie as, an afternoon snack if you need an afternoon snack. So for example, super hearty breakfast, great lunch, and then, 3:00, 4:00, say you had lunch at noon, you're gonna have dinner at 6:00, 4:00 is a great time for a smoothie because you might need a little something at that point.

You can still get some great antioxidants in. You can get some fruit. You can get some fiber. You can throw some spinach in there. You can get a little bit of protein, some hydration, some minerals. [00:05:00] Smoothies are amazing as a nutritional powerhouse on their own. However, when we're doing them first thing in the morning when our insulin resistance, or sorry, insulin sensitivity is highest, they just go through your system too fast.

But a late afternoon smoothie as a snack doesn't mess up the kitchen. It really is hot then. You really don't wanna, necessarily be doing anything hot. So that would be a perfect time for a smoothie if you're a summer smoothie girly. Okay, back to breakfast. The other mistake that I see a lot in the summer, and guilty myself sometimes, is just either, not really skipping breakfast, I think we're all on the same page here on this podcast that we don't skip breakfast anymore, right?

But when you are just pushing breakfast back because it's a lazy morning or everybody's getting up later and your body is consistently getting that fuel, a couple hours after you wake up instead of within that first 30 to 60 minutes, that in itself essentially does a similar thing as the smoothie.

It causes your blood [00:06:00] sugar to drop sooner in the morning and then have a cortisol spike to revive your blood sugar and keep you alive, and that cortisol spike just starts the cascade of stress for the day. And so you may or may not feel it in your emotions, like anxiety, but your body definitely is feeling it and it will have more trouble regulating blood sugar and therefore stress in the body throughout the rest of the day.

So pushing breakfast back is not ideal, and just if you're, if you want that lazy morning feeling, if you want to move slower in those mornings, that can be so life-giving and so great, but don't make the nourishment something that gets pushed back. So even if it's something small right away and then a couple hours later you're having your big breakfast, that's totally fine.

And if you're not really 100% sure on what you need for a hormone-friendly, hormone-balancing, cortisol-suppressing breakfast, then I have a new private podcast that's called Fix Your Breakfast, Fix Your [00:07:00] Hormones. Literally teaches you just how to make your breakfast what you need it to be for your hormones and better progesterone production, and it takes about 20 minutes to listen to it.

So super bite-sized. Get everything you need there. I'll put the link in the show notes for that breakfast podcast if you are not super sure on if your breakfast is working for your hormones Okay, let's move on from breakfast, and let's talk about just meals overall in the summer. So because it's summer, we want more fresh food, beautiful, good, just how it should be.

If you look at the things that are in your garden or in your neighbor's garden or at your farmers market, those local seasonal produce items are so important for us to get in the right seasons. So a lot more veggies and fruit in the summer is beautiful. However, we need to make sure that you're still balancing that with enough protein and enough carbohydrates to keep your blood sugar balanced.

It's honestly easier to do this in the winter because you want hot food in the winter. So I'm not saying [00:08:00] you need to eat every meal hot, but I do see that if we're just doing, a lot of, salads or fruit salads or, snacky foods, especially midday, it's really easy to not only be getting low calories but low macros of especially protein and maybe carbs.

a lot of times we'll end up realizing we're, like, a little more hungry because we had more of, that fresh salad-y lunch, and then we'll eat some carbs to fill us up, which is okay, but it may not actually look like the right kind of carbs. It may be, like, a treat or ice cream or something like that mid-afternoon because you crashing because your lunch wasn't solid enough.

So that's another mistake I see in the summer, is those, lighter meals without intentionality of getting your protein, your minerals, and your carbs to fill in those gaps. So even a, say, like, a salad with chicken on it, you're probably still missing carbs. So just make sure that those macros still look pretty reasonable.

[00:09:00] If you love a salad in the summer, if you love just, a fresh lunch in the summer, just prep ahead some cut-up sweet potato. Prep ahead, some, rice or something like that that you can just throw in with what you're eating so that you have that balance still midday. And the reason that I hit this so hard is because it doesn't really matter so much if you do this one day or a couple days, but if you do it consistently throughout a whole season, you will see that your blood sugar is not staying as stable.

And when your blood sugar is not staying as stable, your life is not as stable. I'll just make it a big, dramatic picture like that. It's just true. When your blood sugar is crashing throughout the day, and then you have to have that cortisol spike and that blood sugar spike to recover, then you are just causing more signals of stress throughout your day.

So even if you're eating a pretty good breakfast or you're eating a smoothie, and then you are running out, running around for a while, and lunch is just super late, that can be an issue, too. So just really look at, like- honestly, the biggest thing I would tell you for your hormones [00:10:00] this summer is be intentional about your meal timing.

This doesn't mean you can't have any fun, this doesn't mean you can't go out, but check in with yourself at the end of every week and just say like, "Hey, how am I actually doing?" You can have a ton of fun, you can go out and do the things, you can even go out to eat, but you're skipping meals more than you think, if you're doing light meals more than you think, or just, junk food out meals more than you think, and you don't give yourself any accountability, this is where you really run into an issue toward the end of the summer where your progesterone production really is off, and this just gives us this feeling at the end of the summer of almost like hungover, ugh, like now I've gotta reset when school starts.

And like I'm ... Listen, I love a reset. I love a summer reset, I love a fall reset, I love a New Year's reset. I'm a reset girly or I have been in the past until I realized, it just makes more sense to stay sustainable throughout your year and then refresh things that are fun, but don't feel like you have to reset your whole life because you just got too out of hand during [00:11:00] the summer essentially.

So stability with blood sugar is, if there is one thing to focus on for your hormones, for your mood, for your energy this summer, it's blood sugar stability. Okay. , the other piece that is not really that sneaky to be honest, like we know, is alcohol. Typically, there are more chances to drink alcohol in the summer because you're going to weddings, you're going out, you're on vacation, may have a few drinks on vacation, maybe you're going out to like barbecues, hanging out with friends.

An iced alcoholic drink in the summer comes up more often, I think, than in the winter, I guess especially except for maybe around holiday season. But if you are not typically a big alcohol drinker, but you tend to get more in the summer because of social things, that's also something to just watch and keep yourself accountable for at the end of every week.

Like, "Hey, did I actually have drinks several days this week and didn't even realize it?" This is not [00:12:00] going to show up well for your hormones over time because it decreases your detox ability through the liver, it decreases B vitamins. We'll link, there's an episode that I did on alcohol intake and how it affec- specifically affects your hormones.

We'll link that in the show notes so that you can read that. But it definitely can compromise estrogen detoxification and create more estrogen dominance if you're drinking significantly more in the summer. If you go to two weddings and drink there and that's the excess alcohol for the summer, great, that's not an issue.

But consistent alcohol consumption in general, even if it's not that much, is going to probably move the needle the wrong way for your hormones. So none of these things on their own are going to be a huge issue for a few days or for a few weeks, but if you're doing them all summer, you're low on breakfast, lunch is all over the place, you're drinking a little bit more, and then maybe your sleep is also off, you're staying up later because it's light outside, which is beautiful, [00:13:00] it's how our bodies are created, but then maybe you're sleeping later or you're just not getting enough because of that, that can really throw off your rhythms as well.

And then once it starts to get really hot, for those of us who live in places that get really hot, then we often are not actually spending as much time outside and can tend to get cooped up and maybe even start moving less as the summer goes on, and I think that this can be an issue too. So really just thinking about your exercise for the summer as something that needs to stay fairly stable.

So summer motivation is real. It's beautiful. A lot of times we do have more, active things to do with our kids. But again, everything just adds up, so if you're not really eating enough breakfast, and then you're not really getting lunch consistently, and you've decided this is the time that I'm gonna start, really busting out some exercise, then you're going to be getting less into your body than you're putting out, which is always a recipe over time for decreased hormone [00:14:00] stability.

And so especially fasted morning workouts are a no-go, just absolutely a no-go. And so go back to that breakfast podcast. I have specific tips in there for if you wanna work out in the morning, if you don't like to eat a big breakfast before you work out. Do something before you work out, especially if you're going to a gym or going to a class that's going to be not self-guided, and you're maybe a little worse at listening to your body in those situations.

Plus adding heat onto that, so I know my gym, it does get hot when we work out in the summer. And so if you are running on low sleep, you're running on low breakfast, and then you decide to push hard in the heat, that is not a signal of safety for your body either. Now, can you work out in the summer and have it be effective and good for you, and you sweat, and you feel great?

1,000% yes, you can. But you need to eat first. You need to be watching your sleep, and you need to be watching your alcohol consumption. So it's just the... all of these [00:15:00] things add up, and there's not... there's often not self-accountability to really notice until you get into trouble, essentially.

 , and then because it's summer 2026, I'm gonna talk about GLP-1s, Ozempic, for a quick little moment here, and I'll probably go into this deeper on a future podcast. I actually have a couple guests in mind to go into this deeper. So this is not a hard and fast anything with GLP-1s, but because it's summer 2026, GLP-1s are all over the place.

And how they work is they work by suppressing appetite and slowing gastric emptying, which means, your stomach emptying. It slows that down. So if your stomach emptying slows down, you're not as hungry, which means chronically eating less. Ding, ding. Sounds good, but is bad. Feeling full faster. Ding, ding.

Sounds good, but is bad. Skipping meals more easily. [00:16:00] Ding, ding. and losing weight rapidly, which sounds good, but is bad for your hormones. So with GLP-1 medications, a lot of times you can be in the same mindset where you don't quite realize that you are decreasing the nutrients in your body more than you need to.

Now, I know a lot of people will say they'll microdose them, and I'm not here , to set a hard and fast, like, I'm 100% against or for GLP-1s at this point. I just want you to know that from a progesterone production standpoint and from a hormone balance standpoint, if this is something new for you this year, if you're taking a GLP-1, even a microdose, you have to watch all the things that I just talked about.

Make sure you're getting consistent food in. Make sure you're sleeping enough. Make sure you're not overconsuming alcohol and that you're not overexercising just because routines are different. So when you have rapid weight loss, regardless of how it happens, whether it's GLP-1s or not, so if you're just, [00:17:00] like, healthy mom summer, reducing calories to an extent where you are losing weight pretty quickly, it releases stored estrogen from fat tissue faster than the liver can process and clear it if you have abnormally fast weight loss.

So this can temporarily worsen estrogen dominance, which makes your low progesterone symptoms like PMS, mood swings, breast tenderness, anxiety, exhaustion in the luteal phase noticeably worse. So if you were starting to lose weight and noticeably felt worse with your hormones, that typically means that things are too fast.

So that's just something to notice as well, since we are summer 2026. GLP-1s are literally everywhere. I'm pretty sure you can just order them for yourself on the internet from the ads that I've seen. So just know these things are so much more-- they're even more important to pay attention to if that is you or your friend, so send this to them if it is.

Okay, and then let's just wrap up [00:18:00] here with why July and August can be worse and what to make sure you're doing differently. A lot of times, luteal phases in July and August actually get worse than any other time of the year because your progesterone-depleting habits have been compounding.

And then also, let's just talk about May. May is crazy for most moms, and so if you were running around with a chicken like your head maybe you were running around with a chicken and your head was cut off, or you were running around like a chicken with your head cut off, depending on if you're, like, a farm girly or not.

Things got a little crazy in May. Cortisol was potentially high. I was hearing some girls talk about this yesterday, just like we're coming off the May, roller coaster, essentially. And then we get into June, and we start implementing some of these habits that feel healthy in the moment and then give us a lot of trouble in July and August.

And so this is where that July and August crash can come in because there's been depletion throughout the summer without even [00:19:00] realizing it. And then, I would just argue that it starts in May or before when you're just, really too busy at the end of the school year. And so taking a reset now in June and just saying, like, "How can I implement these habits well throughout the summer while still having fun, while still being spontaneous, while still going on vacation and enjoying my summer?"

Then you are going to have a better July and August. There's just really no two ways about that. So let's recap. You need to keep your breakfast dense and earlier, even when it's hot. It doesn't have to be a hot breakfast, but it needs to be a dense breakfast. You need to protect meal timing and macronutrients over anything else when it comes to meals.

So eating at consistent times with enough protein and carbs really does more for your progesterone than, a specific food choice. So if you have to grab something while you're out versus waiting two more hours to eat, just think about that and think about the [00:20:00] trade-off there. And then match your exercise intensity to how fueled and rested you actually are that day, not to the perfect plan that you made for your summer when you thought you were gonna, take on the world.

And then in the luteal phase specifically, this is what I really want you to hear. Slow down. Slow down however you need to because you have higher metabolic needs. You typically are a little bit more easily overstimulated or overwhelmed, and you do not need to cut food in this phase. You need to focus on consistent nourishment.

You don't need to over-exercise in this phase. You need to focus on consistent, sustainable exercise that works for your body. And if you are taking a GLP-1, make sure that you're eating consistently, even if you don't have the hunger cues, because the medication is suppressing those hunger cues.

Obviously, if you're on a GLP-1, you do want to lose weight, but you don't want to do it too rapidly where it [00:21:00] deteriorates your hormones and causes you, honestly, years of catch-up, especially if you're in your 30s and you want to have a great perimenopause and menopause phase. This is not the time to hit it super hard and fast with weight loss.

So summer is the best. I love summer. I love the freedom of summer. I'm an Enneagram 7. let me have all the freedom, the fun, the games, all the things, and you will have more fun if you don't feel like a hot mess. So hopefully this encourages you. Send this to a friend. All of your mom friends need this episode because we're all doing these things accidentally, even though we're healthy, we're crunchy, we know the things to do.

It's so easy to let yourself slip without even realizing it, and you want your mom friends to still be doing good when you get to August together. So send this to them, and if you have not left a review on the podcast, please leave me a rating or a review. It makes a really big difference in other women finding this.

I'll see you girls next week.