The 3 Weeks Before Your Period Matter More Than Your Period | Kylah Smook

A lot of women think, if I have a painful period, what are the things that I have to do during my period to take care of myself? It's like if you're getting period pain, you've already lost the battle. Because how you're caring for your body in the three weeks leading up to your period is what is going to determine how good your period feels. So the biggest phase that women have issues with is the luteal phase. It's the two weeks after ovulation and before your period. - And I've nicknamed it the lunatic phase. - It's this time that you feel psychotic and you're crying about everything, you're pissed off at everyone, and you have no energy and you just want to lay in bed all the time. It's like this opportunity where your brain is kind of handing you like, hey, here's all the crap that we've kind of swept under the rug for the last few weeks. Like, let's look at it, let's go through it. Let's talk about it. Food, movement, stress, sleep. If those four things are not dialed, don't do anything else. Those are the foundations. (upbeat music) (gentle music) Most girls can name all of Taylor Swift's eras, but most can't name the four phases of their menstrual cycle. The result, millions of women are navigating mood swings, painful periods, birth control, fertility and hormone issues without understanding one of the most important systems in their own body. The phases of your cycle, why ovulation is one of the most important signs of health, how to keep your luteal phase from turning into the ludic phase, what to do to support your body after getting up birth control and how women can avoid pregnancy naturally using fertility awareness. All of that is on the table today. Joining me is Kyla Smook, Women's Health Educator, co-host of the Did We Just Say That podcast, and founder of cycle camper treats. After realizing that she knew almost nothing about her own cycle despite years on birth control, she made it her mission to help women understand their bodies instead of feeling confused by them. If you've ever felt like your hormones are running the show or wondered why nobody taught you this stuff in health class, this episode is for you. If you prefer video podcasts, you can watch this on the Real Alex Clark YouTube channel or Culture Pot the Carry on Spotify. You can pause right now before we get started, leave us a five star review. Please welcome Kyla Smook to Culture Pot the Carry. You realized in your 20s, after years of being on birth control, that you basically knew nothing about your cycle. Now, I went through this exact same thing, so tell us all about your epiphany. I was put on hormonal birth control when I was 16 years old. It was the next put on implant that they put in your arm. And I went on it for the reason of that's what everyone does. Like, when you're 16, you go on a hormonal birth control. All of my friends were on it. All of my friends loved to be on it because they didn't get their period. Like, who wants to get your period? It's like so pesky and annoying. And so, I was at the gynecologist and they're like, yeah, so we're gonna go on birth control. And I was like, okay, sounds great. I'm not gonna get my period. My mother obviously didn't know if it was harmful or anything. And at that time, it's like, you trust what your doctor says. Why would you not trust your doctor? And we had asked, are there side effects? Is there anything we should worry about? No, it's completely safe. You're gonna get this implant in your arm. You're gonna have an arm for three years. And then you'll get it replaced every three years and you'll never have to worry about getting pregnant or anything like that. So, I went on birth control at the time. I think I'd had my period for maybe two years. I got my cycle a little bit late. Within a year of being on it, I lost my cycle. I, again, thought that that was great. I was never told that it's not healthy. It's not have a cycle. And when I would go to my yearly checkup at the gynecologist and say, yeah, I haven't had a period in a year. Okay, now I haven't had a period in two years. Now it's been three years. They're like, oh, that is totally fine. That's perfectly normal. And in school, we're not taught about our menstrual cycle. We're not taught about. I didn't even know what the word ovulation meant until I was 22 years old. We're not taught how our cycle actually works or what the purpose of a cycle is. You know, you don't know that the only reason you're getting a period is actually because you're ovulating. And this is this really important part. It's our fifth vital sign when we're ovulating. And we don't know that this is an actual sign of health. And so I thought I was great. Didn't have a period. I didn't have to worry about getting pregnant. Like, I thought it was the greatest thing in the world until I was 21 years old, 21-22. And I was having really severe gut issues. And at the time, I was like, it was debilitating. Like, I couldn't go to work. I was struggling to go to classes. And I had heard an episode, a podcast episode, with Dr. Will Cole. And he was, you know, all about gut health and fasting and all these things. I love Dr. Will. - This is so interesting. - Big fan of the show. Dr. Will's big fan of the show, big friend of the show. And we love him here. - And I literally took every penny in my savings account. And I was like, I am going to get an appointment with this doctor because he sounds like he can fix me. So this point, I had been to so many doctors for my gut stuff, the gastroenterologist and all these things and got in the CT, scared the ultrasounds and everything. And they couldn't tell me what was wrong with me. And so I book a call with him, so excited about it. And we are on this consultation. And like halfway through it, he's like, oh, by the way, you're not on any medications, right? And I was like, no, no. And then a few minutes go by and I'm like, wait a minute. I'm on hormonal birth control. I don't know if that's considered, because it's like in my arm. You know, I'm like taking a pill or anything. And he's like, that can really disrupt your gut microbiome. I was like, what do you mean? Like this bar that's been inserted into my arm can disrupt my gut. What are you talking about? My gynecologist told me everything was safe and normally saying, so I go down this rabbit hole of learning how harmful hormonal birth control can be. And that's when I'm like, oh, I have to get off of this. And I haven't had a period. I'd been on it for six years at that point. I was 22 at the time. I knew nothing about my cycle and knew nothing about anything. But I was like, I have to go off of this. And I don't really know what's going to happen afterwards. But I just know that I need to start this process of healing. And when I went off of it, I just started getting curious about like, oh, okay, well, now my period's going to be, well, first I was getting curious about fertility awareness method. Because I was like, I need to not get pregnant. That is very scary to me. And I was like, how am I going to do that? And so I stumbled into the world of fertility awareness method. And when I read, taking charge of your fertility by Tony Wechler, my brain exploded. Because in this book, she explains like cycle phases and this word ovulation that I had never heard of in my life. And this felt like the fact that you can only get pregnant a few times, a few days in your cycle. And all of this information that I was like, how in the world did I not know any of this? My mom doesn't know any of this. My friends don't know any of this. No one in school was going to teach me this. But this is like the blueprint for my health. Like all of this information is required information to be able to take care of your body. And the fact that, oh my gosh, I haven't had a period in I don't know how many years. And that's actually considered a fifth vital sign to be like cycling regularly. But I just fell into this world of cycles. And I just was like, I need to learn how to actually take care of this like really vital part of my body. - So I was told the same thing that having a period is a nuisance that is too complicated to know how to track your cycle. It doesn't even matter, just go on this pill. And then you don't have to worry about it. And isn't that so great? Isn't that so freeing to not have to worry about a period? - Yes, so empowering, Vom. So here's the thing. I really wanted to like look at this episode, coming into this episode with you. I wanted this to be like, okay, this is the episode that we can send our like 14-year-old daughter. You know, this is the one that like every teenage girl needs to listen to, every young woman that didn't learn this because I also wasn't taught any of this in school and didn't know any of this to like like a couple years ago. So I am so new to this. I didn't learn any of this to like the pandemic. So I was totally clueless. So here's the thing. When people tell you that your period is a nuisance and that it's actually just more of a hassle and that it's something that we shouldn't even worry about and that a birth control pill is better so that you don't have to worry about a period. Why is that bad advice? Like why is it actually incredibly important for a woman to have her period and experience ovulation? - So your period is actually the least important part of your cycle. It's when you are becoming a woman and you get your period, it's the only part of your cycle that you know because it's the only thing that you can actually see. You know, once a month you're bleeding but your period is the least important, quote unquote part of your cycle. The main event of your cycle is ovulation and it's this event that occurs once per month or once per cycle. Some women's cycles are a little bit longer and it is when your ovary is releasing one egg into the phlobian tube with hopes that it's going to be fertilized by sperm and become a baby. This is happening once per month, the egg comes down, you ovulate and then once that egg, it's you know, a lie for about 24 hours, once it dies, you don't have another egg to be fertilized until you ovulate again in your next cycle. When that egg dies, you enter what's called your luteal phase and you are building up your, well in your flicular phase, you're building up the lining of your uterus and then in your luteal phase, which is after ovulation is when your body is starting to prepare this lining hoping that that egg got fertilized and when that egg is not fertilized, the lining is shed and that is our period. So all our period is the shedding of this lining but the actual most important part of our cycle is ovulation is this egg that is getting released in hopes to become a baby and our body is extremely intelligent and so, when it is giving us this opportunity to create life, it is only going to do so if it feels like our body is a safe and abundant enough home to how is life. If we are not feeding ourselves enough nursing foods, if we are sleep deprived and so stressed out and all of these things that are depleting our own body, our body's gonna sound the alarm, so it's gonna say, hold on, she is not really taking care of herself that well yet, so let's hold off on trying to create another human on giving away our resources to this new life until this home, this body is safe and abundant and nourish and all of these things. And so getting a period, which is just the signal that you've ovulated every month is this key sign of how healthy and how safe and how nourish and how regulated your body feels. Because if you're not getting a period which you can only get a true period if you have ovulated, you can get breakthrough bleeds and things like that, which are essentially fake periods, which is what you'll get when you're on the birth control pill or things like that, it's not a real period, but to get a real true period, you cannot get that until you have ovulated and ovulating every single month is this sign of health and vitality in the body. And when you're on hormonal birth control, you are suppressing that, you are suppressing ovulation, so you are not going through this natural hormone cycle every single month. That is so important for a woman to go through for a lot of our body. We need to be producing progesterone for lots of different things in the body. Progesterone doesn't get produced until we've ovulated. And so when you're on hormonal birth control, you're never producing progesterone. You can go, some women are on birth control for 10, 15 years. They never go through that hormone cycle of the action and the progesterone and all these different things. And so it's just such a key indicator of vitality in the body that we're suppressing. And then we lose this biomarker of communication that we could be getting where I love to say that your period is the report card of your cycle. - Yeah, love to like give that analogy to women because so many of us think one, our period doesn't matter. Like, oh yeah, it comes every once in a while. Like I get a period every three-ish months, you know, it's fine, but that irregularity is telling you something about your body. It's communicating to you like, hey, your body's not feeling very safe and regulated because it's continuously delaying your ovulation. Because it doesn't feel like it's, you know, has the ability to ovulate. And so your period is the report card of your cycle one if you're getting it regularly. Every 28 to 34 days is considered a healthy cycle length. And then also your period shouldn't be painful. Your period shouldn't be like this thing where you're on the floor in pain and, you know, you're tired and you're, you know, moody and all these things. That's not a healthy cycle. And so your period gets to communicate with you every month. It's like literally handing you a report card. It's like, hey, this is how well you took care of me this month. And a lot of women think like, okay, if I have a painful period, you know, what are the things that I have to do during my period to take care of myself? Like what are the three supplements that I should be taking when I'm on my period to get rid of my period pain? It's not like you get this like fancy supplement or whatever, like while you're bleeding, you need to be doing making all the right decisions and gnerishing your body and making it feel safe and abundant in those three weeks leading up to your period. And then you get handed the report card of like, hey, you did a great job taking care of me. Like, good job, now you get to have a pain free period. You ever meet your kids teacher and just immediately think this person hates joy? Like they walk into the room and all the fun is sucked right out, passive aggression off the charts and you're like, how did you get into this profession in the first place? You're smiling like, yeah, thank you so much for everything you do while internally you're like, this woman would report me to the government for blinking wrong. You know, half of life is just trying not to offend people including with your smell. And most deodorant is basically a chemical weapon. I mean, aluminum synthetic fragrance, stuff you can't pronounce and you're just putting it directly into your armpits and lymphatic system. That's why I only use zebra deodorant. 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The insurance company said that the baby didn't need coverage anymore because, and this is real. The baby was breathing on its own and drinking from a bottle, which is a wild standard. Imagine being three days old, learning object permanence and you're already getting insurance denial letters. Welcome to America, kid. I cannot stress enough that you need crowd health and you should ditch your conventional health insurance because it sucks traditional health insurance blows chunks, yeah. I actually interviewed CEO Andy Schenover on the podcast and what he's building makes so much sense, especially if you're in that season of life or pregnancy is on your mind. With crowd health, pregnancy is treated as one health event. Prenatal care, labor and delivery, postpartum, you can get all that covered with a $3,000 personal responsibility, that's it. No guessing what is covered, what isn't. And you actually get to choose how you deliver your baby, imagine that. 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People assume that they're fine because they registered once in college or because they voted a few years ago or because they have this touching faith in administrative competence. Meanwhile, all it takes is moving homes, even within the same state, changing your name, not voting in a while or some random outdated info and suddenly you've got a problem. Here's what's wild, tens of millions of eligible Americans either aren't registered or aren't even sure if they are. So let's not do the thing where we find out too late and then act shocked, let's just be adults for 30 seconds. Go to realaluxclark.com/vote. I made it really simple. You can check your registration status. That's all it does. Just tell you if you're registered to vote or not and if you're not, register you to vote. Not even telling you who to vote for. Realaluxclark.com/vote. So to have a pain-free period, the three weeks before you're actually bleeding, what are the things to do to make your body feel safe so that you can alleviate yourself from super painful period cramps? - There's a lot of like clickbait information online and I don't subscribe to any of that. I think it's so easy to see all these videos online of like either getting worse and taking these $100 supplements to have like the perfect pain-free period or having your perfect like cycle-synced workout plan and that's gonna give you like this healthy pain-free cycle and all of these things that are extras, they're like these little cherries on top that you do not need because if you take the average woman who has a painful cycle or who has a regular cycle or who's not getting her period at all and you take a look at the foundations of what a just healthy female body looks like. AKA are you sleeping at night? Or are you staring at your phone until 11 p.m. doom scrolling for three hours and then you're going to bed but there's like all this like artificial light in your room and all these different things. Are you gonna actual good quality sleep? Are you eating like real nutrient-dense foods and all of these things are so unsexy. You know and no one wants to like hear for the hundredth time like hey eat your nutrient foods and get enough sleep and are you going outside now? Are you gonna use sun and all these different things? But they're the things that will hear and will be like yeah yeah whatever and then you're not even doing them. It's like how many women can actually say on a regular basis like yeah I am cooking really nourishing foods for myself. I am really taking accountability for my stress. I'm making sure that I'm actually getting enough sleep and all of these like little things that build the solid foundation for a healthy home. And so it's not that I don't think you know the supplements can be helpful. It's not that I think they're you know a hoax or anything like that. I don't think the cycle singing work out plans are bad. But I think that people are trying to grasp about these like quick fixes and these like fun exciting things when they don't have any solid foundation and then they're wondering why the seed cycling kit that they bought last month didn't get them a pain free period. And they're wondering why they did the perfect yoga plan in their luteal phase but they still have a painful period. Like they're not building the foundation. So for me the biggest one is food. That was when I was healing my gut when I was healing my cycle and all those things. I had to take a really long hard look at the. food that I was eating, because we live in a world where I feel like, quote-unquote "clean eating" isn't really nourishing eating. And we're told to be as skinny as possible. And we're told to eat, you know, super low fat and super low carbon, all these things. But then we are in this mindset where we see like a David protein bar to be healthier than a steak, which by the way, never eat those. They're in so many lawsuits for lying about their ingredients. There's so much crap in there. It is not healthy. It is one of the worst protein bars out there. But somehow they have done amazing marketing is what they've done. And they have duped everyone in the wellness community into thinking, oh, this is like some kind of healthy protein bar. So that's just an aside, don't fall for David bars. Yeah, we're like told that all of these, that I think it's my favorite quote by Michael Polin is, humans, I'm not gonna, you know, be able to get it word for word, but humans are, he's saying essentially no longer eating foods, we're eating food like some substances. Yes. And food, yeah, efficient food, and we're terrified of fats and we're terrified of carbs and we're terrified of everything. But then our body is becoming genuinely malnourished, even though we, you know, you might not be stick skinny and yet you're still malnourished because you're not getting the abundance of bioavailable vitamins and nutrients in foods that have naturally come from thirth, you know, in our meats and in our raw dairy and all of these different things that nourish our body, but now we're terrified of all of them. And so we're going to Starbucks in the morning, grabbing our coffee and our muffin. And then we're having this protein bar for lunch that that influencer told us to buy because it has the perfect macros and we're having like our little like rabbit salad. And then for dinner at night, you know, we're having some grains and some like lean chicken with no sauce on it or anything because you want to have the perfect macros. But then there's no nutrients like where are the nutrients? And when I started drinking raw milk, again, I started eating red meat again and focusing on not just the food itself, but the most quality version of the food. So I feel like I love to give this example to women where when we're looking at food because we've really demonized every food group. We've demonized, you know, milk is inflammatory and this isn't that when we can forget that food is like milk is bad. Like there's this like good or bad, this black or white. And it's not so much that any particular food is good or bad. But it's what have humans done to this food that has made it less optimal or more optimal. And how have we interfered with these things? Like the analogy that I love to give is if you had, you know, two gallons of milk on a table and you didn't know that they were milk. You just saw this white liquid and two glasses and you had labels on them. And the label on one of them reads in this bottle is a liquid that has come from an animal that has never seen the sunlight. That has been severely mistreated that has been pumped with hormones that has been fed a diet that is not species appropriate. You have the severely sick animal and they are creating this liquid. And that is what is in this bottle. And then you have a bottle next to it. And it says in this bottle is a liquid that has come from this animal and saying liquid that comes from animal sounds so gross. But you have this liquid that comes from this animal. And they were happy living on pastures and they were fed a species appropriate diet. And the animal itself was healthy. And it's describing the life of this animal. Those are two completely different foods. They're not the same thing. But if we see them in the grocery store, they're both just labeled as milk. Wow. Yeah. And so we're not seeing the nuance of food anymore because we live in a world where all of our food is so depleted and ruined and processed and all these things. And we're forgetting that food and it's natural form is so nourishing for our body. And so that's the foundation of like, if you want to heal your cycle, you need to sort of nourishing your body again and giving it the abundance of nutrients that it needs. I think my period is the best it's ever been. And that came from eating way more red meat, especially during my loodial phase. I make sure that I'm taking magnesium, extra magnesium during my loodial phase. And then I always notice just being in tune with my body that I am getting tired like an hour or two earlier than I normally would during loodial phase. And so I'm trying to get extra sleep. And I feel a lot better when I have that extra sleep. And then when my period does come, it's I'm not having excruciating cramps or anything like that. So I've noticed a difference doing those three things. What does your meal plan look like in those couple weeks leading up to your period? I always try to tow the line between I'm like, well, like I want to like give woman like a blueprint of like, this is exactly how, you know, how you should eat in your cycle. And at the same time, I feel like women grasp too much at trying to find like the perfect food. Like what is the exact way that I should exercise in the exact way that I should be eating and all these things and cycle sync everything perfectly. And then oh my gosh, I'm gonna be so healed. And that's one of the reasons that I'm like, kind of anti the way that the cycle syncing space has gone because it's just giving women all these like, do this, follow this checklist, like work on this stuff. It's giving women blueprint when there really is no blueprint for like truly understanding and like getting in tune with your body and being able to eat in alignment with your cycle and all these things is so different for every woman when they're trying to just check all the boxes. It misses the point. However, there are obviously things that work a nurse extremely beneficial for every single woman for me. Oregon meets for a huge one. When I started really just going towards like, what are the most most nutrient dense foods? Okay, Oregon meets oysters, are deans like all of these foods that have often been demonized are actually the most nutrient dense of foods. And so when I stopped counting macros not looking at like, okay, here's this perfect meal that I just made, how much fat carbon protein are in it. But instead, I'm like, how many nutrients are in this food? Like how can I make the most nutrient dense meal possible? So I'm eating red meat. I'm having every single day. I'm having Oregon meets a few times a week. I'm having dairy every single day. That's a big foundation for me. How do you eat Oregon meets? I love force of nature's ancestral blend. Yeah, so I've done a few ways. I used to just like eat raw liver, like just shoot it every single day. I would put a little bit of maple syrup on it and just shoot it down the hatch. And I thought that was the greatest thing ever. Most people think it's gross. But I was doing that for a long time. And so now I'll do the force nature ancestral blend. I will make beef heart tacos. It's like one of my favorite things. Wow. Just like lots of fun things. I think something that women miss in this journey is like they forget that it's supposed to be fun. And so it's not like this drag of like, oh man, I gotta like make sure I take my organ pills and eat all these foods. I'm like, how can I like find out how to make the sickest recipe ever with beef liver? Have we tried plexis yet? No, it's not. Oh my gosh. Okay. This is, they're not a sponsor of the show, but great friends of mine. So pluck is just like, you know, your garlic seasoning or spicy seasoning, whatever you use to put on your vegetables or your meat or whatever. This organ. But it has freeze dried organic grass fad, grass finished organ meat in it. Like the most, you know, the best way that you could do it so that you get the nutrients. And obviously it's not going to be, it's in, it's in your seasoning. So it's not like it's going to be the same amount as you're getting from your beef heart tacos. Yeah. But it is a little bit of extra and kids love it because it tastes so freaking good. Because again, it just tastes like your garlic seasoning or whatever that you're putting on your broccoli and stuff. But it is infused with organ meats. That's cool. And they've got brain and, you know, they also are using all of them in there. But it's all organic and excellent, excellent, excellent. There you go. So that's something that you should look into. Yeah. Well, I love dusted organ supplements. Like I love heart and soil. I have a friend with the company OmniOne. OmniOne. It's like the play on words of Omnivore. And it's like organs and clostrum and all these things. Like that's a great way to get it in. But I just kind of like it in real food. So that's like the first foundation is like, okay, you know, can't, how many nutrient dance foods can we include on a weekly basis? And most women that I'm working with when I just set that goal for them, I'll get a text a month later like, hey, I just had a pain free period. Because most women are just malnourished. Right. And so that's like the most low hanging fruit is just like, let's clean up your diet. But not like get it, you know, so clean and perfectly. Let's get it nutritious. Let's get a nourishing. Well, that this is an exclusively American thing where everybody is fat, but they're actually malnourished. Yes. Everybody is is a deficient in multiple vitamins. They're because they're fat because they're eating this fake dead food that is is causing obesity. But they're not getting any actual nutrients. Yeah. And so I think that's like the greatest irony of the standard American diet and what's going on with us. Here's here's something I want to know. Why is it important for women to experience ovulation, even if they're not trying to currently get pregnant? It's a vital sign. It's literally, it's not big for the act of like, oh, you know, I need to be ovulating. It's the fact that ovulation is a sign of whether or not your body is healthy. So it's not like, oh my gosh, I need to be making a baby every month. But if you're not ovulating, it's your body telling you like, hey, we're not feeling good. Like I don't feel safe to make a baby. And when you're on the birth control pill, is it true? You're basically one note. You're mood, your personality, you're just your man. Yeah. Yeah. It's making us like men, which we're not designed to be. And it's actually healthy to have these not severe, but minor fluctuations, like four times a month with different phases of our cycle. Yeah, it's beautiful. It's like gifts that we get every single month and you know, it gets a bad rap because women experience it in these like horrible ways where they were having these, you know, crazy intense moods because they don't understand, you know, how the body works and they're not caring for the body and all these things. And it can be very confusing. If you don't understand that you're supposed to go through all these phases, then you just see the way that men live, where men have a 24-hour hormone cycle. They're going through the exact same hormones every single day. They do and eat and everything the exact same way every single day, but we're going through this 32-ish day hormone cycle, where, you know, from one week to the next, the way that our body, you know, our hormones that are being produced are different, so then the way that our moods are going to be different, the way that we're supposed to actually is going to be different. And if you think that you're supposed to be performing like man, if you think that every single day is supposed to feel the exact same and eat the exact same, and then, you know, one week you go to the gym and you're like, "Oh, like feeling really weak today," or you get into a fight with your boyfriend and you're like, "Wow, I'm like really irritable right now." And you don't understand that there's an actual hormonal reason for that. You get frustrated. And you're like, "What is wrong with me?" And then it kind of doubles down, because when you're going to irritate with yourself and frustrated, then you start going to war with your body, because it's like, "Oh, I just need to suck it up more. I just need to push harder." This was that. And the more you shove the emotions under the rug, the more you try to push even harder in the gym when your body's not having it, the more you try to force your body into this way of living that it is just not designed for in that particular phase, the worst that it gets. And so then we have these like crazy moon swings. You're going against the biological nature that God gave us for our bodies as women. And then we wonder why we're so miserable and not thriving. We're not leaning into our feminine. And I think really leaning into your feminine sounds kind of woo-woo, but I don't mean it that way. I mean, from a scientific standpoint, leaning into our feminine is really living with our cycle. And embracing our cycle and not trying to minimize it or run away from it. And I think that we would be so much happier as women if we really did that and understood, "Okay, I'm in my follicular phase. So I'm more likely to want to do this, this, and this. I'm menstruating. I'm more likely to want this, this is this. I'm in my gluteal phase. I'm more likely to want to stay home and hang out and cuddle up." And just different things like that. Yeah. And when you have grease for those things, and it's like, "Okay, like, this is where my body's out right now. Like, I can recognize, you know, maybe my moves are a little lower. And this is this. When you have grease for that, they actually become way more chill. And the fluctuations become way less intense because you're kind of flowing with it, rather than working so heavily against it. So the biggest phase that women have issues with, if you want to go into it, is the gluteal phase, which is like this phase where the gluteal phase is what comes right after ovulation. And it's the two weeks after ovulation and before your period. And I've nicknamed it the lunatic phase. Yes. Which for most women it is, it's this time that you feel psychotic and you're crying about everything and you're pissed off at everyone. And you have no energy and you just want to lay in bed all the time. In this phase, progesterone is our dominant hormone. So in the flickular phase, which is, I like to, let me just take a step back for the phases. So you'll hear most people online say that there are four phases of the female cycle. I say that there are three because I think it's really confusing to women to consider ovulation as its own phase because it's this single event that's occurring. So we walk through the cycle. It's okay if you want to say that there's four. But I just find when you're teaching women about their cycle phases, this helps them digest a little bit more. So we have our menstrual phase, which is the beginning of the entire cycle, which is when you're on your period. This is the one that everyone knows. Once your period ends, we enter the flickular phase. And in the flickular phase, estrogen is the dominant hormone. And it's this hormone, you can think of it as like the season of spring. It's blossoming and good energy. And this, this hormone is preparing us for ovulation. So when we're in our flickular phase, we're producing estrogen. We're starting to build the lining of our uterus. And we are, you know, counting down the days until we are ovulating. So energy is high. We are sex drive is higher. It's, it's one, encouraging us to be social and active and all of these different things. Estrogens are like our fun hormone. So that's our flickular phase that usually lasts anywhere from eight to 13 days in a healthy cycle. We're going to be ovulating. So again, ovulation is like this event that's curing the egg drops into the fallopian tube. And then it's there for 24 hours, hoping that a sperm is going to come along. And then when the sperm doesn't come long, the egg dies. It's not like it's waiting there for a week, which is why I think the ovulatory phase can be confusing to him. And it's not this phase. It's just a single event that's occurring. That's separating our flickular from our luteal phase. And so the flickular phase ends we ovulate. And then after that egg dies and no sperm has come along and fertilize it, then we enter the luteal phase. And this is where progesterone takes over as the dominant hormone. And if estrogen was like the super fun spring best friend who's like always super peppy and exciting, progesterone is like the season of fall. It's a little more. It's warm. Yeah. And it's not a bad, I think like this phase gets such a bad wrap. There's nothing that's bad about this phase. However, if you're expecting to be super peppy and high energy and wanting to go on dates and all these things, and then this phase is not meeting your expectations because you didn't realize that this is a phase of going a little bit inward being a little calmer, maybe wanting you some more time to yourself having an increased emotional energy, then that's when we get confused and frustrated and all these things. But if you can lean into like, okay, in this phase, like I am going to maybe go inward a little more. I am going to have a little bit more emotional activity. But this is actually such a gift in this phase. A lot of people think of your period as the time that you're like the most moody and all these things. But our luteal phase is actually this time where when we're getting all of these emotions that are coming up, you're getting this increase in irritation, all these things. Like, let's look at it. Let's go through it. Let's talk about it. And when we're just shoving it back under the rug and trying to like pretend none of it exists, then it kind of all overflows and boils over. Whereas in when we answer a menstrual phase, this is supposed to be like the season of winter. It's supposed to be the cleaning of a slate, the release and reset before a spring that is about to come. But in the fall, we're not purging everything. We're not going through all the things and allowing these things to flow through us. Then when we get to winter, we're supposed to be wiping the slate clean, releasing, letting go. That doesn't happen because we're, you know, getting so we're just letting everything boil over. And so the luteal phase, like, yes, you're going to be a little more tired. Yes, your emotional energy is going to be up. But like, that's okay. I mean, you don't have grace for that and like, expect it and prepare for it. It's not this terrible thing that's happening. It's like, actually, kind of cool. It's kind of enjoyable. It gives you time to like chill out a little bit. Let's talk about breakfast in America, which is essentially dessert marketed to children. You wake up, you pour a bowl of something that's been engineered in a lab by a man named Greg, who hasn't seen sunlight since 2004. And you're like, this is a great way to start the day. Meanwhile, it's loaded with pesticides, refined sugar, artificial dyes. Basically, a chemistry set with a cartoon bird on the front. So you don't ask questions. And even the healthy cereals, oh, don't even get me started. It's like, now with ancient grains. Okay, great. Still poison. You walk into the story. You're like, I'm not buying junk cereal. I'm getting Cheerios. I'm a good person. Let's talk about Cheerios. You're eating 729 parts per billion of glyphosate. Oh, and if you really want to treat yourself, how about honey nut Cheerios? Over 800 parts per billion. This is why Lovebird exists. Lovebird is a cereal brand that was invented by a dad who worked in big food. And he was like, I'm not feeding this garbage to my kid anymore, which is the most radical thing you could do in this country. Care. Lovebird took out all the fake stuff. No synthetic pesticides, no refined sugar, no weird lab ingredients, and replaced it with actual food. We're talking organic cassava, prebiotic fiber, lightly sweetened with honey, things your body recognizes instead of rejects. And now they've gone even further with their new protein cereal. Eleven grams of protein made with grass-fed way, sweetened with organic coconut sugar, gluten-free, non-GMO third-party tested, and it tastes phenomenal, which is rare because most healthy protein cereals taste disgusting. I'm not going to lie to you. I love the cinnamon one. And if you're trying to get your kids off ultra-process junk, this is the move. You swap in something familiar, right? You're not totally changing their life. They're used to cereal in the morning, but now you're going to start with something non-toxic. Also, Lovebird donates 20% of profits to fight childhood cancer. They're family-owned, independent, and they even have a program to swap junk cereal in schools for real food at the same price. So you can email them, find their info on their website, and tell them about your kid's school, and they'll send cereal for free, which is insane because they're basically losing money just to fix the system. These are the types of companies that I sponsor on my show. Okay, so now do you understand? I am so picky. I want the game changers. I want the real parents making a difference. You can grab Lovebird at a grocery store near you, but if you want 20% off, go to lovebirdfoods.com. Use code Alex20. That's code Alex20 for 20% off at lovebirdfoods.com. Code [email protected]. Can we talk about sports bras for a second? Because I feel like every sports bra on the market was designed by somebody who actively hates women. Like, you either put one on and you suddenly cannot breathe, or you take it off six hours later and at least those deep red marks on your body, like you've just escaped maritime captivity. You're peeling it off and you're like, well, survived. If I am wearing something this close to my skin all day, you know, maybe I should actually care what it's made of. So that's a whole nother issue. And so that's why I've been loving the sports bras from Q for Quinn. Most people know them because they make incredibly clean socks and underwear, but their women's line is so good. Their sports bras are made with certified organic cotton. They're comfortable enough to wear all day long. And they do not feel like you're being vacuum sealed into your own ribcage. I know you know what I'm talking about. They are the best sports bras I've ever used. I also love the story behind the companies. to the founder Melita, started Q for Quinn after her son struggled with Xima, and she realized just how many clothing basics can contain questionable chemicals. So she built a company focused on natural materials, like organic cotton and marina wool that are GOTS certified, which is the global organic textile standard. It's one of those products where you put it on and you think, okay, this is what a bra is supposed to feel like. It's good for me. Use code Alex for 15% off your first order of non-toxic basics from underwear to socks to sports bras at qforquin.com. That's qforquin.com. Code Alex for 15% off your first order. Realistically and scientifically, how many weeks or even days out of the month does a woman on average actually really want to have sex, like she's actually horny and wants to have sex? - It is very often close to ovulation. For a lot of women, they actually have very high sex right in the menstrual phase. Not really sure where that is. But most of the time, it's like leading up to ovulation. So it's maybe that week leading up to ovulation. However, for every woman, it is different. So sometimes you're gonna, but if you're trying to initiate something the week before her period, it's like, that's just, it's gonna be a disaster. 'Cause it's like the body isn't biologically in a place where it wants to create babies and like nothing is gonna go well. But yeah, that is solid. I would say week two weeks. - No, that doesn't mean that for the other two weeks of the month or whatever, two and a half weeks that your partner does not want to or won't. I'm just saying on average, that's the reality. I think with most women, we have responsive desire where men just, they always desire sex. Women have to get into that place based on how you guys are talking to each other and spending time together and sensual touch and just whatever it is for each particular woman. And then it's like, okay, so if you just ask a woman, would you wanna have sex tonight? Almost always she's gonna be like, I mean, no. Like that's not even on my radar. I'm not even thinking about it. But the correct answer is probably going to be like, no, but I could maybe get there and open-minded, but can we just do some things or have some conversation or spend some quality time together so that I can kind of get in that mode? We can't just like turn it on and off like men. And so I think we're kind of different in that way, which a lot of men I don't think understand. So when women with PCOS or endometriosis are told that hormonal birth control is gonna be your best first line of defense, what's your reaction to that? It's so frustrating because I'm not a doctor. I'm not gonna, I can't tell you exactly how to heal your PCOS or heal your endometriosis, but what I can tell you is putting a bandaid over it because they're essentially saying, hey, so ovulation makes these things flare up. So let's just stop ovulation. Like let's just like basically go hide behind the curtain and pretend nothing's happening and everything will be okay. But then they're not asking like, well, why do you have endometriosis? Why do you have PCOS? 'Cause it's not just genetic. It's not just this thing that's just happening to you and you can't do anything about it, which is what we are, they are led to believe, they want us to believe that like, oh, you just have this thing, this thing is just happening to you and you have no control over it to make it better or worse or anything like your diet doesn't influence it and your lifestyle doesn't influence it. So here you are, like this is just you. And so now take this pill forever and we'll put a bandaid over it and then, you know, when you wanna have a baby in five years, like good luck, we'll figure it out then. - Right. - And it's just very frustrating because it's not fixing the problem and it's doing such a disservice to these women who can like, yeah, maybe you're not going to completely get rid of your endo with lifestyle and diet, but you can make it significantly better. You can do so much and then now PCOS is now PMOS, we know that it's a metabolic disease, that is entirely in our control. And so to tell women that you just have this thing, you can do anything about it. So frustrating when so much of your lifestyle can play a role in it, so much of your food, but now we're suppressing ovulation. So now not only do you have PMOS or not only do you have endometriosis, but now you're not even going through a normal hormone cycle, which is creating all kinds of other issues. Now you're just, you know, your gut's getting dysregulated if you're taking the pill or taking these other forms of birth control, like you're just stacking problems on top each other, that's like, oh, we'll just deal with those things later. Like later when you have like an autoimmune disease and a gut issue and all these things, like we'll give you 10 more pills, but we're not gonna try to fix anything. So it's just frustrating. - Let's say a woman listening wants to come off birth control tomorrow. - What is the biggest mistake that she could make? - A lot of women assume that coming off of birth control is just the thing that you're supposed to do, and then you're gonna be healthy. It's like, okay, well, birth control was, you know, it's harmful, it's this bad thing that I shouldn't be on, so let me go off of it. And then everything's gonna be sunshine and rainbows, and my cycle's gonna come back and everything's gonna be perfect. But hormonal birth control, if you've been on it for I was on it for six years, you know, some women are on it for 10 years, for 15 years. It is creating this state of trauma in your body where you have not been cycling regularly for who knows how long, and you're not producing the hormones, you're supposed to do all these things. And so when you come off of it, you can't just expect that everything is going to be amazing and perfect. You are, that is the first step of the healing journey. You're going off-wornal birth control. Now the work starts. I don't wanna scare women. It's not like, oh my gosh, it's gonna be this daunting journey. But you have to expect like, okay, now I have to give my body the tools to heal from this trauma state that has essentially been in. - And you're also, you are depleted of a lot of essential nutrients. Birth control zaps that out of you. - So severely depleted. - So when you stop taking that, you really need to double up on a lot of different vitamins and minerals in your trans, right? - Yeah. So leaning into like, again, building all the foundations and supporting your body, the nutrients, foods, and like getting a healthy lifestyle and all these things, that has to be couples with going off-birth control. So then you're supporting that process back, getting on a really good, we people think this is so strange, but taking a premanatal vitamin is not just for having babies. Like, it's giving our body all of the nutrients that it needs, like for fertility. So again, like a really good prenatal can be great for getting your cycle back. - What prenatal you like? - I like birth, right? And I think is it we heart, nutrition or something? - I don't know that brand. - Fig wellness is a really good one. That's the one that I take. I've been taking it for six months now. I'm not gonna have a baby anytime soon, but it's like you're also for women preparing for pregnancy is like a three-year journey before conception. So if you're thinking, oh, I'm gonna go off-birth control, and then next month I'm gonna start trying to have a baby, your mineral stores are so severely depleted, your body is so dysregulated. It takes a long time to get your body fully, fully prepared for like a thriving pregnancy. - Yeah, not saying that you can't get pregnant a month after getting off. - Yeah, no, absolutely. But it's not gonna be as great. You're not gonna have as great of a postpartum. You're gonna, like it's going to be, there's gonna be a lot more friction. Whereas if you can go in with like a really nourished thriving body, it's gonna help so much, but your kind of colleges and tell you that. They're just like, yeah, go off the pill. Okay, now try to get pregnant. And they're not giving women any resources of like, your body doesn't need to be really nourished to be able to house a baby and have a great postpartum and have a great breastfeeding journey and all these different things. So when you're going off-birth control, obviously, you want to be doing all the things afterwards. You want to be, you know, taking the prenatal, eating all the good foods and all those things. And have grace for your body. Like if your period doesn't come back in the first month, that's okay. Take it as communication of like, okay, this is my body telling me that we still have some work to do. And that's okay and that's great. However, it's gonna take a little bit of time, especially if you've been on birth control over 10 years. It's okay if it takes three months. It's okay if it takes six months to get your cycle back. - Oh, it is. - Just know, yeah, I mean that, 'cause I've been, I've gotten that question before my DM's just like, okay, I got off-birth control and I still haven't got my period's been six months and I'm like, I don't know. - It just, it depends at what level of like depletion you're not entering this new stage. - Okay. - Like if you've been on birth control for so long and you've never taken care of your health and like everything is kind of out of whack, like yeah, it's gonna take a little time and that's okay because you are just putting in the work to get your body back to that baseline. Obviously the faster your cycle comes back, the more of an indicator that, you know, the health of your body is better. But it's okay if you're, you know, just starting out and you've never like gotten into the kind of the health space than you, if it takes six months, it takes six months. - Yeah, and if you're not, if you don't have a naturopath, first of all, I always recommend a naturopathic doctor. But if you don't have that and like, we're talking about something just getting off the pill and just wanting to make sure that you are, are upping your nutrients that were depleted. I mean, you guys can just ask ChachyBT like what, what vitamins, minerals and nutrients are depleted while I'm on hormonal birth control. It'll tell you, you know, I don't remember them off of my due, I don't know. - I don't know. - So many. - And then you can just supplement that. There's so many good resources out there. My favorite book is The Fifth Vital Sign by Lisa Hendricks and Jocks. - Okay. - It is a phenomenal book and it gives women such a beautiful blueprint of like, hey, here's how to nourish your body. Here's how to prevent pregnancy. It's like the crash course on like u and off birth control. Now here's how you to take care of your fifth vital sign. Here's how to take care of your ovulation. And so it's like, if you don't have the money to work with all these fancy functional medicine doctors and all these things, all of these doctors write books. All of these doctors are on podcasts. - Yeah. - You can learn so much through just going to study these doctors work. And the biggest thing is it's not rocket science. That's what drives me insane about, I think, like the cycle syncing space and a lot of the hormone space is it makes women think that all of these things. That actually is my biggest issue with cycle syncing. Like, it's not rocket science. It makes it look so complicated. You have to do this in this phase and make sure you eat these nuts in this phase and like exercise this way in this phase and it gets your head spinning. And it's like, that stuff is a cherry on top. You do not need to be perfectly cycle syncing to help these cycle. I'm not perfectly cycle syncing. But I am building again, the really unscrupulous sexy but very important solid foundation of a healthy body. And I'm doing that, not just in my loyal face, not just in my filial face, I'm doing it every single day. And so it's great to cycle sync, but it doesn't have to be rocket science. And I think that's one of the biggest things of like when I learned this and I started sharing it online, I think it resonated because I'm not a doctor. I'm not like, I didn't spend years in college learning about all these things. I was like, oh, I actually can understand how my body works. It's not supposed to be complicated. Like understanding how to nourish my body and all of these things is actually just this basic knowledge that we all can have. And you don't need a doctor to explain it to you. You don't need a doctor how to tell you how to get your cycle back. Like they are not the ones that are in control of your health, you're in control of your health. And it is simple and it doesn't have to be scary. And I think when you're going off birth control, just knowing like, okay, nourish my body. I'm gonna do all of these basic things. And when everybody's ready, it will. You a great sign on if your body is healing after birth control is paying attention to your cervical fluid. So for a lot of women, they've never experienced egg white cervical fluid. It's this like stretchy raw egg white looking stuff that comes right out of your body when you're ovulating. And if you don't have healthy hormones and healthy cycle, you've probably, or if you've been on birth control forever, you've probably never experienced that. And so when you're coming out for a control and you start, you know, ovulating things again, paying attention to how much and the quality of the cervical fluid you're producing is a great indicator for, you know, seeing that progress and health in your body. It's not just like, there's so many indicators. Like our body is communicating with us all the time. It's like, okay, how often is your period coming? How painful is your period? Are you getting great cervical fluid? How are your basal body temperatures? That's a great indicator into how healthy you are. And it's like, you don't need to get all these expensive labs and all these things. Our body's communicating with us every single day about what's going on internally. And if we can learn how to decode a lot of those signals and communications, we get all the information that we need. And then it gives you this like little excitement. It's like, you are seeing these little micro progresses every single month. It's like, oh, my cervical fluid's looking a little bit of this month or my period came two days earlier than last month. And it's like, it's great. It's an awesome thing that's happening. - You learned how to prevent pregnancy naturally using the fertility awareness method. A lot of people hear that may think, okay, so the rhythm method, but those are different. So what is the difference between the rhythm method and the fertility awareness method to prevent pregnancy? - If I could do one thing in life, it would be to go to high schools and explain this to girls. I have a personal experience of a teenage girl that, I love, and I was teaching her about fertility awareness method. Her mom thought it was the rhythm method. And, you know, it's like this big scary thing of like the rhythm method does not work in its danger. It's all these things. I'm like, you don't understand. But, so the rhythm method was really popular in the, you know, the 1950s, 60s, 70s. And it was the method where you're essentially just counting, so your last period, let's say, was on day 28 of your cycle, which means this upcoming month we're going to assume that my period is gonna be on day 28 of my cycle again. And now I'm gonna count backwards. And okay, it looks like that means that ovulation's gonna be on day 14. So it's guesswork. You're literally just guessing when your period, when you are going to ovulate based on past periods. But ovulation doesn't work that way. Every single month, depending on your stress levels, depending on if you're sick, depending on all these things that are going on in your life, ovulation can ebb and flow even up to a week. Like if you're traveling and you're really jet lagged, like your body's gonna delay ovulation just as a natural protective mechanism. And so if you're just trying to use guesswork to guess when you're gonna ovulate, because again, the reason that we're even doing this is because ovulation, like I said, is the only time when the egg is released into the fluopian tube and you have this 24 hour time when the egg is alive and available to be fertilized. During that time, it's the only time in your cycle where it's possible, literally scientifically possible to make a baby, to get pregnant. However, sperm can live in the body for up to five days. So we consider in the fertility awareness method, the ovulation day and then the five, four or five days leading up to ovulation as your quote unquote, fertile window, as time that having sex can lead to pregnancy. So if you are using the rhythm method and you are assuming that, you know, I am going to ovulate on day 14. But then you actually ovulate on day 17. You, and then you thought you were safe after day 14 and you have sex, oh my gosh, now you're pregnant. Like, so using fertility awareness method, you're using signals from your body, you're using actually biomarkers in your body, there are three of them. There's basal body temperature, there's cervical fluid and then there's cervix position. And you are cross-referencing all these signals that your body is actively giving you every single day to determine when you are leading up to ovulation and then to accurately 99.7% accuracy, just like any other birth control, accurately confirm that ovulation has now come and gone. And again, when ovulation occurs, that egg is only living for 24 hours. So once ovulation is gone, there's no egg to be fertilized. When you're in your luteal phase, like after ovulation has passed, there's, it's physically impossible to create a baby. And the fertility awareness method when you're cross-referencing these fertility signs, it accurately can predict when that is. So it's not just a guesswork of like, oh, well, I'm going to predict that because of this thing happened last month, now this thing's going to happen this month. You're using the signs every single day that your body's communicating with you. You ever notice we're living like we're in a sci-fi movie and nobody acts like it's weird. I mean, we carry around these little glowing bricks that know where we are, who we texted, what we ordered at 1 a.m. and somehow they're always listening. We've accepted it. And if somebody from 1985 saw us walking around with Bluetooth earbuds, permanently welded into our schools, they'd be like, oh, so the government won. You know, that's why I've been making some really simple swaps. And one of my favorites is the anti-radiation air tube headphones from tech wellness. This is what I use instead of sticking wireless earbuds in my ears. These are what I'm taking calls when I'm listening to podcasts or watching videos when I'm on a flight, when I'm working out. If you're just getting started with reducing your EMF exposure, they also have an EMF protection starter pack. Every pack comes with the air tube headphones plus a Wi-Fi kill switch so you can shut off your Wi-Fi with one click while you sleep. And then you can upgrade to include things like a phone stand, a stylus or even an EMF meter so that you can actually see what's happening in your home. And if privacy is your thing, my code also works on their Faraday bags, which completely block wireless signals when your phones inside of them. Go to techwellness.com. Use code Alex Clarke for 15% off the air tube headphones, the EMF protection starter pack, and the Faraday bag. That's Alex Clarke for 15% off at techwellness.com. People ask me all the time, Alex, what is your favorite non-toxic makeup product? Like, I'm about to reveal some underground beauty society that meets in a candle at basement. Nope, it's so easy. It's a Dell natural cosmetics. At some point, every woman has to dump her makeup bag out and confront the reality that she's been carrying around products older than some middle schoolers. There's always one lipstick that survived three apartments, two relationships, and somehow COVID. That deserves a military funeral. If you're trying to clean up your makeup bag, but you still want products that actually perform, a Dell is what I recommend. Their loose foundation is lightweight enough for summer, but gives buildable coverage so that your skin still looks like skin. And then the best part is they've got this color matching service. Shopping for foundation can really be daunting. Am I a beige almond and my soft linen and my emotional support sand? Well, a Dell actually helps match you with the right shade and gives application tips to. A Dell is a Christian conservative owned company based in Texas. Everything is made in the USA. They are committed to thoughtfully selecting ingredients and incredible customer service. Go to a DellNaturalCosmetic.com. Use code Alex for 25% off your first order. That's a DellNaturalCosmetic.com with code Alex for 25% off. What signs is a woman tracking when she's trying to do this method? So the first one is basal body temperature. So that is the temperature of your body when you are waking up in the morning. And how do you take that? Your mouth or your vagina? Some women take it vaginally, but most just take it in their mouth. It's usually accurate enough in your mouth. Some women like, you know, if they need like extra accuracy, they'll take advantage of you when you do that. There's also like the temp drop arm band that you can get. There's so many different. Even people use the oral ring, which I'm actually not a huge fan of, but there's so many different ways to tempt these days. The one thing that I just want to like preface with is when people first hear about the fertility when it's about that, it sounds like a lot of work. It sounds really complicated and confusing. Like, oh my gosh, that is a lot. It's really not. It becomes so second nature when you do it for a month, two months, that it's like, you don't even think about it. So I know it sounds daunting, but get the book, take and charge your fertility. And that is like the Bible for this. It is amazing. But anyways, basal body temperature is the temperature of your body when you're waking up in the morning. And you to get an oral thermometer, or you have your arm band or whatever you need, and you take your temperature, a lot of the devices these days, they're Bluetooth, so they'll just like connect straight to your phone, and like put the temperature into your phone, then you have your cervical fluid, which is a lot of women know this is the discharge that you found in your underwear when you were 16 years old, and you're like, oh my god, I'm gonna die, 'cause no one tells us what that is. It's actually a really healthy part of your cycle. A cervical fluid is what your body creates is like. Your body's creating a slip-and-slide for the sperm to easily travel to the egg when the egg is when you're ovulating. And so you will notice, if you start paying attention to your cervical fluid, noted paying attention to that like creamy, or crumbly stuff that you find in your underwear, if you know a few weeks of the month, you'll notice that it will kind of ebb and flow. You'll get, you know, a lot of cervical fluid, and it'll get like really creamy, kind of like your final lotion in your pants, or you'll get that really egg white. Look, it really looks like a s**t. stretchy raw egg white, you'll get, find that and your body will produce this for usually the weak-ish leading up to ovulation and it'll progress, it'll start kind of drying crumbly and it'll get creamy, they call it like the progression of like fertile quality, the more "watery" it gets, so the closer it gets from like creamy to then like egg white and like wet, the closer you're getting to ovulation and then when ovulation finishes, the cervical fluid will dry up and you won't really see a lot of it produced until you're getting back to ovulation in your next cycle, that's cervical fluid and then we have cervix position which is kind of an optional fertility sign in infertility awareness method, a lot of them and use it a lot of them and don't, but it's essentially, so in your female anatomy you have your uterus and you have your cervix which is kind of like this little hallway that connects your uterus to your vaginal cavity and that little hallway, our body really wants us to get pregnant and so it does everything possible, it gives us the slip and slide, gives us all the things and what it also does is our cervix will shorten and soften to open up and allow sperm to more easily enter and so you can tell your cervix position by literally putting a finger into your vaginal cavity, you can feel the position of your cervix but a lot of women don't use this fertility sign, it's really just kind of basal body temperature and cervical fluid that are required to be cross-referenced, so going back to basal body temperature, the reason this is such an accurate sign is because when you are taking your temperature every single morning and you are charting it on a temperature, you can do this on an app, there's a lot of really simple ways to do this, you're going to notice the pattern. And when you are in your follicular phase, when you are pre-avulation, you'll notice that the temperatures are kind of in this like consistent range, 97.3, 97.4, 90s, it's a very tight range and you'll see a kind of just moving, moving and then after ovulation, like I mentioned earlier, progesterone takes over as the dominant hormone, progesterone literally heats up our body and progesterone cannot be produced unless ovulation is occurred, it is impossible for us, we don't produce progesterone until we've ovulated and so it is this very clear sign that you will see in your temperature, you got your little, little temps and then suddenly you'll see a spike in the temperature and then not only will it spike but it's going to remain spiked and so you're going to see the spike, it's called your thermal shift and then after that until your period comes those temperatures should remain in that higher range where it's going to be like 98, 98.3, it's going to consistently start climbing and climbing and this is actually a great indicator of your progesterone levels because our progesterone is a very important hormone in our luteal phase. If your luteal phase is really short or if you're getting a lot of PMS or you are struggling with failed implantation, it's a sign that your progesterone levels are low, progesterone is a really important hormone for our fertility and my cycles in general are so short, I feel like I have a 24 or 25 day cycle. Yeah, so you can, if you know when your ovulation day is and you count from ovulation day to the first day of your period, that window which is your luteal phase should be at minimum 11 days long. 11 to 14 days is a healthy luteal phase, anything shorter and that's an indication that your progesterone levels are too low because the way that your your body triggers your period to come is the fall off of progesterone, so when progesterone kind of runs out and you'll see this on a temperature, it's really interesting, you'll see the temperature is kind of fall off a cliff and then the next at your period starts because literally your progesterone is saying, "Oh, okay, I'm done." And so women who have shorter luteal phases are going to experience more negative symptoms but it's literally just a sign of your progesterone which is a really easy thing to fix. Do you think that a woman would know more about her health by tracking her cycle or just to yearly check up with her general practitioner? You go to yearly check up, they don't even tell you anything about your body, you're like, "Oh yeah, I haven't gotten a period in a while," they're like, "Oh, that's okay, don't you worry about it." You're on birth control, right? Like, let's make sure you're taking the pill, right? They don't even know anything about your cycle, your pap smear, what is that telling you? Okay, great, you don't have HPV. So it's like, if you are getting this communication every single day, every single month from your body if you understand how to tune into it, looking at your cervical fluid, looking at your base body temperature, knowing when you're ovulating, knowing how long your luteal phases, all of these things are like constant biomarkers that you're getting for free of like, "Hey, this is how well your body's doing right now," and then you get to like, use that to make changes. So it's like, "Oh, I'm noticing that this month, these last few months, my luteal phases like a little bit shorter." Like, "I wonder what that's trying to tell me." Okay, well, if your luteal phase is short, it's usually you're undernourished or your body's really stressed out, like, what are the things that are depleting, progesterone? Okay, let me start making those changes and what's great is those changes are always almost free. What are your favorite cycle tracking apps? I, so it depends because I personally hate the apps that are like, done for you. I hate natural cycles. People dog on me for that, but I just, I don't like things that are going to like, do the work for you. Well, natural, so I'm just going to say something. Natural cycles is also big on like, breastfeeding people and men, you know, like, having periods and all this crap, so like, I do not like natural cycles for that reason. So a lot of those apps that you're, you know, you're going to put some information and it's going to make a prediction for you of like, okay, now you're in your safe zone, now you're this, now you're that. And I'm like, I like to be empowered with the information to make those, like, decisions on my own. So when you're looking at your, your, based on terms, you're in all these things and you're cross-ervencing them and you're seeing, okay, I know that I am whatever, whatever. So the app that I use is called Kandara, but it's completely like you chart the temperatures, you chart your cervical fluid and it makes, you know, you and you, like, determine where you are in your cycle. Not doing anything for you. The author of Taking Charge Your Fertility, Tony Weschler, actually just came out with her own app. It's called Ciclicity, I think, and it's a fertility awareness method app. I'm sure it's similar to Kandara, where you can chart and do all the things. So I think those are the two apps that I would recommend, but to use those apps, you have to understand how your body works, which is great. Yeah. By Taking Charge Your Fertility, learn about how your body works. And then also when you get this book, it's like this thick, it is so daunting. You only have to read the first 52 pages. The first 52 pages will give you the basics. You can read more if you want, but the first 52 pages will teach you how your cycle works. It'll explain like the basics of fertility awareness method. It's really all you need. So don't like feel scared when you get the book. So if a woman feels completely disconnected from her body, she's overwhelmed by a lot of conflicting advice and unsure where to start. What is the first thing that she should start doing tomorrow morning? Stop looking for the quick fixes and stop trying to buy all the fancy supplements and like really sit with yourself and ask where is the low hanging fruit? Like where are the cracks in my foundation? And for some women, that's going to be, hey, every single day, I need to make the goal of cooking myself one nutrient dense meal. Yeah. Like great goal. Yeah, you don't need, maybe you got to eat out of root like, you know, once a day or whatever. But if you can just start with one nutrient dense meal, like I'm going to eat red meat once a day or I'm going to have an organ meat once a day. That's for some women. That already makes the biggest difference for other women. Maybe they're eating healthy, but maybe their stress is like super out of whack and their dooms grow until midnight and all of these things. They're not doing anything to support their nervous system. So for you, it's like, okay, I'm going to leave my phone at home and go for a walk in the sunshine and move my body for 30 minutes for an hour a day for like, it's so different for me one, but it's like, that's always it's either food or movement or stress or sleep. If those four things are not dialed, I don't care, like don't do anything else. That's like the rock solid low hanging fruit of like, come on, you get some more freaking sleep. Like get your sleep, move your body, get in the sunshine. Every single day, manage your nervous system, take accountability for it and eat good foods. How can people learn more from you? I have a podcast. It's called, I have a co-host as well. Her name's Abby. She's amazing. Our podcast is called, did we just say that because it's very TMI and all the fun things to Rose talking about some crazy topics, all about health or other things. It's all about health. But like our last episode was like sex after birth and like just very TMI things. But I teach for the early awareness method and all the cycle phases and everything on there. So that's like a great resource. So did we just say that that's on all the podcast platforms? And then I host women's retreats specifically geared towards the cycle. So it's called cycle camp because I literally wanted to make it feel like adult summer camp. Like we go out into the woods and we swim in lakes and I teach classes on your cycle. And we find like minded friends. It is my favorite thing in the world. What has happened? It happens two to three times a year. We actually have one coming up in July and we have one more spot to it. How much is it? It's different for every single. There are always kind of in the 2000 to 3000 range. It's all inclusive. We have a chef there. We. Wait, this sounds awesome. I want to do this. Literally the most fun thing ever. Like we all stay in like one big house. It's like a slumber party for like five days. When is it in July? It is July 24th to the 27th. Where are you going? We're going to Sisters Oregon, Oregon's my favorite state ever. And we literally get this like every time it's different. We've like got these like villas in Costa Rica. We've gotten like this one is a cabin in the woods on a lake. And we like eat really nutrient dense foods and we learn about our food and we learn about our cycle and we go hiking barefoot and we swim and it's just like such a fun time. And yeah, we've done them kind of all over. I've been doing them for three years now. We've had, I think, seven groups of women now. - Where are you from? - On my end. If you go on my Instagram, which is, I am at Cycle with Kyla on Instagram, you will find it in my bio. - Okay, this is Sony. Love everything that you're doing. I got to know you. - I got to know you. I hosted a one-year anniversary culture apothecary dinner in UK. 'Cause you're friends with Bethany from Primaly Pier. And so she introduced us and I was excited to meet you and I thought you would be such a fantastic guest and you were. So thank you for coming on. I have to ask, if you could offer one remedy to heal a sick culture, it could be physically, emotionally or spiritually, what would it be? - I'm gonna sound like a broken record, but it's gonna be stop trying to find the resources outside of yourself, stop trying to find the next perfect supplement, stop trying to find like the perfect protocols and all of these things and get back to just returning to the way that your body was designed. Returning to the foundations of a healthy body becoming a human again, frankly, like return to nature. And that's the biggest thing. - Thank you Kyla for coming on culture apothecary. - Thank you so much. - Whether you're trying to get pregnant, avoid pregnancy, balance your hormones or just feel better in your own skin. Understanding your cycle as a woman should be foundational knowledge. Kyla, thank you for joining me in helping make that knowledge more accessible to women everywhere. New episodes come out every Monday and Thursday at 6 p.m. Pacific 9 p.m. Eastern, anywhere you get your podcast. Please leave that five star of you on Apple or Spotify if it's been a while or you never have. You can tell me how long you've been listening. It takes like three seconds to do it. It really, really helps us out. This content is for informational purposes only and it's not intended to be taken as medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional regarding any questions or decisions related to your health or medical care. I'm Alex Clark and this is Culture apothecary.